LA GEMA PRESENTS
Interview with Arturo Nuñez Hernandez AKA Mariguas Part I
–Hello everybody, what's up guys. I'm Pablo from La Gema and we're here at the Gema HQ in Mexico City
because we have a very special guest today. Joining me is Arturo Nuñez, AKA Mariguas
the best Smash 64 player in Mexico. How are you, man?
–Nice to meet you, I'm good. It really has been a pleasure to be here in this interview. Let's see what happens.
–Mariguas, you're a legend in mexican and international Smash 64. You're basically the best player in the country
but I would like to know where did Arturo begin competing, playing. When did you first grab the 64 controller and start this?
–It's really a question that goes back about 8 years ago approximately
because Smash 64 is a game I've played my whole life. It's a game that comes out when I was just a teen, when I was 12 or 13 years old.
Ever since then I've been playing, but when I really took it competitively was about 8 years ago.
This means from the moment I started doing Z-cancel and short hop.
The moment I started researching what you have to do exactly to be better, that's when I start counting,
everything else was just fun between friends, really.
And from there, about 4 years passed where I was mostly theorizing about the game
and practicing alone.
And with "practicing alone" I mean technique and combos.
So, it was in Apex 2014, which was my first appearance in a serious international tournament
which, if we put in concrete words, was perhaps the first well organized Smash 64 tournament, at least in North America.
And, really, I didn't have a lot of expectations when I went to that tournament.
The americans also didn't have a lot of expectations of me.
"It might be a new player that's just becoming known in the scene."
The tournament was in New York
And, I do well in that tournament, I get 4th place.
I accept there were many matches that suited me which I was familiar with, which at the time were Falcon dittos
and thanks to going through matches I had knowledge of and didn't cause much difficulty, I got 4th place
and from there people start saying "Oh, the mexican has what it takes to reach the international level."
That would be my trajectory from the beginning, playing on my own, learning combos and going to my first tournament.
–Ok, we're talking 8 years ago, you say? –Yeah, 8 years.
–Around 2009, 2010? –Yeah.
–Ok, but before Apex 2014 there were 4, 5 years in solitude, in the mountains. –Yeah.
–Like Zarathustra. –Sure, sure.
–Tell me a bit about what you were theorizing at the time, what were you outlining in your mind to optimize your play?
–It's very curious because back then,
like you say, like Zarathustra with my serpent and my eagle
well, it was curious because I didn't know what to do. Everything was by my own initiative,
I didn't have someone that could give me a road to walk on and could be like "If you do this, you'll reach here."
Like what happens in an institution. If you go to a school, they say "We'll teach you this and you'll obtain certain results."
But, not having that, I had to give myself an idea about what is my goal and how to reach it.
So, my first impression was the combos, man.
I was in love with Prince, the japanese that was the first to put out a very long combo video,
I'm telling you, it was a combo movie with all 12 characters.
I'm telling you, it was a combo movie with all 12 characters. –Look it up.
–It might be about 50 minutes of combos, an average of 140, 150 combos.
And I thought, well –this was my logic, I've now refined it a lot and know there's a lot of fallacy in what I thought at that moment– but this was the principle:
If I manage to have the sufficient technique to do those combos
Meaning, if I can remake those combos –that's what it translates to–
Then I have the same level as that person
That was my idea.
Thus, if I have my end goal, what I have to do is combos, combos, combos
When I could do a similar amount of combos or combos with that difficulty
I will be as good as Isai.
So I did Isai's combos, which really are the most difficult of them all. I did Prince's combos.
That was something that could be reproduced in solitude. That's the technique part.
To do combos I didn't need someone to do sparring with.
I could do it by my own means.
But
then I realize
that the mid-game, the mind game, the strategy
is as important, or more–in the moment I'm at now, I'm sure it's more important than the technique.
So I said "Well, if I'm in solitude, how do I create or how do I improve my mind game?"
So the only thing that occurred to me, and is really a very useful method, is
watch other people's matches and study them.
I started taking notes of Isai at that moment, all my notes were of Isai
because Isai had the best character at the time, with all 12 characters.
If you asked "Who's the best Mario in the world?" the automatic answer was Isai.
"Who is the best Falcon in the world?" The automatic answer was Isai.
"Who is the best Donkey in the world?" etc. etc.
So if I study all of his characters I'll have knowledge of the game. A knowledge at least similar to what he does.
All my disposition at the time was in emulating, both in technique and mind game, what the best did.
Obviously I didn't have contact with them. We're talking 2009, 2000...
Obviously I didn't have contact with them. We're talking 2009, 2000... –Some time ago.
–I didn't have Facebook
Facebook existed but there were few people using it in Mexico
and
what's curious is we communicated via YouTube.
It wasn't direct communication. You'd send a message like "Hey how do you do this?"
You waited until someone responded 2 weeks later, and if their answer wasn't completely clear
the moment you asked for clarification meant waiting another 2 weeks.
You really had to do it by your own means.
And I started taking notes, notes. Link, Falcon, what are their physical capabilities?
Do their jumps reach the third platform? What's the best combo for each character at this percentage?
How do I approach?
At the time I had very little notion of the mid-game, which now is what I like the most.
The theory about the mid-game.
I think that in Smash 64, and I would dare to say in the other Smash games, in Wii U and Melee,
there's a serious theoretical framework missing about what the mid-game is.
Not talking about edgeguard or combos. That's something that, if you put it in football terms, would be like a set play.
Where you have moments to reproduce them and wait for certain predictions that are, let's say, simple.
In the edgeguarding, in... there's less variants.
But in the mid-game, there you really have to play with predictions, with responses
and, back then, what I was really left with was taking notes
of what I was noticing, because I didn't have any criteria to say "This is how you study a fight." Who can tell you that?
"This is how you study a fight."
At the most, I looked at what Isai did and thought "Well, why did this play work? Why is this play good?"
You start realizing there's certain patterns, there's certain plays that work more than others.
So you have to ask, obviously, for the foundation. Why does this play work more than another?
And when you start discovering that is when the game starts to make more sense.
It stops being a series of blots that have no connection and starts having order.
"You have to do this and this to reach a certain result."
But well, that was at the beginning. It really was a very brute way of doing it,
a very spontaneous way without much order,
which has costed me a lot of work to polish and give it sequence, a coherent sequence.
But yeah. I remember people giving me 'carrilla' [teasing], like they say in my city. Like "This dude has notes on Smash, this is completely incoherent."
To be making pages and pages, and I had a notebook filled with pointers on Smash
But that was the only way I could see to progress.
And it's very curious that, at that moment, I was getting a lot of 'carrilla', I was judged a lot
that's why my friends told me "Hey what you're doing is madness, it's foolish."
And in some way they were right because I didn't have a goal
I played Smash for the simple pleasure of developing something
But it wasn't like, for example, now that there's tournaments that I can attend, in which one can win money, that I can travel to
Back then that didn't even exist. I didn't even think in doing anything of that
So there was no goal. I just did it because I liked it.
And if you put it like that, since it doesn't enter an institutional framework where you're really obtaining benefits
then it's taken as something foolish.
It was later on when what I did fitted and is now something that can be seen as beneficial,
and now it's not something foolish to the eyes of other people.
But really, I never thought of travellling anywhere, I just wanted to know this:
When I look at a Smash game, I want to understand exactly what is happening there.
If I don't understand what's happening there, if I see 10 plays and I don't know why those 10 plays were made
then I have no idea about what Smash is.
But the moment I see the 10 plays and I can tell you why each one of them is happening
then I understand Smash. And that for me, that mere fact for me is an enormous satisfaction.
–Interesting way of thinking. Times have changed, one could say, Arturo?
–Yes, completely. –A lot, a lot.
–Very well. So eventually, inevitably, Zarathustra had to come down from the mountain, with his serpent and his eagle, and his notebook filled with pointers
Apex 2014, you mentioned it. Can you tell me of other notable events you went to after that?
–Sure.
Really, since Apex the...
After Apex 2014 the entire community started heating up. Events started happening more often.
Firstly, the majors. The big events with all the Smash games and 64 is included.
Back then we didn't have a community as big to make a 64 event where we weren't annexed to Smash 4 and Melee
My next tournament I think was Apex 2015
There still wasn't a series of tournaments
but then Smash Con happens, Snosa happens, all in USA
I travel to Peru
because, it may be weird to many, but Peru in Smash 64 is one of the world powers
because, it may be weird to many, but Peru in Smash 64 is one of the world powers –Number one.
Could you tell me which are the world powers, from top to bottom?
–From top to bottom... right now it's uncertain. I could be massacred with sticks and stones if I named a #1 between Peru and Japan
We can say they're on par, but there hasn't been an encounter between them, so I can't give a definitive decision.
From there I think it could be Mexico, which, despite it's lack of community, despite not being a lot of players in Mexico, the level is very good in Mexico.
From there it could be... Chile or Brazil
–#4 and #5, ok.
–And then it's hard for me to place USA, which right now is in a delicate position,
if USA adds Isai, who you never know how to deal with because he's a person that you don't know how he will respond in tournament,
if you add Isai, USA's rank goes up a lot but...
I think that...
I think that... between Chile, Brazil and USA is more or less on par.
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