Important Carefully Ask PPMD about the Tiara Guy

[Dr Peepee]

Yes practicing the simplest things and getting them down, and feeling they can translate to a match at some point builds confidence in your training. You can trust that instead of try to control when the time comes to execute.

Yeah color switching can definitely help with style switching and other players do it to occasional success as well. If it works, do it!

 

[Blatant J]

Is there a mixup to kill fox if you downthrow him off at 0%? d-tilt seems to be beaten by sweetspot DJ, run off fair/WD back fair seem to be beaten by DJ onto stage, and grabbing the ledge is still beaten by a sweetspot jump to firefox.

 

[capusa27]

Hello, Dr Peepee

How do you think Marth's matchup spread changes as the players start to gain more experience and progress from low to mid to high to top level? What type of playstyles do you think are most effective at each level, and what do you think is the breakthrough moment as players experience moving into a different skill gap? Thanks.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Is there a mixup to kill fox if you downthrow him off at 0%? d-tilt seems to be beaten by sweetspot DJ, run off fair/WD back fair seem to be beaten by DJ onto stage, and grabbing the ledge is still beaten by a sweetspot jump to firefox.

You can Dtilt Fox's DJ sweetspot but it depends on where you stand and where he jumps to. Runoff Fair is good but yeah kinda risky. Grab edge to let go fair or dj fair regrab edge are both great at covering jumps in and also for hitting fox out of his shine stall, which is really important to do since it gives Fox so many mixups.

Hello, Dr Peepee

How do you think Marth's matchup spread changes as the players start to gain more experience and progress from low to mid to high to top level? What type of playstyles do you think are most effective at each level, and what do you think is the breakthrough moment as players experience moving into a different skill gap? Thanks.

Marth's matchups pretty much all get better as he gets better. Sheik and Falcon are particularly painful when you're worse but floaties can just as bad if you can't edgeguard/juggle kill them well.

You can play however you want and be effective, but you have to know the rules for the character very well. Basically within those bounds you're okay, but those bounds can be big.

 

[Zorcey]

You can play however you want and be effective, but you have to know the rules for the character very well. Basically within those bounds you're okay, but those bounds can be big.

Do you have rules for Marth that apply everywhere? Fundamental ones? Where do you draw the boundaries of Marth's character? Like, where do you think actions that bend Marth's rules like a lot of swinging start to break his rules? I think the concept of internalizing intense study into short rules is really interesting and powerful, and I think reverse engineering your rules for the character would help my studying a lot.

 

[Kopaka]

Do you have rules for Marth that apply everywhere? Fundamental ones? Where do you draw the boundaries of Marth's character? Like, where do you think actions that bend Marth's rules like a lot of swinging start to break his rules? I think the concept of internalizing intense study into short rules is really interesting and powerful, and I think reverse engineering your rules for the character would help my studying a lot.

From my experience after watching a lot of videos on specific matchups, I used to think the possibilities within the rules of the character were actually limitations, because after a lot of watching and playing I thought to myself "There's so many things Marth can do, that I don't know what TO do!" A lot of that thinking and how I wanted to change it links up to what PP wrote above as well. It's a bit silly how I thought that within the bounds (Which can actually be huge) of Marth, you can do a lot of stuff, but I saw it as overwhelming until I really took a look at how I like to play the game and how I can use what other people do to fit my own framework. Because really, there are so many things marth can do! You can play however you want and be effective, I'm literally wording exactly what pp wrote above because it's so important to realize that. And the thing about Azen up above too. Less pre-defined notions of how things should be done by EVERYONE, and more focus on what you think YOU should be doing to reach your in game goals, within the bounds of the character (which are huge).

 

[Dr Peepee]

Do you have rules for Marth that apply everywhere? Fundamental ones? Where do you draw the boundaries of Marth's character? Like, where do you think actions that bend Marth's rules like a lot of swinging start to break his rules? I think the concept of internalizing intense study into short rules is really interesting and powerful, and I think reverse engineering your rules for the character would help my studying a lot.

To add on to what Kopaka said, the rules are not made to work everywhere but to build a foundation. When you understand the rules you know how to break them. Because there are so many different matchups I can only really list the general rules I have before.

-keep it simple

-you win air to air but lose air to ground(jump if they jump)

-get them and kill them, or at least get damage and take stage position

If you think about those three rules in depth and with analysis you'll understand better.

 

[Zorcey]

Simple but extremely insightful posts. Thanks a lot guys, I need to go think about this and try to figure out where exactly I'm trying to take my Marth.

 

[Kopaka]

Simple but extremely insightful posts. Thanks a lot guys, I need to go think about this and try to figure out where exactly I'm trying to take my Marth.

For me it's like...I can't say I want to be the "X type" of player. When you narrow your horizon like that, you miss out on a lot of stuff. I CAN say I really want to work on my punish game here and there and know what'll really work and when but translate that into my own framework in neutral. "I want to be the player that only stays on the ground and dash dance grabs everything" was probably some subconscious way of doing things for me for a long time lol and then whenever new stuff was thrown at me that I COULDN"T dash dance grab I was lost, then I would try new things, but then they wouldn't work and I'd be frustrated because I was still thinking I had to be or do things in a very specific way to win. Opening up this way can also really help with playing people you're not used to, or players you perceive as "weaker" when you stop expecting things to be done the way your 5 or 6 players you play in your local scene do things by everyone else. At that point it's like, know the guaranteed things, but you do YOU in a way that's most effective and gets you to those things.

"You can trust that instead of try to control when the time comes to execute." Also super important and needs more emphasis lol

-you win air to air but lose air to ground(jump if they jump)

Yep, really, what's more invigorating than breaking rules anyway? I can jump at someone before they jump and if someone were to ask why that was working in that game, it would be something like ' because I wanted to threaten them with fairs or get them to put up their shield or something if they weren't making it even more risky for me to jump in place near them' . Like, that's what's going on in my translation of the situation. Is it the end all be all of what to do there? No. Never. There's probably a better way, **** if I know, but that's what was working then and there. Will it happen again next time? Will they adapt? probably, probably not. depends on how experienced they are. Anyways, Whereas before, if someone were to ask me, I'd actually freeze up and think that I was doing something wrong. Never fight against expression, but never be afraid of being wrong.

"get stage position" Yeah like the way I'm seeing it now is these rules are always there in our game. They're there to GUIDE you in a way. You can play within your own expression within those rules, they HELP you! And then you begin "breaking" them when you do things more of YOUR WAY but underneath it, you're still "getting stage position" or "keeping it simple" That's the foundation. They are the guiding force. When you play without them, you're empty. When you play with them, then things really start rolling. These foundations negate things like mindless dash dancing. No one builds the most stylish looking house without all the nails and boards that are going to hold the whole thing together. You could do the same sort of thing but when you HAVE these foundations somewhere in your head, things start working, and clarity comes. Then people will say "He's just Xing" , and then you stick it to them and keep Xing their face off, until they start switching it up but then you continue to beat them because you have such a strong foundation in place!

Like, get them and kill them. Not get them and kill them and then try to put on a showcase of your flashiest tech skill that you spent hours practicing in your bedroom oh wait all peach did was roll out of shield and dash attacked you now you're dead lol.

 

[Zorcey]

Kopaka Lol I ****ing love this game. Yeah, I understand what you're saying here; it really is a different way of looking at things tho, and almost makes my brain hurt because it's so entrenched in the notions I have of what I "should" be doing. I didn't even realize this was a problem I had until a relatively short time ago, as far as I was concerned I was just trying to build up my game knowledge. It's actually been weighing me down tho because of how I've approached it.

Dr Peepee How do I start laying down a proper foundation for myself in the game? I think I understand what it would be - a collection of internalized knowledge that allows me (emphasis here) to make informed decisions - but I don't know how to take what I have and make it less... definite. I'm a player who really struggles against people who are playing "wrong" because I seem to not have the ability to think for myself when playing. I end up locked in my theory-based gameplay because it's "supposed to work" and I think it's because I'm afraid of getting used to beating the "bad" options and then not being prepared to face the "good" ones. I'm really scared of not meeting the standards I've set up for myself, and I end up in these lose-lose situations where playing how I think I should be playing doesn't work, but if I don't play that way I feel like I did something wrong and I cheesed my opponent. I have all these biases and fears rooted in my mind and tbh I'm pretty lost as to what I should do about them. You told me when I first asked about this topic that accepting fear helps to deal with it (working on this), but can the same strat work for judgements? How do I remove my foundation of judgements and allow a foundation of real knowledge to take its place?

 

[Kopaka]

Zorcey and I love this thread lol

 

[Dr Peepee]

This question is very broad and it might not be something I can easily answer right now. To talk just about playing people who play "incorrectly" there is still a reason behind why they do what they do and also they're still responding to you. That won't ever really change, so you need to study players like this and understand how their responses can be incorporated into your own understanding by expanding your understanding. I didn't understand Mango for the longest time but once I broadened my understanding and just knew the game better and studied him enough I did know him well. It's not very easy to move past preconceived notions, but I found a good way to challenge myself to think in new ways is to ask "what if this is wrong?" For example, what if in a close range situation I initiated, I always felt I had to attack or be aggressive since I didn't think I could react. Now what if I was wrong? Well, it would mean there would be a way to play defense, or a way to do nothing maybe, or a way to take into account what my opponent is doing to adjust instead of guess. I would then explore each of these new ideas.

Something else that really helped with my judgments was to stop feeding them. I stopped believing I had all the answers or knew the best way. In fact I did the opposite. I humbled myself to think that I was still very far from knowing anything final and I could only hope to get closer to the best way for myself through lots of effort and from taking insight from others to expand my own view. When I did this, I started genuinely respecting the play of others more and being able to earnestly take from them as well as become even more eager to explain my understanding in as many ways as possible(how does this action reflect this person's emotional state? their native region? their age? their own clarity? their character? and so on).

Hopefully this can help.

 

[Taytertot]

Dr Peepee An issue I've been having is when to and when not to dashdance. Is it better to just walk or stand still if you don't feel like you want to dashdance? I like the idea of a pretty stationary Marth, walling out with the appropiate tilts/fairs and making minor adjustments occasionally with walk/dash forward and WD back. But always being told about the strength of his dashdance grabs/dtilts makes me kind of fish for those and get punished a lot for them. Is this an appropriate style for Marth? And what would be good things to focus on if it is/isn't a good way to play/interpret Marth?

this question applies really well to something that ive just been learning and attempting to gain a deeper/stronger understanding for recently and its given me a huge jump in my success. while i personally do find myself DDing a lot, i did struggle a lot with the over use of DD causing me to not notice something and ive realized that its incredibly important when youre DDing that you have ideas in mind about what your intentions are. i mean that each individual dash should have a specific intention based on what your opponent is doing and/or what you think they are doing. If you think the reason to the question "why am i DDing?" is because its supposedly threatening then you yourself arent really answering the question, youve just been told that thats what people believe about DD. I finally started having more success with DD by deciding to use it to counter a specific option that i think my opponent is attempting to use even though he hasnt tried it yet.

so if youre up against a sheik and you've been passive playing around the edge of sheik's dash attack range for X amount of time you have to realize that she may in fact dash attack (or boost grab) and making an attempt to call that out with, say, retreating sh fair out of a somewhat passive DD then youre starting to look at the purpose or intent of using movement (or moves, it doesnt have to be just movement). i feel like im not wording this particularly well but wanted to share it in case you found some value in it. also Dr Peepee correct me if im providing poor information or strategies because this concept is one that i am still experimenting with.

Dr Peepee Do you recommend anything in particular for building consistency with inputs? This feels like kind of a dumb question to ask, because I can think of things like "don't think too hard" and "practice what you're having trouble with," and do my best to do both of these (I think I have more trouble with former tho since I practice a lot but struggle with mentality), but I'm just a very sloppy player whenever I'm not training and it's frustrating. Idk if you've ever struggled with sloppiness, but your insight is always good, so.

ive found a lot of value when trying to learn new inputs or build consistency for inputs by going into training mode and slowing the speed down to 1/2. a book that a read a few years ago, the talent code, helped me a lot to focus my training more efficiently. it talks about how we build up skills and whats happening in the brain when we do so. slowing down the process (even if the collection of inputs is relatively simple) will allow you to build up muscle memory more quickly, in part because you are guiding your hands through the motions with less tendency for flubbing the timing.

 

[Kopaka]

This question is very broad and it might not be something I can easily answer right now. To talk just about playing people who play "incorrectly" there is still a reason behind why they do what they do and also they're still responding to you. That won't ever really change, so you need to study players like this and understand how their responses can be incorporated into your own understanding by expanding your understanding. I didn't understand Mango for the longest time but once I broadened my understanding and just knew the game better and studied him enough I did know him well. It's not very easy to move past preconceived notions, but I found a good way to challenge myself to think in new ways is to ask "what if this is wrong?" For example, what if in a close range situation I initiated, I always felt I had to attack or be aggressive since I didn't think I could react. Now what if I was wrong? Well, it would mean there would be a way to play defense, or a way to do nothing maybe, or a way to take into account what my opponent is doing to adjust instead of guess. I would then explore each of these new ideas.

Something else that really helped with my judgments was to stop feeding them. I stopped believing I had all the answers or knew the best way. In fact I did the opposite. I humbled myself to think that I was still very far from knowing anything final and I could only hope to get closer to the best way for myself through lots of effort and from taking insight from others to expand my own view. When I did this, I started genuinely respecting the play of others more and being able to earnestly take from them as well as become even more eager to explain my understanding in as many ways as possible(how does this action reflect this person's emotional state? their native region? their age? their own clarity? their character? and so on).

Hopefully this can help.

one thing I do want to say quick is that I do definitely feel I am a pupil, and I'm far far far from being like, as respected as you are for example. but I don't believe I'm in any position to tell anyone any conclusions yet, I do think I should slow down a bit and not tell people in here or irl what is the right way, kind of like a lot of what you wrote. it is just very exciting to have come to the place I'm at now. I've just gotten to the point where things like what you've been writing about, and what I've been doing my own reading about, make so much sense and I can make so many connections, even connections to my tournament experience that I just got home from right now, and how I'm self-aware of how I've started to think I now know all the answers just because I'm more open to this stuff now. I think it could be just the new excitement I have to learn. just thought i'd write that cause I was afraid I'd start looking a little too cocky. I definitely think I needed to see that 2nd paragraph especially, it's probably a great time for me to deploy a lot more humbleness or humility, so thank you

 

[Dr Peepee]

The only thing I would add is while you may not know the true way, you could say you're closer to doing your best to know, or fulfilling your potential to know. This process allows you to learn things applicable to all people, so it is also worth doing to help others. You just have to watch for trying to mold them into yourself, but if you share your ideas openly it shouldn't be a problem. Just have to make sure I can keep spreading this awareness for others through those I work with =)

Edit: Might be easier to say trust and give the process, not the conclusions.

Otherwise good paragraph!

 

[maclo4]

Thoughts on zain vs leffen? It looked like Zain really abused late fair->dtilt or dash back as a zoning tool and as a bait and im kinda surprised leffen didnt adapt, but zain def had some really good moments. Also were zains dd in the corners actually good or did leffeb actually just nair badly the same way like 10 times into dd. Cause it looked like leffeb got caught the same way when zain was corenered over and over

 

[Dr Peepee]

Watched games 1 and 5 again. Zain did a lot of that Fair stuff that worked great on BF and when he stopped doing it he died. On DL he chose to just move and was fortunate Leffen kept doing terrible approaches into where he barely was so he could pivot grab over and over on both levels, but DL helped him out most there. Leffen is far more prepared for movement than zoning but he lost to both in this set. Just how the play will look in upsets like this.

 

[Blatant J]

@PPMD, in your set vs westballz at summit what would you do differently? Westballz made the neutral look gruelling.

 

[Dr Peepee]

ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh that tournament

edit: i guess to be constructive, in the first couple seconds of the third game, I shouldn't have weak Faired into him when he was near me, and shouldn't have done WD OOS side B and instead just reset with dashes

 

[Kaoak]

Hey PPMD, important question about mentality. Recently and getting worse over time I've been becoming increasingly angry with Melee to the point where it is clouding my thoughts and judgement even during friendlies and netplay sessions. I have a comparatively strong neutral game but I am bad at closing out stocks, I tend to work very hard to get into advantageous positions, blow it and die to something that I perceive as stupid, like a Fox side b -> up air at 80%. It is very frustrating to feel like you are consistently outplaying your opponent and then losing to yourself by missing an edgeguard and dying for it or what you perceive as bad luck, (missed dash back, getting spot dodged, shield pokes, Marthritis, spacies sweetspotting up b to ledge against your counter etc). What are some steps I can take to control my anger and start having fun and learning again?

 

[Blatant J]

Sorry to bring up bad memories lol, I've just been feeling helpless in the falco matchup. Does falco have more threatening range then marth with his SH dair? I'm not sure what kind of spacing I should keep the fight at.

 

[Zorcey]

Dr Peepee After a lot of thinking, and some writing and playing, I feel like I understand now what you mean by establishing rules, even when they're not supposed to apply all the time. They're not so much rules about what I "should" or "shouldn't" be doing, but principles about a character I've learned from lots of studying and analysis and practice. These principles help me to understand what's going on in a game better because they cover so much theory in a concise form, and by understanding them I can adapt quickly and easily without getting frustrated at not knowing what's wrong. Until now my notes and have been styled in a very black and white, "do this," and "don't do this" manner, and I think that's been a large factor in me doing things arbitrarily and not taking enough control over my gameplay. Is this understanding correct? Can you give me any additional insight here?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Sorry to bring up bad memories lol, I've just been feeling helpless in the falco matchup. Does falco have more threatening range then marth with his SH dair? I'm not sure what kind of spacing I should keep the fight at.

Yeah I don't particularly care about it being brought up, I just absolutely despise watching myself play that bad and wish I could do something about it besides wait.

Here's the interesting thing about Falco Marth. If Falco is not lasering, then Marth can easily counter his SH Nair/Dair approaches around the edge of the range of both. He CAN run and Dtilt Falco but since Falco is jumping so much Marth's threat range is more like Fsmash or run Fair, and run Fair is greater range than Falco aerial but Fsmash is less. However, Marth can use his run Fair threat to get into range of Falco's moves and then DD around him with his superior speed and come in with grab or Fair. If Falco is lasering, Marth can sneak in with WD jab to trade or beat it and sometimes walk Fsmash to beat or trade with it. The threatening range gets extremely wonky in the matchup depending on how likely you know the Falco will laser and what laser he will do. If Falco runs in with laser from pretty far away, Marth can still jab or Fsmash or Ftilt it. If Falco lasers in place Marth can't really go in so easily afterward, but Falco can't really go in that easily afterward either if you're doing some take laser jab or occasionally dash away to avoid aerial approaches.

Anyway that long tangent basically shortens to keep yourself around the edge of his dash sh nair/dair range and don't DD a lot unless you get closer to him since lasers disrupt it to much so instead work single dashes and jab/fsmash and occasional running Fair when you have a read.

Dr Peepee After a lot of thinking, and some writing and playing, I feel like I understand now what you mean by establishing rules, even when they're not supposed to apply all the time. They're not so much rules about what I "should" or "shouldn't" be doing, but principles about a character I've learned from lots of studying and analysis and practice. These principles help me to understand what's going on in a game better because they cover so much theory in a concise form, and by understanding them I can adapt quickly and easily without getting frustrated at not knowing what's wrong. Until now my notes and have been styled in a very black and white, "do this," and "don't do this" manner, and I think that's been a large factor in me doing things arbitrarily and not taking enough control over my gameplay. Is this understanding correct? Can you give me any additional insight here?

Well, first of all I don't really ever deal in absolutes so I think your note change was good. You want to make sure to deeply analyze details in matches to make your own rules, as well as analyzing the rules given to you. You have to think seriously about the rules you don't understand and try to answer it as best you can. There are always more layers. You're on the right track though.

 

[ChivalRuse]

Hey PPMD, important question about mentality. Recently and getting worse over time I've been becoming increasingly angry with Melee to the point where it is clouding my thoughts and judgement even during friendlies and netplay sessions. I have a comparatively strong neutral game but I am bad at closing out stocks, I tend to work very hard to get into advantageous positions, blow it and die to something that I perceive as stupid, like a Fox side b -> up air at 80%. It is very frustrating to feel like you are consistently outplaying your opponent and then losing to yourself by missing an edgeguard and dying for it or what you perceive as bad luck, (missed dash back, getting spot dodged, shield pokes, Marthritis, spacies sweetspotting up b to ledge against your counter etc). What are some steps I can take to control my anger and start having fun and learning again?

Try taking a short break from smash. Maybe a few weeks. Come back with a fresh perspective.

Sometimes it's good to play against people worse than you, just to remember how to control a match and refine your punish game.

Try to not invest too much of your emotions into the game. I've struggled with this a lot myself for years. Just remember that you're playing a game, and you're not facing life or death over losing a match.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Hey PPMD, important question about mentality. Recently and getting worse over time I've been becoming increasingly angry with Melee to the point where it is clouding my thoughts and judgement even during friendlies and netplay sessions. I have a comparatively strong neutral game but I am bad at closing out stocks, I tend to work very hard to get into advantageous positions, blow it and die to something that I perceive as stupid, like a Fox side b -> up air at 80%. It is very frustrating to feel like you are consistently outplaying your opponent and then losing to yourself by missing an edgeguard and dying for it or what you perceive as bad luck, (missed dash back, getting spot dodged, shield pokes, Marthritis, spacies sweetspotting up b to ledge against your counter etc). What are some steps I can take to control my anger and start having fun and learning again?

Lol my bad I missed your question.

First of all, I'd go easy on yourself for getting hit by that stuff. It seems like you're working really hard but maybe you need to practice and understand some things better. In my experience, my anger toward something goes away when I understand it. So maybe the Fox side B hitting you worked because you tried to cover something different, or messed up your coverage timing and should practice it. Either way a hit can be an opportunity for you. As for the Marthritis, you have to accept it happens sometimes and mitigate it as much as possible. For example, Marths that always have this problem are almost always not edgeguarding well. If you knocked someone offstage with a Fair, why does it take 5 tries to kill them every time? Same can be said for juggling. But really besides this, you should just cut yourself some slack since you're gonna get hit sometimes and just do your best to solve and understand the stuff making you mad. Getting mad isn't gonna help and you know that which is why you're asking, so I hope you can choose this way or something similar.

 

[Kaoak]

Lol my bad I missed your question.

First of all, I'd go easy on yourself for getting hit by that stuff. It seems like you're working really hard but maybe you need to practice and understand some things better. In my experience, my anger toward something goes away when I understand it. So maybe the Fox side B hitting you worked because you tried to cover something different, or messed up your coverage timing and should practice it. Either way a hit can be an opportunity for you. As for the Marthritis, you have to accept it happens sometimes and mitigate it as much as possible. For example, Marths that always have this problem are almost always not edgeguarding well. If you knocked someone offstage with a Fair, why does it take 5 tries to kill them every time? Same can be said for juggling. But really besides this, you should just cut yourself some slack since you're gonna get hit sometimes and just do your best to solve and understand the stuff making you mad. Getting mad isn't gonna help and you know that which is why you're asking, so I hope you can choose this way or something similar.

Thanks for the advice, but I feel like my understanding of these things isn't making me any less angry/frustrated. I feel like I lose so many games that I should have won to full shield shield pokes, Roy zones (so many Roy zone grabs ), impossibly good angles from my opponent that I don't even see at top level (up b's that ride the stage and then sweetspot ledge without activating counter), shine clanks with fsmashes, etc... I just need to figure out how to make these things not upset me because they seem to happen to me so often and at least feel unavoidable. I know I can improve at Melee and fix my issues with punish game but my emotions are getting in the way, I find myself neither learning or having fun. Thank you for the helpful response though.

On another note, is there any way of practicing edgeguarding that you would recommend, I find I have been trying to improve edgeguarding and I generally know what options would work in most situations, I am just too slow to make the right decision and make small spacing and timing errors. Any way to help with this aside from trial and error in friendlies and Solo practicing ledge stuff?

 

[VMPR]

Dear ppmd sage of sword guy.

Im having trouble with a specific situation. In the Marth ditto after I kill them and they're coming back down with invincibility, I have very little Idea of how to deal with them pressuring me except against super predictable players that are just gonna swing the second they're near me and i can just shield and go about my day happily. The reason why I have trouble is because my options are so limited. I lose all of my hit boxes to keep them out so they dont feel threatened at all to basically run at me and force me to deal with there options. Ive tried going to ledge but it seems like an even worse option against better players because from my prospective they just win the situation for free against better players that dont just swing at me right away and then im cornered in the Marth ditto and that obviously a horrible spot to be in and talking to platforms to run away doesnt feel like much help either. Im probably just not mixing up my options well enough or im over thinking it or something but I was wondering. Is there a safer way to play out this situation? What should I be looking for/ thinking about to be able to run out the timer on the invincibility without just getting destroyed do to bad positioning after its over? How do you play out this spot? ect. Plz help

 

[Signia]

Thoughts on zain vs leffen? It looked like Zain really abused late fair->dtilt or dash back as a zoning tool and as a bait and im kinda surprised leffen didnt adapt, but zain def had some really good moments. Also were zains dd in the corners actually good or did leffeb actually just nair badly the same way like 10 times into dd. Cause it looked like leffeb got caught the same way when zain was corenered over and over

Leffen did adapt.

Game 1 1:32: https://youtu.be/JmCDQHKcbUw?t=1m32s

Zain did a SHFFL Fair -> dtilt three times in a row. In the first interaction, Leffen FH daired over him and overshot, missing him. In the second interaction, Leffen ran into the dtilt. On the third, Leffen attempted to jump after seeing the fair miss, but was caught right after leaving the ground by a dtilt, probably trying to jump over the dtilt, perhaps in a way that would still cover dash back. Zain probably noticed what Leffen was trying to do in order to beat his relentless fair->dtilt at this point.

Finally, on the 4th approach, Leffen SH dairs in a way that would land right on top of a dtilting Marth, but Zain adapts pre-emptively and dashes back after he fairs, netting a whiff punish on the dair.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Thanks for the advice, but I feel like my understanding of these things isn't making me any less angry/frustrated. I feel like I lose so many games that I should have won to full shield shield pokes, Roy zones (so many Roy zone grabs ), impossibly good angles from my opponent that I don't even see at top level (up b's that ride the stage and then sweetspot ledge without activating counter), shine clanks with fsmashes, etc... I just need to figure out how to make these things not upset me because they seem to happen to me so often and at least feel unavoidable. I know I can improve at Melee and fix my issues with punish game but my emotions are getting in the way, I find myself neither learning or having fun. Thank you for the helpful response though.

On another note, is there any way of practicing edgeguarding that you would recommend, I find I have been trying to improve edgeguarding and I generally know what options would work in most situations, I am just too slow to make the right decision and make small spacing and timing errors. Any way to help with this aside from trial and error in friendlies and Solo practicing ledge stuff?

The two best things for edgeguarding are watching videos of yourself and pros and running through the options and how best to cover them, and setting up edgeguard scenarios with a practice partner and drilling the situations over and over.

Dear ppmd sage of sword guy.

Im having trouble with a specific situation. In the Marth ditto after I kill them and they're coming back down with invincibility, I have very little Idea of how to deal with them pressuring me except against super predictable players that are just gonna swing the second they're near me and i can just shield and go about my day happily. The reason why I have trouble is because my options are so limited. I lose all of my hit boxes to keep them out so they dont feel threatened at all to basically run at me and force me to deal with there options. Ive tried going to ledge but it seems like an even worse option against better players because from my prospective they just win the situation for free against better players that dont just swing at me right away and then im cornered in the Marth ditto and that obviously a horrible spot to be in and talking to platforms to run away doesnt feel like much help either. Im probably just not mixing up my options well enough or im over thinking it or something but I was wondering. Is there a safer way to play out this situation? What should I be looking for/ thinking about to be able to run out the timer on the invincibility without just getting destroyed do to bad positioning after its over? How do you play out this spot? ect. Plz help

You have to abuse movement, but it doesn't mean you have to move like crazy. Marth puts himself in lag when he attacks so you need to make him whiff. What I do is lead them one direction and either cross them up or move farther back and I can fake either one. This makes them have to guess and follow you more than just outright getting you. Also I use platforms sometimes to avoid invincibility since Marth often be attacking the ground, though I get right back down after getting on them since it's not a good idea to stay there.

 

[ElectricBlade]

Hello PPMD. I was wondering if you could expand on the concept of rhythm in relation to movement? One of your older post said you practiced a lot of different forms of movement you used as well as different Rhythms with them. Could you expand on what you mean, as well as what it is useful for? Thank you!

 

[ridemyboat]

Dr. PeePee when you come back will you be a puff main?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Hello PPMD. I was wondering if you could expand on the concept of rhythm in relation to movement? One of your older post said you practiced a lot of different forms of movement you used as well as different Rhythms with them. Could you expand on what you mean, as well as what it is useful for? Thank you!

I wouldn't worry about it terribly. That is something you mostly need to work on after you've gotten your threats down to a high level. It's basically playing on people's innate responses to rhythms and leading them using that.

Dr. PeePee when you come back will you be a puff main?

que

 

[lokt]

Hey pp could you give me advice on a certain situation of marth vs falcon ive been stuck on.

The situation is one when falcon crouches and waits at about my run canceled dtilt range. If i jump, he dash dances and punishes. If I try to get into the range where i can threaten dash grab he overshoots a nair.

 

[bts.mongoose]

What's the best thing you can do to prepare once you know who you're going to have to play at a tournament? At a lower level, is it more worth your time(with respect to performance at the tournament and also overall learning in general) to prepare for a specific player, or try to spend some time to brush up on the matchup? How do you even go about preparing for a specific player?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Hey pp could you give me advice on a certain situation of marth vs falcon ive been stuck on.

The situation is one when falcon crouches and waits at about my run canceled dtilt range. If i jump, he dash dances and punishes. If I try to get into the range where i can threaten dash grab he overshoots a nair.

Sounds like run forward retreating Fair covers both of those.

What's the best thing you can do to prepare once you know who you're going to have to play at a tournament? At a lower level, is it more worth your time(with respect to performance at the tournament and also overall learning in general) to prepare for a specific player, or try to spend some time to brush up on the matchup? How do you even go about preparing for a specific player?

It's usually better to load the matchup in your mind and remind yourself of anything important. If you have like a day or something you can study the player and the matchup more. Studying the matchup is more beneficial because it keeps you ready for anything they could do, but studying them is good because you need practical application of your theory. So basically load matchup in your mind and if you have a little more time figure out what they do, a lot more time go over matchup and learn it more too.

 

[VMPR]

What are my options to beat defensive and aggressive down tilt in the dito. And how do i deal with it on shield like when theyre trying to shield pressure me with it what are they typically looking for and how do i get around it. Sorry i always ask you questions i just found this thread and think its super useful and i deffdently know that you know options that get around things that i wouldnt think of.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Defensive Dtilt is mostly in place Dtilt. You can space around with it with Fsmash, wd in dtilt them after their lag(hard to do) and wait for their next option after the Dtilt(usually dash back) and punish that. Oh and you can jump over it with Fair/Nair if you call it.

Aggressive Dtilt you can intercept before he gets to you with moves listed above or your own Dtilt or a grab, and the rest is pretty similar but I wouldn't try Fsmash'ing them in this situation.

On shield if they spam it you can WD OOS between Dtilts and ASDI it down and Dtilt them back or you can WD back OOS or you can jump to try and counter their next play. It's a really bad position when they're on your shield like that so just do your best.

 

[Ukulele]

tfw dual maining is a lot of extra work ;_;

https://i.imgur.com/igfIIc3.jpg

How can I resist playing the King?!!

 

[wmish]

hey pp, hope you're doing well. i just had some issues/questions that i'd like your opinion on

1) vs falco, i feel boxed-in because i feel like i can't retake any space that i give up. i lose space because my attempts at beating approaches amount to jab (after laser) or retreating/in-place fair and both lose to asdi down (not tippered, but like i said, precision) or just wait -> take space. take laser -> dash back evades aerial and ground approaches, but the falco i play against is particularly patient against me and more often than not, he will just take the space i retreated from and then dash dance around my sh forward fair range. normally i would retake space with wd dtilt, but he similarly likes to retreating/in-place dair. my counterplay to that would normally be swiping him out of the air, but i end up having to make a read about when he's going to attempt that and sh forward -> fair, and again, he could just as easily not commit and keep dash dancing around that range. at lower percents, im not confident in trying any aerials period because of asdi down and getting the tipper to beat cc is precision i don't feel i can consistently have.

my attempts to beat this have been random aggressive spurts to overshoot his retreat path where i'll do a dash attack or just take laser -> dash forward grab or dash wd -> dtilt or something, but these are hard commitments on my part and only occasionally do they align and win the aforementioned rps that i tend to meander my way into. my punish game subpar and only sometimes enough to make up the difference and i feel like even when i do win, it's cause i just guessed right and not because i outplayed him in any meaningful way and having that uncertainty feeds into this fear that i have to play defensively and force some consistency out of myself and the cycle repeats itself.

1.5) i don't think it helps that this person i play with tends to very unsubtly gloat about his performance against me and others which just makes it more frustrating to lose to him. i know the interactions i'm losing in aren't this shallow and that there's an answer for every problem i've talked about, but it feels like i have a mental block in the form of bleak/shallow thinking which is at least partly because of who the opponent is. i feel like i'm an unconvinced pessimist trying to talk to himself as a convinced optimist, or something.

2) when practicing punishes vs 20xx cpus, in what way should i be structuring my practice? it seems like the only rigid thing is fox/falco chain grabs and tech chasing. for general combos, i tend to just swing until i get a kill because the di is truly random. do the punishes just get 'absorbed' in naturally for non-structured combos? or is there something more concrete that i should be doing?

 

[Dr Peepee]

hey pp, hope you're doing well. i just had some issues/questions that i'd like your opinion on

1) vs falco, i feel boxed-in because i feel like i can't retake any space that i give up. i lose space because my attempts at beating approaches amount to jab (after laser) or retreating/in-place fair and both lose to asdi down (not tippered, but like i said, precision) or just wait -> take space. take laser -> dash back evades aerial and ground approaches, but the falco i play against is particularly patient against me and more often than not, he will just take the space i retreated from and then dash dance around my sh forward fair range. normally i would retake space with wd dtilt, but he similarly likes to retreating/in-place dair. my counterplay to that would normally be swiping him out of the air, but i end up having to make a read about when he's going to attempt that and sh forward -> fair, and again, he could just as easily not commit and keep dash dancing around that range. at lower percents, im not confident in trying any aerials period because of asdi down and getting the tipper to beat cc is precision i don't feel i can consistently have.

my attempts to beat this have been random aggressive spurts to overshoot his retreat path where i'll do a dash attack or just take laser -> dash forward grab or dash wd -> dtilt or something, but these are hard commitments on my part and only occasionally do they align and win the aforementioned rps that i tend to meander my way into. my punish game subpar and only sometimes enough to make up the difference and i feel like even when i do win, it's cause i just guessed right and not because i outplayed him in any meaningful way and having that uncertainty feeds into this fear that i have to play defensively and force some consistency out of myself and the cycle repeats itself.

1.5) i don't think it helps that this person i play with tends to very unsubtly gloat about his performance against me and others which just makes it more frustrating to lose to him. i know the interactions i'm losing in aren't this shallow and that there's an answer for every problem i've talked about, but it feels like i have a mental block in the form of bleak/shallow thinking which is at least partly because of who the opponent is. i feel like i'm an unconvinced pessimist trying to talk to himself as a convinced optimist, or something.

2) when practicing punishes vs 20xx cpus, in what way should i be structuring my practice? it seems like the only rigid thing is fox/falco chain grabs and tech chasing. for general combos, i tend to just swing until i get a kill because the di is truly random. do the punishes just get 'absorbed' in naturally for non-structured combos? or is there something more concrete that i should be doing?

1. If the Falco is waiting, then you can do some dash in to observe and sometimes run SH rising Fair. I also particularly like WD in jab vs Falco since I'm usually at range to tipper him and he's usually going to laser or dash back in response to me moving forward if he's a patient one. Dtilt isn't very good vs Falco since he's always jumping but can be useful very sparingly. Low percent you want to be Fair'ing him out of the air or hitting your jabs on him or grabbing an approach primarily. Why does your spurt of aggression lose? Does he Dair in place or does he Dair into you or does he shield or hold down? The specifics tell you what you need to do to counter them.

1.5 This is an opportunity for you. Do you want to overcome people who act like this and outplay them and let them lose their false confidence, or will you let the adversity beat you? Sometimes the best way to solve a problem is to keep running at it until you finally figure it out. Even if you're losing a lot and not learning so much, if you accept your losses or try to then you begin not being afraid of losing, which in itself is very powerful. There are many opportunities here but it's up to you to make them real.

2. In terms of comboing spacies, you're almost always either CG'ing or tech chasing or doing a mixup out of those things. Be mindful of Fair vs Fsmash mixups, and also practice juggling, or hitting the opponent and making them jump then keeping them airborne to take full advantage of a not entirely advantageous position. It might be easier to look at M2K combos and just look at every hit and ask what DI and what other Marth options could be done and then play with those various ideas.