Ultimate Insight 17 : Vye

1) You were in a Tournament Organiser position for a year and a half and eventually became the sole TO of the Gold Coast weekly and monthly. What is the experience of being a TO like and what are some of the challenges you ran into that you didn't expect?

> In all honesty, I never really felt all too different when I started running events as a TO. Like there’s definitely more to do than showing up and playing games, but everything is still absolutely enjoyable, just in a different way that’s difficult to explain. You often end up talking to everybody, rather than just your mates; something I found myself doing a lot as a player until I was taking over the organisation of Tuesday Night Fights from McJobo. Hearing from everybody every week and seeing the bracket progress match by match was really interesting. You get to see people improve, watch people enjoy the event you’ve put on, and even just talk to people about the game that brings us all together. While it’s clearly a different experience from being a player, I still love it.

I also never really anticipated any issues at all when I first became a TO, all I knew in early days was to show up and make sure the event runs smoothly. As time went on, I realised that there’s definitely more to do than I first thought. As a TO, you’re seen as a bit of a community figurehead that people can turn to for info or help. This of course means the obvious… telling people where events are located, if the event is happening or not, among other basic things. But not everybody has it easy, we all have our own struggles. People might want help with issues relating to the community; feeling more welcome or getting more involved… but sometimes people need help with other, more personal, things. If the smash community is their main support network, you’re often one of the first people they might turn to for help.


2) How has your approach to the game changed as a player after seeing it from the perspective of a TO?

> While my approach to the game has changed since becoming a TO, I don’t think it has changed much after seeing it from a new perspective, but instead it has changed as a by-product of simply being a TO. With majority of my time at my events devoted to TOing (even some of my time at other events occasionally helping where I can), combined with university and work, I’ve had a lot less time to practice the game outside of events than I once did. I still love the game with all my heart, that hasn’t changed, but instead of trying to relentlessly climb the rankings, I decided to just have fun.

I used to main Joker, and while I wouldn’t say I was terrible with him, when I wasn’t able to practice, it had pretty drastic effects on my performances over time. Seeing arbitrary numbers go down on a site I used to check every Thursday morning didn’t make me happy and I wasn’t having fun anymore. So I decided to start experimenting with more characters to see who I enjoyed the most. Just going through the list of characters here, I played some Falcon, Peach, Toon Link, Shulk, and Corrin before finally deciding on Ganondorf as my new main. While matches don’t go my way nearly as often as they did when I was a practiced Joker player, I’m having so much more fun now than I did at any point with Joker. I really just think that taking the focus away from winning has done a lot for my overall happiness and I enjoy the game so much more now.


3) There was a lot of discussion around the Gold Coast discord only being open to those that live at the Gold Coast or regularly attend Gold Coast events. The Discord has since opened up to everyone, but what were your thoughts on the conversations that occurred around this topic and what is your advice to others in regards to dealing with criticism.

> I just had no idea why people wanted so badly to be in a discord that they wouldn’t be participating in anyway. I suppose they just didn’t like not having the option to join if they suddenly wanted to. While the discord is open to everybody now, not many people have joined that wouldn’t have been able to before… and of those people, even fewer are actively participating in conversation. But hey, it is what it is. I think it was a silly argument to be having, all the tournament information for Gold Coast events was in the QLD discord anyway, and people should be able to have their own private communities if they so choose.

There are always going to be people in disagreement, it’s not a perfect world after all. When dealing with criticism though, try your best to find the valid criticisms that you can use to improve whatever is being criticised, simply ignore the rest. If people are just being negative without offering any valid criticism, then there is nothing you can do unless you want to start an argument.


4) With the rise of Jix and Dags up the player rankings, the Gold Coast is now considered one of the strongest regions in QLD. What has it meant to you to see your region gain so much respect?

> It really means so much to me seeing Gold Coast players excel, I’m always so proud to rep GC. As I said before, as a local TO, you get to watch your players learn and improve over time. Watching strong Gold Coast players perform well in Brisbane or interstate (or even globally the second covid is over… Jix is going to take EVO, trust me.) is so impressive. Getting to see how far they’ve truly come is amazing and I’m always so proud of everyone. Gold Coast used to be a relatively weak region, but with our players really striving for greatness, that’s changed right before my eyes during my time as a TO, and it’s just incredible.


5) What are some of your favourite memories from your time in the Smash community?

> Helping run META SHIFT was amazing, truly an experience I’ll never forget. I really loved how it all came together, and it’s an event we can look back on and have it look just as good now thanks to all the extra effort that Jett put into the production quality of the stream.

My first competitive memory was also a real memorable one that really showed me how talented some people could be. It was the first time I ever played against Jaice in Smash 4. He played Olimar, a character I thought was weak at the time… you can probably guess how this went. I got 3-stocked both games featuring a surprising amount of Olimar utilt, with the set ending after he read my tether to ledge, caught it with a dair, and sent me tumbling downwards to my death in record time.

Finally, I’ve also got a good few memories of simply doing cool shit with Ganon. There was a TNF where I had one of my best performances ever, all with solo Ganon. A few clips from that night made it to YouTube compilations, and there are a couple more vids of Ganon on my twitter if you wanted to check those out too. But basically, when the primary goal is to have fun, you end up trying new things, funny-looking things, “that’ll never work” things… generally stupid things. But those stupid things are going to work eventually and you’re going to play it off like you knew it was going to work the whole time.

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Follow Vye on socials! You can find him on both Twitter and Twitch @leeevye. Vye also bring you today's vibe which can be located through this door - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZNsfNAwCOA