Piranha Plant

[Masahiro Sakurai]

Piranha Plant will address the finalists here!

[Piranha Plant]

THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE HAS BEEN TRANSLATED BY LAKITU

Congratulations Yoshi, Captain Falcon, and Wario on reaching the end of the game. Apologies for taking a while here to address you.

I had a very different experience to the three of you. I was in one group conversation, right before I was voted out.
So I have truly no idea how any of your social games worked.

What I want to know though, is how well you think your game matches the Arena format, and why?
Do you think the objective should be to avoid the Arena entirely? Or is it a vital component of the game?

Looking forward to your responses.

[Captain Falcon]

Petey! He finally talks! My rock n' roll buddy. 

First, I wanna say that I don’t think altogether avoiding THE RING necessarily has to be the objective- that depends on the player. This game gave us all the Stages up front, and that’s something I took into consideration right away. I worked out which of ‘em were up my alley, and which weren’t- and soon realised that most weren’t. So for me, I knew that the less time I duelled, the more chance I had of making the end, simple as that. In general, avoiding duels doesn't have to be the objective at all, cos if you knew you could kick butt in those Stages, you can use that extra security to play with a lot of freedom and risk. You've got a higher survival rate, so you can make yourself a bigger threat and hopefully enjoy the spoils if ya make the end. But for me, avoiding THE RING was important with the Stages I was working with, and I think I adapted around that nicely.

At the same time, I knew it was an inevitability- and so I prepared for that where I could. A few times I nabbed ATTACK and managed to get one of my worst stages out. Whenever someone else nabbed ATTACK, if I could, I'd ask them to put up a stage that I knew I'd fumble at. I think you did that for me once, which I appreciated! So I was preparing myself best I could for when the time came, to give myself a fighting chance. When I did end up in THE RING, it was on one of the Stages I was most comfortable with. So I think that part of the format, I definitely did my best with the little ATTACK power I had, to give myself the best shot possible.

So overall, I do think my game worked well with the format- or at least, I made it work! I don't think you have to enter THE RING directly to still have it be a vital part of your game. Cos while I might not have the challenge card up my sleeve- I used everything else I had in my bag of tricks to make up for that deficit. When someone entered THE RING from other teams, I always tried to have a nice chat with 'em so they'd know that THE CAPTAIN is a friendly face. I tried to keep good vibes going with everyone I could post-merge, cos you never know how duels will shake out and who you could end up working with. With two players going in each round, I tried to have an ear in both camps so I could be sure I'd be sliding on through. Those are all aspects of the format I leaned into and tried to use to my advantage to propel me forward. 

Hope that answers ya question Petey- let me know if you've got anything else for ol' Cap. I had fun with ya here even without Lakitu around helping to get your words out. Thanks for the memories!

[Yoshi]

Well, Yoshi's game hinged entirely on the Arena format. If Yoshi had tried to pull this trick earlier on, Yoshi might have survived on Red due to the large amount of eggs in that group, but as soon as Yoshi got to gold, just 1 person thinking that Yoshi's vote could be swayed later would just tip the balance (as it did) and vote Yoshi off. In arena, it is recoverable to have that happen, and having early badges can be both an asset and a detriment.

Take Piranha Plant as an example. You started off with more early badges than Yoshi, though Yoshi did overtake eventually. Piranha plant was seen as a threat going into merge, because once there became 2 groups with Piranha Plant outside that, nobody would want to vote for Piranha Plant as that meant one of their own group was going to have to fight you. And that was being shown to be a very risky concept.

Ideally Yoshi wanted to be in that position in merge. Until about F7, having two warring groups like that is perfect for being in the middle, especially if you have a good challenge status. Yoshi thought their 3 badges would help that. There were two issues that happened:
1) Yoshi was put directly on 1 side due to an "egg alliance" forming. While useful come F7, this wasn't ideal for early merge and resulted in 2 more arena bouts due to the second reason:
2) Yoshi's challenge threat level wasn't really a known issue for the other side, Yoshi still doesn't know exactly why Yoshi was voted in twice to fight their champion but it took 5 badges to convince people that Yoshi either wasn't a threat or was too difficult to beat.

So the badges and the arena format were very useful to Yoshi for those 2 reasons:
-Being able to survive early on in the game until Yoshi could get to Merge and utelise their position.
-Being able to create that spot in Merge which is only really a thing in Arena where you are outside the two main groups.

Yoshi thinks Piranha Plant and Yoshi were both going for that same niche in Merge that Falco/Kazuya really ended up filling.

P.S.
It is near impossible in this format to reach the end without getting at least 1 arena entry Yoshi thinks. It is vital to try and get out the stages that you aren't comfortable with as soon as possible in order to not have to fight in them later. Yoshi did use a lot of cards just using the few stages Yoshi didn't like early on in the game which was the only reason Yoshi thinks they even made it to 5 badges. (And the fact the first one was free).

[Yoshi]

Mar 13, 2022 11:53:33 GMT 10 Yoshi said:

If Yoshi had tried to pull this trick earlier on, 

Yoshi can't english

This should be "If Yoshi had tried to pull this trick in another format".

[Wario]

Piranha Plant it's a miracle! I'm very glad that I didn't have to interpret some final images and gifs sent by you, then try to earnestly respond

For me the priority was to avoid the arena when it wasn't safe. And that's most of the time. Yeah there's always a chance that you could be taken out even when it is 'safe', but you could obviously lessen those chances and increase your odds dramatically depending on how you play around it.

I'm not too bad at challenges, but I don't have the skills that players like you and Yoshi possess. I knew that if I was put into a position where I was just sent in over and over then there was NO WAY I was making the end. I really thought we were looking at a reality where you were going to do that, but you were stopped by a Robin sized freight train. I didn't worry about getting the attack bags, I always viewed it as there being so many challenges that I'm bad at that there's no point in using my cards to get them out. I was more focused on the shield when I needed it, to avoid going there at all.

I think that going into the arena is... almost vital. If you make it to the end without going in once, you've got an extremely strong argument as to why you should win. So it's almost guaranteed that everyone will get sent in at some point. So being at least average at the challenges is needed in this sort of game. There is 100% some luck involved though, you can make one silly mistake that you normally would never make and you're done. Or you back out of a page or something, costing you vital time.

In all, I do believe that my game matches the arena format. With my volunteering plan on green, it meant that an alliance could stick together without creating bad blood. It was the most sustainable way to work around the problem, and I was the one to get that process going. Following that you were obviously a part of voting me out on yellow, and it was only due to my skill in the challenge that I came back. I didn't have any say over which challenge that was, and I never would've picked that one. After that I did a fantastic job of staying out of the arena, I lowered my threat level extremely well to where I was never thought of as being the one that needed to go in. Until I made a mistake at final 5, which sent me in at 4. But overall I thought my game was tailored very well to the arena format.

I'm glad I never had to face you in the arena, challenge beast.