Video Critique Thread

[343]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmMmYnZb62k
I'd like any advice I can get on playing against falco or when feeling under pressure. Bonus points for advice on how to keep your head cool and stay with the correct tactics you know. This match is not one of two equal players, but rather me getting outplayed by someone far above me, I hope that's not a bad thing as far as critique is concerned.

I wrote something a while back, but Smashboards went all flaky and I lost it... anyway, the "most basic" advice I'd give you is: (1) USE YOUR SHIELD, especially vs spacies; you can up-b them if they misspace / mistime their shield pressure!, (2) wavedash back, (3) practice your grapple recovery. (4) stop throwing out random moves when he's nowhere nearby, (5) learn better DI (DI away from him on combo moves, but into the top corners if he's going for kill moves.)

 

[MintyFlesh]

Copy /pasta fro, gen, didnt see this thread

It's a longish set, but if someone could watch and point out some stuff I'd appreciate it. I feel like I played well, just got better playered and made a dumb CP game 3, and fell apart.

marths harrd

http://www.twitch.tv/sigmelee/b/584298255 starts around 3:21:00

 

[343]

http://www.twitch.tv/hugs86 Plup critiquing HugS vs Lucky right now!

 

[Mervis]

So I finally got a match on stream! I'm ready to get torn a new butthole by my fellow Samus mains!

http://www.twitch.tv/tourneylocator/b/592467131 (Match starts about 23:00 exact)

To be fair, Infinity won the tournament so I didn't really expect to win. I kind of did some flashy stuff rather than actually play the game (I was basking in the limelight ok?). One thing is for sure, I should stop trying to missile camp. Anyways, let me have it!

 

[frangow]

Hello! This is my first post in smashboards in years.
First of all, I hope my english is legible lol, sorry if I did some english mistake.

I'm trying to train for the APEX tornaument, after Aisengobay attending last year, his hype flowed to us and, just in melee, 5 players from brazil will be attending, myself included.
I stayed retired a long time, just playing occasionally for fun, but now I'm trying to play good again, and I would appreciate a lot some help.
Can u guys give me some tips?
Last weekend I played a championship and I got 3, but I got destroyed by Aisengobay, the best player from brasil, and also by CaioNintendo sheik on the losers final(after beating his fox in winners and on first games of losers final).
Here s the stream of the tornaument.

http://www.twitch.tv/x_revolution/b/591951059
vs Aisengobay starting at 6:43:43
vs CaioNintendo starting at 7:13:21

Thank you guys in advance

 

[frangow]

So I finally got a match on stream! I'm ready to get torn a new butthole by my fellow Samus mains!

http://www.twitch.tv/tourneylocator/b/592467131 (Match starts about 23:00 exact)

To be fair, Infinity won the tournament so I didn't really expect to win. I kind of did some flashy stuff rather than actually play the game (I was basking in the limelight ok?). One thing is for sure, I should stop trying to missile camp. Anyways, let me have it!

Hey bro, I saw ur 2 games vs peach.

First, I think the best DI for peach down throw is behind her.
Second, I think u spammed too many missiles, spamming is not a bad thing, but u gotta shot missiles to put her in disadvantage and create momentum, but u were just spamming missiles for free, and she was picking the trades she wanted, instead of you forcing her in a bad situation with missiles and picking good trades.
Also, try to use more tilts, specially the Ftilt on this match up. Some times you can do a missile cancel and run in peach direction, if she stay on ground, you pressure her shield with ftilt, if she jump, depending on the situation you can try to Nair her or apply a mind game with nair, uair, missile, or just try to predict her approaches.
Peach without a down b on hands dont have very good approach in the air.
Also, try to missile in peach float height, if u missile that way, the missile eats the down b and hit her.(mostly on poke stadium cause u can cancel the missile on the platforms)

I think that s it, hope it helps =)

 

[343]

@ F frangow , I watched you vs Aisengobay. You had some really nice edgeguards, and a lot of good grabs. I'm not sure if you got a net benefit out of the grabs though; I think the ones trying to grab his getup from the ground (where he tended to just roll away) were particularly ineffective.

Vs Fox, I think you did too many nairs / dash attacks in neutral. I don't think nair is that good vs a grounded fox, and he shielded a bunch of your dash attacks. Use lower-commitment moves (ftilt, jab?) more. You also dash attacked him when you were at 74% and he was crouching at 19%... you're lucky he didn't just upsmash you for free. Also, your missile cancelling isn't that good; I saw fulljump missiles on BF/YS, and a fair number of homing missiles that got canceled before they came out. See http://smashboards.com/threads/official-samus-missile-guide.105908/.

I really liked that dthrow dsmash you did, but he only got hit because he didn't DI / tech; he DI'd away the second time and you missed Upthrow has guaranteed followups (unless platforms mess you up) at most reasonable %s.

I feel like he got you a bunch of times when you came off the ledge. Mix up your ledge options; you did ledgehop fair and ledgehop missile nearly every time (along with some ledgejumps... bleh, but they worked I guess.). He also got you with upairs / nairs a bunch when you tried to fall back down onto or dashdance on side platforms; if he's below you and you're pretty high up, you should probably prefer to go for the ledge. Shielddropping from platforms would've also helped in a few situations.

Not sure how I feel about your fulljumps oos against his pressure; I don't think that's very good? I guess some of them may have been tech mistakes, but you definitely do some fulljump nairs oos. I guess it worked a few times since he didn't punish the jump. He did start shielding your upb oos, which you semi-adapted to, but he definitely got a bunch of punishes on your upbs in later games.

The fsmash through the platform on FoD was hilarious.

I can't believe how many times he let you just charge while he ran around XD

Vs his Sheik, I don't really agree with dthrow ftilt; I'd prefer dthrow dash attack (for DI away) or fsmash (for no DI / DI in). More jabs / ftilts instead of utilts might also be good? Try jab cancelling to pressure shields, which is explained, for example, in http://smashboards.com/threads/the-ultimate-samus-guide.185822/. Most of the damage you took was either from getting grabbed, or from doing a poor recovery (missed sweetspot on upb, too many doublejump fairs onto the stage).

There's also a number of opportunities where you could've gotten the ledge before Sheik could recover, but you chose to wait on the stage. I'm a proponent of "always grab ledge vs offstage Sheik" because her upb sucks.

I assume all the rolls are missed inputs, haha.

 

[frangow]

Thank you very much for your feedback 343!

I really have some trouble with some basic tech skills like missile cancel and sweetspot(and a few more) cause I didnt play competitive for a long time, I need to fix that!

The Dthrow Dsmash is a mindgame, because Dthrow is a really fast throw, and I always do upthrow, sometimes a random Dthrow can catch a bad DI on fast fallers.

And also I did terrible edgeguards vs sheik T.T

Thanks a lot for the tips!

 

[343]

update: I guess @zDuck likes dthrow ftilt vs Sheik, and clearly he understands the matchup like 1000x better than I do... so maybe it's preferred when Sheik is at low % and can retaliate against a dash attack, or when dash attack would give up stage position.

 

[ManoxMano]

^wasnt he doing dthrow>ftilt at like 100+ percent?

 

[Kerfuffle]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ul4KTHLEyE

Me vs a local marth player and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ul4KTHLEyE

Me vs KJH. Both losses, but i'd rather get my losses critiqued than my wins. Be brutal, be honest.

 

[abcool]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ul4KTHLEyE

Me vs a local marth player and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ul4KTHLEyE

Me vs KJH. Both losses, but i'd rather get my losses critiqued than my wins. Be brutal, be honest.

First off, both links are the same.

Tips :
>> Stop up-throwing characters that aren't Fox, Falco and Captain Falcon. Anyone outside those characters should be downthrown to either ftilt, Dashattack or Fsmash.

>> Each time you got hit by the Marth you kept mashing the jump button; stop doing that. Most Marth's want you in the air because Samus has a hard time coming down and throwing away your second jump just makes their job easier.

>>When you know Marth is going to land on a platform on either BF, YS or PS you can use an utilt from under the platform, but stop jumping up and nairing especially after you see he lands on it because he will just shield the entire time and go for easy grabs cause Samus nair last soo long.

>>Ways to effectively fight a Marth is to not jump so much unless you are following up a combo. Learn to shield dash to escape fair pressure. If the Marth likes to shield. then grab more and if the Marth likes to attack; use Dash attack to punish him landing from his aerials. Either way, the matchup is all about patience and reads. You need discipline to effectively play the matchup because its easy to fall into traps the Marth will setup for you.

 

[Kerfuffle]

@ abcool thanks so much for the advice. My Samus is pretty jank right now, but every once in a while I'll play her how she's supposed to be played. I've just gotta do that all the time lol. You're definitely right, coming down is definitely a weak point of both mine and Samus', do you have any specific tips for that?

 

[abcool]

If you get hit really high in the air bomb in place so you are kind of dropping bombs under you, but at the same time giving yourself some mobility to move if they try to approach you from a different angle. It's like you are raining bombs to move Marth or whoever out of position from poking you directly from underneath, then waveland off of the nearest platform back into a neutral position.

The biggest advice is knowing your opponent an when they feel comfortable hitting Samus the most. Cause to be honest - fighting a Samus is super frustrating on their part to and your job is to increase that frustration.

When I came to these boards a long time ago people helped me so I have no problems helping my fellow Samus players.

 

[Kerfuffle]

@ abcool thanks man, any advice is awesome. I'll be at SWEET prologue this weekend, so I'm gonna try and get more time on stream or recording. If I do, I will post here again, maybe on the subreddit too. Hopefully I'll have made some improvements!

 

[BillNyeTheSamusGuy]

This is me vs fox. Can I get a critique?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsOe7ei74Gc&index=7&list=PLe4MJjNF1oM0cDjRWAjQaNhKv6NCgUCGW

I feel like my neutral was all over the place and I couldn't get in. Like, were there times when I had advantages that I gave up?

 

[xleo_samusx]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2HQvjoVYWI This is me versus a fox. Got a regional in 2 weeks and I would like to get out of pools, this match kept me from doing it here. I have only been playing samus for like 2 weeks but do not hold back. I know my edgeguarding in particular needs work.

 

[ManoxMano]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2HQvjoVYWI This is me versus a fox. Got a regional in 2 weeks and I would like to get out of pools, this match kept me from doing it here. I have only been playing samus for like 2 weeks but do not hold back. I know my edgeguarding in particular needs work.

@0:40 Easy edgeguard, use uptilt to cover those kinds of angles.
Game 1 in general: Practice more time using wavedashes. Way too many dash attacks because you were in running state and you're lucky the fox wasn't really punishing it as much as he should have. Most of those d.a's should be wavedash>something which is a most healthier option. I think short hop seems to be a struggle because you willfully enter the air through full hop. You tried to do full hop approaches with aerials which work sometimes but don't rely on them. Better ways to get in.

Game 2: when he starts reflecting missiles like a scrub, that's your cue to follow your missiles with short hop dair. I also realized in this match that you are very hasty with recovering. It's ok to just grapple to the ledge sometimes, when you put out hitboxes that often most players will read and hit you for it

By game 2 and 3 fox is pretty much exploiting your lack of technical prowess and limited moveset. The stubbornness to beat you fox's up-airs with your dair didn't help (which at that point you need to switch to nair or retreat to the edge of the stage) and the edgeguarding needs fine-tuning, but that will take time and more experience.

BillNye I'd love to critique yours but your streamer has toaster-level equipment

 

[xleo_samusx]

@0:40 Easy edgeguard, use uptilt to cover those kinds of angles.
Game 1 in general: Practice more time using wavedashes. Way too many dash attacks because you were in running state and you're lucky the fox wasn't really punishing it as much as he should have. Most of those d.a's should be wavedash>something which is a most healthier option. I think short hop seems to be a struggle because you willfully enter the air through full hop. You tried to do full hop approaches with aerials which work sometimes but don't rely on them. Better ways to get in.

Game 2: when he starts reflecting missiles like a scrub, that's your cue to follow your missiles with short hop dair. I also realized in this match that you are very hasty with recovering. It's ok to just grapple to the ledge sometimes, when you put out hitboxes that often most players will read and hit you for it

By game 2 and 3 fox is pretty much exploiting your lack of technical prowess and limited moveset. The stubbornness to beat you fox's up-airs with your dair didn't help (which at that point you need to switch to nair or retreat to the edge of the stage) and the edgeguarding needs fine-tuning, but that will take time and more experience.

BillNye I'd love to critique yours but your streamer has toaster-level equipment

Thank you very much

 

[Mervis]

Alright video critique #2. Gabe is one of the top Fox mains in the region, so I'm really happy with how well I did. However, I still got my **** rocked. Anyways, go hard on me. I can take the flames.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZgyojs9SUE&list=PLFXOgPi6_N5T5tXOY2iLJyebmniqMe49v

 

[Ringedge]

@1:35 An u-air or f-air would have been better in that situation, possibly even dj waveland grab if you feel ballsy.

Not sure why you went stadium unless you just like that stage, FoD would have been better unless it was banned.

@7:27 you should have just kept charging, unless that was a mistake then oh well it happens.

Overall you did ok I think, your charge shots were super predictable though, you need to tighten up your edgeguarding, as well as your get up options too, but you did get a few nice grabs into nairs which was good. It really seems like this guy doesn't have much Samus experience though, so you did get away with a few things that could have been punished.

 

[ManoxMano]

The edgeguard @0:40 - drop down and nair

If they like to camp platforms, beat them to the top plat. with a uair, or you can wait till they drop to a side platform and do whatever, like you did a little before you got up-smashed

I feel you are way too careful. At around 1:57 you get a nice dsmash, but then you run away to the other stage and give him space! He even gave you a juicy bair you could have whiff punished.

I know where you're coming from with the grabs, but you really have to done them down. Most of the time when you throw it out Fox has complete freedom in movement and he is not pressured. Pressure him first to provoke a defensive action then react and read

Way too many wavedashes...I feel that you wavedash for the sake of it, not to actually move you into the right spacing. Try to think about where you need to position to wavedash first and that's the first step to better tech chases and punishes, not to mention a better neutral game

And don't be afraid to get up and close to a camping Fox, this will force them to play in the usual way, a way that you can exploit and punish. You can't outcamp Fox, he's faster and has a way around the missiles, so you have to bite the bullet and play in footsie range

 

[Mervis]

Not sure why you went stadium unless you just like that stage, FoD would have been better unless it was banned.

Yeah stadium is my comfort stage. I know I tend to over camp on it but I still feel like I know exactly what I am capable of when I play on it. I'm currently working on becoming comfortable with fountain.

. It really seems like this guy doesn't have much Samus experience though, so you did get away with a few things that could have been punished.

There's only one other prominent Samus player (He also dual mains Doc) in my region so most players around here don't have any Samus experience. Which is really nice to be honest. Once people understand my tricks I feel like I start to lose hard.

 

[Mervis]

I feel you are way too careful. At around 1:57 you get a nice dsmash, but then you run away to the other stage and give him space! He even gave you a juicy bair you could have whiff punished.

That's pretty much my style in a nutshell. I end up giving ledge more often than not because I play scared. I'm getting a lot better about it, but it's still a huge issue that I'm trying to work out.

 

[343]

When your old tricks stop working, get new tricks and mix 'em up!

 

[Mervis]

I just need enough tricks to keep recycling them. Then I'll be the best Samus right?

 

[Ringedge]

Silly Samus mains, tricks are for kids!

 

[BillNyeTheSamusGuy]

Hey could I get a match critique? This is me vs fox.

http://www.twitch.tv/pressstartlv/b/628068073?t=42m15s

1) Were there any times he was vulnerable in neutral that I didn't capitalize on?

2) Could you list ways that he was getting in on me and alternative responses I could have had to defend against that approach?

3) Could you mention any punish extensions I could have done? I feel like I only went in hard a couple times and that there had to have been more opportunities.

4) Could you give me a time I did a bad bomb, why it was a bad bomb and a couple options that would have been better? (I bombed a lot and I'm kind of cringing at it but I'm genuinely curious about how I could have been more effective in some of the spaces I occupied)

@ Litt @JerkPhil @ 343 Could you help me out on this?

I hope its not bad form to specifically ask people but you've all been so helpful before!

 

[343]

@ BillNyeTheSamusGuy I watched game 1.

In general:
WOW you spam bombs so hard as a defensive option. It sort of? worked out for you vs Medz, but not really? I dunno, if you really like it, keep trying it (I have no idea if it works; pretty sure vs a more savvy Fox they'd just jump over the bombs and bair you, lol). Your entire neutral is currently one of two modes: shielding, or wavedashing back and forth (with sorta large gaps in between). Watch Lucien's spacing video again (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfBuAo_Bfvw); your "baiting" movements (wavedash -> wait?) could be faster / more crisp, and rather... passive? You rarely try to pressure him at all. Poke at him with ftilts/jabs, maaaaybe shoot some missiles. Be more aggressive with your movement.

Your edgeguarding was ok, and you got some good hits in / lots of lucky breaks, but the main reason you lost this game was because you got the huge lead and started playing pretty passively / predictably (plus you choked away some good punish opportunities.)

Specifics:

Spoiler: very long

Not totally sure about striking to Yoshi's; if you like Yoshi's a lot, it's probably fine.

You start the game by jumping at the middle platform with a fair, then bombing. ... Meh. Samus wants to be on the ground; putting yourself on the top platform is generally not great. The only reason you don't get punished is because Medz misspaces the nair from the platform and then the fj bair from the ground due to your bomb; that's a good sign, I guess, but more his bad than your good.

You get him with a shieldpoke upb vs his running shield, and then he nairs past you sorta stupidly, and you shieldpoke bair him, and he SD's. Welp.

Next, he tries to upthrow upair you, but you bomb out, yay. Then you bomb again, twice, to cover your descent. This somehow works, probably because he's surprised by the bomb. He dashes away, and you uptilt. Why? After he's hit by the bomb, you should probably ftilt, because if he'd reacted properly to the bomb (probably jc grab, since you're in a bunch of lag from morphball and he's nearby -> he expects you to shield), your utilt won't come out in time.

(for reference we're at 42:37 right now)

The other problem with utilt is that it has a lot of ending lag. He punishes that by dd -> dairing you, overshooting; you both shield, and then you try to upb oos, it looks like (?). Since he's far enough away to not get hit, he bairs you twice (you try to escape by doublejumping; dunno if I agree with that) for your upb attempt. Don't reach for super-far-away upbs; too much risk for too little reward.

You slide away and dtilt, but again, he's nowhere close (maybe you didn't think you'd slide that far?) Luckily he responds too slowly and you shield his bair, but you don't do anything out of shield (well, you drop your shield)! He dashdances, a common option from many characters after this kind of spaced aerial, probably hoping to bait upb oos. If you expect him to do that, you should have wavedashed forward oos -> jab / ftilt, which would've caught him out of dashdance.

Anyway after the dd, this time he does the other kind of upb bait, nair -> shield. You shield it in time, spotdodge (what are you hoping to dodge here? nair -> grab?) and immediately dsmash his shield. He waveshines you oos, which will punish fsmash/dsmash/dtilt/unspaced ftilt on shield, and maybe utilt on shield as well; don't hit shields with laggy moves! You slide all the way off the stage, which can be prevented by flicking down on the control stick to fastfall for a few frames to the ledge. (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZYFovQ3vRY), and now you're in a pretty bad situation.

Luckily he does a pretty bad edgeguard (grab ledge -> drop shine when you've sweetspotted your grapple), but you react to him doublejumping back onto the stage by attempting a normal getup -> dsmash. Normal getup is too slow. Choose a faster way to get on the stage (AI) if you want to dsmash, or do a ledgehop aerial instead (which would've caught him here because he was just standing there). Doing a really far waveland into the middle of the stage could? successfully reset you to neutral as well. Anyway, he reacts by shining you again, and you're busy trying to dsmash so you dair. He again screws up his edgeguard, so you recover.

He does an empty shorthop, shines your shield, and wavedashes out, probably again trying to bait upb oos. You do a fulljump oos instead (I'm guessing you tried to upb?), realize you're in trouble, and bomb. This lets you dodge his nair, and forces him to shield while you land. But here (42:51) you elect to... fulljump upair? This doesn't accomplish very much, even if he did get stuck in his shield, especially because you misspaced the uair so that only the first few hits would hit his shield (I'm pretty sure). As it happened, he shielddrops as expected (he's from AZ bruh, he's got the shielddrops), but instead of punishing you, he's scared and rolls (maybe afraid of a dsmash because he landed beside you right before you fulljump upaired?)

He tries to cover your landing with a dair, but you bomb and escape again. Seems like a panic reflex for you, but it's working out for now. It won't be as good when he adapts to it.

He runs away and lasers, so you run up to him, good. But you run up and... dtilt? He definitely has time to shield that dtilt, but I think he lightshields or something, and he slides all the way off the stage. You respond by wavedashing back, which is a bit baffling; before wavedashing back, you're in good position to cover his doublejump back to stage with an ftilt, but now you're too far away to do anything!

Now that he's back on the stage, you wd forward -> shield, which is decent. He jumps to the platform and drop -> bairs your shield, which is spaced, so I'm happy you didn't upb. You then wavedash back, causing his dashdance nair to PERFECTLY miss, but instead of punishing it, you jump backward!! (missed wavedash?) When you see the nair at that spacing, that's an immediate crouch -> dsmash/dtilt! Either he'll miss completely, or he'll hit with the weak end of the nair and you'll be able to cc that. (42:56 right now)

Ok, not only did you jump backward, I think you doublejump backward (dangerous!!) before bombing. He runs away, which is a little weird, but maybe he's scared of the bomb by now. You missile, so he jumps to the top platform, and you jump below that platform and BOMB! Wow. Why? If you think he's gonna fall there, wouldn't you prefer to place a nair there instead?

As it happened he falls into the bomb, causing you to pop up onto the top platform. This now sucks for you because Fox is below you! You're scared and bomb some more (pretty questionable here), and he hits you with a weak upair and then a strong upair. The reason you got into this bad position is that bomb below the top platform from earlier, so this might be a reason you don't want to bomb all the time in neutral: bombing can pop you up, and you almost never want to be above them!

You miss your waveland, instead airdodging onto the stage -> shield. He jumps onto the platform, drops, and also shields (I don't really agree with this decision by him, lol; shoulda punished your airdodge I think). (43:06 now.) You catch his jump with upb, good patience. You direct your upb so that you miss the platforms (and fastfall; good!), landing on the ground while he misses the tech on the top platform. I guess this puts you in a decent position, though I'm pretty sure that if you up-bed onto the platform, you could've gotten a techchase dsmash. Oh well.

He drops naively into your uptilt, nice, but manages to bounce and grab the ledge. I have no idea why you shoot this small chargeshot here (trying to catch the approach? but it does so little hitstun...), but he stops to shield it and you get your shield up before he running shines you. You do nothing out of shield (probably should wd out), and he fulljumps out of shine -> shieldpoke bair.

Another recovery situation, which he again botches. Good grapple, followed by a good edgeguard (though it probably wouldn't have worked if he weren't going for Randall, lol.)

You charge and run around the stage, fine. You manage to shield his running shine in time, good. He wds out and dashes back and you bomb oos, pretty cool lol. He tries to jump over the bomb and nair you but you spaced yourself and shoot him; nice!! Still, I wonder if a dsmash would've been better here, since you were basically _at_ the right ledge, so dsmash would hit him off the ledge. He misses the tech, and you run forward and hope he'll do a getup in place, or something? with a grab. I don't think grab is good here; almost every option he has beats it! He chose roll back -> slide onto ledge (something Fox / Falco can do from their knockdown roll on basically every stage, so watch for it), and punishes you by running up and grabbing, probably since he expects you to shield after a missed grab (and also you're shielding a lot.)

You bomb out of the upthrow, fall and bomb again. He doesn't even try to follow up the upthrow but tries to catch your descent with a bair instead, missing embarrassingly (he should've hit that bair.) He nairs off the platform but fades back due to your bomb, so your utilt also misses (I think this utilt might've been ok, actually, since he was on the platform and you had a bomb covering your front?)

You both do some sloppy movement (why are you turning around during your wavedashes? why is he missing that waveland?) and you catch his poor drop bair from top platform attempt (lol why would he try that) with wavedash back dsmash, nice. You try to edgeguard with some super missiles, which would've been ok if he'd DI'd higher. (I guess the high missile could've caught his doublejump, but unlikely.) Maybe sh homing missile instead of sh super missile could've worked here (??)

Anyway, he doublejump -> fastfall -> illusions, which is pretty decent, I guess. Another possible edgeguard could've been just to wait to see if he doublejumps or not, and just cover the ledge with utilt / dangled ftilt / dangled fsmash (going to the ledge is the safest recovery, and you know he's a pretty decent Fox so going to the ledge is pretty likely).

You uptilt immediately after the second missile, which might cover... like... normal getup or something? It aaaalmost hits his terrible ledgejump, so maybe it was ok, but it would've lost to a correct ledgedash, maybe? would've beat Fox's ridiculous "platform ledgedash," and was too far away to threaten the ledge so it would've lost to "wait" as well. I would've maybe chosen wavedash back to center here, though I dunno, utilt was probably the best attack to use here. (43:38)

He goes for some fancy shielddrop bair stuff here, but you dash wd away, good. He's shielding after missing the bair, and you dash back in and respond to his shield by shielding? huh? and then jumping? Not sure what you were trying to do here, lol. After wavedashing back you should've ftilted or something to cover his landing, maybe?

You both panic here; you bomb and he rolls. He nairs you but gets hit by the bomb. You miss your grapple, bleh.

You use your invincibility to shoot two missiles, fine, but he escape to top platform. Then you try to chase him with a doublejump (???) while he drops, and your invincibility ends with you bombing above the top platform and him on the ground. This positions SUCKS!

Luckily you make it down (43:50) because he misses his nair. You do some cute walk forward -> wd back stuff, but he's just content to laser you. You punish him for shdling too close with an ftilt, good. You follow up with a standing missile, but he just doublejumps back to the ledge... and misses his ledgedash. SDs woooo.

Now you're at a commanding lead: 3 stocks 5% to 1 stock. It goes downhill from here.

You charge, run into center stage, shield, and jump -> bomb oos. He knows how to punish this now: he ignores the bomb and nairs you, and grabs your landing. Jump -> bomb is not that good an option!!!

You doublejump out of his uthrow, and bomb to avoid his attempted juggling uair, nice. Then you drift toward him without a move (???) and get shined. Either drift away or put out a move; you're just asking to get hit here.

Some more neutral happens, and then you fulljump -> bomb oos AGAIN. This time you don't get immediately punished, but he backairs you when you pop into the air from the bomb landing. You shield the next bair, and then doublejump up to the top platform to challenge him... with bomb? No!! Don't go to the top platform!! Somehow you escape from his attempted nair with another bomb, but now you're STILL on the top platform! Life sucks! You bomb again and he bairs you for it. You miss the tech but spotdodge his followup nair, nice. He shields, expecting run off bair or something from you, but you run off bomb and escape, I guess; fine.

He's running around on platforms and you throw out a random utilt. He's too slow to punish and you upb his dair attempt, good. (44:16 right now) You again ff all the way to the ground, which is pretty good, but you could've again gotten a platform techchase from the upb! He techs in place and drop -> aerial shines, expecting a shot, which you wisely don't shoot. But instead of punishing that shine with a wd ftilt, you run up and shield What is he gonna do out of shine, lol? He can't get any horizontal mobility if he's just shining there like that.

He jumps back to the top platform, and you... wd back grab? Huh? He gets a nice punish string off on you for that (20%) but you do some nice DI to the ledge on his dthrow. You get up and spotdodge, baiting out his dd grab which you dsmash, nice; this is your chance!! This time you choose to just do a standing missile when sh super missile would've caught his doublejump You react to his upb by taking ledge, which is fine, but he goes straight and recovers.

To punish his recovery, you do a ... normal getup again!! Why??? You try to walk up dsmash him but (1) you're too far and (2) his shield is long up. Once you saw him going forward, you should've done a ledgedash -> ftilt / dsmash / dtilt / whatever. But you were too slow and he shines you for it. You get ledge and follow by ledgejumping... again, why? Oh, maybe you don't know how to ledge AI / ledgedash? o.o

He gets first hit upair and you bomb in panic again, which he bairs you for. He again screws up the edgeguard horrendously and you get the ledge. Now Fox is shielding at the ledge facing away from you. I'm pretty sure ledgehop fair -> upb works here, and will probably shieldstab. Alternatively, AI -> shield, or just wait for his shield to deplete a bit. You chose to do a slow 100% getup while he jumped. You wd forward -> shield while he dd -> shields, and you manage to poke him with upb, nice. I'm pretty sure you could've tried to shield asap after landing, but instead you get clipped by his drop -> weak bair and fall into his techchase upsmash (maybe could've doublejumped here? but you were probably mashing bomb lol.)

You respawn and shoot some missiles which is fine, and take center stage, good. You throw out an utilt which he shields, and you slide back from it before you dtilt, which totally whiffs. He wds back oos anyway (wrong, should've wd shined you; also he got 0 waveshine upsmashes on you this whole game, which is pretty sad.)

He lasers a bit, you move forward, he spaces a dair to hit you there, you wd -> really slow ftilt, lol. Fine. He gets knocked down and misses the tech, so you... wavedash on top of him and shield? I'm not saying I can do this yet, but you can learn to react to missed tech (there's a green flash) and you could dsmash him at that range for missing the tech. But even if you didn't do that, why would you possibly want to wd on top of him and shield? So you can up-b his getup attack?? That's not that good...

He rolls right and you reset to neutral. He hits with a drillshine this time (work on SDIing drills so that the shine doesn't hit; I still have to practice this too :/), to a pretty fast jc grab (pretty sure?) followup. He fthrows you (??); you seem to be DIing up? and doublejump bomb while he dd nairs your landing; luckily your bomb hits him so it wasn't worthless. Still, your bombing habits are becoming very very obvious. You try to doublejump fair him onto the platform here, which is maaaybe ok but I think you'd probably prefer to just grab the ledge here (on the other hand, you're not that comfortable with ledge options so maybe not.)

You manage to shield his retaliation bair, good, but now you just stay on the platform and try to spotdodge / cc dsmash his bairs? I think you're out of cc % for strong bair now (39%), and yeah he spaces the bair well and fades back so your cc dsmash misses. (45:01) You spotdodge again (?? why? if he does an aerial and you spotdodge it, what do you gain? get off the platform!!) and he just waits and bairs you for it. You do another doublejump fair, which can't possibly hit him because he's under the platform, and land... back on the platform. And dsmash when he's not even on the platform. You're not Peach You get baired again and thankfully fall onto the ledge this time.

You do normal getup->shield, which is somehow fast enough (again, not that good because normal getup is slow) to block his plat drop bair. He shields, maybe hoping for upb, and you get a super nice shieldgrab on him... but you don't follow up the upthrow at all!!! When you notice forward DI, you can't just jump forward; you probably need to dash forward 1 frame before jumping. Even then, you maaaaybe could've clipped him with nair, but instead you do nothing as he doublejumps out onto the top plat. Then, you bomb before hitting the ground... why? What does this bomb accomplish?? (45:08)

You do your standard low bomb -> utilt wall but he just runs away. Some more neutral-game stuff happens, and you get clipped by a sh nair while walking forward. You miss the tech so he nairs you again, and you do a doublejump -> early upb recovery. This upb clips him, but he DI's out and lands first, and jab upsmashes you because you upb'd onto the stage. Ugh. Considering how poorly he was doing with his earlier edgeguards, you should've probably just gone for a sweetspot grapple again... this whole sequence is an example why "high upb to hit them" is sorta risky, because if they get out, you get hit for free.

You're starting to look pretty nervous now. You do your standard respawn missiling, which does nothing as usual (try mixing it up?) He's sitting on the left plat, and you try to approach him with wd in shield (45:27) but he's doing another sloppy waveland on the top plat by now.you wd oos forward and get clipped by his plat drop bair as you turn around (you should've expected that bair.) But that was a weak bair and you're at 0; where's the cc dsmash?

Instead you do shield, followed by missing a wavedash toward him. He does a kinda bad drill (probably could've upb'd / dsmashed again since it was misspaced) but you shield again. These shields are "panic" shields I think: you wanted to shield before, but now you're too late, and you think "oh well, better late than never!" This is wrong! Adapt to the situation at hand! (45:29)

He shines and wds through while you... ouch, doublejump oos -> bomb. The doublejump lets you dodge his fj bair, but now you artificially put yourself in a bad position AGAIN. You get baired for it. You bomb again, bleh.

Reset to neutral. You missile, he lasers, nbd. Then you run, jump at him and nair? What? Did you suddenly become Fox?? (45:34) Why would you run all the way across the stage and nair when you haven't tried something this silly at all the whole match? Maybe you're just super nervous, heh...

More footsies, and then you end up crouching in front of his shield. You panic and dsmash. Wavedash away! Dash away! Wavedash/dash THROUGH him and cross him up! Do jab pressure! Do your favorite move, bomb! Hell, you could grab! Instead you choose one of the worst options, and ah, there's the first waveshine upsmash of the game. You're out of crouch-cancel % now.

You get back on stage, he starts lasering again and you walk toward him... but without putting out a move (ftilt!) so you get naired while trying a ridiculous grab (hoping he'll shield because you're approaching him? but you haven't conditioned him to be threatened by ftilts!). Luckily you make it to the platform and ledgecancel, so his upsmash followup misses, and of COURSE you doublejump bomb from that position. He doesn't punish.

You do a cute walk off plat -> bomb -> fadeback bait, but he doesn't fall for it. Luckily for you, he runs away instead of keeping pressure on you, and you drop with a missile (which gets blocked by a fly guy, rip.) More neutral game stuff happens; you're just wding around without throwing out moves, even though you probably could've punished his roll with an ftilt or something.

You do a risky dash attack in neutral but he doesn't punish. Instead he drops next to you and shields, which you panic up-b. He misses his waveland and airdodges right on top of you, but you... shield???? NOOOOOOO that was a free dsmash or at least an upb! And then you spotdodge, which is pointless because he's facing away from you and can't grab, while nair/bair oos will just hit you anyway.

You do some cute crossup stuff and fsmash towards him, which maybe would've covered wd forward, but he messes up his wd back instead. You bait him into a bad dair, which you get a super nice grab for... and then you totally botch the punish!!! The fair is fine, though you should prefer nair, but then he's in a position where you can get more followups! Then as he doublejumps (45:56), you... fsmash the middle of nowhere??!

He bairs you for that and grabs ledge. You dj fair at the empty stage and he bairs you again (why did you do that?) He gives you ledge for free because he's scared, and goes to the platform. You ledgehop fair the empty stage again and he bairs you yet again. You up-b waaaaay too high and he bairs you AGAIN. Repeat. Third time you actually catch him with upb and now you're on stage and he's offstage.

This is a super hard angle for him to sweetspot, so you reaaaally slowly turnaround and try to uptilt... but there's no way uptilt will be fast enough! Fsmash would've worked! You get hit by upb, fly up, come back down, predictably bomb, and get baired into oblivion. GG.

Thoughts: don't approach with aerial bombs. Don't doublejump -> bomb EVERY time as a defensive option or he'll just wait for it. Work on your ledge options. Practice upthrow followups. Don't do unsafe moves on shield. Ftilt more. Get a better edgeguarding flowchart. More "generically," think about where your opponent is and what his goals are. Don't attack where he was; adapt to where he is now, and where he could be.

 

[Litt]

Hey could I get a match critique? This is me vs fox.

http://www.twitch.tv/pressstartlv/b/628068073?t=42m15s

1) Were there any times he was vulnerable in neutral that I didn't capitalize on?

2) Could you list ways that he was getting in on me and alternative responses I could have had to defend against that approach?

3) Could you mention any punish extensions I could have done? I feel like I only went in hard a couple times and that there had to have been more opportunities.

4) Could you give me a time I did a bad bomb, why it was a bad bomb and a couple options that would have been better? (I bombed a lot and I'm kind of cringing at it but I'm genuinely curious about how I could have been more effective in some of the spaces I occupied)

@ Litt @JerkPhil @ 343 Could you help me out on this?

I hope its not bad form to specifically ask people but you've all been so helpful before!

Since 343 wrote a novel on that match ill just take on the specific stuff, first mistake I saw was when fox did the up throw, you immediately burned your double jump out of fear despite the fox not even attempting to follow up, bad idea, just DI well infront of or behind him, and come down with a fast fall fair and that should cover your way down against most foxes. Way too much bombs, got lucky with stray missile kills, you keep using the same recovery, DI towards stage, pass ledge a little, air dodge up into grapple, after 2x doing that even a moderately good fox player will just jump out and shine you, mix it up so patterns arent formed bud. Another thing I notice, you play samus like she is a chess piece... move her... wait... wavedash... wait... uptilt... wait... you need to make your movement more fluid so you are never not moving, the more you pause the more info you give your opponent about where you will be, again, dont form patterns even with movement pauses unless you are pressuing your opponent by baiting out something from them from just waiting. Don't dsmash on a weak shield, dtilt works much better for shield poking, it is faster, and has less cool down time. you hardly get any Up Bs OoS, and I dont think I saw a single effective use of crouch canceling in that entire set. As soon as the fox caught on that all you were going to do is defend and throw out bombs, he started giving you more respect in neutral, which is where your micro game comes in, grabs, tilts, jab pressure on shield, ect... but you never engaged in that way, you just kept the same gameplan, tossing out way too many bombs that your opponent wasnt getting caught by, and ultimately you didnt adapt and got bopped game 2.

^ Hope this helps, just condensed what you should actually focus on for now, instead of going through every single detail of the set

 

[A Pimp Named Slickback]

Hey guys! I was hoping to get some critique of my Samus vs one of the better spacie players in my region. One thing I know I definitely was struggling with was the wd oos timing through lasers vs falco and being impatient to land vs fox. Any advice for spacing against lasers and landing safely vs fox or anything else you see would be greatly appreciated!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnChh5qiCGE

 

[GoomySmash]

http://www.twitch.tv/cubouldersmash/b/631063105?t=2h29m46s

So this was the first time I've been on Melee stream, I went against a Marth. I SD'd a lot and I kept messing up my wavedash out of shield -> downsmash. Other than that, what else should I improve on? When did I miss opportunities? Thanks

 

[BillNyeTheSamusGuy]

@ 343 @ Litt
I did some of the stuff you said and got 2-1'd instead of 2-0'd lol

v. fox
http://www.twitch.tv/neumontgamegurus/b/6310583803h18m13s

Can somebody tell me about ftilts? I was getting some mileage off of them and sometimes I wasn't.

also, here's the salty runback, did I flub or did my opponent make some adjustments between sets?

http://www.twitch.tv/neumontgamegurus/b/6311490574h37m41s

ALSO-

Hey guys! I was hoping to get some critique of my Samus

Hey dude you were doing some fly stuff! I'm especially fond of that cc upb at 0:09, it covered all his options except maybe lcancel shield. Like, nothing else would have saved you from shine and I'm pretty sure he would've gone for it.

I don't do too well against lasers myself but I can offer some 20/20 hindsight.

At 0:21 you hit a situation that you won but gave up. He laser pressured you, put up his shield to cover your counter attack, which you waited out (good job!) into oos wd back to cover his dair oos. Sadly you missed the dtilt/dsmash opportunity and instead rolled. I guess it was potentially a missed wd but that still would've given up options. You could have read that he would shield and been worried about the counter attack but even thats unfounded. If you read shield here just dtilt to poke (his shield was a little weakened already from use) or use jab and jab cancels into dtilt to weaken shield and guarantee the poke.

At 0:50 you punished laser with ftilt. This was good but potentially risky--- falco could have short hopped over the ftilt and dair'ed to beat it. I wonder if that's why you didn't punish him the same way at 1:09. I mean, if you know your opponent is going to leave themselves open punish it every time. If they end up punishing you instead now you're in a mix up situation the next time you enter that spacing (you could use what I described at 0:21 to potentially handle the dair then). Also, part of the reason this ftilt worked was that falco was cornered and couldn't really retreat. At this point, if you just wanted to get around lasers I'd suggest staying at that spacing and punishing it until he stopped doing bad lasers.

Also general things:

At 0:31 and 2:11 you throw out this burst option dash attack from neutral. If you want to use a burst option to force a situation and/or catch them sleeping use wd ftilt. Its range is much bigger and you can space it to avoid the counter attack if they shield unlike your dash attack.

At 2:13, you had a free upb. When your shield overlaps like that the upb is going to shield poke unless your opponents shield is at 100%. The upb would've beat the grab, a potential dair oos, and jump out of shield. Spotdodge and roll would've beat the upb, but those are historically bad options. Did he even roll or spotdodge in the match? If your opponent doesn't use an option just assume they're not going to use that option ever until they punish you with it.

 

[Spazzy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPBaGQAZgFM First recorded match with Samus. How's my doubles Samus? I'm trying to play as the defensive/stock holder one. Anything I'm doing wrong or anything to improve on?

 

[Cyko Melody]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtDjVMWT2h4

Having trouble with the Luigi matchup. I won the game but I want to improve. What did I do right? Wrong? Thanks guys.

 

[ManoxMano]

^ I watched the first match. I'd say be more comfortable moving around because there's a lot of times where you just play awkwardly and be more mindful of your spacing. Too many whiffed moves that could have hit if you moved into the right position. Up-tilt in neutral didn't work out too well for you during that game so consider more about how you can use it better (hint: when you know he's gonna wd unsafely into you). Missile way more. WAY MORE. And watch some Duck vs luigi sets to learn how you're supposed to edgeguard

 

[Spazzy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtDjVMWT2h4

Having trouble with the Luigi matchup. I won the game but I want to improve. What did I do right? Wrong? Thanks guys.

Things I noticed was that you should improve your edgeguard game/neutral.

 

[Cyko Melody]

While I agree that over all I need to improve in neutral, edgegaurd, etc, this video doesn't do me justice in those areas because of the matchup. Telling me I need to improve in these areas doesn't help me. I already know that.

It's the specifics in this matchup I need help in. These matches do show how I adapt too.

First match, I get wrecked. I didnt respect his character and I got punished. Second match, I play a bit passively and whiff moves to establish my area and to make him think before coming in to it. Third match, I felt comfortable against him and I think I adapted pretty well. I started to get bolder with edge gaurds and approaches. Just a little bit of my mindset in these matches. I wanted to win and it was a unfamilar matchup so I did play poorly but I think I recovered well, yeah?

 

[ManoxMano]

Me (Samus) vs two falcons http://youtu.be/k1zuZkVm07Y (vs n0ne) http://youtu.be/JONR4Fy51GU (vs DI Guy)

 

[Corigames]

Here's 25 minutes of me playing against M2K's Sheik. I would like any general tips you might have.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rrMhHYecZY&feature=youtu.be

Some things I'm at least aware of:
-He kept doing falling Nairs and it was throwing me off. Never seen this from a Sheik before. I kept trying to react with a WD back Fsmash, but either didn't space right, was too slow, or messed up execution. I probably should have just UpB OoS.
-I got a lot of real easy grabs on him (extender or otherwise) and ended up throwing it out WAY too much and lost stocks from it.
-He was keeping me from getting back on the stage from the ledge by doing standing needles. For my life I couldn't figure out a way on stage without getting hit or waiting for him to do something else. Any ideas?
-When Sheik is in the air just in front of me, I lock up. I don't want to retreat and give up stage nor do I want to commit to a jump to try and stop her, so I feel at a loss to SHFFL options. WD Forward UpB? IDK