Community Competitor Spotlight: Penguin

By SBS — July 1, 2021

Penguin is without a doubt one of the best players in Rivals of Aether history. He’s been ranked on every Top 50 to date, has been a Top 10 player since Season 2, and Top 3 since Season 3. Penguin’s rise to the spotlight brought him to the Grand Finals of RCS Finals three years in a row, where he finally captured first place to cap off Season 5. We recently reached out to Penguin to learn more about him and his history in Rivals.

Penguin with his first place ring at Frostbite 2020.

How did you first hear about Rivals and get into the scene as a competitor?

Penguin: I don’t remember how I first found rivals, but remember being attracted to it as “oh, it’s like Melee… but I can play it online (this long predates Slippi and before i knew about netplay).” At this point I had gone to my melee weekly for about a month and a half, but had no one to play it with outside of those weeklies.

I then, like any good Rivals player, stopped playing the game after about 2 weeks. A few weeks after I stopped playing Rivals happened to be Smash Con 2016, which I was attending in order to play Melee. I saw the Rivals booth and thought to myself, “Oh, I know that game! That Zetterburn’s fireball is kinda like Falco laser.” …I then went on to play the game for 4 days straight, DQ out of Melee, and come back the following SSC as a Top 10 player.

How long have you been competing in events? How long did you play online before entering brackets, and then how long did it take to enter your first local tournament?

Penguin: I’ve been competing in Rivals events since August of 2016, at Smash Con ‘16. I’m weird in that I found it offline first and did play in that bracket, getting 33rd. After that I played in strictly online tourneys for a year grinding my [butt] off, and then came back the next year to play in SSC ‘17, Shine ‘17, and finish the season with Genesis 5.

To answer how long I played before entering brackets, after that SSC ‘16 bracket on August 13th of that year, the next tournament I played in was NAS #20 on November 17th. In that 3 month gap I entirely played ranked/exhibition since I didn’t know where to find tourneys. I then found one of the old Rivals steam groups (which was already dead when I found it) and posted in there asking to play. Someone in there was kind enough to point me to the main rivals discord where I then also found the NCS discord and played in NAS immediately – where I won the tourney :).

How often do you practice the game and how has that changed over the years?

Penguin: My first year of playing the game I was a small child with lots of free time, meaning I was able to play Rivals for a minimum of 4 hours every day without fail… while also playing CS:GO competitively at the same time. At one point I played 5 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 8 months. It would not be an exaggeration to say I played on average, 4 hours of Rivals and 5 hours of CS:GO every day without fail.

Since then I’ve stopped playing CS:GO competitively, and any other game I play semi-competitively, takes much more of a backseat than CS:GO ever did. I simply don’t have the time to grind as hard as I once did.

For RCS Seasons 2-4 I played an absolute minimum of 2 hours every single day. I remember doing the math on my steam hours and calculating how many hours on average I played since the day I bought it, which at the time was 3.5 hours over 3 years. I typically ramp up the week before any major, and I pretty religiously don’t play the game for at least 4 days whenever I get back from a major. Gives me a nice cooldown from nonstop Rivals action.
During COVID my grind definitely slowed down, playing right now on average an hour every day.

You have been a Top 2 player for the last 3 years, while never dropping in rank since your first Top 50 appearance in Season 1. How have you kept such a high level of consistency throughout the majority of the game’s lifespan?

Penguin: I think there are 2 major factors that result in my consistency:
1. I put a lot of effort into my composure early on in my career. I remember very vividly playing against Kaos at Genesis 5 and being so nervous my hands were shaking and I swapped off of Absa simply because I couldn’t do any technical inputs. Since then I’ve taken steps to keeping cool while playing, on top of being an already pretty stoic person. Including breathing exercises, taking advantage of all time granted to me in a set, and yes… the mints.

2. My game-plan when it comes to a set is very flow chart-y and can apply to anyone I play against. I have a hierarchy of goals at every point of a game, and have a clear idea in my head of how to best set myself up to achieve the highest one. This is best exemplified in my edgeguards, where I do everything I can to slowly strip my opponent of their resources and cut-off as many options as I can, until eventually their only option is death.

What has been your proudest moment throughout your career?

Penguin: I can’t pick between two, winning SnS5 or winning RCS Season 5 Finals. SnS5 was my 2nd big major win, but more importantly grands was a loooong set against Cake where I maintained myself and clutched it out in the end even after he got a bracket reset on me. Whether I was correct or not, at the time GTX felt like a fluke to me, so SnS5 was my first “real” major win. And then obviously winning an RCS Season is a crowning achievement for any Rivals player, but I’d be lying if I said an online tournament felt the same as the theater at Genesis.

After finally winning an RCS Finals event in Season 5, what are your goals in Season 6?

Penguin: One thing, and one thing alone, get ranked #1.

What’s the thing you’re looking forward to most this Summer (Rivals or otherwise)?

Penguin: Obviously I’m looking forward to Riptide a ton, and there’s a million reasons to be looking forward to Riptide. However, outside of that I’m not sure if there’s much more I’m looking forward to outside of a general return to normalcy (whatever that’ll look like) with vaccines and everything rolling out.

Do you have any personal goals or interests outside of Rivals that you’re aiming to focus on?

Penguin: In-terms of games I play both Rocket League and Valorant next to Rivals, where I’m ranked Champion 3 and Diamond 3 respectively for those curious.

Academically/career-wise I’m currently majoring in computer science with a focus on artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Categories: Community, Esports, News | Comments: 1

Community Tournament Organizer Spotlight: Pride

By SBS — June 25, 2021

Pride is one of several TOs that joined the community over the last year, bringing the wildly competitive PX series to North America. Pride’s tournaments, PX East and PX West, run every Friday with a stream utilizing Rivals Spectator Mode and a special East Vs West battle of champions to finish the night. We recently reached out to Pride to learn more about him and his background to give this amazing community member a well-deserved spotlight.

How did you first hear about Rivals and get into the scene as a competitor?

Pride: I heard about the game way back when it went into Early Access. My main competitive focus at the time was Melee, but I had a lot of fun playing Rivals casually with my roommates when it first came out. Back then, I mostly played Maypul because her dash attack was broken.

Later on I switched to Smash Ultimate. When the pandemic hit in 2020, I grew dissatisfied with Smash’s poor online experience and started to explore other titles. I ended up rediscovering Rivals, and was really impressed with all the improvements and new content since I’d last played it. I remember picking Elliana and thinking her hover mechanic was super cool. And the overall feel and balance of the game just felt really good. A week later I ran a tournament, and the rest is history. These days, I mostly play Ori because their dash attack is broken.

How long have you been running events? How did you get started and what motivated you to get active in the community?

Pride: When I picked up Rivals again last April, I wanted to compete. I didn’t really know much about the broader North American Rivals community back then – really all I knew were a handful of Ultimate and PM players in my region (Seattle) who also played Rivals. And our scene didn’t really have any kind of tournament. So I got 8 of us together and ran a bracket on my stream. That was PX Rivals #0. We had a blast, it was the closest I’d felt to attending a local since quarantine began.

So I ran it again next week. The week after, some Oregon players asked to join, and about a month later we added California. Back then, there weren’t a lot of other West Coast tourneys besides for WCS. So it was important to me to keep pushing PX Rivals, as a community hub and as a place for WC players to showcase their skills.

We’ve continued to run the event every week since. The scope has grown to a double-header event featuring both the East and West halves of North America. Every week I get to watch top players duke it out live while sharing the mic with some of my favorite people. I love running the series, it has and continues to introduce me to lots of awesome people in the scene.

There are very few TOs that stream tournaments in Spectator mode, what about this format entices you to stream this way?

Pride: I love watching live tournaments. Melee Top 8 streams always used to get my adrenaline pumping and fuel my passion for competing. I also love the community aspect of locals, which I didn’t want to lose in the age of COVID. So it’s always been important to me to keep PX Rivals a live experience. I want the event to capture as much of that magic as possible.

The series began months before Definitive Edition was released, so we didn’t have spectator mode at first. We made do with Steam Broadcast and grew our scene around that. Steam Broadcast and spectator mode haven’t always been the most popular decisions, but I believe they’ve gone a long way toward defining the atmosphere at PX.

People sometimes ask me why watching an event live is different from watching a replay without spoiling yourself. For me personally, there’s more than simply the suspense of not knowing what’s gonna happen. There’s also knowing that every single other person in the audience with you is experiencing that same suspense. There’s knowing that we’re all going to find out what happens at the same time. And I love how when everyone’s reactions are in sync, they amplify each other.

You have a pretty interesting format, running two region-locked (PX East and PX West) events. Why did you go this route instead of having one big North American event like other TOs run?

Pride: So, I can give my retroactive justifications for why I think it’s a good format. Splitting North America in half prevents anyone from having to play egregious cross-continent connections in tournament. It also mitigates issues introduced by time zone differences – full-NA events typically have to compromise between starting too early for West Coast and too late for East Coast.

But really, the reasons are historical. PX Rivals did not begin as a North American event but rather as a tiny Seattle-based local that grew bigger over time. Restricting long-distance connections was always a priority for the event. By PX Rivals #31, we were already starting to really push the boundary of what that meant, as our “West Coast” event now spanned from Hawaii to the Rockies. I really didn’t want to increase the region size beyond that.

Around that time, we were starting to get East Coast players in chat expressing interest in participating themselves. So I started to think, if I ran an EC event before our standard WC event, maybe EC people would wanna stick around and check out our top WC players. And maybe we’ll get WC folks tuning in for EC, and maybe this can help bring the overall community together more. So the next week we tried out the double-header format, and we’ve been running it that way ever since.

With local tournaments slowly coming back in some capacity, do you intend to host any LAN tournaments, or do you think you will stick to strictly online?

Pride: Offline events interest me, but the logistics are more complicated. Finding a venue and securing enough setups can be difficult. I’ll say that it’s not out of the question, but offline events are not my priority in the near future. Regardless of whether I host any LAN events, I definitely intend to keep running PX Rivals and want to push it as far as I can.

What are your interests outside of the gaming community?

Pride: My professional background is in artificial intelligence research. Over the last ten years I’ve been involved in a number of fields including audio analysis, gesture recognition, and game AI. Most recently I worked on chatbots and programming language analysis at Microsoft Research. AI is super cool, and I’m especially interested in AIs that reason with programmatic constructs, a young and challenging field.

I’m also passionate about making music. Folks who regularly tune into our events are probably familiar with the PX Rivals Theme. I play the bass and a number of other instruments, and my music tends to be influenced by rock and trip hop. I’ve been streaming live jam sessions lately and I’m hoping to continue doing that more!

What’s the thing you’re looking forward to most this Summer (Rivals or otherwise)?

Pride: In terms of Rivals, I can’t wait for rollback. Even with offline events returning, online is still going to be incredibly important, especially to those with small local scenes. Rollback is going to be a huge step for Rivals.

Outside of Rivals, I’m excited to finally see some live music again! I’m sure a lot of exciting acts will visit Seattle.

Is there anything you would like to say to the Rivals community reading this feature?

Pride: PX Rivals happens every Friday! Come compete, watch, commentate. Join our Discord for more information.

Big shoutouts to LilFox15, Tricki3, and everyone else who helps the series run smoothly.

Categories: Community, News | Comments: 1

Community Commentator Spotlight: GPik

By SBS — June 18, 2021

GPik is one of the most prolific commentators in the Rivals community, capable of holding down the mic at any event imaginable. GPik is widely known for his uncanny combination of professionalism and game knowledge of any event he works. We recently reached out to GPik to learn more about him and his background to give this amazing community member a well-deserved spotlight.

How did you first hear about Rivals and get into the scene as a competitor?

GPik: I had heard about Rivals across multiple Smash 4 events and even watched some of it at CEO Dreamland, but it wasn’t until the Ranno reveal at Smashcon 2017 that I decided to buy it. I was trying out the cast against CPUs, landed Absa uptilt -> upair and thought “oh, somebody at my level can kill in this game, cool” and really got into it.

It didn’t take much at all past that to enter Rivals brackets; there was often one at the Smash 4 majors I was attending anyway (like GTX 2017 or Genesis 5), and I just really wanted to play the game offline, bracket or not.

How long have you been doing commentary? How did you get started and what eventually attracted you to honing your craft for Rivals?

GPik: I stumbled into commentary back in 2015, at some local Smash 4 weeklies. It was originally something to do after I got eliminated from bracket, and plus one of the venues only ran the AC in the room with the stream setup so it was just more comfortable to commentate than play friendlies. Commentating for the people who eliminated me in bracket also shaped a lot of my commentary style: why were these players making further than me every week? If you were to pull up my earliest commentary so much of it is me doing analysis by taking note of what different players were doing that were working for them. The local community also really supported my commentary, and encouraged me to apply for NorCal regional events in 2016, and then to majors in 2017. I wouldn’t be commentating today without the support of the Sacramento Smash scene.

When I started following Rivals in 2017, the first sets I watched with commentary were Shine and GTX 2017 Top 8. Dan and Etalus’ commentary is fun and I still love that the devs commentate their own game. However, at the time I remember wanting to hear commentary with slightly more analysis focus, not necessarily in-depth but enough that a total beginner like me could walk away with a little bit of insight. I was curious if I could try to apply something like my style to a game that was much faster paced than Smash 4. Also, Rivals is just a super fun game and I feel like I could talk enthusiastically about it for hours. That also helps.

What has been your favorite event to commentate and why?

GPik: It’s so hard to give a single answer for this. Smash N Splash 4 is special for me since it was the first Top 8 I got to commentate for Rivals and also had some memorable moments like Cake stealing Penguin’s mints, or one of the most one sided sets I’ve ever commentated with Penguin vs Bagel. I’ll always remember First Impact for Adi’s insane run. Heatwave 2 and 3 have so much passion put into them by the entire AZ community that makes it a treat to attend and it’s impossible to not feel hype when commentating there. The Season Finales are fun to commentate because so many sets feel like the conclusion to a different storyline that’s been building for at least a year.

In this online era I will give an honorable mention to MSB’s Mystery Invitational last year. Watching a stacked pool of players compete in such a ridiculous format was hilarious, and I still hope to see something like it again in the future.

Do you have a favorite matchup (player or character) that you look forward to commentating at events?

GPik: I’m lucky that I can honestly say that there’s something I like about every top player’s style in Rivals. Right now, I think the player matchup story-line I’m most invested in is Kusi vs Penguin. Kusi put in an insane amount of work last year, and in the process was able to take at least a set off of almost every top player but Penguin. Given what we’ve seen of Kusi’s work ethic, I’m so interested to see what improvements he’ll make to close this last gap.

How much time do you spend researching recent results and player stats before big events?

GPik: For most majors I spend a couple hours or so the evening before traveling going through the results of the previous one, taking notes of placements, who beat who, and re-watching matchups that I anticipate happening again that either I don’t remember clearly or that played out much differently than I would’ve expected. For the Season Finales, it’s pretty much every evening in a week, this time counting up the total RCS set counts for the season so I know who’s favored going into every set, reviewing the best performances of the top seeds, and also spending time deciding how I want to quickly introduce a fresh audience to them, including a summary of their season and what I think makes their play-style stand out compared to the rest of the field.

LightWalk (2016) – GPik’s 2D Puzzle Platformer

What are your interests outside of the Rivals and Smash communities?

GPik: Game design, especially level design! Years ago a couple friends and I made a puzzle platformer while in college called LightWalk that we released on Steam, and since then I’ve steadily gotten a larger itch to make something again. So this year I’ve been spending a lot of time making a new puzzle game in GMS2, and it’s so satisfying to build a puzzle that stumps players with as few moving parts as possible. I also spend entirely too much time listening to video essays on YouTube.

How can event organizers best reach out to you for commentary bookings?

GPik: My Twitter is @GPikSmash, and is usually the best way to reach me. Feel free to ping me to check DMs with an @, since Twitter doesn’t give notifications for DM requests, so they can sometimes slip through the cracks.

Categories: Community, News | Comments: 1

Community Artist Feature: Dud_bass

By SBS — June 11, 2021

Dud_bass has been hard at work over the past year creating the incredible brush stroke styled elemental artwork that has graced our recent splash screens and our fun-in-the-sun summer artwork featured in our recent Spring Break events.

We recently reached out to Dud_bass to learn more about them and their background and interests to give this amazing community member a well-deserved spotlight.

How did you first hear about Rivals and get into the scene?

Dud_bass: I got into Rivals from play with other friends in school. I passed it off as another indie game, however I slowly got into it. After a while, I started to play more and more Kragg, and even made my first art piece which was Absa.

How long have you been drawing Rivals art, and what was your inspiration to start?

Dud_bass: I drew rivals art for around 3-5 years now, since it was a growing and thriving community, I couldn’t help but throw myself into the fray. It also stemmed off into conceptualizing new character ideas and new designs. There’s always new inspiration coming from the content created as well.

What has been your favorite creation so far, and why?

Dud_bass: My favorite creation so far has to be my animations. They’ve always been satisfying to complete after a long day of hard work.

Absa the tempest#RivalsofAether pic.twitter.com/d9UDJCkY3l

— dud (@realdud_bass) April 26, 2020

About how long does it take you to finish an art piece? Where in the process do you find yourself spending the most time?

Dud_bass: It usually takes anywhere between 2-24 hours to finish a piece, depending on quality, quantity, etc. Usually my process is straight from paint, start with a completely blank canvas and putting colors down.

What Rivals character is your favorite to draw and why?

Dud_bass: My favorite rivals character to draw is probably Clairen for her flow from her hairstyle and cape or Ori for its possibilities in lighting.

PsyOps Clairen

Vanic-Samurai (ft Katy Tiz) (Spirix Remix)#RivalsofAether pic.twitter.com/j3aExeGq5P

— dud (@realdud_bass) January 17, 2021

What are your interests outside of art?

Dud_bass: Some sports, (Badminton, Tennis), Biology Researcher.

Be sure to follow Dud_bass on Twitter and keep up with their newest creations!

Categories: Community, News | Comments: 0

Season 5 Online Rankings: #10 – 1

By SBS — March 5, 2021

“D-tilt –> short-hop –> missile –> down special–> u-strong. Call that the Halite Drop.”

10. Halite

Halite makes his debut on the Rivals Top 50 after multiple years of his legends being told. Halite entered RCS Air with impressive wins over Levin, Protagify, and Ceroas before DQing at 9th place to internet issues. A few months later, Halite received the gift of ethernet connection and all eyes were on him for a deep bracket run. Halite did just that, punching and shooting his way to winners finals after a thrilling game 5 victory over Kusi. Halite’s two events may have been unconventional, but it is clear that his time in the spotlight is well earned. The prospect of seeing Halite’s relentless Elliana in future online events is absolutely thrilling, and we expect big things next season!

9. CheesyPotato

CheesyPotato has been playing Rivals since 2016 and picked up the competitive bug a few years later thanks to fellow New Yorkers, Nexplosion and Dudbass. Over the course of the season, CheesyPotato had been on the cusp of Top 8 placements in multiple majors, falling just shy until her spectacular run in the RCS Finals. In one of the most difficult bracket paths to date, CheesyPotato scored back to back upsets over two separate Elemental Major winners, Xaro and Seggo. CheesyPotato’s 5th place finish at the RCS Finals was the result of hard work and perseverance after gradually improving her placements all season long.

8. Squanto

Sqaunto leaps onto the RCS Top 50 with three consecutive Top 8 placements to start off the season. As the highest ranked solo Ranno on the Top 50, Squanto placed in the Top 8 of every single ROCS event and Elemental Major that he entered, only breaking that streak in the RCS Finals. Squanto tallied wins against the likes of ZeeBee and CakeAssault while only losing a single set to players ranked below him.

“I only play a certain group of people and I use my amazing brain to teach them the secrets of RoA.”

7. Blue

As one of the breakout stars of Season 4, Mike (A.K.A. Blue) continued his trend of whirlwind appearances in Season 5 by winning his first official event since the beginning of lockdown from winners side. Prior to RCS Air in October 2020, the last time we saw Mike on the big stage was at Genesis 7 in January of that same year. Following his blistering performance at RCS Air, Mike brought out his Zetterburn for another shutout victory at a non-RCS event, Kingpin 4, followed by a solo Ranno run with victories over MSB and Xaro to place 4th at RCS Water. Mike is clearly a man of many talents with a focus on enjoying himself. Mike prides himself in helping train his friends in Rivals, and was exuberant to witness the accomplishments of players that have not previously been able to attend locals like Flarey, CheesyPotato, Squanto, and Kusi.

“Free Will is an illusion.”

6. ZeeBee

ZeeBee is a former New York Kragg that has recently found his way to Colorado, which has expanded his horizons in the online Rivals scene. ZeeBee has shown time and time again that he is a constant threat in brackets, placing Top 8 in three separate Majors while earning 1-1 records against Squanto, Blue, CakeAssault, and Xaro. As the first returning member of our Top 10, Season 5 marks the third year in a row that ZeeBee has moved up in ranking.

5. CakeAssault

CakeAssault returns as one of the most famous names to ever touch the game, stressing the importance of enjoying himself during our online season before he can reconnect with his friends from Pittsburgh and New Jersey once locals return. Over the course of 2020, CakeAssault began forming a rivalry of sorts with Xaro, trading sets left and right as Xaro became more and more consistent. Their conflict has concluded for now, with CakeAssault triumphantly eliminating his foe and placing 4th in the RCS Finals. Among his accomplishments in Season 5, CakeAssault recorded perfect attendance and earned Top 8 in five of six Majors. Outside of the game, CakeAssault is an actuarial math major at University of Pittsburgh with a love for Super Smash Bros. Melee.

4. Seggo

Seggo comes in at a much deserved #4 with three Top 8 finishes. The highlight of the season is undoubtedly his undefeated 1st place run at RCS Water, where his famous Elliana aided in completing a nearly solo Ranno bracket. While the character swap may have been surprising to some, Seggo’s season was full of character diversity as he possesses one of the most comprehensive full-cast proficiencies in the community. During Season 5, he only fell to five different players over the course of four events while never placing below 9th at a Major. Seggo finds solace in the Rivals community thanks to his friends that lift up and inspire him at every turn. His favorite moments of the season were winning his first RCS event and competing in the RCS Finals with his teammate, Ahntye.

“Shout-outs to ELPE for convincing me to pick up Ori.”

3. Kusi

Kusi makes his first ever appearance on the Rivals Top 50 with an astonishing Top 3 ranking. Kusi first picked up Rivals as a Kragg main around the release of Ori & Sein in 2017. It was not until April of 2020 that Kusi first used his Ori secondary in bracket which, as fate would have it, would become the first bracket Kusi had ever won. Taking this as a sign, Kusi began grinding the game and improving exponentially while more than tripling his previous 1,000 hours spent in Rivals during 2020. Kusi entered all six Season 5 events, never missing Top 8 a single time and placing 2nd in each of the final two events. His overall consistency during Season 5 and skyrocketing improvement has earned him nearly everything a player can only dream of. We suspect that Kusi will be taking home the first place trophy in Majors on the not too distant horizon.

“Finally brought home the win at finals, see everyone next Genesis. :)”

2. Penguin

Penguin takes the 2nd place ranking for the second year in a row after a truly electrifying Season 5. Collecting two 1st place finishes this season, Penguin finally overcame his curse and took home the gold at our Finals event. He has beaten each of the nine Top 10 players that he has faced, with perfect records on seven of them. On top of his head-to-head wins, Penguin has placed in the Top 4 at five of the six Majors this season. He first started playing the game at Super Smash Con 2016 with FullStream as his mentor, CakeAssault as his practice partner, and Zeke as his coach to help cement him where he is today. As with seasons past, Penguin remains an immovable object to nearly every competitor and is a stone cold killer that requires near perfection to best in bracket.

1. Xaro

Jumping from 5th in Season 4 to 1st in Season 5 is no easy feat. Xaro made Top 8 in every single Major in Season 5 while hoisting virtual trophies in RCS Fire and RCS Earth. As far as player match-ups go, Xaro holds a 5-2 record over Penguin while only dropping sets to Top 10 players and having a single negative head-to-head record against Blue. Xaro’s favorite moment of Season 5 was his immaculate losers run in RCS Earth, where he won seven straight sets by toppling Seggo, hoppyKnitz, MSB, CakeAssault, Kusi, then finally resetting and finishing off Penguin to win the event.

Xaro has become just the third player to ever earn a first place ranking in five seasons of the Top 50. It is nearly impossible to believe that another year has come and gone in what seems like a time vacuum with us crowning the Frostbite 2020 champions seemingly yesterday. We would like to once again thank the community from the bottom of our hearts for coming together and making Season 5 such a success despite the extreme circumstances in the real world. We hope for a safe return of local events in the future; but until then, please stay safe and keep a lookout for future official events coming soon!

View more articles in the Season Five Online NA Rankings Series:

Categories: Announcement, Community, Esports, News | Comments: 2

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