Ep. 4: MkLeo Week

In this episode we take a look at some of the exciting sets that happened at Wavedash this year, with a focus on MkLeo's huge run that finally gave us a glimpse of what a revitalized MkLeo could look like going forward.

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Hey everyone. Welcome back to the fourth episode of Upset Factor. I'm your host Lukas, and today we're gonna be doing something a little bit different for this week's episode. We're gonna be talking about what happened at Wave dash 2023 this year, but rather than talking about sets between a variety of different players, I thought we would dedicate this week's episode to a player that we've talked about a lot throughout the few episodes of this podcast. And that player is MkLeo. MkLeo has had a bit of a rough season since the start of 2023 this year, and while he did have a bit of a rough performance at Crown iii, a couple weeks prior to wavedash we did get to see a glimpse of what MkLeo has been known for since the start of Ultimate in his set against Spargo and with him getting first at Wavedash, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to really dive into a lot of the sets he had at this tournament because to me this was the first tournament in a while where it's really seemed like for the entire tournament we've been seeing the MkLeo that was so prolific for the last few years of Ultimate. So with that all outta the way, let's just get into some of the sets from this tournament. So the first set we're gonna be talking about today is between T3 Dom and MkLeo and the reason I wanted to talk about this set in particular is because I think T3 Dom is a pretty unique player,, when it comes to his character choice. He plays Simon and Richter and he is the type of player that will stick with their character no matter what, and really bring out the entire potential of that character and find every little intricacy that he can to really give him a leg up in bracket, rather than choosing a character that is just at the top of the tier list that can get him wins the easiest without having to learn a lot of those intricacies. And so I say this because I think it's pretty cool that so late into the game, he's still able to find so much success with a character like Simon and Richter that is so far down the tier list, mostly because of their very lackluster recovery. So getting into the set, we saw MkLeo playing Joker for this set, and this was pretty exciting because Joker was the character that Leo played against Spargo at Crown iii, which was where I think he really showed that he still has what it takes to be the best for the first time in a while. And so getting into game one, it looked like it was gonna be a pretty cut and dry victory for MkLeo with him keeping control of the game for the majority of the time, and securing the victory with a respectable two stock lead. However, game two saw T3 Dom looking a lot more comfortable against MkLeo, with him taking advantage of Richter's oppressive ledge trapping tools to keep MkLeo in what seemed like an endless disadvantage state. And with this game taking place on Smashville, a very small stage with only one platform in the center, even if Leo was able to get off the ledge, he often had trouble finding his footing within the onslaught of projectiles coming from T3 Dom. While Leo was still able to keep the game close, T3 Dom was able to take the victory getting his first game of the set. Game three was looking like it might be the make or break moment for T3 Dom in this set as if he won, he would get to play on his counter pick stage if the set went to game five, which would be huge for him as the last game went so well in his favor when he had his choice of stage. However, it seemed like MkLeo wasn't gonna make things easy for him, as with this game taking place on Pokemon Stadium 2, a much bigger stage, he was able to escape Richter's projectiles much more consistently and get an early lead in the game. While T3 Dom was able to keep up with him after this, never getting more than a stock behind for the rest of the game, with the lead that Leo had gained and a stage that played in his favor, he was able to take the game, taking away the chance for T3 Dom to play on his choice of stage in a possible fifth game. Getting into the fourth game with Dom getting to pick the stage again, this time he took things to small Battlefield, which isn't quite as cramped as Smashville, but is still much smaller than a stage like Pokemon Stadium 2, which let him hold a lot more pressure with his projectiles, similar to how he did in the second game. This pick definitely seemed to pay off in the first stock of the match with T3 dom building up a huge lead to start things off, but Leo didn't let this phase him as he quickly brought things back, showing his mastery of all the intricate movement options that Joker is so popular for, bringing the match back to even. He then continued on from there, building up a pretty big lead of his own, and while he may have been tripped up by Richter's trapping tools in the second game, he seemed much more comfortable in this one, taking the game with a two stock victory and the set three to one. After showing off the Joker at Crown III against Spargo, while this was the only set on stream that he went solo Joker, it was still very clear that Leo's performance at Crown III was not a fluke, and the Joker was looking as clean as ever in this set against T3 Dom, and it'll only keep getting better as he brings him out more at all of the tournaments to come. And so before I mentioned how T3 Dom is sort of a character specialist in the sense that he has stuck with this character Richter, for so long since the game came out, and I think you could almost say the same about Leo when it comes to his Joker as for so, so long, he played this character and learned everything there is to know about him. And I think that's sort of what. Was the difference maker in this set because, with both players being so familiar with their characters, it really came down to Joker just having more tools to deal with a character like Richter than Richter has tools to deal with joker. So moving on to the next set we're gonna be talking about today, we're gonna talk about the set between Leo and Lui$. Lui$ is a Palutena player that has been the premiere Palutena player for a pretty long time now. We've seen other players like Chag and Chase also come up into the limelight with this character, but I think Lui$ has been the most consistent for a pretty long time, especially in tournaments as of late. One thing to talk about with this set that is quite different from the last set we talked about is, while Lui$ is also a player that has really stuck with their main Since the game's inception, T3 Dom is a player that plays a character like Richter, who is not very common, but Louis money is a player that plays Palutena which is very, very common. They're just a very fundamental character, they have very good tools, but they don't have much of a cheese factor. And once you know the matchup, and it's pretty hard not to when you're a top player nowadays it becomes a lot easier to deal with the tools that they have, no matter how good they are. And so this made things a lot easier for MkLeo as he's played Lui$ nine times now. This set was a pretty straightforward win for MkLeo with him beating out Lui$ 3 - 0 in the set and though some of the games were close, it's obvious that Leo simply has the upper hand in this matchup with him now winning eight of the sets he's played against Lui$ I think one thing that really helps Leo in a matchup like this is while Lui$ is always gonna be on Palutena, especially in the last couple years, you never really know what character Leo's gonna choose to play on any given day. And so for this set, he happened to play Byleth but even if you know you're gonna be playing against Leo if you're a player like Lui$, you have to plan for him maybe playing Byleth maybe playing Joker, maybe playing Pyra and Mythra and so with all these possible characters that Leo could be playing, and with him being so proficient at all of them, it really becomes an uphill battle for Lui$ on a character like Palutena. So getting into the next set, we're gonna be talking about MkLeo versus Nicko. And if you haven't heard of Nicko, I hadn't before watching this tournament, he is a Shulk player that has some pretty prominent wins on Spargo, T3 Dom, who we talked about earlier. Larry Lurr, who is a player that has been around for a very long time, and I say that about a lot of players, but I really mean it for Larry Lurr.. He's been around since the Smash Brawl days, which I mean, I didn't play the game back then. So, yeah. And along with those three, he has wins on a variety of other top players that I haven't even mentioned. And something that makes Nicko unique is he plays Shulk, a character that definitely isn't seen very often, but is often said to have a lot of potential with his Monado Arts, powering up specific aspects of his kit for a short amount of time and his huge sword, making it hard for a lot of characters to close the gap. So this is kind of similar to T3 Dom, where Nicko is playing a character that isn't seen so often, but he has really dived in and learned all the intricacies of that character so that he always has the upper hand, especially at the start of a set, because he will usually know the matchup against his opponents more than they will know the matchup against him. So getting into the first game, it started off looking like it would be an easy win for Leo with him taking two of Nicko's stocks before he could even take one. But then Nicko quickly brought things back, taking advantage of Shulk's Monado Arts to take two stocks of his own, and then the game, taking an early lead in the set. The second game played out very similarly with Leo taking two stocks, followed by Nico taking two stocks back. However, this time it was MkLeo who sealed off the game, hitting an Up B from Byleth into an up air, bringing it to an even set going into game three. After that second game, while Nico was still able to keep it close for both of the next two games similar to the set with T3 Dom, once MkLeo had the intricacies of Shulk figured out he was able to pretty firmly seal out his second and third win of the set, taking the victory over Nicko. This was another set where MkLeo chose to use Byleth and I definitely think out of all the characters he plays, this was a good choice because like I mentioned earlier, Shulk has such a big sword that it makes it hard for a lot of characters to get in on him. But Byleth is someone that also has a lot of reach with their moves. And so MkLeo was able to take advantage of this to not have to get in close to Shulk like a lot of characters would, which made a lot of what makes him such a powerful character not as important. So now at this point we've seen MkLeo switching up his character quite a bit with him playing Joker and Byleth in these two sets, and just a bit of a spoiler alert, there's still a lot more characters to come from him, but we've also seen a lot of rarely seen matchups in this tournament, which I think was pretty cool, coming from T3 Dom and Nicko here. So the next set we're gonna be talking about is between MkLeo and Sonix this time, and there's gonna be a few sets we talk about between these two players because MkLeo and Sonix are the two players that played in winner's finals, and grand finals of this tournament. So starting off with this winner's finals set we see another interesting character pick from MkLeo with Meta Knight, who is a character that has picked up somewhat in popularity over the last few months. he got some buffs near the end of the patch cycle for Ultimate, that made him a bit more of a real character that deserves some respect, but he never really saw much play at the top level until recently when MkLeo and a couple other players, but really mostly MkLeo have picked him up for a few matchups, and this is mostly due to the fact that he has some very quick aerials with his sword that is a bit short, but still does the job to give him some spacing tools. And he's very good at edge guarding because of his multiple jumps. And again, those very quick aerial attacks that can send people off of stage and make it so that they can't recover. And then Sonix, obviously, if you know Sonix you know, he's gonna be playing Sonic in this matchup. And so I'm assuming that MkLeo was hoping that he could use the Disjoints with Meta Knight to get in the way of Sonic's attacks and edge guard him after hitting him off stage. Getting into the first game this pick for MkLeo didn't go super well. It was pretty obvious that he wasn't able to fend off the attacks from Sonic, as with Sonic being a character that can really play the game at his own pace, even with the disjoints from Meta Knight, if you can't predict when the attack is gonna be coming so that you can outspace it, it makes it pretty hard to deal with. Sonix ended up winning this first game, and this prompted MkLeo to switch characters yet again to his fourth character of the tournament, this time it being Corrin. When I first saw this pick in this matchup, I was a bit confused because it seems like this wouldn't be a great pick , because even though Corrin does have some very big disjoints, unlike Meta Knight whose disjoints are pretty small Corrin is such a slow character that if Sonic gets a lead, they can just run away for the entirety of the match and just time you out. Or you would think that he would just be able to run you down and not really let you do anything as Corrin when you're so slow, but it actually ended up working out pretty well for Leo as he ended up winning this game pretty decisively with a two stock victory. And he got some pretty nasty kills at the ledge with Corrin's pin because I think Sonix just wasn't really ready for a lot of the moves that Corrin had in this first matchup, and he was kind of adapted to the style that Meta Knight was playing, and then with Corrin, it was a pretty big change in pace, which I think definitely played in Leo's favor. However, going into the third game, you could definitely see Sonics was adapting to the new play style that Corrin brought to the table as he didn't retreat to ledge so much so that Leo couldn't make the most out of the ledge trapping tools that Corrin has with Pin. And while he still lost this game, you could definitely see the changes that Sonics was making that would help him as the set went on. Now going into the fourth game, this was where you could really see the adaptation shine from Sonix as he was finally able to win this fourth game and while Leo was still looking pretty good and it was still a very close game, it was looking like we were maybe starting to see the cracks in the game plan from Corrin where he's just so slow that you kind of have to rely on 50 fifties of if Sonic's gonna do this or Sonic's gonna do that. And while the disjoints do help making that a bit more consistent you really have to be playing at the top of your game, and when you're at winner's finals and you've gone through so much of the tournament, that's not always as easy as it might seem. However, if you're MkLeo it usually ends up going pretty well for you, as in the fifth game, he really cleaned up his gameplay and figured out how to punish the unpredictable approaches from Sonic earning himself, the victory in this winner's finals set. So now getting into grand finals, this is where I think things got really interesting between these two players because after having some matches against each other in winner's finals on Corrin and Sonic, even though Sonix lost that winner's finals, after having a couple sets and just some time in general to reflect on what he was maybe doing wrong in those winner's finals games, he was now able to come back with a fresh slate and put forward a new game plan that maybe would help him more against this Corrin. And it definitely looked like that was how things were gonna go in the first couple of games of grand finals, as you could definitely see a change from Sonix's approach for the first couple games as one thing that he was really doing in the winner's finals games that made it harder for him to come out on top was the fact that he wasn't really taking advantage of Corrin's lackluster recovery, and he wasn't really taking a lot of chances off stage. And as he was now a bit more comfortable against the Corrin, you could tell that he was a bit more willing to go off of stage, and it was really doing wonders for him as he won the first couple games of Grand Finals a lot more handedly than he won his one game in winner's finals against Corrin. And so this continued to pay off as he really started to shine in this grand final set against Leo. And it was looking like the Corrin had expended all of its resources and it was looking like maybe Leo was gonna have to switch characters yet again to a character like maybe Pyra and Mythra, who is generally considered one of the better matchups against Sonic because of Mythra's Insane speed and combo game and their very large disjoints that they have as well that let them match the pace of Sonic and keep him from playing the game at his own pace, like he's doing so much against Corrin in these few games. And so after making a lot of adaptations and thinking through his game plan before Grand Finals, Sonics was able to take the first set of Grand finals three to zero, which was making things look pretty rough for Leo as, even though he was on winner's side, which makes it easier for him to take grand finals as he only needs to win one set where Sonix has to win two. Now, the players were on even footing and Leo was gonna have to change things up if he wanted to take things back going into this last set of grand finals. So getting into the second set of grand Finals, it was pretty surprising to see that Leo decided to just stay on Corrin. I think this was maybe because he hadn't really played Pyra and Mythra at all during this tournament, at least from what I know. If he did, it wasn't on stream at least, but, I think he probably just thought that it would be better to stick with Corrin who still wasn't doing awful against Sonic. He did lose all the games in the first set of Grand finals, but none of them were blowouts, at least, except for maybe the first game. But as he got to the second and third game, even though he was losing, the games were pretty close and it wasn't looking like everything was going wrong. So I think I agree with the fact that he stayed on Corrin rather than switching to a character like Pyra and Mythra and I think this was also maybe just because after the last few tournaments where he hasn't done as well as he maybe hoped to do on Pyra and Mythra, it seemed like he's been a bit frustrated with the character and he's decided that he's gonna focus on characters like Joker, Byleth, and maybe Corrin going forward. Going into this next set, after getting used to a bit more of the aggressive play style that Sonix was bringing forward in the first match of Grand finals, Leo was starting to mix up his recovery more, and you could definitely tell that he realized that he wasn't just gonna get back to stage for free like he did in winner's finals, and this was really paying off for him as the true finals set was going a lot better than the first set of grand finals for him. One thing you could also tell was the fact that as this set was really starting to drag on, and this tournament was so long, you could see that there were some mistakes on both players part as Sonix was starting to get hit again by the pins at the ledge and this was something that he was really good at avoiding after the first game against Corin, but now possibly just starting to tire out a bit from all the games of the day he was starting to make some mistakes that lost him the second game of this true finals set. Another thing that I think really played in Leo's favor in the second set of grand finals is the fact that he realized that he doesn't really need to approach Sonix cause he knows that Sonix is gonna come to him and I think that was why he decided to play Corrin who is a lot slower than what you normally expect against a character that you're counter picking into Sonic because with Sonic always having to come to him, even if he's unpredictable with the disjoints from Corrin being so large, it made it so that he could just sit in center stage and throw out aerials, like Corrin's forward air or neutral air, and those would lead into combos for him that would always keep him a bit ahead in the matchup, which makes it so that Sonics can't time him out, which meant he had to keep approaching which meant Leo could just keep doing these safe options in mid stage. And with Corrin's projectile, while it's not the best charge shot in the game compared to characters like Samus or Mew Two, it still does a pretty good job of forcing Sonix to do just something and not just stay at the ledge, because if he's just gonna stay there, Leo's just gonna keep firing projectiles his way, and he's just gonna keep racking up damage that will keep him from keeping the lead for very long. And this really started to seem like it was weighing on Sonix and even though he was continuing to adapt and continuing to change up his game plan, little by little, with Leo being up in the set it was only a matter of time before Leo got Sonix to the ledge once again and just like he started winner's finals with Corrin he got a two frame with pin to take grand finals, three to one. This was a pretty exciting set, even if Sonic is usually a pretty slow character, if you're someone that really likes to see the intricacies of top level play, this is a really cool set to watch because with there being so many games, you can really clearly see the change in play style that both players made as they adapted to the different characters coming out on either side and I'm really curious to see if Leo is gonna keep using this Corrin against Sonix. I think as they play more and more it might be more obvious that there are things that make this character a bit weaker compared to Sonic. And as Sonix learns the matchup more, I'm not sure that this character will really pull its own weight as much as a character like Pyra and Mythra might as I really think for this set, the difference maker was the fact that Corrin isn't a very common character and Sonix really had to learn the matchup as the game went where Leo has played Sonic so many times and he's always knowing that he's gonna be playing against Sonic when he plays Sonix so he didn't have to learn as much and he was able to take advantage of the fact that he had some breathing room where he could figure out his game plan, while Sonix was just figuring out the general game plan of Corrin. I'm curious to see as they play more sets against each other if this Corrin pick will keep paying off, or if he'll have to switch things up again to keep Sonix on his toes. So with that set over with, that's all I'm gonna be talking about today. Hopefully you enjoyed this fourth episode of Upset Factor. Since I'm a bit late to post this one, I'll be back likely with another episode next week though I'm not really sure what tournaments are coming up, so I'm gonna have to look and see what that will be about but either next week or the week after, there'll be another episode and yeah, hopefully you'll tune in for that and I'll see you in the next episode. Have a good one.