Round 9

[Masahiro Sakurai]

Corneria is the duel by precisely 25 seconds, saving me from a significant amount of panic in fixing the issues I have with Spiral Mountain. Yay, thank you for being slightly too late K Rool!

Piranha Plant will slay this; as possibly the biggest memer in the cast, if he doesn't notice "Do a barrel roll" in seconds I'll be shocked. Mario's underdog run will come to a sad end here most likely, but it was a good journey overall if it does. If makes the upset, he is guaranteed jury, too, and that would be hype!

Memer autocorrected to member

[Sandbag]

Has Yoshi technically broken his own rules by voting for himself and not what people told him to?

[Masahiro Sakurai]

Falco has been very active in steering the Pink target towards Samus, but my gut feeling is that if Samus shows up for any length of time tonight one of the Blues will be sent in, and I do lean towards Falco being more likely with the awkwardness of the recent interactions with Robin.

Since it's a major contributor to the dynamic, this is as good a time as any to discuss the Falco/Robin dynamic. I never spoke to this before, but I do kind of see how Falco is unnerved by the apparent ease of Robin's deceit. We can see Robin's confessional to know that it's not something they do take lightly, but from what Falco can see, Robin cutting allies left and right and accepting the decimation of their original team comes off as cold and calculated. Mario is highly likely to end up missing the jury phase, so that's a plus for Robin, though the damage he and Duck Hunt did on their way out poisons the well badly for the merge. For Falco's part, I think ever directly pressing Robin on this observation was an error that he'll likely pay for in the next round or two unless someone volunteers. A rematch with Yoshi would be make-or-break, and potentially a dicey prospect.

On Yellow, I think the hot dynamic for me is Squirtle and Wario. There's a huge incongruity between Squirtle's shtick (more cloying than cute sadly) and the gameplay that is likely to create a lot more situations like the one we've seen lately. Being everyone's best pal with a hypersocial PM game and then playing that kind of strike-first gameplay is bound to upset people a bit. Obviously letting people down is part of the game, but he could have handled it much better. We've said enough about Wario's slightly dictatorial gameplay and general messiness, but I'm very much impressed that he kept the plates spinning as long as he did. Having said both of these things, both could come together for this vote, where I expect tensions will resurface, either after merge or if Plant is immune on Yellow, before. The outlook is a lot sunnier for Squirtle, who is ever resilient and has recovered well, whereas Wario is burning bridges and for all I know is probably burning more as we speak. I would be very curious to see how things go if Plant was immune on Yellow in the coming round.

Hey look, I basically blogged about one major relationship per team!

I should also mention that Yoshi is clearly in danger here; I think even if he survives a duel, he'll need cards to ensure he doesn't duel again before merge.

[Masahiro Sakurai]

I should also give Falco credit for finding the Smash Ball! That was a good effort with the fairly vague clues to squeeze a little bit of info from various sources, though nothing compares to Squirtle's eagle-eyed monitoring of the board. He clocked Robin being fed the second clue instead of the first too, and that was iconic.

[Masahiro Sakurai]

I just realised that Mario's game ending at the hands of Plant will be fun given their BigFooty connection. That challenge effort was his best so far I'd say, so it's an unlucky opponent for him to have to face. I could see that taking many of the others 20 minutes or so or needing a hint to get going.

It is a horrible time to be a character from the original 8, with the next duel set to be Samus vs Yoshi, the last two left. More on that at 11...

[Sandbag]

Feb 23, 2022 15:42:23 GMT 10 Masahiro Sakurai said:

I should also give Falco credit for finding the Smash Ball! That was a good effort with the fairly vague clues to squeeze a little bit of info from various sources, though nothing compares to Squirtle's eagle-eyed monitoring of the board. He clocked Robin being fed the second clue instead of the first too, and that was iconic.

Kazuya literally told him exactly what to enter?

[Masahiro Sakurai]

Feb 23, 2022 18:20:57 GMT 10 Sandbag said:

Feb 23, 2022 15:42:23 GMT 10 Masahiro Sakurai said:

I should also give Falco credit for finding the Smash Ball! That was a good effort with the fairly vague clues to squeeze a little bit of info from various sources, though nothing compares to Squirtle's eagle-eyed monitoring of the board. He clocked Robin being fed the second clue instead of the first too, and that was iconic.

Kazuya literally told him exactly what to enter?

He found the first half on his own, Kazuya had no idea and got that part from Falco, right? Falco did well to get the bits and pieces out of Kazuya+Robin+Dark Pit to get the most complete picture of that situation.

[Sandbag]

Riiight ok that's what you meant. Fair. Kazuya didn't even really have a concept of word filters being a thing, he was looking for a secret board to enter things in until Falco pointed him that way.

[Masahiro Sakurai]

I am very conflicted by this vote in. I think Yoshi will be able to dedicate much more time to the game going forward, but I also think Samus has been the superior player by far and has "earned" the jury spot through some great positioning until life got busy. I also worry a bit about how eggs might work with the jury, and whether they might create too much havoc by the time Final Destination rolls around.

Yoshi is attempting to negotiate a favourable duel with Piranha Plant, which is entertaining stuff. I wanted to see this kind of bargaining when we were hashing out the details of the format. It's a cool strategic and social wrinkle that makes the challenges more than just an unknown element you see when you see.

[Master Hand]

Discord is being a bitch omg