Critique my Ice Climbers

[Nintendude]

Hey everyone. Last weekend I went to the huge No Johns regional tristate tournament and got 9th in singles and 4th in teams. A bunch of videos got recorded, which I am excited about because I rarely go to tournaments and I even more rarely get recorded. Here they are:

vs. G$
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMS91di_SbY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz9G2_9RP58

vs. Hax
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nhxq-Qx4lNo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8Ms7R2v3PY

vs. Vanz/Teczero
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-WGv0I5Yb0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X34mphmb94M

Also recorded were my sets vs. UltimaScout, DJ Nintendo (he put me in losers), Hax/Lambchops, Chu2/Zeke, and Vanz/Teczero (losers bracket), but someone else recorded those and I think he's way behind on uploading videos so they won't be up for awhile. There's also some friendlies vs. Hazz's Fox and Sol's Sheik but I don't think he bothered processing friendlies....

Anyway, I'm looking for advice in terms of my overall strategy, decision making, and how I approach matchups / teams. My grab game fell apart in these sets, which for some reason is a recurring problem for me. Like, it's stupid stuff like when you clearly try to input d-throw and it does f-throw or b-throw instead (I think that's happened to all of you before). It pretty much ruined my set vs. Hax since when my grab game is on point we trade matches back and forth.

I feel that my biggest strength is I play a strong neutral game, in particular a very lethal solo Popo, so any tips to improve on that further would also be appreciated.

 

[MikeHaggarTHAKJB]

i didnt watch those videos but i know you **** at ssb64:D
edit: i did watch the hax vids (watching the others now to). first tip on improving is to ****ing wobble already. embrace the gay

also youre mad good. much better then i expected. good **** keep it up

 

[Nintendude]

Thanks. Wobbling was banned at that tournament...

 

[Smasher89]

1:11 against hax, jab to turnaround dsmash is nice in that position...

 

[Fly_Amanita]

I don't have too much to say since most of what you do seems really reasonable to me.

Against Falco, Choknater's blizzard trick isn't /that/ good. It is pretty nice and G$ wasn't punishing you for it, but keep in mind that Falco can just not shoot a laser and jump over the blizzard and punish you however he wants to. I think ice blocks would have been better most of the times you tried to do that. Oh yeah, I think the reason Nana SD'd on the first stock of the second round has to do with how far you started the wavedash from the edge. I think if you started closer to the edge, she wouldn't have killed herself.

Against Falcon, try to CC the raptor boost more often. Also, a nice and easy way of knocking Falcon off-stage if you've grabbed him and you're facing towards the center is dthrow -> reverse dair -> dsmash.

Do you have any idea why your grab game was off? It would probably help a lot if you could identify what sort of factors cause your tech skill to not be on point, since your grab issues were easily the biggest problems you were having.

 

[Vanitas]

Against Falco, i think you should apply what Fly does in which he takes advantage of being hit by a laser as an opportunity to desynch (see Fly VS Zhu REALLY helpful)

well you said your grab game was off but im not sure if you know about the reverse dair chaingrab against Falcon? Works wonders as not all Falcons know how to get out of that.

But otherwise, im very impressed. You re a very smart player

 

[Nintendude]

Against Falco, Choknater's blizzard trick isn't /that/ good. It is pretty nice and G$ wasn't punishing you for it, but keep in mind that Falco can just not shoot a laser and jump over the blizzard and punish you however he wants to. I think ice blocks would have been better most of the times you tried to do that. Oh yeah, I think the reason Nana SD'd on the first stock of the second round has to do with how far you started the wavedash from the edge. I think if you started closer to the edge, she wouldn't have killed herself.

Against Falcon, try to CC the raptor boost more often. Also, a nice and easy way of knocking Falcon off-stage if you've grabbed him and you're facing towards the center is dthrow -> reverse dair -> dsmash.

Do you have any idea why your grab game was off? It would probably help a lot if you could identify what sort of factors cause your tech skill to not be on point, since your grab issues were easily the biggest problems you were having.

That was actually my first time trying the blizzard trick against a good player, and yeah he let me get away with screwing it up a lot. I tried it some more in friendlies against random Falcos and still had success with it. I guess people are just so unfamiliar with the tactic that they don't know what to do about it.

Up to what % can you CC raptor boost?

I'm not sure why my grab game was off except that maybe I was a little jittery due to relative inexperience? I think I just need zone in and focus more on my controller inputs, because every mistake was doing the wrong throw by accident. I'm usually not good at chaingrabbing Sheik for some reason but when I played Banks's Sheik in tournament whenever I got a grab I completely zoned out everything else except the match and my controller and executed practically 3 perfect 0-deaths (and I was down 3 stocks and won the match b/c of that). If I can achieve that level of focus every time then I'll screw up a lot less (and also be that much more beastly).

Against Falco, i think you should apply what Fly does in which he takes advantage of being hit by a laser as an opportunity to desynch (see Fly VS Zhu REALLY helpful)

well you said your grab game was off but im not sure if you know about the reverse dair chaingrab against Falcon? Works wonders as not all Falcons know how to get out of that.

But otherwise, im very impressed. You re a very smart player

Yeah every time I grabbed and did f-throw its probably because I got ahead of myself and didn't input down before telling Nana to go forwards for the reverse Dair. Hax is actually very good at escaping that though (Hax is just a beast in general, definitely a top-3 US Falcon), but I definitely should have still gotten significant damage or edgeguard opportunities from my grabs. There was one particularly "d'oh" moment where I started charging up-smash at like 130% and did b-throw by accident.

Typically when I play I utilize every kind of grab trick successfully. I chose to stick with d-throw dair vs. G$ since he didn't seem to know how to escape it and since I was a bit off I wanted to stick with that was easiest.

Thanks for the input!

 

[Fly_Amanita]

Up to what % can you CC raptor boost?

I'm not sure why my grab game was off except that maybe I was a little jittery due to relative inexperience? I think I just need zone in and focus more on my controller inputs, because every mistake was doing the wrong throw by accident. I'm usually not good at chaingrabbing Sheik for some reason but when I played Banks's Sheik in tournament whenever I got a grab I completely zoned out everything else except the match and my controller and executed practically 3 perfect 0-deaths (and I was down 3 stocks and won the match b/c of that). If I can achieve that level of focus every time then I'll screw up a lot less (and also be that much more beastly).

You can CC raptor boost up to about 25%.


One thing that I do sometimes when I notice I'm doing the wrong throws is actually look at my controller and make sure that I hit straight down. It's silly, but it works.

 

[Wobbles]

I like your ICs! Main points:

1) You go for the instant gratification of d-smash punishes a lot in cases where you have a free grab opportunity. Against Falcon I combo every move I can into a grab because he's so susceptible to CGs, particularly d-throw reverse d-air.

2) I didn't see much up-tilt; I'm generally not a fan of saying things like that since you shouldn't use moves for the sake of using them, but particularly against Hax you should be mixing up your spaced aerials with WD u-tilt when he's playing a ground-based game. Truthfully he stayed on platforms a lot and his spacing is pretty baller, so he doesn't give you many chances, but that move wrecks Falcon.

3) Your doubles game was pretty good, especially since you're fighting double Peach. You pretty much focused on avoidance and baiting while you waited for solid openings, which is really how you're supposed to play against Peach. She's used to throwing out moves and walls of priority that are really hard to punish, and letting her do that allowed Swift to come in and mop up. So very good work there.

 

[Nintendude]

Good advice; thanks Wobbles!

How do you recommend using up-tilt? I don't have a good feel for when to use that move. In the past I've tried to occasionally wavedash into the opponent with it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, which isn't really that good. I know it's good for stopping approaches from above but my reflexes have me try to Uair instead. People have also recommended it against Sheik's wall but I haven't really figured that out yet.

 

[Wobbles]

Well, I believe firmly in conditioning and surprise when it comes to your movements. Try to imprint a pattern of movement into the other guy's head, then break it when you believe he's going to attack.

Falcon, for instance, often has to aim his aerials from far away because he has to take into account your wavedash and his short hop dash. I try and break out longer wavedashes when I think he's going to try and aerial, so that way I wind up under him rather than in front of him. There's a fair amount of guessing involved though, and it is pretty risky. But it's got a tremendous reward attached--usually a grab + KO.

If somebody is coming from much higher up, up-air does usually work better; if they're not deep on the u-tilt a lot of times it won't combo, or they SDI and get out for free. I don't like up-tilting Sheik very much, but it *is* a lot easier to sneak under her with a long waveland or wavedash because her short hop is much floatier than Falcon's, and unless you're at higher percent her zoning f-airs or b-airs don't have nearly the same effect on your stock if you screw up.