Sounds fine. Kagaribi Grand Finals set 1 game 1. You may want to follow along with the video for maximum benefit. I would have done a video analysis but I haven't got the time to edit a full video right now, so here we go:
Starting off the match at 0:26, Sparg0 slides forward and charges Limit. This is because he knows that acola is going to mine for materials the moment the match starts, so sliding forward wins him immediate stage control -- he's center stage and also below acola, which is great. The slight Limit Charge is just there because there's no reason to put out a hitbox yet and you don't lose anything by charging a bit of Limit. Sparg0 could have chosen to charge even longer here, but that would have wasted positional advantage. Instead, sparg0 opts for free pressure, swinging a f-air toward the platform.
This f-air is completely safe, as even if acola parries, the positional advantage sparg0 gained by sliding forward with Limit ensures that acola can't get anything from the exchange.
acola, aware of the situation, slides to the right off the platform with some materials in tow.
This is an example of Steve starting off the match on the back foot because has to mine. Most players don't take advantage of this positional lead because they give up center stage and let Steve roll into the middle. sparg0 doesn't, and in fact, he won't all set.
At 0:27, when sparg0 sees that the f-air is about to miss, he reacts to acola being in the corner by inputting turnaround, sliding back, and jumping. The non-fast-fall hop he does looks very slow, doesn't it? It's because he was preparing to react to acola rolling toward center with f-tilt. acola didn't give up the roll, so that's why sparg0 didn't f-tilt and instead just waited.
Instead, acola hung by the ledge hoping for a similar overcommitment by sparg0, but sparg0 also didn't overcommit, so acola decides this is his chance to commit to pulling a new tool from the crafting table. This is bad for acola, because sparg0 is in perfect position to react to this animation with b-air.
This b-air and the followup Cross Slash hit confirm are totally on reaction, so sparg0 has not had to do anything at all for this win so far. Since neutral was given away so freely, I have to wonder if it was intentional. Indeed, it looks like acola DIes Cross Slash up and away during 0:30 and uses dirt blocks to avoid followups, which lends some credence to the idea that acola might have expected to get hit and decided to take the early 30% to get materials.
After that, acola navigates back down with some tricky movement using Steve's fastfall. The reason sparg0 can't get a followup here is that he can't overcommit and let acola land and roll to center -- if sparg0 does that, then the significant advantage of getting to fight low-material Steve early in the match is lost, so the one thing that sparg0
cannot allow is for acola to roll in. This is why sparg0 spaces double b-airs at 0:35 and then dashes in toward center. Protecting center is the goal, and nothing else matters. Notice how quickly the full-hop spaced f-air at 0:37 is followed by an immediate dash back to center.
Do you notice sparg0 pausing here? Yep, he was preparing f-tilt to react to acola rolling in. The roll to center is everything here, it is the heart of this series of reactions and interactions, and both players know it very well.
However, after the next landed b-air, sparg0's patience cracks a bit a tiny bit. sparg0 commits to double jump at 0:39 and gets hit; he's unable to recover from the situation even with a parry and ends up losing both center and a bunch of %. This is a classic overextension punished by Steve's monstrous advantage state, and sparg0 takes 57 and gets Limit at the wrong time (acola isn't at a percent to die to Cross Slash, and sparg0 doesn't have center to make use of Limit).
You'll notice that sparg0 realizes his error and what he stands to give up and lands back on the stage with back to back aggressive f-airs at 0:47. This is a somewhat questionable way to land and acola could have grabbed him or parried him and possibly killed him here. I'm not sure why sparg0 did this. I wonder if he felt desperate to gain center back before acola has Diamond or if he thought that it was safe to take a risk because of the added recovery mixups that Limit provides. Either way, a better move might have been to use the platform to space rising and falling b-airs to win center and use Limit Blade Beam to pressure.
Still, acola isn't ready for the aggression and doesn't punish, instead choosing for safe rolls to find an opportunity to get materials. sparg0 notices all the rolling and is on the hunt -- at 0:51, sparg0 up-tilts in anticipation of another roll. acola does have something of a roll habit, so a few rolls instantly tells sparg0 that acola is on the defensive and possibly nervous. That's why sparg0 commits to the risky up-tilt at this time and gets punished.
In turn, you'll notice that acola actually does turn-around shield just before sparg0 up-tilts. This is because he's noticed all the aggressive f-airs and probably wants to parry and punish. However, once he sees the whiffed up-tilt he reacts to a grounded sparg0 being stuck in the middle of an animation and hits him.
The following Steve combo is pretty standard, with acola reading that sparg0 would tech in because of the desperate bid for center so far. I would have made the same read, but it was (in hindsight) way too risky especially given that sparg0 had Limit to recover with anyway. While it's true that a player who so desperately wants center will be more likely to tech in, the risk is high if the tech in doesn't happen, and sparg0 proves it by landing in and rolling out. acola's failed s-mash costs him center because sparg0 punishes with Limit Blade Beam, and Cloud's swift ground speed allows sparg0 to translate this into an advantageous position. This is a classic example of overextension leading into reversal. Both sides made plenty of mistakes in these few opening exchanges.
The close f-air in advantage at 0:56 is usually followed up by a roll, but sparg0 timed it so well that he had time to shield and punish OOS with n-air when acola tried to punish the f-air. Cloud's run-in f-airs are ambiguous and have different timings, and since Steve's grab isn't fast, many of these are unpunishable without parry.
0:58 is interesting, since the dirt block placement takes free advantage of earlier conditioning. sparg0 commits to double jump because acola was using dirt blocks earlier to stay out of b-air range and sparg0 expects that again, but this time acola drops low -- almost a really smart move, showing awareness of previous interactions. Unfortunately, acola seems a bit nervous and dips below stage to up-b, which leaves sparg0 enough time to react and slide into a ledge trump. The correct option for acola was just to drop down and grab ledge, because sparg0 wouldn't have been in range to punish and acola would have gotten to center stage. acola is overly tricky here unnecessarily and ends up cornered as a result of his extra caution.
At 1:01 acola again fails to parry and punish sparg0; sparg0's timing mixups are quite involved and we could probably write volumes about them, but suffice it to say that the timing of this particular b-air was different from all the previous ones, and it was spaced immaculately.
The early ledge trump scared acola into using Minecart to recover at 1:05, but boy, oh boy is this a bad decision. It might not seem bad in isolation, but think of the game in totality so far. The problem is that sparg0 is now fully conditioned to expect high recoveries. The first time, the high dirt block recovery led to acola staying in disadvantage until sparg0 overcommitted. The second time, sparg0 tried to punish a high recovery and was met with a low recovery, and he was
still able to punish acola and keep him in disadvantage. If I'm sparg0 here, I'm thinking "there's no issue with punishing high right now, acola is playing too cautiously," and acola plays right into this and lets himself get b-aired.
At 1:08, sparg0 runs toward ledge to fake the ledge trump, forcing an option from acola. sparg0 just guesses and covers ledge jump. There's no reason to suspect one ledge option over another, so this is just a smart guess that pays off. The following guess at 1:14 is ledge jump again, but this time it's wrong, and acola gets back to stage and even punishes sparg0 for the bad guess. It's not the worst overcommitment ever as the reward is quite high.
At 1:22, acola has been conditioned to give sparg0 plenty of space because of Limit Blade Beam, so that's why he retreats to center to build blocks instead of setting up a ledge trap. sparg0 reads the defensive play habits and hits Limit Cross Slash at 1:26, and then he reacts to early Minecart by jumping with his back turned at 1:28. acola is used to the spacing of the late b-air so he jumps higher this time. This extra high "vertical descent" recovery makes sense. After all, sparg0 has punished him for both recovering high and low, so might as well go super high instead -- Anvil is a great move that doesn't allow punishment on reaction, one of Steve's privileges.
sparg0 doesn't do anything particularly innovative in response. He just maintains center stage and b-airs in places where acola might drift in to hit acola. Standard Cloud advantage state with a focus on keeping center.
1:31 is interesting. It seems that sparg0 began charging Limit in response to acola being hit; sparg0 wasn't expecting acola to tech the block. acola might not have expected to tech either since his immediate reaction was shield, so it seems they both panicked here, and sparg0 did the thing that most sword players do when they panic -- he jumped! To give some perspective, this jump is actually a super common swordie jump. When you're close to an opponent like this you want to jump and slowly drift away, aerialing if you react to your opponent staying in the same spot. Retreating swordie aerials toward center are hard to punish and acola did not have the positioning here to properly whiff punish, so this b-air was just free. If it hits, great. If not, great.
It does hit, but since sparg0 just came fresh out of panic mode, he doesn't seem to know what to do. He charges Limit after a pause, while acola feints another high recovery to go low. On ledge, notice that at 1:38 that sparg0 walks toward center in order to punish roll. acola doesn't give up the roll, instead choosing to wait for some commital movement to react to, so sparg0 decides to bait him. sparg0 jumps as if he intends to commit to b-air. This is a compelling bait because sparg0 is already facing toward center (back to ledge) and has b-aired before in the same position, so once acola sees the jump, acola snap-reacts and inputs roll -- sparg0's bait works and a reactive f-tilt seals stock 1.
At 1:44, acola's low materials allow sparg0 to space aggressive f-airs, d-tilts, and Cross Slashes. There's not much to say about these options. sparg0 is just continuing his advantage state from the previous stock. That's one of the things about fighting Steve -- your advantage state continues into the following stock sometimes, because once Steve is low on materials, he'll be low for a little while. Cloud is fast and ambiguous enough that acola doesn't have time to mine too many materials, and sparg0 takes full advantage of it, spacing aerials that Steve simply cannot punish while simultaneously juggling the pursuit of materials.
At 1:51 acola finally gets center stage because of a couple of misspacings, but sparg0 claims it back pretty easily with double jump. Steve can't punish Cloud full hop double jump too well, so sparg0 wins enough stage to dash back and dash back in. This dash back and dash forward sequence is the Elite Smash classic, and it's pretty bad in most situations since it tends to be predictable. But in this case, it's useful because acola gives up center -- sparg0 actually only dashes forward after the dash back in response to acola retreating to the right side of the stage.
The jump at 1:56 is a "wait and see" jump. sparg0 was probably thinking "n-air or f-air?" while jumping and hadn't decided on one or the other, deferring the decision to mid-drift. When acola commits to jump himself though, sparg0 commits to the f-air in reaction. Cloud f-air punishes every single jump option that Steve has.
But the n-air was definitely prepared, likely for grounded Steve. You can actually see trace evidence of n-air lingering in sparg0's mind because he uses it at 2:00. He's definitely thinking that some of these panic situations they've gotten into in scrambles could be better handled with n-airs, so n-air has just become part of the mental toolkit for the match, albeit only briefly.
After that, acola commits to up-smash in desperation. sparg0 baited him way too easily with that double jump, so easily that I don't even know if I can call it a bait. sparg0's been double jumping a lot, so there was no reason to suspect that he'd land on the platform above Steve in this particular situation.
As acola whiffs, sparg0 commits to dash attack here for the punish. I'm gonna say that the block saving acola here was mostly accidental, meaning that no, acola probably didn't place the block there with the intention of saving himself from punishment after a whiffed up-smash. It's possible, but the disadvantage for Steve has just felt too desperate so far for that kind of intentional planning ahead to be possible.
At 2:11, notice how sparg0 holds advantage state. He uses slow-drift jumps where he's ready to react to any kind of roll with an aerial. He will not let acola have center at any cost, and he only ever commits to b-air in positions where acola can't react to the b-air and roll in. Look at how hurriedly he jumps away at 2:12 in reaction to acola jumping close to him. He's likely thinking "must keep center, must keep advantage." At 2:15 he reacts to the parry by shielding instead of dashing, jumping, or spotdodging -- signifying his intent to retain center.
At 2:23 you'll notice how sparg0 once again double jumps into center as soon as acola claims it. acola absolutely cannot maintain center against a double jumping Cloud, and that's one of sparg0's biggest advantages so far.
At 2:28, sparg0 feints an up-air in order to drift forward and b-air the Steve stall. Notice that sparg0 hasn't used any up-airs at all in this match despite it being a staple of his typical advantage state. This is because you don't need up-air against Steve -- Steve is too slow in the air; every possible Steve mixup is covered by b-air and the appropriate drift.
2:33 is just artistry in a strongly advantaged position. acola is locked in shield without resources, so sparg0 could have done any fancy movement he wanted here, and it would have had the same result. It looks cool, but it's not too meaningful. He anti-airs with up-tilt and even goes for an up-air for the first time in the game to catch a possible airdodge.
After this, sparg0 loses sight of keeping center for a while. He's likely in, "I want to get this match over with and move on to the next game" mentality here, because he even commits to full Cross Slash and and low up-airs, in stark contrast to his behavior the past couple of stocks. His neutral play still consists of great spacing and fantasies mixups, though, and since Steve is low on resources, this aggression makes sense. This section finishes off as acola is forced to drift in to sparg0 around 3:03 because of all the Cloud double-jumps that retake center, so sparg0 takes advantage and pivots into a Limit Cross Slash. Notice how hard it is for Steve to reversal Cloud, whereas Cloud reversaling Steve is easy.
Watch 3:05. sparg0 hits the Cross Slash, then jumps in reaction to acola's drift, in order to prepare positioning to punish a landing. He reacts almost instantly to the block by swinging b-air, but acola fastfalls down to ledge and avoids it. Remember earlier when I said fastfall down and grab ledge immediately is the best answer to sparg0 double jumping when acola is in disadvantage? Yep, here it is. This is the right play. By making this play, acola even wins center from disadvantage for the first time! He's able to get the roll he's been wanting all game and even punishes sparg0 a couple of times. All because of one small decision in disadvantage, acola gets a bunch of materials and even kills sparg0.
On sparg0's side, he's definitely a little overly eager to finish the match. A slight turndown in the pace would have been good for him here and probably less risky. acola already had center and was gaining lots of materials, so spacing b-airs might have been sounder than committing to a dash attack at 3:22. Still, not a bad move in the moment with a lead so large.
Credit to sparg0, he realizes his own overeagerness and becomes very patient after this, using fallthrough b-air from platform as I suggested earlier (the pinnacle of Cloud defensive play) and then even waiting for a roll to grab acola shortly after.
At 3:34, notice again that sparg0 doesn't commit to up-air. Jumping and waiting for the Steve drift in order to line up a b-air is an option that Steve has to jump through a thousand hoops to even hope to answer, so sparg0 can pretty much always commit to this tactic to set up ledge trap situations.
After that, the match finishes with one last bait from sparg0 -- jump to feint b-air, wait for acola to react to the jump, and then f-tilt reactively. Recall that sparg0 did this earlier with roll, too. One of acola's weaknesses as a player is overreliance on his own reaction time; when getting off the ledge, acola always waits for some kind of signal from the opponent before choosing a ledge option, and sparg0 is easily able to bait him as a result.
And that's game 1.
sparg0 keeps center, baits acola when acola is in disadvantage, and pushes advantage each time acola is out of materials.
Moves sparg0 mostly avoids (using maybe once): up-air, grab, Blade Beam, n-air, random Cross Slashes in neutral, up-smash, d-tilts.
Moves that circle through his toolkit this match: b-air, double jump, Limit Blade Beam, f-air.
Using a small, precise toolkit, keeping center, and relying on baits when in advantage let sparg0 win this match pretty handily.
ever.
