Important Carefully Ask PPMD about the Tiara Guy

[quixotic]

What do you think of these jumping approaches after seeing the opponent shield? Do you do these to beat spotdodge?

https://youtu.be/qSr8E3HkKAU?t=8m56s
https://youtu.be/6tHyHW_o7mU?t=1h46m57s

 

[Zorcey]

I think I do have a tendency to underrate how important it is to have out-of-game strategies for playing well as well as in-game, yeah. It's because I think my game knowledge alone should be able to carry me if it has to unless I'm playing someone really good, but that's a terrible way of thinking, and I need to get over it. Of course I want to improve my game knowledge as much as possible, but I'm only cheating myself by letting pride prevent me from trying my best to make my out-of-game plan as strong as possible too.

That sounds like a fine approach to me. Perhaps you can look into a little bit of closer range options as well, like when and where your Fair beats her Fair and Ftilt/Dtilt for example so you can think about how transitioning from TR to closer range(no matter which character does it).

Could you elaborate on this? I'm curious too about what AirFair asked about when each character is going, and how reactions play into this. It seems like the same thing as what you told me to study concerning "what beats what" in matchups, and while I've been trying to figure that sort of thing out, I never asked how to properly test that sort of thing. How do I test when one move beats another, and get a strong sense that I can apply in the heat of a game?

I think that's fine to try for now. Maybe a better general strategy here is to think that if you find something that isn't working or making you feel bad, change it. At least change SOMETHING. If you keep playing around with it, eventually you'll find exactly what works.

This is really, really good advice, thanks. Making changes whenever I don't like something is what I think is truly key to making good progress, because I at least trust myself to know the right thing when I find it in-game. I just have to maintain self-awareness and make sure I'm always trying new things.

 

[Kotastic]

The more I think about it, the more I think less of Marth's ledgedash as a ledge option. Even if I do a frame perfect ledgedash with full invincibility, it's really not much and it's pretty telegraphed. Almost every single time I've used ledgedash against a good player, they react and back up accordingly to beat my ledgedash which I often accompany with uptilt.

Assuming that the opponent is like within ledge roll distance, I think the only way ledgedash is good is to somehow catch them off guard when they're occupied or looking for something else, like perhaps a haxdash or something. Inputs? This is honestly something I should've asked a long time ago, but I've been doing more and more meaningful movement and exercises. Better late than never, heh.

 

[Keenan88]

Two things that I've been struggling with recently

The better the foxes i'm trying to beat get the more the neutral seems to center around me being on the ground and them being on either top plat or a side plat and mixing up when they come down with an aerial or choose not too. I have tried to get good at sharking them with up airs but I find that puts me in a disadvantaged position really often do you have any insight on how to play around this other then basically waiting for them to come down?

This is a bit more nebulous but I've been doing a ton of thinking about the merits of short hop instant fair vs doing later fairs while marth is one his way down after the short hop in neutral recently. I'm not sure that I necessarily have a very specific question but I'd be interested in hearing about your thought process on which situations each of those tools are useful in.

 

[Dr Peepee]

For this kind of positional study, do you factor in who acts first in these situations, or is it more like both are happening at the same time? I usually try and think about the startup of each option when I'm looking at these kinds of things, so generally I look at it as if both characters are acting at the same time, at least with closer positions where I think that reacting in time isn't possible.

might be a seemingly strange question, but it's the way I feel like these kinds of things play out in matches.

You can and should factor in who acts first, but it helps to start with them acting around the same time for a baseline. Reducing complexity then adding it back in later is usually best.

What do you think of these jumping approaches after seeing the opponent shield? Do you do these to beat spotdodge?

https://youtu.be/qSr8E3HkKAU?t=8m56s
https://youtu.be/6tHyHW_o7mU?t=1h46m57s

They can, but in both cases I long dash away first, which gives them an easy cue to move. I probably shouldn't have fully drifted in, or dashed fully away before committing like this I think. They're not necessarily bad, but given the actions right before each jump in, I wouldn't recommend doing it that way if it makes sense.

I think I do have a tendency to underrate how important it is to have out-of-game strategies for playing well as well as in-game, yeah. It's because I think my game knowledge alone should be able to carry me if it has to unless I'm playing someone really good, but that's a terrible way of thinking, and I need to get over it. Of course I want to improve my game knowledge as much as possible, but I'm only cheating myself by letting pride prevent me from trying my best to make my out-of-game plan as strong as possible too.



Could you elaborate on this? I'm curious too about what AirFair asked about when each character is going, and how reactions play into this. It seems like the same thing as what you told me to study concerning "what beats what" in matchups, and while I've been trying to figure that sort of thing out, I never asked how to properly test that sort of thing. How do I test when one move beats another, and get a strong sense that I can apply in the heat of a game?



This is really, really good advice, thanks. Making changes whenever I don't like something is what I think is truly key to making good progress, because I at least trust myself to know the right thing when I find it in-game. I just have to maintain self-awareness and make sure I'm always trying new things.

So for Sheik and Marth's Fair, it's often the case that if Sheik is closer her Fair will win since it's faster, and if Marth is farther his will win since it's longer + disjointed. This type of thing matters a lot when playing closer to an opponent, and can also affect how you approach. One example might be that you drift back a little more on jump-ins because you don't want to have that Fair vs Fair losing situation I described.

The more I think about it, the more I think less of Marth's ledgedash as a ledge option. Even if I do a frame perfect ledgedash with full invincibility, it's really not much and it's pretty telegraphed. Almost every single time I've used ledgedash against a good player, they react and back up accordingly to beat my ledgedash which I often accompany with uptilt.

Assuming that the opponent is like within ledge roll distance, I think the only way ledgedash is good is to somehow catch them off guard when they're occupied or looking for something else, like perhaps a haxdash or something. Inputs? This is honestly something I should've asked a long time ago, but I've been doing more and more meaningful movement and exercises. Better late than never, heh.

Yeah Marth's edgedash isn't great. The only invincible options out of perfect edgedash are like jab and up-B and shield(and maybe spotdodge/roll by extension?) lol. You have to mix up his edge game a lot with haxdash vs edgedash vs NIL vs edgehop Fair so the same cues don't give away the same stuff. That's also why I like regrabbing the edge in weird ways so it makes it harder to just plain wait and react at comfortable timings for them.

Two things that I've been struggling with recently

The better the foxes i'm trying to beat get the more the neutral seems to center around me being on the ground and them being on either top plat or a side plat and mixing up when they come down with an aerial or choose not too. I have tried to get good at sharking them with up airs but I find that puts me in a disadvantaged position really often do you have any insight on how to play around this other then basically waiting for them to come down?

This is a bit more nebulous but I've been doing a ton of thinking about the merits of short hop instant fair vs doing later fairs while marth is one his way down after the short hop in neutral recently. I'm not sure that I necessarily have a very specific question but I'd be interested in hearing about your thought process on which situations each of those tools are useful in.

I like retreating Bair/Fair against them since it's safe from pretty much everything and damaging them will make them want to come down. Hard to give more specifics without saying which stage or top or side platforms, but I would try that instead of Uair and tipper them pretty much always and see how that goes. Mix that with SH and empty land vs DJ and attack and they can't always just come down when they see you jump, which gives you influence over them.

Rising Fair is great to catch instant actions and can cover a lot of stuff like jumps or movements in and can attack shield decently too. The downside is if you whiff you're in a lot of lag, but it's also usually worse to hit holding down/shielding opponents with rising Fair unless you fade away because of lag then too. Late Fair puts the lag primarily before the aerial comes out and so often doesn't cover jumps so easily since it's lower and people usually jump before or as you start your jump, but it's safer if it can hit and often on whiff too. If you drift in with it you're still blown up. Also, if you late Fair you can opt to just not do the Fair if you see them try to come over you or position themselves just out of Fair range to punish/attack your Fair lag.

 

[Kotastic]

Does anyone here know if IC's d-throw --> f/up-smash is ever a true combo on Marth, especially at high percents at any DI? I've seen quite a bit of those happen like up-smash at DI in or WD up-smash at DI away, and I feel like they're kind of fraudulent but I'm not sure.

 

[Dr Peepee]

I'm pretty sure that's entirely real, but you can always ask Kadano or some ICs that know more about it I guess. I wouldn't think you'd need to WD Usmash DI away and could just hit Fsmash out of throw, but maybe there's something else going on.

 

[Sylarius]

Someone posted a combo video of you yesterday PP, seems pretty cool maybe you want to take a look?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThZAepWH9XA

Also, what benefits did you notice from meditating regularly and increasing your times? And I remember you saying you felt pretty overwhelmed when you streamed up to the point of tearing up. Would you say you were always kind of emotional like that or is becoming 'softer' (if it happened) something that happened in the last few years? Seems a lot different than from your older videos, especially seeing some of the tags you used vs Mango at stuff like KoC lol.

Thanks ^_^

 

[Dr Peepee]

Increasing meditation times led me to have greater focus, greater self control, greater depth of thought, new ideas, better relaxation, clearer thinking, and more. I also once had a flow state experience which honestly will keep me hooked for the rest of my life. I really miss being able to really go deeper in it due to my health.

Overwhelmed when I streamed? Hm...I don't remember that much, but with my depression being what it was that makes some sense. I was always pretty emotional, but very unwilling to show anything vulnerable until more recent years. It was a conscious choice that came with removing mental blockages. I was certainly not taking part in that sort of thing when I played Mango at KoC lol.

 

[vitorswimer]

Dr. Peepee, I would like to know your thoughts about the match: Zain vs Armada's peach(smash summit 6)? What he could have done better to beat him?

Talking about meditation.... I recommend the book "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle. I love this book! Helped me a lot in the hardest moments of my life.

It is a very powerful book that teaches the importance of being present in the moment, how the addiction of thinking is destructive and how people suffer so much because of the past and the future and end up forgetting the most important thing the Now.

 

[Kotastic]

Question in what I should do in this situation vs Falcon https://youtu.be/RmF9r2QFUaU?t=4m4s
I dash forward WD back twice to see what he would do while I'm inside his full drift in nair TR, in which he undershot with nair twice. I then went in with nair to beat his option, but he then dash backed grabbed my nair, possibly from reaction to my jump or a read. Should I instead gradually take space instead or rising fair instead?

https://youtu.be/RmF9r2QFUaU?t=5m26s
What should I do to edgeguard Falcon? I wanted to catch the apex of his up-B so he has no drift options, but nair seems finnicky. I don't really want to use fair because it's too weak or risk getting the tipper hitbox of it

Also, why does M2K favor FoD over YS against Armada's Peach? I have a hard time thinking why he doesn't CP YS. Additionally, why does Marths against Foxes have a losing record in FoD but generally fare better in YS? Currently, I favor the opposite stages from the top meta (YS > FoD in Peach mu, FoD > YS in Fox mu), and I'm wondering if I should make the switch.

 

[AirFair]

Question in what I should do in this situation vs Falcon https://youtu.be/RmF9r2QFUaU?t=4m4s
I dash forward WD back twice to see what he would do while I'm inside his full drift in nair TR, in which he undershot with nair twice. I then went in with nair to beat his option, but he then dash backed grabbed my nair, possibly from reaction to my jump or a read. Should I instead gradually take space instead or rising fair instead?

https://youtu.be/RmF9r2QFUaU?t=5m26s
What should I do to edgeguard Falcon? I wanted to catch the apex of his up-B so he has no drift options, but nair seems finnicky. I don't really want to use fair because it's too weak or risk getting the tipper hitbox of it

Also, why does M2K favor FoD over YS against Armada's Peach? I have a hard time thinking why he doesn't CP YS. Additionally, why does Marths against Foxes have a losing record in FoD but generally fare better in YS? Currently, I favor the opposite stages from the top meta (YS > FoD in Peach mu, FoD > YS in Fox mu), and I'm wondering if I should make the switch.

Just my input from watching the two clips:

-when you went in with nair, you did this too early as he was landing from his nair., so it was far enough away where he could react and punish you The last two times you dashed in, he would back up a bit and then do those nairs to beat dtilt. Knowing this, I think that it would have been better to dash forward again like you were, and then you could react to him jumping with rising fair, or push in more and then do the nair first if you wanted since he was most likely going to back up.

-I don't see why fair would work against you here, even though I think you wouldn't be able to combo at that percent, though I get what you mean about the tipper hitbox. Maybe fh bair would have helped more, since it starts from below marth as well as hits falcon out. You could always just use uair if you were confident you could kill off what would most likely become a juggle situation from the DI in (same thing can be said about tipper fair)

edit: just so that there is a question here of my own:

What can marth do when the IC"s are doing ice blocks/blizzard from across the stage and he is down? I was playing an ice climbers player today who would just keep hitting ice blocks as both popo and nana, and then start blizzard up when I would get closer. I'm not sure what I can do in this situation to get a punish and control of the match back, since I felt like I was going to get timed out because I was down a stock. This was on stadium for context but the question can apply to all stages.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Dr. Peepee, I would like to know your thoughts about the match: Zain vs Armada's peach(smash summit 6)? What he could have done better to beat him?

Talking about meditation.... I recommend the book "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle. I love this book! Helped me a lot in the hardest moments of my life.

It is a very powerful book that teaches the importance of being present in the moment, how the addiction of thinking is destructive and how people suffer so much because of the past and the future and end up forgetting the most important thing the Now.

So I watched most of the first two stocks again, and it looks like Zain just shields too much, gets off the edge too predictably, and lunges at Armada from far away or swings too close to him without hitting. This all exactly what Peach wants.

I've heard of various things that try to get people into the now. Anything that can do it well I'm very much about.

Question in what I should do in this situation vs Falcon https://youtu.be/RmF9r2QFUaU?t=4m4s
I dash forward WD back twice to see what he would do while I'm inside his full drift in nair TR, in which he undershot with nair twice. I then went in with nair to beat his option, but he then dash backed grabbed my nair, possibly from reaction to my jump or a read. Should I instead gradually take space instead or rising fair instead?

https://youtu.be/RmF9r2QFUaU?t=5m26s
What should I do to edgeguard Falcon? I wanted to catch the apex of his up-B so he has no drift options, but nair seems finnicky. I don't really want to use fair because it's too weak or risk getting the tipper hitbox of it

Also, why does M2K favor FoD over YS against Armada's Peach? I have a hard time thinking why he doesn't CP YS. Additionally, why does Marths against Foxes have a losing record in FoD but generally fare better in YS? Currently, I favor the opposite stages from the top meta (YS > FoD in Peach mu, FoD > YS in Fox mu), and I'm wondering if I should make the switch.

You could run in and Dtilt as he dashes away, or run in and grab his landing lag, or run in and Nair/Fair his Nair. You Naired at his landing from too far away so he had an easy punish, but you manipulated well.

I'd have just Baired/Faired him back off at this percent, but if you can react to his drift back you can just FF with him and late Fair before you land and then go out and hit him with another Fair/Bair as he starts his up-B again. I don't like Nair vs his up-B since it's not a constant hitbox when you need it like Bair/Fair are. I'd just practice getting weak Fair if I were you. Also getting tipper Fair at mid and low percents can still be really good. It's a super straightforward edgeguard once you've practiced it in isolation a few times.

Maybe M2K just prefers the survivability of FoD? And maybe on YS they like the platform structure for punishes? I don't really know, that doesn't make much sense to me either. FoD can mess up your zoning with its weird platform heights so maybe that's something too. I think Fox's best level vs Marth is either YS or DL though, so I dunno why Marths would opt to go there unless they personally were just so good on it or Foxes so bad on it that it didn't matter.

edit: just so that there is a question here of my own:

What can marth do when the IC"s are doing ice blocks/blizzard from across the stage and he is down? I was playing an ice climbers player today who would just keep hitting ice blocks as both popo and nana, and then start blizzard up when I would get closer. I'm not sure what I can do in this situation to get a punish and control of the match back, since I felt like I was going to get timed out because I was down a stock. This was on stadium for context but the question can apply to all stages.

I sometimes FH over all of this or just walk and jab to get over there. FH + platforms on non-FD stages help avoid it pretty well, and FH in itself has some useful drift you can use to get in that space diagonally in front of ICs they can't challenge well. If they do blizzard you can also go over them, but many opt to desync Uair while blizzard is going on now so you just have to wait it out. I think once the blizzard is over you can pressure them, and also before it starts up you may be able to as well by jumping over the last ice block and attacking. It's a kinda weird strategy overall but that worked fine for me. I think there might be older Moon/M2K matches where they fight against Nintendude doing this but I don't fully remember.

 

[YNZ]

Hey PPMD! hopefully this isnt an overly discussed/stupid/off topic question but I was wondering if you could give some tips for the Marth V Falco matchup (specifically the neutral game)

Im relatively new to melee (been playing for like 8 months) but im trying to improve really fast. I saw a post on reddit that you made about the marth falco matchup and there you said something about WD in take laser jab being a good approach and also run in Side B being decent too (this post might have been from a while ago).

Recently i watched that Mango vs Zain match at smash summit 6 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqTPH2PPwTQ&t=569s i think you've probably seen it) In this match i saw zain do a lot of nair approaches and I feel like whenever they landed, he would get a huge punish. If his nairs got stuffed by laser, hed just throw out a quick fair after and convert off of that. I never saw him do WD in Jab or side B though.

Ive tried doing WD jab approaches on my friends and they work for the most part but against like 20xx cpus and some crazy netplay falcos I just whiff the jab and get fullhop dair --> shined --> etc. Even if the jab connects sometimes ill end up getting comboed!

Other times i wavedash too far/not far enough and whiff the jab + get comboed for whiffing.

It does work against players sometimes though and ill score a run in grab or dtilt off of the jabs :D Not sure why they worked tho : (

Basically i was wondering if Nairing to approach falcos is viable (I understand nair is usually unsafe on shield but if falcos are always jumpin and lasering/doing aerials i feel like itd be nice in this matchup) Also, is WD in jab not working for me because im being too predictable or using it incorrectly or something? If so how do i use WD in (take laser) Jab correctly/counter getting fullhop daired after landing a jab?

Thank you so much in advance! :D

EDIT: ONE MORE QUESTION SORRY

As marth, I know how it important it is to keep people cornered and pressured but most of my pressure (when people are cornered) consists of spaced dtilts to make them jump/roll and then nairing/fairing/fsmashing their jump or turnaround grabbing the roll. Is this kinda pressure any good? Because i dont really see too many top players use it (maybe im dumb and havent watched vids closely enough but i see most of the top players dashdance to bait out like a move or something when they corner someone)

 

[Dr Peepee]

Nair'ing to approach does look more viable than I originally considered when I wrote that post, but it is a little risky. If you space the Nair on shield you're probably still going to be safe as well. For WD in jab, it is a pretty complicated tool. You start by making Falco not want to approach with these Nairs or take laser jab in place(beats approaches when spaced and done immediately) or take laser dash back(pivot grab is good vs other approaches and less committal since you don't have to grab unless you see them come in). This causes Falco to slow down and change his pacing and laser game. This means he will do more lasers in place as well. If you WD in upon seeing this, you can take laser jab them from an even closer spacing. Similarly, if you're just around take laser jab spacing then you can react to Falco doing a laser in place with dash side B and at least disrupt him but sometimes get more damage on him(if he DJs away you could even take his jump). You may also find using some dash attack worthwhile as it goes underneath many laser heights and most Falcos don't hold down against it. Also, if you crouch PS you can get pretty free PS' if they shoot above your small crouch height so that's a good way to come in. Finally, dash back PS makes your PS vs any laser very strong since Marth's shield when he shields from dash away is behind him. However, facing away after you PS isn't super useful so you'll have to experiment to see when that's worth it. Hopefully you find some of this useful.

That kind of pressure is EXACTLY what you should be doing! Keep it simple and outrange their OOS options then blow up whatever they're forced to do. That's Marth.

 

[quixotic]

What do you think about these empty hops?

https://youtu.be/jDwrW7QXCSA?t=27s

Should I be fullhopping to beat puff coming in from this angle? Or maybe use side b?

Also why do you go for fh fadeback fair here instead of sh? :
https://youtu.be/DZq_JB1A7ZY?t=4s

 

[YNZ]

WOAH YOU REPLY FAST! Thanks so much PP!! This helps a ton!! Wishing you the best! <3

 

[AirFair]

I've been thinking about practice lately, and I think that I'm not prepared enough for some niche situations. I played a peach in tournament recently who pulled 3 stitchfaces in a row during one of our games. I thought that I had a good idea of what to do when peach has a stitchface, but I couldn't execute those ideas properly. The same thing happened a few times when peach had a turnip and I made mistakes trying to go over it. It made me feel like I hadn't learned anything, and that I wasn't improving fast enough. I felt as though I had studied how to play against turnips and stitchfaces enough, but I was still beaten. I'm going to look at these positions more going forward, but are there things I can do to better prepare myself for these situations? It feels like I practice for some things and then by the time I actually have to play against them it's like I have forgotten what I had planned to do. How can I retain these things without having to constantly check over them? I feel like this question can apply to matchups in general as well, since I'm often only working on one or two matchups at a time, while the others I rely on my internalized knowledge until I go back to expand them.

ps. I also started reading The Talent Code today. The concept of deep practice is really interesting, and I'm wondering how it can be applied to melee. The type of practice I do now seems focused in a different way, less about the form/execution of the action in particular, but more about it's application and properties, though I guess you need both in a way lol

 

[Socrates]

Speaking of Falco, laser question for you. During a match the other day I was trying to interrupt laser approaches with side-b, but the falco was timing lasers in such a way that they were following the lasers closely enough that I wasn’t able to get the move out after the laser before I was hit by whatever he was approaching with. What’s the answer to this? It felt like they were closing the gap so closely that i couldn’t fit anything in between.

Sorry if I didn’t describe the situation properly, when I get home I can try and find some video evidence

 

[A_Reverie]

Speaking of Falco, laser question for you. During a match the other day I was trying to interrupt laser approaches with side-b, but the falco was timing lasers in such a way that they were following the lasers closely enough that I wasn’t able to get the move out after the laser before I was hit by whatever he was approaching with. What’s the answer to this? It felt like they were closing the gap so closely that i couldn’t fit anything in between.

Sorry if I didn’t describe the situation properly, when I get home I can try and find some video evidence

Dashing in with side-b is better for stealing a hit on Falco when he's doing stationary lasers. PP mentions this further up when he talks about discouraging the Falco from moving forward. You're letting the Falco you're playing against come forward unchallenged because you're coming forward at the same time with the wrong option. Try take laser jab or take laser dashback in these situations instead.

 

[Dr Peepee]

What do you think about these empty hops?

https://youtu.be/jDwrW7QXCSA?t=27s

Should I be fullhopping to beat puff coming in from this angle? Or maybe use side b?

Also why do you go for fh fadeback fair here instead of sh? :
https://youtu.be/DZq_JB1A7ZY?t=4s

First empty hop worked out okay but I'd have done it on the side platform. Second one you want to FF asap because you want to cover Puff as she moves away and has less jumps since she obviously won't run into your SH from that distance. I'm not sure I would have empty hopped the second time though. I may have rising Faired into Puff since she was close, or dashed back to prep for a dash/WD in punish or to let her burn yet another jump so I can have an easier punish in the future. You did too many dashes toward the end and that's what really got you.

I thought he would land on the platform shield, and I wanted to be sure I was safe and hit if I could. It's possible I could have converted into a harder punish, but I'm not sure how reliable it could have been.

I've been thinking about practice lately, and I think that I'm not prepared enough for some niche situations. I played a peach in tournament recently who pulled 3 stitchfaces in a row during one of our games. I thought that I had a good idea of what to do when peach has a stitchface, but I couldn't execute those ideas properly. The same thing happened a few times when peach had a turnip and I made mistakes trying to go over it. It made me feel like I hadn't learned anything, and that I wasn't improving fast enough. I felt as though I had studied how to play against turnips and stitchfaces enough, but I was still beaten. I'm going to look at these positions more going forward, but are there things I can do to better prepare myself for these situations? It feels like I practice for some things and then by the time I actually have to play against them it's like I have forgotten what I had planned to do. How can I retain these things without having to constantly check over them? I feel like this question can apply to matchups in general as well, since I'm often only working on one or two matchups at a time, while the others I rely on my internalized knowledge until I go back to expand them.

ps. I also started reading The Talent Code today. The concept of deep practice is really interesting, and I'm wondering how it can be applied to melee. The type of practice I do now seems focused in a different way, less about the form/execution of the action in particular, but more about it's application and properties, though I guess you need both in a way lol

What I do for memory is write down (simple) forms of the info I work out while working on a matchup. So for Sheik I might write "try Fair/Dtilt zoning but also try movement...not so much you get needled" as a quick neutral reminder that helps me remember the nuance from there.

As far as learning goes, there's just so much to learn so sometimes the best we can do is get what we think is most important and then let tourneys teach us the rest or how to prioritize.

Speaking of Falco, laser question for you. During a match the other day I was trying to interrupt laser approaches with side-b, but the falco was timing lasers in such a way that they were following the lasers closely enough that I wasn’t able to get the move out after the laser before I was hit by whatever he was approaching with. What’s the answer to this? It felt like they were closing the gap so closely that i couldn’t fit anything in between.

Sorry if I didn’t describe the situation properly, when I get home I can try and find some video evidence

Ah, that's because you can't beat much with side B after taking laser. I only dash side B to interrupt laser startup, ideally after slowing Falco down. I like take laser jab and take laser dash to beat approaches and begin to slow Falco down. Take laser jab must be done right away and can't be done if you can't tipper it doing it quickly but otherwise it beats everything besides laser Fsmash in place, which is really risky on Falco's part lol.

 

[Doof_]

At the beginning of game 2 zain catches Llod's DJ and possibly could've 0-deathed him off of it. After the first upair following the uptilt I think Zain could've positioned himself to do a rising fair and depending on the way Llod drifted he could get a tipper fair to continue the juggle or a weak fair to carry him off stage.

https://youtu.be/KaPj1ti4jww?t=6m9s

Is there something better he could've done once he caught the DJ instead of what I said either before or after that upair under the platform that sent Llod right?

Also Zain does a couple Dtilt in neutral that felt like they were "bad" He would try to overshoot/hit where Llod was with them. Like you have mentioned if you're going to call out a dash back like this you could do something that will give a large reward like dash attack, grab, or fsmash.

Would doing the dtilt to stop Llods movement forward by doing it a little further away be a better way to use dtilt?

Pretty much I'm asking if A.) was the dtilt as an option not ideal or B.) was the execution of the dtilt not ideal?

 

[Socrates]

So in situations where jab won’t tipper, you’re saying dash (back) is the best bet?

 

[Doof_]

So in situations where jab won’t tipper, you’re saying dash (back) is the best bet?

Fade back nair or fair aren't too bad either if you time it right after the laser because you can either A.) Waveland out of the laser if they shoot another B.) Fair after the laser if they shoot another C.) you end up stuffing their approach after the laser

 

[Dr Peepee]

At the beginning of game 2 zain catches Llod's DJ and possibly could've 0-deathed him off of it. After the first upair following the uptilt I think Zain could've positioned himself to do a rising fair and depending on the way Llod drifted he could get a tipper fair to continue the juggle or a weak fair to carry him off stage.

https://youtu.be/KaPj1ti4jww?t=6m9s

Is there something better he could've done once he caught the DJ instead of what I said either before or after that upair under the platform that sent Llod right?

Also Zain does a couple Dtilt in neutral that felt like they were "bad" He would try to overshoot/hit where Llod was with them. Like you have mentioned if you're going to call out a dash back like this you could do something that will give a large reward like dash attack, grab, or fsmash.

Would doing the dtilt to stop Llods movement forward by doing it a little further away be a better way to use dtilt?

Pretty much I'm asking if A.) was the dtilt as an option not ideal or B.) was the execution of the dtilt not ideal?

Well it would've been hard since Llod went into him to Fair, but he could have dashed back in and Faired maybe. I don't mind the next Uair, but at that point Llod didn't have many options anymore so he should be looking for Fair then, and instead ran right into Bair so that's where I think the problem was.

Dtilt is still safer than these other tools and it makes them respect your dash more so approaching Dtilt is okay, but it's not something to spam.

So in situations where jab won’t tipper, you’re saying dash (back) is the best bet?

Dash back is usually better yeah, and sometimes dash under can be good. You may need to dash WD away to fully get away, or retreating Bair, or run in and shield...depending on what they want to do. If they Nair or late aerial there's a lot you can do like aerial to beat them, but if they early or maybe mid Dair then shield beats/saves you from that but most everything else is hard to do. It's not a good position for this reason.

 

[Deleted member]

..........

 

[Zorcey]

I’m trying to develop my ability to control, which feels like what I need to beat Top 100 players. I’ve been able to play a few at this point, but even when I have a lead I always feel like I’m playing from behind. (Best example I can think of was in a set with KPAN a few months ago: I was so close to four stocking him but just couldn’t press that final advantage and let him reverse on me. But even with such a lead, I didn’t actually feel like I was “winning” to begin with.) This makes the game unenjoyable and makes me feel bad about my play even when it’s working, which I thought were interesting feelings.


Since my last set with a Top 100 player was awhile ago, I’ve made a lot of progress, but regardless I believe if I fought one now, it would be a lot of the same. But next time I don’t want to feel like I’m being controlled, but that I’m doing the controlling. However, “control” is so nebulous, because it can be used to describe a couple different things I’ve found: conditioning, positioning, and threatening. Personally I think the ideal would be a synthesis of these three subskills, but what does that look like? A longish definition would be going beyond noticing what the opponent's habits and punishing those, but instead making them make mistakes, by picking what situations play out when, and forcing them to deal with it. Is this correct?


What do you recommend as an approach to developing this skill? Or rather, should I go about it by focusing on each subskill separately, and expect control to emerge from that? It’s when they all come together that it becomes confusing to really understand at a deep level.


Alsooo: happy to update that I’ve been over my training rut for a bit now, which some rest and self-love helped with. I’ve come out of the experience with even more new epiphanies that I can just feel accelerating my growth, and it’s so cool. I’ve developed an ability to be totally honest with myself about whether I’m engaged and learning something when I’m playing, and if I’m not, what I could be learning, without the loathing that used to accompany it, which only ever got in the way of my thinking. This has helped my solo practice, and especially my friendlies practice, which I finally understand how to play. I come away from practice now feeling like I’ve learned things, rather than spent an hour or two ramming my head against a wall. It’s the tangible progress that I’ve been chasing for over a year now that I feel under my fingers every time I turn the Wii on, and it’s sick and Melee is sick. Gotta keep working hard so I can keep growing, because there are still a bunch of skills to tackle, but I’m hype. Again, thanks for teaching me and all of us PP <3

 

[Kotastic]

^ I feel like I can offer inputs on how to get over the hurdle of winning really good players, top 100 level players included, and you said it yourself: You didn't feel like winning. I feel like you're trying to rationalize it by saying you didn't have "control" during your set vs. KPAN in terms of outplaying him, but I moreso think your issue is a mentality thing. To me though, I think both goes hand in hand with control. Everyone is different on what works for them in terms of mentality. For instance, I have heard Armada tell himself that he could lose to a non-Top 6 member before tournaments, yet he has yet to drop a set. For me, that doesn't work at all when I tried to adopt that mentality, and in fact that made my general tournament performance worse. I have adjusted and thought about my best win conditions outside the game, and in due time I found out that if I just focused on winning, regardless of who is playing, it brings out my peak performance.

I would guess that for you, if you don't have the will to win, you create yourself so much more needless obstacles that makes it so much harder to secure a win and as you said, control. You don't have focus, and you might think of outside factors like wow, this might be my break to fight a top 100 player, and you get needlessly nervous. Or perhaps you get tilted the moment you lose a stock, clouding your head. Irrelevant thoughts will make it harder for you to secure wins because you're not focused on the match at hand. I can't tell you exactly what might get you into the zone, but for me personally it's just asserting my will to win. Perhaps you can try that, and adjust around what works and what doesn't.

I can anecdotally tell you that during my run where I beat Squid and Faceroll, I didn't care that I was fighting top 100 level players. Despite the fact that I've never beaten either of them and had like an 0-10 record to each of them, I simply wanted to bring out what I've learned about the matchups over the months. Having a clear head in what works in each matchup and asserting my will to win, I honestly forgot who I was fighting during my games. I forgot I was fighting Faceroll, the man who has oppressed every SoCal Marth in history with his brutal punish game which even PPU can't handle. During the moment, he was just some random red Sheik who was under my oppression in the corner and juggle sequences. I understood what I did wrong in between neutral interactions, and I made sure to adjust accordingly. What matters most to me as a competitor is to focus and maintain a clear head. And this goes without saying, I trained daily for this. Thinking about my killer instinct, asserting my will to win, self-compassion, etc. Every day, I meditated, and every other day I exercised and used my body in effort to adjust my mentality. Again, this process took months for me and I'm still training, and I doubt you will just magically have a better mentality immediately after reading my post and PP's advice (or anyone else for that matter), but perhaps in the coming months you might be ready for Shine!

Edit: It seems that I may have misread your post, and moreso you're asking that perhaps you don't understand why you got a lead in the first place. In that case, all I can offer is seriously focusing why you did x led to y in the first place. If you don't know why such interaction occurred, then you're effectively wasting your time and stunting your growth, but PP can probably give you a better answer. Still, I think what I said about mentality hurdles for players better than you is worthwhile.

 

[Zorcey]

^ I feel like I can offer inputs on how to get over the hurdle of winning really good players, top 100 level players included, and you said it yourself: You didn't feel like winning. I feel like you're trying to rationalize it by saying you didn't have "control" during your set vs. KPAN in terms of outplaying him, but I moreso think your issue is a mentality thing. To me though, I think both goes hand in hand with control. Everyone is different on what works for them in terms of mentality. For instance, I have heard Armada tell himself that he could lose to a non-Top 6 member before tournaments, yet he has yet to drop a set. For me, that doesn't work at all when I tried to adopt that mentality, and in fact that made my general tournament performance worse. I have adjusted and thought about my best win conditions outside the game, and in due time I found out that if I just focused on winning, regardless of who is playing, it brings out my peak performance.

I would guess that for you, if you don't have the will to win, you create yourself so much more needless obstacles that makes it so much harder to secure a win and as you said, control. You don't have focus, and you might think of outside factors like wow, this might be my break to fight a top 100 player, and you get needlessly nervous. Or perhaps you get tilted the moment you lose a stock, clouding your head. Irrelevant thoughts will make it harder for you to secure wins because you're not focused on the match at hand. I can't tell you exactly what might get you into the zone, but for me personally it's just asserting my will to win. Perhaps you can try that, and adjust around what works and what doesn't.

I can anecdotally tell you that during my run where I beat Squid and Faceroll, I didn't care that I was fighting top 100 level players. Despite the fact that I've never beaten either of them and had like an 0-10 record to each of them, I simply wanted to bring out what I've learned about the matchups over the months. Having a clear head in what works in each matchup and asserting my will to win, I honestly forgot who I was fighting during my games. I forgot I was fighting Faceroll, the man who has oppressed every SoCal Marth in history with his brutal punish game which even PPU can't handle. During the moment, he was just some random red Sheik who was under my oppression in the corner and juggle sequences. I understood what I did wrong in between neutral interactions, and I made sure to adjust accordingly. What matters most to me as a competitor is to focus and maintain a clear head. And this goes without saying, I trained daily for this. Thinking about my killer instinct, asserting my will to win, self-compassion, etc. Every day, I meditated, and every other day I exercised and used my body in effort to adjust my mentality. Again, this process took months for me and I'm still training, and I doubt you will just magically have a better mentality immediately after reading my post and PP's advice (or anyone else for that matter), but perhaps in the coming months you might be ready for Shine!

Edit: It seems that I may have misread your post, and moreso you're asking that perhaps you don't understand why you got a lead in the first place. In that case, all I can offer is seriously focusing why you did x led to y in the first place. If you don't know why such interaction occurred, then you're effectively wasting your time and stunting your growth, but PP can probably give you a better answer. Still, I think what I said about mentality hurdles for players better than you is worthwhile.

It’s funny, I wouldn’t say you misread the post, because what you said was pretty much correct, but it was out-of-game stuff when like you said my perspective was more in-game. That said, there is a mentality component to me beating ranked players, and it’s just like you say: it’s a focused assertion of my will to win. I have perfectionist tendencies, so if I’m not playing to the standard of clean play I’ve set up for myself based on peak performance, I do get down on myself and tell myself either consciously or subconsciously I “don’t deserve to win.” This is extremely self-destructive, but what I’ve found in my studies of the game is that when I understand a situation really well, even if it doesn’t work out in my favor, it doesn’t compromise my focus, and doesn’t cause self-loathing, because I get what happened and am no longer jarred out of the game.


So yeah, just an explanation of how I got my perspective versus yours of the same thing: understanding the game helps me to focus and get over perfectionism, and so if I understand how to get, maintain, and press a lead versus a strong player, when those situations occur I won’t have to think “what do I do here omg I’m so bad” and lose my focus on the match and get reversed on. There’s a particular phenomenon of “snowballing” in this game that I’ve experienced on both sides, where pressure just waterfalls onto a player and destroys them. I want to harness that, but maybe I only see it as important because that’s been my experience fighting Top 100 players? It always starts out in my favor, my focus declines for various reasons, and they snowball until - just like you say - I don’t have the will to fight back. I want to turn that back on them, but maybe before I can do that I need to learn to win myself. ...Thinking about this, it honestly could be an underlying problem in more ways than I realize: my guilt over winning, salt phobia, tendency to hold back, and more, all could be the manifestation of a weak will to win. I have to put more thought into this.


I like what you say about “not caring” who your opponent is, because I relate to that during times when I play my best: I’m entirely in the game and couldn’t even tell you who I was playing - it becomes a flow experience. However, I’m not sure how to cultivate that beyond focus, which currently I do exercise and mediation to build as well. Is there any other work you’ve done you’d recommend?

 

[Kotastic]

Yeah, I actually had that problem for awhile when I messed up during tournament play, self-deprecating myself at all. Deep down, I'm a perfectionist as well that only wants the best Melee possible, but in reality that's not gonna work out too often, if ever. I used to get pretty upset every time I messed up, and that would only result into getting into my own head. And while technically I'm right that I did mess up, saying that in tournament in the moment is unproductive, and only results to more obstacles for focus and therefore decreases my will to win.

There was several times where I messed up during my run vs. Squid and Faceroll. Multiple times where I would just randomly drop sequences or even just SD. But the best way to go about it, for me at least, is to just accept it and move on, and keep your head in the game. Do what works best for you, as I believe the Inner Game of Tennis advocates non-judgmental thinking. X beats y and so on. Oh I messed up, let's see how I can make the best out of a worst situation. Again, this took me extensive training to get over, as I repeatedly meditated and simulated those situations that I would self-deprecate myself and instead replaced those thoughts with acceptance and moved on.

I also wouldn't say a perfectionist mindset is necessarily bad, it can help you improve after match analysis and solo practice. I do think it needs to be toned down in the moment during tournament performance. Also yeah "the snowball effect" I suppose comes from just knowing the game and how good your mentality is. I can't tell you how many times faceroll 4-stocked me before I was able to stand a chance lol.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Question. What are your thoughts on playing to learn vs playing to win? I'm sure you've gone through this topic a million times before so just linking your thoughts or giving a TL;DR about it is fine


For me right now it's like eating vegetables as a kid or exercising. I know it'll improve me in the long run (and it has, I've been doing it for the past few months and seen a fair amount of growth in my own play) but tournament results say otherwise (still haven't broken past 2-2, and while I know there are alot of variables surrounding this and I know that tournament results don't matter much in regards to the grand scheme of things, it's still frustrating to think about)

Playing to learn is great because it lets you practice really observing a match while playing without being tense. It also ensures adaptation since you're looking only to test what you want. Playing to win is great because it lets you bring all of these separate learned things together to train for tournament and to build your will to win. When you can do both well, they truly enhance each other and you can begin to adapt while playing to win.

I’m trying to develop my ability to control, which feels like what I need to beat Top 100 players. I’ve been able to play a few at this point, but even when I have a lead I always feel like I’m playing from behind. (Best example I can think of was in a set with KPAN a few months ago: I was so close to four stocking him but just couldn’t press that final advantage and let him reverse on me. But even with such a lead, I didn’t actually feel like I was “winning” to begin with.) This makes the game unenjoyable and makes me feel bad about my play even when it’s working, which I thought were interesting feelings.


Since my last set with a Top 100 player was awhile ago, I’ve made a lot of progress, but regardless I believe if I fought one now, it would be a lot of the same. But next time I don’t want to feel like I’m being controlled, but that I’m doing the controlling. However, “control” is so nebulous, because it can be used to describe a couple different things I’ve found: conditioning, positioning, and threatening. Personally I think the ideal would be a synthesis of these three subskills, but what does that look like? A longish definition would be going beyond noticing what the opponent's habits and punishing those, but instead making them make mistakes, by picking what situations play out when, and forcing them to deal with it. Is this correct?


What do you recommend as an approach to developing this skill? Or rather, should I go about it by focusing on each subskill separately, and expect control to emerge from that? It’s when they all come together that it becomes confusing to really understand at a deep level.


Alsooo: happy to update that I’ve been over my training rut for a bit now, which some rest and self-love helped with. I’ve come out of the experience with even more new epiphanies that I can just feel accelerating my growth, and it’s so cool. I’ve developed an ability to be totally honest with myself about whether I’m engaged and learning something when I’m playing, and if I’m not, what I could be learning, without the loathing that used to accompany it, which only ever got in the way of my thinking. This has helped my solo practice, and especially my friendlies practice, which I finally understand how to play. I come away from practice now feeling like I’ve learned things, rather than spent an hour or two ramming my head against a wall. It’s the tangible progress that I’ve been chasing for over a year now that I feel under my fingers every time I turn the Wii on, and it’s sick and Melee is sick. Gotta keep working hard so I can keep growing, because there are still a bunch of skills to tackle, but I’m hype. Again, thanks for teaching me and all of us PP <3

I'm not sure if you feel Kotastic is covering your bases or not but I think this could be a good experience for you both so I will stay back until specifically asked for, but I did want to say I'm super happy you've moved past your training rut and given yourself some kindness! Very cool man =)

 

[Zorcey]

Yeah, I actually had that problem for awhile when I messed up during tournament play, self-deprecating myself at all. Deep down, I'm a perfectionist as well that only wants the best Melee possible, but in reality that's not gonna work out too often, if ever. I used to get pretty upset every time I messed up, and that would only result into getting into my own head. And while technically I'm right that I did mess up, saying that in tournament in the moment is unproductive, and only results to more obstacles for focus and therefore decreases my will to win.

There was several times where I messed up during my run vs. Squid and Faceroll. Multiple times where I would just randomly drop sequences or even just SD. But the best way to go about it, for me at least, is to just accept it and move on, and keep your head in the game. Do what works best for you, as I believe the Inner Game of Tennis advocates non-judgmental thinking. X beats y and so on. Oh I messed up, let's see how I can make the best out of a worst situation. Again, this took me extensive training to get over, as I repeatedly meditated and simulated those situations that I would self-deprecate myself and instead replaced those thoughts with acceptance and moved on.

I also wouldn't say a perfectionist mindset is necessarily bad, it can help you improve after match analysis and solo practice. I do think it needs to be toned down in the moment during tournament performance. Also yeah "the snowball effect" I suppose comes from just knowing the game and how good your mentality is. I can't tell you how many times faceroll 4-stocked me before I was able to stand a chance lol.

Yeah, totally agree with this. I think our perfectionistic natures are what drive us to play the best Melee we can, but we both have to be careful to not let perfectionism control us, and make us slaves of an impossible standard. Like we’ve both mentioned, that comes from understanding the game, and the self-love we’re trying to cultivate.

Still, however, as competitors we have to abuse an opponent’s inferior mentality when it exists, and I think control as an in-game concept is a big part of that. You obviously don’t want them to snowball, but we want to go further than that, and be able to snowball ourselves, and crush their will to win. Manifestations of this are giving them cues and manipulating them (conditioning), getting to pick out what situations play out when (positioning), and forcing them to play bad hands (threatening). But is strengthing our own mentality and weakening our opponent’s something to be synthesized, or are they separate? Idk.

I'm not sure if you feel Kotastic is covering your bases or not but I think this could be a good experience for you both so I will stay back until specifically asked for, but I did want to say I'm super happy you've moved past your training rut and given yourself some kindness! Very cool man =)

I’m not sure myself, but I’m always open to discussion and advice so I’m having a good time lol. Regardless your thoughts are always a good read, so feel free to add them, but if you’d rather sit this out and just let the students dialogue I get that. But thanks.

 

[Kotastic]

Yeah, this is the part where I suppose this topic gets a lot more nebulous. Just as Marth as a character, I know that if he's at an advantageous position such as cornering or below the opponent, he is such an oppressive character that often if done correctly, should theoreically net at least a lot of percent and wear out the opponent. That's not even including dumb x-factor stuff Marth can do like gimps and tippers. That's bound to at least cause some psychological advantage from such strong control Marth has. I don't think having a strong mentality and weakening your opponent's mentality are necessarily mutually exclusive, but it's a topic I don't actively really think about so I think PP can answer your question more in detail there.

 

[Dr Peepee]

I’m trying to develop my ability to control, which feels like what I need to beat Top 100 players. I’ve been able to play a few at this point, but even when I have a lead I always feel like I’m playing from behind. (Best example I can think of was in a set with KPAN a few months ago: I was so close to four stocking him but just couldn’t press that final advantage and let him reverse on me. But even with such a lead, I didn’t actually feel like I was “winning” to begin with.) This makes the game unenjoyable and makes me feel bad about my play even when it’s working, which I thought were interesting feelings.


Since my last set with a Top 100 player was awhile ago, I’ve made a lot of progress, but regardless I believe if I fought one now, it would be a lot of the same. But next time I don’t want to feel like I’m being controlled, but that I’m doing the controlling. However, “control” is so nebulous, because it can be used to describe a couple different things I’ve found: conditioning, positioning, and threatening. Personally I think the ideal would be a synthesis of these three subskills, but what does that look like? A longish definition would be going beyond noticing what the opponent's habits and punishing those, but instead making them make mistakes, by picking what situations play out when, and forcing them to deal with it. Is this correct?


What do you recommend as an approach to developing this skill? Or rather, should I go about it by focusing on each subskill separately, and expect control to emerge from that? It’s when they all come together that it becomes confusing to really understand at a deep level.


Alsooo: happy to update that I’ve been over my training rut for a bit now, which some rest and self-love helped with. I’ve come out of the experience with even more new epiphanies that I can just feel accelerating my growth, and it’s so cool. I’ve developed an ability to be totally honest with myself about whether I’m engaged and learning something when I’m playing, and if I’m not, what I could be learning, without the loathing that used to accompany it, which only ever got in the way of my thinking. This has helped my solo practice, and especially my friendlies practice, which I finally understand how to play. I come away from practice now feeling like I’ve learned things, rather than spent an hour or two ramming my head against a wall. It’s the tangible progress that I’ve been chasing for over a year now that I feel under my fingers every time I turn the Wii on, and it’s sick and Melee is sick. Gotta keep working hard so I can keep growing, because there are still a bunch of skills to tackle, but I’m hype. Again, thanks for teaching me and all of us PP <3

I'm interested. If you weren't winning when you were about to 4-stock Kpan, why? How did you take those stocks then? Also if you progressed then you would have progressed at the skills you mentioned, right? Or did you only improve at say punish? It may be helpful to show me some examples of where things succeed but you don't have control, or a point where you feel you lose it as well.

To me, control is from internalizing core concepts. It's very much like what you're talking about. Those skills you mention are interrelated, so working on them separately will help the whole. However, building even a very simple gameplan can give you control, you don't need to wait until you're a top player. You can control with observations out of WD back or out of aerial in place and then press in/counter the opponent with your information using minimally technical play if you want. Now, control is very very hard to have when you're not a strong player, or when you're playing someone as good as you or better. They will just navigate positions better. This is why you want to learn your favorite positions as thoroughly as possible, as this is where you can have control vs people who may be said to be better than you. This isn't easy and will just take time and effort and there's not much else I can say about it without more specifics. So your worry about control is at least somewhat reasonably founded, but you can also probably do more about it than you think right now.

 

[Zorcey]

There were a few reasons I didn’t feel like I was winning: one was I felt (perhaps rationally, perhaps not) he must have been underestimating me going into the set, so it was just me catching him offguard; another was iirc two of my kills were at fairly low percents (I got uthrow under right BF platform > Nair to punish techroll to the right > Tipper Fsmash, as an example), so I got huge reward in the places I outplayed him, but I couldn’t tell you how we got there, I just capitalized; another was I felt absolutely oppressed by his lasers, and when I broke through I didn’t know why it happened, and got extremely discouraged when he just FH’d away, because I didn’t know then what to do about it.

So I felt like I wasn’t winning, because I wasn’t winning nearly as much in Neutral, just getting more out of my punishes, so the lead I had was “undeserved.” I was taking stocks without understanding how I got them, and it made me nervous, guilty, and killed my focus and will to win. I think I’d feel the same way if I fought a Top 100 player again right now - win or lose - because I haven’t been able to root out these feeling of not “deserving” wins unless I outplay them in Neutral, and understand exactly how it happened. I understand more situations now than a few months ago, and I’ve laid groundwork for being able to understand even more situations faster and at a deeper level, but I haven’t put much work at all into my will to win at this point.

But that’s where what Kotastic said was really helpful, because he pointed a problem a level deeper than the one I was already looking at. I need to be more accepting of not understanding a situation when it comes up in tournament, and not let it diminish my will to win. However, like I was saying, I also need to take charge in-game, by pushing the situations I want and preventing the ones I don’t.

And okay, this makes sense. I’ll work on learning my favorite positions as deeply as I can, but then how do I make them play my situations? I should condition them into using options that encourage playing my situations, and discourage options that would keep them from playing my situations, right? At that point, it seems like linking different situations together to build a chain, which I think is what I was looking for. However, I need to understand every situation along that chain to execute it effectively. And when it doesn’t work out, I need to identify the problem nonjudgementally, accept it, and analyze it when I have time, without letting the problem compromise my will to win or focus in the moment. This is what I’ve gotten from reflecting on this all day, what do you think?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Even if he did underestimate you, is it not on him to adjust? Sets are long so there is not much excuse there. This only serves to discount your own play really. You punishing is a prop to yourself, but of course you'd do well to remember how you got the good or bad situation since it helps long term. Do you remember what about his lasers or his FHs you couldn't handle, or what you tried that didn't work?

Kotastic is right then. You will NEVER know every situation, and you WILL be surprised in tournament. Yes it's best to be as prepared as you can, but just as important is the skill of adaptation, of anticipation. If you can adjust to something you see once or twice in tournament, you have a major leg up on your competitors. It means they can't only win with analysis or practice and must continually outplay you to win. In this specific instance it also sounds like you could do with learning more about Falco/about how Kpan was playing, but it's true there is a more general lesson here as well, as usual with tourney experience.

You make someone play what you want by starting with more neutral and/or common positions in the matches and figuring out how to get them there. Let's keep in mind that after the first stock people are often close together after a kill due to invincibility. How will you manipulate invincibility to have advantage just as the timer runs out? Top players surely do this, but you can too. What about at full neutral on DL? How will you find a way to get close to Falco without him having a laser out? Will you beat his approaches first and slow him down, or focus more on PS to rush your way in, or use platforms to lure him into you? There are many ways to solve problems and get situations you prefer, but it's up to you how to get there. Then you get more and more specific once you choose a path obviously. I think your analysis is fair.

 

[Zorcey]

Yeah, it is on him to adjust, as a competitor I need to abuse weak points when they come up - for his sake as well as my own - there’s no shame in that. I understand that at the rational level, and did even then, but in the moment it’s very easy for the irrational to come through, which is why I’m going to try taking thoughts these you and I mention, and work on substituting them into my thinking - in both meditations and matches.

From what I can remember, he was really beating me at the spacing game, firing lasers outside my TR I couldn’t think to do much against besides PS, which I wasn’t very good at, and at that weird middle spacing that’s too close for DA but too far for aerials. Also a lot of approaching lasers (that I’ve since learned to PS grab or dash back > take laser Jab), and reverse lasers that discouraged me from using aerials. I felt very telegraphed and uncertain how to break out of his conditioning. FH played into this to the extent it felt like he always knew when I’d come in and could just jump away, which was particularly hard to deal with before my aerials knocked down, when even if I got him as he jumped, I got nothing at best and reversaled at worst. (This was key to him turning the game around iirc, and I still need to work on beating FH at those percents without overextending when Falco’s in the corner. I feel like I can only hit Uair and it’s risky and does nothing for me.) So overall I felt like he had successful conditioning I didn’t know how to break, and I didn’t know how to handle common situations he was abusing. Between these I felt like I played pretty bad versus him, and that killed my will to win too.

I guess I struggle with how I should handle adaption, now that you mention it. On one hand I recognize I have to accept when I don’t understand and not let it break my focus, but on the other if I don’t work out that situation right then, my opponent can - and when they’re good will - abuse it against me. It’s a weird balance to have to strike, and I’m not sure how to do it. Studying Falco will give me a good foundation to figure out anything new that comes up in tournament, but is that the key, or just the right track?

 

[Dr Peepee]

What have you decided to do about that middle laser spacing? Also, are you going to keep trying to rely on PS? What do you think may have tipped him off that you'd attack so he would FH, and what positions could help give him an idea of this?

It sounds like part of your issue is building a foundation, so that will make doing anything hard. Once you learn what makes Falco scared and Marth strong, and have a decent foundation, you won't need all of the answers always. For now though it's much more understandable to feel lost when something like this happens. Even so, you can still see exactly what he's doing and always counter that, so you should build up your resolve and trust your training to see what's going on. If you don't, then you need to mentally and in-game train more.

 

[Sylarius]

I love Kevin Nanney

 

[Kotastic]

I decided to do some testing with jab in the falco mu, and I honestly can't believe I haven't been implemented this to my gameplan far earlier than before. It practically beats all of Falco's approaches, and it's pretty hard for Falco to act immediately out of it or CC especially when tippered. I think the biggest plus of this tool is that it forces Falco to actually think. While I'm still exploring more of this tool, I found that that various ways Falco can beat my jabs is being somehow right outside of the range and dairing, DD a bit and try to find openings or FH and try to use platforms to weave around me. The FH and dair I found that a simple answer could be just jumping after the FH and fair and dash back vs dair. As for dash dancing, I'm not sure what exactly are the best options since the Falco isn't exactly approaching but still is threatening space. Would perhaps WD jab beat this, and the WD would allow me to see what the Falco does?

Also, I found that tipper jab kind of destroys Falco in the corner. I need to test this further, but using some jabs literally beats everything Falco can do out of the corner including SH dair, which you noted was a slight problem previously when cornering Falco. Falco can try to laser out of the corner, but again jab in place beats all of Falco's approaches. The only thing Falco can do is roll, which is easily reactable. The only problem is that I'm not sure if I can jab Falco's shield and grab him if Falco buffers roll, in which I can just apply less is more principle when the Falco recognizes my jab threat. Thoughts?

With this whole take laser jab, I think take laser dash back is kinda a worse version oof take laser jab. For now, I have been using dash back in anticipation that Falco might use dair to beat some of my jab timings or wavedash jab threat. I only think dash back is really only good for netting grabs, which is a very high reward in it of itself to warrant continued used, but it's not as good as a tool as I previously thought. I'm still exploring more about my tools vs. Falco as I have only really tested it out rather recently, but for the first time in awhile in addition for take laser jabs with my anti-Falco toolkit, I feel like I'm playing the mu honestly rather than gimmicking and looking for gimps.


Additional questions I have is regarding juggling. For fastfallers, I'm often not sure how to catch them on the way down especially when they dair on the way down alongside with their ff and airdodge mixups. This is especially problematic when Falco dairs on his way down and I'm not sure how to intercept it when he gets down towards top platform. Are there important components for juggling fastfallers I'm not aware of, or is it a read on how they think they will come down?
For floaties, I have started to notice some patterns as how they like to come down, which perhaps might be a noob thing to do at our levels. When they fall towards me, more often than not they attack on the way down in which I abuse with SH to make them think I'll attack then FF WD fsmash or dash fair. When they fall away from me, I go ahead and stay diagonal to them and try to fair them. Am I simply abusing common habits that they could change, or is me reacting to drift enough to grasp the principle of Marth juggling?


Final question is regarding Peach throws. There are times where I attempt to throw them in a corner, and they DI in a way where they immediately float and nair me when I'm primed to tech chase. Is it a read that I need to make to fsmash them, or are there cues for me to react?

Additionally, I have some issues with Peach crouching to immediately DA or something to send a false positive that they're pulling turnip, which is especially effective to me since I play the mu very reactively whenever Peach pulls turnip to immediate dtilt or grab. I think this is something I have to read on my part, or do you think it's worth it for me to study the animation difference between crouch and pulling turnip?