Any advice for how to get good (generally) at Doubles?

[StokeTheForge]

As a relative newcomer to the competitive smash scene, I have little to no experience with doubles. Any ideas for how to practice?

 

[Spak]

As a relative newcomer to the competitive smash scene, I have little to no experience with doubles. Any ideas for how to practice?

The only advice I have is know how your partner plays, play with and against them frequently so that you can get better, and use characters that have a good synergy. To be honest, I haven't gone into the world of Doubles yet and may not be too qualified to answer this question authoritatively, but just knowing how your partner processes things and reacts to different situations helps you judge what to do in a doubles situation.

 

[dan smith]

never let the match become two 1v1 fights. play defensively until you have them split up/in a compromising situation and then team up on one of them.

 

[SwiftOfDaSouth]

Doubles is scary man. I want to get good at it, but it's scary. You have to like
not
hit your teammate and ****
and communicate
and look for certain options that don't pertain to singles
and know that certain edgeguards will work that usually don't and vice versa
and its just
scary dude. Intimidating.

 

[StokeTheForge]

Pretty good advice from all: What matchups (allies and opponents) would you recommend starting out with?

 

[SAUS]

Pretty good advice from all: What matchups (allies and opponents) would you recommend starting out with?

Just use your mains, imo. Especially at your level (by my guess at your level based on the OP).

The best way to practice is to experiment (ie play). It'll probably be some ugly combination of both of your singles knowledge combined with a few doubles-specific things at first. It is good to map out what you want each other to be doing in certain places. An example is grabs. Maybe you like to throw the enemy at your buddy so he can get a good punish, maybe you just hold him and wait for your buddy to come in and smash him out of your hands. This is something you should have worked out before actually playing so that you don't miss the opportunities. It is similar for edge guards, overall strategy (one guy wants to go in and knee them all the time, so stay back and just cover him when it isn't working - that sort of thing), ... really for anything where you will need coordination in a common situation.

This sort of mapping process is very handy for when you team with someone you haven't teamed with before as well. Just go over the basic stuff (like the grab example) so that you both have a little bit of anticipation in the situations. It is really sucky to lose team games because game 1 was a giant mess with no coordination lol. At least get some of the easy stuff down.

 

[DerfMidWest]

first find a regular partner and enter tournaments together regularly.

this helps you understand the way both of you like to play and where both of you like to be and things like that.

Form basic strategies prior to playing your sets and understand basic doubles strats.

there is a lot that goes into it, but the most important part is finding a regular partner and being able to identify situations in which the two of you struggle (i.e. one of you can't play aggressively, which characters either of you struggle to handle, etc.)

being able to be aware of your partner's positions and things is also just as important than your opponents. If your opponent is being edgeguarded or gets trapped by the ledge, you need to be in a position where you can quickly switch contact and help them out, while still threatening the other opponent and keeping them out.
Positioning is a huge deal (even more so in doubles).

 

[IC-Rambler]

What are some good doubles matches to watch to learn from?

 

[SwiftOfDaSouth]

What are some good doubles matches to watch to learn from?

Look up on Youtube "The Smash Lab: Bros before Pros." It's a great video by one of my favorite layers and favorite commentator, Bobby Scar. That should be a good place to start.

 

[kingPiano]

Watch any doubles with Mango or Isai they are two of the best team players ever,;very selfless but also deadly players.

There some clips with Mango playing Mario (AKA scorp-a-dorp) and you will see him save his partner Lucky many times by going out hitting him toward the stage with a weak attack so they can recover (getting hit refreshes their Up-B).

If you can't play with humans all the time just play with a CPU teammate v 2 CPUs and focus only on trying to keep the CPU teammate alive as long as possible. Nothing beats going to tournaments and actually competing in doubles, you will learn fast.