Smasher:Aldwyn

Aldwyn McCloud (Wing)
Team info
Crew(s)	No crew yet.
Personal and other info
Real name	Andrea
Location	Perugia
Miscellaneous info
Skill	Professional

Aldwyn McCloud, mostly known as Aldwyn, is a European SSBM player and the best Italian smasher along with Seretur. He mains Fox and Falco, however he also likes to play as C.Falcon and Sheik.

Unlike most SSBM players he only started playing the game during 2005, which had him work hard in order to catch up and reach a high level of skills.

He received the first introduction to the professional aspects of the game when he met the French players Joanna Dark and Doraki, along with Helios from Sweden at the EoM tournament, which took place in Italy in December 2005. From now on, Aldwyn would train seriously in order to compete on the smash scene.

Although Seretur always showed to be about as good as Aldwyn, Aldwyn is usually considered to be the best Italian smasher because of his recent victories: he won the 2 biggest Italian tournaments so far, which were ST2 (June 2006) and EoM2 (September 2006). In addiction, he showed to be a dangerous opponent on the European scene by placing 5th at JST5 in Holland (December 2006). Aldwyn himself actually denies to be significantly better than Seretur, and most of the Italian smash community agrees that considering Aldwyn better because of tournament results would be pretty much pointless as freeplay results tend to show an even balance between Aldwyn’s skills and Seretur’s. Seretur on the other hand won all of the most important Italian tournaments that took place before ST2 and placed 7th at RoS3 in Sweden (July 2006), another very big tournament in Europe. Things are changing since AoM1 (April 2007) where both tournament and friendlies results show a little tendency of Aldwyn winning over Seretur.

Ranking Aldwyn on the world smash scene still remains pretty difficult as he never traveled outside Europe and only joined two European big tournaments. However his recent placement at JST5 in Holland had him being considered a high level smasher through out Europe. Out of Europe he is pretty much unknown, especially because of the lack of videos featuring him.

Style

Aldwyn usually trains with Tosxychor, another Italian SSBM player who also is Aldwyn's best friend. However he soon began to think the time he spent on SSBM wasn't enough and he therefore decided to train using CPs. Even though Aldwyn himself warns that training using CPs may end in having the player falling in bad habits, he considers it a good training in order to improve technical skills and the perception of the game.

For those who have been able to play him, Aldwyn is considered to be a good mind gamer, however several players and Aldwyn himself claim that his real strength resides in his technical speed. Aldwyn actually looks more to be a mix between technical devices and strategical skills, because even if he plays fast he dislikes abusing too much of pillars, lasers, shines, and other high-tech stuff all considered too repetitive from Aldwyn's point of view, who likes more to rely on movement skills.

Aldwyn often plays better in friendlies rather than in tournament matches, having concentration problems during big events. He cares more about an overall view of the skills and the players rather than of tournament results, however he is also known for disliking losing.

Aldwyn hates cheap playing, especially chain grabs and cheap moves spamming. He therefore usually bans FD against most players and avoids to camper using lasers unless really necessary. Unlike several Falco players, he considers FD a very bad stage for Falco, because as mentioned before he doesn't rely on laser campering while on the other hand he likes close spaces and platforms in order to land heavier combos on his opponents.

Aldwyn likes the Japanese playing style, trying to imitate Hiko's and Thunders' stuff. He also likes Helios' and Remen's Foxes and PC Chris' Falco.

Aldwyn teams with Tosxychor in Italian tournaments while outside, when possible, he teams with Seretur.

Trivia

Aldwyn never plays for money, claiming that the fun of playing is supposed to be the real and only objective.

Unlike a lot of SSBM players who care more about the Tier list position rather than the character himself, Aldwyn's main Falco is also his favorite Nintendo character along with Metaknight. He also Likes the Zelda series characters (especially Ganondorf), Mario and Luigi, DK and C.Falcon. He likes Pokémon as well, however he hates to death Pikachu. He also seems to dislike a lot Peach, asserting (like many other players) that Peach is an anagram for "cheap".

Aldwyn's best friend out of Italy is Joanna Dark. Together with Seretur they share the use of Falco and each of them significantly contributed to the development of the style of the others. On the other hand Aldwyn doesn't dislike anyone even though he used to argue a lot with Seretur several months ago.

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