Celebrating the players of the Edmonton Smash Bros Community

Mickael "Afro" Zerihoun

 

"I'm Mickael and my tag is "afro". I enjoy playing a bit of everything: 64, melee and PM. The game that I'm more inclined to play competitively is PM. My main is Mario, preferably Doc but I'm not picky. I've been playing in a competitive manner since last year September. I remember getting back into Brawl before the summer of last year with Shawn and we visited the smash group then. I obviously got wrecked, time passed and I was playing with friends. After the summer break Simon showed me PM, loved the new set of moves that were offered, the new characters and it was a good way to relax!"

"How did you discover the smash community? What were your initial impressions, and have they changed since then?"

"I don't exactly remember how I found out about the smash scene, but I remember thinking 'I can beat a bunch of my friends so I'm sure I'm up there. Let's see how big the gap is'. I promptly found out that this game was a lot deeper than I had ever thought. Regardless of how badly I got trashed people were super friendly about giving advice. That really stuck with me because a lot of other communities have a more toxic atmosphere where if you're bad they will put you down and won't bother trying to explain what you're doing wrong. In this community everyone is always willing to practice even if you're much lower in skill and they are also willing to help you improve, with advice, suggestions etcetera... This applies to friends within the community to complete strangers. It's a very united community that keeps growing for the better."

"You mentioned that you play smash to relax? Does that mean you intend on playing smash at a fairly casual level?"

"I have my moments. I don't have too much time to play so when I do I usually play casually here and there between other occupations. Once in a while I'll see someone do something sick at a tournament and that gets me pumped up. When that happens I dedicate time to go play and try to improve. This also applies when I haven't played in a while. Recently I was having one of those moments so I rallied whomever played PM within my work place and started playing with them."

"What's your draw towards PM and why do you think it's so successful on both a casual and competitive level?"

"I think the reason I'm more inclined to PM might be because it's more accessible. It has less of an entry barrier so it's a lot easier to just pickup with friends. Not having much time to play, I enjoy that accessibility. However the game still allows to play very technically so when I feel like picking new skills I am also able to. Additionally, some might hate this but I like the idea that the game keeps getting balanced and changed, new updates bring new ways to play with the same characters. Even just the large choice of characters allows for more gameplay opportunities, I feel this gives more freedom to be creative, especially with the updates and all. I think those reasons also explain its success amongst a large crowd."