Script for the video -
Points:
Introduction:
It’s everybody’s dream to be the best at something. Smash Bros. is so special because it allows such a wide variety of people be able to play it while garnering a genuine sense of community that motivates the player to want to achieve greatness. What other community has tournaments every ****ing week for ALMOST every game in the ****ing series. RIP Brawl.
Anyway, I’m here to share my opinion on what it takes to be good in all Smash games. I can’t say I’m anywhere near decent,I’m a trash Ryu in Smash 4 and Falco in Melee honestly, but I’ve been doing my research and I would say my knowledge about this is good enough to reach out and make you think a little bit differently.
Getting Started:
Everybody has to start out somewhere. If you’re already out there every week entering tournaments, that’s perfect. If you’re not, stop being a ***** and get out there already, go find a scene or get a scene started. There is nothing better than competing face to face or at the side of someone with something on the line, it’s literally the best way to improve and to see how your skills are currently. Not everybody has the luxury of throwing down money every week on a video game, I understand, but when you do, make sure to make the most out of every tournament or money match and always take something away from it.
Also, I’m a strong believer in picking tournament viable characters only. We all love a good aMSa, but be honest with yourself, would you rather be the best Yoshi main in Melee who is still losing all the time, or would you rather be a flashy Leffen playing the best character in the game kicking everybody’s asses. I’m not saying play the best characters in each game because I sure don’t, but just pick someone who can actually win a tournament because I’m sure you’d rather be taking some money home every week over that weird ass Roy main. I understand in Melee this is a little harder to do because of the limited viability, but even I feel the lower tier characters in Melee feel like crap to play, but there should be no excuse in Smash 4 to not pick a tournament viable character, there are just too many to not choose one. I promise if you put in enough time you’ll find one the suits you.
Forget about the past:
The sad fact about every tournament is that everyone has to lose twice if you aren’t first. Hell, even first place might’ve lost a Grand Finals set. That’s definitely going to happen to you next time you go to a tournament so just embrace it. No one gives a **** if you lost so don’t get strung up on it. The best thing to do is to learn from it and move on. Just keep this in mind next time you get bodied at a tournament. *Plays it’s just business from the Godfather* The more time you spend denying your loss the less time you spend on your mindset to improve. You have accept the fact in that instance, you lost because your opponent was better than you and that’s why you lost, not because of anything else.
If you keep all of this in mind, your losses will brush off of you in your ultimate goal of winning because there will always be another tournament to prove yourself.
The opposite logic also applies for winning. Don’t be a cocky asshole when you win and think you’re tough ****. If you body someone without much trouble, there is nothing you learned in that match most likely because your opponent didn’t expose your bad habits. Winning doesn’t help you much if you took the set so easily, it would just show you outplayed your opponent and give you a current status on where you are on the spectrum of things. Once again, don’t feel overly proud of a win, take what you can and move on. The best sets are the closest sets and those are where you can learn the most from your play and your opponents play.
Motivation:
Motivation is HUGE in becoming great. It measures from the beginning of your so called “career” what you’re capable of achieving. If your motivation to become the best is powerful, you have a good shot of doing so. Look at the player Zero, for example, he was just a poor kid picking fruit in Chile, scraping up what little money he earned so he could make a living with his mother. He loved Smash and was dedicated to improve even with his unfortunate situation. He played his ass off to improve and came to America with the knowledge that if he failed in his endeavours , he would take a huge step back in his life and be homeless on the street or something, that’s a little too extreme but you know what I mean. If he didn’t have the utmost motivation, then I don’t know what the **** he was smoking to get to where he was. You have to be ready to bust your ass if you even want to think about getting anywhere. I’m going to use this clip from the movie Whiplash because I believe it encaptures the amazing amount of motivation the character Andrew Neimann has to be the best jazz drummer. *Whiplash Scene*
Remember, you only get out what you put into the game. There are no easy buttons to press to be the best. The improvements are gradual and you just have to accept and be ready for it. Being the best can take years, your motivation makes that time worth it. All the hard work you put in would pay off in the end. *Whiplash Ending*
Think:
We’ve all heard the term autopilotting. It means you are playing instinctively without paying attention to your opponent, their habits, your habits, and when to mix it up to throw your opponent off based on what they are doing. Yeah, autopilotting is terrible, you should always be aware of the match you are in. Look at your opponent, what they are doing and what they are not doing. Devise a plan to beat your opponent based on what you see. Counteract their play style, if they are going super aggressive, you have to decide to whether to beat them at their own game or is it within your best interest to beat them with a more defensive style. These decisions have to be made as soon as they come to really understand what you’re doing.
If you’re unfamiliar with a matchup, you have to be ready to soak up as much information as you can within that game to be ready for the next time.
Once you’re able to really understand the game you’re playing, you step inside a whole new level of perception. Thinking and being able to process information to read and react to your opponent is a beautiful thing that makes Smash and other fighting games amazing to play. So it is essential to step into a new echelon of play.
Analyze:
You know how coaches and teams watch their previous games to come up with new plays? It’s the same **** in Smash or any game. Being able to review your matches and other people’s matches is a god sent in our community. Wherever you’re able to play and record your matches with other people, you should heavily consider reviewing those matches. You could reveal to yourself some terrible things and you’d be so happy that you caught them early so you could work on preventing bad habits next time. During my sets, I usually like to mentally throw out the actions I do only keeping a broad sense in mind during the set of my opponent. Going back and reviewing my sets allow me to understand the nuances in my play that can be improved upon to further build on my skill. Keep in mind neutral game interactions, punishes from both sides, habits, missed reads, how your opponent conditioned and read you, baits, shoddy DI, even see what worked right to later replicate it even more practically. This is your time to reflect.
Practice:
You should be playing for as much time as your schedule allows. Go out and find some friends to play with. Go on facebook to find some smash fests or host your own. Go theorycraft in training mode. Wi-fi training should be cut down as much as possible if you have people to play with in real life but if it comes down to it, Smashladder.com is the best place to go for tournament simulated sets for Melee Netplay and Smash 4. I also believe in Smash 4 that For Glory is a training tool if you’re practicing punishes because you can get them easier on bad players so later on when you’re facing a good player and get that one important opening you can know how to punish because you practiced it. For Glory is pretty bad at learning neutral interactions and reading as you will find a lot of trash on there but you shouldn’t discount it as a tool because top players actually practice a lot on For Glory. I don’t see the substance to it but I guess something has to be there.
Conclusion:
At the end of it all, the most important question to ask after realizing what has to go into achieving greatness is, can I even handle it? You’re going to get a lot of **** if you choose to go down this path. If anyone close to you is unsupportive it will hurt your goal. You have to be ready to stay true to yourself and go passed everyone’s bull**** to get where you want to go, reasonably of course. Being the best isn’t easy, but if I could one day know that I could make a living playing the game I love, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Have the mentality of a winner and it could take you a far way.
If I came at you guys a little hard, that was my intention. Never be satisfied with where you are and go beyond. Thanks for sticking around and I hope you get use out of this and improve.
Points:
- Get Started
- Forget about the past
- Motivation
- Think
- Analyze
- Practice
- Conclusion
Introduction:
It’s everybody’s dream to be the best at something. Smash Bros. is so special because it allows such a wide variety of people be able to play it while garnering a genuine sense of community that motivates the player to want to achieve greatness. What other community has tournaments every ****ing week for ALMOST every game in the ****ing series. RIP Brawl.
Anyway, I’m here to share my opinion on what it takes to be good in all Smash games. I can’t say I’m anywhere near decent,I’m a trash Ryu in Smash 4 and Falco in Melee honestly, but I’ve been doing my research and I would say my knowledge about this is good enough to reach out and make you think a little bit differently.
Getting Started:
Everybody has to start out somewhere. If you’re already out there every week entering tournaments, that’s perfect. If you’re not, stop being a ***** and get out there already, go find a scene or get a scene started. There is nothing better than competing face to face or at the side of someone with something on the line, it’s literally the best way to improve and to see how your skills are currently. Not everybody has the luxury of throwing down money every week on a video game, I understand, but when you do, make sure to make the most out of every tournament or money match and always take something away from it.
Also, I’m a strong believer in picking tournament viable characters only. We all love a good aMSa, but be honest with yourself, would you rather be the best Yoshi main in Melee who is still losing all the time, or would you rather be a flashy Leffen playing the best character in the game kicking everybody’s asses. I’m not saying play the best characters in each game because I sure don’t, but just pick someone who can actually win a tournament because I’m sure you’d rather be taking some money home every week over that weird ass Roy main. I understand in Melee this is a little harder to do because of the limited viability, but even I feel the lower tier characters in Melee feel like crap to play, but there should be no excuse in Smash 4 to not pick a tournament viable character, there are just too many to not choose one. I promise if you put in enough time you’ll find one the suits you.
Forget about the past:
The sad fact about every tournament is that everyone has to lose twice if you aren’t first. Hell, even first place might’ve lost a Grand Finals set. That’s definitely going to happen to you next time you go to a tournament so just embrace it. No one gives a **** if you lost so don’t get strung up on it. The best thing to do is to learn from it and move on. Just keep this in mind next time you get bodied at a tournament. *Plays it’s just business from the Godfather* The more time you spend denying your loss the less time you spend on your mindset to improve. You have accept the fact in that instance, you lost because your opponent was better than you and that’s why you lost, not because of anything else.
If you keep all of this in mind, your losses will brush off of you in your ultimate goal of winning because there will always be another tournament to prove yourself.
The opposite logic also applies for winning. Don’t be a cocky asshole when you win and think you’re tough ****. If you body someone without much trouble, there is nothing you learned in that match most likely because your opponent didn’t expose your bad habits. Winning doesn’t help you much if you took the set so easily, it would just show you outplayed your opponent and give you a current status on where you are on the spectrum of things. Once again, don’t feel overly proud of a win, take what you can and move on. The best sets are the closest sets and those are where you can learn the most from your play and your opponents play.
Motivation:
Motivation is HUGE in becoming great. It measures from the beginning of your so called “career” what you’re capable of achieving. If your motivation to become the best is powerful, you have a good shot of doing so. Look at the player Zero, for example, he was just a poor kid picking fruit in Chile, scraping up what little money he earned so he could make a living with his mother. He loved Smash and was dedicated to improve even with his unfortunate situation. He played his ass off to improve and came to America with the knowledge that if he failed in his endeavours , he would take a huge step back in his life and be homeless on the street or something, that’s a little too extreme but you know what I mean. If he didn’t have the utmost motivation, then I don’t know what the **** he was smoking to get to where he was. You have to be ready to bust your ass if you even want to think about getting anywhere. I’m going to use this clip from the movie Whiplash because I believe it encaptures the amazing amount of motivation the character Andrew Neimann has to be the best jazz drummer. *Whiplash Scene*
Remember, you only get out what you put into the game. There are no easy buttons to press to be the best. The improvements are gradual and you just have to accept and be ready for it. Being the best can take years, your motivation makes that time worth it. All the hard work you put in would pay off in the end. *Whiplash Ending*
Think:
We’ve all heard the term autopilotting. It means you are playing instinctively without paying attention to your opponent, their habits, your habits, and when to mix it up to throw your opponent off based on what they are doing. Yeah, autopilotting is terrible, you should always be aware of the match you are in. Look at your opponent, what they are doing and what they are not doing. Devise a plan to beat your opponent based on what you see. Counteract their play style, if they are going super aggressive, you have to decide to whether to beat them at their own game or is it within your best interest to beat them with a more defensive style. These decisions have to be made as soon as they come to really understand what you’re doing.
If you’re unfamiliar with a matchup, you have to be ready to soak up as much information as you can within that game to be ready for the next time.
Once you’re able to really understand the game you’re playing, you step inside a whole new level of perception. Thinking and being able to process information to read and react to your opponent is a beautiful thing that makes Smash and other fighting games amazing to play. So it is essential to step into a new echelon of play.
Analyze:
You know how coaches and teams watch their previous games to come up with new plays? It’s the same **** in Smash or any game. Being able to review your matches and other people’s matches is a god sent in our community. Wherever you’re able to play and record your matches with other people, you should heavily consider reviewing those matches. You could reveal to yourself some terrible things and you’d be so happy that you caught them early so you could work on preventing bad habits next time. During my sets, I usually like to mentally throw out the actions I do only keeping a broad sense in mind during the set of my opponent. Going back and reviewing my sets allow me to understand the nuances in my play that can be improved upon to further build on my skill. Keep in mind neutral game interactions, punishes from both sides, habits, missed reads, how your opponent conditioned and read you, baits, shoddy DI, even see what worked right to later replicate it even more practically. This is your time to reflect.
Practice:
You should be playing for as much time as your schedule allows. Go out and find some friends to play with. Go on facebook to find some smash fests or host your own. Go theorycraft in training mode. Wi-fi training should be cut down as much as possible if you have people to play with in real life but if it comes down to it, Smashladder.com is the best place to go for tournament simulated sets for Melee Netplay and Smash 4. I also believe in Smash 4 that For Glory is a training tool if you’re practicing punishes because you can get them easier on bad players so later on when you’re facing a good player and get that one important opening you can know how to punish because you practiced it. For Glory is pretty bad at learning neutral interactions and reading as you will find a lot of trash on there but you shouldn’t discount it as a tool because top players actually practice a lot on For Glory. I don’t see the substance to it but I guess something has to be there.
Conclusion:
At the end of it all, the most important question to ask after realizing what has to go into achieving greatness is, can I even handle it? You’re going to get a lot of **** if you choose to go down this path. If anyone close to you is unsupportive it will hurt your goal. You have to be ready to stay true to yourself and go passed everyone’s bull**** to get where you want to go, reasonably of course. Being the best isn’t easy, but if I could one day know that I could make a living playing the game I love, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Have the mentality of a winner and it could take you a far way.
If I came at you guys a little hard, that was my intention. Never be satisfied with where you are and go beyond. Thanks for sticking around and I hope you get use out of this and improve.
- Applicable Games
- Smash 64, Melee, Brawl, Project M, Smash 3DS, Smash Wii U
