Important Carefully Ask PPMD about the Tiara Guy

[Zorcey]

So I had a friendlies session with a Falco earlier and have some thoughts I want to write down. I think a lot of them are going to end up being questions for Dr Peepee tho lol.

1. I'm still in this very strange level of skill where I realize how bad I am. Like, I see all these opportunities that I simply screw up or notice too late because of distractions. I don't feel like I'm becoming that much better at hitting them despite practice, because many of the situations seem so individual. (That said, I can tell I’m objectively becoming a stronger player? Just in terms of who I can beat/how hard I can beat them.)

I wonder, are there parallels that I should be attuned to in situations that would snap my mind in order quickly? This happened to me with techchases a few months ago, and I became much better at reacting to various techchase situations, and I consider my techchase game pretty good now tbh. But parallels like particular spacings, opponents using particular movements, etc. For some reason I'm not reacting to these things, even though I know they exist. It's like seeing these vague "groups" of actions my opponent uses, but each group is blurry so I can't make out all the individual actions - maybe just the first and last. If I could learn to see these groups in at each stage, I could intercept so easily. I’ve noticed that the average player (in my experience) frankly doesn’t seem to have a lot of different actions in their repertoire, which seems so important to exploit. Am I on the right track here, or off?

2. I've become somewhat better at it, but I still struggle with overwhelming myself when it comes to everything I want to work on. The thing is I know nothing exists in a vacuum in Melee, so when I try to work on my sense of stage, and how much space my opponent and I both have, my lack of clean movement prevents me from spacing properly around them and I lose stage either way because I inevitably overextend. Same thing with practicing zoning to try and corner them but then losing my sense of stage.

I'm not sure why it's so hard to discipline myself to focus on just one thing for a friendlies session or practice session or something, but it honestly feels close to impossible just because of the nature of the game. (But maybe that's my neuroticism talking?) How can I take steps to make sure I internalize the concepts I've been working with in my play, and how long does that take? How can I keep my mind on that one thing, and off everything else?

3. Internalization is another big thing for me. I read about, watch, and practice Melee every day, and so I'm inundated with huge amounts of game knowledge every day. But I can't possibly be retaining as much of this knowledge as I could, and I often have these moments of "wait, I knew about this, why don't I do it" that frustrate me. Ironically part of the problem feels like I write too much information down, because I'm afraid I'll forget it, and I have too many notes and not enough organization/internalized knowledge.

I'm afraid to consolidate the information in my notes (even though I've been forcing myself to lately). I feel that consolidating information into small pieces before understanding the large pieces just leads to wrong conclusions and small-mindedness, right? (But could this be less my note taking habits and more that I don't have significant real experience in a lot of matchups?)

This got long lol. Thanks for reading and any help tho, because it’s really appreciated.

 

[Kotastic]

Zorcey

For #1, my way for practicing that sort of thing is trying to replicate such situations on 20XX 4.07 replays or asking someone to recreate the scenario. This can be done by simple theorycrafting or watching others do it, but I found that just simply recreating the situation and responding it with my hands as opposed to solely my brain is much more effective for me. For instance, I would always know that Falcons would aerial --> gentleman to catch my DD grab, and while I would know it would be coming, I would always get hit anyways. Practicing that exact scenario in 20XX replays to just do another fox-trot dash back grab allowed me to punish that option. Same with covering rolls after hitting their shield with late fair. Same with punishing double lasers from the ledge. It seems silly that, in theory, those are obvious counters, but embedding that within your hands makes a big difference.

#2 I'm probably not as qualified to speak in this, but I feel like you're trying to learn too much complex stuff when you simply don't have the foundations down. It's far more productive to simply focus just one thing (or the amount you can handle) at a time, and when you walk out, you've improved as a player because you improved that one thing. If you noticed with a lot of my questions, all I ask are (relatively) simple stuff whereas other people are asking far more complex questions that quite frankly, I'm not ready to go there yet. Eventually, you build foundations, and you start putting pieces together. That's what Captain Faceroll told me at least.

Dunno how to go about #3, but gl with improving!

 

[Dr Peepee]

Just so you know, Marth can never catch Falcon's DI down and away tech away off dthrow without committing to a read unless he throws into a corner. You might be able to get some sort of DI mixups into reaction tech chases in some positions but that seems way too situational.

Hm I'll have to test that. Either no Falcon I have played did that or I handled the reaction fine.

Hello PP, I want to discuss some options I'd like to develop vs. Sheik.

Sheik has been one of my worse matchups as of late, getting grabbed and whiff punished far too many times. I think I'm doing something really wrong. This one Sheik I played against was basically abusing me every time I shielded, mixing up between grabbing, poking moves, WD back, etc. I hate shielding vs. her. I found that whenever I d-tilted or aerial, he would be riiiight outside the range to whiff punish it by DA or grab. I would notice it and overshoot a bit, but he would respond against that with f-tilt, once again rewarding the Sheik with another fat punish. That's where I kinda got lost in what I could reliably do. My juggle game is decent, but that can't carry me if I can't win much neutral interactions.

I've been discussing and formulating options I can do vs. Sheik with other people. Instead of overshooting, I'm thinking of just throwing out shallow moves so I can bait Sheik to whiff punish and punish her for it. While I'm throwing out shallow moves, sometimes I will mix-up with poking with a WD d-tilt if she's grounded. I'm not too sure what can reliably poke in the air if she's jumping. WD forward rising fade-back fair perhaps? In other cases if I have a read, I can commit with f-smash/fair/CC.

In between all of this, I'm not sure how movement fits into all of this. I've seen you advocate that Marth's ground game is, well, amazing. I think I remember you stated in the past that all you've learned with Marth is best culminated vs. Sheik and Marth since they're both so ground-based. I'd like to explore more upon that. I could think how the Sheik might respond to my dash forward and how it can give me information based on my shallow moves. Then perhaps I can commit if she responds to it in a predictable fashion based on prior conditioning and pressure. There's probably dozens of different answers, and only just now I'm thinking about it more deeply. I'd love to hear your inputs as I continue work on my struggling matchup.

Well let's look at where you're getting stuck first. Many Marths get that feeling of barely whiffing and getting punished, but if you're switching it up to commit harder and still getting punished, you should probably start up each commitment the same. So basically I'm saying it's not enough to just try to hit where they are or where they might be, but if you telegraph yourself you'll be easily read even if you change it up. So if you always run forward a certain distance before Dtilt'ing where they are, be sure to start from a similar position and timing and just go a little farther. However, if Sheik is swinging on either way, you may want to just run up and SH in place to see if you can counterattack whatever she does(or WD back).

There's nothing wrong with your alternate plan of playing more shallowly, but remember if you're too far away you don't really push any direct threats/control onto her and she can needle you.

So I had a friendlies session with a Falco earlier and have some thoughts I want to write down. I think a lot of them are going to end up being questions for Dr Peepee tho lol.

1. I'm still in this very strange level of skill where I realize how bad I am. Like, I see all these opportunities that I simply screw up or notice too late because of distractions. I don't feel like I'm becoming that much better at hitting them despite practice, because many of the situations seem so individual. (That said, I can tell I’m objectively becoming a stronger player? Just in terms of who I can beat/how hard I can beat them.)

I wonder, are there parallels that I should be attuned to in situations that would snap my mind in order quickly? This happened to me with techchases a few months ago, and I became much better at reacting to various techchase situations, and I consider my techchase game pretty good now tbh. But parallels like particular spacings, opponents using particular movements, etc. For some reason I'm not reacting to these things, even though I know they exist. It's like seeing these vague "groups" of actions my opponent uses, but each group is blurry so I can't make out all the individual actions - maybe just the first and last. If I could learn to see these groups in at each stage, I could intercept so easily. I’ve noticed that the average player (in my experience) frankly doesn’t seem to have a lot of different actions in their repertoire, which seems so important to exploit. Am I on the right track here, or off?

2. I've become somewhat better at it, but I still struggle with overwhelming myself when it comes to everything I want to work on. The thing is I know nothing exists in a vacuum in Melee, so when I try to work on my sense of stage, and how much space my opponent and I both have, my lack of clean movement prevents me from spacing properly around them and I lose stage either way because I inevitably overextend. Same thing with practicing zoning to try and corner them but then losing my sense of stage.

I'm not sure why it's so hard to discipline myself to focus on just one thing for a friendlies session or practice session or something, but it honestly feels close to impossible just because of the nature of the game. (But maybe that's my neuroticism talking?) How can I take steps to make sure I internalize the concepts I've been working with in my play, and how long does that take? How can I keep my mind on that one thing, and off everything else?

3. Internalization is another big thing for me. I read about, watch, and practice Melee every day, and so I'm inundated with huge amounts of game knowledge every day. But I can't possibly be retaining as much of this knowledge as I could, and I often have these moments of "wait, I knew about this, why don't I do it" that frustrate me. Ironically part of the problem feels like I write too much information down, because I'm afraid I'll forget it, and I have too many notes and not enough organization/internalized knowledge.

I'm afraid to consolidate the information in my notes (even though I've been forcing myself to lately). I feel that consolidating information into small pieces before understanding the large pieces just leads to wrong conclusions and small-mindedness, right? (But could this be less my note taking habits and more that I don't have significant real experience in a lot of matchups?)

This got long lol. Thanks for reading and any help tho, because it’s really appreciated.

1. If you notice better results, your practice may be working. However if your feeling isn't improving, you can keep adjusting but you should also notice your results and keep doing many similar practice regimens. Confusion is a natural part of growth after all.

It may be useful to think of how you learned tech chasing. You likely learned individual situations and broke them down into smaller and smaller parts such as animations and went from there. You can do similar things with movement where you break each action down in analysis and then try to fit them into the whole. It's okay if you don't understand everything right away. Just trying gets you a lot closer, and if you keep changing your approach you'll get there.

2. You just have to accept you'll do worse in individual matches as you work on other game elements. When you try to win you're putting everything together, but you can't do that if there isn't anything refined to "put" together. Having goals like learning more about this or that situation, and checking your progress between stocks and matches can be useful to see if you're making the most of your time or if you need to readjust your methods.

3. Just taking in knowledge doesn't make it real. Only deeply thinking about it and applying it and feeling it does. Get what's MOST important and keep the rest as side notes I say. If you don't prioritize, you get overwhelmed like you're experiencing.

Honestly it seems like you're already progressing in the right direction on all of these, so just keep going and you'll figure it out.

 

[KBK Kingkiller]

I'll grant that I could have messed something up, but, when I tested, Marth could not grab DI away tech away without wavedashing. I tested with dash attack at zero for the most favorable situation I could think of but that still fell short. Also, with regards to reaction tech chasing sheik, I was shown this gif which shows that it is almost impossible to to tell the difference between tech in place and tech in until frame 8 (probably too late to react). This may explain your earlier results when attempting it. That being said, if you have a cue, I would very much appreciate the information.

https://gfycat.com/BoringPerfectAmericankestrel

 

[Dr Peepee]

Well I think I would be wavedashing anyway when I react to the DI away(or dash WD'ing?) to position myself for any option. Unless you mean WD once at the tech spot to catch them then I don't think I do that.

Ohhh that gif clears up some things for me like why it's so difficult to tech chase her even when I am very focused. I would like to go back and test it with this knowledge before saying for sure how it would work. I imagine it could still be done, but even if it couldn't reliably be done you could likely still set yourself up to cover 2/3 techs and let Sheik corner herself otherwise in many instances and I'd be okay with that too.

 

[KBK Kingkiller]

So, for the tech chase on falcon, at least at low percents, you have to react to tech away with wavedash. If you wavedash beforehand, then you don't have enough frames to cover tech in place.

 

[Blatant J]

Any idea on how to employ Z-PS vs falco? No marths seem to use it.

 

[Dr Peepee]

So, for the tech chase on falcon, at least at low percents, you have to react to tech away with wavedash. If you wavedash beforehand, then you don't have enough frames to cover tech in place.

Alrighty then I'll write that down to look at.

Any idea on how to employ Z-PS vs falco? No marths seem to use it.

Pressing A in the initial dash frames, during laser stun, holding after doing a jab, during WD lag are all good places to set it up if that's what you mean. I guess once you know you'll get the PS, you'd probably want to rush Falco down(or at least begin moving in as you see laser startup) so you can make the most of your frame advantage as possible, and also Fair OOS if you need to beat Falco coming in by jumping over laser and attacking.

 

[Kotastic]

I'd like to contrast these two scenarios here to make sure I'm understanding your advice on not getting whiff punished here correctly. The first scenario accurately depicts my problem I'm currently having.

https://youtu.be/Gv74JXJBFwk?t=17m48s
https://youtu.be/Gv74JXJBFwk?t=18m59s

The first clip, you got whiff punished DA'd. I think this happened because you were an ample distance away from him to dash back enough and rc d-tilt is a bit slow to throw out. Additionally past the dash animation, it's rather common for marths to go for RC d-tilt too.

Contrasting the second clip, tbh I'm not too sure why that worked. Perhaps because it wasn't as predictable that you would go for WD d-tilt during your initial dash frames. The immediate range for WD d-tilt was also enough to catch Leffen dash backing, despite him having space to work with, because WD d-tilt came out faster than RC d-tilt. Or perhaps there's other factors that you did that I don't recognize.

It seems to me that in order to avoid getting whiff punished in general is to not be predictable with swinging. If I were to swing, it would probably be safer to do so during my initial dash frames because there are so many mix-ups during my dashes, whereas swinging past my initial dashes makes my intention clearer as well as having fewer options (though I can still work around this such as SH or WD back). It also helps to be within clear TR too, which increases the chances of WD d-tilt to work.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Nah this is much simpler than that in a way. The first time, I move in as he's moving away so he lets his dash run out to perfect counter me, easy reaction(people are more likely to run away out of tech chase as well). The second time, I move in at a more pure neutral point after feinting a little which encourages him to shoot. I move in as he begins to shoot since he does not think my dash in corresponds to an approach so much now.

I can complicate this much more, but this is probably a better takeaway right now.

 

[Blatant J]

Pressing A in the initial dash frames, during laser stun, holding after doing a jab, during WD lag are all good places to set it up if that's what you mean. I guess once you know you'll get the PS, you'd probably want to rush Falco down(or at least begin moving in as you see laser startup) so you can make the most of your frame advantage as possible, and also Fair OOS if you need to beat Falco coming in by jumping over laser and attacking.

Sorry for not elaborating, I know how to do it/what methods to use, I'm just wondering why no players seem to use it, since it has been known tech for quite a while.

 

[Dr Peepee]

It's possible it is used and we don't see it(partly because of Falcos not being often seen in top 8, same reason there might not be incentive to use it), but it's also just a weird tech and I think people either don't know about it or think it's an odd hassle to add to their game.

 

[ridemyboat]

Sorry for not elaborating, I know how to do it/what methods to use, I'm just wondering why no players seem to use it, since it has been known tech for quite a while.

I've started using it when I feel comfortable. It's kind of hard and doesn't feel super natural to do, especially without a tricked trigger. Top marths aren't struggling against falco, and should probably spend more time on the rest of the cast (peach / puff / fox / sheik / ic's / falcon).

 

[HolidayMaker]

Yo PP CAN YOU TALK ABOUT M2K AT CANADA CUP?

No but seriously other than g4 vs Armada he looked amazing. Just posting this everywhere Marth related lol.

 

[strawhats]

Yo PP CAN YOU TALK ABOUT M2K AT CANADA CUP?

No but seriously other than g4 vs Armada he looked amazing. Just posting this everywhere Marth related lol.

Seriously Impressed with m2k's poise/composure vs Armada (particularly on the ledge and handling Armada's Turnip play/gimmicks...being cognizant of the active frames/ hitbox on the turnip after they hit shield so as to not get baited to going in against Armada immediately upon returning from the ledge)

m2k also got revenge for years of Stich Face devastation (you know the moment) against Armada.

He also just played as solid a neutral game as I've seen from him against Armada n Leffen, in a long time. I like that Jason is experimenting with/using marth more against non-spacies (i.e. against n0ne on PS, and he could've won if not for a missed conversion on the left side of the stage + he up b'd preemptively) or vs Duck a few weeks ago when he went marth on FoD.

He still needs to improve at the Marth vs ICs MU (in order to get over his ChuDat/ICs in general problem)

 

[Socrates]

You've mentioned before that Fair is a good answer to run in shine and run in nair (or just over aggression in general) vs fox , is this the kind of Fair you're talking about?

https://youtu.be/MAE-eaHZyRE?t=2m48s

It feels like whenever I try to do this, the fox has enough time to sneak under me and shine anyway, but it might be a timing issue.

 

[Dr Peepee]

That Fair is really late and fading back AND the SH started when Fox is super far away. So no it is not always the answer, but when possible to set it up like that you should do it. In your case you may want to retreating rising/mid Fair or just AC Nair or just Dtilt in place or WD reset or run in grab if they are threatening closer to you.

 

[Kotastic]

Hey PP,

My Marth has been improving a lot in the last couple of weeks. So many concepts I have internalized and it's amazing to see my progress from merely even a month ago. It's definitely only improving from here.

While I don't think I'm plateauing, I'm sort of...kind of losing interest with Marth at the moment. I know there's still more I can bring out, but lately I've been practicing a lot of Fox with a Mango-esque playstyle with a bunch of running shines and instant drills/nairs, combining that with dash dancing, full hops, platform mixups, and run-up shield. While I'm refining my tech skill with Fox, it's clearly obvious at the moment that my Marth is better, but often I like to play Fox in friendlies than Marth.

Is this a phase everyone goes through at some point? I feel like I should practice more Marth in my solo practice time, but I feel like I'm wasting it on Fox even though it's fun. Perhaps a new perspective or playstyle my re-kindle my interest with Marth?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Yeah it's just a phase more than likely. Bringing out other characters and going deeper into them not only helps you understand those, but can bring new understand to your main. Also, having a rest after working on your main can help them internalize more as well. That doesn't mean you should take breaks often, but if it happens it's very okay.

 

[Pook]

Hey PP,

I have been practicing a lot vs Samus lately and have been trying to learn the MU from scratch. This is something I wrote down after watching the Moon vs Plup at Shine 2017:


Marth’s chief threats in neutral game come from his SH FF fair and dtilt. Samus can’t hold CC all the time because she will just get dtilted over and over. Because she can;t CC all the time she needs to stop marth from completely boxing her out with fairs and dtilts. Samus needs to cut marth off premtively because once marth gets on top of samus with a fair she is put in a bad position.Many of samus’s options countering marth’s SH FF fair seems to be trying to hit marth at the peak of his jump before the non CCable fair comes out.


Marth should react with DD or drifting fair. Once samus starts calling out SH FF Fair with nair, ftilt, or fsmash marth can wiff punish these moves by doing a fair in place/drifting away or by DDing.


Samus can dattack vs fairs in place. Or go for a Dsmash read on DD or shoot a missile once she sees marth is backing off.


Marth can Nair in place to beat out the dattack or DD try to reset to TR.


I really just started writing and thinking about marth's options and samus's options and came up with this. I don't really know if notes like this are what I should be going for when learning the neutal game. When I read over the notes I think that they are too general and only cover a few options that each character has and that I should back up and look over the different situations here and lab more, but it seems a little overwhelming. Not the amount of work involved, but I'm worried that when the time comes to recall these situations in a match that I won't remember what to do. Are notes like these a useful tool for understanding different situations or am I heading in the wrong direction?

 

[ridemyboat]

Wanted to something cool for Marth-Falcon. You can Z-powershield Falcon's raptor boost and it will put you at fsmash tipper spacing. But shield stun is too high, so he can shield first. If you powershield it though, you have time to fsmash or ftilt or up b or do pretty much anything. You can use one shield sdi after the powershield to tipper ftilt them.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Hey PP,

I have been practicing a lot vs Samus lately and have been trying to learn the MU from scratch. This is something I wrote down after watching the Moon vs Plup at Shine 2017:


Marth’s chief threats in neutral game come from his SH FF fair and dtilt. Samus can’t hold CC all the time because she will just get dtilted over and over. Because she can;t CC all the time she needs to stop marth from completely boxing her out with fairs and dtilts. Samus needs to cut marth off premtively because once marth gets on top of samus with a fair she is put in a bad position.Many of samus’s options countering marth’s SH FF fair seems to be trying to hit marth at the peak of his jump before the non CCable fair comes out.


Marth should react with DD or drifting fair. Once samus starts calling out SH FF Fair with nair, ftilt, or fsmash marth can wiff punish these moves by doing a fair in place/drifting away or by DDing.


Samus can dattack vs fairs in place. Or go for a Dsmash read on DD or shoot a missile once she sees marth is backing off.


Marth can Nair in place to beat out the dattack or DD try to reset to TR.


I really just started writing and thinking about marth's options and samus's options and came up with this. I don't really know if notes like this are what I should be going for when learning the neutal game. When I read over the notes I think that they are too general and only cover a few options that each character has and that I should back up and look over the different situations here and lab more, but it seems a little overwhelming. Not the amount of work involved, but I'm worried that when the time comes to recall these situations in a match that I won't remember what to do. Are notes like these a useful tool for understanding different situations or am I heading in the wrong direction?

I think it's useful for sure, but I think you are right to want to get more specific. At least asking questions like "how can Marth mix his Fair and Dtilt usefully vs Samus' common threats based on what I've seen? What did Samus often do to disrupt Dtilt/Fair and what did Marth do to counterplay specifically? Where can I find improvements or more coverage there?"

Wanted to something cool for Marth-Falcon. You can Z-powershield Falcon's raptor boost and it will put you at fsmash tipper spacing. But shield stun is too high, so he can shield first. If you powershield it though, you have time to fsmash or ftilt or up b or do pretty much anything. You can use one shield sdi after the powershield to tipper ftilt them.

Oh neat I'll write that down. Not sure I'd often use it unless ZPS could work in more situations, but it is cool lol

 

[Kopaka]

I want to write these things on my recent tournament performance at the San Diego local on Halloween in regards to what I believe is achievable when practicing in the way that we've been talking about here and not for an ego thing. I got 5th place, beat people that were beating me before on the way to my final placing, and went 1-2 with one of our best foxes/socal ranked and friend who's been in my own timestamps I've put here before. I don't have many questions to put to this thread right now, just going over my own stuff myself but I hope everyone here is doing well in their own work! Thanks of course PP for all of this And the people that ask good questions that bring out really good answers.

 

[Mejonat]

Hi people, I'm Jon from Northwest Ohio and I play red marth.

Question for Dr Peepee
You wrote earlier in the thread (like mid 2016) that you don't think marth should ever need to cross up the opponent because he has all the tools necessary to beat every character from the front (hope I'm not speaking inaccurately). Lately I've been messing around with mixing up dash back with dash forward at certain ranges against certain characters. For example, sometimes I get hit with a falco laser right outside of standing grab range or something and dash out of it.
If I dash back and the falco overshoots an aerial or jumps forward with a laser, he catches me, but if I dash forward and he overshoots in that way, I squeeze under that approaching short hop with my dash animation and then I cross him up (although I think early dair probably beats this). Additionally, if the falco decides to space away after that laser, me dashing forward can be an unexpected immediate threat to the bird. What do you think about using dash to slip under approaches like this? Would you say that getting hit with a laser from that spacing means I've already lost neutral and the mixup is a backup plan?
Basically what I'm asking is can crossing up be used like a spacing mixup as marth in general? I feel like it can because he moves so fast. Plus it can net some juicy openings.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Oh yeah that type of crossup with WD/dash is good vs spacies and occasionally Falcon when getting out of the corner or in the way you describe. I meant crossup with aerials but yeah I should have clarified.

 

[Mejonat]

Oh yeah that type of crossup with WD/dash is good vs spacies and occasionally Falcon when getting out of the corner or in the way you describe. I meant crossup with aerials but yeah I should have clarified.

Okay cool, I just misunderstood the post then. Thanks for the reply dude

 

[HolidayMaker]

Hi PP (and anyone else with a good amount of Falco exp)

Yesterday I got to play an old school Memphis Falco called Nite you may know from back in the day who is just starting to come back out to stuff. He 3-0'd me pretty clean >.> The more specific situation I wanted to discuss is what to do when you take laser and Falco is already close enough in the air that dash back won't work, but jab/uptilt/side b will...however Falco is at 0 or close to it and just shines you out of whatever you do. This happened to me a lot, and I couldn't really come up with counterplay beyond throw up my shield, which is obviously not ideal. Other than just position myself better before the laser hits, is there anything I can do in this scenario?

 

[Dr Peepee]

You should SDI laser back in those situations so you can tipper jab/dash back or work on your PS/ZPS game or just hold that L and shield. If Falco gets on top of you with laser then you're in a very bad position and have to just take the pressure and go from there.

 

[maclo4]

I was watching rishi vs junebug (sheik) and I noticed he doesn't rely on grab a ton for combos. He mostly used aerials to start combos. Do you think this is smart considering marths grab game against sheik isnt amazing? Or do you still think grab should be a main way of starting combos like in other matchups?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Grab is awesome for comboing Sheik, but can definitely be riskier to go for to start punishes. At 0% grab may not always be better, and at very high percent that would also be true. That being said, you don't need to grab many weaker characters like ICs Samus Ganon the Marios and so on. You can just space around them and it's fine since they can't handle your sword easily and there aren't many followups anyway. Grabbing imo is mostly used for Pika Yoshi and high tiers.

 

[Socrates]

Grab is awesome for comboing Sheik, but can definitely be riskier to go for to start punishes. At 0% grab may not always be better, and at very high percent that would also be true. That being said, you don't need to grab many weaker characters like ICs Samus Ganon the Marios and so on. You can just space around them and it's fine since they can't handle your sword easily and there aren't many followups anyway. Grabbing imo is mostly used for Pika Yoshi and high tiers.

Can you talk about what makes grabbing so useful for pika and yoshi? Grab followups on pika especially feel really sparse

 

[Dr Peepee]

Delay wrote a post a little bit ago about Uair followups on Pikachu, and dislodging Pika and Fair'ing/Bair'ing afterward is great punishment especially on FD. For Yoshi it can be less true but forcing Yoshi to use his DJ is really good for setting up punishes to hit him out of it as he either WLs on a platform, DJCs, or just DJs and goes high.

 

[quixotic]

Hey PP, how can I better capitalize after hitting the first fair here? If falcon holds down against the first fair, is double jumping away the best option?

https://youtu.be/eDPp6j3Zg4M?t=26s

 

[Kotastic]

Hey PP,

I notice one of my deficiencies in the Sheik matchup is that I struggle to kill. When Sheik is at high percent, for the life of me I can't find an opening. They know this, and just run-up shield against me. I know this, and I just grab them straight-up. Problem is, I don't really know how to secure the throw from high percent. Throwing up, I often fail to read what drift they're going for since they're up really high and especially harder in tri-plat stages. Tech chasing can work, but it's not exactly consistent on securing the kill. A friend of mine suggested to throw Sheik off the stage. He says that there's no excuses for me to secure the edgeguard against Sheik. Thing is, I kinda suck edgeguarding sheik. They seem to always catch me with their little mixups, like jump attacking, needles, up-B low, and whatever shenanigans when Sheik has access to walljump. What is your suggested flowchart from the ledge? Also when I'm hogging ledge and Sheik is forced to poof on stage, I often just do up-air since they can hold down vs. Nair. I'm thinking waveland walk fast tipper f-smash should be better, looks cool too.

Also, how do you assess whether to up-throw or throw towards the corner? Looking your past vids, up-throw is a strong option at low percents, but past that you sometimes opt to f-throw/d-throw towards the corner similar to the Peach matchup. I'm always just an up-thrower at basically all percents, but I'm thinking throwing them towards the corner can be beneficial especially in tri-plat stages. You don't mind explaining that a bit?

Another question regarding tourney mindset: How do you keep your cool after almost nearly losing to someone you clearly shouldn't? I'm not the type of guy that gets tilted easily, but it recently happened when I almost lost to some guy's secondary Sheik (in which I bop his main, Fox). I lost Game 1 on FD, and at that moment I was like wtf, I should win this. I ran it back Game 2 and it was still way closer than it should've been, but I somehow clutch it out. Game 3 he goes BF and it went to pretty much last stock, albeit my favor. I somehow won, but not because I truly outplayed him but because I took advantage of the fact that he's not a Sheik main, so I abused that against him. After that close set, I had a bad mindset throughout the rest of the tournament, thinking I just suck against Sheiks, and that I don't really deserve to win. That tournament I got double-eliminated by 2 good Sheik players. Is this simply something I'll have to eat up as a learning experience?

Thanks for reading and responding in advance.

 

[Chiripp]

Could you maybe give me advice versus Jigglypuff?

Battlefield

Mute City

Fountain of Dreams

Could you maybe give me advice versus Jigglypuff?

Battlefield

Mute City

Fountain of Dreams

The puff matchup is acually quite easy as marth, it's just not that fun to play.
All you have to do is play puffs game against her and play incredibly patiently and not go for any sort of combo, just spend the entire match outspacing her and you should win.

 

[Mejonat]

Hey PP,

I notice one of my deficiencies in the Sheik matchup is that I struggle to kill. When Sheik is at high percent, for the life of me I can't find an opening. They know this, and just run-up shield against me. I know this, and I just grab them straight-up. Problem is, I don't really know how to secure the throw from high percent. Throwing up, I often fail to read what drift they're going for since they're up really high and especially harder in tri-plat stages. Tech chasing can work, but it's not exactly consistent on securing the kill. A friend of mine suggested to throw Sheik off the stage. He says that there's no excuses for me to secure the edgeguard against Sheik. Thing is, I kinda suck edgeguarding sheik. They seem to always catch me with their little mixups, like jump attacking, needles, up-B low, and whatever shenanigans when Sheik has access to walljump. What is your suggested flowchart from the ledge? Also when I'm hogging ledge and Sheik is forced to poof on stage, I often just do up-air since they can hold down vs. Nair. I'm thinking waveland walk fast tipper f-smash should be better, looks cool too.

Also, how do you assess whether to up-throw or throw towards the corner? Looking your past vids, up-throw is a strong option at low percents, but past that you sometimes opt to f-throw/d-throw towards the corner similar to the Peach matchup. I'm always just an up-thrower at basically all percents, but I'm thinking throwing them towards the corner can be beneficial especially in tri-plat stages. You don't mind explaining that a bit?

Another question regarding tourney mindset: How do you keep your cool after almost nearly losing to someone you clearly shouldn't? I'm not the type of guy that gets tilted easily, but it recently happened when I almost lost to some guy's secondary Sheik (in which I bop his main, Fox). I lost Game 1 on FD, and at that moment I was like wtf, I should win this. I ran it back Game 2 and it was still way closer than it should've been, but I somehow clutch it out. Game 3 he goes BF and it went to pretty much last stock, albeit my favor. I somehow won, but not because I truly outplayed him but because I took advantage of the fact that he's not a Sheik main, so I abused that against him. After that close set, I had a bad mindset throughout the rest of the tournament, thinking I just suck against Sheiks, and that I don't really deserve to win. That tournament I got double-eliminated by 2 good Sheik players. Is this simply something I'll have to eat up as a learning experience?

Thanks for reading and responding in advance.

I know I'm not PP, but in terms of edgeguarding sheik, I think you can still turnaround wd back to grab ledge after getting hit with dj needles. Maybe you don't always have time to do this, but I'm pretty sure you do sometimes, just gotta act quickly enough out of lag. The general principle I like to use is to grab ledge right before sheik can double jump to sweetspot or double jump aerial (if she has her jump) and then you eat any attack with invincibility. Then, you wait for the up b because if she's below stage without a jump, all she can do is upb. Then, time a neutral get up right before you get hit by the poof. There are a few ways of doing this I think, but the idea is that you 1. Don't want to get poof'd, and 2. You want to be occupying ledge during the frames that sheik tries to grab it if she goes there. There are a few different ways to poof too, so sheik has some timing mix-ups (double poof is a notable one that's been getting me). Basically, you're hard punishing her for being below ledge without a double jump.
After you hit her offstage, if she starts double jump aerialing onstage to hit you before your initial ledge grab, that's a mixup that you can beat by turning around and getting ready to wavedash back to ledge and mixing up wavedashing back for the double jump sweetspot timing or waiting for the dj aerial and hitting her out of her lag. If she starts airdodging onstage, you can either punish that from the ledge with ledgehop instant uair which autocancels, or from the stage with a hitbox. Just make sure you're not throwing out hitboxes preemptively without purpose, or it might compromise your edgeguard. Timing is key.

To simplify the flowchart:
Get her offstage without a jump > grab ledge > profit

 

[Dr Peepee]

Hey PP, how can I better capitalize after hitting the first fair here? If falcon holds down against the first fair, is double jumping away the best option?

https://youtu.be/eDPp6j3Zg4M?t=26s

You needed to tipper that Fair. Failing that, falling Fair dash back is safe at least and you can pivot Fsmash or Fair or react etc out of it.

Hey PP,

I notice one of my deficiencies in the Sheik matchup is that I struggle to kill. When Sheik is at high percent, for the life of me I can't find an opening. They know this, and just run-up shield against me. I know this, and I just grab them straight-up. Problem is, I don't really know how to secure the throw from high percent. Throwing up, I often fail to read what drift they're going for since they're up really high and especially harder in tri-plat stages. Tech chasing can work, but it's not exactly consistent on securing the kill. A friend of mine suggested to throw Sheik off the stage. He says that there's no excuses for me to secure the edgeguard against Sheik. Thing is, I kinda suck edgeguarding sheik. They seem to always catch me with their little mixups, like jump attacking, needles, up-B low, and whatever shenanigans when Sheik has access to walljump. What is your suggested flowchart from the ledge? Also when I'm hogging ledge and Sheik is forced to poof on stage, I often just do up-air since they can hold down vs. Nair. I'm thinking waveland walk fast tipper f-smash should be better, looks cool too.

Also, how do you assess whether to up-throw or throw towards the corner? Looking your past vids, up-throw is a strong option at low percents, but past that you sometimes opt to f-throw/d-throw towards the corner similar to the Peach matchup. I'm always just an up-thrower at basically all percents, but I'm thinking throwing them towards the corner can be beneficial especially in tri-plat stages. You don't mind explaining that a bit?

Another question regarding tourney mindset: How do you keep your cool after almost nearly losing to someone you clearly shouldn't? I'm not the type of guy that gets tilted easily, but it recently happened when I almost lost to some guy's secondary Sheik (in which I bop his main, Fox). I lost Game 1 on FD, and at that moment I was like wtf, I should win this. I ran it back Game 2 and it was still way closer than it should've been, but I somehow clutch it out. Game 3 he goes BF and it went to pretty much last stock, albeit my favor. I somehow won, but not because I truly outplayed him but because I took advantage of the fact that he's not a Sheik main, so I abused that against him. After that close set, I had a bad mindset throughout the rest of the tournament, thinking I just suck against Sheiks, and that I don't really deserve to win. That tournament I got double-eliminated by 2 good Sheik players. Is this simply something I'll have to eat up as a learning experience?

Thanks for reading and responding in advance.

Yeah tech chase is a good option and if you move toward them and RC Fsmash(weak or strong) or Dsmash tipper then that's pretty good. I usually throw them offstage and edgeguard though especially if they're closer to the edge since they'll have fewer options then. If they're close though you should mix between threaten to take edge by turning your back(then Fsmash they DJ Uair or take edge afterward) or actually taking edge(into let go Fair or rising DJ Dair or hold I guess) or runoff DJ Dair at various timings to catch their delayed up-B. It's complicated but if you play with those you could get a feel for it. Also yeah the waveland walk Fsmash is the right move. That vs Fthrow is great since it's a DI mixup.

I like throwing them for tech chases at super low percents and sometimes as a mixup in certain low percent situations, but past that for lower and mid percents I'm back to Uthrow for big punishes. Then at high percents Uthrow they can get out of more reliably so I'd only Uthrow if I felt I could force them to DI offstage as a mixup to Dthrow/Fthrow then.

Respect every opponent. The minute you think an opponent in tournament is beneath you and not worth your time and you shouldn't be taking it seriously is the moment you slack off and become prey to these mindsets. It's something you need to train your mind for daily or it will happen again.

 

[Kopaka]

I've been dissecting what I know about simple stuff like dashing forward and wavedashing and it's gone like this:

• The ways I can cut the dash with tools and movement:
• dash forward dtilt
• extend the dash to its full length
• dash back out of any point of the dash
• shield
• turn the dash into a run
• sh fair, nair
• grab
• (Push into TR by some amount. And then by dashing back, moving out of TR by any amount.

I have all of these things that I can do with the dash. How do I know which of these I should do? (Maybe it's not a matter of should).

• Out of dash back, the ways I can cut the dash back are
• Dash forward again
• Shield
• Turn the dash away into a run (in dash dancing in general this is less likely)
• Extend the dash backs length
• Pivot options: Pivot fair, nair, pivot fsmash, pivot grab. Pivot shield

In the wavedash the ways I can cut it are

• Wavedash into dash forward (and then all the things that this can become)
• into dash backward (and then all the things that this can become)
• Wavedash and end in the neutral position and can do any tool I can do in the neutral position.

Then there's the unseen stuff that goes with this... In the last week or so I had forgotten about the 2-3 dashes thing. But with the 2-3 dashes thing I can see the importance of each dash to help determine what went wrong with what I did at the end of it. This kind of gives me a bit more leniency to work through all the ways I can cut the dashes at any point during the dashes. I think these are the "circles" that I can make smaller. At first it was pretty daunting. A simple dash forward carried so much meaning and I did not realize how many things I could do out of a single dash forward, so it was overwhelming. It's all that information that is to be condensed, I think. I'd have opponents whizzing in front of me and it's like I'm cutting through this dense forest of information slowly right now, and then overtime the goal would be to be able to do it much quicker. (Again it feels amazing when you pull it off lol)

Is there anything you'd like to add that I might have missed? Just wanted to share this with everyone here, it's been pretty helpful so far. I want to take this sort of framework into tons of different situations not all just about neutral too.

 

[Dr Peepee]

You can WD out of dash. You can jump, which leads to drift FF and aerial timing options not to mention analog jumping as well as wavelanding or empty landing. Probably some other things but that's a fine enough list.

Starting with just one or two actions and mixing them well is a often a good place, though you can take on whatever amount of complexity you think is right.

 

[maclo4]

You really think up throw gives consistent follow ups against sheik? I know this has been talked about before, but marth only has guaranteed follow ups from like 22-30 and on no di for higher percents. I have experimented with covering one option with fair, then if they jump out covering wherever they go next, but it is kinda specific. Should I be going for more reads or am I missing something? (sry I know this has been talked about before I couldn't find it tho)