#FanFighter Quarterfinals

So, by some miracle of fate, it turns out that you guys like to make movesets, given that you’ve submitted 28 of them while we were barely expecting to break 10.

We are pleased to announce that we’ve taken the time to carefully judge each of the 8 blogs while pitting them against each other, and today, I’ll be presenting the results of the quarterfinals. If your fighter is knocked out this round, just keep in mind that your blog was still good enough to qualify, and that you can always try next time.

you’ll also gain 10 amino coins regardless, but that might not be the greatest compensation, so take that with a grain of salt

Each matchup winner is decided by a single game, 2 stocks on WarioWare. The stages will change around as the tournament progresses, but keep in mind that the stage’s layout can give your characters boosts or hinderances. And without further ado, here are the matchups.

Match #1: Zero VS Alex

Throughout the judging process, our general method of figuring out who’d win is mostly about assessing what the first character is good at, how the second character would counter their tactics, and vice-versa. As such, what it boils down to is how each fighter can overwhelm the other without taking too much damage in the process, and which one can maintain the upper hand for longer.

Alex and Zero utilize completely different playstyles, immediately making it difficult to judge. While Alex performs much better when she has the range and time to buff her Specials before systematically bringing it down on her opponent, Zero specializes in highly aggressive rushdown: if he can’t camp you out, he’ll just get in your face and never leave. As such, while it can quickly go in Zero’s favour, Alex only needs a little bit of space to immediately become a problem.

Zero’s ground control is really good, allowing him to circle around and constantly threaten with the possibility of shorthop F-Air, and use N-Air/Dash Attack/Jab to throw off his foes, each covering different options very well (N-Air being a quick drag-down damage dealer which likely combos into various moves, Dash Attack being good for a swift punish, and Jab covering large amounts of space if you decide to focus on defense for the moment). With his quick speed, Zero easily has the speed advantage in this matchup, allowing him to keep the pressure up and prevent Alex from gaining much advantage. However, his grab game is quite similar to Cloud’s, so he won’t benefit that much if you use shields more often. Along with this, his Specials feel a lot like slower/stronger versions of Fox/Falco’s, which are good due to their speed, so Zero isn’t going to benefit as much from using them as he otherwise would. In particular, his recovery is rather easy to intercept, so going offstage is a pretty big risk for him.

Meanwhile, Alex’s multitude of powerful Specials can leave a severe mark on her foes, with her Red abilities forcing opponents to respect her power, Blue abilities placing traps and controlling the stage, and Green forming a sort of middle ground; each of which can be shuffled between freely, allowing for some obscene versatility. Her standards are pretty good at chaining hits together as well, and her grab game can place a lot of damage on the foe quickly, so she isn’t too vulnerable without her main tools. But if she does have her tools up, the ground control that Summon Zombie and Bind creates isn’t something you can ignore, allowing her to easily maintain advantage if she does get a good hold early on. When it comes to finishing the opponent off, though, she can struggle to land the final blow due to her lack of options, so Zero’s light weight won’t play too much in her favour. And like mentioned earlier, she does have to hold her ground against Zero’s assault for a sizeable amount of time before she can start properly setting up, so she doesn’t hold the advantage at the start.

In the end, due to how both fighters can counter each other rather hard, we believe it comes down to who can thrive in the long run, and in that case we’ve decided the victor would be Alex. While Zero definitely has the advantage in neutral and doesn’t have the roughest disadvantage, Alex only needs to win one or two exchanges to be able to start up her control shenanigans, and the table immediately turns once she does. In particular, her traps can be used to force Zero into the air more often, and since that cuts several of his options away, he ends up becoming significantly more predictable and easier to react to/punish. He’ll put up a fight, but due to his poor disadvantage and overall easy to gimp recovery, Alex has an easier time pulling through in the end.

Alex wins.

Match #2: Quote VS Bandana Dee

Unlike the match above, this one was pretty easy to figure out, to the point that it’s almost unfortunate.

Quote and Bandana Dee are both ranged fighters for the most part. ‘Dee plays a bit like Marth and overall prefers to keep you at a specific range, prioritizing landing tippers to deal the most damage and to land kills. On the other hand, Quote has a heavy focus on projectiles, encouraging him to use evasive tactics and slowly pelt away the opponent’s health and patience. The character who wins is likely the one who can keep up their optimal playstyle for longer.

Quote’s gimmick is extremely helpful in this matchup, if he manages to land enough damage his Specials will get better and deal more damage, quickly creating a potent snowball effect as long as he can maintain advantage during the early game. And if things start going wrong for him, he is EXTREMELY mobile, boasting good movement speed and what is essentially a hitbox-less Quick Attack with slightly further reach. He’s also a potent edgeguarder, overall giving Bandana Dee a very rough time getting back into advantage once he receives some blows. In exchange, Quote’s close-quarters game isn’t the greatest, and often gets beat out or outranged by his opponent’s attacks. He’s also going to need to get the opponent to a sizeable threshold of damage before killing is on the board, but it’s not as difficult as it might seem.

Bandana Dee has a wide variety of tools available to him once he gets within his range. His attacks, as mentioned, are rather potent when you land the spear’s tip and his kit can really benefit players spacing well by opening combos from his swipes. If the opponent is out of his reach but not too far away, his projectiles are very good for ranged pressure, since at the right distance they’re extremely hard to deal with. Along with this, ‘Dee might have some extremely potent kill confirms due to the exceptionally low knockback on some of his moves, but this might be false. On the other side of things, said moves take up a large amount of his moveset, and attacks that don’t land the tip are often weak enough to be punishable even if BD successfully hit the opponent. Taking out a foe is going to be an extremely difficult struggle, since you have to resort to specific moves if you even want a chance to finish off the opponent’s first stock. And with the lack of a good air game, getting much done is going to be unnecessarily difficult for the little fighter.

This all culminates into an unfortunately easy win for Quote, due to how it’s way too simple for him to stay away from Bandana and poke away at him for long enough to gain higher levels. Everything Quote has can counter the various tools that Bandana might be able to use: Lvl 2 or higher Neutral B shots reach low enough to deny ‘Dee’s low crouch, Side B has an easier time outspamming anything ‘Dee can throw at him, and almost any disadvantage state can be escaped with Up B. For added insult, once Quote hits Lvl. 3, he can use WarioWare’s high platforms to air-camp the hell out of his opponent, raining down hell as the foe’s poor air game can’t do much to deal with the sudden beast at his doorstep. It overall just isn’t pretty for the brave Waddle Dee.

Quote wins.

Match #3: Steve VS Lora and Jin

Steve and Lora both present diverse playstyles, with Steve trying to keep at range to build his tools at first before being able to properly present a large threat, while the two Xenoblade reps have little problem getting into the meat of things and wreaking havoc across the field.

Steve’s main gimmick is his Build ability, which is an exceptionally powerful tool: for very little cost or commitment, Steve can slap a decent-sized obstacle onto the field and force opponents to either jump/dodge around it or dedicate an attack to take it down, which isn’t easy to do without leaving yourself open. Besides that, he has a competent projectile and a rather unorthodox recovery (allowing him to play around an ability to suddenly warp from one place to another, with a variable delay) to throw off his foes, and a way to spend time upgrading his weapons to maintain advantage better. And if anything goes wrong, his surprisingly potent combo game can really help pile on damage On the other side of things, his base moveset isn’t that good overall, and his recovery is close to complete garbage, so he can be rather fragile. Landing a proper finishing blow without powerful upgraded tools isn’t easy either, so your potent combos only counteract that and don’t add too much to the equation. Once again, this is a character who you want to play rather defensively as otherwise they’ll be at a slight disadvantage, but taking the time to play smart and carefully will deeply benefit you in the long run.

Lora and Jin, when played together, essentially create a variation of the “jack-of-all-trades” archetype. Jin is better suited towards landing bigger, beefier hits that often freeze the opponent and leave them vulnerable to EVEN MORE beefy hits, while Lora is a rather powerful grappler who acts a bit like a lighter-weight Bowser. Both playstyles can cover the other’s weaknesses well, and their powerful aggro isn’t something to trifle with. With Lora, you’ll be able to control the ground pretty well with your quick run speed and very scary grab game, often forcing the opponent to go airborne to escape and allowing you to capitalize on their lack of options. Jin’s range and power are also terrifying attributes, given that a single mistake can often leave you in the perfect position to take loads of damage from chain hits and otherwise brutal blows. When it comes to speed, however, both are either on the slower side to attack, or have heavy endlag to balance their moves out. And both seem to have relatively poor landings, allowing players to capitalize on their disadvantage and keep juggling them around in the air once they land a solid hit. If you were to play them, my best recommendation would be to get very familiar with both characters, and shuffle between them depending on the situation needed (Lora for quick close quarters, Jin for defensive spacing and punishing).

The thing is, Lora and Jin would otherwise have a large advantage against Steve due to their attributes overall keeping him on his toes for too long, and never letting him build his tools and gain advantage. HOWEVER, this is all reversed when you add Build into the equation, as the ability to shut down ground movement is simply too strong for Lora/Jin to overcome most of the time.

Steve’s ability to simply place an obstacle in the field at nearly any time creates a massive barrier for the duo to overcome, forcing them to either play into their weaker aerial game to avoid the block, or to commit to breaking the block, and neither of them are good. Due to the higher endlag on some of Jin’s moves, breaking the block is often too risky, so he’ll often have to go around it to deal with Steve himself. And even though Lora doesn’t struggle as much to get rid of the block manually, it still prevents her from abusing her grab game until it’s out of the way, and even if they do get it down Steve can simply place another one with very little commitment or cost. Since they’re constantly in a disadvantage, Steve can deal with their strengths much easier, and will more often than not be able to pull through in the end.

Steve wins.

Match #4: Geno VS Super Monkey

Things get rather interesting here, since both characters prefer to play at a further range than most. Super Monkey excels at aggressive zoning, placing a trap or two while cutting off the opponent’s options via spaced aerials and projectiles, while Geno is a bit more versatile and can thrive in multiple different situations. Deciding the winner was quite fun, especially since both are Judge’s Picks and only one can leave this match.

Geno can be a bit of an oddball at times due to his variable playstyle. His main focus is probably his combo game, with moves dealing knockback low enough to guarantee combos at most reasonable percentages, and surprisingly good range to back it up. His Specials are also quite crucial, allowing him lenient mobility with his version of Quick Attack as well as giving him a pretty quick projectile or punish option. Really, the only weaknesses he has are the lack of proper kill moves for the most part along with his lighter weight, but he can do well in every other area.

Super Monkey, as stated above, likes to keep his opponent at just the right place: able to be hit by his projectiles or traps, but unable to hit him back. The Spiked Mines he tosses out are really good at denying movement in small areas without much commitment, and they can easily mess up an opponent’s focus for long enough to take them out. In case the opponent gets too close, he has one or two really strong close-range tools in the case where an opponent gets a little too close for his liking, particularly his powerful freezing Neutral B or his really good Jab/U-Tilts. However, most of his other moves are on the slower side, meaning he can’t handle pressure THAT well, and he mostly relies on setting the opponent up with his mines or primary tools to land kills due to his Smash Attacks being on the mediocre side.

In the end, due to both doing pretty well at longer range, it turned into a discussion of who could land a kill the easiest/quickest… and the winner soon turned out to be Geno. Despite his powerful traps, Super Monkey can’t handle Geno’s spacing OR aggression well, so he’ll often get overwhelmed regardless of his tactics. And when it comes to finishing the opponent off, while Super Monkey isn’t too bad in that category, Geno can output higher damage quicker and usually secure a final blow off of a confirm easier.

It’s difficult to see my personal pick go so early, but that’s just how it is sometimes.

Geno wins.

Conclusion:

And that should wrap up the quarterfinals of this tournament. If everything goes to plan, Ash should be the one to post the semifinals while Awful handles the finals.

We need to thank you all so much for participating in this unofficial event, we’ve been hard at work bringing an otherwise imaginary concept to life, and we really couldn’t have done it without your contributions. If you have anything you want to ask or say about the results, we’d love to hear it. And on that note, I wish you all a wonderful night.