Light Is Unlocking Fox's Ultimate Potential

it's september 16th 2021 paris light ramirez puts out a joke tweet saying that his character fox sucks in super smash bros ultimate from the nintendo switch he's been in a rut as of late with less than stellar performances during the wi-fi era and the early goings-on of the post lockdown era in a response to said tweet a twitter user responded with what has become one of ultimate's most memeed phrases you gotta stop blaming your character bro you're my fave player but be honest you've been flopping you hit a slump during rona era you're good just not at the level you were pre-rona and now you're not making top eight at big tournaments you're scared embrace it practice more i believe since this tweet was posted light has won 23 tournaments and only missed one top eight he's won majors over the best players in the world beaten all of his rivals and has established himself as the best player in the united states in 2022 today we'll be taking you through the rise of one of ultimate's best players of the post-lockdown era and showing you how he broke through to become the consistent dominating force that we know and love light started out ultimate's life as the perceived best fox in the world after the best fox mane in smash 4 the legendary larry leur himself dropped the character he lived up to the title finishing 10th on the first two seasons of the pgru with impressive wins on mars nairo mk leo and esam but also some less than stellar losses to players outside the top 50. players like gas meimei dill and juice were all able to take sets off light and while each of those players are excellent they aren't near the level of top 10 in the world which made it feel like light was vulnerable to being upset by almost anyone and of course there was his loss at the hands of nairo's ganondorf at collision 2019 after winning games one and two as fox vs nairo's palutena in zero suit samus nairo went into his deep pockets and pulled out the ganondorf reverse throwing light in one of the most puzzling and exciting matches you'll ever see light had very strong placings including a third place finish at 2gg prime saga where he beat leo gluteny nairo and larry ler and second at glitch seven with wins on louis money to buzz and sam sora but he didn't have a signature tournament win his congo saga run was his highest placement at a super major but it felt like there was a wall that he just couldn't break the losses to low tiers lack of a marquee win and placements outside of the top 16 at tournaments such as shine 2019 ceo 2019 and low tier city 7 gave light a reputation as the top player most likely to be upset then covet hit and light stopped competing he was vocal about his distaste for ultimate wifi and only entered two wi-fi tournaments he entered the juice box number 38 and finished ninth to prepare for the smash world tour online qualifier which he played in and finished 33rd well outside of where he needed to be in order to qualify for the offline finals the fact that someone like you can even make it this far has proved that wi-fi is a sham his first offline major back msm 240 and a last chance qualifier for smash summit 3 went poorly he was the number one seed but lost to the mustachioed bowser junior legend ketchup in one of the most exciting sets in the history of ultimate to fall to losers early or send finished the job knocking him out at 17th that brings us back to where we started light has been called out on twitter.com and he has the opportunity to respond but how you may ask the best way he knows on the sticks he won his next seven locals with a strong fifth place finish at glitch 8.5 with wins over zomba ned and cosmos in between then he reached his highest peak yet at smash con 2021 winning the tournament with an epic losers run losing to jackal but then beating pinkfresh mars cola mvd meister who beat him at glitch and double eliminating the white hot spargo in game 5 of true finals to take his first ever major but it's light he'll lose to some low tiers and keep playing inconsistently right it looked like that might happen light got 7th at main stage and then a disappointing 13th at glitch infinite where he lost jake and vendetta and very nearly lost to the former little mac main alternas but in what felt like a reversal of fate he gutted out a game 3 win and survived after that though light reached a new level 5th at collision 2022 4th at genesis 8 3rd at pound 2022 second at smash summit 4 and now first at momocon light not only reached new peaks but new levels of consistency the only players he's lost to since glitch are mk leo spargo gluteny tweak and riddles all of whom have a case to be top ten in the world if not top five and in that same time frame he's either beaten or outplaced each one of those players at a major he has become death destroyer of worlds but how has he done this what changed and how is he leveled up so fast well first let's talk about what makes fox go fox's engine the thing that makes this character so scary it's this situation right here riddles has entered shield respecting the burst of dash attack but light is already jumping ready to pressure that shield with fox's incredible aerials the threat of fox's nare is the obvious one it's frame four it's minus three on shield when landed perfectly and combos into just about fox's whole kit at some percents from jab at zero to up smash at ko percent by taking off from this far away fox also has the ability to mix up his landing with just one move he presents a number of different scenarios is he gonna cross up is he gonna hit you from the front of your shield is he going to intentionally whiff to bait out a grab or other laggy out of shield option other characters can put you in these kinds of situations too but fox is fast enough especially when piloted by someone like light to make you feel like you have no choice but to guess but there's one big problem difficult as it can be to execute perry is an incredibly strong answer to this whole situation fox's best recourse against someone who can consistently perinaire is typically to empty landon to grab as fox that's not going to do big damage or land a fatal blow for much of ultimate's life the move that was supposed to be the answer to this situation fox's multi-hit and therefore anti-parry down air was too inconsistent too often the linking hitboxes would fail to hold the opponent in for the entire move fox has another potential multi-hit answer in forward air a move that light used with incredible creativity back in smash 4 but unfortunately once again the linking hitboxes were inconsistent and with a character as light as fox you simply cannot afford to use moves that drop when both characters are at high percents it was easy to miss during lockdown when all the foxes were in hibernation but patch 10.1 included some critical buffs for exactly this situation the linking hitboxes on both dare and fair received major increases in size fair also received an interesting change its linking hitboxes were nerfed in power a change that actually became a buff for fox it made landing fare into a combo tool a move that can pop opponents up for up smashes up airs and tech chases on platforms and that also makes it the key to unlocking the situation above against the player like riddles who's not only godlike at parrying but has a character capable of taking your stock off of the parry at just about any percent let's watch how that situation above played out riddles actually plays pretty fantastic defense all things considered he swings out of shield baited by the whiffed nare but his drift keeps him safe from a wood bko upsmash riddles even finds a couple of parries as light keeps on the offensive but light's mix-ups in this situation are incredible as he works in fair bare and multiple cross-up angles to keep riddles from being able to swing back with go light's movement also kept him safe from the jabs and down tilts that could have led to a ko buster wolf most notable here though was the use of fair it kept riddles from getting comfortable with perry and eventually led to a ko thanks to the reduced knockback from patch 10.1 let's run the numbers on that situation you want to talk about pressure in a 32 second stretch light threw out 18 landing aerials without getting punished for a single one only five of them actually hit including a trade three hit shield and two more were parried with none of the five leading to any sort of a punish for riddles but nothing illustrates just how clean and unpredictable light's pressure was better than the fact that he got away with eight clean whiffs in front of a terry with go his spacing and timing were both tight enough that riddles was reduced to guessing to when to parry when to grab and when to swing he held strong for as long as you can reasonably expect but light just kept battering and eventually he broke through consistency was the biggest issue for light in the pre-lockdown game but the patch 10.1 fixes have given him new ways of opening up opponents to find stocks if fox misses the nair up smash window he can have a hard time opening up evasive opponents who know raw upsmash is now the big ko option they need to avoid fair's newfound ability to serve as both a consistent anti-parry tool and a late percent ko setup made it one of the biggest buffs that slid under the radar during lockdown unsurprisingly raw bear and raw upsmash were light's two most common ko options in momocon's top 24 where he took down didi riddles sonics and debuzz twice taking a total of 47 stocks in the process again unsurprisingly nair upsmash was his next most common method of taking stocks but take note of the prevalence of fox's multi-hit aerials on this list nair led to 10 kos where darren fair combined to take eight stalks even landing up air made an appearance with punishing a sonic's grab to end a tense game too light's speed and execution made him scary enough when you only have to worry about one button but the thing that made light's fox stand out in smash 4 was his creativity and advantage with the addition of a more consistent fear and dare to his arsenal light has gone from getting punished for thinking outside the box to getting rewarded for it now fully able to take advantage of his speed and control over one of the game's most explosive characters he's reaching his full potential not only is he looking like one of the few players in the world capable of competing with the upper echelon of mk leo and spargo but light is also quickly becoming one of the most difficult to upset in a tournament's early rounds now with two major wins under his belt light currently has the strongest claim to the title of best player in the united states players like tweek and debuzz are certainly capable of challenging but light has never looked better light's gameplay just gets stronger and more diverse and now it's on the rest of the world to adapt can anybody stop the summer of smash from becoming the summer of light well we'll have to wait to get our answer as light will be absent at smash's next major battle of bc4 but plenty of top players like gluteny shuton t and meister will be in attendance with tons of talent fighting it out for the championship subscribe now to keep up with our coverage of battle of bc4 and the whole summer of smash thanks for watching my name's last and you can check me out on twitter at l4st underscore v1 i hope you enjoyed the video and i'll see you next time [Music] you

Channel: PGstats

Views: 92,992

Keywords: pgstats, pgstats ultimate, pgstats smash ultimate, panda global, super smash bros ultimate, smash ultimate, pgstats smash, pgstats reaction, smash tournament winners, momocon 2022, momocon, momocon smash ultimate, light, light smash bros, light fox, moistcritikal, moist esports, dabuz, liquid dabuz, team liquid, ddee, ddee steve, combo breaker, combo breaker 2022, combo breaker smash, maister smash, panda global reaction, light fox guide, light fox combos, light fix upsmash

Id: FY68MSkeH00

Length: 10min 54sec (654 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 03 2022