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.
<.< cool