Geras
Smash Rookie
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2014
- Messages
- 10
- NNID
- GerassN
Well, I'll start by giving you my story (I'll leave a TL;DR if you don't care about the story, but it gives context and reasons for some stuff):
Since I started the game, I've been playing Captain Falcon, and he's always been my Sm4sh main. I really only play on weekends against friends, specifically one who also wants to get into competitive play. When I play a random character against his mains, we usually have pretty even fights, but when I pick Captain Falcon, I generally 2 stock him. This, you could say, isn't a bad thing, but the reality is I like being challenged, so I'll usually pick other characters just so matches are more even. This prevents me from practicing C.F. at high level gameplay (though my friend isn't bad, but he has bad habits which are easily punishable)
Now, the solution to this could be:
a) Playing online
b) Finding better players in my region
c) Going to local tournaments
The answers to these would be as follows:
a) I simply can't play online. I can't stand lag and it hurts my gameplay IMMENSELY. Even barely noticeable lag is horrible for me, and I just don't play the same.
b) I live in Panama (the country, not the city in Florida), and here the competitive community is almost nonexistent. Now, this isn't to say we don't have a Smash scene. In fact (and luckily), the top players in my country are near me, and boy, those guys are good, with our top player being undefeated in Smash 4 since the game came out (here's his ranking profile). The bad thing is that although we have really good players, there are only about 10 dedicated players in the whole country, and there isn't a local where they play, they all play at their university (most of them study in the same university).
c) I actually went to my first tournament (link to event here), and ended up placing 13th. I went against a new player in the first set and won. In my second set I played probably the 3rd best player in the country, and I got destroyed. He's a Mario main, and I swear he did some stuff I've never seen in any other top Mario main. I won the third set, and barely lost the 4th one in game 3, likely because I killed myself, but I digress. It was a very fun experience and I'll be going every month, but let's get back to the set where I got destroyed:
The dude was amazing, and by far the best player I've ever been against. The problem is that it's hard to learn when I only get 2 matches, and the only thing that happens during those 2 matches getting completely blown away. I didn't know what to do at any point during the matches, he two stocked me on the first game and killed me with low % on our final stocks.
I couldn't play friendlies against top players because they all arrived when the tournament was going to start, and when they played friendlies, they played against other people (I'm 16 and nearly everyone else is in their early 20s).
TL;DR: there isn't a big Smash scene in my country, and very few players, locations and age differences make it pretty much impossible to play against high level players.
Now, asking for actual advice: I consider myself to be a very good player, specially with C.F, and I think I could even get to be a recognized player in my country if I had the resources to train. I know all kinds of stuff with C.F: approaching with bairs, grabs, falling up-air into knee, f-throw at 0% for a jab lock if the opponent doesn't expect it, up-air strings, dance trotting, spiking with dair and up-tilt, you get the point, I'm pretty dominant on all aspects of the character, except I have some big problems outside C.F., and I'll put them in a nice-looking little list:
Since I started the game, I've been playing Captain Falcon, and he's always been my Sm4sh main. I really only play on weekends against friends, specifically one who also wants to get into competitive play. When I play a random character against his mains, we usually have pretty even fights, but when I pick Captain Falcon, I generally 2 stock him. This, you could say, isn't a bad thing, but the reality is I like being challenged, so I'll usually pick other characters just so matches are more even. This prevents me from practicing C.F. at high level gameplay (though my friend isn't bad, but he has bad habits which are easily punishable)
Now, the solution to this could be:
a) Playing online
b) Finding better players in my region
c) Going to local tournaments
The answers to these would be as follows:
a) I simply can't play online. I can't stand lag and it hurts my gameplay IMMENSELY. Even barely noticeable lag is horrible for me, and I just don't play the same.
b) I live in Panama (the country, not the city in Florida), and here the competitive community is almost nonexistent. Now, this isn't to say we don't have a Smash scene. In fact (and luckily), the top players in my country are near me, and boy, those guys are good, with our top player being undefeated in Smash 4 since the game came out (here's his ranking profile). The bad thing is that although we have really good players, there are only about 10 dedicated players in the whole country, and there isn't a local where they play, they all play at their university (most of them study in the same university).
c) I actually went to my first tournament (link to event here), and ended up placing 13th. I went against a new player in the first set and won. In my second set I played probably the 3rd best player in the country, and I got destroyed. He's a Mario main, and I swear he did some stuff I've never seen in any other top Mario main. I won the third set, and barely lost the 4th one in game 3, likely because I killed myself, but I digress. It was a very fun experience and I'll be going every month, but let's get back to the set where I got destroyed:
The dude was amazing, and by far the best player I've ever been against. The problem is that it's hard to learn when I only get 2 matches, and the only thing that happens during those 2 matches getting completely blown away. I didn't know what to do at any point during the matches, he two stocked me on the first game and killed me with low % on our final stocks.
I couldn't play friendlies against top players because they all arrived when the tournament was going to start, and when they played friendlies, they played against other people (I'm 16 and nearly everyone else is in their early 20s).
TL;DR: there isn't a big Smash scene in my country, and very few players, locations and age differences make it pretty much impossible to play against high level players.
Now, asking for actual advice: I consider myself to be a very good player, specially with C.F, and I think I could even get to be a recognized player in my country if I had the resources to train. I know all kinds of stuff with C.F: approaching with bairs, grabs, falling up-air into knee, f-throw at 0% for a jab lock if the opponent doesn't expect it, up-air strings, dance trotting, spiking with dair and up-tilt, you get the point, I'm pretty dominant on all aspects of the character, except I have some big problems outside C.F., and I'll put them in a nice-looking little list:
- I get desperate. I might be dominating my opponent, but I get desperate and just want to end the match, resulting in an SD or throwing a random Raptor Boost which ends up getting me killed (that's actually how I lost my last match in the 4th set. An SD and a random Raptor Boost).
- I have a bit of trouble in the neutral as well, but also has to do with getting desperate. Sometimes I just go in where I know I shouldn't.
- Nerves really get me in public, since instead of doing lots of RAR bairs, I missed my inputs and just ran and kneed a lot (costing me lots of % too).
- I have ADD, so I have a LOT of trouble focusing and observing my opponent's habits, and lacking something this important, I need to compensate with something else which takes me to my next problem.
- I try to read a lot. Just as I mentioned with the random Raptor Boosts, I just try to read my opponent way too much and miserably fail. I sometimes just rely on reading since I can't really observe my opponent.
