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Critique my Pika! (Vs Alex19!)

soju

SD God
Joined
Jun 11, 2009
Messages
1,186
Location
Being a Scrub
Watched the first video your edgeguard is on point it makes me a bit jealous but but but you need work on that neutral brotha! I felt you threw a lot of those jump in nairs because you didnt know what else to do, if the fox knew how to deal with pika that would have been a totally different set.

He was slowly adapting to you while but he got pika'd once the 3rd set and lost his entire mindset. There was one point I was telling the fox in my phone just usmash because that would have wrecked your day.

My suggestion would be to be more patient with those shffls, Poke some with that dtilt, and commit when you have stage advantage or momentum. Watching some old school matches will help a ton too those guys are nothing but fundamentals.
 
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Mittenz

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jan 9, 2014
Messages
24
Location
Iowa City, Iowa
I just have time to look at the fox match right now. I'll come back and do the other 2 later.

I agree with Soju that your neutral game is currently the weak point of your game. You're movement is fairly good, you had some good edgeguards, and you have quite a bit of advanced tech fairly well down. Here are things I noticed watching the video.

Fox: At the very beginning of the first game, you seem to be throwing out u-smash and d-smash a lot hoping that the fox will be too aggressive and run/jump into it. Out of the 5 times you do this only the last one actually connects. You didn't get punished too hard for your misses, but you could have been. If you're trying to prevent a fox approach, forward-tilt and down-tilt are safer options. The u-smash at 1:40 for example were a tilt would have been better.

The edge guard at 2:45 was sick.

Work on chain grabs or at least u-throw into u-smash on spacies.

At the start of the match your only approach in jump in nair. Around 3:00 you start mixing up it more (start using d-tilt) and it has good results for you.

You DI'd most of the u-throw -> u-airs very well. Are you also going for smash DI on these?

F-smash for the edge guard is not always the best option. The last edgeguard of the first game worked out for you, but had the fox sweet-spotted or teched it he could have gotten up and punished you. I think the fox was at low enough % that Downwards f-tilt-> run-off nair -> uair spike would have work, and been safer since the hitbox reaches below the ledge and might not have hit hard enough for him to be able to tech.

Game 2 I like that you tried approaching with grab more. The more approach options you have to mix up the better.

Good jolt sniping at 4:40!

What were you trying to go for with the side-b's?

The thunderjolt approach was very good. The fox was giving you quite a bit of space this match, so I think you could have used this type of approach more to mix things up.

Mix-up your recovery angles more. I see you going low and close to the stage a lot and then up-b'ing up above the ledge and then either straight back down to grab it or into the stage. Around 6:25 I think staying away from the stage a little and then sweet spotting by coming up and then using a slight downwards angle would have let you take edge. When Axe is recovering high like that you see him throw out 1-2 thunderjolts to force the person off the edge to give you better options to recover. This would have been the perfect place to do that.

Game 3 I feel bad for that fox. You had good edgeguards. Also that fox needs to work on his angles.

My last comment is about shield dropping, I think everyone needs to practice their shield drops, but you're doing them more consistently then a lot of people I know. The only thing is from these matches I saw you almost always go for the shield drop when you're on a platform near fox. Mix it up more. Every platform is its own mini-game to get down. You have quite a few options (shield drop, dash -> shield drop, run off, quick attack to the edge, jump to higher platform, shorthop to other platform, u-smash oos, etc.), so use them.

Hope this helps!
-Mittenz
 

chipz

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Jun 11, 2014
Messages
99
some botched QA got you some unfortunate SD's or punishes, or landing on stage which lets them recover, ie. 0:45 and 2:50 on the marth game.
just seems like your quick attack could be polished a bit more than the other stuff
do you use the one where you land horizontally so there's minimal lag?
 

Phez_

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Jan 7, 2015
Messages
104
Location
Sydney Australia
After watching these sets, I notice that my neutral is pretty trash :p

up-b angles are usually the 2nd best thing about my Chu (after shield dropping) so I'm really disappointed that I missed so many easy ones

back throw --> side-b is a stupid gimmick I regret doing in tournament lol. And any other side-bs were unintentional

Thanks everyone for the awesome feedback :)
 

Mittenz

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jan 9, 2014
Messages
24
Location
Iowa City, Iowa
Marth: The most heartbreaking thing for me is that first edgeguard at 0:45. He was recovering so low, you just needed to grab edge to close the stock.

Practice being more patient on the edge. You keep wanting to get right back on the stage so you either rising nair to stage or waveland on stage. Around 2:24 marth punishes you twice for trying rising nair right away. Refreshing your invincible frames might be worthwhile in this situation just to vary your timing. There were also a couple times you got on stage with a thunderjolt from the edge. Even if the jolt hits, marths recovers from his hit stun and can throw out a move before you recovered from your lag. The only time it worked for you was when he was at 104% because it caused a knockdown.

At 2:34 you start dashdancing (to bait something?) and marth just backs away. You then continue to dashdance in the same spot which is too far away to apply pressure/bait. This allowed him to collect himself. Practice moving your dashdance to keep marth feeling pressured.

13 out of 13 times when you were on a platform above marth, you shield dropped. Earlier in the match they were connecting, but they were less successful later on. 3:41 is a good example of your opponent adapting to this and getting a punish. Mix up your platform game.

at 4:30 I think you had time to refresh you invincibility frames at the edge. You could have then rising naired while invincible which would have sent marth away from the stage when he up-b'd. Without his jump, that should have killed him.

Your neutral game for this match up seems quite a bit better. You have pretty good spacing through out the match and you mixed up your approaches a better than the fox matches (I saw some tilts and jc up-smashes). The biggest issue was just getting back on the stage from the edge with Marth walling you out. You basically brought this back after killing yourself twice with bad QAs, so good job!
 
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hype machine

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Dec 19, 2014
Messages
266
Location
New York
Your neutral is pretty decent it isn't trash, your techskill and movement is very very good. but your biggest problem is trying not kill yourself. You sd a lot. This is the biggest con for quick attack, you have to be perfect all the time, or you lose a stock. Also how long have you been playing pikachu, your techskill is impressive
 
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hype machine

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Dec 19, 2014
Messages
266
Location
New York
Ok I just watched all your games and I think it's safe to say you're 5 times better than everyone you played against (except Alex) even though you lost against them, you sd wayyyy too much man, you lost matches you shouldn't have lost. Think about it, you sd a lot plus pikachu dies in early precents from being a semi floaty, your oppenents were puting way less work than you, all because you were sd ing. You also seem to have trouble getting back on stage. Your edgeguarding amazing btw. Personally I think you could have beaten alex if you didn't choke the first game, and didn't make any tech flubs on the second game
 
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Phez_

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Jan 7, 2015
Messages
104
Location
Sydney Australia
Thanks! I have been playing pikachu for nearly a year and I grind tech skill basically everyday to improve my movement :)
 
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