Schrödinger's Warlock: A Boot Between Worlds
Vermanubis - April 29, 2017Ganon is an exceptionally unique character. He's routinely cited as among the worst -- sometimes the worst. Though it's hard to argue otherwise, this somehow gives most of us pause. Characters like Jiggs and Zelda can be recognized for what they are with very little grey area: they're simply, for the most part, bad characters. You'd have to perform a mental trapeze act to imagine Jiggs or 1111 Swordfighter winning anything meaningful. But that's not really the case with Ganon. You can imagine Ganon winning things (a strain though it may be!).
Somehow, Ganon exists simultaneously in both a tier where he's largely irrelevant and non-viable and a tier where we Ganons hope without the slightest bit of irony to produce meaningful wins on the world stage. What makes Ganon so hard to classify?
Though there are actually a lot of answers to that question, all of which holding nearly equal stake in the complete explanation and some of the more obvious ones being that he's just strong as hell. But the reason I want to look at is probably the most, let's say, Ganony, thing about him.
By and large, Ganon's most singular property is that he has just about every tool to successfully negotiate every state in the game; advantage, disadvantage, shields, offstage, neutral; you name it, he's got it. When you look at the characters mentioned above, such as Jiggs, you notice sooner or later that there are some things she just simply can't deal with, at least, not in a way that forces your opponent's hand into a disadvantageous guess. In stark contrast thereto, however, she has definite, reliable tools whose value isn't counterfactual. Ganon, on the other hand, I would argue doesn't. Though he has the tools to deal with everything, those tools are in no sense consistent, reliable or independent of the good sense of the player behind him.
To wit, consider that Ganon, I'd argue, has the most diverse player base of any character; no two Ganons play the same, nor in a way that is easily mistaken for another. Why? Because Ganon rarely has an "optimal" option in a given scenario because he's, all things considered, one long string of guesses. If you successfully guess your opponent -- or manipulate; pick your favorite -- you reap the harvest. If you don't, you pay in spades.
This means that Ganon ultimately can go only as far as you can successfully manipulate your opponent's expectations and wants. This, to the chagrin of myself and those like me, a consistent character does not make. A capable character? Indeed! But as people learn the MU more and more, Ganon's windows of opportunity, and by extension, probability of success, taper and they bottleneck us into a long game of relying on 1-to-1 prediction.
Thus we stand with a boot in each world: we have everything we could ever need to deal with anything, but with the cumbersome stipulation that we must meet every option with nearly 1:1 precision.
This blog post was written by a SSB World community member. Share your Smash 4 knowledge by creating your own blog post now.
You must log in to comment.
Comments