MetalMusicMan
Sleepwalk our lives away.
Link to original post: [drupal=1660]Be diverse, it could win you a tournament[/drupal]
Originally Posted @ MetalMusicMan.com by member Milk!
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This was talked about on All is Brawl slightly, in another article, but I really want to expand on it, it's a great topic.
Here's the scenario: Lets say you're in the final's of a huge scale tourney, for instance, Genesis. Prior to this event, during all your play experience, you never play the level Distant Planet, because you and all your playing friends hate it, but the random finalist decides, "This course is phenomenal for X character, and bad for Y character, so I'm going to pick it." Such is the point of a counter pick, correct? But on top of your character being bad at said stage, you have no experience on said stage, getting beaten even harder, and making you look like an unskilled player, and possibly costing you the tourney.
You never want that to happen against you, that could cost you an entire tournament for all you know, so basically, you have to toughen up, and play the stages you hate, even if only once, so you can have some sort of thrown together strategy, instead of having to completely wing it last minute. One thing to do, as some people are research players(read information and apply,) is to read the stage thread for your said character, practice good stages for your character when your counter pick arises, and practice the bad ones as well, so if another research player comes across you in the brackets, and they've done their research, they will attempt the following: "Oh X character is bad on this stage, I'm going to counter pick it to screw with him," and due to your new found practice, you will hold much of a better chance than you would with going into the stage blind. The odds will be less stacked against you. It always helps to have some sort of experience on all the legal stages, so no one can ever surprise you with a stage you had no experience on, and maybe down the road, you might end up liking the stage for such and such reason.
Personally, myself, I'm not very fond of Brinstar, very small, lava, etc. But anyways, I played that strategy through my head, with Brinstar and on countless courses before that, (Rainbow Ride/Cruise, I don't remember, Pokemon Stadium 2, Pirate Ship, Norfair.), I basically had the silly idea in my head that any course that wasn't Final D, Battlefield, and Smashville was terrible, so I completely shunned away from anything except those three. Now a couple of my most hated courses, (Pictochat, Frigate, Etc.), are some of my favorite courses, because I found something I liked about them with said characters, and my friends inexperience to them gave me the upper hand for awhile, and after I told them this, they played their hated course, and learned to like/tolerate them, shortly after cursing me for picking "silly stages."
The same can be said for a character match up. For instance, before meeting Legan, I never played a Link who was better than mediocre; the first time I played him, there went all 3 of my stocks. I continued to get 3 stocked, until I thought I figured his strategy out, then boom, comes out a new strategy to destroy me, and I just couldn't understand why I could do nothing against him, I wasn't expecting to beat him by any means, but I could hardly touch him.
Another example is the one time I went to Metal's weekly Smash Fest. A buddy of mine, Danny, is possibly the one Sheik player I know, not even kidding. Brawleen was playing me and my buddy Kim Bo Slyce, and beating us pretty bad, one she is the better player, and two, I have little to no Kirby experience whatsoever, so I was clueless at what to do. My buddy Danny comes up to the Wii, and takes a set on her. Danny is good, no doubt, but his play style is very short minded, too offensive. But anyways, we all told him, "You've got an advantage, no one knows how to fight Sheik," and it seems such is true.
I can say from first hand experience, these two scenarios happen quite frequently in the tourney scene, a prime example, the last tourney I hosted, Aerial Rave 1.1, a Ness made it to the grand finals, for the fact of he was an amazing player, and no one there knew how to handle a great Ness. He took the other player to the 2nd of the 3 of 5 sets, and wow, was that a phenomenal set. You never plan for there to be that one player that uses just about everyone, and is good on most stages. Even people with bad match ups, can prevail in a match, due to no match up/counter pick stage experience.
One of the main points of this post, in a nut shell: Be Diverse.
Don't main just one person, and stick solely to that one character, on top of that being boring, it can really help you down the road. Broaden your horizons, pick up an un-noticed pocket character to throw out when people are getting used to your style, then change it up on them. I myself play quite a lot of people, I've probably tried to main the entire cast at one point in time, so I've got general knowledge of most the cast, so I'll throw that wild card out once in a while to confuse people, and possibly win me a set. I'm not the greatest player by any means, but I know I can hold my own against some of STL's best, and due to poor match up experience with some characters, It can win me a match when the odds are highly stacked against me. Metal can vouch for me as well, he can play just about anyone and hold his own, due to his skill as a player, being able to punish well, and the oddball characters he picks.
Also, in response to having a pocket character, every player wants to find the one oddball course that might or might not benefit their character(s), and have that as a surprise card as well for friendlies and tourney scene alike. A lot of my friends liked to use Pictochat against me, and I had no idea what to do on it, so I got destroyed accordingly. Having that one that you practice on, come up with kill strats, learn to throw/hit into the hazards(Pictochat and Halbred chyeah!), can always be a nice finisher to a set if you're down a match.
So overall, those who main Random, I salute you respectfully, you disregard match ups, and play the game to the best of your ability, no matter what character you're given.
Originally Posted @ MetalMusicMan.com by member Milk!
-----------------------------------------------
This was talked about on All is Brawl slightly, in another article, but I really want to expand on it, it's a great topic.
Here's the scenario: Lets say you're in the final's of a huge scale tourney, for instance, Genesis. Prior to this event, during all your play experience, you never play the level Distant Planet, because you and all your playing friends hate it, but the random finalist decides, "This course is phenomenal for X character, and bad for Y character, so I'm going to pick it." Such is the point of a counter pick, correct? But on top of your character being bad at said stage, you have no experience on said stage, getting beaten even harder, and making you look like an unskilled player, and possibly costing you the tourney.
You never want that to happen against you, that could cost you an entire tournament for all you know, so basically, you have to toughen up, and play the stages you hate, even if only once, so you can have some sort of thrown together strategy, instead of having to completely wing it last minute. One thing to do, as some people are research players(read information and apply,) is to read the stage thread for your said character, practice good stages for your character when your counter pick arises, and practice the bad ones as well, so if another research player comes across you in the brackets, and they've done their research, they will attempt the following: "Oh X character is bad on this stage, I'm going to counter pick it to screw with him," and due to your new found practice, you will hold much of a better chance than you would with going into the stage blind. The odds will be less stacked against you. It always helps to have some sort of experience on all the legal stages, so no one can ever surprise you with a stage you had no experience on, and maybe down the road, you might end up liking the stage for such and such reason.
Personally, myself, I'm not very fond of Brinstar, very small, lava, etc. But anyways, I played that strategy through my head, with Brinstar and on countless courses before that, (Rainbow Ride/Cruise, I don't remember, Pokemon Stadium 2, Pirate Ship, Norfair.), I basically had the silly idea in my head that any course that wasn't Final D, Battlefield, and Smashville was terrible, so I completely shunned away from anything except those three. Now a couple of my most hated courses, (Pictochat, Frigate, Etc.), are some of my favorite courses, because I found something I liked about them with said characters, and my friends inexperience to them gave me the upper hand for awhile, and after I told them this, they played their hated course, and learned to like/tolerate them, shortly after cursing me for picking "silly stages."
The same can be said for a character match up. For instance, before meeting Legan, I never played a Link who was better than mediocre; the first time I played him, there went all 3 of my stocks. I continued to get 3 stocked, until I thought I figured his strategy out, then boom, comes out a new strategy to destroy me, and I just couldn't understand why I could do nothing against him, I wasn't expecting to beat him by any means, but I could hardly touch him.
Another example is the one time I went to Metal's weekly Smash Fest. A buddy of mine, Danny, is possibly the one Sheik player I know, not even kidding. Brawleen was playing me and my buddy Kim Bo Slyce, and beating us pretty bad, one she is the better player, and two, I have little to no Kirby experience whatsoever, so I was clueless at what to do. My buddy Danny comes up to the Wii, and takes a set on her. Danny is good, no doubt, but his play style is very short minded, too offensive. But anyways, we all told him, "You've got an advantage, no one knows how to fight Sheik," and it seems such is true.
I can say from first hand experience, these two scenarios happen quite frequently in the tourney scene, a prime example, the last tourney I hosted, Aerial Rave 1.1, a Ness made it to the grand finals, for the fact of he was an amazing player, and no one there knew how to handle a great Ness. He took the other player to the 2nd of the 3 of 5 sets, and wow, was that a phenomenal set. You never plan for there to be that one player that uses just about everyone, and is good on most stages. Even people with bad match ups, can prevail in a match, due to no match up/counter pick stage experience.
One of the main points of this post, in a nut shell: Be Diverse.
Don't main just one person, and stick solely to that one character, on top of that being boring, it can really help you down the road. Broaden your horizons, pick up an un-noticed pocket character to throw out when people are getting used to your style, then change it up on them. I myself play quite a lot of people, I've probably tried to main the entire cast at one point in time, so I've got general knowledge of most the cast, so I'll throw that wild card out once in a while to confuse people, and possibly win me a set. I'm not the greatest player by any means, but I know I can hold my own against some of STL's best, and due to poor match up experience with some characters, It can win me a match when the odds are highly stacked against me. Metal can vouch for me as well, he can play just about anyone and hold his own, due to his skill as a player, being able to punish well, and the oddball characters he picks.
Also, in response to having a pocket character, every player wants to find the one oddball course that might or might not benefit their character(s), and have that as a surprise card as well for friendlies and tourney scene alike. A lot of my friends liked to use Pictochat against me, and I had no idea what to do on it, so I got destroyed accordingly. Having that one that you practice on, come up with kill strats, learn to throw/hit into the hazards(Pictochat and Halbred chyeah!), can always be a nice finisher to a set if you're down a match.
So overall, those who main Random, I salute you respectfully, you disregard match ups, and play the game to the best of your ability, no matter what character you're given.
