Smasher:AMSa

aMSa (, aMSa) is a Super Smash Bros. Melee player from Hyogo, Japan, who is considered to be the best Yoshi player of all-time. He entered the scene in January 2013 and quickly became known as the best Yoshi player in the world after his strong performances at EVO 2013 and Apex 2014, despite only having played seriously for a short amount of time compared to other professionals. aMSa revolutionized Yoshi's metagame and largely contributed to Yoshi's rise in the metagame, which included tournament results and wins that were unprecedented by other Yoshi mains. Most notable among these results were his victories at, , and , making him the only Yoshi player to ever win a major. aMSa is currently ranked 7th on the SSBMRank Summer 2023 and was formerly ranked 1st on the Japan SSBM Rank 2018. At his peak, aMSa was one of the best players in the world, notably ranking 2nd on the SSBMRank 2022.

aMSa was signed by VGBootCamp in May 2014 and stayed on the team for over 9 years. He eventually left on March 30th, 2023, after being signed to the. In addition, he is also sponsored by Red Bull eSports and was previously signed with CJ eSports, a team founded by. In April 2023, he signed with a third sponsor, the Japanese IT company IFreek Mobile.

Playing style
aMSa is a very technical and punish-heavy player, heavily incorporating double jump cancelling and parrying into his gameplay as Yoshi to escape pressure and create lengthy, damaging combos of his own. He is also dangerous at the ledge; he frequently utilizes the Egg Throw ledge stall to bait bad approaches, is able to ledgedash proficiently, and threatens early KOs by occasionally using ledge-hopped Egg Lays as a mixup. He also makes the most out of Yoshi's otherwise mediocre mobility with his fantastic platform movement and ledge snap tricks, as shown partially in his tech skill video. aMSa also has a large amount of game knowledge; he has compiled a detailed chart of KO percentages for all of Yoshi's smash attacks on every stage, utilizes port mechanics to gain extra frames to escape otherwise guaranteed chain grabs from, and has very precise aim with Egg Throw and F-air, especially when edgeguarding or extending combos.

aMSa has more even sets against smashers with more familiarity with the Yoshi matchup, especially in Japan. He tends to have more trouble against players with a more patient playstyle who can combat his egg zoning (such as ). He has a history of struggling against players, which he says is one of Yoshi's worst matchups due to the character's true combos out of grab and attacks that break Yoshi's double jump armor at low percents, and  players, another one of Yoshi's worst matchups because of a chain grab to high percents. His more recent matchup opinions are reflected in his Yoshi matchup video.

EVO 2013
After taking top 8 in a Japanese tournament using only Yoshi, aMSa piqued the interest of the international scene. He made his international debut at EVO 2013, where he managed to sweep through his pool without losing a set, knocking smashers such as and  into losers' bracket and making it to quarterfinals on the winners' side. He then managed to take a game off of in the second round of brackets, shocking many spectators, although Mew2King still ended up defeating aMSa 2-1. In losers' bracket, aMSa defeated another notable smasher in, achieving a final placement of 25th after losing to. He later played many other top players in friendlies, including, , and , managing to hold his own in each one (most of his matches went to the last stock); his most notable moment in these matches was when he 4-stocked SilentSpectre, which many other professionals have never achieved, in or out of tournament brackets.

aMSa's performance split the community's opinions on him; some claimed that he had the potential to take top 16 in his next national event, while others claimed that his relatively high placement was the result of a comparatively easy bracket compared to that of many other players. His stellar performance at EVO resulted in smashers voting him in at 77th best in the world on the 2013 SSBM Player Rankings; even there, however, panelists shared split opinions, with several top professional players arguing that he was overrated and would not perform as well in the future.

Apex 2014 and the pre-MLG season
aMSa returned to the United States to compete in. Defying all expectations again, he tore through winners' bracket in the first round of pools on the first day, beating 2-0 and  2-1 for the winner's position, and defeated  in a best-of-5 exhibition match 3-2. The next day, he caused more enormous upsets by defeating 2-1 and  2-0, securing a spot in winners' finals of the pool. However, he was then defeated by in winners' finals and  in losers' finals, resulting in his 9th place finish in the second largest Melee tournament at the time. After the tournament, he once again fought many other professionals in various exhibition matches, managing to take a game off of, win best of 3 sets against and , and win best of 5 sets against , , and 's sandbagging choices. Although he did not perform as well in doubles with fellow Yoshi main, he still garnered an enormous amount of fan support for demonstrating unprecedented levels of play with his character.

aMSa would later attend the Japanese qualifier,, in May. However, he performed very poorly and did not win a single set, being taken out by his training partner in winners' bracket and then by  in losers' bracket, finishing last at 13th place. This performance did not give him enough MLG points to qualify for the championship bracket, and although he took 2nd at the day after, he needed to travel out of country again to accumulate enough points.

Two weeks later, aMSa traveled to France to attend, a 5000 point qualifier. At this tournament, he achieved a first seed in his second round of pools after defeating and  2-0, and defeated players such as, , and  in winners' bracket before being knocked into losers by. He then defeated 3-1 in losers' quarters, and knocked out  3-0 in losers' semis (with a 3-stock lead at the end of game 1), before losing to  2-3 in an incredibly close set in losers' finals that went down to the last stock, to take 3rd place overall in the singles portion of the tournament. Placing 3rd at this tournament allowed him to gather enough points to qualify for the MLG Anaheim 2014 championship bracket. He also teamed with in doubles and placed 7th.

Summer of Smash 2014
At MLG Anaheim 2014, aMSa didn't do well in his pool; he brought several of his opponents, such as, Westballz, and , to game 5 (often down 2-0 in his favor), but almost always lost in 3-game reversals. Even though the tournament weighed game counts as well as match counts, his stray wins were not enough for him to be seeded any higher than losers' round 1 in the championship bracket. In the championship bracket, he faced first, and won the first two games. However, just like many other players in the championship pools the day before, S2J came back 2-3, knocking aMSa out and into a 17th place finish overall. aMSa also attended, but did not make it out of his bracket pool, losing to 2-3 in winners' finals and  1-3 in losers' finals of the pool, thus placing 33rd in Melee singles at the tournament. However, he did slightly better in Melee doubles, where he placed 9th with.

aMSa made his next appearance at, where he defeated both and  2-0 in the second round of pools, and was seeded first coming out of his pool into the top 32 bracket. He defeated 3-0 and  3-0, setting up a match between him and Mew2King in winners' quarters. In a shocking upset, after losing the first game, aMSa was able to win the set 3-1. He then lost to 0-3 in winners' semis, and to  0-3 in losers' quarters, however, resulting in a 5th place finish overall in singles. In doubles, he placed 7th with PL, losing to Westballz and ZeRo 1-3 in losers' top 8.

The following week, aMSa attended, and won a local tournament at Press Start Gaming Center shortly before the main event started, defeating Ice 2-0, , and Ice again 3-2 for the 1st place finish. Like the previous year, he swept through his round 1 pools without dropping a set, then defeated in the second round bracket before losing to 's Fox 0-2. In losers', aMSa defeated and  before losing to  again, ending his tournament at 17th place overall.

Apex 2015
aMSa first attended the Apex Qualifier in December 2014, where he placed 2nd, losing to  in Winner's semis before defeating the likes of, ,  and Sobameshi in a rematch before being defeated by Shippu in Grand Finals. He did not attend any other Apex Qualifiers or major tournaments until.

At Apex, aMSa swept through his round 1 pool, getting 1st seed with no difficulty. In R2 Pools, he defeated top players such as to make it into Top 48 bracket in Winner's side. There, he defeated Fly Amanita once again 2-0 before falling to Leffen 0-2. aMSa then made an amazing loser's bracket run, defeating 2-0, Lucky 2-1, and SFAT 2-0 to make Top 8, surpassing even his previous year's performance. In Top 8, he defeated 3-1 before falling to Mango in a last stock, game 5 position 2-3 to end his run at 5th place, the highest placing competitor outside of the Top 6, at the biggest Melee tournament at the time, cementing his status as one of the best current players in the world.

GENESIS 5
aMSa entered Genesis 5 in January of 2018. Here, he had a duo of upsets against top 10 players. First was SFAT, whom he delivered a 3-0. Second was, the #1 ranked player in the world, whom he had never taken a game off of in the past. Previously at, he placed last after losing to Wizzrobe. Between tournaments, he practiced with to hone his skills against the character. At G5, he was able to employ these strategies, and successfully defeated Wizzrobe 3-2 in a last game, last stock situation on aMSa's signature counterpick stage Yoshi's Story. He then advanced to Winners Quarters, where he faced, who sent aMSa to losers' bracket with a relatively close 3-0. In losers, he faced for a spot in Top 8. HugS won the first two games, and aMSa followed up winning the following two. This led to a last game on Dreamland, which came down to the last stock, with less than thirty seconds remaining. After being pressured to the ledge, aMSa missed the timing on his Egg Throw stalling and fell, ending his run at an impressive 9th place.

EGLX 2018
At EGLX 2018, aMSa went on one of the best tournament runs of his career. He started out the run by beating Narrowly in pools, with the end score being 2-1. He would go on to lose to SFAT in winners round one 0-3. Going to losers bracket this early can present the problem of a longer, more challenging bracket, but aMSa would manage to upset Swedish Delight 3-2, Ice 3-2, and Axe 3-0 to get into top 8 at the event. Once in top 8, aMSa would proceed to upset Crush 3-2, and Mew2King 3-1. He would end his run by losing to Wizzrobe 0-3, placing 4th at the event, only being outplaced by Wizzrobe, Plup, and Hungrybox.

Other Smash games
While aMSa is not known to play Brawl, he did play the Brawl mod Project M for some time. He initially started with, as he did in Melee, but later decided not to play Yoshi competitively. He stated that he wanted to treat Project M as its own unique game rather than another Melee title, and also explained that certain key aspects of Yoshi didn't resemble those of his Melee appearance (parrying, for example.) Thus, aMSa used instead, and was considered one of the best PM  mains in the world. He exhibits mastery over Lucario's many complex movement options and combos that not many other Lucario mains utilize in their playstyles even to this day, and was frequently the highest-placing Lucario player in several large regional and international Project M tournaments.

With Yoshi, aMSa placed 65th at in Project M singles, barely failing to make it out of his bracket pool. He later made his debut with Lucario at NINJA4, where he placed 2nd; he lost to in winners' semis, then defeated, , and  to make it to Grand Finals against Kaito, where he lost again. He placed 2nd again at ; he lost again in winners' semis, this time to 1-3, then defeated  3-0,  3-0, and  3-1 in a rematch, then lost to  0-3 in Grand Finals.

At, aMSa placed 9th in Project M singles; he made it out of his pool on the winners' side, but lost to and  afterward. He also placed 7th in Project M doubles with.

aMSa was also a participant in the Super Smash Bros. Invitational at E3 2014, and was one of two international participants (along with ZeRo). Even with unavailable for selection, he reached the four-way finals round using. He had the same score but less percent than ZeRo after the match ended, but it did not grant him the win under the Invitational rules; he was subsequently eliminated by popular vote in favor of ZeRo to take 3rd place overall. After the game's release, he picked up, and consistently places well in Smash 4 tournaments, placing 9th at Apex 2015, which included a 2-0 victory over and close 1-2 loss to , as well as defeating , , , and  in Round 2 pools. He also has a Yoshi secondary, but does not play him as often, as he is afraid that the dissimilarities between Yoshi's incarnations in Melee and Smash 4 will hinder his gameplay with both of them. After participating in, he announced that he would be retiring from Smash 4.

Trivia

 * In the Apex 2014 "Salty Suite", aMSa faced off against 's in the "Battle of the Dinos" and won 3-0. When asked to give a statement before the match, aMSa replied "I play to win," repeating said statement after he won. This phrase, commonly deliberately misconstrued as "I pray to win" (due to the "l" sound being pronounced like "r" in Japanese), has become a meme in the Smash community associated with aMSa, with his fans using the statement to cheer him on during tournaments or on streams.
 * At Republic of Fighters 3, aMSa played throughout most of the tournament using the tag "IPTW", referencing this phrase.
 * Due to the similarities of his gamertag with, aMSa played a best of 5 "grudge match" in friendlies at Pound 2016, with Amsah narrowly winning 3 to 2.
 * aMSa has defeated 5 of the members of the 2018 MPGR top 6 (all but ), defeating at,  at ,  at ,  at , and  at.
 * aMSa is the first non-American member of the crew.
 * Like Mew2King, he has also been one of the few players to be sponsored by three organizations at the same time. He has simultaneously been sponsored by VGBootCamp, and  in the past, and is currently sponsored by, Red Bull, and I-Freek Mobile.
 * aMSa served as a playtester for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, alongside fellow competitive players, , , and.
 * aMSa is the oldest player to win a major Melee tournament, winning at 31 years, 1 month, and 22 days old.
 * aMSa holds a world record for the fastest time to create a watermelon, and a world record for the fastest time to reach 3000 points in the Japanese puzzle game Suika Game.

Gameplay videos

 * The Red Essence - A Yoshi tech skill video by aMSa
 * Fly Amanita (Ice Climbers) vs. aMSa (Yoshi)
 * Apex 2014 - aMSa vs GC Silent Wolf - SSBM
 * Overtriforce vs. VGBC.aMSa (Yoshi) - Losers Q.F.
 * KoC 4 - VGBC | aMSa (Yoshi) Vs. P4K EMP | Mew2King (Sheik, Fox) SSBM Winners Quarters - Melee
 * Apex 2015 - VGBC | aMSa (Greninja) Vs. Boreal_Ally (Mario) - SSB4