max melton

i've been travelling constantly for most of my adult life. the act of inserting myself into a new space or setting allows me to find a great deal of comfort that would be unachievable in my natural environment. like anything important in life though, its mainly the people.

sometime during late february i made my plan to compete overseas in the spring. after a rather lacklustre genesis, there was no doubt i wanted to bounce back and make a return to form. let me tell you one of the WORST feelings as a european smasher is flying back across the pond with the urge to play more melee. i can say without a doubt when it was hometime this trip the thought of touching my controller again resulted in a public display of anti-social behaviour, so at the very least there were no regrets in regards to getting my fill this time round.

i was kicking things off with battle of bc in vancouver, my route had me take a flight to calgary first for a cheaper connection into the city. plan was to hunker down in alberta for the night at my friend scoot's place and drive to the airport the following morning. together we ventured off to the flair airlines departure desk where it was soon made apparent neither of our bags were going to meet our free allowance. my singular backpack was burgeoning so aggressively it struggled to fit inside the carry-on sizer let alone the personal item sizer. you see if you want to make a trip like mine work for cheap, anything but your backpack will slow you down and burn your cash. in this instance i had to pay a carry-on fee because flair airlines are cheap bums but most of the time my backpack gets me through the gate without additional money leaving my pocket.

some dude working security at the airport commented on my small little backpack being all i'd brought along for the trip during luggage screening. perhaps he should've been paying closer attention to the task at hand because the bomb was walking right through into terminal 3 and its name was max melton. at the time i disarmed his observation by explaining that if you did washing you could re-use the same pair of clothes on a trip. when reasoning with the feds it's important to have logical reasons for your avant-garde quirks, on occasion you'll have to explain to them why you're riding a one-way ticket to sandusky, ohio with no clear plan to make it home after you get there. if you have too many quirks you stand out, stand out = time in the box.

after we arrived in bc me and scoot made way to our host for that evening, vivi. i was originally planning on staying a night or two and then relocating elsewhere during the tournament weekend, but i ended up sticking around in the same spot for my whole time in canada. i didn't know where we were exactly going, i hadn't met our host before today and was fully relying on scoot for the time being. staying with strangers is one of the more exciting parts of travelling for smash and is a familiar process for me now. my main worries when it comes time to inhabit a space are usually finding a good smoking spot and even better company to share it with, luckily vivian provided me with both during my stay :3

nothing was too abnormal in the buildup to the tournament, i had a strong pre-local showing where i took down polo, salami, inky and soonsay which gave me some confidence going into the weekend. a lot of time was spent relaxing at my new housing spot before bracket started, vivi's friend kota had put me on to the vaporwave mix "zen tv" at some point during the week and i instantly became obsessed. i've left a link to the video below and would highly recommend checking it out.

it's becoming common for bigger majors to start their main events on friday now so with a tough bracket you could see yourself eliminated from competition on the first day of a weekend-long tournament. i wasn't particularly worried about my path and luckily and made it to day two without dropping any games. chango was a slight concern going into my set vs him but recent experience in the puff matchup allowed me to keep things under control and make top 64.

the main highlight alongside my early success in bracket was doubles with stiv. if i recall all these matches were before singles had actually started so if anything we both got some warmup for the priority event. that being said we didn't do particularly great in dubs and placed our seed getting 9th place in tragic fashion. i'm fairly certain it was a reverse 3-0 that sent us home and stopped us making top 8 and even MORE certain it did NOT have to go down like that. at the very least i think this was the best me and stiv have played together, we don't get many opportunities to team but i've got reason to believe we could do fairly well one day.

my first event i travelled to overseas by myself was battle of bc 5, two years prior to this edition. it's here i remember crossing paths with stiv for the first time, we were 17 and 19 respectively and both clearly a little out of place. he was lugging his suitcase around the venue back then talking about how n0ne was gonna be an easier opponent than polo in the upcoming bracket. i remember not having heard of polo at the time and thinking this kid had no idea what was going on, he then proceeded to upset n0ne and fall to polo for 25th that year. my triumphs earnt me 17th in that same bracket and i remember walking away from vancouver previously with a sense of accomplishment from what i'd done. roaming the venue allowed me to reminisce on these past experiences despite a lot having changed since then. hopefully, i'll be back to do the same once again.

starting saturday off vs someone as good as joshman is always going to be a struggle, i've noticed the trend of needing to face opponents closer to my skill earlier in the day to ramp up to a level that high and without that warmup he sent me to losers pretty quickly. fortunately he exposed a lot of my flaws blatantly and gave me the lesson required to win a set vs my next opponent, goodie. fighting two different australian foxes back to back is definitely a unique bracket path but i was happy to get my rematch with goodie. we had previously played at fete 3 where she beat me in my own region and ended my run at the biggest uk tournament of the year. it looked like i was going to 3-0 but after a close final destination counter pick she had ran it all the way back game 4 last hit. fortunately i punished a lazy landing last stock and closed out the set 3-1, we both felt had i lost that game the set would've likely gone goodie's way.

there was now one set left i had to win before making top 24 and earning a break before we'd resume play till top 8 later that afternoon. when i rolled og kid as my opponent for that spot it was mostly a weight off my shoulders as i considered myself a decent favourite to come out on top. after taking the first game we went to fountain which indicated to me that my opponent wasn't interested in winning the battle of endurance that comes alongside a bigger counterpick stage. losing that game reaffirmed my logic that og kid's plan was reliant on fishing for scraps in closer quarters so i felt comfortable in my ability to win on dreamland, which can make or break a set vs jigglypuff. after winning my counterpick we ended up there where i won a close last stock game by getting the lead early on and trading down. after winning this set i crossed the point where it felt i'd done the bare minimum to be pleased with myself and could finally take a pause before top cut. i thought at this point i'd be facing fiction for 17th place but soon heard the news he had dq'd.

instead, i was faced with rocket the best young link in the world right now and a player who's had an excellent start to the season. his strong records on ben (2-0) and kodorin (1-0) meant he was not to be taken lightly. during the pandemic i had numerous online sets with another young link player from the norwegian mountains, niklas2912. it's my opinion that this experience was devastating for rocket and left me significantly less flustered by his playstyle than most. my discipline faltered during game two where i felt the match was sacrificed due to my impatience, but luckily i kept my cool for the remainder of the set and took it 3-1. by the last game i'd clearly shown i was in complete control and won with a big lead which was good for my confidence. before the set stiv and goodie made a point to warn me against playing sheik vs rocket and turn to a fox counterpick instead, to which i label them both fucking trolls.

at this point i'm confident in my play and ready to play someone considered better than me, it's that point in bracket where my ego is no longer challenged and i seek to punch above my weight. that's why getting matched up to play vs the weapon for 13th was not necessarily the ideal outcome at this stage and left me conflicted going into the set. formally known as elliot this kid's falco was no joke and i quickly identified potential for me to get upset. he seemed to be the last vancouver player left in bracket as such had the entire crowd on his side. throughout our set i kept thinking back to elliot's previous match vs my teammate stiv. i'd watched poor stiv get reverse 3-0'd in brutal fashion and wasn't about to let the same thing happen to me despite elliot having all the pieces of the puzzle to do so.

i'd say neutral by the end of the set looked pretty ugly for me and i won by brute forcing opener attempts through elliot's shield pressure sequences. rather than opting for shine pressure he tended to use fadeback aerials to bait whiff punishes on my part but it got to a point where i'd get to safely whiff too often, and find the grabs i needed risk free. in a similar scenario to goodie i closed out an extremely close 4th game and remember thinking if that had gone game 5 i very well could've crumbled under the pressure. thankfully my experience shined through and the crowd was silenced by my airpods, now it was time to play spark for top 8 at a supermajor. nice.

okay so i didn't beat spark... but i won the first game! there was a clear moment in the set where he started full hopping over my run up shield attempts and refusing to play a grounded mixup for the grab. instead of repositioning in this spot i kept trying to brute force the situation and sacrificed a lot of my early momentum doing so. next time me and zaid face it'll allegedly be without chain grabs as the top sheik players have all made a pact to not be lame™, it'll be fun to play under the different ruleset and hopefully give me some confidence to try new things.

despite falling short before the next step i'm still very pleased with 9th place at battle of bc 7 :3 it was lots of fun to face off vs opponents who walk my path from all around the world. most players my age grew up in an era just before rollback, something something faster melee. it's easy to forget about those times now slippi is here in full force but i certainly recognise that my challengers from this particular bracket belong to the anther's ladder generation, as do i. we're just now getting to see the first crop of these players break through into the top 100 and this bracket was likely a pivotal step towards me doing the same.

hopefully if you made it to the end it was a pleasant read, i'm unsure how i'd like to approach these chapters moving forward but im currently debating chronological order or not... leaning against as that sounds like a big commitment 🤮. if there's anything in particular you'd like me to write about do let me know - max

hello all, i've decided to start a blog where i'll be posting into the void about my various facets of life. hopefully some of what you'll hear and see on my blog will prove beneficial to you, though i cant guarantee this to be the case.

You can also add images like this:

Continue writing your thoughts, updates, or anything else you'd like to share!