Character Matchups Are Irrelevant

[john!]

That you played better than him/her in that particular match.

would you be willing to say this if (for example) my sheik beat a top player's pichu (or some other extremely one-sided matchup)? how far are you willing to go with this line of reasoning?

 

[strawhats]

Well, that's the point isn't it? To solve a problem within the game's boundaries? If you can tie a chain of events that led to the loss of your stock to a poorly placed fsmash, I don't see the harm in thinking you should have been smarter about your choices. But, if you cannot fathom a reasonable solution, then I can see the issue with this mindset. I suspect that would be the case with characters like Ness and Kirby, and I didn't mean to include the whole cast in this. I'm not advising blind devotion. This is meant to be applied in a situation where a player can pinpoint deficiencies in their choices, where a reasonable solution can be applied.

And btw Strongbad, I think if Mango was actually dedicated to Mario, he'd have similar or better success than Shroomed. And shroomed is a guy who's widely considered top 10, with a character like Doc. Also, I think that has more to do with Mango's playstyle. You can't look at a guy like Mango and say "he never makes mistakes". He makes plenty, and Fox/Falco cushion that a lot better than Jiggs or Mario can.

Actually that gets me thinking, what high level mid-tier main would have better success if they turned into a sheik/fox main? I've never seen it. I think the idea of switching mains to get better results applies more at the lower levels, where character choices can impact the outcome more than skill can. I mean, I can't see a top player blowing everyone's mind by becoming strictly a Falco main. Also I'm aware there are top players that switch characters to make it easier on themselves, that's not what I mean by switching mains. I suspect they'd be quicker to say that they switch because it's too hard, rather than to say a matchup is "impossible". That word is thrown around too often at lower levels.

hmm...I always thought that Mango's decision to switch from puff to falco/fox was to prove a point. Also because he hated puff vs falco and would rather cover playstyle/character matchups vs someone like PP in the ditto with falco. Not to say his Puff isn't capable of performing optimally at the highest level of play in 2013

 

[Beat!]

would you be willing to say this if (for example) my sheik beat a top player's pichu (or some other extremely one-sided matchup)? how far are you willing to go with this line of reasoning?

Let me first clarify that I by no means agree with the idea of character matchups being completely irrelevant (although I do agree with the OP's general idea that you should focus on your own flaws and shortcomings instead of complaining about bad matchups).

As for your question, it would depend on several factors (such as how good your Sheik is, how good their Pichu is, how well the both of you played in the specific match). This obviously goes for Falcon vs spacies as well, but I think (completely arbitrarily) that Falcon vs spacies, while certainly advantageous for the latter, is close enough to even to the point where one can (somewhat) justifiably claim that a Fox/Falco player beating a Falcon won because he/she played better, even without having seen the actual match. As I said, this is an arbitrarily drawn line, so I can't really back it up.

 

[john!]

i don't really see why a line needs to be drawn at all. can't we just say that, the more one-sided the matchup is, the most character choice becomes a factor in who wins?

 

[Beat!]

Well... yeah. You asked me how far I was "willing to go with [my] line of reasoning", which I read as "where do you draw the line", so I tried to answer that. I don't think a line "needs" to be drawn at all.

 

[ph00tbag]

would you be willing to say this if (for example) my sheik beat a top player's pichu (or some other extremely one-sided matchup)? how far are you willing to go with this line of reasoning?

A: Hypothetical anecdote. Twice the fallacy.
B: No one plays Pichu at a level where this discussion even remotely applies.

 

[john!]

phoot, that's called a thought experiment.

 

[ph00tbag]

phoot, that's called a thought experiment.

No. Wrong. A thought experiment proposes a set of initial conditions, then proceeds to make predictions of the results based on theoretical premises. Using those predicted results, the theoretical model is then modified to accommodate them. A thought experiment would be to ask what would happen if you played a top player's Pichu. The thing is, the model being argued for here doesn't solve for any situation where someone who does not play Sheik perfectly faces someone who does not play Pichu perfectly--ref. part B of my previous rebuttal. That is to say, your hypothetical result has absolutely no bearing on the predictions made, and doesn't really have much to do with the fundamental argument here that the goal of any player ought to be to play as perfectly as possible.

 

[john!]

i'm not refuting that argument at all, though. i'm refuting beat's argument that the winner of any match must have been playing better during that match, by giving him a counterexample where i use a great character to defeat a better player using a terrible character. that's the experiment; the question is, does that mean i played better than the opponent? i don't think it does.

 

[Beat!]

i'm refuting beat's argument that the winner of any match must have been playing better during that match,

If that's what you think I was arguing in my first post in this thread, then I guess I'm sorry for being unclear (although I'm not exactly sure how you interpreted it that way. When did I ever say that "must" be the case?).