Aspiring Player In Search For Advice

[Boofed]

Hey, I'm Boof, I'm basically a new player to Melee. I attended 2 or 3 tournies, one of which was /HOPE 4 (I got to play a friendly against M2k! I took off 1 stock! Okay, he might have suicided, but still). I also went to a couple of CMU tournies run by Green Ranger.

At the moment, I'm attending Allegheny College up in Meadville, PA. It's about 2 hours north of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh tournaments are sort of out of the question for me.

I've never really gotten a chance to be good at smash, and by "good" I mean able to play at tournies and win at least one or two matches. I have won 1 total matches cumulative at all the tournaments I've been to. Typically I just get danced around and taunted by players with far far superior tech skills while I make a mistake and get slapped off the stage for it. I got lucky at /HOPE 4 in the loser's brackets against another no-name. He picked puff and chose FoD, still knowing I was playing Marth, lol.

I'm a Marth main. Ken and PPU are my heros (PPU because of his recent combo in the Apex tournie). I can also play a bit of puff and have experimented with C.Falcon, Yoshi, Pikachu, and even Pichu though I'm no good at them. I'm also not very good at spacies nor do I care for them much, which I know I should.


Soooo.... What should I do? How can I practice smash and play against others who are actually "good" at the game? There's people in my dorm who clearly would like to play smash bros but they aren't tournament material. I can't get better playing with or against them. In fact, typically I get worse. Any suggestions?

 

[KanyeRest]

pittsburgh has a really good scene, get in contact with them on the regional boards

 

[Gea]

You get a car and you drive. You make friends then you hold fests and make them drive. Also you should still play with those people in your dorm. Encourage them to be all they can be.

 

[Mahie]

You realize the fact that regardless of the level of the player you're facing, he's still using the same character that has the same moves, so you figure out ways to counter said moves and you work on reacting to those, and never acting preemptively. You make sure not to get cocky against weaker players and instead learn how to maneuver as close as possible to their random bull****, then when said bull**** comes out you punish it.

tl;dr : Forget about reads on noobs and learn how to react. Reads you'll acquire against people that are worth reading. Instead, play the matchup.

 

[Boofed]

You realize the fact that regardless of the level of the player you're facing, he's still using the same character that has the same moves, so you figure out ways to counter said moves and you work on reacting to those, and never acting preemptively. You make sure not to get cocky against weaker players and instead learn how to maneuver as close as possible to their random bull****, then when said bull**** comes out you punish it.

tl;dr : Forget about reads on noobs and learn how to react. Reads you'll acquire against people that are worth reading. Instead, play the matchup.

Thanks, this is good advice. Although, I've found that playing with higher skill players makes me a better player as well. At /hope 4, after being knocked out of the brackets nearly instantly, I spent the rest of the day playing friendlies. My Marth started to get really good and really aggressive and I started taking stocks down.

I'll have to pick up a true secondary main and learn to use that character like I can with Marth. It's just tough because I <3 Marth so much haha.

To those of you telling me to just drive to Pittsburgh, that isn't going to happen. I'm a full-time student and driving 2 hours to play Smash Bros for a few hours and then 2 hours back up to college isn't going to happen. Not only would that ruin my grades but it would also ruin my wallet.

 

[Gea]

I'd just focus on Marth for now. Wait until you get out of the first few rounds before working on a secondary hardcore, though playing with all the characters is a good idea to see what they are capable of. Marth can do it alone pretty damn well.

 

[Ziodyne]

Marth doesn't really need a secondary, so don't try to force one on yourself. If you find yourself enjoying playing more characters in long friendlies, go ahead, but more often than not you'll probably grow dedicated to one character (which is a good thing IMO).

 

[KanyeRest]

sorry, didn't read your OP, although definitely try and make it out to pittsburgh tourneys once in a while

also focus on your marth. secondaries will come later, possibly.

 

[ChivalRuse]

Practice tech skill and movement a lot until you don't have to think about it. You're going to have to actually put a decent amount of time into practicing tech if you ever want to be decent at this game.

Once you have considerable tech, then you might want to post videos of yourself playing against other competitive players or friends if that's all you have. There are plenty of people on these boards who can give you constructive criticism to help you improve.

 

[Life]

How close are you to Erie? IIRC there's a couple people up there.

 

[PGH Carroll]

yooooo boof Stro (SICKKKKK LINK PLAYER) goes to the same school.

hit him up.

there are some players up there.

add me on FB or something http://www.facebook.com/DJnicholasRAGE

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

I highly doubt you actually need to drive 2 hours to get decent competition. The Smash community is huge and Melee is everywhere.

Join your local facebook groups and you'll probably find someone walking distance away.

fake edit: follow Carroll's advice.

 

[thespymachine]

Look up the "Advanced How to play" videos on youtube, and share them with an interested buddy at the college. If they have the same drive as you, you'll have tons of fun and will improve.

 

[tangyzizzler]

It sounds like your tech skill is really lacking if you get "danced around" at tournaments. You should be doing everything you can to make sure your movement and fundamentals feel natural and effortless. If you ever see PewPewU or M2K or Ken doing something cool with Marth in a video and you DON'T know how they did it, that's when you should come on Smashboards and ask for help.

Chances are you know what your weaknesses are. If you're not good at wavedashing, or doing Marth's double F-airs consistently, or if you miss L-cancels, etc. that's what you should focus on when you play by yourself. Come up with exercises that will assist with acquiring muscle memory.

You can ALWAYS find things to improve upon. For example, if you can already wavedash pretty consistently, practice dashing forward, then wavedashing backwards. Practice changing directions and then wavedashing away. Practice wavedashing onto the stage from the ledge position and grabbing (or Dtilting, or Ftilting, or Fsmashing - you get the point). Practice jumping onto platforms (from below) and wavelanding on them, and following it up with something ASAP (like a dash, or platfrom dropping, etc). Practice wavedashing out of shield. Practice wavedashing into D-tilts and F-smashes. Are you starting to get the point?

You should be so familiar with Marth's movement that you're 1.) aware of all your movement options at any given moment in a match and 2.) able to execute, with your fingers, what you see Marth doing in your mind's eye.

Also, you sound like a huge snob for refusing to play with your dorm mates because they're not "tourney material." If you're really that much better than them, handicap yourself (either tell them you're going to suicide a few stocks, or do it without telling them and make it look like an accident so they don't feel bad). If you notice anything they're doing obviously wrong, tell them what they can do to fix it. But don't be surprised if they start whooping your ***.