August 16th, 2015, Natick Massachusetts. Kyle “Kycse” Carrero begins his run in the final Project M bracket at Blacklisted by losing his round one match against Steel Kangaroo, a well known Ivysaur player.

For many, this came as no surprise. Kycse wasn’t really known outside of his own region of Connecticut, where he wasn’t even the best player. Many of those who did know Kycse only saw him as notable because he used Charizard, a character that saw little representation.

The loss from Steel Kangaroo put Kycse in losers side, round 2: a place no one wants to be in a 68 man bracket. However, his first few matches were against people around his skill level, giving hope to the fairly new player. He beat his first three opponents, putting him up against SteroKidd, one of the best Ness players at the time, in losers round 5. SteroKidd was seeded 5th in the whole bracket. Kycse was seeded 49th.

Kycse won the set.

From here, Kycse went on to beat Hyperflame, who is currently ranked 7th on the 2017 PM Rank. Kycse then lost to the old school Sheik player, Hatt, netting him a 9th place finish out of the total 138 entrants.

Kycse vs. Hyperflame at Smashadelphia, via CLASH Tournaments

Since then, Kycse has risen to the top of Project M’s competitive scene. Currently ranked 12th on the 2017 PM Rank, he’s widely considered the best Charizard player, and has placed within top 12 at every tournament he’s attended in 2018. However, with his glory comes humble beginnings.

Kycse has been playing video games since as early as 1996, when he received a Nintendo Entertainment System for Christmas. “My Grandma had one, and I used to play with her,” Kycse said. His grandmother facilitated his love for video games by playing puzzle games with him, their favorites being Adventures of Lolo and Tetris. His grandmother also enjoyed watching him play other, more action oriented games.

Kysce’s memories of family and video games don’t stop there. When he was still young, he used to play fighting games like Street Fighter and Marvel Vs. Capcom with his uncle. “I was always trying to beat him,” he said, remembering his uncle’s fearsome Akuma. This desire to best his uncle sparked Kycse’s drive to get better at fighting games.

He continued playing fighting games with friends, family, and strangers at arcades. “I loved the mind vs. mind aspect of playing arcades,” he said. This passion for one-on-one competition led to Kycse entering his first ever fighting game tournament, a Marvel Vs. Capcom tournament at a local Gamestop in 2006. He recalls his experience:

“I remember being so nervous… I had trouble even walking i …I felt out of place. I played in the tournament, went 0–2, and then just went home.”

With such a disheartening experience, many players would have given up. But Kycse didn’t. He continued to go to local tournaments once every few months. While he never did well, he grew accustomed to the tournament setting, and began to enjoy it.

A few years later, Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released. Kycse had played Super Smash Bros. Melee with friends as a kid, and was excited for the new addition to the series. Specifically, his excitement came from the addition of two of his favorite characters: Wolf and Charizard.

After Brawl’s release, Kycse attended two tournaments for the game, receiving lackluster results at both. In his second tournament, he used Wolf, and lost to a female player by the name of Kiwi, who is still active in the Smash 4 community today. At this point, Kycse lost interest in Brawl, realizing smash wasn’t his forte. He continued playing fighting games semi-seriously.

Kycse Competing at Blacklisted 3. Photo via Princess Hyrule Photography

Coming from a background of traditional 2D fighting games, Kycse had never really seen smash as more than a party game, and his experiences with Brawl only strengthened that notion. This changed in early 2013, when his friend asked him if he played Melee.

“Yea, I play Melee!” Kycse replied. He had experience with the game from playing with friends, and he saw himself being just as good as anyone else. However, he realized that he didn’t really play Melee when his friend four-stocked his Fox moments later.

After noticing that he didn’t quite know what he was doing, Kycse’s friend began to show him the ropes. His friend introduced him to wavedashing and L-cancelling, and taught him how to conserve jumps and recover. “That kinda opened my eyes up to the game,” Kycse said.

This interaction gave Kycse a new-found respect for Melee, but it hadn’t made him want to play the game. That moment would come 6 months later, during EVO 2013.

EVO is one of the largest fighting game tournament series in the world, calling forth players from all over the globe. Usually, there are eight main stage games at EVO, which are all announced at the same time. However, in 2013, they did something different. There would be a ninth game, which would be determined by a community donation drive. People would donate money towards what game they want, and the money would go towards breast cancer research.

This started a large donation war between the Melee and Skullgirls communities. Eventually, Melee pulled through on top, raising almost $100,000.

While this was truly an accomplishment, Kycse wasn’t too happy, as he had donated $10 towards Skullgirls. Despite his disappointment, he watched Melee on EVO’s stream, and found a new interest in the game.

While he enjoyed what he watched, Kycse didn’t fully understand everything that was going on in competitive Melee, so he began to look up videos about the game and its tech. In doing this research, he stumbled upon something; a trailer, for a mod of Brawl, called Project M 3.0.

The first thing he noticed about the trailer were the characters. His favorite characters from Brawl, Wolf and Charizard, were in the game, and Charizard had even been given his own character slot, separate from Pokémon Trainer. Two other characters from Melee, Roy and Mewtwo, were also added, each with new moves and abilities.

“It looked so cool, I couldn’t wait to try it… I guess that’s what really got me into smash,”

With Project M being more of an underground game than Melee, the tournaments weren’t exactly the same as the ones Kycse was accustomed to. The first PM tournament he attended was MIGGSFEST on May 10th, 2014, which was hosted in a player named Miggs’ own house to celebrate his birthday. Kycse had heard about the tournament/fest on Smashboards.

“It was a really chill time… everyone was so friendly… Everyone was interested in who I was, since I kinda just showed up out of nowhere… I actually met a lot of people who I still call friends today.”

From here, Kycse began his journey as a Project M player. He was always a force to be reckoned with in the early days of the Connecticut PM scene, but he wouldn’t receive national recognition until his 9th place finish at Blacklisted in August of 2015.

After Blacklisted, Kycse remained dominant throughout 2016, placing within top 32 at most major tournaments he attended. This includes Blacklisted 2, where he beat Malachi, who was ranked 4th on the 2016 PMRank.

Kycse vs. Malachi at Blacklisted 2, via GameUnderground

In the same year, he managed to secure a few wins over his rival, Flipp, who was ranked first in Connecticut and 10th on the 2016 PMRank. Up until Flipp’s recent hiatus, Kycse and Flipp traded the number one and number two spot on Connecticut’s PR frequently. “I’m sure if he wanted to come out, he could put me in my place right now,” Kycse said.

By the end of 2016, Kycse had secured his spot as the best Charizard player in the world, ranking 44th in the 2016 PMRank. He carried this dominance into 2017, taking sets off several players within the 2016 and 2017 PMRank top 10, and securing the number 12 spot on the 2017 PMRank.

When asked about his greatest accomplishments in his smash career, he said “I’ve yet to feel that big accomplishment…. My goal is to win a national. I know I can do it, I just need to beat Switch.”

Switch, currently ranked number 4 on the 2017 PMRank, has proven to be one of Kycse’s biggest rivals. He’s managed to take sets off the other heavy hitters on the east coast, like Malachi and DVD, but a win on Switch has remained elusive.

Despite his struggle against Switch, Kycse doesn’t plan on diminishing his tournament presence any time soon. He’s recently attended Push More Buttons, Splash’N’Splash 4, and Even Bigger Balc where he placed 7th, 5th, and 9th respectively.

With big plans for 2018, this could be the year Kycse breaches the top 10 on the PMRank and wins a national, finally achieving his goal as a player.