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Smash Cadet
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- Jan 18, 2013
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Most agree Marth is a mid-tier character in Smash 4. He lacks the tools that make top tiers great such as Sonic's rushdown or the ability to camp with needles. Instead Marth adopts close-quarters combat which puts him in constant danger of retaliation. On top of this, Marth possesses next to zero practical combos and relies on risks to win the damage race. However, through smart option selection and psychology Marth can minimize his risks and land the big attacks he needs for the KO. This guide will explain how to utilize safe pressure, how to condition the opponent into a guessing game, and how to exploit their doubt to your advantage.
Marth's Safe Offensive Tools
Risky moves are risky because they lose to more options than they beat. At the beginning of a new match, when you know nothing about your opponent's tendencies, you must assume the enemy is capable of anything. Since risky moves fail against the majority of anything, starting off with low-commitment attacks will grant greater success. Tournament player Emblem Lord has compiled a list of Marth's safest options:
Pressure and Conditioning
With a tool chosen, it's time to attack and gauge the outcome. Did it hit? Then do it again until it stops working. Don't worry if the tactic makes you a scrub. "The first step in becoming a top player is the realization that playing to win means doing whatever most increases your chances of winning," says game designer David Sirlin.
Most opponents will learn to counter your tactic by the second or third repetition. The most common response is to shield as soon as you're in range for your attack. With rising F-air I've trained opponents into the habit of shielding whenever they saw me dash toward them. Because habits are predictable, they are also exploitable. This is the point where you switch to the move that counters their reaction. Against shielding, start grabbing. Repetition is key here. Don't be afraid of being predictable. It's worth letting the opponent get a couple of reads, as their underestimation of you will become their downfall later.
After a couple grabs the opponent will learn they need a new counter-measure. Perhaps they'll use F-tilt or jabs to stop your grab attempts. Marth's special attribute is his a sword. His long disjointed hitboxes beat most characters' short limbs, which means the first tactic you'd been using (say rising F-air) now works again. You switch to F-air, the opponent goes back to shielding, so you use grab, they jab, you F-air again, ad infinitum. The conditioning becomes complete and your opponent now expects one of two options from Marth and has to guess ahead of time which one to counter. So far we've created a 50/50 scenario in which neither of the two fighters have the advantage. However, we've now created the ideal situation for defeating the enemy.
Capitalizing on the Situation
Marth has three main powerful attacks that are also risky, his smash attacks. Each of them beat a particular option (F-smash outreaches short attacks, D-smash beats inward rolls, U-smash defeats hi jumps), but they all lose to a plethora of other options (dodges, fast attacks, shield, etc.). At the beginning of the match the opponent could have done anything and these smash attacks had maybe a 10% chance of succeeding. But now we've created a predictable situation where the opponent will always shield or jab. The jab loses to F-smash, meaning our risky attack now has a 50% chance of hitting. The F-smash's great power skews the risk vs. reward in your favor on this coin toss and may cinch the kill after racking up percent all this time.
Whether the F-smash lands or fails, the mere threat of it now changes the situation. The opponent will refuse participation in a stacked guessing game rewarding their death, so they'll likely add their own new moves to fundamentally change the situation. Perhaps instead of shielding the rising F-air, he'll shield or roll, forcing another guess on top of guessing to grab. At this point you might never get to force the same 50/50 situation again, but you can still use safe attacks to cover several of your opponents options, forcing him to give up a few, and thus raising the chances of your riskier power moves.
Conclusion
General fighting game advice says the more unpredictable you are, the better. If the opponent can't guess what you'll do, then how can they defend against it? Smash bros. works a bit differently though, as the nature of the percent system requires a hard read with a risky attack if you hope to end a stock early. If you're 100% random, then the chances of landing a smash attack remains low, prolonging the stock and giving the opponent more chances to return from behind. However, by adding a little predictability to your own patterns, it's possible to condition the opponent into becoming predictable themselves, thus improving your own chances for a successful smash attack.
Marth's Safe Offensive Tools
Risky moves are risky because they lose to more options than they beat. At the beginning of a new match, when you know nothing about your opponent's tendencies, you must assume the enemy is capable of anything. Since risky moves fail against the majority of anything, starting off with low-commitment attacks will grant greater success. Tournament player Emblem Lord has compiled a list of Marth's safest options:
- Jab
- D-tilt
- Fast-fall landing N-air
- Full-jump rising F-air
Pressure and Conditioning
With a tool chosen, it's time to attack and gauge the outcome. Did it hit? Then do it again until it stops working. Don't worry if the tactic makes you a scrub. "The first step in becoming a top player is the realization that playing to win means doing whatever most increases your chances of winning," says game designer David Sirlin.
Most opponents will learn to counter your tactic by the second or third repetition. The most common response is to shield as soon as you're in range for your attack. With rising F-air I've trained opponents into the habit of shielding whenever they saw me dash toward them. Because habits are predictable, they are also exploitable. This is the point where you switch to the move that counters their reaction. Against shielding, start grabbing. Repetition is key here. Don't be afraid of being predictable. It's worth letting the opponent get a couple of reads, as their underestimation of you will become their downfall later.
After a couple grabs the opponent will learn they need a new counter-measure. Perhaps they'll use F-tilt or jabs to stop your grab attempts. Marth's special attribute is his a sword. His long disjointed hitboxes beat most characters' short limbs, which means the first tactic you'd been using (say rising F-air) now works again. You switch to F-air, the opponent goes back to shielding, so you use grab, they jab, you F-air again, ad infinitum. The conditioning becomes complete and your opponent now expects one of two options from Marth and has to guess ahead of time which one to counter. So far we've created a 50/50 scenario in which neither of the two fighters have the advantage. However, we've now created the ideal situation for defeating the enemy.
Capitalizing on the Situation
Marth has three main powerful attacks that are also risky, his smash attacks. Each of them beat a particular option (F-smash outreaches short attacks, D-smash beats inward rolls, U-smash defeats hi jumps), but they all lose to a plethora of other options (dodges, fast attacks, shield, etc.). At the beginning of the match the opponent could have done anything and these smash attacks had maybe a 10% chance of succeeding. But now we've created a predictable situation where the opponent will always shield or jab. The jab loses to F-smash, meaning our risky attack now has a 50% chance of hitting. The F-smash's great power skews the risk vs. reward in your favor on this coin toss and may cinch the kill after racking up percent all this time.
Whether the F-smash lands or fails, the mere threat of it now changes the situation. The opponent will refuse participation in a stacked guessing game rewarding their death, so they'll likely add their own new moves to fundamentally change the situation. Perhaps instead of shielding the rising F-air, he'll shield or roll, forcing another guess on top of guessing to grab. At this point you might never get to force the same 50/50 situation again, but you can still use safe attacks to cover several of your opponents options, forcing him to give up a few, and thus raising the chances of your riskier power moves.
Conclusion
General fighting game advice says the more unpredictable you are, the better. If the opponent can't guess what you'll do, then how can they defend against it? Smash bros. works a bit differently though, as the nature of the percent system requires a hard read with a risky attack if you hope to end a stock early. If you're 100% random, then the chances of landing a smash attack remains low, prolonging the stock and giving the opponent more chances to return from behind. However, by adding a little predictability to your own patterns, it's possible to condition the opponent into becoming predictable themselves, thus improving your own chances for a successful smash attack.
Works Cited
Emblem Lord. "Re: Promotion to Great Lord - Marth Strategy Notes." Smashboards. Smashboards, n.d.Web. 21 Dec. 2014.
Sirlin, David. "Introducing...the Scrub." Playing to Win. North Carolina: Raleigh, 2006. N. pag.Sirlin.net: Sirlin on Game Design. Web. 27 Dec. 2014.
P.S. I only wrote this thread as a paper essay for practice (I'll be going back to school after a two-year hiatus). Critiques on the style/formatting or content are both welcome.
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