Celebrating the players of the Edmonton Smash Bros Community

Corbin "Neri" Mckenzie

 

"I'm Corbin and my tag is Neri. I've always been a part of the competitive community ever since I started, but I've only recently been able to come out a few months ago. I main Luigi and I've been playing competitively for three years."

"How did you discover the competitive smash scene and what had you been doing in terms of smash, prior to officially joining the competitive community?"

"Back in 2011 I was looking at old melee and brawl videos, and I came across combo videos. I was so surprised that people were playing smash competitively that I researched further and found Smash Boards. Before I officially joined, I practiced tech skill at home everyday for at least an hour. I still hold that tradition today."

"Most players join the community lacking both techskill and mind games, however, you joined already having a solid techskill foundation. How much of an advantage do you feel that gave you?"

"I felt like it gave me a good advantage. When I first went to a smashfest, I thought I was going to get wrecked so hard, but I went undefeated for awhile on the TV I joined. It was relieving to know you couldn't sleep on me."

"You've been practicing tech skill diligently prior to joining the competitive scene and you continue to put time into the game on a daily basis. How important do you think a practice regimen like this is to the success of player?"

"A training regimen is very important, especially in a game like Smash Bros where your tech skill has to be on point. If you want to nail that difficult tech consistently, you need to practice and play against others often. It will only make you improve at the game."

"Whats your current motivation to improve?"

"I want to improve myself and place high reliably in tournaments, hone my skills in Smash Bros. I want to someday be among the Luigi greats like Vudujin, etc."

"You've been placing in grand finals for many of the Project M tournaments recently, but how close do you feel you are from taking first in a tournament?"

"I feel like I'm getting closer to getting first in PM tourneys here at our weeklies. With more practice I think next time I'll be able to take one!"

"PM is subject to a bit of criticism in terms of balance of some of the characters. What are your thoughts on PM and in particular, where Luigi stands as a character in this new environment"

"I feel like PM has a firm balance among most of the characters. Smashers get overwhelmed by the new styles of play that new characters present, but I think it facilitates playstyles of more varieties. Luigi is a solid character in PM who has explosive combos given the chance. In the right scenarios, he can get 60-70% damage off of a combo. His downside is his lack of range, and as such he still has trouble with characters similar to Marth. The ability to store misfires and not having to charge his down-B to rise help him out, and I believe he can do well against anyone in the cast if played right."

"Last question, how on earth do you perform Luigi's down b recovery so well in Melee? That technique requires multiple b presses a second!"

"I used to play Mario Party games a lot when I was younger. As you know, the button mashing in those games is insane. It became a part of me, and I can mash the button super fast. It's ingrained into my soul."