Last week's blog: http://allisbrawl.com/blogpost.aspx?id=138593

      Since I'm not a renown doubles player, I somehow managed to get an interview with the one of top Lucas's and Doubles player in North America, Mekos. It's lengthy, but it's an interesting one that can shed some light into the unexplored world of double for those who are interested. With out further ado, here is the Skype interview.


allshort17: Hey Mekos. Thanks for agreeing to do this. How are you doing now?

Mekos: No problem. Just finished the semester(I'm in college) and am visiting my fiancé in Harlem, New York City, New York.

allshort17: Oh! Getting married I see. I never knew that. Tell me a little something about you two.

Mekos: haha alright. We met in college at North Carolina A&T State University which is located in Greensboro, NC. We have been dating for about 4 years now. She is pretty awesome. A lot of smashers have met her as she sometimes goes to tourneys with me.

allshort17: That's great! It's always cool to be in a relationship with a girl who can appreciate video games.

Mekos: definitely

allshort17: Now, let's get started on your field of expertise. Tell me, why did you choose to play doubles over singles?

Mekos: Once I reached the skill level to be able to compete against the top players of the game, I realized that most of the time if you wanted to win(in singles) you needed to get the lead and then just camp the rest of the match. That is extremely boring to me. Also, I solo main Lucas and alot of characters abuse some of his flaws. Like various grab shenanigans on him such as infinite grabs. Doubles in my opinion takes alot more skill as you have to be paying attention to four characters on the screen. I also love that there are team combos in brawl doubles. In life I love team sports and teamwork. I have a natural talent for teamwork and love to reach amazing heights of synergy with my partners in anything including brawl.

allshort17: Teamwork is something I never excelled at (although I do work well with other) so i generally stayed away from doubles. But, it does seem like a nice change of pace from the camp-fest that is Brawl singles. For people curious about it, why should people play doubles?

Mekos: Well for one brawl doubles has alot of unexplored territory in it. There is so much potential for amazing team strategies and tactics. Since the beginning of brawl I've noticed that in USA it has been mostly about two separate 1v1 battles. If people can get away from that mindset and actually focus on working together then amazing things will happen. I believe it will help grow the community if more people get involved in doubles, get static partners, and develop team tactics and strats. People will go crazy on the live streams of the awesome constant chaos that will start happen.

allshort17: You talk about constant partners. How important is it to have a static partner?

Mekos: It is crucial. Look at any sport or other competitive game. You don't really here about people going to tourneys with "random" partners. I used to be semi-pro at halo 2 and teams would spend months playing together and practicing. The same should apply to anything that acquires teamwork. The more you play together the better your synergy will be. This is proof that doubles in brawl in USA has not reached a very high level of play. Most players go to tourneys with non static or even semi-static partners and expect to do well. And alot of them do but this is because not many teams exist that are really using teamwork. The teams are just getting by winning their separate 1v1 battles. That's why I loved what happened at apex. A team that used teamwork won against a team that got by by beating everyone else by just playing separate 1v1 battles. Otori and Kakera play dubs exactly how I explain it should be played in my dubs tips vids on youtube.

allshort17: More proof Japan is the best! Otori and Kakera are brothers so of course they get to practice with each other. However, some people don't have the luxury of having someone close to team with. How have you gotten around that and who are some of your favorite partners that you've teamed with?

Mekos: My favorite partners to team with have been Esam, M2k, Fow. Wifi is pretty bad but you can still practice the fundamentals. When I first met Fow a couple years ago we used to play doubles on wifi all the time. We had perfect synergy and had great teamwork. I had so much fun. Lucas and Ness is a really fun team. We don't play together anymore and that showed at apex. We did great and lost to Gnes and Razer, and Ally and Dojo. Both were close sets but if we had synergy like we used to and practiced, I feel we could have even won apex! When M2k has a good controller haha me and him have some awesome team combos. Who doesn't like teaming with the best mk in the US!? Esam is my current favorite teammate. He allowed me to share with him my theory on how doubles should be played. He is my first partner who has been able to do it(really well). He is really bad at wifi and hates it, but played it for a short while to master the doubles fundamentals. Currently, we have never lost a tourney and only lost one set in our whole career teaming together. We have about 7 tourneys under our belt.  We are teaming for Sktar and I can't wait. I want to win that tourney so bad.

Mekos: Oh i forgot Gnes

Mekos: Gnes is a favorite too. Gnes and I have never teamed but we have never lost a dubs mm or dubs friendly playing together. I feel he is a smart dubs player and I love teaming with fellow smart dubs players.

allshort17: We're all rooting for you a SKTAR (at least I am.) Gnes is one person you have never teamed with, but it seems you would like to at one point. Are there any players you want to team with in the future?

Mekos: Hmm...just mentioning people I have never teamed with before I would say...Dojo and Ally. Dojo is a smart dubs player too imo. Ally is my favorite snake to watch. I like the way he plays snake and wouldn't mind teaming. I know I could work around him well. Trela and Nick Riddle also come to mind because of our team tactics we could create. My imagination is going crazy right now!! haha Lastly, probably Malcom. He is a really nice guy and his wario is pretty awesome.  Oh yea, internationally speaking Otori or Kakera. They have dubs smarts(know how to position themselves well and pick great team options) so we would naturally have synergy.

allshort17: You could always team with me too! Dedede/ Lucas seems like a crazy, unexplored team. However, I know little about team buliding. Could you tell me what characters make up a good team?

Mekos: Wow, that reminds me. I wouldn't mind teaming with Coney either. We have practiced our ness/lucas team and did amazing things. Our DDD/lucas team would probably be great too. Lol Allshort maybe

Mekos: I feel that any character can be used in dubs. And any team can work as long as you have good teamspacing. Now what I think you are getting at is called team tactics which alot of the community calls gimmicks

Mekos: Like healing teams, bucket teams, etc.

Mekos: Those are all obvious teams but there are even teams that I feel we are unaware of because the community has not taken the time to deeply explore doubles.

Mekos: So with the current brawl doubles metagame in the USA, teams with team tactics are the best imo. That is why my boy lucas is definitely top tier in doubles

Mekos: He can do the healing tactic(with many characters), bucket tactic(with g&w), omni gay tactic(with snake), aura/healing tactic(with lucario).

allshort17: Lucas top tier in doubles, ah? That's seems like a wild claim considering Lucas is struggling to climb out of bottom tier in the singles tier list. How does the Double tier list differ from singles?

Mekos: Very very different. In doubles you ask yourself what is the characters punishing potential, followup potential, and zone controlling potential.

Mekos: Many people think I am crazy but for example mk is worse in doubles than in singles

Mekos: he doesn't have great air mobility which means that a team using teamwork can combo him very easily

Mekos: get easy follow ups and punishes on him

Mekos: and he dies at low%s with good teamwork

Mekos: He also doesn't kill that well

Mekos: besides his off stage game

Mekos: one grab to a partner following up with a smash can be a dead mk at 90%

allshort17: I guess it's dependent on the quality of the roles the characters can play. Tell me some important roles doubles players have to know. Both for players and characters.

Mekos: well I actually don't like the whole role playing thing. People talk about roles like taking the lead, support, or stock tanking. That is all wrong imo. You should just focus on constantly working to sandwich an opponent and having the spacing to followup or punish. If not then you should be doing a team tactic or team edge guarding. It's simple. Otori and Kekara are the perfect example of this. Basically, you should know how to lead into a battle, support if your partner is leading, and stock tank. Doubles is all about working with your partner to survive. If you have that mentality you will find yourself helping your partner instead of chasing. This is a crucial mistake most players make. It's all about constantly working together and not chasing. Working together offers so much more guaranteed % and kills on the other team.

Mekos: And allows for you and your partner to survive longer

allshort17: Hm. That's an interesting concept. I think it's going to take people a while to break the mentality of "roles," but I'm curious to see how others will adopt it.

Mekos: yea u should essentially be playing all the "roles"

allshort17: For the spread of double, what do you think TO's should do to encourage more people to do doubles? Could it be linked to an overpowered tactic shunning people away? For example, the dreaded double MK.

Mekos: I think that does scare people. Alot of people call that team broken. It is not. If a team is playing two separate 1v1 battles then it is extremely hard. But if you use teamwork you can defeat it. People need to step there teamwork up. I think that alot of people don't enter doubles because they don't understand it. Also, because they don't have a static partner. Alot of people tell me they would enter if they have a partner. One idea, is that TO's offer discounts for entering doubles to players that are not considered top/high/mid level players

allshort17: Or maybe offering discounts to static teams? It could work.

allshort17: Well, I'm running out of questions. Are there any tips, strategies, or just words of inspiration about doubles you want to share?

Mekos: well people can get all the tips they need by watching my dubs tips vids.

Mekos: I'll post them

Mekos: There is three

allshort17: lol. Shameless self-advertising.

Mekos: If they master these fundamentals I promise a player will get top 3 in their locas dubs tourneys

Mekos: nah it is just so they understand lolol

Mekos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieMjIbatoNw

Mekos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L9NS-YXf00&list=UUxUgYC4CW36C-W8zcQvZkMw&index=2&feature=plcp

Mekos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGZ7YhZ8vs8&list=UUxUgYC4CW36C-W8zcQvZkMw&index=1&feature=plcp

Mekos: all three parts ^

allshort17: It's understandable. Well, thanks for giving me some of you time. I hope that people will learn what doubles can be and there will be a revival of the doubles metagame along with singles.

Mekos: Awesome! I hope so to my friend!
   
      He will not be the first, however I plan to have many other special guests on my blog. I have some planned out, but there are still plenty of ideas I could use help on. If you want to contribute information or other services, please PM me. Also, starting next week "Smash Revival" will be on Smashboards. It's not going to be any different from the AiB version, but it's always nice to read it there if you want. Next week, I will cover ways to make friends with hopefully another guest (it's iffy so no promises)

Thanks for reading and even bigger thanks to Mekos!