Please introduce yourself.

Hi, my name is Justin. Everyone calls me Wizzy though. My tag is Wizzrobe and I live in Orlando, Florida. I main Captain Falcon in Melee, and I have been playing for four years.

Any fun facts about yourself?

Well, I also speedrun. I just play a lot of video games. That's 90% about me, haha.

My favorite sets this year were probably versus a lot of the top 8 players: M2K Hbox , and Armada . I have gotten the opportunity to play M2K and Hbox a lot more in 2015 than ever before, so I thought that was a cool pleasure to have as someone who lives in Florida.

What losses do you regret most?

Well, I usually get salty about every loss unless it was a local maybe. But I didn't like losing to Duck at Dreamhack the most because that's a matchup I feel like I had good mastery over. Playing him made me realize there's still a few things left for me to learn in the matchup.

How often do you get practice against Samus nowadays, considering your practice partner Plup mostly plays Sheik now?

[I] haven't really played the matchup in a while, but I was usually pretty confident in my knowledge so I wasn't worried about it. It was more of a case of being surprised by new things I had not experienced before, which I didn't expect.

So you're not worried about matchups that you feel like you understand, even if you don't get a chance to practice them a lot?

Well, I only feel this way about Samus, because every other matchup I feel like I get practice in. If I don't get practice in the matchup, then I usually feel like I am bad at it. So I guess this applies mostly to Samus.

Despite your consistency, you haven't scored that many top-25 wins this year (only DruggedFox and Duck at nationals, and some wins against Colbol , Plup, and Hungrybox at locals). What do you think is holding you back from closing out sets against top-level players, and how are you working on it?

I just don't get to practice as much as I need or want to. School is my biggest issue. It gets in the way the most for me, and is something that demotivates me, so that's the other negative about it. But I'm in my last year of high school, so I am hoping I can finish it up faster because I am homeschooled.



Something I am doing right now though, is just trying to practice a lot more for upcoming tournaments. That's it.

Sounds good. Are you planning on going to college, becoming a gamer fulltime, or something else?

Well, I would prefer to focus on video games, so gamer. Pretty sure.

You and the rest of the 20GX crew have been working tirelessly to optimize Captain Falcon in the last year, focusing a lot on exploiting the full range of Falcon's movement options and on reaction techchasing and other guaranteed punishes. How have these optimizations paid off in tournament?

[Optimization] has been the main key to improving and increasing positive tournament results.

How do you respond to people who call these optimizations "lame"?

I don't care, and they don't understand.

What's the next frontier for Falcon players to explore?

Continue optimizing and see what more there is for us to discover in order to make Falcon even better.

What do you think you can improve on personally in terms of gameplay?

I have been getting better at fixing mistakes than I used to be. Analyzing videos of myself and others is something I have not done enough until now, I feel.

Hax 's Falcon could never break top 3 at a national, and S2J has only made top 8 a couple of times. Hax eventually switched to Fox, while S2J is picking up Falco. Is the Falcon curse real? Will you stick to playing Falcon, or will you consider playing other characters as well?

I'm going to keep playing Falcon.

So you think Falcon is definitely capable of winning a national?

Yes!

Genesis 3 is the first time you'll team with Colbol at a national; how often do you play teams together, and how do you think you'll do?

We've played a few times together now recently. I think if we're both playing well together, then we can do very well, considering we took M2K and Hbox to game 5 last stock in our last set against them.

What do you think about Falcon in teams? What kind of role does he fill, and is he a better overall character in teams than in singles?

I think he is better in singles. He can be effective in teams if played defensively and played with a very good teammate. Probably a Fox is the best teammate, but I think his partner's character matters a lot for the team to work effectively. Not sure exactly what characters are good with him other than Fox... Puff seems good too?

What properties do you think are good for a character to fit well with Falcon? Ability to hold the front line, ability to set up knee combos, etc.?

Everything, but something specific I can think of is a good aggressive teammate, cause Falcon pretty much is required to play the defensive role.

You're also a professional-level player in Smash 64, Project M, and Smash 4; you're entered in 64, Melee, and Wii U at Genesis 3. How do you practice for so many games at once? What carries over between games, and what do you have to adjust as you switch from one event to another?

Fundamentals carry over in each game, and some ideas I have in one game can carry over into another. So I think for improving, playing multiple games can help a lot. Entering tournaments playing multiple games, not as much so.



Well, one thing [that] entering multiple games can do for you is get you warmed up in one, so by the time you get to the second one your brain is already mentally woken up. Then it's just about adjusting to the game differences. As long as you're allowed time to transition, it's okay. If you have to go straight from one to the other, then it's extremely difficult.



And, I haven't practiced everything as much as I need to. I do a lot of things, so it kind of hurts me in a way, but school is a big hindrance like [I] mentioned before. It's just about being disciplined and managing your time well.

What are your goals for Genesis 3?

Goal is always to win, or at the least, place very well and beat people I have never beaten before. It sucks when you go to a tournament and place very normally, not beating anyone new.

Name one player you really want to beat.

Anybody in the top 20 for Melee.

Which player had the greatest influence on your play style?

Hax originally, although I think at this point I'm at I don't really have as much influence from other people in my play as I used to.

Which player other than yourself is going to make the biggest splash at Genesis 3?

Good question. Plup.

Which up-and-coming player from your region should we look out for in 2016?

You mentioned that you speedrun. Which games do you run? What other games do you enjoy?

I speedrun the Wind Waker. That's all I speedrun right now, [but] I will get into more games in the future.



I enjoy plenty of games casually.

Any in particular?

I play a lot of Nintendo games, but I am down to play pretty much any game on the planet. I've been playing Halo lately. I think it would be cool to live life having played like every game ever made. Or at least every game published like in a store, made by a big company.

That'd be cool for sure.



Any last shoutouts?

COGnitive Gaming for their continued support, and anyone who cares about me!

Follow Wizzrobe on Twitter at @Wizzrobe and on Twitch at Wizzzrobe!

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