Important Carefully Ask PPMD about the Tiara Guy

[Uma]

Sup PP
I'm fortunate to live in CFL, specifically really close to Pi, Colbol, Drunksloth, and my main partner who's probably the second best sheik in CFL (I would say I'm probably third best Marth behind Colin and Mr. Lz for context on skill level). Playing with these people so much has improved my gameplay a ton in the last year and at our weeklies I've made a few good PR upsets. My biggest issue now is consistency, and I just want to bounce some thoughts off you and see what you think.

1. I play significantly worse in tournament than in friendlies, regardless of my opponent. I'm not sure if it's tourney nerves or playing different styles, and was wondering if you dealt with this in your first couple years.

2. I play much better against "better" players than "worse" players. I quoted them just to emphasize that it's all subjective and I know I shouldn't underestimate or make little of people, but I guess the feeling I get is when I play a PR player I understand the options he's selecting and how to adapt to them where when I play spaceyguy4000 he'll just spam **** at me and it's impossible to predict. This is frustrating because others at my skill level don't seem to have this issue but I struggle with dealing with bad options.

3. I'm easily tilted by characters that kill Marth in one or two easily setup combos, such as sheik, falcon, marth dittos and ****ING GANON. The sheik i mentioned before that I practice with doesn't seem to face the same mid level problems I do with certain characters and it makes me question my main constantly (because we both agree Marth has to change the way he plays for nearly every matchup and Sheik can play many more or less the same). I constantly have thoughts of changing mains and it's not a healthy attitude for improvement. I remember either reading or hearing you talk about how you started as a Marth main and switched to Falco because you hated fighting Sheik, so I'm particularly interested in what you have to say about this point.

That's about it, thanks for sticking around smashboards you really are the man.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Sup PP
I'm fortunate to live in CFL, specifically really close to Pi, Colbol, Drunksloth, and my main partner who's probably the second best sheik in CFL (I would say I'm probably third best Marth behind Colin and Mr. Lz for context on skill level). Playing with these people so much has improved my gameplay a ton in the last year and at our weeklies I've made a few good PR upsets. My biggest issue now is consistency, and I just want to bounce some thoughts off you and see what you think.

1. I play significantly worse in tournament than in friendlies, regardless of my opponent. I'm not sure if it's tourney nerves or playing different styles, and was wondering if you dealt with this in your first couple years.

2. I play much better against "better" players than "worse" players. I quoted them just to emphasize that it's all subjective and I know I shouldn't underestimate or make little of people, but I guess the feeling I get is when I play a PR player I understand the options he's selecting and how to adapt to them where when I play spaceyguy4000 he'll just spam **** at me and it's impossible to predict. This is frustrating because others at my skill level don't seem to have this issue but I struggle with dealing with bad options.

3. I'm easily tilted by characters that kill Marth in one or two easily setup combos, such as sheik, falcon, marth dittos and ****ING GANON. The sheik i mentioned before that I practice with doesn't seem to face the same mid level problems I do with certain characters and it makes me question my main constantly (because we both agree Marth has to change the way he plays for nearly every matchup and Sheik can play many more or less the same). I constantly have thoughts of changing mains and it's not a healthy attitude for improvement. I remember either reading or hearing you talk about how you started as a Marth main and switched to Falco because you hated fighting Sheik, so I'm particularly interested in what you have to say about this point.

That's about it, thanks for sticking around smashboards you really are the man.

1. I didn't struggle with this early in my competitive career because I had such a strong drive to beat people/win every game. Later as my relationship to the game changed I started playing worse in tournament than friendlies. I find that there are several ways to handle this. You can lose often to invest in loss, you can watch matches to see yourself making mistakes to get accustomed to them(both of these also will help with #3), you can challenge your psychologically and see what you feel in those tourney matches whether it's fear of not being good enough or being judged harshly by others, you can meditate and encounter various inconsistencies in your mind and correct those as well as hone your focus for tournament and boost your morale with what you're thinking while meditating, and you can also build your body up to make you feel pumped to do well(also it reinforces success when you succeed physically). People respond differently to different things, but I've found tackling things from multiple directions to be best.

2. (Part of) it might be respect, that's pretty common from what I've seen. Every player is making decisions they think are best and you can always learn from them. Beyond that, you might be used to playing the game a certain way and less skilled players could be a great opportunity to learn what makes their tactics work on you. You can then turn this against better players if you figure out why them running at you, or rolling at the worst time can be effective for example.

3. Any time I was ever mad at a matchup or stage, that feeling went away with understanding. I think through improving in the game and stuff from #1 you can move past how difficult that feeling is. Also, Marth can play about the same vs ICs and characters below ICs on the tier list(well you should DD vs Ganon and sometimes vs Samus but for that many characters it's a solid rule). Just zone them out, don't DD. I also have a feeling if you simplify your Marth game you can see he can do a lot of the same stuff vs any character and be effective. Of course it will change some based on matchup but I would say that's the case for Sheik too.

And for your last part, yeah I couldn't stand Sheik vs Marth until about 2 years ago. I just really didn't understand it, and as we can see from Moon doing pretty well vs some of the better Sheiks(not Plup's last time but he's been doing very well vs M2K's for example) that the understanding and simplicity is what is needed. Getting into a range to abuse Fair vs her walk Ftilt and also opting to poke with Dtilt mixes to make Sheik's life pretty hard. Also I felt a lot more mobile when I quit shielding needles since Sheik was controlling me well with them. Also I learned to hit her as hard/harder than she hits me which I hadn't really mapped out. When I actually sat down and walked through the matchup totally, I was fine with it. Now I needed to grow as a player a lot before I'd have been okay with not shielding needles(I was very much a percentage stickler in my earlier days) and some other tactics, I think anyone can bring about better feeling for ANY matchup with knowledge. Marth rewards understanding very appropriately and punishes pretty well for not understanding in my experience. Basically what I guess I'm getting at is keep at it man you're clearly putting in the work and you just need to have faith in yourself and your character. You won't have the answers overnight but if you keep working on it you'll get confident with a character that should absolutely be terrifying people.

 

[Uma]

1. I didn't struggle with this early in my competitive career because I had such a strong drive to beat people/win every game. Later as my relationship to the game changed I started playing worse in tournament than friendlies. I find that there are several ways to handle this. You can lose often to invest in loss, you can watch matches to see yourself making mistakes to get accustomed to them(both of these also will help with #3), you can challenge your psychologically and see what you feel in those tourney matches whether it's fear of not being good enough or being judged harshly by others, you can meditate and encounter various inconsistencies in your mind and correct those as well as hone your focus for tournament and boost your morale with what you're thinking while meditating, and you can also build your body up to make you feel pumped to do well(also it reinforces success when you succeed physically). People respond differently to different things, but I've found tackling things from multiple directions to be best.

2. (Part of) it might be respect, that's pretty common from what I've seen. Every player is making decisions they think are best and you can always learn from them. Beyond that, you might be used to playing the game a certain way and less skilled players could be a great opportunity to learn what makes their tactics work on you. You can then turn this against better players if you figure out why them running at you, or rolling at the worst time can be effective for example.

3. Any time I was ever mad at a matchup or stage, that feeling went away with understanding. I think through improving in the game and stuff from #1 you can move past how difficult that feeling is. Also, Marth can play about the same vs ICs and characters below ICs on the tier list(well you should DD vs Ganon and sometimes vs Samus but for that many characters it's a solid rule). Just zone them out, don't DD. I also have a feeling if you simplify your Marth game you can see he can do a lot of the same stuff vs any character and be effective. Of course it will change some based on matchup but I would say that's the case for Sheik too.

And for your last part, yeah I couldn't stand Sheik vs Marth until about 2 years ago. I just really didn't understand it, and as we can see from Moon doing pretty well vs some of the better Sheiks(not Plup's last time but he's been doing very well vs M2K's for example) that the understanding and simplicity is what is needed. Getting into a range to abuse Fair vs her walk Ftilt and also opting to poke with Dtilt mixes to make Sheik's life pretty hard. Also I felt a lot more mobile when I quit shielding needles since Sheik was controlling me well with them. Also I learned to hit her as hard/harder than she hits me which I hadn't really mapped out. When I actually sat down and walked through the matchup totally, I was fine with it. Now I needed to grow as a player a lot before I'd have been okay with not shielding needles(I was very much a percentage stickler in my earlier days) and some other tactics, I think anyone can bring about better feeling for ANY matchup with knowledge. Marth rewards understanding very appropriately and punishes pretty well for not understanding in my experience. Basically what I guess I'm getting at is keep at it man you're clearly putting in the work and you just need to have faith in yourself and your character. You won't have the answers overnight but if you keep working on it you'll get confident with a character that should absolutely be terrifying people.

Can't thank you enough for this, obviously need some time to internalize it and put it into practice but I'll be using this writeup extensively as a guide on what to work on and a reminder to believe in myself and character in tournaments. One thing just for clarification:
"You can lose often to invest in loss" - I think I have an idea but could use some elaboration on what you meant by this.

Also this quote was interesting to me
"Also, Marth can play about the same vs ICs and characters below ICs on the tier list(well you should DD vs Ganon and sometimes vs Samus but for that many characters it's a solid rule). Just zone them out, don't DD."
The way I've learned to play Icies vs drunksloth is to camp platforms and punish him for whiffing upairs. Zoning him on the ground feels impossible because he'll stand under a platform and do the blizzard/ice block desync to force me into the air. I think I use the zoning playstyle for these lower tier characters you're talking about against all the ones without projectiles, but if they have a projectile I feel forced to approach and DD.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Can't thank you enough for this, obviously need some time to internalize it and put it into practice but I'll be using this writeup extensively as a guide on what to work on and a reminder to believe in myself and character in tournaments. One thing just for clarification:
"You can lose often to invest in loss" - I think I have an idea but could use some elaboration on what you meant by this.

Also this quote was interesting to me
"Also, Marth can play about the same vs ICs and characters below ICs on the tier list(well you should DD vs Ganon and sometimes vs Samus but for that many characters it's a solid rule). Just zone them out, don't DD."
The way I've learned to play Icies vs drunksloth is to camp platforms and punish him for whiffing upairs. Zoning him on the ground feels impossible because he'll stand under a platform and do the blizzard/ice block desync to force me into the air. I think I use the zoning playstyle for these lower tier characters you're talking about against all the ones without projectiles, but if they have a projectile I feel forced to approach and DD.

Investing in loss is very powerful in my experience. It's basically about losing continuously until you are no longer afraid of it, which can also include whatever made you tense up from loss in the first place. Initially I lost a lot when I was playing locally due to my depression, but then I read and realized how powerful this could be, so I began playing to learn instead of playing to win. This way I not only began enjoying the matches and learning on the fly, but I was getting better and better at being okay with any match result. It took a lot of time and there were some not pretty results from losing early on, but it was absolutely worth it for the finished product.

Yeah you can platform camp ICs too if you want but I don't think it's required. First of all for that desync, he has to set it up which you can hit him for trying. Also I believe you can jab/Dtilt the ice block and then you'll be able to threaten ICs after the blizzard ends even if it is out. As long as you Fair/Dtilt intelligently they shouldn't be able to get in, and if you're not moving around a lot it's pretty easy to see where your openings are. What might help is to play neutral-only scenarios with an ICs player. If a big hit or grab is made then just reset the situation. Most people never learn to play ICs because of the fear of grab and not really understanding their desyncs so that type of training that gets to approach them reasonably can be pretty helpful. Also you'll need it for stages you can't platform camp on anyway =p

 

[Kopaka]

Investing in loss is very powerful in my experience. It's basically about losing continuously until you are no longer afraid of it, which can also include whatever made you tense up from loss in the first place. Initially I lost a lot when I was playing locally due to my depression, but then I read and realized how powerful this could be, so I began playing to learn instead of playing to win. This way I not only began enjoying the matches and learning on the fly, but I was getting better and better at being okay with any match result. It took a lot of time and there were some not pretty results from losing early on, but it was absolutely worth it for the finished product.

Wow, that was very insightful. Often times for me at least this seems near impossible. Even in the past 2 weeks I've come full circle to not being afraid of losing (and ending up winning) to playing scared to lose (and the end result of that was losing). Once you get to a certain level, eventually people will talk about how they beat you, and how you channel that can make or break you. I'm sitting here now asking myself "How can I not be afraid of losing?" Which I think is funny because I've done it before yet those feelings still creep up on me from time to time, and I find myself playing much much worse and tensing up in tourney. I think it could be a number of things...and the better I get I know that there will be people out there who like to see me lose. So I think it all depends on how you channel those feelings. You embrace it and let it fuel you, or you let it eat you up.

 

[Space Cowboy]

Hey PP, I've been playing melee for a little bit now, and I have a couple questions that you could possibly answer for me.

1. I have been playing only marth dittos for the last 2 weeks against my friend, because my fox just can't seem to do it against his marth anymore (used to be even in how much we won). His marth is agro, but well though out. He spaces his attacks extremely well, and it feels like a train is always coming at me. Any tips for penetrating a moving wall?

2. Do you think playing music while practicing (not actual matches) could help tech skill?

 

[Sprenzy]

Yeah, but you can also work out general percent trees. There's nothing wrong with knowing what you want to do on Uthrow full DI away at 50%. Usually you can see patterns in your punish that need work like low percent CG problems with slight DI behind or the opponent landing on platforms at mid percents and holding down or holding away on your Fair at mid percents. There's a counter to all of that kind of stuff but you have to work it out, watch matches, and test and practice on your own to really understand it. I can help more with more specific questions.

Okay This is the way I've started practicing and testing

1.I go to training mode
2.I usually just pick a percent and set the cpu to jump
3.Test out the knock backs with tipper and non tipper high, medium and low arc and see at which percent I can (short hop/full hop -> fair -> jump dair)
4.and sometimes I just practice on short hop double fair on 0% marth from across final destination and try to end it with a ken combo (SHDfair -> short hop fair -> Dair)
I haven't practiced on fox/falco yet but I imagine that you chain grab until 50% -> tipper up air until 70%-80% -> finish with a hop double fair/single fair -> fair and dair

although I don't know how to practice and note down specific DI situations, I seriously need to attend my local tournaments more or find a practice partner

BTW I think in the interview in the battle of the five gods, you said that your going to like relearn and practice things and get back on their level right? I really want to know how you're practicing things. Let me in on some of that juicy details . I've been a avid spectator for competitive smash but I still play casually, now I'm starting to grind tech skills and stuff like that. I just don't know where to really start or how to progress

 

[Uma]

Okay This is the way I've started practicing and testing

1.I go to training mode
2.I usually just pick a percent and set the cpu to jump
3.Test out the knock backs with tipper and non tipper high, medium and low arc and see at which percent I can (short hop/full hop -> fair -> jump dair)
4.and sometimes I just practice on short hop double fair on 0% marth from across final destination and try to end it with a ken combo (SHDfair -> short hop fair -> Dair)
I haven't practiced on fox/falco yet but I imagine that you chain grab until 50% -> tipper up air until 70%-80% -> finish with a hop double fair/single fair -> fair and dair

although I don't know how to practice and note down specific DI situations, I seriously need to attend my local tournaments more or find a practice partner

BTW I think in the interview in the battle of the five gods, you said that your going to like relearn and practice things and get back on their level right? I really want to know how you're practicing things. Let me in on some of that juicy details . I've been a avid spectator for competitive smash but I still play casually, now I'm starting to grind tech skills and stuff like that. I just don't know where to really start or how to progress

Go to tournaments and practice against real people with real DI. Learning a bunch of combos on training mode cpus might hurt you more than anything because chances are they won't work against human players. Like of course you can combo a Marth across fd of they're holding in but that's not going to happen once you start going to tournaments.

 

[Sprenzy]

Go to tournaments and practice against real people with real DI. Learning a bunch of combos on training mode cpus might hurt you more than anything because chances are they won't work against human players. Like of course you can combo a Marth across fd of they're holding in but that's not going to happen once you start going to tournaments.

well the only reason why I'm practicing DSHfairs is so that I could practice DSHfairs and ACTUALLY hitting with the correct part of the sword

 

[PedXing]

What's the best way to practice Smash DI and do you think using a shadowbowing method would be best to get used to it. I don't think I can get my head around it in game with all the other things I need to be paying attention to.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Wow, that was very insightful. Often times for me at least this seems near impossible. Even in the past 2 weeks I've come full circle to not being afraid of losing (and ending up winning) to playing scared to lose (and the end result of that was losing). Once you get to a certain level, eventually people will talk about how they beat you, and how you channel that can make or break you. I'm sitting here now asking myself "How can I not be afraid of losing?" Which I think is funny because I've done it before yet those feelings still creep up on me from time to time, and I find myself playing much much worse and tensing up in tourney. I think it could be a number of things...and the better I get I know that there will be people out there who like to see me lose. So I think it all depends on how you channel those feelings. You embrace it and let it fuel you, or you let it eat you up.

It's something you can never stop doing. Guarding your mind is an essential part of improvement and if you ignore those types of things then weeds will grow.

Hey PP, I've been playing melee for a little bit now, and I have a couple questions that you could possibly answer for me.

1. I have been playing only marth dittos for the last 2 weeks against my friend, because my fox just can't seem to do it against his marth anymore (used to be even in how much we won). His marth is agro, but well though out. He spaces his attacks extremely well, and it feels like a train is always coming at me. Any tips for penetrating a moving wall?

2. Do you think playing music while practicing (not actual matches) could help tech skill?

1. Intercept him before he gets into position, or make him whiff then outspace him.

2. Yeah I've seen it help others.

Okay This is the way I've started practicing and testing

1.I go to training mode
2.I usually just pick a percent and set the cpu to jump
3.Test out the knock backs with tipper and non tipper high, medium and low arc and see at which percent I can (short hop/full hop -> fair -> jump dair)
4.and sometimes I just practice on short hop double fair on 0% marth from across final destination and try to end it with a ken combo (SHDfair -> short hop fair -> Dair)
I haven't practiced on fox/falco yet but I imagine that you chain grab until 50% -> tipper up air until 70%-80% -> finish with a hop double fair/single fair -> fair and dair

although I don't know how to practice and note down specific DI situations, I seriously need to attend my local tournaments more or find a practice partner

BTW I think in the interview in the battle of the five gods, you said that your going to like relearn and practice things and get back on their level right? I really want to know how you're practicing things. Let me in on some of that juicy details . I've been a avid spectator for competitive smash but I still play casually, now I'm starting to grind tech skills and stuff like that. I just don't know where to really start or how to progress

Yeah most of that is alright, but not foolproof since CPU set to jump isn't frame tight. Also, CG only works reliably on FD, so you'll need to practice followups on platform stages as well. That can vary since the platform heights are different as well as the platform lengths.

 

[Space Cowboy]

PP,

I gotta say, today was a good day. I beat my friends marth. Even though your advice was very brief (like the question itself), it still helped. Thanks my man. Hope to see you back in the scene soon. Miss you.

 

[Sprenzy]

How does a Marth or any other characters effectively baits the opponent and intercept their position? I realize that even though I practice combos or follow ups or watch VODs but If I can't trick the opponent into bringing up the shield I can't grab or If I don't bait the roll, I can't go for a forward smash.

This leads to another question. Just as mango said, Melee is played 90% in your mind, your suppose to basically download your opponent right? keep track of their habits and mistakes.
Now I can barely keep track of the stale moves, so how do you go actually learn to keep track of multiple things? when I'm playing matches I tend to just be one track minded and only focus on one situation instead of multiple situations. say I remember a trick from this video and I just only do that and totally forget playing safely, zoning, spacing. That being said, I still don't even know what the heck I'm really suppose to be looking for to track

 

[Deleted member]

i cant believe this thread is still going holy ****

 

[Sprenzy]

i cant believe this thread is still going holy ****

because DR. peepee is still going

 

[Life]

something something energizer

 

[Uma]

Gotta beat either a PR Falco or PR Fox to make it out of my pool in a couple hours. If you guys get a spacie into the 140s plus how do you normally try to close out the stock? I've been going for hail Mary fsmashes and reverse up bs and they're both super unsafe. Also Upthrow nair to edge guard

 

[Zorcey]

Gotta beat either a PR Falco or PR Fox to make it out of my pool in a couple hours. If you guys get a spacie into the 140s plus how do you normally try to close out the stock? I've been going for hail Mary fsmashes and reverse up bs and they're both super unsafe. Also Upthrow nair to edge guard

If they whiff utilt is fairly reliable, but you have to make sure it hits or you'll definitely get punished lol. Throw mixups can also be particularly helpful with Marth because of how his animations are and since the DI is relatively easy to react to. Another option is a tipper dtilt near the ledge, which knocks them offstage kind of easily at very high percents, and is pretty safe to try. Overall the most important thing is not to panic when you have Marthritis, and just be very patient with your opponent. Chances are they're very edgy at such a high percent, and will be more likely to make a mistake - stay cool and take advantage of that, and don't try to force the kill.

EDIT: Typo

 

[Taytertot]

So ive realized that as i have improved my tech skill and gotten smoother movement i have also somehow developed some poor usage of my movement which i feel to be due to a lack of intention behind each movement decision. this made me think about whether or not "random" movement has any use whatsoever. Ive always thought that some randomness helps to mixup how easily one is to predict, but maybe using movement purely with purpose or at least almost purely with purpose (i.e. DDing towards the opponent to pressure them and DDing away to avoid potential advances or getting out of poor positioning) is more effective then doing random back and forth DDing, thinking that that is helping to make one more unpredictable.

Now im not suggesting that one should simply dash forward to apply pressure because if there is no mixup at all then a solid player could predict you everytime but i mean to throw away intentionally random DDing from my gameplay so that every dash towards or away has reason beyond saying "well if i move back and forth a bunch then they dont know what im up to".

EDIT: finally realized how to word this more concisely. Is there any merit to using completely thoughtless movement to make one's self more enigmatic or can that be thrown out of my gameplay altogether?

 

[Dr Peepee]

How does a Marth or any other characters effectively baits the opponent and intercept their position? I realize that even though I practice combos or follow ups or watch VODs but If I can't trick the opponent into bringing up the shield I can't grab or If I don't bait the roll, I can't go for a forward smash.

This leads to another question. Just as mango said, Melee is played 90% in your mind, your suppose to basically download your opponent right? keep track of their habits and mistakes.
Now I can barely keep track of the stale moves, so how do you go actually learn to keep track of multiple things? when I'm playing matches I tend to just be one track minded and only focus on one situation instead of multiple situations. say I remember a trick from this video and I just only do that and totally forget playing safely, zoning, spacing. That being said, I still don't even know what the heck I'm really suppose to be looking for to track

just focus on what makes the character work for now. spacing, heavy combos/juggles/edgeguards/tech chases, minimalist movement. apply dtilt and fair and grab threats interchangeably. watch videos for how to do those sorts of things before worrying about the rest.

 

[Space Cowboy]

PP, I was playing against the same friend today, but he finally pulled out his old falco. Extremely agro and technical. He's doing a lot of unsafe stuff with his play, but I haven't figured out my method of punishing it yet. He usually lasers his way in, then DDs around till I throw out an attack, or goes straight in with nair or dair. He sometime jumps back and reverse lasers tho. I haven't had much falco experience, especially such an agro falco. He mixes it up well enough so I can't predict his options, but his three main options all don't differ. It's either, laser, dd, or aerial. Any tips to get out of my sticky situation?

 

[PichuMaster3000]

PP, so is neutral a thing that changes based on match up? just trying to clarify because obviously your not going to to dash dance the same against a Sheik as you would Falcon or Ganon or D.K. Oh and against Peach in neutral if she is aggressive is it more of a swing your sword on the way out like a fade back fair or is it a dash back dash forward into something? (thinking specifically about dash attack and dash grab. maybe down smash. and your opinion on the situation)

 

[AirFair]

PP, so is neutral a thing that changes based on match up? just trying to clarify because obviously your not going to to dash dance the same against a Sheik as you would Falcon or Ganon or D.K. Oh and against Peach in neutral if she is aggressive is it more of a swing your sword on the way out like a fade back fair or is it a dash back dash forward into something? (thinking specifically about dash attack and dash grab. maybe down smash. and your opinion on the situation)

If I could offer an answer to you, yes, it is. When you play neutral vs different characters, and different people playing those characters, you look for what they do in response to your movements, and you decide when you want to press in based on how threatened they are, or when they like to come in. Also, the effective ranges of each character are different, so you might have to dash further in to bait a peach dash attack then you would a fox nair/dair. Usually, you want to space yourself to where you can threaten with your range (run dtilt/wd dtilt) and they are unable to beat those approaches without moving into your space, which you can react to, and catch their over commitment. When you are approaching yourself, that is when knowing your opponent's range is important as well, since often times the mere threat of marth coming so close to someone can make them move away from him or do something risky like jump. Does this sound about right Dr Peepee ? lol

For your peach question, how is she aggressing? this is important when thinking of a response. As said above, you are spacing in a way that keeps them wary of your range, and because of that, they don't want to commit to anything you can react to (in this case, Peach's turnip pull, which gives her a strong tool against Marth if she can actually do it). Now if you are sure that she will try and do something risky (like spacing an fc bair on your dash/wd in for example), you can come forward and swing proactively to dissuade her from doing stuff like that, or, if you are sure that she will dash attack, you can do a long dash forward to bait it, dash back, and then grab her missed attempt. How you react to the options she uses depends on what she does the last few times you approach a certain way. For your fadeback swings, those can work, but you wouldn't necessarily have to hit her, just make her cautious of the option, since the only way you will hit those is if she presses very far in. Vs dash attack and dash grab, it should be easier to bait those grounded options if you are spacing effectively. Dsmash is such a laggy move that you can bait that as well, but be very aware of crouch cancel into it when you decide to swing.

 

[Sprenzy]

PP, so is neutral a thing that changes based on match up? just trying to clarify because obviously your not going to to dash dance the same against a Sheik as you would Falcon or Ganon or D.K. Oh and against Peach in neutral if she is aggressive is it more of a swing your sword on the way out like a fade back fair or is it a dash back dash forward into something? (thinking specifically about dash attack and dash grab. maybe down smash. and your opinion on the situation)

correct me if I'm wrong (btw sorry for not proofreading this post)
In neutral, I just try to determine the safe distance to keep, so for example If I'm marth playing with a fox, I want to be in a position where I can't get hit by fox's dashing short hop nair which is also the most range he can cover besides the illusion, that's where the baiting comes in. if a player is high enough level then he'd probably know the distance he'd cover with his fox so your basically trying to get him to do that when your dash dancing. but you also have to keep in mind that fox can l cancel fast fast fall and shine so it's crucial to know one's habit
also general knowledge is that if a character is above you then he can't grab so it's pretty save to stay in shield but again you have to keep in mind that fast character can hit you before the shield stun ends like a shine grab

 

[Kopaka]

It's something you can never stop doing. Guarding your mind is an essential part of improvement and if you ignore those types of things then weeds will grow.

I've found it to be difficult to balance being hard on yourself for the sake of motivation to improvement, to looking past results/losses and seeing growth and learning. Wanting to win is OK, and being dissatisfied with yourself can definitely be a stepping stone to improvement, but it can also be counter-productive if you SOLELY look at your growth with wins/losses. For me I've found that if I only look at it that way, it can be mentally unhealthy. Only seeing yourself for your win/loss record. Not actually realizing that you are getting better despite still losing. I'd say my own definition for "investing in loss" would be for me to look past that loss, and realize "hey, I actually did a lot of stuff there I would have never been able to do 5 months ago. Imagine what I could do in the next 5 months if I keep at it!" The quicker you can learn to do these things, the healthier your mind will be and losing shouldn't depress you as much. It's not taking away from the motivation, it's not "dumbing it down" or anything, and I still believe that getting frustrated after a loss is OK to a certain point, as long as you don't take away your own credit for improving.

 

[Dr Peepee]

The type of thinking that I've seen rewarded in learning and performance most, academically and anecdotally, is one that emphasizes effort over results. One could also visualize the victory and how good it would feel to win as well as do the work to make that awesome vision a reality, but I find the first line of reasoning more effective when helping others so far.

Also I find a better metric of success the improved feeling in the game. I know it sounds a bit odd, but feeling a deeper understanding means you've internalized more information and also are more attached to the game.

 

[Uma]

Alright finally got a chance to write again after the monthly and a 10 hour shift. Wanted to talk about the three mental blocks I had that PP addressed (in the first two posts on this page) and how just 2 days after his advice I've already made progress.

So first off I made it out of pools at Unrivaled II. It had almost all of the CFL PR, as well as a lot of PR players from south florida and gainesville. I'm pretty sure I was one of only two non PR players to make it out of pools and i'm ecstatic about it. I'm going to number the points the same way I did before and talk about how I overcame them or how still failed in certain aspects, and talk about new struggles I faced.

1. Playing worse in Tournament - First off, I got plenty of sleep and didn't smoke any uhh substances before the tourney. I've tended to do that because I thought it calmed my nerves but it's kind of obvious now it only hurt my performance. Anyway, I did not start meditation as I thought it would be too soon to actually do it correctly but I did try to go into every match with a huge desire to win. I would rather die than lose these matches, at least until I made it into bracket but we'll get to that. My last match to get it out of the pool was a Falco named Pleb who plays with Gahtzu alot. Game 3 he was up 2 stocks to 1 one FOD and I just decided I was not going to lose and that was that. Gimped his first stock and then 0 to deathed his second when I was already in the 90s, I believe that was my first popoff.

2. Playing worse against people you consider below you - This is the point I feel I improved the most on. PP was spot on with this, no matter how good you are you can lose if you don't adapt to your opponent. I didn't respect certain players before and would just get tilted if they took stocks from me because I deemed what they were doing to be wrong. Before the tourney, we ran AML matches (Amateur Melee League, basically a 4 month Arcadian league based on ELO). I went undefeated in my sets and took a set off the only undefeated player in the league. I was able to see the games as many different interactions and actually remember what options they were choosing in response to mine. This made it easier to not get tilted when they landed combos on me because I wasn't thinking about how they were going to win the game, I thought about how they won that situation and how I could win it the next time it came up. I also won my pool so obviously I carried this on across the tournament.

3. Sheik, Marth, Falcon, and Ganon - I'm actually going to take sheik off the list of characters I have issues with. No sheiks beat me besides my training partner and Plup, and I think I actually have a really strong understanding of the MU. I also took games off of Mr. Lz Marth and Rockcrocks Ganon in friendlies, so maybe these issues were more mindset based than knowledge of the matchup based. I will say this though, crossup nair is actually so good against Ganon, I got an incredible amount of mileage out of that and Rockcrock never really had an answer for it because it made for too many overpowering neutral options (fast fall fair, rising fair, crossup nair, and dtilt can probably beat any ganon if you capitalize on your hit confirms). Falcon is still giving me trouble but I'm gonna dig through these pages and try to find some help for that.

I know this is super long but I can't really see how I feel about everything that happened unless I write it out. If any of yall are struggling with tournament mindset, I urge you to read PPs first post on this page, it's truly a goldmine for fixing problems you're having outside of the game itself.

Lastly, my next problem to tackle. I made it out of pools, and had accomplished my goal. That's when my strong new mindset left me unfortunately. My first opponent in bracket was Envy, a puff with a win over Ice. I've taken games off him before but never a set, and he destroyed me on Saturday. I'm normally able to grab him but I think he reactively crouched literally every attempt.. He would never rest me out but would jump back and bair me so fast it didn't matter. I couldn't out space his bair with my fair and that's basically the tale of the match, he baired me alot and i never adapted. I didn't go into the match thinking I had a chance, so how could I play with any fire you know? I needed to carry the momentum from my big win in pools I think. My losers opponent was Pi who has taught me more about melee than anyone. I just walked outside, talked to him while he smoked a cig and then we went in and he beat my ass. I didn't mind at the time because we're friends and I love watching his Samus but now I regret not giving him a good set that we could talk about and break down. Finished 17th out of like almost a 100 and made a lot of great new friends, rockcrock and blea gelo are some of the nicest and most genuine people I've ever met

Alright that's my thought dump thanks for reading if anyone does and I hope it helps someone out there.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Well that's great man! It's awesome when you start really breaking through and seeing your work pay off =)

As for your loss of desire, that's straightforward. You just need to set new goals once you achieve your old ones and find them compelling. You'll learn to do this on your own as you come to realize you quickly adjust to whatever achievements you just made and will hunger for more. Keep building on the experience!

 

[Uma]

Thanks appreciate it
Yeah I came to that same conclusion from writing that up, I think people (including myself from like a week ago) underrate putting your thoughts in writing. Really allows you to see what your flaws are and how to correct them. Probably correlated with how many top smashers were big smashboards users in its hayday. I'm definitely gonna stick around and hopefully get something worth watching on stream soon because I'm interested in hearing what you'd have to say!

 

[Uma]

Also if you want to talk about it Plup SUPER disagrees about not shielding sheiks needles. He wanted you to clarify did you mean all needles, jumping, charged vs not, etc. The only one he thought you didn't need to shield was standing single needles, is that what you meant or do you just disagree?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Aerial needles you can shield or not shield there are varying pros and cons in my experience(edit: obviously if you can dodge aerial needles do that though that's HIGHLY preferable lol I'm just saying when you can't). Standing needles was more of what I was referring to, and usually on a lesser charge. Although honestly I don't really care about taking the 15% or whatever if i get to pressure sheik afterward and let them know I'm not afraid lol but that's obviously a judgment call.

 

[Kopaka]

The type of thinking that I've seen rewarded in learning and performance most, academically and anecdotally, is one that emphasizes effort over results. One could also visualize the victory and how good it would feel to win as well as do the work to make that awesome vision a reality, but I find the first line of reasoning more effective when helping others so far.

Also I find a better metric of success the improved feeling in the game. I know it sounds a bit odd, but feeling a deeper understanding means you've internalized more information and also are more attached to the game.

I see. Effort over results and finding new goals once old ones have been met. My goals for awhile were to simply grind it out and improve and have solid wins under my belt, which I've now accomplished from having literally no notable wins at all I think I understand a bit the improved feeling of the game part, especially when I'm playing matchups I used to consider myself horrible at. But right now, to improve more I've come to realize I need a better understanding of other characters that aren't Fox and Falco, like Peach for example, and the game as a whole. The effort in solo practice and the effort you put into winning in on tournament day.

also Uma , "2. Playing worse against people you consider below you - This is the point I feel I improved the most on. PP was spot on with this, no matter how good you are you can lose if you don't adapt to your opponent. I didn't respect certain players before and would just get tilted if they took stocks from me because I deemed what they were doing to be wrong." This speaks to me very deeply as someone who's had trouble with this before. It's a very negative way to go about playing weaker players. I'm glad I'm not alone in that lol

2nd edit for Uma : ALSO THIS: "Lastly, my next problem to tackle. I made it out of pools, and had accomplished my goal. That's when my strong new mindset left me unfortunately."

Same. Didn't make it past round...three at 2015's EVO wave 1 pool, made it to wave 2 this year, and lost most of my fire my first set.

EDIT THREE: I'll be actually be going to a project M tourney tomorrow evening, a game I haven't played in two years. Perfect chance to put more of this PP stuff to work

I'm sure I speak for everyone you've helped in our own personal experiences Dr Peepee , we cant thank you enough :D

 

[AirFair]

As someone who has a lot of confidence issues, It's been super hard for me to perform in tournament, but reading the last page of this thread has given me a lot to think about. Though my results have gotten better very slowly, I feel like I understand more about the game, and I really want to be able to show that in matches, yet when I try to play relaxed in tournament, I fall apart when things happen that I'm not used to, and I'm forced into situations that I don't know as well, and it just feels like my efforts have been wasted. I'm wondering if I should change how I think when I go into a match, since what Uma said above about going in with a huge desire to win seemed to work best for him, since my tactic of calming myself hasn't really been working out, and I kind of let the pressure get to me.

I think a lot of it comes from the lack of time I have to play other people, being in highschool and preparing for the rest of my life, and I feel like I can't waste the opportunity that I have to beat other players in tournament. I'm not sure how I can handle that issue, and any insight would be very much appreciated. For now, I'm trying to invest more into loss, and get to a point where I can relax anytime I'm playing someone, tournament or not, while getting the most out of my time with others.

Thanks to everyone who has offered their perspectives, and it's cool being able to talk to everyone. I have many goals that seem high up right now, but I want to get to a state of mind where I can start reaching them.

Apologies for any confusion in my writing, as I wanted to be concise with how I approached my issues.

 

[Space Cowboy]

I feel my issue isn't confidence really, just myself getting frustrated at myself. Whenever a falco player is doing unsafe shield pressure, and I miss a punish or something stupid like that, I get too mad at myself, and then I lose focus on what's important. My mind starts to wander from my neutral play. Whenever I play friendlies, I play more relaxed and calm, less serious. I get the punishes I need to, I execute the right timing. I also do panic attacks (fsmashes) when I feel the opponent's pressure is going to beat me out. I can't seem to think of a mindset other than Mang0's water mindset that could help. Any other ideas on a mindset to help?

 

[Kopaka]

I feel my issue isn't confidence really, just myself getting frustrated at myself. Whenever a falco player is doing unsafe shield pressure, and I miss a punish or something stupid like that, I get too mad at myself, and then I lose focus on what's important. My mind starts to wander from my neutral play. Whenever I play friendlies, I play more relaxed and calm, less serious. I get the punishes I need to, I execute the right timing. I also do panic attacks (fsmashes) when I feel the opponent's pressure is going to beat me out. I can't seem to think of a mindset other than Mang0's water mindset that could help. Any other ideas on a mindset to help?

I recommend going back the last 5 pages or so and reading PP's posts and some of our posts to give context to his answers. I think confidence can tie into what you're writing about honestly. Lets say you've practiced a Falco punish a bunch of times so theoretically you'll miss it maybe 10% of the time. So you miss it, and landed in that 10%, but you're confident you'll get it next time because messing it up doesn't phase you nearly as much anymore because you've practiced it so much that you have no reason to be angry at yourself because you know you can get it next time.

I also don't think there's just a selection of mindsets you can go and choose from and see what works. It's different from person to person. We all have to internalize these ideas and mold them into our own personalities and feelings so it feels comfortable and natural.

 

[Uma]

I feel my issue isn't confidence really, just myself getting frustrated at myself. Whenever a falco player is doing unsafe shield pressure, and I miss a punish or something stupid like that, I get too mad at myself, and then I lose focus on what's important. My mind starts to wander from my neutral play. Whenever I play friendlies, I play more relaxed and calm, less serious. I get the punishes I need to, I execute the right timing. I also do panic attacks (fsmashes) when I feel the opponent's pressure is going to beat me out. I can't seem to think of a mindset other than Mang0's water mindset that could help. Any other ideas on a mindset to help?

There isn't a single "mindset" that's going to make you play better in tournament imo. It's more about finding what your weaknesses are and what mistakes you're making and beginning to correct them. It sounds like you've already started identifying what mental issues youre facing in tournament so focus on fixing those first to find your own "mindset" that works for you I don't really like calling it a single word thing like that because I think it's a lot more complex than just one state of mind to get in and more an amalgamation of different ways to handle any obstacles you face in a tournament. From what you said, I would really sit on what pp said about respect for your opponents options and how I learned to deal with the options they chose rather than just look down on them.

 

[Dr Peepee]

As someone who has a lot of confidence issues, It's been super hard for me to perform in tournament, but reading the last page of this thread has given me a lot to think about. Though my results have gotten better very slowly, I feel like I understand more about the game, and I really want to be able to show that in matches, yet when I try to play relaxed in tournament, I fall apart when things happen that I'm not used to, and I'm forced into situations that I don't know as well, and it just feels like my efforts have been wasted. I'm wondering if I should change how I think when I go into a match, since what Uma said above about going in with a huge desire to win seemed to work best for him, since my tactic of calming myself hasn't really been working out, and I kind of let the pressure get to me.

I think a lot of it comes from the lack of time I have to play other people, being in highschool and preparing for the rest of my life, and I feel like I can't waste the opportunity that I have to beat other players in tournament. I'm not sure how I can handle that issue, and any insight would be very much appreciated. For now, I'm trying to invest more into loss, and get to a point where I can relax anytime I'm playing someone, tournament or not, while getting the most out of my time with others.

Thanks to everyone who has offered their perspectives, and it's cool being able to talk to everyone. I have many goals that seem high up right now, but I want to get to a state of mind where I can start reaching them.

Apologies for any confusion in my writing, as I wanted to be concise with how I approached my issues.

Don't tell yourself to feel relaxed if you don't feel it. You know you can't lie to yourself. If you want to be relaxed yet sharp, then train that way. Find the mental training, visualizations and all, that you want to do that give you that calm but sharpness in tournament. For me that involved exercise, meditation, staying offline a bit more and reading more as my main tools to sharpen focus and energy but you could modify that some if you wanted. Do all you can(like stuff I mentioned or more) before giving up! If you have the vision then it's just about believing in it and trying new things until you get there. As long as you keep your faith and vision alive there's never any reason to stop trying.

To save you some time on your main pressure issue, don't be so hard on yourself man. What good is being anxious about wasting time if that makes you just waste your time? Trust yourself, your training, and your desire to win and enjoy competition to pull you through the difficulties. I've seen other people change completely when they really did this and I know you can too.

 

[Uma]

PP is your ridiculously fast DD mainly due to always hitting perfect full length wavedashes? I can't remember the set but once on stadium you were basically blinking past your opponent back and forth across the stage and in general your DD just seems faster and crisper than any other marth. I'm not talking about how to use DD, just how you input it when you want to be going your fastest (seems like you tend to do this when your opponent is respawning and you'll cross them up with the DD to avoid getting hit).

Actually just found an example here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv74JXJBFwk

At 18:20 when Leffen is respawning for his last stock and coming after you, you are FLYING!

 

[Dr Peepee]

Quickly glancing over it, looks like I did a full length dash into WD and then faked a dash back in but cut it out early with a WD back. This would give me speed and also confuse the opponent about which direction I would move and how far I would move. The WD back at the end also serves to give me space to react to whatever happens next.

That stuff was all pretty intentional but it comes from very serious practice and thinking. Even if I could be that fast before that tourney, I couldn't have been so hard to follow without the training.

 

[Uma]

Okay i'm trying to recreate it on my setup here and the I'm just struggling to land perfect WDs and full length DDs mixed together. Like if I do one or the other individually I can nail it but I think when I use them together I've been half assing the wavedashes. Practice this week is going to be getting max distance on all my movement tech.

Watched it in .25 speed before you posted and pretty much understood what all your movements were accomplishing so I'm proud of that, just gotta be able to keep up with my fingers x.x