Important Carefully Ask PPMD about the Tiara Guy

[Tee ay eye]

So if I'm reading this right, you know what in the game to do but you wrap yourself up in conscious thought about it after you get a good result, is this right?

If so, then it is a common problem in a way. When people succeed they begin overthinking everything since they want to hold onto the success instead of build on it. However, there is a flip side to this. Conscious thought, rigorous thought, can only be applied to your new ideas to build upon them. How do we resolve this conflict? We allow the thought to settle and begin asking new questions of our new ideas instead of consistently trying to make old results happen. I've noticed in my own training when I only try to do what I know works or recreate something from before, I pay too much attention to myself and not the opponent and the flowing of the match. When I switch my focus to learning new things or trusting myself to apply old things, even if I forget sometimes things go better. I can relearn quickly since I am open to it. So in your play, trust yourself and be observant like before at Summit. In your theorycrafting/training, ask questions and try to build on what you already have instead of only holding on to what you already have.

A final note is you should try to recreate thoughts/lifestyle habits that you had going into productive days. You always want to be in a productive state and there are steps you can follow to get to that. You have to learn what these are for you and also keep your mind focused on learning like I talked about before for it to work. It can be done though! I hope this answers your question.

1. Yeah. you're more or less reading it right. I know I have the knowledge and skills to perform at a relatively high level (I felt like I was able to hang with most of the players at Summit, and have taken out players ranked above me at almost every OOS tourney I've gone to in 2016), but I find that I oscillate between playing well/being in a good, natural state of mind, thinking too much about how to maintain and improve from this point, and returning back to a state of playing poorly and over-thinking every detail of what I did wrong/didn't do right in my next session, and then returning to playing well sometime later. Ironically, when I did (relatively) well at DPOTG, Dairly Beloved, and G4, I felt really lost in my gameplay the days leading up to them, but ended up pulling it together the day of. While it's reassuring that I can pull it out when things seem bleak, I would rather mitigate/avoid the bleakness

2. I think this answer is in the direction of what I was looking for, and I have had similar thoughts. It's reassuring to hear that you've had similar phases with regards to in-game mentality for learning. I definitely agree that I end up overthinking everything whenever I have successful experiences, because I want really badly, and probably too badly to hold onto this success. I have also considered that in order to avoid the problem, I need to allow my thoughts to settle, ask new questions, build new ideas, and trust myself to apply old things. HOWEVER, that is clearly much easier said than done, haha, so I'll discuss some of my roadblocks and concerns with regard to that:

a) I am kind of a perfectionist, and I don't like moving on from things unless I am convinced that I am extremely proficient at them (which is why I have never quit Melee in 10 years LMAO). As a result, I think I dwell on certain parts of my game for too long because I innately think that I can still always be better at this one aspect of the game, and if I can push this important thing further, why bother moving on? Not always the most productive thought, but it begs the question: at what point do you stop putting conscious effort into a skill and move onto something else?

I noticed you say that when you tried too hard to recreate something/do what you "know" works, you tend to pay too much attention to yourself and not the opponent/the flow of the match. I 100% feel this, and I think it might be the main problem I encounter. When I get into this bad mindset, I find that I focus too much on what I am doing and should be doing, and I try to solve problems in terms of what actions I could have done better, when the real answer is that I needed to be more focused on the opponent/flow of the match, rather than my own actions. So that being said, maybe I need to be more experimental with my thoughts, trust myself to perform something after a relatively small number of successful events (rather than trying to recreate the successful event ad nauseum), and then trying to put conscious effort into something new. I have some trouble trusting myself to perform old things, but I might just need to take that leap of faith.

b) I have found that sometimes when I put an old idea to the wayside and work on new things, I will forget good things I used to do, or slip back into some bad habits that I had originally fixed. I think this triggered a fear of forgetting in me, which leads back to point 2a, haha. You said that whenever you trusted yourself to apply old things and switched your focus to new things, it would work out better, even if you forgot things sometimes. This suggests to me that I need to trust myself more to execute old things, and perhaps I need to accept that forgetting old things is an unavoidable part of improvement, but have faith that things will still work out better than trying too hard to recreate old successes.

c) Whenever really intelligent players talk about Melee (e.g. Druggedfox, Leffen, etc.) everything seems so plain and matter-of-fact. I think it puts me in a mental trap of trying to obsessively dedicate conscious effort into improving my game theory and understanding. There is obviously a lot of improvement someone can make via studying and theorycrafting the game, but I'm basically trying to figure out how to pace it and apply it better, since it can be kinda hard to manage.

That being said, do you think there is anything that you should almost always be focusing your conscious effort or your attention on? For example, stage positioning, the opponent/their range of threat, or any basic guiding thoughts? One reason I ask this is because I am wondering how to loosen up and trust myself to execute old things without going into the bad/lazy kind of autopiloting. How do I loosen up, while still staying focused?

3. I think I've been doing a fairly good job of maintaining my lifestyle habits. I exercise a couple times a week, meditate, plan my time out, and live a somewhat balanced lifestyle.... as much as I can/am willing I am a proponent of being a well-balanced human being, since a lot of Smashers are frankly kinda degenerate lol

 

[Dr Peepee]

1. Yeah. you're more or less reading it right. I know I have the knowledge and skills to perform at a relatively high level (I felt like I was able to hang with most of the players at Summit, and have taken out players ranked above me at almost every OOS tourney I've gone to in 2016), but I find that I oscillate between playing well/being in a good, natural state of mind, thinking too much about how to maintain and improve from this point, and returning back to a state of playing poorly and over-thinking every detail of what I did wrong/didn't do right in my next session, and then returning to playing well sometime later. Ironically, when I did (relatively) well at DPOTG, Dairly Beloved, and G4, I felt really lost in my gameplay the days leading up to them, but ended up pulling it together the day of. While it's reassuring that I can pull it out when things seem bleak, I would rather mitigate/avoid the bleakness

2. I think this answer is in the direction of what I was looking for, and I have had similar thoughts. It's reassuring to hear that you've had similar phases with regards to in-game mentality for learning. I definitely agree that I end up overthinking everything whenever I have successful experiences, because I want really badly, and probably too badly to hold onto this success. I have also considered that in order to avoid the problem, I need to allow my thoughts to settle, ask new questions, build new ideas, and trust myself to apply old things. HOWEVER, that is clearly much easier said than done, haha, so I'll discuss some of my roadblocks and concerns with regard to that:

a) I am kind of a perfectionist, and I don't like moving on from things unless I am convinced that I am extremely proficient at them (which is why I have never quit Melee in 10 years LMAO). As a result, I think I dwell on certain parts of my game for too long because I innately think that I can still always be better at this one aspect of the game, and if I can push this important thing further, why bother moving on? Not always the most productive thought, but it begs the question: at what point do you stop putting conscious effort into a skill and move onto something else?

I noticed you say that when you tried too hard to recreate something/do what you "know" works, you tend to pay too much attention to yourself and not the opponent/the flow of the match. I 100% feel this, and I think it might be the main problem I encounter. When I get into this bad mindset, I find that I focus too much on what I am doing and should be doing, and I try to solve problems in terms of what actions I could have done better, when the real answer is that I needed to be more focused on the opponent/flow of the match, rather than my own actions. So that being said, maybe I need to be more experimental with my thoughts, trust myself to perform something after a relatively small number of successful events (rather than trying to recreate the successful event ad nauseum), and then trying to put conscious effort into something new. I have some trouble trusting myself to perform old things, but I might just need to take that leap of faith.

b) I have found that sometimes when I put an old idea to the wayside and work on new things, I will forget good things I used to do, or slip back into some bad habits that I had originally fixed. I think this triggered a fear of forgetting in me, which leads back to point 2a, haha. You said that whenever you trusted yourself to apply old things and switched your focus to new things, it would work out better, even if you forgot things sometimes. This suggests to me that I need to trust myself more to execute old things, and perhaps I need to accept that forgetting old things is an unavoidable part of improvement, but have faith that things will still work out better than trying too hard to recreate old successes.

c) Whenever really intelligent players talk about Melee (e.g. Druggedfox, Leffen, etc.) everything seems so plain and matter-of-fact. It feels as though there is an unwritten dogma of "This is what you should be doing in Super Smash Bros Melee" or "If you do these things well, you will succeed." It makes one feel that they need to dedicate 100% of their improvement efforts into the most fundamental, most important skills, or else they're wasting their time or playing suboptimally. I think it puts me in a mental trap of trying to obsessively dedicate conscious effort into improving intelligently.

That being said, do you think there is anything that you should almost always be focusing your conscious effort or your attention on? For example, stage positioning, the opponent/their range of threat, or any basic guiding thoughts?

3. I think I've been doing a fairly good job of maintaining my lifestyle habits. I exercise a couple times a week, meditate, plan my time out, and live a somewhat balanced lifestyle.... as much as I can/am willing I am a proponent of being a well-balanced human being, since a lot of Smashers are frankly kinda degenerate lol

Oh man there's a lot in here LOL

1. This suggests to me that, when you know you have to focus and desperately need to make the progress, you will. That's how most people are and why they cram for exams, wait until their problems get worse before trying to fix them, etc. Even if you don't like how you weren't performing well then switched to performing well, you can still take lessons from what you did do right.

2. Okay so this gets at the tricky nature of the issue. What is the difference between allowing your information to become subconscious vs forgotten? In my mind it's mostly recall/building upon it. If you completely ignore anything related to the information or don't use it in some way, then you'll lose it. If, however, you go back to build upon it or at least try to remember it somewhat often(even with short phrases!) you can retain it while working on other areas of growth. I often have notes that are short phrases about ideas or matchups that I remember then repeat to myself before I fight that character or player or want to work on a specific area, and it keys me in to the thoughts and feelings I have gained. You probably need a tool like this.

a. This is VERY hard to answer well. The short answer is: you'll know when. The long answer is some people spend their whole careers focusing on a small subset of relevant skills and pushing those(you can think of players like this). We know they lack something because they get caught in ridiculous ways sometimes in their weak areas, but we know they have gained something when they're in their element and show a deeper understanding of the things they do know. I have always believed in being well-rounded, but that does not mean work on everything at once. It means work on an area overall/in a matchup until you are satisfied and then change. My easiest way to choose something to work on was asking what my weaknesses were, which matters more the better you get than when you're just starting out(everything needs lots of work then lol). Now to add another dimension to this, you may be in a situation where you as a person will benefit most from pushing one area of your gameplay because you care so much about it. This can be very good and give you insight few/no one has. However, it can also lead to tunnel visioning and ignoring so many relevant factors(even to support your main area or areas you need to have some grasp of other elements and use them to do so). You can become crippled as a player in this way and your only solution would be to push that one or two skills further. I've seen many players suffer this way. So in the end I think you have to achieve balance at some point, but that point, and how much balance, depends on the individual.

b. Pretty much addressed by my earlier comment and by you here. It's scary but honestly trusting yourself leads to a whole other world of growth. To be honest, you have a very tenseness to your play as many perfectionists do and this can cause you to lose sight of the freedom you actually have to make decisions. I know this very well since it was my fundamental problem for many years. I think being aware that this exists is already a good first step in giving you more awareness, but I won't press the issue more than that.

c. There's nothing wrong with trying to improve fundamentally. I think it's the absolute best as well! However, I think to some extent myself and the two you mentioned would disagree on what a fundamental is or how far to take the term. Basically I'm hoping you think about what is most important and pushing that instead of taking other things at face value. Taking other ideas is great to learn but can be crippling for new idea growth.

I always divide the game into sections to consider. Different sections of the neutral may interest me like in fighting or fighting at threatening range or fighting after a dropped combo. Maybe a punish section like juggling or edgeguarding? There were times I was not sure at all what to do, so I returned to basic character traits and started there. I looked at hitboxes and tried to forget what I knew about them and tried to make my own assumptions instead. This led to new ideas or at least planted the seeds of those ideas for later. Mental fortitude and competitive attitude/tourney circumstance preparation are other fundamentals I would argue. You get the idea I think, but if not we can discuss it more.

3. Very good! When the problem is strictly mental it's much easier to deal with.

 

[Tee ay eye]

Lmao, yeah, I'm a big fan of writing walls of text

This exchange has been very helpful. You helped confirm some ideas I was stumbling upon myself, along with a couple new valuable take-aways. Additionally, it's reassuring to know that you/other people have dealt with this type of thing too. I'm happy (but not satisfied huehue) with my improvement in the last year or two, but this mental cycle has certainly been frustrating and slightly worrying when I don't want to lose at tourneys lmao.

I'll try and take these insights and use them to clean up my improvement process to make it more efficient. Thanks for the help

 

[Chesstiger2612]

Tee ay eye
Not sure if I have that much to add, but regarding perfectionism I found it helpful to realize that all reasonable ways and methods of improvement will "converge" to perfect play and you don't need a perfect plan of how to improve from the beginning on if you always learn from the data you gained. In the past I was trying to learn the game in a very systematic way but the difficulty was that without the specific knowledge that I wanted to gain it wasn't obvious what kind of structure I should apply, so I have come to think that a more practical approach might be reasonable. It is probably key to develop a sense for what step is next in the improvement process.

 

[Taytertot]

Since i liked this conversation a lot, i'll add something too. lol

Ive found when im trying to improve (and ive felt this way about anything i try to improve on) that i could attempt to improve one thing until its very good but sometimes coming back to improve upon a skill is more effective due to what you learned in between. for example, when i first started playing i learned to wavedash pretty quickly but it was far from frame perfect. later i was learning to really get my tech chasing down and realized how bad my wavedashes were and improved upon them quite quickly because my hands were faster and i just understood at a deeper level what the speed of fthrow wavedash forward reaction tech chase should look and feel like. if i had attempted to perfect it to begin with i would have spent much more time trying to time it correctly and know what the timing should be like.

 

[Swarles]

I need help in the neutral game landing that first hit and not having her disjointed hitboxes hit me. Just the neutral game in general.

I always cite this https://youtu.be/1ZpcYcI2_AE as my bible for the peach MU

 

[Bob Money]

Hi PP,

Can you talk about your nair usage against shiek? I've been watching your sets vs shiek with a lot of fervor, I've been able to pick up on a couple things.

Nair as a whiff punish to shieks grounded options to set up edgegaurds/Kos.

Nair as a gap closer as shiek dashes away (You pull back slightly or dirft forward depending on stage left for shiek)

Nair as an approach when slightly out of shieks ftilt range close to either crossup or catch premptive jumps. Never landing in shieks grab range.

Nair as an ASDI /CC deterrent in general.

I may be misunderstanding your move choice here but I feel it's much more calculated than this or a serverly misunderstood tool vs shiek.

Thanks for the help, this thread and essentially learning how to learn have been a great resource for me.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Hi PP,

Can you talk about your nair usage against shiek? I've been watching your sets vs shiek with a lot of fervor, I've been able to pick up on a couple things.

Nair as a whiff punish to shieks grounded options to set up edgegaurds/Kos.

Nair as a gap closer as shiek dashes away (You pull back slightly or dirft forward depending on stage left for shiek)

Nair as an approach when slightly out of shieks ftilt range close to either crossup or catch premptive jumps. Never landing in shieks grab range.

Nair as an ASDI /CC deterrent in general.

I may be misunderstanding your move choice here but I feel it's much more calculated than this or a serverly misunderstood tool vs shiek.

Thanks for the help, this thread and essentially learning how to learn have been a great resource for me.

Yo what's up man?

The most reliable Nair vs Sheik is the one that spaces a bit in front of her so as to hit her Ftilt or dash in. Anything else I'm trying to read or not thinking when I use the move often. Nair out of tech chase into Fsmash is my other primary use of Nair vs Sheik since the reward can be lots of damage or a stock off of it.

If you can set it up right(meaning Sheik won't run in on you before the good second hitbox comes out or dd grab it moving forward) then yeah Nair is way more useful at lower percents since it doesn't lose to ASDI down/CC and gets a bigger reward usually. The fact that it takes a while allows you more time to drift as well as you've noted.

If I could do it again on video I'd space Fair just outside of Ftilt/walk Ftilt range instead of Nair since Fair you can wait later to choose which gives you more access to drift, waveland, and empty land into other option(like Dtilt) than Nair does.

Overall I wouldn't recommend Nair vs Sheik unless you have a good read or it's in a punish situation. I used it far too much in a variety of matchups unfortunately. It has its place as a useful tool if you know where to bend the rules though and that's why mine worked a decent amount of times. Hope that clears it up some!

 

[JakkSSB]

Hi PP,

I've recently started playing Melee because it looked really fun, what besides basic game mechanics do I need to learn in order to be successful as a marth player?​

 

[Dr Peepee]

Start with things like wavedash, edge dash, wd/rc dtilt, dtilt/fair into dash or wd, retreating fair, short and long DDs, SH AC Nair, and then eventually haxdash. Off the top of my head that's a decent list.

 

[JakkSSB]

Start with things like wavedash, edge dash, wd/rc dtilt, dtilt/fair into dash or wd, retreating fair, short and long DDs, SH AC Nair, and then eventually haxdash. Off the top of my head that's a decent list.

Alright, thank you!

 

[JakkSSB]

Also, how should I be using Marth's Dash Dance?

 

[Greyson]

Hey there, Dr. PeePee, hope you've been in good spirits.
I wanted to ask about this punish on Lucky's up-Smash at the timestamp real quick.

To break it down, Lucky goes for a jab up-Smash
you DI in so up-Smash whiffs
you shield upon landing on the ground
then wavedash back OOS
dash forward
Lucky spotdodges
you near-instantly dash back and grab
and then down-throw into f-Smash.

We can all agree that was sick, but what I want to know is: was there a safer/more guaranteed/simpler option? Back at the moment when you're in shield, could you have done something else to yield a similar result? For instance, could you have OOS wavedashed in place/slightly towards Lucky and f-Smashed? Or did you need to time those dashes because you read Lucky's spotdodge and it was better to punish that with a grab?

 

[Chesstiger2612]

Dr Peepee
Lately I've been wondering if there was a good method to systematically study the game.

I really liked what you said about dissecting individual situations and looking at all the possible options to not be reliant on what has been done already but to instead cover all cases, however the next problem is what situations to look at?

The "consequent" approach would be to map out all possible situations first to have an overview and later one could look at which cases are more relevant or which cases can be responded to in similar fashions. Mapping out all situations requires a way to categorize them in a meaningful way.

On the first glance, it looks like one could just describe the gamestate in terms of some relevant attributes of it, which would be the location on the stage of both characters, what animation they are in and in what frame of that animation, momentum (the physical, not the psychological, like when in the air after a dash short hop), resources (like having a jump or not) and percentage, maybe a few other ones I missed as well.

The idea would be to look at a few cases, adjust the parameters in certain ways and collect insights that way little by little.

However, I realized this doesn't cut it to describe a situation, because it ignores the role reaction times play. Because you decide your action for one reaction time ahead, you need to predict what your opponent does in that time. The decision of your opponent however has to be based on his prediction of your gameplay from two reaction times earlier onward, and so on...

This means that all previous gameplay up to the point where one player didn't need to make any prediction because the opponent didn't have any control over the character in that timespan matters (examples for these "cuts": most ground attacks unless they are very fast, hitstun as soon as the DI is decided upon, fresh stock, roll/spot dodge/tech option).

This blows things out of proportion and I don't think that method would be feasible.

Another way to start would be to look at a situation, and then the situations that could result out of that, considering both players choose sensible options, and for simple mixup situations this works decently, but when both players have many, especially uncommital, options to choose from, it doesn't do any better.

With match analysis, one often gets a good sense for common situations in a matchup (like certain punishes that occur from many kinds of neutral situations), but here again in the situations where there are more options one will only get to see a small subset played out, and even the ones played out are often very hard to make sense of without seeing the bigger picture. Therefore I'm not quite comfortable with completely giving up on the idea of using some sort of categorization.

Any ideas? Also, sorry for the textwall xD

 

[Dr Peepee]

Hey there, Dr. PeePee, hope you've been in good spirits.
I wanted to ask about this punish on Lucky's up-Smash at the timestamp real quick.

To break it down, Lucky goes for a jab up-Smash
you DI in so up-Smash whiffs
you shield upon landing on the ground
then wavedash back OOS
dash forward
Lucky spotdodges
you near-instantly dash back and grab
and then down-throw into f-Smash.

We can all agree that was sick, but what I want to know is: was there a safer/more guaranteed/simpler option? Back at the moment when you're in shield, could you have done something else to yield a similar result? For instance, could you have OOS wavedashed in place/slightly towards Lucky and f-Smashed? Or did you need to time those dashes because you read Lucky's spotdodge and it was better to punish that with a grab?

I don't think you can punish out of that wd lag without doing what I did if you had to shield. Maybe a WD oos turnaround Dtilt mayyybe but that would be arguably less rewarding and more technically difficult. You could also just WD OOS and control position instead of trying to indirectly punish, but I don't think that was what your question was about.

Dr Peepee
Lately I've been wondering if there was a good method to systematically study the game.

I really liked what you said about dissecting individual situations and looking at all the possible options to not be reliant on what has been done already but to instead cover all cases, however the next problem is what situations to look at?

The "consequent" approach would be to map out all possible situations first to have an overview and later one could look at which cases are more relevant or which cases can be responded to in similar fashions. Mapping out all situations requires a way to categorize them in a meaningful way.

On the first glance, it looks like one could just describe the gamestate in terms of some relevant attributes of it, which would be the location on the stage of both characters, what animation they are in and in what frame of that animation, momentum (the physical, not the psychological, like when in the air after a dash short hop), resources (like having a jump or not) and percentage, maybe a few other ones I missed as well.

The idea would be to look at a few cases, adjust the parameters in certain ways and collect insights that way little by little.

However, I realized this doesn't cut it to describe a situation, because it ignores the role reaction times play. Because you decide your action for one reaction time ahead, you need to predict what your opponent does in that time. The decision of your opponent however has to be based on his prediction of your gameplay from two reaction times earlier onward, and so on...

This means that all previous gameplay up to the point where one player didn't need to make any prediction because the opponent didn't have any control over the character in that timespan matters (examples for these "cuts": most ground attacks unless they are very fast, hitstun as soon as the DI is decided upon, fresh stock, roll/spot dodge/tech option).

This blows things out of proportion and I don't think that method would be feasible.

Another way to start would be to look at a situation, and then the situations that could result out of that, considering both players choose sensible options, and for simple mixup situations this works decently, but when both players have many, especially uncommital, options to choose from, it doesn't do any better.

With match analysis, one often gets a good sense for common situations in a matchup (like certain punishes that occur from many kinds of neutral situations), but here again in the situations where there are more options one will only get to see a small subset played out, and even the ones played out are often very hard to make sense of without seeing the bigger picture. Therefore I'm not quite comfortable with completely giving up on the idea of using some sort of categorization.

Any ideas? Also, sorry for the textwall xD

I think you're overcomplicating this. You use fundamentals to determine situations. Threatening range and in-fighting and out-fighting can be some of your major neutral divisions that you further divide and then allow factors like conditioning(what happened before) to influence.

To take an example, let's look at threatening range between Marth and Fox. This space is really far for both characters due to Marth's range and Fox's speed. Marth's WD Dtilt usually can't hit at this spacing to give you an idea of it. Okay, so at this range maybe you decide you want to be aggressive. So you think about a compound approach that gets you close(dash in wd down into observe/attack for example). However, the Fox player is thinking defensively and correctly times his counterattack to beat your approach(Fox notices you move forward more than through a typical dash and running grabs/aerials you). There are solutions to this within intention theory(you can move forward then retreating Fair as an easy example) or you can wait until he makes a move, or you can play defensively/slowly if you know he can't fight that as easily, and so on. These are examples of reduced complexity where you just consider available options and add in what to do next time. Then you begin to factor in things like stage position(maybe you have no choice but to approach when cornered) or percent(wd down won't help you asdi down and punish if percent is too high). To beat a situation you must know options and then you must be able to add in the other variables.

 

[Zorcey]

Dr Peepee I have two questions I've been thinking over the past few days, and I think they're related at a deeper level, but idk what to do about either.

The first has to do with determining how to win a given situation. When analyzing sets, I watch until a player gets hit and deconstruct what decisions were made and what options each player had, trying to determine what they "should" have done. The issue I have here is that I have no idea what would and would not work a large percentage of the time. I have ideas, but when so many different situations (or variations on the same situation) come up even in just one game things inevitably get lost before I have the chance to try them against others myself (especially when my friendlies opportunities are scarce). Is there any sort of formula involving frame data and/or spacing you use for this? Or have you just developed a sense for it after playing for so many years? What should my approach be when I'm not sure which options will beat which?

The second question is (I think) a mentality thing. I'm not sure how to word it except in a very vague way, but how does one develop a 'B' game, and become able to implement it while maintaining a healthy mentality? My worst habit (in general) is that I tilt pretty hard if I'm not playing up to a certain standard - even in practice and friendlies - but I know at a rational level I can't expect to play at my best all the time. I feel like if I developed a solid backup strategy for each mu for when I'm not playing well it would help me overcome this, but it sounds paradoxical in a meta where "optimization" is emphasized. Does this make sense? It's like, why would I ever want to change my strategy if I'm always supposed to be implementing the best one in the first place?

 

[Greyson]

I don't think you can punish out of that wd lag without doing what I did if you had to shield. Maybe a WD oos turnaround Dtilt mayyybe but that would be arguably less rewarding and more technically difficult. You could also just WD OOS and control position instead of trying to indirectly punish, but I don't think that was what your question was about.

Controlling position is important, but taking that stock was more rewarding. Thanks for the quick reply.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Dr Peepee I have two questions I've been thinking over the past few days, and I think they're related at a deeper level, but idk what to do about either.

The first has to do with determining how to win a given situation. When analyzing sets, I watch until a player gets hit and deconstruct what decisions were made and what options each player had, trying to determine what they "should" have done. The issue I have here is that I have no idea what would and would not work a large percentage of the time. I have ideas, but when so many different situations (or variations on the same situation) come up even in just one game things inevitably get lost before I have the chance to try them against others myself (especially when my friendlies opportunities are scarce). Is there any sort of formula involving frame data and/or spacing you use for this? Or have you just developed a sense for it after playing for so many years? What should my approach be when I'm not sure which options will beat which?

The second question is (I think) a mentality thing. I'm not sure how to word it except in a very vague way, but how does one develop a 'B' game, and become able to implement it while maintaining a healthy mentality? My worst habit (in general) is that I tilt pretty hard if I'm not playing up to a certain standard - even in practice and friendlies - but I know at a rational level I can't expect to play at my best all the time. I feel like if I developed a solid backup strategy for each mu for when I'm not playing well it would help me overcome this, but it sounds paradoxical in a meta where "optimization" is emphasized. Does this make sense? It's like, why would I ever want to change my strategy if I'm always supposed to be implementing the best one in the first place?

To your first point, I'll say two things. The first is that you're saying you don't know what answers there are or have any guesses, which I have heard from many many people. When I sit down with those people and ask them why something could have happened, and then ask for other possibilities, they always have ideas. I think it's the same for you. Trust your guesses and follow them. This leads to my second point. You may not come up with a correct answer in your solution(s), but that doesn't matter. The most important thing is you get some ideas and then you do your best to find out if they are correct. You do this by testing them vs people, observing that set and others between other players, and then taking this information and bouncing it off others/yourself through theroycrafting. Basically, if you trust the learning process and your own mind to figure it out, then you will.

To your second point, I generally respond to this type of question in two ways. The first way to raise your B game is to improve your A game. Seems kind of useless to say, but this also addresses your concerns about optimizing as much as possible. The more you improve your A game, the more your B game improves relative to it. The second way to answer the question is to say you stop going for tight timings and go for more reads with higher reward to minimize the number of interactions per stock. If you learn these well you can push yourself farther and find it even adding back into your A game in some ways.

The last thing I'll say is about optimization. Optimization, to me, is not one true solution. It is a human solution to problems because we are people, not machines. Basically, optimization is what works best for the given individual, PROVIDED they have the underlying always correct ideas in place. So, you learn what is absolutely always correct to do(once they DI in on weak hit Fair and they're over the edge and you can hit DJ Dair, there isn't any reason to not do it). You learn the rules(like the ones I repeat for Marth like less is more). Then you learn exceptions to these rules once you know the rules well enough, and that's when you truly begin expressing yourself, or optimizing your human potential. I'm getting a bit carried away because I care a lot about this topic, but suffice to say accepting the fact that you will make mistakes and owning them takes away fear and actually makes you more effective than you otherwise would be.

 

[Bob Money]

To your first point, I'll say two things. The first is that you're saying you don't know what answers there are or have any guesses, which I have heard from many many people. When I sit down with those people and ask them why something could have happened, and then ask for other possibilities, they always have ideas. I think it's the same for you. Trust your guesses and follow them. This leads to my second point. You may not come up with a correct answer in your solution(s), but that doesn't matter. The most important thing is you get some ideas and then you do your best to find out if they are correct. You do this by testing them vs people, observing that set and others between other players, and then taking this information and bouncing it off others/yourself through theroycrafting. Basically, if you trust the learning process and your own mind to figure it out, then you will.

To your second point, I generally respond to this type of question in two ways. The first way to raise your B game is to improve your A game. Seems kind of useless to say, but this also addresses your concerns about optimizing as much as possible. The more you improve your A game, the more your B game improves relative to it. The second way to answer the question is to say you stop going for tight timings and go for more reads with higher reward to minimize the number of interactions per stock. If you learn these well you can push yourself farther and find it even adding back into your A game in some ways.

The last thing I'll say is about optimization. Optimization, to me, is not one true solution. It is a human solution to problems because we are people, not machines. Basically, optimization is what works best for the given individual, PROVIDED they have the underlying always correct ideas in place. So, you learn what is absolutely always correct to do(once they DI in on weak hit Fair and they're over the edge and you can hit DJ Dair, there isn't any reason to not do it). You learn the rules(like the ones I repeat for Marth like less is more). Then you learn exceptions to these rules once you know the rules well enough, and that's when you truly begin expressing yourself, or optimizing your human potential. I'm getting a bit carried away because I care a lot about this topic, but suffice to say accepting the fact that you will make mistakes and owning them takes away fear and actually makes you more effective than you otherwise would be.

I can't help but get a little emotion when you mention that owning your mistakes takes away the fear. Understanding how the learning process works generally and specifically for you /myself over time has eliminated a tremendous amount of anxiety for me day to day when it comes to playing this game. Your point about bending the rules is especially important for many players that focus on "correct" plays. I also feel that having a healthy understanding of how intuition/creativity works through technical understanding is often overlooked. I was actually ashamed that I had never looked at hitboxes or frame data in detail to gain more of a technical understanding of the game. While looking at those are useful it;s not totally necessary , however how many of us have actually tested in game interactions without actually trying to flat out win a match ? It's mind boggling that this game has been out for so long and I have just only started to realize that playing 1000s of friendlies trying to win doesn;t work for everyone or myself. Its really about time we as smash players start to demystify things.

Anyway, more on topic, thanks for the Shiek advice I feel much more comfortable with that matchup.
I feel like the Marth vs ICs matchup is pretty live right now, it's pretty exciting to see players from both sides evolving. It's hard to judge where this matchup is for me as there are as often one player might have a better techinical grasp on the matchup. Do you have any general thoughts about this matchup? M2k vs Chu , Chu vs Shroomed, Nintendude vs PPU, are some recent matches that spark interest. In addition, Dizzkidboogie did a phenomenal break down of the matchup which I'm curious what your thoughts are if you have seen it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kNedNB-I3I Starts at 3:31.

Thank you.

 

[Dr Peepee]

I think there's too much either camping or recklessness in the matchup between the three of those Marths you mentioned. I'd much rather see them diligently get on ICs shield and space Fair/Dtilt since the character can't do very much about that besides roll in/out or wd back oos. M2K tends to do this a little but then when he gets beaten he just opts to camp. Camping is pretty hard with Marth especially since ICs have projectiles, and you can't only camp to win a bo3 or bo5 with Marth since BF/DL are the only stages you can really camp on. As for PPU and Shroomed they will sometimes get into good position but they like getting closer than needed or also drop the appropriate pressure and that tends to hurt them. A big problem with the wc marths is their punish is less efficient than M2K's so even if they know situational things better than M2K his average will still tend towards him in the matchup. Moon plays it most correctly from what I've seen, but now that's he not playing vs Nintendude all the time he seems to have forgotten the matchup some.

 

[bboss]

Dr Peepee

Can you talk about some of the mixups / tricks of not getting grabbed by ICs as Marth? (Dash dancing, dash forward wavedash back, etc). What is the best option / gameplay style for avoiding getting grabbed?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Spacing on their shield, DI'ing their jab up and away or down and Dtilting, and not running into blizzard are probably best anti grab tactics.

 

[Freddo2796]

Hey PeePee
First of i just wanna say what i huge fan i am and how inspirational i find you inside and outside of the game, how you think about the game and everything i simply love. Now that i've got the fan boy moment out of the way.

I'm trying to incorporate pivots into my marths play more, specifically pivot aerials, i feel like my marth is often one dimensional and focuses so heavily on the grab that i loose alot of staying power in the neutral as i often get flustered and loose sight of my other options however i currently am working towards improving this element of my game but due to my technical inconsistencies with my play some of what i'm thinking is theory craft and i was just hoping to get some feedback of some thoughts.

for example I'm very curious about pivot retreating fair as a means to beat a fox aerial approach and pivot nair to cover my opponents reaching the side platforms however one of the first issues i encounter when just trying to practice and feel this stuff out is that i'm often to slow and as a result i try to space the pivot aerials generously. Now ideally i would like to use it as pivot fair as a sort of quickfire swipe to knock my opponents approaches but this speed constraint seems to be an issue I'm sure I'm not executing it well enough and i'm confident this will improve given time and practice, this leads me to thinking about aerial drift and it's implication for pivots as ideally i would like to be able to do it on the spot but this seems a very difficult i was hoping you could provide some insight into marths aerial drift and some possible strengths and weaknesses of his drift

Outside of this i would be very interested in other potential uses of pivoting, Apologies if my writing is subpar.

 

[Tokage2000]

Freddo2796
I don't know what kind of pivots you use for your pivot aerials but if you're not already using them I'd recommend shield pivots.

 

[UnderTheKnife]

Hi Dr Peepee

I could really use your help! You've talked about a sort of "triangle of improvement" to advance one's level of play, but could you go into it on kind of a granular, really specific level? I feel like I am at the point in my growth where it feels like I'm getting better, but my results have been the same. It feels like something is missing. My interpretation of the triangle is as follows:

• Play
• Receive feedback through watching your own videos
• Fix weaknesses through solo practice/friendlies
• Repeat

I am getting the sense that this interpretation lacks detail. When I play, I don't know what I'm looking for. The same can be said about practice - how do I practice? What am I looking for when I'm watching my own VoDs and how can that aid my growth? A lot of the advice on "how to get good" that I see from top players is all pretty vague, so any detailed practices that you follow would be extremely helpful. I get the sense that you are a very process-oriented and system-based person, so any insight on what specific processes you go into or have gone into to get to where you're at now, or what you're going to do once you're back (we miss you!) would be wonderful. My goal is to find out what you're doing in as detailed a manner as you'll allow, formulate a general framework for improvement, and emulate it as closely as I can to see if that produces results.

Thank you so much for posting in here so regularly, it's rare that most players get to have direct contact with someone at your level -I think every single of of us appreciates it deeply!

 

[Dr Peepee]

Hey PeePee
First of i just wanna say what i huge fan i am and how inspirational i find you inside and outside of the game, how you think about the game and everything i simply love. Now that i've got the fan boy moment out of the way.

I'm trying to incorporate pivots into my marths play more, specifically pivot aerials, i feel like my marth is often one dimensional and focuses so heavily on the grab that i loose alot of staying power in the neutral as i often get flustered and loose sight of my other options however i currently am working towards improving this element of my game but due to my technical inconsistencies with my play some of what i'm thinking is theory craft and i was just hoping to get some feedback of some thoughts.

for example I'm very curious about pivot retreating fair as a means to beat a fox aerial approach and pivot nair to cover my opponents reaching the side platforms however one of the first issues i encounter when just trying to practice and feel this stuff out is that i'm often to slow and as a result i try to space the pivot aerials generously. Now ideally i would like to use it as pivot fair as a sort of quickfire swipe to knock my opponents approaches but this speed constraint seems to be an issue I'm sure I'm not executing it well enough and i'm confident this will improve given time and practice, this leads me to thinking about aerial drift and it's implication for pivots as ideally i would like to be able to do it on the spot but this seems a very difficult i was hoping you could provide some insight into marths aerial drift and some possible strengths and weaknesses of his drift

Outside of this i would be very interested in other potential uses of pivoting, Apologies if my writing is subpar.

Thanks for the kind words! =)

Marth is slow so you have to do this stuff early. You can't play like a spacie and wait until they're on top of you to pivot. In this way, pivot Fair can be kind of fast but even so it's still pretty slow. If you back up where you commit to doing an option you'll understand why your pivots succeed or fail better.

Only other thing to mention is pivoting is often used to help protect Marth's back, since his options out of dash away aren't that great. WD back also helps avoid this problem.

Hi Dr Peepee

I could really use your help! You've talked about a sort of "triangle of improvement" to advance one's level of play, but could you go into it on kind of a granular, really specific level? I feel like I am at the point in my growth where it feels like I'm getting better, but my results have been the same. It feels like something is missing. My interpretation of the triangle is as follows:

• Play
• Receive feedback through watching your own videos
• Fix weaknesses through solo practice/friendlies
• Repeat

I am getting the sense that this interpretation lacks detail. When I play, I don't know what I'm looking for. The same can be said about practice - how do I practice? What am I looking for when I'm watching my own VoDs and how can that aid my growth? A lot of the advice on "how to get good" that I see from top players is all pretty vague, so any detailed practices that you follow would be extremely helpful. I get the sense that you are a very process-oriented and system-based person, so any insight on what specific processes you go into or have gone into to get to where you're at now, or what you're going to do once you're back (we miss you!) would be wonderful. My goal is to find out what you're doing in as detailed a manner as you'll allow, formulate a general framework for improvement, and emulate it as closely as I can to see if that produces results.

Thank you so much for posting in here so regularly, it's rare that most players get to have direct contact with someone at your level -I think every single of of us appreciates it deeply!

In terms of your bullet points, you can start from any of the places whether they are practice or friendlies or analysis. Another thing I'd like to add right away is that you need to include analysis of other, stronger players playing your character to get new ideas and perspectives. Watching them solve a situation or matchup you struggle with can often be very helpful.

Practice should always be directed and be simple. Examples are things like drilling the same tech like WD facing both ways and varying lengths on varying stages and then adding in actions before/after the WD to practice not dropping frames. You can also practice set plays for things like edgeguarding where you fake cover one/some options but actually cover another or other options. I'm sorry I can't go into immense detail as that would take a very long time, but if you just start out with this in mind and begin experimenting you should be able to deepen your connection to the game using this philosophy.

For analysis, the easiest way I explain it is to say "watch for a hit, and find out why." Sometimes you can back up immediately, sometimes you need to go back 10 seconds to explain a hit. In the beginning, you may only have guesses. As a set goes on you'll notice patterns. These patterns are what you're after and they show you how people can be stuck in their decision making. How they get stuck or are forced to be stuck by their opponent through matchup and other means is very useful and gives you many good ideas. Following this process deeper for a player, or group of players around a skill level, or a character, etc can really give you new insight to bring back to analysis of yourself. And of course you can apply the same pattern recognition to why you're getting hit and scoring hits as well. Hope this helps.

 

[maclo4]

Something I've been noticing a lot lately when I'm playing against worse players than myself is that they often just do not use certain tools that their character has. And I've noticed this in myself too, that as I get better a lot of my improvement comes down to being aware of a tool that I hadn't ever thought of before. For example, I played a PR'd falco in my state and he gave me lots of tips afterwards and one of the things he told me was that I never use wd back oos to bait out his aerials. And it honestly was just something that's so simple but I never thought to do and now I use it in my play because I'm aware of it.

So, kinda a strange request, but could any experienced marths or ppmd make me aware of some important options/tools in neutral that I'm just blind to rn, specifically in the fox mu (only bc I think it'd be too hard to list all the neutral tools I use for every mu)? Cause I know there are more things that I'll look back on and be like "how did I not think to do that?" I realize the massive amount of potential things you can do in neutral, but I'm just gonna list the main tools I try to use and for what purpose. So plz point out anything glaringly obvious that's missing or just wrong from my play so that I'm less blind.

-Dash dance or run up -> wd back to bait an attack
-Just run up -> grab or dtilt if they are just dash dancing
-sh nair/fair to stuff fox's sh aerials
-Sh uair/fair or utilt to stop fox's full hop approach
-sh->dj uair/nair top platform for when fox tries to go there after a full hop
-Shallow late fair/nair -> dash back to bait a whiff punish
-Late fair/nair -> dtilt to stuff the whiff punish
-Run up shield-> wd back to bait attack on shield
-Dtilt in place to stuff running shine or just grab before they shine
-double fair to push them into corner, or immediate fair-> double jump -> late fair
-randy fsmash a dash dancing fox
-dash toward or past them instead in any situation where I might normally dash back to bait them. if they are catching onto my dashing back all the time? (I do this sometimes but don't know exactly when it's good tbh)

Hmm yea I think that covers just about every tool that I consciously use in the fox mu. This was way longer than I meant it to be but if anyone would take the time to read it and make me less blind to marths tools I'd appreciate it

 

[Chesstiger2612]

Something I've been noticing a lot lately when I'm playing against worse players than myself is that they often just do not use certain tools that their character has. And I've noticed this in myself too, that as I get better a lot of my improvement comes down to being aware of a tool that I hadn't ever thought of before. For example, I played a PR'd falco in my state and he gave me lots of tips afterwards and one of the things he told me was that I never use wd back oos to bait out his aerials. And it honestly was just something that's so simple but I never thought to do and now I use it in my play because I'm aware of it.

So, kinda a strange request, but could any experienced marths or ppmd make me aware of some important options/tools in neutral that I'm just blind to rn, specifically in the fox mu (only bc I think it'd be too hard to list all the neutral tools I use for every mu)? Cause I know there are more things that I'll look back on and be like "how did I not think to do that?" I realize the massive amount of potential things you can do in neutral, but I'm just gonna list the main tools I try to use and for what purpose. So plz point out anything glaringly obvious that's missing or just wrong from my play so that I'm less blind.

-Dash dance or run up -> wd back to bait an attack
-Just run up -> grab or dtilt if they are just dash dancing
-sh nair/fair to stuff fox's sh aerials
-Sh uair/fair or utilt to stop fox's full hop approach
-sh->dj uair/nair top platform for when fox tries to go there after a full hop
-Shallow late fair/nair -> dash back to bait a whiff punish
-Late fair/nair -> dtilt to stuff the whiff punish
-Run up shield-> wd back to bait attack on shield
-Dtilt in place to stuff running shine or just grab before they shine
-double fair to push them into corner, or immediate fair-> double jump -> late fair
-randy fsmash a dash dancing fox
-dash toward or past them instead in any situation where I might normally dash back to bait them. if they are catching onto my dashing back all the time? (I do this sometimes but don't know exactly when it's good tbh)

Hmm yea I think that covers just about every tool that I consciously use in the fox mu. This was way longer than I meant it to be but if anyone would take the time to read it and make me less blind to marths tools I'd appreciate it

Not an expert by any means but here is what I would add:

- dash->run-cancel down-tilt

low commitment, high range, does well against grounded characters: you probably meant to put it here because it is a fairly common and prominent tool for Marth, doesn't need too much more of an explanation imo

- dash attack

one of the biggest ones you are missing at the moment; commital but beats the case where they barely dash outside of your grab threat, so it is an important mixup, plus it knocks down at 0%; I think it is used best when you expect a dash away, but a direction change or stop before a certain point (so no full dash->run away), so one could say that it beats the "standard dashdance"

- prophylactic nair or fair

you mentioned nair/fair to beat the sh aerials but especially nair can also be used in combination with a jump backwards to beat running shine; in general because Marth doesn't have that many hitboxes with many active frames and you need to be aware of the tools that cover simply dashing in all the way, because d-tilt and grab, which you mentioned as anti-approach, are somewhat risky against fast characters because of delayed approaches, fj, or using drill, which all beat those; having a shortage of options that do well against dashing in makes what is left more important obviously; alternatively you can dash around it and grab after the shine, but you need to call out a very specific timing and it carries some risk because they can fj out of the shine and be safe relatively quickly, and then ff up-air your whiffed grab

- dash/WD under sh nair

if you dislike dashing away and challenging with an attack in the current situation (for example you don't want to give up space and don't have much time to set up) you can dash/WD under the move due to Marth's low profile; if you know the specific timing and change dash direction as soon as you are past the move, you can get a punish, but in most cases you will only get a little bit of frame advantage which can be transformed into some kind of positional pressure

- crossup fair out of a frame advantage

in situations where you have enough frame advantage so they have to do sth defensive to not get hit, and if they shield it is ambiguous to them where you are while you have the option to grab them after it, for example; can work as a mixup together with grab, where the fair has less cooldown and therefore does better versus full jump or spot dodge,or drill because of the disjoint, and the grab does better against shield or crouch and has higher reward

Maybe some specific movement options, too, but they are often very context-dependent so I'm not sure how to sum them up best... In terms of moveset, with grab, fair, down-tilt, nair, dash attack, f-smash and up-tilt you have all relevant and "semi-relevant" moves in neutral covered if I'm not missing anything.

 

[Blatant J]

What do you guys think of removing the analog input on one of the triggers so that powershielding is much more possible? I haven't seen a marth utilise the backdash powershield method (3 frame window instead of 1). Do you also think its possible to judge the laser height before the laser comes out so that you can identify if it can be crouched/dashed under to give an 8 frame window?

 

[Kopaka]

Dr Peepee am I wrong to think that to decide whether or not to move in, I have to see on reaction if there's threat or not? And that I can check for threat with dash ins, wavedashes down, shields, short hops? Maybe moves like dtilt?

 

[Dr Peepee]

What do you guys think of removing the analog input on one of the triggers so that powershielding is much more possible? I haven't seen a marth utilise the backdash powershield method (3 frame window instead of 1). Do you also think its possible to judge the laser height before the laser comes out so that you can identify if it can be crouched/dashed under to give an 8 frame window?

I think it's pretty good to remove the trigger but it can hurt other things, and in the Falco matchup I've wondered if I could make lightshield useful vs pressure. The backdash ps method works fine for me even without the controller mod though. And I think you can identify it sometimes but not always, as laser habits help based on positioning and how high they normally shoot and whether they often FF immediately or delayed or at all.

Dr Peepee am I wrong to think that to decide whether or not to move in, I have to see on reaction if there's threat or not? And that I can check for threat with dash ins, wavedashes down, shields, short hops? Maybe moves like dtilt?

Sometimes you can pretty much know based on information you've gathered earlier and how earlier interactions also went(if they got punished for going in they'll be more reserved next interaction often). Your question is basically right but let me explain it differently. When you begin moving in you have now forced them to react and follow your lead. You put them in a reactive state and then, since you have played out the scenario many more times in practice, you can notice all of the little decisions that actually exist while doing your action. Your opponent cannot see those and feels overwhelmed. This allows you to see when they can't, and it's primarily why the better you get the faster you seem compared to weaker players. So while those options are technically right, they won't be allowing you to have faster reactions without understanding and practice.

 

[Kopaka]

I think it's pretty good to remove the trigger but it can hurt other things, and in the Falco matchup I've wondered if I could make lightshield useful vs pressure. The backdash ps method works fine for me even without the controller mod though. And I think you can identify it sometimes but not always, as laser habits help based on positioning and how high they normally shoot and whether they often FF immediately or delayed or at all.


Sometimes you can pretty much know based on information you've gathered earlier and how earlier interactions also went(if they got punished for going in they'll be more reserved next interaction often). Your question is basically right but let me explain it differently. When you begin moving in you have now forced them to react and follow your lead. You put them in a reactive state and then, since you have played out the scenario many more times in practice, you can notice all of the little decisions that actually exist while doing your action. Your opponent cannot see those and feels overwhelmed. This allows you to see when they can't, and it's primarily why the better you get the faster you seem compared to weaker players. So while those options are technically right, they won't be allowing you to have faster reactions without understanding and practice.

"putting them in a reactive state/the better u get the faster u seem compared to weaker players" just opened my mind to new possibilities. thank you <3

 

[HolidayMaker]

I have a great deal of difficulty altering my style for matchups against wavedash heavy characters where dash dancing is less than ideal, namely ICs and Luigi. How do you discipline yourself to play completely differently than you would otherwise? In theory, both of those should be awful matchups for the other player, but in practice I always seem to default back to my "normal" playstyle.

 

[Dr Peepee]

You think about hitting them with the sword and how they are helpless against it instead of trying to worry so much about dodging or tricking them. It may also help to research the tools and practice in a less DD-heavy way.

 

[ridemyboat]

Dr. Peepee, why is it that Hbox and Armada are able to perform so well with Peach and Puff? Whenever I watch Mango or Mew2king play against them, it always feels like Hbox/Armada have the upper hand. I'm starting to suspect that Mew2king and Mango are just super undisciplined.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Well, part of it is those characters are uncommon, especially Puff at a higher level, so you can't practice against them well. Armada has an awesome punish game and Hbox likes to wear people down on his own too, which no other players besides M2K sometimes really try to do. Puff especially can use gimps and rests to mitigate many matchup disadvantages and I think her matchup spread is definitely better than Peach's, which is why Hbox hasn't really needed to use a secondary while Armada has.

That said, yeah those guys are undisciplined and I think that's the biggest reason.

 

[Swarles]

Pp in the past you've said that Upthrow, for the most part is better, than fthrow in the peach MU due to fthrow being a 50/50. Yet on fd vs armada in winners final of Apex 2015,https://youtu.be/IomXcdAAt7E, you strickley used fthrow. Is this because it's easier for peach to land on fd and gain a positional advantage if you whiff? Or is it strickley for the grounded stage advantage?

 

[CanBeatAnyFaux]

PP, why do you think Marth dittos are often so grimy and, frankly, generally unskilled at a low-mid level?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Pp in the past you've said that Upthrow, for the most part is better, than fthrow in the peach MU due to fthrow being a 50/50. Yet on fd vs armada in winners final of Apex 2015,https://youtu.be/IomXcdAAt7E, you strickley used fthrow. Is this because it's easier for peach to land on fd and gain a positional advantage if you whiff? Or is it strickley for the grounded stage advantage?

I changed my stance. Fthrow is better because it's either a tech chase or an easier juggle situation. Both are much better for damage and reducing complexity.

PP, why do you think Marth dittos are often so grimy and, frankly, generally unskilled at a low-mid level?

Well I'd imagine any matchup with weaker players would look much sloppier, but as for the griminess I think that's about Marth having some sort of legit setups on himself (fthrow fsmash on no di/di in as an example) and not always being able to do the guaranteed stuff so those things get defaulted to more.

 

[BarDulL]

I don't know if this has been asked before. Frankly, it probably has been, but it's good to check on things, as the meta is ever-evolving:

PP, what is your favorite bagel? Everything bagels? With salmon and lox, or something else? In the bagel meta, what represents the optimal, quintessential bagel combination? Just what is the god of bagels?

I was sitting at Noah's bagels, and I discovered that my bagel combination (a mere ham, cheese, and egg on a plain bagel) just didn't feel optimized. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I made the right choice after all, but I can't help but feel though that I chose wrong, that I picked at best a mid to high tier choice as opposed to the best of choices.

This isn't an easy question to answer (although I may be projecting); given that your expertise in the matter is widely renown within the community (to my understanding, at least), I thought it best to settle the score here and determine an answer once and for all in order to provide myself some inner peace.

Thank you for your time.

-Bardull