

Photo credits: Princess Hyrule Photography

(on right)​

In a game with as much character diversity as, it’s common for tier lists to see some drastic changes with players taking low tier characters to a new level. One such example of this is Xayya Thomas "ThunderzReign" Thammavongsa, who brought his DK to grand Finals of Olympus, one of the largest Project M tournaments of all time, and won.ThunderzReign, the self proclaimed “Giant Weeb” from Norcal, has been showing a dominance in his local scene for a long time, but only gained traction in the national spotlight after his performance at the California tournament “Final Boss”, where he placed second, beating Jonathan “Sosa” Sosa, David “iPunchkidsz” Vargas, and Adam “Strong bad” Oliver, only losing to Arjun “Junebug” Rao back in Janurary. Later, he showed his dominance again at Supernova, placing 25th, and at the New York Tournament “New Fish”, where he won first place, beating Elliot Bastien “Ally” Carroza-Oyarce and Flipp.Recently, Smashboards’ L_Pag had the oppurtunity to interview Thunderz about his recent win at Olympus, and his thoughts on PM scene.How and when did you first start playing Smash? PM?I started playing Smash when I was little. The first one I played was on the Nintendo 64 back when I was 4. I was first introduced by a good of mine at school. I used to play brawl for fun until he told me about PM and how it's similar to Melee. I played melee before, but I forgot how different it was from Brawl. That's when I first tried PM and I got bodied. My friend hosted tournaments at my high school and everyone didn't know how to play the game, except my friend who bodied everyone. I wanted to be good so I downloaded PM and began to practice with my cousins every day. When he hosted the next tourney, I finally beat him. However, I never started playing at real tourneys until June 2014.What about PM makes you want to keep playing?The community is what makes me want to stay, especially NorCal since everyone is so free~ The community for PM is small, but it is a great community overall. I continue to play the game because it's fun too. The meta for the game is always changing and players are constantly improving which makes it more fun to compete.How do you feel about your recent win at Olympus?I don't know how to feel. I mean I feel happy that I won, but that's all I can say. I'm glad I was able to make NorCal happy back at home, I mean SoCal.How was your time at Olympus?My time at Olympus was great. Hanging out with all the homies from everywhere was an exhilarating experience. There were some times when the venue had a power outage, but besides that everything else was chill. The venue having a hooters was godlike, unfortunately I didn't eat there. Even if I did go there, I wouldn't want to eat the food anyways. You already know what I would like to eat~What do you think about PM’s current meta?PM’s current meta is becoming similar to Melee in which fewer and fewer players are getting janked by characters. People are now adapting to the tools which characters possess and are now learning to work around them. The meta is definitely going towards the right direction and I hope it continues to do so. Oh, and the character diversity is definitely there. At Olympus, we saw a lot of different characters in the top 32 rather than a few. I feel that's a great aspect to the meta because it shows how people can make it far with any character.Where do you feel DK stands in the current meta?DK is a mid-tier. He has a strong punish on some characters, but not all. His neutral is a lot better than people make it out to be. He has a great dash dance and his run speed is as fast as Sheik's. However, people combo him really hard, he has a hard time getting down, and his recovery can be exploited well if a person knows what they're doing. I wish I could platform camp to zero to deaths against everyone, except I can't zero to death everyone.Where do you think PM is now, and where do you think it’s going?PM is going somewhere, well I hope it is. All the effort towards the circuit should have made PM become become a lot more renowned. I wish for the community to continue to grow and for PM to keep livin~