In response to what you said in here:
1. Peach is pretty good against ICs. The problem you run into here is that most experienced ICs know this matchup in and out, because it's one of the biggest hurdles you have to cross as an IC main when getting into melee. Everyone tries the c/p peach.
You'll beat a lot of new players this way, but every decent IC either is very good and/or experienced in the peach matchup or has a peach counter (usually pocket sheiks or foxes literally designed around winning the peach mu).
Against better ICs you can't just cheese with peach as easily, the generic peach stuff is easy to handle once ICs know what to look for.
If you actually want to pull out peach in the mu, you have to actually have a peach and understand what she wants to do, why and when she wants to do it, how she does it, and what the ICs can do to deal with it or get around it.
To be completely honest, past low level ICs, playing peach against ICs, while effective, is not easy.
You're probably better off learning the mu with falco, which is much harder to learn at a low level, but definitely manageable with enough experience.
In general, I don't really support the whole counterpick character specifically for one matchup thing, I don't think it's a great long term plan.
2. FD depends on a lot of things. How good it actually is for ICs in the modern meta is very matchup dependent and really depends on how experienced you are at fighting ICs on that stage.
The majority of ICs are very comfortable on FD because when they come into the game they are told right away "FD is your best stage always pick it," but in reality it can be difficult for them to handle certain matchups or play styles there too.
But, that said, people who are inexperienced at the matchup and playing on FD can get trampled pretty hard. Especially spacies, or characters who struggle more with ICs defensive walling (mewtwo or sheik, for example) since ICs have some really hard combos and DI traps and all that kind of stuff if they manage to get a good hit.
Explaining how to play against ICs is a lot more complicated than it might seem, they are a complex character with a lot of things that are very good, and a lot of things that are very gimmicky, and a lot of things that are somewhere between those two points.
It takes a lot of practice to become good at the mu and it's one where I'm more comfortable showing people in person, so I can demonstrate things and explain more common micro-scenarios.
Some advice I'll give you from our set:
1. The vast majority of the time I was outplaying you in neutral. This isn't because ICs neutral completely shuts falco down or you can't deal with the things I was throwing at you, it's because you aren't used to fighting it or playing real players who adapt to what you are doing and exploit weaknesses in your neutral game. Most of this comes from experience, I'm a lot more used to fighting falcos than you are ICs, and I've been playing this game competitively a lot longer and am more aware or respond more quickly to situations which are favorable for me or that I can capitalize on, and have escape plans for situations I recognize that are unfavorable for me.
This is another thing I can show you more of in person, but it takes a long time and a lot of experience to incorporate into real play.
2. You were unfamiliar with ICs punish game and how it actually works. This starts with identifying ICs goals and how they achieve them. Generally, on a basic level, you're thinking "ICs want to get a grab so they can kill me," but then you have to ask yourself, "how do ICs get grabs" and "what can I do to avoid these situations." Obviously, the latter question is the harder part, but once you identify the first part, you can work on the second.
It takes a long time to learn all the nuances of how ICs punish game works, what the holes are, and how to identify them quickly, but it's something you can consciously improve, and, again, I'm willing to sit down with you and explain it and show you some common things.
Just remember ICs have a lot of tricks and mixups, and you'll have to be able to adapt to things quickly, which just comes with time.
3. Mentality. I won our set before we even played. What I mean by this is that you went in to it already on tilt and without an open mind. As a competitor, I'm going to exploit this to win.
When I get a hard punish, or trip you up with a DI trap which kills at 50%, or tech chase you to death, or, in a real set, catch you in a wobble, and it visibly upsets you, I'm going to make a mental note of that, and try to repeat it as many times as possible to knock you off balance as much as possible.
When people are angry or frustrated or nervous they usually do some of the following things:
-revert to bad or predictable habits
-start fishing for the biggest punishes they can they try and gain some momentum back quickly (usually things like throwing out fsmashes in neutral is a common example amongst newer players)
-Start playing either way too aggressive (usually when frustrated) or way too defensive (when nervous)
If I catch on to these things (there are a lot more, and there is a lot more depth to those points, but this is the cliffnotes version), since I'm experienced in being in these situations, I have a solution to them already, which, since I'm calm and have an open mind, I'm able to alter and modify to suit the situation based on what information I recognize.
When you're tilted you aren't thinking clearly, so you don't get that same privilege.
Probably the hardest thing for people is that ICs are a very mentally aggressive character, and learning to handle that is challenging and takes a lot more than just knowing the matchup. I have a bit of a psych background and take particular interest in conditioning and learning how people think and respond to situations. As a player, I like to throw weird things at people to see how they respond and how I can push my advantage based on those responses. It's mean, but that's how competitive play works once you get past the level where everything is just techskill and punish game.
Once both players learn to execute on the same level, melee becomes much more of a thinking game and everything else becomes muscle memory. That's when the depth and the real fun comes in, for me anyway.
Unfortunately, just saying "don't get mad" or "stay calm" is very different from actually staying calm and in a good state of mind.
It's something I struggled with for a very long time and still have to actively practice and work on improving. For many people, myself included, It takes a lot of work outside of the game.
I'm always happy to talk about developing and maintaining a healthy mindset and mentality in more depth, but that's getting a little off topic here.
If you have more questions, please feel free to ask.
I was a little bit of an asshole to you in response to how you were acting in person, but I am always happy to help newer players and answer questions so long as you are willing to meet me halfway and approach me willing to be exposed to new ideas.
