Important Carefully Ask PPMD about the Tiara Guy

[Zorcey]

I feel like I’ve gotten a bit better at the falcon matchup lately, but I think my punish is carrying me really hard in the matchup, and my neutral against him for my skill level is not great. I can usually kill off a couple openings, but the falcon usually wins neutral a lot more than me, which I hear should not be happening. Mostly my issue is with beating his nair when he’s on the offensive. Right now I mix up DD grabbing and sidebing his nairs. But my DD gets caught a lot by overshoots, and falcons bait and punish my sideb with running up WD in place, and I feel like reacting to a nair/WD in place mixup probably isn’t possible, since they both use the same jump squat animation thing. I usually try to run up grab when I think they’ll WD in place, but since falcons seem to spam nair in place a lot, I often just get comboed for it. So do you think marth be winning neutral a lot more often than falcon, and if so, what tools should I use to do so, specifically against the nairs I mentioned.

Also, if you watched zain va gahtzu at big house, what do you think zain should be doing better in neutral and punish? Some of the overshot nairs that gahtzu got him with are the same kind that I struggle with.

Finally, any marths you recommend to watch for their neutral in the matchup? Thx!

Something that might help you a lot is to implement dash in AC Nair in place from TR. It stuffs his approaching aerials, and will heavily discourage his overshoots which should deepen your dash back mixup. It also combines well with with your RC Dtilt to run down his dash back if he gets too discouraged from approaching. I want to say I wouldn't SideB unless you can confirm he jumps or have a good idea (Falcon often jumps at you when you're cornered, for example), but I'm not totally sure how feasible that is.

 

[Reyjavik]

Hey Kevin, I've been experimenting, and you have to di Pretty much before you head into the air. Down and away DI only works in the marth ditto if you do it right as the green flash appears before.Thanks for confirming.
I'm curious as to why most Marth's don't utilize Marth killer in the ditto.
What do you think in terms of optimizing the ditto? I've been working on it as you can tell last couple of days

I feel like I’ve gotten a bit better at the falcon matchup lately, but I think my punish is carrying me really hard in the matchup, and my neutral against him for my skill level is not great. I can usually kill off a couple openings, but the falcon usually wins neutral a lot more than me, which I hear should not be happening. Mostly my issue is with beating his nair when he’s on the offensive. Right now I mix up DD grabbing and sidebing his nairs. But my DD gets caught a lot by overshoots, and falcons bait and punish my sideb with running up WD in place, and I feel like reacting to a nair/WD in place mixup probably isn’t possible, since they both use the same jump squat animation thing. I usually try to run up grab when I think they’ll WD in place, but since falcons seem to spam nair in place a lot, I often just get comboed for it. So do you think marth be winning neutral a lot more often than falcon, and if so, what tools should I use to do so, specifically against the nairs I mentioned.

Also, if you watched zain va gahtzu at big house, what do you think zain should be doing better in neutral and punish? Some of the overshot nairs that gahtzu got him with are the same kind that I struggle with.

Finally, any marths you recommend to watch for their neutral in the matchup? Thx!

Zain has a strong punish game but pretty okay neutral game. Gatzhu and a lot of falcons take advantage of Marths's overeliance on dash dancing at times as Gatzhu keeps overshooting his nairs when Zain is dashing back. That simple adjustment allows Gatzhu to get confirms since Zain is not adjusting to the overshoots and keeps on dashing back as a bad habit. I also think he underestimates Falcon's range as his drift is amazing and deceptive when used to maximum.
Hence why PP strongly recommends fade back nair against falcon. It discourages a falcon from overshooting a nair while also working as a potential mixup between dashback and itself

 

[Sacredtwin11]

The reason why marth killer is not very good in the ditto is because a large majority of the time, if marth is forced to up-b to recover, it is much easier to stand at the ledge and dtilt or fsmash. When edgeguarding marth, the main concern is how to scare him from DJ to ledge sweetspot. You can do this by runoff fair, run off dj dair, run off up-b, or run off shield breaker, all of which have their uses and come with risks of their own, namely getting hit on the way up or dropping really low and running the risk of getting up-b'd yourself.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Hey PP, I have a question regarding getting punished hard. I've talked to other players about how a strong punish can influence neutral because it makes the other player afraid of that option. I definitely feel like that happened to me here. Kind of related is how I dropped many punishes due to slide off and thus over compensated for the option and dropped a grab on the last stock that I could have potentially converted.
On that note, I also believe getting a huge reward off of something makes me want to do it more, even if it is very risky. I lost 3 stocks to DJ aerials coming from offstage because it had the chance to give me a reversal and maybe the stock.
I think doing most of these is a byproduct of nerves, as I felt my reactions were kind of slow to everything and I was defaulting for kind of cheesy options randomly. Do you find in your experience more exposure to high pressure scenarios and meditation/practicing focus will eventually cause this kind of play to be phased out? Obviously even the best of players get nerves and play poorly at times, but generally this is not the case.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZfcrtIp99w#t=184m29s
I was too passive in trying to make the most of my invincibility here. Obviously I miss an easy chance to grab him when he's shielding right next to me. I do dash forward wd back twice because I think I was too fixated on him running through me my previous stock and killing me off the grab he got.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZfcrtIp99w#t=184m44s
Here I catch lucky with a nair hitting his drill. Honestly I have no idea why this nair worked, but I vaguely think it was cause his invincibility ran out and he was still thinking he needed to gain an advantage with invincibility, so he still wanted to run me down?
Anyways, since I drifted back I couldn't get a grab off of it, but I wd forward while he empty full hops and I got a crossup grab. I also have no idea why this worked as if he came down with an aerial I would've gotten hit.
Also, right after I get that grab, I wd back expecting DI to the platform and slideoff, while he just doesn't DI, and tech in place shines me. That kind of deflated me as I was mentally kicking myself for dropping the punish. All the things I told myself before the set about wanting to learn and trusting myself kind of went out the window at this point.

I haven't had nerves this bad since I was the anchor of a crew battle going against another good, well-established player, but I anticipate them again with Michigan's fall Arcadian coming around the corner sometime, where I will likely be a top seed. I have a lot of thinking I need to do regarding my expectations for the Arcadian, and also the pressure of being expected to do well and represent my sub-region, which I really haven't had in the past.

Also quick question regarding stage choice. I won g1 on battlefield and lost g2 on stadium, and giving it some thought, decided to return to stadium for g3. My rationale was that lucky is known for being a more aggressive fox and I would enjoy the breathing room, but after rewatching, since I do like to play a more zoning style, maybe fountain would be better? I don't really like yoshi's because of the volatility in just dying at 90, but it's possible either of those 2 smaller stages would've benefited me.

Exposure can make you play badly the first time, but after that it's all on you I believe. From there you need meditation and really thinking through/executing the other options, perhaps including practice that will help get you to change. In difficult situations, it is often the quality of our training that determines how well we play. The only other issue besides this is how you think of the challenge. If you are excited to play for example you are less likely to drop things and perhaps even improve under pressure.

If you don't want him to run through you, you can also use Fair/Dtilt or whatever to hit him as well. But also you have to remember to encourage him to run through you, and you standing still or moving back discourages running through.

The Nair worked because he expected you to grab since he saw the shield and then went in for the punish, but also what you said. Most people don't cross up, and he probably expected you to move back and not in as he went up. I also like moving under Fox as Marth sometimes. That DI you expected and the resulting mixup is pretty hard to deal with admittedly, so if you hadn't seen it or practiced for it before it's pretty understandable it caught you offguard. I would practice that if I were you, and if you do practice it then maybe practicing going between neutral and punish specifically may make it easier to adjust. Taking time in between stocks and/or matches can be great to pull yourself out of a bad funk. A real, full deep breath can honestly help so much when you're so tense.

It sounds like you will have many opportunities to practice dealing with difficult situations. I suggest playing some crowd audio or imagining these situations happening again while practicing/playing others to help simulate the environment and see what mental strategies work and don't work. Just raw exposure and finding a way to keep calm in them really do a long way as studies of fighter pilots' training and others can show.

Fox can also die super early on YS =p but yeah I think if you prefer zoning but want room then BF is the best compromise. Since you already played there, then FD is the shortest of the big stages and DL is the next shortest in terms of bottom platform length. FoD is overall smallest due to platform lengths and heights so that would have been a fine choice too, however if he gets control it would be very hard to get him off of you there(same goes for you). I didn't watch the matches so I don't know what specifically he did on the big levels to get you, but yeah if you want to take charge with zoning then the small levels are absolutely better for you. Every move is so much stronger there since people can't easily dodge them.

I feel like I’ve gotten a bit better at the falcon matchup lately, but I think my punish is carrying me really hard in the matchup, and my neutral against him for my skill level is not great. I can usually kill off a couple openings, but the falcon usually wins neutral a lot more than me, which I hear should not be happening. Mostly my issue is with beating his nair when he’s on the offensive. Right now I mix up DD grabbing and sidebing his nairs. But my DD gets caught a lot by overshoots, and falcons bait and punish my sideb with running up WD in place, and I feel like reacting to a nair/WD in place mixup probably isn’t possible, since they both use the same jump squat animation thing. I usually try to run up grab when I think they’ll WD in place, but since falcons seem to spam nair in place a lot, I often just get comboed for it. So do you think marth be winning neutral a lot more often than falcon, and if so, what tools should I use to do so, specifically against the nairs I mentioned.

Also, if you watched zain va gahtzu at big house, what do you think zain should be doing better in neutral and punish? Some of the overshot nairs that gahtzu got him with are the same kind that I struggle with.

Finally, any marths you recommend to watch for their neutral in the matchup? Thx!

I'm not sure exactly how the Falcon is nair'ing and this makes it hard to answer. I believe generally that you can Fair his Nair and also do some Nairs in place to beat it and be safe vs some of his other options, though usually it's when you run in and not when he does. If he's overshooting then you can also just dash/WD/run under him and that can help you even dash in and grab him or pressure him sometimes. I'll rewatch Zain Gahtzu and look at a couple Nairs real quick. So it looks like he runs up and Nairs in place, and will sometimes yolo Nair. So the run up Nair in place Zain beat with doing his own Nairs in place if that helps you, and the yolo Nairs he Fair'd and also held down and grabbed at lower percent. When Gahtzu did WD down out of dash up he did make Zain whiff a lot before he grabbed, so as long as you do some good ACs and mix in Dtilt or dash away afterward you can probably play the mixup alright. I prefer putting the pressure on Falcon to avoid this, but it looks playable as Marth on defense too.

Zain's punish was usually just so bad off of grabs which cost him the set honestly. He was too slow with a hit or didn't know when he could Fair or Fsmash or Utilt and sometimes just missed or did weak platform punishes. He also did too much movement and let miss tech on the ground out of Fthrow/Dthrow go a lot too or he would run up and get hit by getup attack. I talked about the neutral some above.

That M2K set vs Wizzy in winners of whatever tourney that was(they played in losers and m2k just played way worse) is the only decent thing. PPU has some okay stuff too but it's not as good, likewise with the others a bit I suppose.

Hey Kevin, I've been experimenting, and you have to di Pretty much before you head into the air. Down and away DI only works in the marth ditto if you do it right as the green flash appears before.Thanks for confirming.
I'm curious as to why most Marth's don't utilize Marth killer in the ditto.
What do you think in terms of optimizing the ditto? I've been working on it as you can tell last couple of days

Marth doesn't edgeguard from the edge well when the opponent is on the stage. It's better to just Dtilt them when they up-B even if it is more difficult to learn.

 

[Agrathor3]

Hey PP in your opinion what is the fastest and most efficient way to get as good at melee as possible? The reason I'm asking is that I've started attending local tourneys (1 to be exact) but more in the future and I just want to see how good I can become as quickly as possible.

 

[Dr Peepee]

I'll just list some good ideas that people who improve fast have in part or whole.

Practice every day doing basic tech up to more complicated stuff. Do analysis as often as possible. Apply training and analysis in friendlies and take this to tournaments, then bring the new results back to practice and analysis. Relax. Set goals that inspire you and remove fear. Work on psychology if this isn't easy. Love the game. Exercise, eat well, sleep well, take care of your mental hygiene too including practices such as meditation and reading. Learn other characters when needed or desired. Pull ideas from as many sources as possible. Love the process.

 

[Agrathor3]

I'll just list some good ideas that people who improve fast have in part or whole.

Practice every day doing basic tech up to more complicated stuff. Do analysis as often as possible. Apply training and analysis in friendlies and take this to tournaments, then bring the new results back to practice and analysis. Relax. Set goals that inspire you and remove fear. Work on psychology if this isn't easy. Love the game. Exercise, eat well, sleep well, take care of your mental hygiene too including practices such as meditation and reading. Learn other characters when needed or desired. Pull ideas from as many sources as possible. Love the process.

That's all very helpful I'll work on implementing as much of that as I can. So just out of curiosity do you have a melee notebook or something you use to keep track of thoughts that you have about the game?

 

[RedmanSSBM]

I'm having some trouble understanding when to use some moves in neutral against Fox and Falco.

Against Fox, I find myself getting hit by FH nair and FH drill a lot when I try to jump and I'm near the end of Fox's TR. I usually try to position myself to try to SH fair this approach, but it often goes over my head (literally and figuratively) and I get hit with that dair/nair. Do I need to back up more if he is prone to full hopping to the edge of his TR like that? Or am I not timing the fair right? I also noticed I kept getting mixed up by the dair when I tried to nair because I know Marth's nair covers Fox SH dairing at you, but not necessarily full hop. Is Fox in the air long enough for me to just react and dash dance grab him?

Against Falco, I find his lasers to be hard to get around and use moves that allow me to win in neutral. For instance, I struggle to know when to dtilt in neutral against Falco because he is jumping so much and I don't want to get hit by a laser while trying to dtilt. I have a habit of trying to nair over his lasers but this was being too easily reacted to and was being punished. I tried to run in and jab/side-b but that didn't really get me a lot of mileage so either I'm not understanding how to use those moves correctly or I'm not punishing hard enough off of them.

Oh and one more thing, if the space animal is prone to camping the top platform because he knows I am likely to try to jump up there to catch him, or he uses it as a way to get away from me on the ground, how should I be trying to punish him when he lands? I get mixed up a lot by thinking he'll come down immediately but then a DJ happens and then I get hit with dair/bair/whatever. Ideally I'd like to think that Marth should stay grounded against a spacie that likes to use platforms against a Marth, I just have a hard time knowing where to position myself and what to look out for and what to punish.

 

[Reyjavik]

do you think marthkiller would work against peach recovery more effectively?
Rather than downdilting or counter, the hitbox from the umbrella would collide with light shieldand guarantee a peach kill.

Edit:
I've been messing around now with the application and can see how it can be a problem for a high peach float, a low peach float should be pretty safe.
High peaches can drop the umbrella but the low peach has no way to drop safely since obvi they are low.
Example for others reading,
https://youtu.be/IomXcdAAt7E?t=310

 

[Dr Peepee]

That's all very helpful I'll work on implementing as much of that as I can. So just out of curiosity do you have a melee notebook or something you use to keep track of thoughts that you have about the game?

I do have a few but don't use them right now. I just write down what I need to look at later, and also use notepad files to jot down how my training alone and with others goes.

I'm having some trouble understanding when to use some moves in neutral against Fox and Falco.

Against Fox, I find myself getting hit by FH nair and FH drill a lot when I try to jump and I'm near the end of Fox's TR. I usually try to position myself to try to SH fair this approach, but it often goes over my head (literally and figuratively) and I get hit with that dair/nair. Do I need to back up more if he is prone to full hopping to the edge of his TR like that? Or am I not timing the fair right? I also noticed I kept getting mixed up by the dair when I tried to nair because I know Marth's nair covers Fox SH dairing at you, but not necessarily full hop. Is Fox in the air long enough for me to just react and dash dance grab him?

Against Falco, I find his lasers to be hard to get around and use moves that allow me to win in neutral. For instance, I struggle to know when to dtilt in neutral against Falco because he is jumping so much and I don't want to get hit by a laser while trying to dtilt. I have a habit of trying to nair over his lasers but this was being too easily reacted to and was being punished. I tried to run in and jab/side-b but that didn't really get me a lot of mileage so either I'm not understanding how to use those moves correctly or I'm not punishing hard enough off of them.

Oh and one more thing, if the space animal is prone to camping the top platform because he knows I am likely to try to jump up there to catch him, or he uses it as a way to get away from me on the ground, how should I be trying to punish him when he lands? I get mixed up a lot by thinking he'll come down immediately but then a DJ happens and then I get hit with dair/bair/whatever. Ideally I'd like to think that Marth should stay grounded against a spacie that likes to use platforms against a Marth, I just have a hard time knowing where to position myself and what to look out for and what to punish.

Being under platforms helps protect against FH. You can also Uair if they go right over you, and sometimes you can FF and dash and pivot grab or JC grab the landing of the aerial. Backing up is also a good idea to hit Fair, but it can depend on how you drift and also how far they run in before jumping.

You don't need to Dtilt pretty much ever against Falco. Take laser jab or dash back help slow him down, dash attack helps mix up his laser heights, so if he shoots high to beat SH Nair over laser you can dash attack under those heights(and even medium heights). Crouch and dash back PS also make hitting that easier to make him stop lasering but they can be hard to convert out of. When you get around jab range from Falco, you can dash up Fair/Nair/Side B on reaction to Falco starting up a laser in place depending on your reactions. Your goal is to slow Falco down so he's not lasering and then use your mobility and range advantage you regain afterward.

SH'ing around where they will fall is one way to counter them and then if they DJ you can sometimes hit their landing or it just resets. Mixing SH and dash should be enough if you do it in an informed way.

do you think marthkiller would work against peach recovery more effectively?
Rather than downdilting or counter, the hitbox from the umbrella would collide with light shieldand guarantee a peach kill.

Edit:
I've been messing around now with the application and can see how it can be a problem for a high peach float, a low peach float should be pretty safe.
High peaches can drop the umbrella but the low peach has no way to drop safely since obvi they are low.
Example for others reading,
https://youtu.be/IomXcdAAt7E?t=310

No because peach up-B has multiple hits.

 

[Reyjavik]

oh I didn't realize that. I was thinking the initial impact would immedietaly knock off. When I was practicing now, it seemed to work with low hanging peach.
https://youtu.be/cYgMHa5V0qE
I just wanted to see if anyone had any quick thoughts from my match. No in depth analysis, I'm working on grinding through that myself (its hard though for me to be objective)
My pacing has been off last day or so. I was really frustrated with my moves and the game mechanics at times.
I was tilted earlier from same reasons and didn't even stick to game plan here. Just grew angrier and angrier until I realized I needed to stop playing

 

[Kotastic]

Unless you were close to the falco, many of your interactions had little intent.

Practice the little situations, like punishing double laser from ledge, getting pivot grabs, etc.

 

[Reyjavik]

yea I'm so bad at double laser punishing. I've been trying to downtilt out of stun but always get messed up by second laser.
Yea, my brain was on fire and I'm glad someone else saw I was grasping at straws.
How do you definne your intent when playing Kotastic? I've been trying to predict where the opponent goes but it seems whenever I try to think hard about it, my read is wrong.

 

[Kotastic]

I'd define intent as knowing the purpose of doing each one of my tools in order to predict/play mixup of how an interaction would go.

 

[RedmanSSBM]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK_V6XSgx6k Could someone please explain this to me? I thought Samus was intangible during her morph ball animation from down-b, but this is a clip from me testing out some Samus stuff and it looks like that isn't the case? Is there like a tangible hurtbox inside of the morph ball or something?

 

[Kotastic]

Two explanations I can think of from briefly researching this is that perhaps there's a tangible hurtbox inside or you caught Samus frame 38 of her morph ball where she appears to be vulnerable.

 

[Reyjavik]

LMAO "the game is lying to me!"
Kotastic is right according to frame data. if you look at samus hitboxes for it, intangibility for several frames but then you caught it on what I think is the first frame for vulnerability lol.
Look up samus hitboxes if you want for it

 

[maxono1]

yo pp i got a question for you.
idk where it was but you said that being close to falcon in the falcon marth matchup is bad news.
is that because of his super quick run up grab? im really struggling with that option from him in particular.

 

[Zorcey]

yo pp i got a question for you.
idk where it was but you said that being close to falcon in the falcon marth matchup is bad news.
is that because of his super quick run up grab? im really struggling with that option from him in particular.

I think you're remembering him saying that mid-range is generally a bad position against Falcon, because any lag you put yourself in from that spot can be blown up by him, or he can at least get on top of you, so your risk/reward gets poorly skewed. Getting close to Falcon on Marth's terms (on top of him with your sword) is actually really good, and playing far away is fine for him as well, so I'd recommend learning how to set up those positions reliably.

Avoiding playing at mid-range against Falcon when you can should help with getting grabbed, as well as observing PP's principle of "extreme less is more" by minimizing swinging to avoid putting yourself in lag. If Falcon is approaching with grab, you can intercept with Dtilt to get him off the ground, or Nair in place or retreating Fair if he doesn't feint hard.

 

[maxono1]

i couldn't find the message where i think he said it so ill get back to you if i find it.
i will try out your suggestions tho thanks.

 

[RedmanSSBM]

Two explanations I can think of from briefly researching this is that perhaps there's a tangible hurtbox inside or you caught Samus frame 38 of her morph ball where she appears to be vulnerable.

LMAO "the game is lying to me!"
Kotastic is right according to frame data. if you look at samus hitboxes for it, intangibility for several frames but then you caught it on what I think is the first frame for vulnerability lol.
Look up samus hitboxes if you want for it

Believe me, I did double check the frame data on this on Smashboards and in the game as well. There is this 1 frame of tangibility that Samus has in the frame data gif on smashboards, but in the 20XX 4.07 that I tested this in, that is not the case, she is completely intangible (or so I thought) during her entire morph ball animation. Maybe the gif that was posted is from 1.00 and not 1.02?

Either way, I did try to hit her at multiple other timings after she is supposed to be intangible from her morph ball animation but I was still able to hit her. So I'm not hitting some 1 frame that she is tangible for (since that was proven to not be the case) so there is either some hidden hurtbox that is tangible in the middle of her or there is something really weird going on. Maybe an actual bug in the game's code?

EDIT: Nevermind, mystery solved:

 

[Kotastic]

PP whenever a Falco does laser (Marth takes laser outisde of jab distance) --> dash back, do you think it's distinguishable to react between approaching laser or dair if I could intercept the laser startup with side-b or is it a mixup?

Speaking of take laser, there's times where I feel like I don't have much control if the Falco is doing fast lasers in place and mixes with dash back and immediate dair. I know I can PS, but Squid actually has some neat tricks to avoid PS'd lasers by lasering at a certain distance and then SH over the PS'd laser and then takes advantage of my extra shield lag from the PS. This is particularly apparent in FD where I don't have platforms to at least gain some footing. Do you have some tips to make myself feel more in control if the Falco chooses to laser in place repeatedly while mixing dash back/dair?

 

[Dr Peepee]

You mean approaching laser vs approaching Dair from the dash back? Mayybe not, but what you can since Falco is so far away on the dash back is jab/Dtilt if the Falco lasers in just standing in the same place, and do a quick pivot grab on approaching Dair. That should work based on the spacing I'm thinking of, so if you want to show me a specific video we can look at that. Oh and since you could jab/Dtilt, you could dash side B too.

Kind of hard to answer this without knowing what Falco does after dash back unless it's just the above problem. Also I don't know the exact spacing you describe. Having said that, I think getting into a range of about take laser jab and then rushing in with side B if you see a laser start and otherwise priming dash back for pivot grab on Dair worked well for me. If I dashed in and he dashed back then I could switch to doing a Nair/Fair and be alright, or just reacting out of my dash in since at that new spacing Falco can be in trouble. If you haven't looked at how much time you have in 20XX, that may be worth doing.

 

[Kotastic]

You mean jab/side-b/dtilt the range where falco lasers in place or does an approach laser? Or should it somehow encompass both?

How can I prime for a dash back vs. dair (unreactable) when approaching laser would b eat dash back which puts me at a worse position? I'm just wondering if this is something I could react to or is a mixup. I do like the dash in vs his dash back on wall out with nair/fair in place idea at closer ranges.

 

[Dr Peepee]

The approaching laser.

Oh I see. Yeah I could react to laser fine since it has a ton of startup and I was primed for it in those ranges. It's not easy but with some practice I got fairly consistent(90%+) at it. I could then dash back if Falco jumped in and pivot grab Dair and otherwise side B or whatever vs laser startup. If you don't think you can do that then...I never came up with another answer lol but you can try the aerials at least since you like those.

 

[Reyjavik]

So how do you deal with dtilt in the ditto? I’ve recently been having trouble with it and can only see dashing back as the best option

 

[Dr Peepee]

Jump over with Nair, Fsmash around it, come in with your own Dtilt during lag, hold down and get hit by it then Dtilt back. Those are generally your main options besides moving back.

 

[Reyjavik]

It seems that even when I CC and dtilt back, the exact same thing happens to me.
I just feel a bit lost now for some reason in the ditto. I'm starting to see intent and options more in the game but stillfeel unconfident in play, especially when reverting back to 0-2 status in local tourneys

 

[Dr Peepee]

If their Dtilt tippers and they don't dash in then it's not going to hit them.

 

[ChivalRuse]

Is it worth trying to overshoot a running shield into their d-tilt to potentially land a shield grab? I don't really know what are the do's and don't's of that matchup.

 

[Reyjavik]

How did you deal with rage in the game PP? I feel last couple of days have been demoralizing and I've gotten so angry at the game and its mechanics.
I tried to focus that raw anger into working out but want to use it more constructively and calm down more quickly to improve mentality and skill.
I remember you used to be a passionate/tempered player especially during KOC4 against Mango

 

[Dr Peepee]

Is it worth trying to overshoot a running shield into their d-tilt to potentially land a shield grab? I don't really know what are the do's and don't's of that matchup.

Nah they can dash away before the grab comes out. If you think they won't get the dash very reliably then that tactic is worth going for though. I do it when I think the opponent is off balance or just not too technically proficient so it's more of a weak execution test imo.

How did you deal with rage in the game PP? I feel last couple of days have been demoralizing and I've gotten so angry at the game and its mechanics.
I tried to focus that raw anger into working out but want to use it more constructively and calm down more quickly to improve mentality and skill.
I remember you used to be a passionate/tempered player especially during KOC4 against Mango

That is true, for a while I did not have a good answer to emotional issues. When I was coming up, I was always more motivated to do well and play the game the way I wanted to than I could be mad at my opponent. After I became a top player I struggled with emotions more heavily. After looking into it more, I found that one good way of tackling my emotional issues was to examine my thinking when I got mad. It usually came from making a mistake or getting hit. I used to feel I never should get hit and would always get mad if I did get hit. After thinking about it, I realized that it came from disrespecting the opponent and not giving them enough credit. It came just as much from a desire to be perfect and not accept failure too. This latter one became a good focus for me and was a good way to allow myself to accept messing up and facing fears I didn't want to face. This acceptance of failure made me less likely to fail and so I don't get mad about getting hit anymore, long story short.

So basically, looking at what you think when you get mad, or imagining getting mad and asking yourself why is a good starting point. Channeling the emotion is good, but also seeing if it's a justified feeling and attacking the source is just as important.

 

[RedmanSSBM]

Yesterday after having some rough sleep from the night before I felt like I was out of energy for pretty much the entire day yesterday. I felt out of focus, out of enthusiasm, and out of the will to win. I noticed when I was playing friendlies and ranked netplay that I was much slower than I normally was and my reaction times were much slower as well. The fortunate thing though is despite how bad I played, I wasn't affected emotionally by it. When I would lose, I would just feel disappointed that I couldn't play better due to the lack of energy.

This lack of energy problem doesn't happen to me that often, and it's not always a lack of sleep that is the root cause of it either. I was thinking of trying to at least do some light exercise (biking around my apartment complex for roughly 20 minutes) every other day so that I can help prevent feeling out of energy physically like that.

I have two questions that stem from this:
First off, would this light exercise be recommended? Should I do it more often or should I do it less often than every other day? Should my exercise be longer or more intensive? Is there something other than exercise that would help keep my energy levels in check? I do a good job of making sure I eat the right foods so I don't think an extensive change in diet is necessary.

Secondly, how do I handle playing Melee when I am feeling out of energy like this? It's really hard to think and I know if I go on auto-pilot to not try to think so much, I'm not executing as fast and it feel like things can fall apart pretty quickly. What are some steps that you take to help you to not play at your worst when you're out of energy like this?

 

[Reyjavik]

Yesterday after having some rough sleep from the night before I felt like I was out of energy for pretty much the entire day yesterday. I felt out of focus, out of enthusiasm, and out of the will to win. I noticed when I was playing friendlies and ranked netplay that I was much slower than I normally was and my reaction times were much slower as well. The fortunate thing though is despite how bad I played, I wasn't affected emotionally by it. When I would lose, I would just feel disappointed that I couldn't play better due to the lack of energy.

This lack of energy problem doesn't happen to me that often, and it's not always a lack of sleep that is the root cause of it either. I was thinking of trying to at least do some light exercise (biking around my apartment complex for roughly 20 minutes) every other day so that I can help prevent feeling out of energy physically like that.

I have two questions that stem from this:
First off, would this light exercise be recommended? Should I do it more often or should I do it less often than every other day? Should my exercise be longer or more intensive? Is there something other than exercise that would help keep my energy levels in check? I do a good job of making sure I eat the right foods so I don't think an extensive change in diet is necessary.

Secondly, how do I handle playing Melee when I am feeling out of energy like this? It's really hard to think and I know if I go on auto-pilot to not try to think so much, I'm not executing as fast and it feel like things can fall apart pretty quickly. What are some steps that you take to help you to not play at your worst when you're out of energy like this?

Exercise always helps as you are getting more oxygen into your bloodstream and allowing more blood to flow around your body. It honestly depends on what you want to achieve with your exercise as you have to set goal or setup a system to allow yourself to succeed. Generally 150 minutes of exercise per week is recommended.
Honestly I have felt the same and best thing to do is sort out your life before melee. Everything is connected so getting proper sleep, exercise and diet will only improve your overall health and therefore improve your skills over time. Its always good to take a break from the game for a day or more.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Yesterday after having some rough sleep from the night before I felt like I was out of energy for pretty much the entire day yesterday. I felt out of focus, out of enthusiasm, and out of the will to win. I noticed when I was playing friendlies and ranked netplay that I was much slower than I normally was and my reaction times were much slower as well. The fortunate thing though is despite how bad I played, I wasn't affected emotionally by it. When I would lose, I would just feel disappointed that I couldn't play better due to the lack of energy.

This lack of energy problem doesn't happen to me that often, and it's not always a lack of sleep that is the root cause of it either. I was thinking of trying to at least do some light exercise (biking around my apartment complex for roughly 20 minutes) every other day so that I can help prevent feeling out of energy physically like that.

I have two questions that stem from this:
First off, would this light exercise be recommended? Should I do it more often or should I do it less often than every other day? Should my exercise be longer or more intensive? Is there something other than exercise that would help keep my energy levels in check? I do a good job of making sure I eat the right foods so I don't think an extensive change in diet is necessary.

Secondly, how do I handle playing Melee when I am feeling out of energy like this? It's really hard to think and I know if I go on auto-pilot to not try to think so much, I'm not executing as fast and it feel like things can fall apart pretty quickly. What are some steps that you take to help you to not play at your worst when you're out of energy like this?

Exercise is one good solution for this, though it may need to be multi-faceted. Regular, daily exercise is generally best. Some would argue that high intensity exercise is better while others say cardio for longer is better. I happen to be in the cardio camp, but you could also take a hybrid approach of longer and shorter exercise sessions on the same or different days to be sure you cover your bases if you like.

If you're out of shape in a given day, I think just sticking to practice/analysis/working on secondaries is usually a better way to go than tryharding. You don't gain much competitively speaking from playing and needing high levels of execution and awareness when you don't have that, besides practicing adjusting for when you're in situations like that I suppose.

 

[vexoskeleton]

I was watching gingers analysis of him vs mango and at one point he talks about how he hesitated for a moment before attacking mango and how that must have been the moment he thought to himself 'I'm about to take a game off mango.' This made me realize I often do the same thing where I will be going into a match with a preconceived notion that I should come out the loser and that affects how I play in the game especially when I come to these moments where I realize I can attain victory, and then I hesitate in my thought process as that thought of 'i might win' comes up. Going into the match I know I can win but it's hard to see that realized until getting to those last stocks at a time I feel. Just asking what you found to be the best way to go into any match without painting yourself into this box?

I'm thinking of continuing my reading of inner game of tennis as I believe that'll likely be much help but thought I'd still ask for any other advice you might have.

 

[Zorcey]

My zoning study has been coming along really nicely, and I've seen a lot of improvement these past weeks as a result. Most of it has been defining my zoning tools, and analyzing+shadowboxing with them in context thinking about their uses, what they beat, effects on the opponent, etc. which has accelerated my ability to "solve" situations to the point in some cases I can do it on the fly instead of having to sit and work it all out, because I just have a stronger sense of what my tools are good for, and when presented with a problem experimenting feels more natural. Highly recommend this practice to the other baby Marths.

On that more specifically, Pivot Fair feels a little unclear to me. The way I see it is that it deepens your dash back mixup, because the opponent is forced to more honestly cover it by committing to running down your dash back before you can get the Fair out, which makes options like retreating Fair/Dtilt in place stronger because it catches their yolo approach. Pivot Fair also covers Marth vertically better, because he play with the timing the sword comes out more/the space between him and his opponent with his dash back. Are these uses correct, and am I forgetting anything else important about the option?

Something else I'm struggling with atm is preemptive adaption. Basically in a position, for example recovering from the ledge, I don't really get when/why my opponent is going to change up their ledgeguard option or not. I might win the position with one option 3+ times and then suddenly they change and I get punished hard/die. It's not clear to me - especially against "worse" players, but really anyone - what makes them suddenly switch options, because I guess it could be any number of things.
When top players dominate against anyone who's not ~Top 30, they always seem to either have a good idea of what's coming, or put themselves in a position that they can react to a ton of stuff, or at least cover options consecutively (in a "check for this, but if they don't do that I still have time to cover this and this" type thing), so I wonder if this is just a matter of breaking positions down further to develop "flowcharts" with spots built in where I react? I guess that makes sense for a lot of positions, but in some where it seems like it's a real mixup, is the best I can do looking for patterns in their movements/positions leading to certain options? (For example if I'm on the ledge and they're DDing in and out of my ledgehop Fair range, they want me to do that so they can whiff punish with grab.) Is it possible to be attuned to that throughout a match?

 

[Dr Peepee]

I was watching gingers analysis of him vs mango and at one point he talks about how he hesitated for a moment before attacking mango and how that must have been the moment he thought to himself 'I'm about to take a game off mango.' This made me realize I often do the same thing where I will be going into a match with a preconceived notion that I should come out the loser and that affects how I play in the game especially when I come to these moments where I realize I can attain victory, and then I hesitate in my thought process as that thought of 'i might win' comes up. Going into the match I know I can win but it's hard to see that realized until getting to those last stocks at a time I feel. Just asking what you found to be the best way to go into any match without painting yourself into this box?

I'm thinking of continuing my reading of inner game of tennis as I believe that'll likely be much help but thought I'd still ask for any other advice you might have.

When I was coming up, the best solution to many of my problems was to focus on the game. I would notice a big moment coming up and think "how can I use this against my opponent?" Everything needed to be fed back into the match and used to my advantage. So if I was about to win, I would think "are they afraid of losing? What will they do in the game to try to prevent that, like playing more defensively...?"

It can also be an overall motivation thing though, and you may need to spend time trusting your training and getting lost in the matches and always trying to win no matter what. The Inner Game can help you get closer to that goal.

My zoning study has been coming along really nicely, and I've seen a lot of improvement these past weeks as a result. Most of it has been defining my zoning tools, and analyzing+shadowboxing with them in context thinking about their uses, what they beat, effects on the opponent, etc. which has accelerated my ability to "solve" situations to the point in some cases I can do it on the fly instead of having to sit and work it all out, because I just have a stronger sense of what my tools are good for, and when presented with a problem experimenting feels more natural. Highly recommend this practice to the other baby Marths.

On that more specifically, Pivot Fair feels a little unclear to me. The way I see it is that it deepens your dash back mixup, because the opponent is forced to more honestly cover it by committing to running down your dash back before you can get the Fair out, which makes options like retreating Fair/Dtilt in place stronger because it catches their yolo approach. Pivot Fair also covers Marth vertically better, because he play with the timing the sword comes out more/the space between him and his opponent with his dash back. Are these uses correct, and am I forgetting anything else important about the option?

Something else I'm struggling with atm is preemptive adaption. Basically in a position, for example recovering from the ledge, I don't really get when/why my opponent is going to change up their ledgeguard option or not. I might win the position with one option 3+ times and then suddenly they change and I get punished hard/die. It's not clear to me - especially against "worse" players, but really anyone - what makes them suddenly switch options, because I guess it could be any number of things.
When top players dominate against anyone who's not ~Top 30, they always seem to either have a good idea of what's coming, or put themselves in a position that they can react to a ton of stuff, or at least cover options consecutively (in a "check for this, but if they don't do that I still have time to cover this and this" type thing), so I wonder if this is just a matter of breaking positions down further to develop "flowcharts" with spots built in where I react? I guess that makes sense for a lot of positions, but in some where it seems like it's a real mixup, is the best I can do looking for patterns in their movements/positions leading to certain options? (For example if I'm on the ledge and they're DDing in and out of my ledgehop Fair range, they want me to do that so they can whiff punish with grab.) Is it possible to be attuned to that throughout a match?

Pivot Fair beats ground and air approaches as you said, and also deepens dash back as you said. It works okay with pivot grab because you're putting out a bigger move and one that counters things that beat pivot grab. Both lose to moving in and waiting, and they each kind of lose to faking. So if you mix with dash back pivot SH away or dash (pivot) WD away, and dash back move in then you don't lock down your dash back into sticking to one spot.

I think this will largely solve itself as you keep working on positions. When you win a position a number of times, you don't need to always do as much of an honest threat. Sometimes if you just stand still people will fear what you could do and flail for example. Sometimes you just need to keep the tempo higher with movement but you do it in a way to encourage them to act so they flail. Sometimes people will know the difference is coming based on how the position happened. So if you have been punishing something the same way 3+ times as you said, and then you get them on the edge once again after an especially brutal combo, you can expect them to flail more and should bait that out instead of looking for a more optimal option. Examining these types of things along with other factors such as percent could be helpful to you. If you'd like to look at some specifics we can do that.

 

[Plumpet]

Nah they can dash away before the grab comes out. If you think they won't get the dash very reliably then that tactic is worth going for though. I do it when I think the opponent is off balance or just not too technically proficient so it's more of a weak execution test imo.


That is true, for a while I did not have a good answer to emotional issues. When I was coming up, I was always more motivated to do well and play the game the way I wanted to than I could be mad at my opponent. After I became a top player I struggled with emotions more heavily. After looking into it more, I found that one good way of tackling my emotional issues was to examine my thinking when I got mad. It usually came from making a mistake or getting hit. I used to feel I never should get hit and would always get mad if I did get hit. After thinking about it, I realized that it came from disrespecting the opponent and not giving them enough credit. It came just as much from a desire to be perfect and not accept failure too. This latter one became a good focus for me and was a good way to allow myself to accept messing up and facing fears I didn't want to face. This acceptance of failure made me less likely to fail and so I don't get mad about getting hit anymore, long story short.

So basically, looking at what you think when you get mad, or imagining getting mad and asking yourself why is a good starting point. Channeling the emotion is good, but also seeing if it's a justified feeling and attacking the source is just as important.

Are you talking about tipper dtilt or dtilt in general? I think closeish dtilt is shield grabbable if you're in range, since when I test a frame perfect shieldgrab, marth gets grabbed before IASA even starts

 

[Dr Peepee]

Really? I was pretty sure even close Dtilt was safe but I'll test it.