Road From Redemption 3: Onigiri

Onigiri was always interested in Super Smash Bros and had friends in school who would play casually and follow the competitive Smash 4 scene. When Ultimate dropped, he got a copy of the game and started playing it - mostly just with friends in Battle Arenas or Quickplay. It wasn't until Churropon's little brother Moo, who went to the same school as Onigiri, told him and their friends about Friday Night Smash and from then on, they've been hooked ever since. Onigiri was able to place a very respectable 13th at his first ever FNS in March of 2020 and was able to beat Digby Main and Ham. Unfortunately, this tournament was going to be Onigiri's only taste of competitive Smash for a while as the Coronavirus Pandemic came through soon after.

Luckily, his hunger for competition was satiated with Queensland's first Isolation Combat. At this point, Onigiri was still relatively unknown with his name only being thrown around by a few players who have met him and played with him but only having one tournament so far, this was understandable. This would all change as he put his stamp on the scene with a nail-biting 2-1 set win against an in-form Squidfist which would also be played on stream. That fantastic performance wouldn't carry over onto the other sets as he wasn't able to grab any other wins thus failing to advance to the next round. He'd attend the next iteration of Isolation Combat with middling success but he would remain on the grind for the rest of the year.

Onigiri's performance for the rest of the year would be consistent and slowly growing. He placed 17th at the first Redland Rumble and 49th at the Pissmas Major to close out 2020 - An incredible growth in skill from a small total of 5 tournaments. Come 2021, Onirigi would have his breakthrough performance at Friday Night Smash 248. In Main Bracket, he was able to beat myself and former QLD veteran UMKO before getting knocked into Redemption by Seymour Butts. In Redemption, he would make the perfect Loser's Run by eliminating Ham, Iroh, UMKO, BattleDolphin, Sifo then resetting Schooner in Grand Finals and sealing the deal with a 2-0 in the reset.

Onigiri would now cement himself as a fierce competitor with his signature Min-Min and Byleth. "My favourite character has to be Byleth. Everything the character does is just so sick to me. The character can just be so creative with their options like how they edgeguard, or how they get off ledge or even how they use nair. The Bylethcord has an entire document just on nair usage, its so sick!" His brackets would remain consistent with some small dips during the release of Pyra & Mythra which he would dabble in but even so - Onigiri would continue to persevere and net some nice wins on players like Dags, Cajeck, Sifo1, SeymourButts, Joser, Fly and an incredibly close set against Negima at the most recent Ranking Battle.

The initial competitive goals set out by Onigiri was to grab a spot on the QLD 40 but now he doesn't feel all too motivated by some grandiose goal in Smash because above all else, he just wants to have fun with the game instead of stressing about how he's placing and who he's losing to. "I mostly just want to improve as a player while playing a character I have fun with, even if my results drop in the process."

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Onigiri is a great player and a fantastic person. He's a full-time student but still finds time to play other games outside of smash. His hobbies include piano and watching anime. His favourite game is Persona 5 Royal and his favourite anime series are Paranoia Agent, Monogatari Series and Ping Pong the Animation. Please go follow him on Twitter at @Onigiri_Muncher