Panda Global Gaming’s Eric “ESAM” Lew is one of the top players in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. His dynamic, high-speed Pikachu play has taken him to the Top 8 of almost every major tournament he’s attended over the last year, and puts him alongside Team Liquid’s Nairoby “Nairo” Quezada as one of the few players who could possibly take down the king of Smash 4, Gonzalo “ZeRo” Barrios. Now, with the Big House 5 on the horizon and Paragon LA behind him, theScore eSports spoke with ESAM about the current meta, ZeRo’s break, and the future of the game.

So, considering Smash 3DS came out in October in Japan, Big House 5 marks just about a year since we started playing this game. What do you think about how the competitive scene has developed?

For one, it's grown a ridiculous amount. Aside from ZeRo winning everything, there is a crapton of diversity. Every region has a ton of good people, and it's not like every region is dominated by one great player, it's like, one to seven players, as far as I'm aware. Even a good player on the west coast, Larry Lurr, a week before Paragon, lost to Zan, a Toon Link player and Zenyou, a Mario. And, Larry's considered a really good player. There's so much variety in every scene, except when ZeRo's playing because Zero always wins. It's really cool.

Considering it’s basically impossible to talk about competitive Smash 4 without talking about ZeRo, how do you feel about his dominance?

It is one of the most impressive things that I've ever been first hand to witness. I started playing Melee, but it was right after the age of Ken, so I didn't know about a dominating force like that. It's not like everyone sucks and ZeRo is good. The other top players are so good. Take ZeRo out of the picture, and you still have amazing top level play that's' really fun to watch. Paragon Top 8 was amazing to watch and I wasn't even in it and I'm considered one of the people who are potentially on par with ZeRo. But then Zero just wins. Every time. I have no idea how the kid does it. It's not even fathomable that it's possible and yet he's doing it. It's the most impressive thing.

What was Paragon like then, knowing he wasn’t going to be there?

Everyone played their hearts out because we were playing for first, not maybe I can beat ZeRo. There's a huge difference. Realistically when we go into tournaments we think we could beat ZeRo, but you know deep down it is very very hard to beat that guy, so you're really just playing to beat everyone else. When I went so SmashCon I thought I could maybe beat Zero but I lost to him at CEO, so I was aiming to beat Nairo and M2K if he was playing, and Mr R and Will, Nakat. I wasn't aiming to beat ZeRO, I was aiming to get to him, and that's a huge difference.

So, what about Big House 5? No one is really sure if he’s going yet, what’s it like now, going into another tournament where first place isn’t set?

I don't know if he's going either. I've actually been very in with what's been happening with ZeRo since I consider myself a decent friend. I'm not gonna spread what's going on with his life. He's a 19-year-old kid who's depressed by some stuff, and he's under a lot of pressure because he's the best. There's a difference between winning 60-70% of the time and being the best, and winning 100% of the time. It's hard for him, so he needs to take a break. I don't know if he'll back before Big House, since it's a mental thing.

Even if he does go...him not going to a big big major kind of opened the floodgates because it allowed more people to get exposure and showed how diverse the meta really is. Let's go down the top eight of Pargaon. ZSS, Rosalina, Diddy Kong, Mario, Sheik/Ryu, the first mention of Sheik is fifth place. One Sheik, in all of top eight as opposed to the majority of other majors that have been Sheik, Sheik, Sheik. It was refreshing and showed there's life in this game even though ZeRo beats us all because he's a god.

You specifically play Pikachu. Plenty of people consider him top tier, but you don‘t see him played that much, why do you think that is?

Pikachu's weird. He works for my playstyle since I've played him since Brawl and he's fairly similar, but it's awkward to play since his options don't make sense. I'll play against a character and understand what I'm trying to do, then I'll play that character and I'll be like 'how do I do anything?' Even Diddy Kong, I have no idea what to do with him. Pikachu, even though he's a good character, they don't understand what to do. His lack of range is daunting, but I've gotten used to it. I'm comfortable, Nakat and Z are very good Pikachus, but the character is weird. He's not standard, he doesn't really have safe aerials on shield, he doesn't really have a good projectile to camp with, he can't box you out with aerials, since they're all fairly close range, so he has to apply a bunch of pressure with aerials, grabs and quick attack and it's awkward for a lot of people since it's non standard, especially to use your Up-B as an offence tool all the time.

I know you do a video series about moves that people complain are cheap, or overused, do you find that’s a common complaint about this game?

There are a bunch of people that complain about it, which is why I do my Deal With It video series on YouTube. I break down a problematic move in the game and talk about why it's not as daunting as you think it is. Good moves are good regardless, but I'm trying to unscare people from the game, in a way.

But do you think there’s something about this game in particular that makes people complain about those moves?

Because of how accessible the game is, because the Wi-Fi is actually really good, there are a lot of new players that are just brand new. This is their first smash game, they've been playing for a year, they don't know how to deal with all the high level tactics, because they don't understand the mentality. So those people go 'oh man this is really cheap because I'm not winning anymore' and that's part of it.

How do you feel about the patches then, do you have any complaints?

It's been amazing. The only complaint I have is that they shouldn't have nerfed Diddy's up-air that much. Other than that it's been great. They've knocked down top tiers, because they bodied Diddy Kong, they made Sheik worse, they made Rosalina worse. They've brought up like 20 low tiers. Robin has a kill confirm, Charizard has a combo throw and a kill throw. DK has Ding Dong, Falco has cool aerials. They nerfed Sonic because he was a pain. They nerfed Villager a little bit, but also buffed him with a combo throw. They've done a good job of putting everyone in the middle.

I had this conversation with my viewers yesterday: you don’t want low tiers buffed, because you're still gonna complain about Sheik, about Pikachu, Luigi, Rosa, it doesn't matter how good your characters get unless they get to top tier. So no, you need to nerf the top tiers if you're gonna touch anyone. At this point, I'd be content if the game never changed again. It's so good the way it is right now. I can't imagine it being better with the new patch.

If you could change one thing, what would it be?

As a nerf, the only very very very obnoxious, somewhat unbeatable thing in top tier right now is Sheik's F-air. A lot of characters just can't touch it if it's timed well. So I'd like to shorten some of the auto-cancel windows it is, as well as give it four or five more frames of lag. Because a lot of characters, even at midrange, can't punish it unless they powershield it. She should be forced to space outside of your shield. If you can be punished, it adds dynamic to the matchup because it means if you use f-air you can get punished, instead of just using F-air again.

And a buff....man, I know I'm a Samus main, but I don't even want it to be about Samus, just give Zelda something. You should be able to short hop immediately F-air or B-air and not have lag when you land. All she has is Up-B out of shield, that's it. It's annoying, it sucks. And her jab is okay.

I know you’re very much anti-customs. Now that we’re pretty far out from EVO, and customs seem dead as a meta, what do you think about them?

I wouldn't mind revisiting customs at some point, because some of them are cool, it just adds so much extra work. There's no way you can legalize all of them. Can you imagine DK right now with customs? Bruh. Some customs are really cool ideas. Some of them were good and balanced, the majority have no use because they're awful, and some of them are so good that you would never not used them. Like, why would I not use heavy skull bash ever? There's no downside to it. Besides laying in water.

There's no reason not to use Luma Shot, and Teleport Luma, there's no reason not to. It's not like a balance thing, it's just strictly better. It adds so much debate, and Mii fighters are a mess. People are trying all these rules sets, or you can eliminate all the mess by letting them not exist. Unless you have people dedicated to deciding some gold standard criteria of which moves should be banned, but then no one is unbiased. Is Gust Cape too good with Mario? Is Trip Sapling too good? Is Explosive Balloon too good with it? It's stupid. Just shut up. Just stop.

Do you think Smash 4 can last the way Melee has?

Smash 4 can last. Especially with patching. If the game when it first came out was the only version of the game it might not have. But right now, the stupid stuff is very minimal, barring customs. I don't lose and go "that was so stupid" I'm like "I got outplayed." When I lost to 6wX and Slayersz, I got outplayed. Lower level players gonna be pissed because they don't know why they're getting outplayed, but this game is amazing. The Top 50 players are all so good. And it's only a year into the metagame! Do you remember a year in Melee? People didn't wavedash yet. Meanwhile, we're perfect pivoting, we're power shielding, figuring out option selects (shout outs to One Smash) and we don't even have AR. We can't test these things because we don't have the tools and we're still figuring things out. It's crazy! People are figuring things out and I have no idea how!

What do you think about the recent uptick of Smash players getting sponsored, including yourself?

Personally, I don't understand how eSports is a thing. I'm one of the top players in Smash 4, I can say that confidently. I'm going to college, I'm going to pharmacy school, assuming I get accepted to other schools. I'm not doing eSports as a career because I'm scared. It could be awesome for five years and then all of a sudden eSports doesn't matter anymore and I don't have any experience. It's so scary to me. I don't doubt it could last a long time, but I can't process it personally. You only have one chance in life, but you also have to make sure you're not screwing yourself over. For pharmacy school, if I don't go next year, and I wait four years because I do eSports and then I get bored or it fails, like, I've been out of school for four years! I don't remember anything. I have my degree, but I don't remember organic chemistry or medicinal chemisty, and I'll be at a huge disadvantage. It's really scary to me to put all my chips on red. I can't do that. Unless I make so much money that it doesn't matter that I have years to back up.

So, going into Big House after not making top eight at Paragon, how do you feel?

So I had a pretty bad Paragon showing. I still did really well, 13th is still really good, and I'm not upset to losing to two really good players,. But it knocked me down. At SmashCon I should have beat ZeRo but I messed up a few things. I beat Nairo twice, I'm the best! But then I lost twice and got thirteenth. People had me winning the tournament, but I didn't even make top 8. It humbled me. I wasn't upset that I lost, going in I was scared of Mr. R and Vinnie, and Slayersz could be annoying, and 6wX can be good if he's playing well. I had them in my head, and I happened to play them early. I'm not upset about my losses. It's not like I lost when I shouldn't have, 6wX and Slayersz are amazing. It's scary, it taught me that I need to foolproof my game. Since I'm back in Southern Carolina for school now, I can't practice with the super good players I had all summer, like Nick Riddle and MVD and 8-Bit Man and Seibrik, and all I have is wi-fi. I'm playing my viewers, and I love them, but they're not Top 25 players. It's scary for me. I feel like all these players are able to practice against super good players all the time in SoCal or New York New Jersey and Florida, and I'm kind of like, I hope I keep up, playing my viewers. I don't have another option, because school is my priority. I'm not missing school to go travel.

Is there any player you’re really looking to beat?

I mean, I don't really have a target at this point. At SmashCon, I thought it'd be cool if I fought ZeRo and did well against him, but I really wanted to play Nairo because I hadn't fought him yet. I've played everyone I want to play at this point.

To wrap everything back around to the beginning, we’re a year into competitive Smash 4. What comes next? Where does the scene need to go?

We need analysts. People like Tafo. There are so many tournaments, so much data that's just out there that no one is harnessing and no one is actually looking at. A lot of us, we're younger, we don't have time. High school, college, we're not 29-year-old people who have a job and a maybe a girlfriend and no other commitments. Tafo spends hours with his team and just grinds numbers. “Hungrybox lost on Fountain of Dreams by two stocks and he got 63%.” People do that, and it doesn't exist in Smash 4 right now. People barely know details about the game. Commentators say wrong stuff about the game all the time. We really should have people grinding those numbers, and all the information should be really present. People need to take it more like a sport. I said I'm super skeptical, but it's still a sport. We need people to treat it like such. You go to a baseball game and they have the hot and cold zones of the plate, they have statistics versus left hand pitchers and right handed pitchers and curve balls and fastballs and sliders, so much information. Smash has so much information as well, characters on stages vs people and rage percents, there's so much stuff to harness and people aren't doing it, because we're lazy and/or don't have time. I feel like that's the next thing to really pop up and become huge.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.



Daniel Rosen is a writer for theScore eSports. All he really wants for Christmas is a King DeDeDe buff. You can follow him on Twitter.