Tremendo Reflection: Luminosity Madness
Thinking back on last weekend's hometown major
-- Tremendo Dude, 3/3/2025
Time flies, I suppose. Not long ago, I was working actively on this website trying to get it up to speed. Now I’m off doing other things, jumping between from one project to another. And in between, scheduled events continue to pass, catching us whether we’re ready or not.
There’s a comfort in that, though! No matter what pace we’re going through in our other pursuits (which honestly has not been nearly as fast as I’d like it to be), things keep happening and progress keeps being made. But it is what it is.
Luminosity Madness
W: Archmage (Kazuya), Gangly (Mii Brawler), PHIL (Sonic), Soleado (Sora)
L: Marss (ZSS), StarZ (Cloud)
Yesterday, I got the opportunity to play in a hell of a Smash bracket. Our local tournament venue (ROK Esports Gaming Lounge) in partnership with Luminosity Gaming decided to fly out some of the absolute best in the world down here to Miami for a one-day event. Not only was it incredible to see so much talent a mere few minutes from my house, but the excitement drew out a LOT of old forgotten friends from our local Smash scene down to the venue for old times’ sake! It was amazing to see so many people I hadn’t seen in years, and for many it felt like it had only been yesterday since I last saw them. It was a beautiful time!
As for the tournament itself, my run went about as well as I had hoped. I was originally slated to fight Sonix in my second round (should I win my first), which led me to prepare over the week for the Sonic matchup, as that can be a tricky character to fight if you’re unprepared. Instead, my bracket got swapped out last second, pitting me up against Archmage’s Kazuya in the first round into in the second round. Not gonna lie, I got hard bopped by the latter in the first game, but put up way more fight in the second. He was fantastic at finding opportunities even if he was jumping the gun quite a bit, but I definitely feel like I could do better with a bit more high-pressured practice.
The loser’s bracket run went a bit more smoothly, from a bit of a rough set with our local Sonic PHIL to a scrap on stream with Soleado to make it out of pools. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get much farther, as my path was cut short by StarZ. I got caught way too often by Cloud SideBs despite intentionally playing around them, and failed to parry or whiff-punish any landings, though the opportunities I was able to take were almost explosive.
All in all, I need more polish under pressure to help me remember the things I need to do to not do the stupid things. I’ll keep working on it and making it happen. I’ve been practicing heavily with all kinds of people, but one of my next steps I think is to work on getting more consistent practice with the best players I can play. If I can do that and get more used to playing and adapting against strong players under pressure again… I think I’ll get it down pat.