I'm only going to critique the newer vids, since critiqueing your older vids would be pointless. I always remain objective when critiqueing vids. I make no effort to sound harsh. This is just unbiased objective criticism that is intended to help other players improve. If I sound harsh please do not take offense to it.
Video 1
Beggining of the vid - You and ROK opened with some dash dancing. It seemed a little mindless IMO. Especially on ROK's part. He was DDing too far to be able to pressure you effectively or punish you by capitalizing on lag or a mistakes that you might make.
00:11 - ROK goofed up here. This was a standard Marth combo too. He should have been able to tell that you weren't going to get hit with another u-tilt. He should have followed with an aerial. Preferable a tippered fair or an non-tippered fair to a uair.
00:13 - Another small mistake. Should of went into a juggle combo with some shuffles. Could have been a ken combo and a stock.
00:16 to 00:31 - I see alot of sloppy edge guarding. There were times when ROK had you off the side and he could have did a d-tilt, an f-smash, ran off and did a fair or a reverse up b, but he just stood there. You messed up on an edge guarding attempt as well. But ROK had more chances then you to edge guard and he squandered them all.
00:37 - You went for a SH nair after a dash attack. Know what to follow up with. Know what can combo into what and when.
00:42 - ROK did it again. He got you in the air and went for an additional 2 u-tilts after the first one. he should have chased you after that first one. And you made a very bad choice in doing a forward b right over your oppponent's head. You should have jumped away, especially if you knew he was going to attempt more u-tilts, which you probably did, if you guys train together alot. Also you should have been DIing in a direction as soon as Marth got his hands on you. but you went straight up.
00:44 - You got in a hit with a fair, but were too slow with your follow-up. That was an easy grab or juggle combo that you could have gotten.
00:46 - ROK does 2 d-tilts in a row. Why? Never do that in a Marth ditto. It's asking to get grabbed. He should have cancelled the d-tilt into a grab or an aerial. He could have rolled away or dashed away if he was scared of retalitation. Also since he hit you with the first one, why do another one? Grabbing probably would have been the smartest thing to do.
00:50 to 01:37 - Saw ALOT of sloppy play and sloppy edgeguarding. You guys would get each other off the stage and make no attempt to hit one another most of the time. Other times you would throw out an f-smash when it was clear they wouldn't hit. At one point you threw out 3 d-tilts in a row. This wasn't needed. You hit him with the first one and should have just grabbed. Also when he got back on the stage you made an attempt to dash cross-up to grab, but you were slow and didn't JC the grab. I saw other things too. Like when one of you was in the air the other would throw out some random ground attack like a d-tilt for example. I also noticed a missed shield grab attempt. When you shielded ROK's get up attack, you could have grabbed, and you tried, but you were too slow.
01:35 - Again, I'm seeing that you guys are allowing one another to get back on the stage. Why did you jump so high? You completely threw away your chance to edge guard him. It worked out for you because ROK tried to ledge hop fair even though you clearly weren't close enough.
01:45 - ROK was on the ground and you did nothing. Not even a d-tilt or a wavedash forward to make him feel pressured to do something. You also could have nailed him with an f-smash right after he got up.
01:53 - Stop jumping when ROK is on the edge. You are completely screwing up any chance you might have had to edge guard. A better opponent would capitilize on that and punish you for it.
02:00 - O_O ROK just missed. Just blantantly didn't hit you at all. You were right there. ROK shouldn't have missed that Nair.
02:11 - This time you messed up. Just like I said before about ROK, there is no reason as to why you shouldn't have been able to follow-up successfully after that dash attack.
02:26 - A ledge hop Bair would have been nice, but ROK SDed out of fear.
02:45 - A shielded Dair should have been a free combo for you Miggz.
03:01 - Right about here I thought," Yeah, Ken combo....wait, wait...WTF?!" There was no reason to go for an u-tilt here. Should have went for a grab or just kept fairing.
03:16 - You let yourself take a hit here. Where was the shield.
03:22 - You played around on the edge and died for it. Not good.
Basically I saw bad habits, sloppy play, slow reactions and missed opportunities to follow-up or poor follow-up attacks. I saw alot of needless things such as full jumping when an opponent was on the edge, no attempts to run off the stage for edge guarding, alot of grab wars and missed JC grabs. Your play overall wasn't fluid. And you guys even out right missed some of your attacks when the other was completely vulnerable. Your reaction times were slow as well. There is no secret method that I can tell you to improve this. You have to get a feel for it. Play more. Practice more. Speed up your game. This isn't mindgames. This is pure technical skill and practice is the best thing to do to improve it. Also be quicker when punishing your opponent. You guys often hesitated. You have to get out of that habit.
Video 2
ROK started off ok, but he could have went for a combo when you were on the platforms.
00:13 - ROK throws out some dash dance spam. I know he was doing this mindlessly because you did a short hop fair and hit him with it. And Marth takes some time to hit the peak of his jump in a SH, so that proves that ROK really wasn't thinking when he was doing this. He should have been able to shield your attack with no trouble. Dash dance with purpose and awareness. Also when you hit him that could have been a grab, but instead you dashed back and missed your grab that you didn't JC. Not good.
00:21 - Bad spacing for edge guarding. Then you full jumped back which left you vulnerable. If you wanted to get away you were better off rolling or wavedashing back.
00:23 - ROK had a free combo, but he cut it off. He could have kept going. There was no reason to stop.
00:28 - Bad time to forward b and it cost you.
00:42 - No attempt at all to edge guard.
00:50 - Should have attacked sooner, but you hesitated.
01:13 - More hesitation cost you an easy kill.
01:17 - ROK stood there and let you slice his face off.
01:21 - ROK popped you up and stayed put on the ground. You guys need to work on following up with your combos.
01:38 - ROK could have punished here. Wave dash from shield to grab would have been good.
02:05 - Where was the edgehog? You let him back on the stage.
02:15 - Silly mistake on ROK's part.
02:32 - Once again, you jump back when you should be edge guarding.
02:42 - Could have been a Ken combo, but you went for a grab instead.
03:05 - Should have been a tipper f-smash right here. Then you wnet on to do a good edge guard with a ledge hopped bair, but then you died. You shouldn't have died from it though.
Everything I said in the first vid apllies here, but I do have a few more things to add. I noticed more non-JCed grabs in this game. You need to JC your grabs. You are left far more vulnerable if you don't. I also noticed a few jabs here and there at point blank range. This isn't a good idea. Marth's jab isn't good in the first place and you definitely don't want to use it when you are that close to an opponent. I also saw more silly little mistakes in this vid and a little more hesistancy then in the first vid. I also caught a few failures to follow-up. Work on these areas of your gameplay.
Video 3
00:11 - Failed to follow-up correctly. A quick full hop Fair or Nair was in order.
00:18 - Could have been a Dair on ROK's part. And his Bair missed altogether.
00:22 - Bad follow-up choice and you hesitated.
00:35 - ROK was vulnerable, but you dashed away for no reason.
00:48 - Bad follow-up with the jab. Should have been a grab.
01:00 - Another failure to follow through with any sort of attack.
01:30 - That really should have been a d-throw not an u-throw on ROK's part.
01:38 - Mistake on following up on your part.
01:48 - Too slow on the re-grab attempt because you hesitated.
01:56 - You let ROK back onto the stage.
02:12 - Very late follow-up. That could have been a nice juggle combo.
Saw some mistakes after that, but I won't make notes of them specifically. Mostly just errors in edge guarding and doing wierd things at certain moments that left you guys vulnerable. Like at one point ROK did a Dolphin slash to hit you. Then you came down and punished him while he was in his recovery lag.
This last video is more of the same from the other 2. But I saw ALOT more mistakes made when it came to following-up then I did in the other two vids. The oth of you really need to work on this aspect of your game. Train to the point where you know what to do and when so you will never hesitate. Ther is no reason to hold back when you are comboing someone. They are at your mercy, so what is the point in stopping unless they are too far away? Don't stop the combo unitl your opponent is dead, you knocked them off the stage for edge guarding, or they are too far away to continue comboing.
You should both be proud for reaching this level, but Im not like everyone else in this thread. I'm not going to baby you because you are on an island. I give people the truth. And the truth is that you guys can ascend to a much higher level then this just by working on the things I talked about in this critique. So don't feel like you have gone as high as you can go just because there aren't many smashers on Bermuda. You can go so much higher. I will list the main things you guys need to work on to step up your game.
The Training Regiment
1) Speed up your game play. You need to be able to move as soon as possible from one move to the next. Like Cactuar said before try dashing after shffls or dashing after a d-tilt. Abusing Marth's speed is one of the key traits of good Marth's. You have to do it to be a good Marth. Mess around in training mode to egt a feel for speeding up your game. Practice wavedashing from your shield, immeditely dashing after an aerial or a d-tilt, buffering rolls after aerials, and using auto cancelled Nairs.
2) Don't hesitate. Become more comfortable with your moves and attacks. This way you will not hesitate when you have someone in a combo or someone is vulnerable. This will also speed up your game.
3) Know how and when to follow-up. This is really just a combination of speeding up your game and not hesitating. Once those aspects of your game have improved your follow-up attacks will improve as well becasue you will have more confidence and you will know what to do and when. Experiment and practice vs cpu's to get comfortable doing combos.
4) Space yourself when edge guarding. This si very important. Don't jump away from the ledge. Just be a at safe distance but still close enough that you can rush in and grab, hit with a d-tilt or hit witha tippered f-smash.
5) Don't be afraid to run off the stage to edge guard. You will have to get comfortable doing this, but once you master it you will be both become much better players.
6) JC your grabs. They have less lag then regular grabs. Less lag = good.
7) Make smarter choices for the situations you are in. If someone is shielding and you are right in thier face, don't jab. Grab or dash back and forward b. You could also dash cross-up to grab. Be smart about your choices and think about the consequences of how you play and mistakes that you make.
8) Proper spacing for combos. No decent Marth player should be missing an attack in a combo. Your opponent can't move so there is no reason why you should miss. You need to get more comfortable doing combos so that you know what distance you have to be at to hit with w/e attack of your choice.
9) Start using dash cancelled d-tilt as an approach. It's arguable Marth's best approach.
If you train hard and work on all these aspects of your game play you and ROK will become faster, fluid Marth's. So train hard. And power up to the very limit.
I hope I was helpful.
