Just the past few pages remind me of why I never, never play Brawl outside of when friends come over.
I remember back in middle school, when once a week all the guys would get together to play 64. And in high school, when we'd all bike over to the closest friend's house, and just go wild on melee. Wavedashing and disabling some items yes, sometimes disabling all the items. Disabling the Ice Climbers stage. But just playing to have fun. We'd do the HP mode, all pokeballs, all motion-detector mines, nothing but giant mode and big mushrooms - the works. We had a blast.
But when we drove out to conventions to try our luck - playing Gamecube in the van via the portable screen I had - folks took it super, super seriously. One of those friends actually went on to join the MLG, and he still fondly remembers the days when we'd do all Pichu matches or he'd pick Peach at Temple and spend the entire match running away and taunting - infuriating us to the point were all of us dropped everything to chase him. When he got to the winners finals of a few of those convention tourney's - he'd do the same thing.
I dunno man, the Smash competitive scene is just – depressing. It's the only fighting game scene I actively despise. Maybe it's just me: but I cannot at all see how it could be fun.