3/2/2020
Welcome to the next addition of our Smash Melee series – today starring Georg “Rikzz” Triller. In this episode you can read about a player who developed from a casual player into a highly professional and skilled Melee athlete.
Welcome to the next addition of our Smash Melee series – today starring Georg “Rikzz” Triller. In this episode you can read about a player who developed from a casual player into a highly professional and skilled Melee athlete.
Hey! I’m Rikzz, 24 and I am the one who is not from Bavaria – I live in Wiesbaden. My Melee journey is quite similar to the one of my colleagues as I used to play the game when I was a child together with my brother, too.
Well, we played a lot but one day the new Smash game came out and we started to play Brawl. Years and years passed and when I was 20, I watched the legendary video called “Wombo Combo” on YouTube. Just go for it and watch it and you’ll be able to grasp why I was immediately fascinated by the game. I was suddenly so hyped to play the game again and I rummaged around for my Gamecube.
No, not really. I thought that I was decent, but then I went to Heidelberg in order to play with other people and I was stomped to death there. I did not have a single chance. It was at that very moment when I stopped playing Melee before returning to the game in 2015. I discovered that it was now possible to play together online through an emulator which was a great addition to the game because you suddenly had many more opportunities to practise.
When I came back to the game in 2015, I started to invest a lot of energy and time in my Marth. I wanted to improve and become better and I began to attend tournaments on a regular basis. I think the 9th edition of Smash Fort was the first tournament in which I participated. After 2 or 3 years I started getting bored of playing marth against certain matchups so I tried to become a fox main. It didn’t really work out that well in the beginning because I started getting frustrated and switched back to Marth between tournament games. I guess it took about 8 to 12 months to complete the switch and I’m now a happy fox main
I’d say that the Melee scene is very different from other eSport scenes since most of the players are not aiming to become one of the best out there. This is due to the fact that in most cases you can’t play Melee for a living. It is not supported and Nintendo practically doesn’t do anything for the game at all.
The whole scene is carried by the community – the community only. People see it as a hobby and I honestly don’t think that there are many players in Germany that do take the game really seriously. They play it, yes, but they do not really dedicate themselves entirely to it. I think we would have more professionalism in the scene once Nintendo, for example, supported the game. However, I also think that every player should start to promote the game more actively in order to increase the player base. If more people start to play Melee, the infrastructure will improve as well.
I don’t think so at all. Right now is the best time to start competing in Melee. The fact that we can play the game online with almost no disadvantages to our old CRTs is an awesome development already. We also got some really good trainingmods like “UnclePunch” and “20XX” where you can just practice everything you want. I also think that people will never stop Melee. It’s just a timeless game.
I always wanted to be the best player in Germany, but such an ambitious goal could also be an obstacle. You should aim for a step-by-step-approach. My current goal is to defeat Nicki who is in my opinion the 2nd best player in Germany right now at least once. The best player Ice is still way to many levels above me.
In the future, I’d like to go for the top 20 in the world. I know that this is very ambitious and difficult for a player from Europe, but it is definitely feasible.
That’s it for today’s episode!
