For players and spectators, at home or at the event, Big House 9 turned out to be a magical event socially and tournament wise. The community praised the event for its relaxed food and drink policy, therapy dogs, and its incredibly well-run tournament that birthed one of the best top eight brackets of recent years. Lucky and HugS give their take on the event, how they did, their stories, and what they hope the community, including themselves, will accomplish in 2020.

Big House is arguably the biggest tournament series of the year. Some of the most all-time classic matches have been at a Big House tournament. How did you feel Big House did this year in comparison to the past Big Houses? Was it a good enough tournament to end the year?

HugS: Yeah, I thought it was the best Big House I’ve been to because Rob (JuggleGuy) made some changes on how he approached it, based on his experience with other tournaments such as Summit where he put a focus on the social experience of the attendees. For example, he had the therapy dogs there, he had an open food and drink policy in the venue itself so people could bring their own food and sometimes an alcoholic drink. Everyone seemed to have a better time and it wasn’t all about the tournament only. Also, that was one of the best top eights I have ever seen.

Lucky: I want to say that Big House has been keeping it high level consistently, in terms of everything that surrounds the event. The venue is nice, the hotels around it are great, plenty of food around, plenty of things to do outside of the tournament and inside the tournament. Plenty of setups and the tournament usually runs well. The top eight was fantastic which I think has a lot to do with a good tournament in my eyes; as a spectator and a player.

Which is your favourite Big House and why? What are some of your favourite memories from Big House?

HugS: For me, it’s either this one or Big House 4. This one had an amazing top eight. It was a lot of fun in general because, as I said, they focused on the social parts of the tournament. Also, I think Detroit has become much better as a city, so the city was cool to explore. However, Big House 4 was awesome, I think it was where they still had the tournament in the same place as the hotel so that was awesome. The matches were great, Joey verses Westballz for example and Mango I think won that too. It was just a sick tournament.

Lucky: Yeah, my favourite Big House was definitely Big House 4. There’s a whole little story that goes into it which is: I really couldn’t afford to travel on my own. Hugo offered to pay for my flight and hotel if I teamed with him. It was a whole ‘outside of the tournament scene’ experience where I just had a friend to hook me up to be able to go to an event and then have that event be one of the best of my career. I got 5th place, beating Hungrybox, I beat Westballz in top eight, I went to last game, last hit with Mang0 who ended up winning the whole tournament, it was a fantastic event for me. I started off top 64 in Losers bracket which was ridiculous, I made it to 5th place from there! All from a homie buying my flights.

HugS: We got bodied in teams though!

Lucky: It also marks the end of Hugo’s teaming career!

HugS: I never did teams again after that.

HugS, you placed 33rd after losing to Tai and La Luna. Is the Marth matchup something you feel you need to work on or were there other factors on that day that you felt affected your gameplay? How do you feel you were playing and can you talk us through your tournament experience and your matches?

HugS: I think the matchup is getting harder because the Marth players have realised they don’t have to commit to anything. So it’s turning into a really long grind. Normally, that’s okay, I’m fine with playing that match but in those specific two games, when you do something like an SD, you end up so far behind. You have to stay on point and keep up. They’re never going to commit, so it’s never going to happen to them. You can still win it but if you make a mistake like that, it costs you big time. I think it’s still doable against both of them, it’s just multiple SDs cost me on both sets. They play the way they play, they’re not committing so it made it a grind that I couldn't really catch up to.





Lucky, you placed within the Top 8, losing to TheRealThing and Liquid | Hungrybox. You expressed your interest in playing Hungrybox again after Smash Con. How do you feel your matches went against Hungrybox this time and can you talk us through your tournament experience and your matches?

Lucky: The Hungrybox one I felt great about. Obviously, it sucks to lose and you never want to, but Hungrybox is such a ridiculous player that I don’t really expect to be able to beat him after the second or third shot. Especially considering his character is probably the character that you need to study the most. You can’t just get by by relying on punish game and edgeguarding. You need to study the character’s habits. I’ve been trying to go about it the hard way and just figure it out myself as I go, and I’ve been doing pretty good in bracket so I’ve been getting more shots at playing him. Overall, it’s been a learning experience with each time that I play him. Every time I do play him, I want to play him even more. I feel even more so that ‘I can’t wait to play him’ than I did at Smash Con. Obviously, things aren’t going perfect yet, but I feel like I’m getting really close. The only other match that matters I guess was the against TheRealThing which was my other loss. That one was just… I don’t know. I know I accidentally left my glasses at the hotel. I don’t want to john but I’m going to john. I was warming up and I started getting a headache. I had to play in ten minutes and I was like ‘Noooo!’, so I ran across the street to get my glasses from my hotel room. The hotel elevator shut down as I was going up to get my glasses. I was stuck in the elevator for five to ten minutes and I was so terrified. I just thought I was never going to be seen again and twilight zoned in this f****** elevator. I got out of the elevator, I got my glasses, I debated on taking the stairs as I didn’t want to get stuck in the elevator again. Got down, ran across the street and literally sat down immediately to play TheRealThing. It did not go my way, whatsoever. I didn’t even tweet about it, I was just so in the zone and upset that I lost that I just sat down and started grinding, grinding, grinding.

Do you wish you had done anything differently to prepare?

Lucky: I think the only thing I would have done differently would have been to bring my glasses to the venue. Obviously, study a little more on the Jigglypuff matchup, which I’ve already started doing right after the event. I shouldn’t be making it harder on myself so I’m already working on that.

HugS: I think I was prepping fine, I honestly just wish I was playing better at the moment. That’s really it for me. I’ve been working on the Marth matchup, it’s just these guys are not fighting anymore so maybe I could prepare something that could beat them out in the neutral. Otherwise, I’m mostly just crediting it to the way I was playing that day.





Which sets did you enjoy playing the most and which sets did you enjoy watching the most?

Lucky: For me, it would definitely be my set against Wizzrobe. S2J is one of my training partners, so that’s probably one of my favourite matchups. I feel like I don’t get a lot of chances to play Wizzy so finally getting to play him and finally getting to beat him while he’s at such a high point, ranked number two or three or something like that, I was super stoked to play well and take the win. Watching sets, there’s probably no other answer than Mang0 verses Zain; that set was probably one of the best sets in recent years, let alone this year.

HugS: For me, my favourite set to watch was definitely Mang0 verses Zain in Grand Finals. To play, honestly, the ones I had the most fun with, were the ones that I lost, so I still didn’t really like those. There was one I played to make it into top 64, this Marth, where there was some drama with the Toronto boys cheering me on and he got upset that they were cheering for me. He confronted one of them and this Toronto guy didn’t back down and he told him to “sit the f*** down”. It was pretty crazy. I had no part in it. I told my friend to chill out but he wouldn’t so I just walked away. In terms of gameplay though, I can’t say I really had a favourite match.

Now the year is over, we start fresh in 2020 with the first supermajor of the year, Genesis. If you could give feedback to this, or any tournament that you attended this year, what would it be? What would you like to see improved at tournaments in 2020?

HugS: A couple of things that matter to me are the social experiences of the attendees. It’s not all about the tournament for a lot of people. A lot of people get knocked out early and they have to look forward to other things, so making sure that the viewing stage is dope, something Big House had going for it. Sometimes it’s hard to avoid, but the city matters. I hope tournaments try to focus on not going for the shittiest and cheapest cities that can get a little sketchy. Also, making sure that tournament players can have the best chance at performing well and doing their job right. Sometimes, they have tournaments that have setups with arduinos and then on warm up day, those arduinos are gone. So then they can’t warm up. They don’t open the venue until an hour before their bracket is supposed to start. A lot of the times, it’s not enough time to warm up as they also have to find the proper person to practice against. Things like that, that will help players do their job properly without having to battle against the tournament as well.

Lucky: Everything that Hugo said but the only thing I would add to it is just that, I really, really dislike the idea that we have to switch between UCF and arduinos every other tournament. It doesn’t happen that often but when it does, it’s kind of ridiculous when you think about it. We have to switch between versions. I understand maybe when you’re going to overseas tournaments, such as Europe. You have to get used to PAL because that’s the version they play but we’re in the States. We’re switching between versions just because we’re going to different tournaments, it really makes no sense to me. I hope we drop one or the other and just stick to one universally for every US tournament.





What advice would you give to 2020 you? What would you like to see improved in yourselves for 2020?

HugS: Now that I’ve actually managed to fully move into Jersey, it’s just to be able to get on the regular grind. I think the reason I started doing better towards later in the year is because I was travelling to so many tournaments back to back, that became my practice. Whereas, earlier in the year, that wasn’t the case and I didn’t really have any setup to work with. Now that I do, I’m just going to try to put in the hours again to get better.

Lucky: I can’t say I really have any big advice except to stick to the schedule that I’ve been on. I think I’ve really been changing the way everything works with my lifestyle and grinding, from the first part of the year to the second half. My results have shown it over and over again for the last half of the year. If I can just keep that up for next year and make that my diehard schedule, I’ll be completely fine.

If you'd like to follow HugS' tournament career and daily updates, you can follow him on Twitter and you can also follow his Twitch! You can also follow Lucky's stream schedule and tournament updates on Twitter and Twitch!