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Day 6 with Marth. I’d like to take today to talk about Math’s kill combo starting around 60% on characters near his size and adjusted accordingly for lighter or heavier characters. The combo most known is ffall soft nair hit 1 into reverse stutterstep tipper fsmash. This will almost always result in a kill. But the timing is actually harder to hit then you might think. The thing with a stutterstep fsmash is that there are 6 frames to press fsmash during the dash animation, otherwise you will do a full dash. Now, Marth’s dash is so fast that you will find you go a significant distance in the 1/10th of a second you have to move. (6frames at 60frames per second = 6/60 = 1/10 of a second) Just try counting out a second and think about dividing it. It’s a lot more time than you think. Now the tipper fsmash timing is hard to hit. If you hit the soft nair 1, your opponent will fly forward. Hit a tipper and the opponent will fly straight up. For a tipper, your better off trying to combo into an uptilt and juggle. but if you hit the nair, there are two options. High (opponents chest) and low (opponents legs). On a high hit, you will need to go further back on your stutterstep, around 4-6 frames of timing. So it isn’t button mashing as hard as you can. With a low hit, you will need to hit around 2-4 frames to get the tipper timing. My only explanation is the difference between fast falling the higher hit and the lower hit. This has been consistent for me and if it isn’t, i’ll try and post an update correcting this one. There are different variations on this, but i suggest you try to master this technique first as it is our biggest weapon in kill confirm potential early in a stock. Looking forward to my first finished week tomorrow! Stay tuned <3

Day 4-5 with Marth. I've started looking for some optimizations to the controller layout, finding myself a Gamecube adapter, and timing inputs. Claw grip seems to be more functional for me but I'm not sure it will stay due to complaints I've read online about the toll it takes on people's hands. I also found a smash league from my school that I enrolled in to get some extra practice. The main reason I would suggest joining a league for new players is because of the consistent amount of opportunities it gives people to play. This is the best practice for adapting to playstyles and reading your opponents. Focus more on this as it is very important if you ever want to get serious with the game. Much of my other time was spent playing with dormmates and gaining matchup experience. Spacing is always at the forefront of my mind but I also want to change the way Marth is played. In my opinion, Marth's range is played more like a respectful zoning tactic where opponents have to fear the tipper. The main problem with this is that matchups (like samus or wolf projectiles) suck and more importantly characters that try and get as close as they possibly can to you will push the limit of spacing and dominate stage control before mental games play out. Playing a more aggressive Marth like Ken from melee is essential in my opinion to succeed as a top-tier character. Specifically learning to mix up attack cancel nairs or fairs to get out of intense close scenarios unpunished and tomahawks will lead to more success. As my skills continue to develop I will report on this more.

Day three with Marth. Started compiling videos and techniques to create my own Marth tutorial and skills compilation. Listened to a lot of commentary on the consistency of Marth and how the easier option is Lucina. People like MKLeo and Zero agree that Marth's tipper is too unreliable to play at a high level. I think that if someone could grind enough on Marth and focus on spacing to the degree that it is second nature that they could become a beast with Marth. He has the potential to kill at 40. The character is absolutely busted and until someone sits down and goes MewTwoKing precise on the frame data and spaces, the potential is going untapped. I'm going to break this character and we'll see who isn't viable then.

Day two with Marth using a pro controller. Tried looking for some GameCube controllers in my area and found a classic version available at my best buy. Also bought an adapter from Nintendo to go with it. Today I went over a lot of film. Lots of pausing, analysis of situations played out by people before me. Familiarized myself with tournament standards and how map picks worked. I would also like to add that I watched Smash Brothers documentary for the first time and I absolutely loved it. That is the reason I want to play this game and find that sense of community. I think it is important that all players entering this community watch that and know about the history of where our game evolved from. For Marth, worked on combos, tec chases, ken combo, short hop button taps. Coming from tap jump is hard but I am slowly improving. I think it is healthy to mix in a full hop every now and again with a fast fall fair to create "the wall" and pressure against ledges. Wave dashing is also coming a little easier. Started trying to fast fall nair, fair, and upair off a wavedashed platform. Finished it off with a ft5 with my roommate. I need some more practice so hopefully some lan events will come back. Stay tuned for day 3 <3

Started my first competitive grind on Marth today! Today was spent learning how to move well without tap jump on which was a little challenging but got better. Also practiced foxtrotting, dash dancing into dtilt , ftilt, fair, nair. Last I tried to practice my wave dashing on platforms during a full jump. All in all, a success! Stay tuned for day 2