Important Carefully Ask PPMD about the Tiara Guy

[Socrates]

Well, you may want to think of how these things impact the opponent. Or maybe stop thinking about those things so often and just focus more on doing the inputs well.

The truth is that this stuff is much more boring on the surface than how most people practice. I think of it like what I've read and experienced a little with martial art. Some people may find practicing the same punch over and over boring, but eventually they surprise themselves and do really powerful ones as their training progresses. This would happen even when they might not understand the point of doing the punch over and over. That metaphor always helped me enjoy practicing since I knew I'd get somewhere better eventually, and I was right, but I don't know how else to explain it to someone else.

That’s fair, I can understand that. I guess a lot of it just has to do with having faith that what I’m doing is actually going to help in the long run, but that’s true for any kind of practice.

 

[Kopaka]

That’s fair, I can understand that. I guess a lot of it just has to do with having faith that what I’m doing is actually going to help in the long run, but that’s true for any kind of practice.

Yeah like practicing dash forward wavedash back a bunch, then having a bunch of them work out no so great in matches, then you get the one or two that work out and get you information and you feel it working and it makes it all worth it

 

[Zorcey]

Yeah like practicing dash forward wavedash back a bunch, then having a bunch of them work out no so great in matches, then you get the one or two that work out and get you information and you feel it working and it makes it all worth it

I've been experiencing this too, especially as I've been working to simplify my play and constantly break it down. If anything, I wonder why the feeling of "ah, x interacts with y that way" is still so sporadic for me, but that could be because I need to simplify and focus my play even more.

Which brings me to a question for Dr Peepee : when I play this way, very slowly and methodically with a directed focus, in friendlies I'll sometimes get run over by flashy spacies, and even characters like Sheik and Peach when they know what they're doing, because their punish games are so strong on Marth. When my opponent is going hard, it's difficult for me to think about or feel through my moves, basically. It makes me wonder if this is the way I should be approaching friendlies, because how I'm looking at it now, my opponent is just "in the way," which seems... wrong. But honestly I'm at a point that whenever I'm playing friendlies, I'm feeling I should be practicing on my own instead because that's more productive, but that's probably because I need to reframe? What do you think?

Oh, but my solo-training has been going well so far, I think. Still working out how I can keep a lot of material fresh with 2 hours a day, but I've been experimenting with your suggestions and I'm pleased with a lot of the results.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Yeah it honestly sounds like you just need to spend more time practicing and that'd be more productive. You're probably not ready to apply yet. You can do more analysis if you want to keep current knowledge, and friendlies occasionally is okay if you can work out some compromised strategy. Sometimes I too just feel the need to practice and the opponent is distracting me from connecting with the game instead of letting me go deeper. I think it's different if I'm not a top player having this problem though, so feel to disregard my comment and experiment if you want.

I'm glad the training is going well!

 

[Kotastic]

Tbh, I hear all this talk about dashing and stuff it entails, when reality I don't think I really utilize them that well. The way how I play the game is pretty blunt: I just do options that beats my opponent's options. Whether that involves dash back, using my zoning tools, or whatever else I have, I honestly think my play is borderline very simple.

I kinda don't really know what's my "primary" style of play as a result of my typical win conditions. I don't think I really have a style in this game that screams, oh that's me. I've asked some of my opponents how they thought I play, and in general they thought I play pretty reactionary to the options they throw out and play pretty textbook when it comes to abusing matchups. Meaning I guess I'd play more dash dance heavy when it comes do Falcon, but I'm perfectly okay with zoning when it comes to like ICs.

Do you think with me constantly playing by the textbook and just usually thinking what beats my opponent's options will hit a wall at some point? Hearing all these talk about movement kinda makes me uncomfortable, and more than anything it just makes me feel indifferent about it tbh.

 

[Dr Peepee]

I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all. Marth as a character really embodies the idea of just beating them by putting them in helpless situations and making them suffer. It also likely says you're not as interested with outplays so much as understanding game mechanics, which generally helps people improve more.

My only thought when I've watched you play is you seem kind of stuck and could use slightly more movement(on average), implying there is some rigidity there, but with just a tweak to that you'd be fine.

I'd be quite a hypocrite to hate on textbook play, as that got me to become a top player =p

 

[Kotastic]

How is it that you seamlessly evade these dash attacks ever so slightly? https://youtu.be/JmAYz6NTLao?t=3m28s

How come Zain's dash dance fails here? https://youtu.be/zU_y0xpyKQY?t=24m13s

Was it perhaps Zain was too close to immediate DA range, so really d-tilt in place is the best option there? Whereas in your clip, you seemed to have ample space to work with.

 

[Kopaka]

Yeah it honestly sounds like you just need to spend more time practicing and that'd be more productive. You're probably not ready to apply yet. You can do more analysis if you want to keep current knowledge, and friendlies occasionally is okay if you can work out some compromised strategy. Sometimes I too just feel the need to practice and the opponent is distracting me from connecting with the game instead of letting me go deeper. I think it's different if I'm not a top player having this problem though, so feel to disregard my comment and experiment if you want.

I'm glad the training is going well!

That's something I don't think a lot of people realize. Friendlies can be counter productive especially if the friendlies are too distracting or go on for too long where both players eventually get disconnected or bored and start playing roy dittos.

Also Zorcey Socrates

"Well, you may want to think of how these things impact the opponent. Or maybe stop thinking about those things so often and just focus more on doing the inputs well. " Doing the inputs well is what I think is the key first step. Dashforward wavedash Down tilt is a sequence that already has a number of things that could go wrong. Maybe you should have wavedashed down instead of forward. Maybe you'd miss the wavedash input and do a short hop down air instead of a down tilt. Maybe you'd wavedash but then miss the down tilt input entirely. Get what you need to deliberately do on the execution side with repetition that way you're able to do it without thinking, thus freeing up mental space in your brain to focus on other things, the other side of the techniques, the "Well, you may want to think of how these things impact the opponent." side of it. The "how do they respond to x y z" etc. It's like being new at a job or task. At first you stink at it and need conscious training. Then way down the road with practice and repetition and exposure you can do the task while talking about some TV show to your friend. In the Melee case the benefit you could get from that freed mental space is a little bit more productive and crucial in a tournament match but I think you get the point.

 

[Dr Peepee]

How is it that you seamlessly evade these dash attacks ever so slightly? https://youtu.be/JmAYz6NTLao?t=3m28s

How come Zain's dash dance fails here? https://youtu.be/zU_y0xpyKQY?t=24m13s

Was it perhaps Zain was too close to immediate DA range, so really d-tilt in place is the best option there? Whereas in your clip, you seemed to have ample space to work with.

I was a bit farther away, but I also reacted to M2K coming in and backed up accordingly. If I was closer, I could always double dash away instead of forcing the dash back in, which is what got Zain hit(in addition to maybe not reacting, being slightly closer, etc).

 

[Zorcey]

So I've been thinking about friendlies for the past day, and I believe part of why I'm not ready to get a lot out of them is because I'm not going in with a solid idea of "this is what I'm applying." It seems related to what was said earlier about top players having such finely honed, simple gameplans, because they take their gameplans into friendlies to refine/change them. But I go into friendlies too open-endedly, because I haven't considered myself knowledgable enough to have a concrete gameplan, which leads to having no direction.

I see that in the Top 6 there are few, if any, extraneous inputs, and it's so cool and elegant and ughhhhhh. I try to imitate that by having as much intention behind my moves as possible, but then I end up running behind the game when I play friendlies. I understand I should have things I've internalized from practice, and I do when it comes to a lot of punish game things like chaingrabs and certain combos and techchase situations, but Neutral is much less intuitive.

It makes sense I wouldn't be ready to play friendlies when I don't have a practiced gameplan, but at the same time, how do I know what to practice without playing a lot of friendlies - especially Neutral stuff? So what I did was spend a couple of hours writing about a 2 page gameplan for relevant matchups that summarize what I want to keep in mind at different game stages (rather than my usual notes all over the place lol), and having done so I feel a lot more comfortable with the idea of friendlies, but I'm not totally sure why. I think I can focus more on my opponent, rather than the matchup, at least. Do you think this sounds like a solid approach? Would you have any suggestions to add? In any case, this is just for when friendlies do come up, since I don't plan to compromise my solo practice.

Also, kind of an extra question that I've always wondered about: top players can give the impression that friendlies are the most important part of improving ("play a lot friendlies" is literally always m2k's training advice, top players are always streaming friendlies, etc.); I've always suspected that's misguided, but I really don't know. I guess I'm just asking if you think friendlies are overrated or not, even by good players.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Yeah you should still organize your notes for matchups into simple forms. Goals. Winning positions and how to punish. Then you go into the matches and see how well that matches up with reality. Then revise. Nothing wrong with application as it builds on your practice and analysis. It's a three-pronged approach to improvement that I think is very good.

On that note, I am very unusual in regards to typical advice top players give. I don't think Leffen would say the friendlies thing(or he's less likely to in my mind), but the others would. I think they all do a fair amount of analysis as well, but the majority of their growth will come from friendlies. I think this is an older approach we all had when we started, but I was never fortunate enough to maintain since I needed analysis to grow due to my circumstances. Basically, yes I think to them friendlies are largely what matters. To me, it is very important but just one of three aspects of growth.

 

[Deleted member]

Dr Peepee , this is a bit random, but which diet lead to your weight loss? I'd greatly appreciate it, thank you.

 

[Dr Peepee]

It's called the Plant Paradox diet.

 

[Kotastic]

I've been focusing a bit more in my movement lately to try to have a better understanding of one of Marth's greatest strengths. I played friendlies with an alright Fox player that knew what he was doing often. Say, start at neutral position in BF, I would do a long forward dash then WD back to have this "free read" to see how my opponent responds to this, all while have the visual stimulus of me facing him so I still feel like a threat. I got a feel that for the most part, he is very likely to slight walk FH if I approached him. So I started hard committing with my forward dash, priming myself when my opponent would typically slight walk, and intercept with like a WD up-tilt or SH fair to get big openings. Since Marth's punishes on Fox are pretty lengthy sometimes, I usually could confirm this option like twice or thrice since he wouldn't remember. However if the punish sequence wasn't very long or he just simply catches on, he would call me out with slight walk shield or up-smash which beats my respective options. I think you said before that I need to simply know my opponent, which can be helped with free reads and all. I think when it comes to this nebulous part of the game where stuff like conditioning don't last forever, I think it's a matter of perhaps feeling the "wavelength" of your opponent. Tbh, I'm not sure what kind of question that precisely encapsulates what I'm thinking, but I would like to know how I can get a feel on my unfamiliar opponent as quickly as possible in tournament, if I'm on the right track, and anything else you'd feel is relevant for this topic.

Also with these dash topics, I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this scenario. Say neutral spawn position on FD vs. Fox. You dash forward then dash back, presumably to gain info. The Fox player also dashes forward then dashes back for the same thing. What does that tell you, and what would you do? How much changes if your opponent was a Marth or Falcon doing the same thing?

I also feel like doing any more than 2 dashes in succession feel pretty pointless and confusing. Like if I get away with stuff like these, I feel like it has no business working like this: https://youtu.be/QdXWAPqgctE?t=6m3s
The reason why I asked the above scenario with FD is because I feel like I get the most susceptible to doing more than 2+ dashes with my dashes having diminished value. Or is that even relevant? The point of dash dashing IS to make Marth ambiguous, right? Maybe the dashes communicate to the opponent that I'm not approaching, and I can take that as I will? I just want to know if I should stick with 2 dash inputs, or more dashes may be required in certain scenarios.

Also, can you explain this? Is there anything you've specifically reacted to in this sequence? https://youtu.be/Gv74JXJBFwk?t=8m58s

Another question regarding your past plays, I know you have templates in each matchups accordingly to guide you how to play, as well as using your tools to give you cues to make reactionary plays. There's also extents where you could study the player, which I think is very apparent to players like Hungrybox who can typically destroy top level Fox players but not totally dominant to the mid-high level Fox players, such as one of our SoCal PR'd Fox player taking Hbox to last stock high percent in both games at Noods. Did you study a lot of your opponents that greatly helped your success as a top player, or was it mostly reactionary and matchup templates to each of your opponents.

 

[quixotic]

https://youtu.be/Kyben0iaB9I?t=11m5s

What do you think marth's best options are after you dtilt and see that sheik has crossed you up and is running to center? I've noticed that you usually go in after crossups even when you don't have frame advantage but it usually works since they're running away.

 

[Dr Peepee]

I've been focusing a bit more in my movement lately to try to have a better understanding of one of Marth's greatest strengths. I played friendlies with an alright Fox player that knew what he was doing often. Say, start at neutral position in BF, I would do a long forward dash then WD back to have this "free read" to see how my opponent responds to this, all while have the visual stimulus of me facing him so I still feel like a threat. I got a feel that for the most part, he is very likely to slight walk FH if I approached him. So I started hard committing with my forward dash, priming myself when my opponent would typically slight walk, and intercept with like a WD up-tilt or SH fair to get big openings. Since Marth's punishes on Fox are pretty lengthy sometimes, I usually could confirm this option like twice or thrice since he wouldn't remember. However if the punish sequence wasn't very long or he just simply catches on, he would call me out with slight walk shield or up-smash which beats my respective options. I think you said before that I need to simply know my opponent, which can be helped with free reads and all. I think when it comes to this nebulous part of the game where stuff like conditioning don't last forever, I think it's a matter of perhaps feeling the "wavelength" of your opponent. Tbh, I'm not sure what kind of question that precisely encapsulates what I'm thinking, but I would like to know how I can get a feel on my unfamiliar opponent as quickly as possible in tournament, if I'm on the right track, and anything else you'd feel is relevant for this topic.

Also with these dash topics, I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this scenario. Say neutral spawn position on FD vs. Fox. You dash forward then dash back, presumably to gain info. The Fox player also dashes forward then dashes back for the same thing. What does that tell you, and what would you do? How much changes if your opponent was a Marth or Falcon doing the same thing?

I also feel like doing any more than 2 dashes in succession feel pretty pointless and confusing. Like if I get away with stuff like these, I feel like it has no business working like this: https://youtu.be/QdXWAPqgctE?t=6m3s
The reason why I asked the above scenario with FD is because I feel like I get the most susceptible to doing more than 2+ dashes with my dashes having diminished value. Or is that even relevant? The point of dash dashing IS to make Marth ambiguous, right? Maybe the dashes communicate to the opponent that I'm not approaching, and I can take that as I will? I just want to know if I should stick with 2 dash inputs, or more dashes may be required in certain scenarios.

Also, can you explain this? Is there anything you've specifically reacted to in this sequence? https://youtu.be/Gv74JXJBFwk?t=8m58s

Another question regarding your past plays, I know you have templates in each matchups accordingly to guide you how to play, as well as using your tools to give you cues to make reactionary plays. There's also extents where you could study the player, which I think is very apparent to players like Hungrybox who can typically destroy top level Fox players but not totally dominant to the mid-high level Fox players, such as one of our SoCal PR'd Fox player taking Hbox to last stock high percent in both games at Noods. Did you study a lot of your opponents that greatly helped your success as a top player, or was it mostly reactionary and matchup templates to each of your opponents.

I think for that first part, you just want to work on ways to beat those counters while also putting yourself in position for punishing/threatening the FH. So you can WD down, or retreating Fair for example.

Assuming Fox and I have the EXACT same timings, which is rare, I personally would opt to push in very slightly to force them to act. So dash in quickly interrupted with WD down so I can watch what they do to me being just inside TR. I could also wait a little bit longer as my other main choice. Many people in this situation will get kind of flustered and run in, and that can be okay but I choose my options specifically because the running in never seems to work here.

Doing more than 2 dashes is okay, provided you are creating new strategies with dashes or groups of dashes. So a certain dash in or out pattern invokes a response. But if you keep doing that, as you did here, you're mostly waiting and not actively doing so much with individual dashes. This is fine but it just trades off dash usage I think. Anyway, if you do two long dashes out and in, and then switch to a long dash out short in and then WD down, you've changed your pattern. If you go back to dashing again after that with long short long, that is again another different pattern. So even if you do a lot of dashes you can still be conscious with them. So basically, individual dashes can have merit, and more than 2 can have merit, but only when you build them from the ground up OR decide to forgo individual dash merit in favor of group dash merit.

My guess is, I reacted to him waiting and I also reacted to him coming past me and also him slightly moving in with his DD.

Analysis was a major part of my growth. So I would learn things about as many individual players as possible, then try to apply that knowledge to the matchup as a whole. If something worked on everyone, or made everyone struggle, then it was probably good.

https://youtu.be/Kyben0iaB9I?t=11m5s

What do you think marth's best options are after you dtilt and see that sheik has crossed you up and is running to center? I've noticed that you usually go in after crossups even when you don't have frame advantage but it usually works since they're running away.

My immediate thoughts are two things. One is chase them if they try to move away so they don't have their back to me. The other is turn around and slightly move in to regain some stage but not get hit by them as they turn around/lunge back in. I suppose it depends on reactions, what kind of player you/they are, and what happened before this.

 

[maclo4]

Thoughts on zains run?
Edit: okay thoughts on m2k's run

 

[Zorcey]

That Summit was incredible tbh. But anyway, I was taking notes, and I've got a couple of questions on things I noticed:

- In his first set versus Armada, M2K did this weird visual mixup where he'd WL on a side platform next to Armada > shield drop > Utilt, and it worked? Haven't studied the footage yet, but I'd guess M2K played on Armada's expectation he would aerial out of his shield drop, so he either got shield poked, or hit out of his own shield drop or jump? It's a really slow play, but it was interesting all the same. What do you think of it?

- I noticed M2K stopped jumping offstage after Armada with Fair when edgeguarding, and instead just stood right at the ledge waiting. Iirc reaching with Fair was something he previously did a lot, but the change seemed to work for him because his edgeguard success rate looked really good. What do you think about that positioning? I figure that's the best spot if Peach is at a mid height, and/or pretty far out (to where you can Dtilt her floating/drifting in), but you'd want to runoff Fair if she's low and right below the ledge?

- I heard Leffen remark in commentary that Marths don't CC Peach's weak aerials, and admittedly I don't even know what aerials I should be trying to CC in that matchup, or when to try. What situations would I be looking for these, and would I be better off with grab or Dtilt as a follow up?

- I noticed when Zain was playing Plup's Samus, when he was juggling he was always staying diagonal to Samus, and this is something you've recommended here for Peach and Puff as well. Can I just consider this to apply to all floaties then, or are there exceptions I'm not considering?

- In watching M2K and Zain play the ditto, I was trying to look at their play in light of the rules you've described for the matchup, and reduce the broad interactions in Neutral to the simplest terms: when one Marth was DDing to avoid being hit by an aerial, the other Marth could Dtilt him; but if the first Marth did an aerial instead, he would beat the Dtilt, and the other Marth would have to aerial instead, earlier than the first; then the first Marth would have to DD to avoid the aerial, etc. Is my understanding of those rules ("Dtilt them," "jump when they jump") accurate? What do you think of this kind of exercise?

- I saw Zain using Nair to beat Armada dashing in when he was playing Fox. This is something I do as well, but honestly, Nair still confuses me in many ways, because often it seems like Fair would have worked just as well, and just as often Dtilt. (Exceptions are using Nair for catching runoffs/shield drops.) Is it good in a situation where Fox is dashing into you because of how long it lasts? What about in a situation where someone is coming at you with an aerial? It covers Marth above and kind of below rather than directly in front like Fair, I can see, but I'm not sure about any rules for it apart from when you want a long-lasting hitbox (which Fair definitely doesn't give Marth lol).

 

[Sylarius]

I mentioned trying out using Dtilt but possibly relying on it too much. Here when the Fox respawns, I get 32% from it but miss a pivot nair and a pivot grab soon after and eventually double fair which gets me killed.
https://youtu.be/B2qAx25GS74?t=44
The first stock the Fox had been backdashing a lot which is why I was going for a lot of pokes, and not approaching much with aerials. I was also attempting to learn/be more aggressive with my play. At that position in the stage (pushed towards me or in centre), were those dtilts reasonable or not really worth going for? Was double fair there as protection not so bad of a choice even though I die from it? Would you have done something else here?

Later on I miss a uthrow conversion and get hit by fullhop nair a second time when trying to backdash. I think at the time I was thinking he may have tried to punish my landing fair with grab or aerial but he catches me all the way back. Could I have done better by doing another aerial or defensive option instead of backdash? Also, should I have gone for nair instead of fair after the uthrow? Or read his DI and go for fair first instead of uair?
https://youtu.be/B2qAx25GS74?t=730

After watching Summit and despite liking an aggro Marth, I think I may try to incorporate more of Zain and M2K's neutrals. It seems like they do a lot of good pivot aerials and safe-ish aerials to stuff spacies trying to come in. I still am having trouble with understanding Falco actually, I watched a bunch of PPU and it seemed like his sword and character-length-away spacing was the big thing there and not so much anything else he was doing specifically for the matchup. Will try to learn from Zain-Mango and Zain-Ginger as well.

 

[Kotastic]

"I think for that first part, you just want to work on ways to beat those counters while also putting yourself in position for punishing/threatening the FH. So you can WD down, or retreating Fair for example."
Ah, so when I suspect that my opponent would start to mixup against my callout, I can counter their counter, ideally giving me stage positioning and me learning my opponent better. That seems to be a solid base for that topic.

"Assuming Fox and I have the EXACT same timings, which is rare, I personally would opt to push in very slightly to force them to act. So dash in quickly interrupted with WD down so I can watch what they do to me being just inside TR. I could also wait a little bit longer as my other main choice. Many people in this situation will get kind of flustered and run in, and that can be okay but I choose my options specifically because the running in never seems to work here."
This seems to go along with my question with how my opponent responds to my dash while being inside their TR. However, what do you mean that "the running in never seems to work here"?

"Doing more than 2 dashes is okay, provided you are creating new strategies with dashes or groups of dashes. So a certain dash in or out pattern invokes a response. But if you keep doing that, as you did here, you're mostly waiting and not actively doing so much with individual dashes. This is fine but it just trades off dash usage I think. Anyway, if you do two long dashes out and in, and then switch to a long dash out short in and then WD down, you've changed your pattern. If you go back to dashing again after that with long short long, that is again another different pattern. So even if you do a lot of dashes you can still be conscious with them. So basically, individual dashes can have merit, and more than 2 can have merit, but only when you build them from the ground up OR decide to forgo individual dash merit in favor of group dash merit."
This is definitely going towards my movement exercise that I'm implementing. Just to clarify with your response, it seems to indicate that to me, mixing up my movement ever so slightly would throw off my opponent's timing so I can subtlety trick them. Right track? Also, I seem to really only notice that group dash dancing is really only necessary against Fox, Falcon, Marth, and maaybe Sheik if she isn't too risk happy (not spamming DA, run-up d-smash or whatever). I'm not too sure about DD against puff, since it kinda detracts me personally from the importance of stage control. I find that in other matchups 1-2 dashes at most are completely fine and in fact more dashes actually detracts me from my win conditions.

"My guess is, I reacted to him waiting and I also reacted to him coming past me and also him slightly moving in with his DD."
This is referring to that dash dance sequence at Apex 2015. It's amazing to me that you can react to something that fast to a character like Fox. I can see the reaction being feasible for a matchup like the mirror, but Fox and Falcon are pretty dang fast. Is it also dependent on the TR spacing?

Also like everyone else, omg Marth is amazing. Marth is best in the game. Summit has proven to doubters that Marth is not a force to be taken lightly. M2K is amazing. Zain is the truth.

Marth is broken.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Thoughts on zains run?
Edit: okay thoughts on m2k's run

meep

That Summit was incredible tbh. But anyway, I was taking notes, and I've got a couple of questions on things I noticed:

- In his first set versus Armada, M2K did this weird visual mixup where he'd WL on a side platform next to Armada > shield drop > Utilt, and it worked? Haven't studied the footage yet, but I'd guess M2K played on Armada's expectation he would aerial out of his shield drop, so he either got shield poked, or hit out of his own shield drop or jump? It's a really slow play, but it was interesting all the same. What do you think of it?

- I noticed M2K stopped jumping offstage after Armada with Fair when edgeguarding, and instead just stood right at the ledge waiting. Iirc reaching with Fair was something he previously did a lot, but the change seemed to work for him because his edgeguard success rate looked really good. What do you think about that positioning? I figure that's the best spot if Peach is at a mid height, and/or pretty far out (to where you can Dtilt her floating/drifting in), but you'd want to runoff Fair if she's low and right below the ledge?

- I heard Leffen remark in commentary that Marths don't CC Peach's weak aerials, and admittedly I don't even know what aerials I should be trying to CC in that matchup, or when to try. What situations would I be looking for these, and would I be better off with grab or Dtilt as a follow up?

- I noticed when Zain was playing Plup's Samus, when he was juggling he was always staying diagonal to Samus, and this is something you've recommended here for Peach and Puff as well. Can I just consider this to apply to all floaties then, or are there exceptions I'm not considering?

- In watching M2K and Zain play the ditto, I was trying to look at their play in light of the rules you've described for the matchup, and reduce the broad interactions in Neutral to the simplest terms: when one Marth was DDing to avoid being hit by an aerial, the other Marth could Dtilt him; but if the first Marth did an aerial instead, he would beat the Dtilt, and the other Marth would have to aerial instead, earlier than the first; then the first Marth would have to DD to avoid the aerial, etc. Is my understanding of those rules ("Dtilt them," "jump when they jump") accurate? What do you think of this kind of exercise?

- I saw Zain using Nair to beat Armada dashing in when he was playing Fox. This is something I do as well, but honestly, Nair still confuses me in many ways, because often it seems like Fair would have worked just as well, and just as often Dtilt. (Exceptions are using Nair for catching runoffs/shield drops.) Is it good in a situation where Fox is dashing into you because of how long it lasts? What about in a situation where someone is coming at you with an aerial? It covers Marth above and kind of below rather than directly in front like Fair, I can see, but I'm not sure about any rules for it apart from when you want a long-lasting hitbox (which Fair definitely doesn't give Marth lol).

-m2k took advantage of peach's slow fall speed and armada's reaction to shield drop and decreasing shield from holding it during all of that for this play.

-both seem to work for him well, but staying still is obviously easier so it's probably harder to mess up.

-yeah leffen has pointed that out before and you can and should CC anything but Fair really. you also have to be close enough and ideally true CC, so it's not something you have to commonly do, but sometimes if you say whiff Dtilt and can ASDI down grab out of it that's pretty good. Grab is better generally when possible.

-Diagonal is pretty good generally.

-That's a fine way to look at it, though they did do some....interesting run in take Dtilt and crouch Dtilt them back stuff lol.

-Nair is moreso good because of pushback so they can't hold down and attack which lets you Nair in place, while Fair can be slightly riskier on hit unless you're close to the ground. Dtilt is safest since it's fastest and pushes back well, but of course they can jump over it. I also like retreating Fair a lot since it beats everything. From there you can mix a lot.

I mentioned trying out using Dtilt but possibly relying on it too much. Here when the Fox respawns, I get 32% from it but miss a pivot nair and a pivot grab soon after and eventually double fair which gets me killed.
https://youtu.be/B2qAx25GS74?t=44
The first stock the Fox had been backdashing a lot which is why I was going for a lot of pokes, and not approaching much with aerials. I was also attempting to learn/be more aggressive with my play. At that position in the stage (pushed towards me or in centre), were those dtilts reasonable or not really worth going for? Was double fair there as protection not so bad of a choice even though I die from it? Would you have done something else here?

Later on I miss a uthrow conversion and get hit by fullhop nair a second time when trying to backdash. I think at the time I was thinking he may have tried to punish my landing fair with grab or aerial but he catches me all the way back. Could I have done better by doing another aerial or defensive option instead of backdash? Also, should I have gone for nair instead of fair after the uthrow? Or read his DI and go for fair first instead of uair?
https://youtu.be/B2qAx25GS74?t=730

After watching Summit and despite liking an aggro Marth, I think I may try to incorporate more of Zain and M2K's neutrals. It seems like they do a lot of good pivot aerials and safe-ish aerials to stuff spacies trying to come in. I still am having trouble with understanding Falco actually, I watched a bunch of PPU and it seemed like his sword and character-length-away spacing was the big thing there and not so much anything else he was doing specifically for the matchup. Will try to learn from Zain-Mango and Zain-Ginger as well.

If you want to push the aggression, you need to recognize when you've stuffed his approach and slowed him down and either move in or stay in place without Dtilt'ing after hitting it. You want good reactions to what he does next, and pushing him away with Dtilt gives you space to react. The first Fair was okay, but doing the second when he couldn't be hit by it is what killed you. You should have FF'd. You were also a bit close when you started the Fairs.

You could have WD'd, or gone through him instead since you both were very close and you kept back dashing when he was near. Also you dashed under Fox before rising with Fair, so just don't dash under if you want to hit him next time. The Uair was okay I think.

"I think for that first part, you just want to work on ways to beat those counters while also putting yourself in position for punishing/threatening the FH. So you can WD down, or retreating Fair for example."
Ah, so when I suspect that my opponent would start to mixup against my callout, I can counter their counter, ideally giving me stage positioning and me learning my opponent better. That seems to be a solid base for that topic.

"Assuming Fox and I have the EXACT same timings, which is rare, I personally would opt to push in very slightly to force them to act. So dash in quickly interrupted with WD down so I can watch what they do to me being just inside TR. I could also wait a little bit longer as my other main choice. Many people in this situation will get kind of flustered and run in, and that can be okay but I choose my options specifically because the running in never seems to work here."
This seems to go along with my question with how my opponent responds to my dash while being inside their TR. However, what do you mean that "the running in never seems to work here"?

"Doing more than 2 dashes is okay, provided you are creating new strategies with dashes or groups of dashes. So a certain dash in or out pattern invokes a response. But if you keep doing that, as you did here, you're mostly waiting and not actively doing so much with individual dashes. This is fine but it just trades off dash usage I think. Anyway, if you do two long dashes out and in, and then switch to a long dash out short in and then WD down, you've changed your pattern. If you go back to dashing again after that with long short long, that is again another different pattern. So even if you do a lot of dashes you can still be conscious with them. So basically, individual dashes can have merit, and more than 2 can have merit, but only when you build them from the ground up OR decide to forgo individual dash merit in favor of group dash merit."
This is definitely going towards my movement exercise that I'm implementing. Just to clarify with your response, it seems to indicate that to me, mixing up my movement ever so slightly would throw off my opponent's timing so I can subtlety trick them. Right track? Also, I seem to really only notice that group dash dancing is really only necessary against Fox, Falcon, Marth, and maaybe Sheik if she isn't too risk happy (not spamming DA, run-up d-smash or whatever). I'm not too sure about DD against puff, since it kinda detracts me personally from the importance of stage control. I find that in other matchups 1-2 dashes at most are completely fine and in fact more dashes actually detracts me from my win conditions.

"My guess is, I reacted to him waiting and I also reacted to him coming past me and also him slightly moving in with his DD."
This is referring to that dash dance sequence at Apex 2015. It's amazing to me that you can react to something that fast to a character like Fox. I can see the reaction being feasible for a matchup like the mirror, but Fox and Falcon are pretty dang fast. Is it also dependent on the TR spacing?

Also like everyone else, omg Marth is amazing. Marth is best in the game. Summit has proven to doubters that Marth is not a force to be taken lightly. M2K is amazing. Zain is the truth.

Marth is broken.

Running in never working is mostly about how people get flustered when their timings with the opponent are exactly the same. Maybe I'm just nitpicking.

Right track.
And yes you do tend to need DD more in those matchups.

TR spacing, but also familiar positionings. So if I force them to respond to my dash in, and I've practiced the situation a ton and all of the small changes, I can be much faster than they can for example.

Marth is amazing.

 

[maclo4]

Okay im curious what you dont like about the meta

 

[Dr Peepee]

NOT WHAT I WANTED TO HAPPEN

meep

 

[Zorcey]

Didn’t think of it that way, because like other people I got caught up in the hype of the spectacle, but you’re right, it is shallow when you want the game to be volatile just for the sake of it, and not because of player skill. But I guess as far as I’m concerned it’s just an invitation to catch up more quickly, so I and everyone here should really double their efforts lol.

 

[Socrates]

Everyone's lazy, complacent, not pushing their metas farther and often falling backward. Armada becoming complacent may have made the game more volatile, but it is a hollow victory for a spectator in my opinion. I don't want to elaborate on this, and yes I could say when it's more true or less true for certain individuals, but I'm already running a risk saying this much.

I was gonna ask about those Nairs m2k was doing in that last game against Armada, but I think this about answer my question.

On a slightly related note, I know you've flat out said that there aren't any good puff/marth sets to watch. However, I'm trying to deal with a certain netplay legend and need something to analyze. I've got these so far:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDxvY_MVctI
PPU is a little bit DD heavy here but he seems to at least have the stage control down

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80QHoWe2xQY
M2K seems much more minimal than normal in this one but also gets messed up by rest a lot. Can't tell if he's playing lazy or what.

My question for you is, is there anything that you see in these vods (or in general) that top players do that should strictly be avoided? If I know what to stay away from I can at least try to take the good away from the few decent vods that exist.

 

[Dr Peepee]

PPU doing Dtilt while Puff is in the air is pretty bad. Immediate pivot Fsmash, which Marths still do is pretty bad. Moving away from Puff when she's landing on platforms and you've cornered her so you can't pressure her, especially when she can't shield drop is bad. Opting to shield and side B so much against Puff is bad. Trying to move fast and Uair after you get a hit is bad. Alright I'm moving on to m2k lol.

Don't dash attack unless it can pop up and you space it and even then do it sparingly. Fading back a lot into rushing down with Dtilt/Nair is not great. I think DD is pretty important to keep this from being telegraphed and think it's hard to zone Puff since it seems to force you back a lot, but if you can get around this problem that these two had then maybe it's alright. I never tested how to do it though. Coming down with side B/neutral B when Puff is still pretty far away for an easy reaction doesn't help you much. Hit Puff with up-B when she does fadeback Fair off the edge when she's edgeguarding. When edgeguarding, you don't need to shield. You can move away from incoming aerial then dash/WD back in and hit. Repeat as needed and you can mix in stand as needed.

 

[Kopaka]

Is even the interval of time between dashes in the middle of a dash dance something to be practiced and aware of or am I just crazy? I just finished a practice session and thought that it's actually something that I was never aware of until just now. The time between my thumb going from right to left, the tempo/spacing difference in accordance to whatever situation I'm in and my opponents options and what they'd come at me with. Because it's like to me "Oh, I can see that in a match this tiny interval of time where I hit left for this many frames could be adjusted because blah blah" It's been really wild to see what you don't realize until you focus on practicing slowly and deliberately.

 

[AirFair]

I've been feeling super overwhelmed lately, like I don't know what to work on at all. At the very least I thought up some things to ask about to maybe get myself back on track.

I went to a tournament last weekend, and over the course of the event, I noticed that my dd was not very effective. I wasn't taking advantage of the info that I was getting with my dashes, and making some misplays as a result. I think it's because I tried doing them too fast, more than I had practiced, since I felt like I needed to keep up the pace for some reason (feeling like I exert more pressure/threat when moving faster I guess). Do you think stalling more and doing the strings slower as I gain more experience with them useful in tournament? I think doing that will help me use my movement much more effectively, but I'm not sure if there is a tradeoff I haven't thought of.

The big thing that I've been trying to understand more is in-fighting. Part of that for me has been studying positions and looking at where I can use tools like dash/wd back to safely create space, and where I need dtilt or retreating fair to beat them attacking me at those spacings. Most of it though is just trying to get a solid framework/conception of what it is.

The way I see it currently is that first the game transitions into infighting, sometimes it is abrupt because of a dropped punish, and sometimes it is when someone pushes into a range, but the second I think ties much more into outfighting, since those kind of responses/actions are better set up from TR. This can give one player advantage over the other, whether it be positonal or frame advantage. This can make both players inclined to do certain things already (roll/dash back/swing with disadvantage, attack/observe with advantage) After that, it's kind of messy to me lol. There is usually not that much room to react to anything that the opponent does, and so any swings I make here seem like guesses. When I use dashes in these situations, I feel like while I can make room to observe, I can still get super messed up by swinging too early or too late.

https://youtu.be/uuBNpUJPChk?t=30s
here, the situation begins after falcon rolls. I come forward with a sh nair meant to beat him coming in to me, which he avoids. I think I didn't need to do this nair. I dash away as he shs for a bair most likely (also probably should have done something different out of the nair), and then he shields as I begin to dash in again. I feel like the dashes didn't have much purpose. Maybe if I had stalled on the dash back I could have confirmed the sh and maybe done a wd dtilt or something. I also didn't push in after seeing him put his shield up, maybe because I was more concerned with getting hit with something like side b.

I'm having trouble applying my knowledge of positions to the actual games themselves, since everything is moving much faster. How can I better structure my actions within TR to play those positions better? is part of the answer to just be more deliberate?

 

[Zorcey]

Spending the day mapping out TR for every relevant character on every stage, which is grueling but long overdue. I’m having some weird results that contradict what I had previously believed, so I need halp:

Since learning TR as a concept, I’ve always been under the impression that Marth’s was the biggest. However, I see in characters like Fox, Falcon, and even Falco a little bit that they rival or even exceed what Marth can do out of WD with their FH, SH, and Laser respectively:

- Fox FH is fast and covers half of BF with full drift. It seems unreactable about a third of the stage away, at which point if I were Fox I’d use it to beat Marth SH. But this means that Fox TR rivals Marth TR (which I also determined covers a third of BF). Is this correct? I feel like I’m missing something.

- Falcon’s SH Stomp is ridiculously fast and covers half of BF if you full commit. It’s not something I expect a Falcon to necessarily do often, but it’s there. This one confuses me because I’m not sure if I should fight inside or outside it. (Inside means I’m in the TR of Falcons other moves, outside means he’s outside TR of my moves.)

- Falco’s laser approach can catch Marth even when he’s standing outside WD Dtilt range. I guess I knew this, but I’ve never thought about it deeply like I should be. What do I make of this? WD Dtilt isn’t even that good versus Falco, but this means the threats Marth does make use of (Dash Fair, Dash SideB, Jab, etc) are definitely outranged by Falco? Am I missing something here too, or does Marth really not have the longest reaching TR?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Is even the interval of time between dashes in the middle of a dash dance something to be practiced and aware of or am I just crazy? I just finished a practice session and thought that it's actually something that I was never aware of until just now. The time between my thumb going from right to left, the tempo/spacing difference in accordance to whatever situation I'm in and my opponents options and what they'd come at me with. Because it's like to me "Oh, I can see that in a match this tiny interval of time where I hit left for this many frames could be adjusted because blah blah" It's been really wild to see what you don't realize until you focus on practicing slowly and deliberately.

Yep, you can tell when to adjust based on how they move and what you've practiced. As you practice, you begin feeling the small nuances like this which is really awesome.

I've been feeling super overwhelmed lately, like I don't know what to work on at all. At the very least I thought up some things to ask about to maybe get myself back on track.

I went to a tournament last weekend, and over the course of the event, I noticed that my dd was not very effective. I wasn't taking advantage of the info that I was getting with my dashes, and making some misplays as a result. I think it's because I tried doing them too fast, more than I had practiced, since I felt like I needed to keep up the pace for some reason (feeling like I exert more pressure/threat when moving faster I guess). Do you think stalling more and doing the strings slower as I gain more experience with them useful in tournament? I think doing that will help me use my movement much more effectively, but I'm not sure if there is a tradeoff I haven't thought of.

The big thing that I've been trying to understand more is in-fighting. Part of that for me has been studying positions and looking at where I can use tools like dash/wd back to safely create space, and where I need dtilt or retreating fair to beat them attacking me at those spacings. Most of it though is just trying to get a solid framework/conception of what it is.

The way I see it currently is that first the game transitions into infighting, sometimes it is abrupt because of a dropped punish, and sometimes it is when someone pushes into a range, but the second I think ties much more into outfighting, since those kind of responses/actions are better set up from TR. This can give one player advantage over the other, whether it be positonal or frame advantage. This can make both players inclined to do certain things already (roll/dash back/swing with disadvantage, attack/observe with advantage) After that, it's kind of messy to me lol. There is usually not that much room to react to anything that the opponent does, and so any swings I make here seem like guesses. When I use dashes in these situations, I feel like while I can make room to observe, I can still get super messed up by swinging too early or too late.

https://youtu.be/uuBNpUJPChk?t=30s
here, the situation begins after falcon rolls. I come forward with a sh nair meant to beat him coming in to me, which he avoids. I think I didn't need to do this nair. I dash away as he shs for a bair most likely (also probably should have done something different out of the nair), and then he shields as I begin to dash in again. I feel like the dashes didn't have much purpose. Maybe if I had stalled on the dash back I could have confirmed the sh and maybe done a wd dtilt or something. I also didn't push in after seeing him put his shield up, maybe because I was more concerned with getting hit with something like side b.

I'm having trouble applying my knowledge of positions to the actual games themselves, since everything is moving much faster. How can I better structure my actions within TR to play those positions better? is part of the answer to just be more deliberate?

If you want to be fast, you just need to build speed in practice so you can be fast and effective. If you're fast without being effective, then either slow down some or practice. In tournament you either need to return to your training or pick something simple that works.

For the Nair, in general you don't want to Nair forward vs Falcon or anyone usually. That aside, he rolled and gave you advantage. Running SH Nair maybe barely hits him after he's rolled all that distance away, so it's not hard to avoid. Also keep in mind that he just rolled, so he's going to be observing you a lot and probably also trying to avoid being hit. He does just this and avoids your Nair. Instead, you can try just pushing closer, or trying Dtilt vs Fair, or moving in then back to get a read on how he acts when you're close when he's at disadvantage. You also could have just waited to see what he did and then acted.

I believe you committed to dash back in your mind before confirming his shield was up, so you can let your dash stall a little sometimes to confirm if you want.

Does any of this help?

Spending the day mapping out TR for every relevant character on every stage, which is grueling but long overdue. I’m having some weird results that contradict what I had previously believed, so I need halp:

Since learning TR as a concept, I’ve always been under the impression that Marth’s was the biggest. However, I see in characters like Fox, Falcon, and even Falco a little bit that they rival or even exceed what Marth can do out of WD with their FH, SH, and Laser respectively:

- Fox FH is fast and covers half of BF with full drift. It seems unreactable about a third of the stage away, at which point if I were Fox I’d use it to beat Marth SH. But this means that Fox TR rivals Marth TR (which I also determined covers a third of BF). Is this correct? I feel like I’m missing something.

- Falcon’s SH Stomp is ridiculously fast and covers half of BF if you full commit. It’s not something I expect a Falcon to necessarily do often, but it’s there. This one confuses me because I’m not sure if I should fight inside or outside it. (Inside means I’m in the TR of Falcons other moves, outside means he’s outside TR of my moves.)

- Falco’s laser approach can catch Marth even when he’s standing outside WD Dtilt range. I guess I knew this, but I’ve never thought about it deeply like I should be. What do I make of this? WD Dtilt isn’t even that good versus Falco, but this means the threats Marth does make use of (Dash Fair, Dash SideB, Jab, etc) are definitely outranged by Falco? Am I missing something here too, or does Marth really not have the longest reaching TR?

Fox's TR is confusing because generally his moves are smaller but he's much faster. He also attacks from more angles. I tend to think his could be equal to or bigger than Marth's depending on using these angles interchangeably. It's hard to say admittedly. Fox's attacking FH is still fairly reactable but if you commit to zoning at some spaces or even dash back you can get hit pretty reliably from it, so it is a very good tool especially vs Marth because of this.

Falcon's SH knee is the main issue imo. Stomp is pretty punishable when you're kind of close(side b/Fair) or you just retreating Fair/grab it when farther away. Anyway, yeah this is also in the realm of Marth's range since it goes so far and is still pretty quick. I think their TRs are roughly equivalent.

Vs Falco, TR changes a lot depending on when laser is out. If Marth includes DA and running PS, then his TR is easily bigger than Falco's. However if Falco lands a laser then his by far bigger. It's also true that Marth can't attack the same way he does in other matchups, which will shrink his TR overall. However, if you slow Falco's lasers in ways I've described, you get your DD back and you vastly outrange/outspeed him here. It's complicated lol.

My opinion is that Marth's is still usually the biggest because it's the most consistent, and easiest to expand with less risk due to Dtilt normally allowing him to extend his threat range beyond the normal threats. Fox can do similar things, but it is a bit harder to pull off imo.

It's a fun discussion and you're rightly confused. I admit I haven't mapped everything or close to everything out myself. It's something I want to develop a lot, but if we all keep working on it I'm sure we will learn more =)

 

[AirFair]

Yeah I think that helps. I'm thinking on how I want to play closer positions better in general, and find that using my information better is something I haven't been doing. I'll think on it more in my analysis. At the very least I can see where I want to be resetting the position and where I can push in for possible punish.

 

[Kopaka]

Went from solo training to training with a partner. The last two days of my solo training have been in repeating simple strings over and over and it has made a difference in my play with my partner. (Strings like dash forward wavedash down, dash forward wavedash forward dtilt) Like doing the same punch over and over again until the movements are condensed and you surprise yourself with a stronger punch, I've surprised myself with these strings working out in my favor, and seeing mental energy leaving the execution side over to the observing side. I haven't gone to a tournament since doing this so all the solo practice has just been put to use in training with a partner, but it's been really interesting.

 

[Kotastic]

Monday, I had the craziest tournament run of my life placing 2nd, beating multiple SoCal PR players and top 100 level players. Words cannot describe how much this thread has contributed towards my current upward trend. I have written a blog post of my tournament run, along with bracket and stream

http://kodorinssbm.blogspot.com/2018/05/572018.html
https://challonge.com/UCIweekly53 | https://www.twitch.tv/videos/258955312?t=01h28m40s

Additionally just yesterday, I competed again and got 3rd beating many good players and conquering hard matchups for me. I will have a lot of questions about various situations now that my tournaments are done for the week, but once again, thank you so much PP for giving me so much knowledge and advice throughout the months. <3

 

[Sylarius]

Good job dude ^


PP, how do you think Zain has gotten so good at playing keep-out in neutral so fast? When I watch him he is specifically the Marth that will do SH falling fair and nairs in the right positions, and especially in the ditto vs M2K I saw him doing pivot sh fair a lot at ranges where M2K was in the corner (often shielding) and unable to attack him with anything quick because of the distance between the two.

Do you have any tips for me if I play M2K in the ditto this upcoming weekend? I should be second seed...

It seems like Zain tries to avoid putting himself in situations where he is close enough to the opponent to be hit, and doesn't have a hitbox out. And that he tries to play safe or to trade as much as possible, especially with his aerial placement. Plup also tweeted about how hard it was to hit Zain after their set. It seems different than how you play but I can't often remember you just running into a hitbox almost at all even though you are good at keeping up pressure and often bait them into whiffing at you, and when you do go for a grab in neutral it's rarely punished or expected even if it misses. Do you think you could explain some more?

In these interactions I put myself in a ton of bad situations in neutral, and I think it's because I'm overextending too much. I'm going to try and do some safe stuff and waiting next time I play vs Fox and be more careful or rare with how I approach, but do you have any other suggestions? Like he probably dtilted cause he knew I was just going to run up to him and then dtilt or panic shield. I usually took my time more in the past...
https://youtu.be/B2qAx25GS74?t=607

Edit: Like at 10:29, was my additional dash back not a bad choice? What would you have done in a lot of these situations? I was thinking he may buffer spotdodge or shine which is why I chose to wait more instead of immediately grabbing.

You don't have to answer this one and I'm honestly not sure if I should ask but at Smash Summit Leffen was saying how he knows the most about Fox:Marth in the world. But from what I remember, he didn't really listen to you when you tried to help him with the matchup. Has much changed in the way he approaches it and what he knows in your opinion?

 

[Kellen]

Hi PP! First off thanks for the advice earlier!

I have another question and its about time management and it might also relate to mentality. I've been struggling with trying to incorporate Melee and Tournaments into my life because every time I go to a tournament I lose out on time on my projects for Grad school as well as fall behind in my day job since I work from home. As a result, when the projects pile up, I can no longer make time for tournaments until about a month later and I feel like I lose any progress I just made because the progress doesn't get time to sick (if that makes sense lol). I still go to tourneys when I can but I definitely can't go as much as I used to before. I had much more time as an Undergrad. My friends keep telling me that its fine because I have other obligations but I don't want to accept that as an excuse for being a low level player. I'm sure other people have had other commitments and still managed to improve. How do you balance out time for Melee and other important things? Are there time commitments and schedules that you abide by that you just never drop?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Sorry for the delayed response today everyone. I was busier than usual, but that also included playing Melee. I was playing $mike some and decided to test Uthrow Utilt when Marth is at the lower port vs Falcon's DI forward on Uthrow(mix this with Fthrow to get this DI). You can still get the Utilt at 25% if you're the lower port(closer to 4) but not 24%. I don't know if Kadano ended up testing ports or whatever when he did his Falcon throw chart, and this obviously doesn't matter if they don't DI in(you could probably still get DI behind a couple percent later) but even if it is common knowledge that's important to remind people of. I also did some legit stuff like reversal killing out of an edgeguard setup with a reverse weak Uair starter lol, but anyway on to the questions.

Went from solo training to training with a partner. The last two days of my solo training have been in repeating simple strings over and over and it has made a difference in my play with my partner. (Strings like dash forward wavedash down, dash forward wavedash forward dtilt) Like doing the same punch over and over again until the movements are condensed and you surprise yourself with a stronger punch, I've surprised myself with these strings working out in my favor, and seeing mental energy leaving the execution side over to the observing side. I haven't gone to a tournament since doing this so all the solo practice has just been put to use in training with a partner, but it's been really interesting.

Awesome I'm glad it's working! I think this type of improvement is very healthy, and let's you go into tournaments with a clear focus of how you want to play a deep connection with the game. If you're also seeing more observation come out already, that's a really good sign as well as it means your gameplay will be flexible even under pressure.

Monday, I had the craziest tournament run of my life placing 2nd, beating multiple SoCal PR players and top 100 level players. Words cannot describe how much this thread has contributed towards my current upward trend. I have written a blog post of my tournament run, along with bracket and stream

http://kodorinssbm.blogspot.com/2018/05/572018.html
https://challonge.com/UCIweekly53 | https://www.twitch.tv/videos/258955312?t=01h28m40s

Additionally just yesterday, I competed again and got 3rd beating many good players and conquering hard matchups for me. I will have a lot of questions about various situations now that my tournaments are done for the week, but once again, thank you so much PP for giving me so much knowledge and advice throughout the months. <3

Yo beating Squid and Faceroll? Very nice man keep it up!

The Marth babies are growing up and I'm mad proud of you all <3

Good job dude ^


PP, how do you think Zain has gotten so good at playing keep-out in neutral so fast? When I watch him he is specifically the Marth that will do SH falling fair and nairs in the right positions, and especially in the ditto vs M2K I saw him doing pivot sh fair a lot at ranges where M2K was in the corner (often shielding) and unable to attack him with anything quick because of the distance between the two.

Do you have any tips for me if I play M2K in the ditto this upcoming weekend? I should be second seed...

It seems like Zain tries to avoid putting himself in situations where he is close enough to the opponent to be hit, and doesn't have a hitbox out. And that he tries to play safe or to trade as much as possible, especially with his aerial placement. Plup also tweeted about how hard it was to hit Zain after their set. It seems different than how you play but I can't often remember you just running into a hitbox almost at all even though you are good at keeping up pressure and often bait them into whiffing at you, and when you do go for a grab in neutral it's rarely punished or expected even if it misses. Do you think you could explain some more?

In these interactions I put myself in a ton of bad situations in neutral, and I think it's because I'm overextending too much. I'm going to try and do some safe stuff and waiting next time I play vs Fox and be more careful or rare with how I approach, but do you have any other suggestions? Like he probably dtilted cause he knew I was just going to run up to him and then dtilt or panic shield. I usually took my time more in the past...
https://youtu.be/B2qAx25GS74?t=607

Edit: Like at 10:29, was my additional dash back not a bad choice? What would you have done in a lot of these situations? I was thinking he may buffer spotdodge or shine which is why I chose to wait more instead of immediately grabbing.

You don't have to answer this one and I'm honestly not sure if I should ask but at Smash Summit Leffen was saying how he knows the most about Fox:Marth in the world. But from what I remember, he didn't really listen to you when you tried to help him with the matchup. Has much changed in the way he approaches it and what he knows in your opinion?

Zain plays much more with attacks than I do. This zoning style hasn't been done well since Ken and Azen so it's normal to see it as odd. Threatening with Marth's big range and using movement as a mixup or way to move that range is how you think of Zain's play, instead of using movement to change your threats around more often while establishing them less. If anything, Zain's play should be easier to follow than mine because his is based on very clear threats, though he hasn't refined the play quite enough to always make a conscious decision yet. As for specifics, Zain may do late Fair into fadeback AC Nair to catch any ambitious attempts to punish his Fair lag and also to give him a minimalistic action that lets him observe his opponent.

That extra dash back didn't really help you much there since Fox could still quickly reach you. I'd say retreating Bair/Fair/Nair maybe(Fair/Nair out of dash away pivot) or just WD away would all be more effective options. Really though Fox landed beside you in lag as he drifted forward, so it should be a free grab and not a dash away or anything, but if you reacted late or just wanted to move away those are your options.

Hi PP! First off thanks for the advice earlier!

I have another question and its about time management and it might also relate to mentality. I've been struggling with trying to incorporate Melee and Tournaments into my life because every time I go to a tournament I lose out on time on my projects for Grad school as well as fall behind in my day job since I work from home. As a result, when the projects pile up, I can no longer make time for tournaments until about a month later and I feel like I lose any progress I just made because the progress doesn't get time to sick (if that makes sense lol). I still go to tourneys when I can but I definitely can't go as much as I used to before. I had much more time as an Undergrad. My friends keep telling me that its fine because I have other obligations but I don't want to accept that as an excuse for being a low level player. I'm sure other people have had other commitments and still managed to improve. How do you balance out time for Melee and other important things? Are there time commitments and schedules that you abide by that you just never drop?

Glad I could help!

And while I don't think I ever have or ever worked with someone in your situation, this is how I'm thinking about it. I believe I'd focus on doing tourneys minimally and focusing much harder on practice and friendlies and analysis since you don't need to travel much or any for those and don't have kill your day for them. Occasional tourneys can be good, but to me tourneys are application of ideas. You can just build your ideas up for a while and keep improving that way and then occasionally apply super hard at tourneys. If this makes you unable to practice or analyze etc for a month as well, then it may not be worth doing tourneys until you get some free time. Even so, that doesn't mean you can't get better with the other methods I was talking about. You can find stronger opponents and run serious sets with them to apply your training if need be, so there are other solutions. And if you miss socializing, you can always drop by fests sometimes when you can control your time more freely. That's how I would approach it anyway, does this help?

 

[Socrates]

Fox's run up JC up-smash.

1. Are there certain situations where you feel like they're more likely to do it?
2. It's really fast, so I feel like react-able distance is at least a full wavedash and a half. Does that sound about right or could I work on making that distance smaller?
3. Best punish in your opinion? Fair only works on read/react and is risky. Dtilt (WD back first?) can work on reaction. Shield is easy but also costs movement and is easily beaten with grab

 

[Kopaka]

Glad I could help!

And while I don't think I ever have or ever worked with someone in your situation, this is how I'm thinking about it. I believe I'd focus on doing tourneys minimally and focusing much harder on practice and friendlies and analysis since you don't need to travel much or any for those and don't have kill your day for them. Occasional tourneys can be good, but to me tourneys are application of ideas. You can just build your ideas up for a while and keep improving that way and then occasionally apply super hard at tourneys. If this makes you unable to practice or analyze etc for a month as well, then it may not be worth doing tourneys until you get some free time. Even so, that doesn't mean you can't get better with the other methods I was talking about. You can find stronger opponents and run serious sets with them to apply your training if need be, so there are other solutions. And if you miss socializing, you can always drop by fests sometimes when you can control your time more freely. That's how I would approach it anyway, does this help?

Yo, that totally helps me too since I'll be going to college soon and I've been low key thinking about the amount of tourneys I may have to cut down on. I mean I can speak for example too from what I just shared in my post above. The training has been helping a ton, and it's not always about TOURNEYS TOURNEYS TOURNEYS.

 

[Kellen]

Glad I could help!

And while I don't think I ever have or ever worked with someone in your situation, this is how I'm thinking about it. I believe I'd focus on doing tourneys minimally and focusing much harder on practice and friendlies and analysis since you don't need to travel much or any for those and don't have kill your day for them. Occasional tourneys can be good, but to me tourneys are application of ideas. You can just build your ideas up for a while and keep improving that way and then occasionally apply super hard at tourneys. If this makes you unable to practice or analyze etc for a month as well, then it may not be worth doing tourneys until you get some free time. Even so, that doesn't mean you can't get better with the other methods I was talking about. You can find stronger opponents and run serious sets with them to apply your training if need be, so there are other solutions. And if you miss socializing, you can always drop by fests sometimes when you can control your time more freely. That's how I would approach it anyway, does this help?

Yes this helps a lot! That makes a lot of sense, thank you. I suppose I never thought about tourneys as application of ideas but rather a progress checker. Which it can be but I shouldnt think that it is their only use. Yes going to tourneys makes me lose out on solo practice/analysis time but not entirely. I usually set aside one free day a week for tourneys but I could use that time in addition to the time at night if I finish a project. Now I have a follow up question.

So I noticed that one of my friends posted here saying he read this thread in its entirety and he said you mentioned something about practicing efficiently vs. just trying to grind for hours. He also described the various things you do when trying to decipher a situation or idea. When do you decide to move on from shadow boxing to analysis or to applying it vs. someone in friendlies? etc. What makes you determine which angle to approach the idea/situation from?

 

[quixotic]

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/255570200?t=07h32m25s
What do you think about these pivot jumps by zain? How do you beat these jumps?

Similarly in the marth ditto, if marth does tipper fair on shield=>dash back pivot jump outside fair oos range, how should the defending marth respond?