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Nairo hugging ZeRo after Nairo wins Grand Finals for Smash Bros. 4 at MLG Finals 2015.
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competitive scene.
As time passes, the Smash Bros. 4 community has thrived and developed more than many people, even professional Smash players, initially thought. The meta is progressing and changing daily, with people discovering new ways to improve their character’ s options and abilities both on the whole and in specific match-ups. Complicated combos requiring an absurd number of inputs are being developed and exploited in order to make taking a stock( a“ life,” in standard video game terms) off of an opponent easier and more optimal. Yet, the majority of top players are still able to compete against each other evenly, winning and losing often enough to make the competitive scene relatively even.
It is always a thrill for American players or fans to see Japanese players come to play in the States, due in part to the fact that they come from a place where the Smash Bros. 4 community is so different from the one present here. The competitive scene in the U. S. is just that: it’ s a competitive scene in which players constantly strive to be the best, inventing new strategies and putting them to use at tournaments against others to win both prestige
and prize money. In Japan, though, tournaments cannot give out prize money due to gambling laws, so their competitive scene is more a community where players help each other learn and grow so they can be stronger as a country. Both of these approaches to a gaming community have their own benefits and drawbacks, but both communities have continually gotten stronger and larger over the past two years.
The Smash Bros. 4 community has a great game to play, a swath of competitive players with personality, skillful technical staff and tournament organizers, and tens of thousands of loyal fans who love to either play the game or watch the professionals. People find ways to support their favorite players, continually develop the meta for the characters they love, or just tune into a tournament stream every once in awhile to watch some good ol’ esports. People love this game. Both competitors and casual players are driven to create and discover new things with all fiftyeight characters, linking moves to moves, making stronger, more optimal combos, and in the process making both the competitive scene and overall community more exciting, engaging, and fun for everyone.