It’s that time of year, y’all! It’s Genesis time, with Genesis 6 starting this Friday. Let’s quickly recap last weekend.

SFAT won Fight For SoCal 2, defeating the mostly West Coast crowd and staving off a red-hot iBDW in grand finals. In Illinois, the visiting S2J conquered Hold That L. Moky won yet another tournament, Ottawa’s Frostfire 2019, and over in North Carolina, Babich won the Moses Kang Memorial tournament, while in Virginia’s The Cabin, Sillie Willie came out on top.

Oh, I also went to a pretty sweet regional on Saturday: Connecticut’s GIGA HOG: Era. In it, Swedish Delight took home first over Hax in grand finals. Notably, longtime low-tier hero Qerb, a New Jersey Game & Watch player, finished fourth, defeating 42nd and vortex. So before we talk Genesis, let’s talk about my experience at HOG.

1. Edwin Attends: GIGA HOG

I didn’t make it in time to enter bracket, but I had a blast. From catching up with my friends from college, to seeing my current long-distance friends in the scene and meeting new people from Connecticut, I couldn’t help but feel extremely proud of what the scene accomplished here. Although amateur bracket ended up being cancelled, I was impressed with how relatively on schedule everything else was, as well as the plethora of setups and high-level matches going on.

Speaking of which, pound-for-pound, this has to be one of the most stacked regionals I have ever gone to. Players who were ranked in their region or hidden bosses were routinely finishing 0-2 or 1-2. At every setup I played on, there were players who played mindful neutral, converted hard off openings and loved to talk about the game. Maybe I was lucky, but at least anecdotally, it really blew my mind how much talent existed in the Northeast as a whole.

Separate note, but because I got to play a lot of strong players – and because I’ve lately been trying to be more active in my community again – my friendlies made me realizing how important it can be to receive good practice. When you practice against better people (as I did for all of Saturday), it forces you to play more deliberately and pick your spots better, which then opens up your neutral game. At the same time though, playing too cautiously can throw you off your rhythm and decrease your execution.

To people on the fence about attending your locals, I totally get that. I myself have been on-and-off with my current local scene for just under three years, but sometimes attending a regional on itself can motivate you a lot. A lot of interactions in the Smash community today, for better and worse, are in the digital sphere. As it turns out, going outside can do a lot of good.

Anyways, I’m not really sure what else to say here. If you’re in the Northeast and want to go to a Melee tournament, there’s no reason not to attend The Gang 2. Shoutout to Stoc, Ricky and the rest of Connecticut Melee. Thank you guys for running a great event.

2. My Top 8 Thoughts about Genesis

Before discounting Mango, remember that he’s consistently made winners finals at every tournament he’s entered and competed in seriously since Shine 2018. He has as good of a chance of winning as anyone under Hungrybox.

For NorCal people to watch out for, I’d take a look at Rocky and Kevbot. Those two sometimes slip under the radar as top-level threats, but have been on a quiet rise since the middle of last year.

Here’s another player to watch: Tiramisu. He will be at Genesis this year and, as of last week, was riding numerous consecutive victories over the recently internationally ranked Kalvar.

In a way, is Hungrybox actually worse off for being the No. 1 player? I actually think that in terms of whom he’s seeded to play against that playing someone like Zain, Wizzrobe or aMSa might actually be scarier than him than playing another Big Six member in winners quarters. It makes for an interesting dynamic when it comes to predicting brackets.

However, does he still have better chances vs the field? Not sure.

Yeah, come to think of it, I think Hungrybox is winning this event.

For once after a tournament happens, can we not talk about rankings for the year? It’s our first supermajor, so I don’t want to rush to conclusions.

Most of Melee Stats will be at Genesis! Between me, Ambisinister, Wheat, Algebra, Ding, Ovenn, ycz and Tafo, we’re all (mostly) nice people. Don’t be afraid to say hi or tell us how great we are!

3. Monday Morning Mailbag

When PPMD returns do you think he should attempt to dual main or just go all Falco like he’s talked about in the past? He probably won’t be super concerned with results right away, but it’s hard to see matches against Hungrybox or M2K/Zain as anything other than an autoloss. HBox would still be favored against either character, but neither M2K or Zain are great at the ditto at this point. – Bill-Cosby-Bukowski

At the top level, it’s rhard to say what his best bet would be. I’ve talked to PPMD about this before, and he went from seeming pretty all-in on Falco to more hesitant to pick one character over another.

What I think is likely is that he might take a similar approach to what Mango tried for the longest time, playing Falco throughout the weekend and then saving his other character (in Mango’s case, Fox) for when he really needs him. I can’t think of anyone beneath the Big Six whom PPMD’s Falco would struggle against for long, but I do think that come championship Sunday, his Marth is probably his best overall bet against the field.

Speaking of championship Sunday, one last thing – go Patriots!