Late response to OP
I didn't get to say everything I wanted to say yesterday on SotG so I'll just jump into this on responding to Hax's first post here.
-not approaching=short term improvement. *Yes any big style change could throw someone off but if your fundamentals don't improve with it then good luck improving much beyond that short-term deal.
-the reason most top players are at the top is because they play defensively. *Well the metagame has steered that way so of course more people will be playing defensively, but to say that every top player is good just because they know how to play defensively is not only insulting to all of the other traits required for success but also insulting to Melee as well in my opinion. Melee has a plethora of movement options(WD, DD, platforms, wavelands, etc) that allow for unique offensive tactics such as acute wavedahses forward to observe a reaction or slowly take space from the opponent. You are also forgetting that one of the top players, Mango, has a very effective offensive style. How can the metagame be entirely defensive-based if Mango does well playing so "incorrectly?"
-the timeout and otherwise very lengthy matches seen at Genesis 2 were a result of Hungrybox committing to how he believes he has to play with Jiggz to win, and how much Armada hates Puff. Hbox, by not approaching, forced the match to take a long time because YL has noticeably worse approaches and since he has the projectiles it would be up to Puff to approach anyway(on a purely matchup-based level anyway.....not that I think many would disagree). Did you see any other sets going to time? I'd be very surprised if you did.
-Using their own medicine against them(campy players) *This is exactly the mentality that fosters more players pushing the game in the exact opposite direction from what they/you want. if you don't want the game to be campy, then don't camp! if you feel it is necessary to play like those that perform better than you in tournaments to be successful rather than whatever you believe is better as you learned it or could experiment to learn it then that is on you. A growing number of people look to better players to copy rather than innovating things on a grand scale on their own these days, and copying everything you don't like just because it is doing well falls under that category PLUS the knowledge may not even be intuitive to you so you may be held back more by such ideals. I highly disagree with this ideal but you said on the SotG yesterday you'd commit to it, so I hope that for anyone else reading this can be a warning.
-Peach. *I found the use of Peach odd here. Peach has a very difficult time approaching as it is because of her extremely low mobility. She gets camped hard. Just because she has great shield pressure doesn't mean she is necessarily geared towards offense when it is tough for her to catch her opponent in the first place as well as pin them down.
-*I personally believe Melee has the potential to allow for many characters(many more than just the top and high tiers at LEAST) to be aggressive. All of the movement options and great fall speeds and speedy attacks and tough combos that momentum can help out are all wonderful assets that only aggressive play enjoys. Not to mention the stage control advantage granted to aggressive players which exerts its own psychological and, really, physical influence on the opponent. Being backed up against the edge is a difficult position because you can't retreat and, without considering anything else(even though there is much more to consider), one has less options. Aggressive play can, when successful, limit options. How is that wrong or ineffective?
-*Spacie shield pressure isn't actually safe, if you're going by frames. There's more than a few frames to punish too, so as long as one knows the holes in shield pressure then it is simply a guessing/conditioning game that can wind up with you feeling too pressured and rolling or you getting the punish on the spacies and scaring them from pressuring/intimidating them from trying for much pressure. On a more human front, spacie pressure is pretty intimidating so it can be tough to always recognize where the holes are. Shield DI and buffering(rolls/spotdodges) can be very helpful with escape though, so that pressure is far from broken. Notice that, for humans, I listed both pro-offensive and pro-defensive traits of spacie shield pressure(aka pros and cons of it). Does this not seem to suggest that pressure is only what the player(s) make of it then?
-*I don't really believe Peach's shield pressure is broken either for the simple fact that you can roll away from her and she'd basically have to call the roll in order to get you. Peach's pressure might be great but if the reaction she forces is nearly unpunishable by her then how good is it really?
-Autopilot pressure *basically the pressure can't be autopilot because the frame holes exist. Mixing up pressure, even for Peach becomes essential since frame holes allow for punishments or escapes from the opponent. Because the mixups are required then there is always a solid answer to whatever someone is doing to pressure you, and in that way you have a chance at control. It comes down to who is reading or playing better, not who is spamming the more broken tactic.
-*Delaying lots of aerials is still safe in Melee. Marth can delay his fair or nair inside of someone's shield and dash away without getting shield grabbed, for example. But if you're talking about them moving away from your attack, then that can be bad, yeah. Thing is, lots of floaty jumps leave a lot of time for moves to be used at different timings or intervals(SH with sheik and see how long you're in the air). SHs are typically much shorter than FHs but both leave ample opportunity to trip up someone's timing on the lag punish(aerial momentum must also be watched carefully as well when considering the spacing required to punish these aerials, which makes the task that much more difficult). Whiffing an aerial is not always a cause for punishment, heck, the way I see most people get punished today is they whiff a move then do another one immediately since they believe they're going to get punished and then they've committed far too hard so THEN they get punished. There are other counters to that scenario anyway such as overshooting moves so that they don't whiff, but all of this has its own set of pros and cons that is somewhat outside the context of this discussion.
-Crouch-canceling *This is a really good argument in itself for defensive play. To assume this also includes ASDI down when getting hit by a move even if you're acting, CC'ing can reverse otherwise free combo situations around on the attacker. Instead of viewing this as a need to play defensively though, I see it as another layer/option to get around when approaching, or rather I'd try to get someone moving when I approach them so they couldn't really CC/focus on CC'ing. It must also be noted that CC is % dependent, meaning only useful things can be done from CCs at lower percents and at higher percents it won't work.
-SDI *This is a wonderful defensive layer I'm glad was added into the game. Giving many unique DI options and allowing people to survive by understanding when they will be hit moments before they are is pretty cool to me. Falco's combos would also be ******** without SDI LOL. But yeah SDI doesn't necessarily negate combo starters as most people are trying to avoid the hit not SDI it when they get hit(especially at low %s). Besides, SDI'ing away often puts you offstage which is a position where you can't really play defensively anymore because you must recover. Just because you can SDI out of a combo doesn't mean you are out of it. If I SDI hard up against Marth as pretty much anyone then I'm far from free because I still have the juggling potential that Marth's high priority Uair and uptilt in particular grant him when he gets his opponent above him.
-Inhuman reaction times *Ehhhh I don't think it's about reaction times always so much as it is knowing what to look to react to. If people are bad at offense and they approach in ways we've all seen before, then of course our reaction times will look good if/when we punish them. That doesn't mean offense is bad, it just means approaches need to get more creative like in the past. Reaction times were also very good back in the day too, and as Taj noted in the SotG he could actually react to standing grabs in his reaction prime. I haven't heard of that ability now, so do you think we are really becoming better at reacting or merely exploiting the game?
-Forgot to CC *You don't forget to CC so much as you get put into a position where you're not favoring a CC. Delayed moves aren't worth CC'ing usually because you won't get a punish off of them, so you don't try to take that damage and move away. The opponent sees you move away and next time you try to move away they do a move that hits you but they probably had to overshoot their move to hit you(or do it early so it's before you get away). This is beaten by CC'ing(or hitting them first, which makes aggression pretty cool imo). Sounds like a mixup game to me.
-Little reward for approaching *Absolutely not. Being able to throw out things ordinarily thought unsafe but used sequencially because your opponent is flustered and wants to merely escape the string of attacks and pressure you're putting on them is an incredibly good reward. And really, getting a combo is getting a combo, defense or offense means aside, so I'm not sure how you can say you can't get a combo when you approach. There are difficulties and great rewards gained from playing offensively of defensively before getting a hit, and that is what should be emphasized here. Playing defensively tends to make you more predictable but you can spend more time reading since you're hanging back. Offensively you're having to deal with more information while also trying to be tricky and approach in different ways, but you make yourself hard to read and can eventually take advanatge of your stage control and "break" your opponent's defense and get inside their mind really well.
-Except fox throwing backward *Fox's bthrow sets up for great shine kills so nah. Falco gets away with some silly Bthrow gimps occasionally too.
-Broken *Things that are uncounterable are "broken," and you didn't list a single thing that was uncounterable in that list.
-*Sheik can have the edge taken from her ledgestall and she could either die or at least get her big recovery lag hit for it. Sheik's grab range isn't broken as it is smaller than Marth's, whose grab range is actually huge. Sheik's edgeguarding can also be beaten, even if it is quite effective. Besides, being in an edgeguard position is usually unfavorable to the guy recovering anyway. I'd think it would favor defense more if the guy getting knocked off didn't have to worry about his recovery much and didn't have to feel pressured by the edge that he could die.
-*Peach's recovery is hardly broken. She is a floaty character with a good recovery, but being completely helpless during her up-B is very far from a broken characteristic. She can mix in a drop that she is still entirely vulnerable doing and that's it.
-*Puff likes gimping people but it is not especially easy for her. She has pound and bthrow onstage, and so long as you bait her out a little then you should be very safe from both. If anything, Jiggz can only retreat to the edge if she tries to space vs you there, so just let her run there or let her try to push out and you'll be fine.
-Fighting these characters by the edge is bad *How is taking advantage of stage control bad? Any person who argues that these characters do not feel threatened when up against the edge probably does not play those characters....or needs to play someone good at controlling people when they have stage control and edgeguarding floaties. Every character feels the pressure when they're pushed up against the edge, and just because some players have developed great ways at handling the pressure does not mean the pressure does not exist.
-*If one jumps in at a bad time in Melee, then either delaying an aerial or double jumping away will be safe the vast majority of the time. Most people space away from the big aerial move, especially when they see someone jump. Why would they be ready to attack a double jump they never see anyone do? If you make an error in judgment while jumping in, then unless you DJ at the very last second when they were starting to come in anyway and will follow your jump, then you will probably be fine. Obviously, if you make that error in judgment a lot then I question if we are still discussing high level play here, but an emergency double jump back once a set or so is perfectly safe for the most part(you could still be pressured after it though). Jumping in, in general, can be very effective as it establishes the threat of that particular move and by forcing your opponent to respect it you can determine how to punish their reaction the next time you're at that spacing instead of using that same move the same way again asking to be punished(in your case it sounds like going in hard with a move getting DD grabbed is how you use things a lot and I'd say that's a bad idea yeah).
-At full potential, only 23 characters are viable to approach with *So every character doesn't have an easily spammable approach type move. I hardly think that this means players cannot approach. Really, in truth, any approach could be countered anyway. Saying that just fox and falco or whatever are the only characters to approach omits the offensive capabilities of all of the other characters. Marth has a huge sword, how could he approach badly if he didn't approach in the same way often? Falcon is incredibly fast like fox, so why wouldn't he be able to approach with different things if he saw an opening and attacked before the opponent could react? There are many examples of this but I won't continue on about it unless asked.
-Citing top players *Again, this is how the better players have turned out. The better players in 03-07 were primarily aggressive ones, so who's to say that the game suddenly changed, or maybe it was us instead? If a great SF player(forgot the name it's been a while) quit SF because everyone was getting campy recently, and if 64 is getting campier when it looked primarily aggro and it's been out longer than Melee, then doesn't that just sound like the metagame, the PEOPLE, have shifted that way instead of necessarily believing that that is what defines Melee?
-Disappointed at Melee's direction *I am too, but I'm not going to camp harder. Rather, I have been trying to find ways to approach better since my approaching game has been quite poor in the past up until like RoM3 or maybe even later. If you want to enjoy more aggressive behavior in your game, then go for it man! If you believe defense is better, then that's fine too, but I suggest you should only believe it because YOU do. Don't just say defense is the best because the best players do it. Thinking like them on this broad subject only limits you I believe, but again if you believe it because you came to that conclusion independently then I hope you push your defensive game far because that's legit too.
-Noobs vs better players * I would never tell someone that the game is necessarily this or that outright, not with Melee. There is too much to know and do. I respect Hax's decision to believe Melee is a more defensive game, but I wish he would have backed it up in a way I could have agreed with more. Suggesting to good and bad players that this will necessarily help is something I don't agree with though. Striking out on your own and developing your own ideas is how we see such great diversity in styles and one way aggressive play can make a return, if that's what we all truly want to see.
For the record, my stance of Melee is you need a healthy balance to be successful, or maybe you have a slight lean towards defensive or aggressive play. Being able to understand and utilize tools related to both offensive and defensive tactics is key, regardless.
tumble canceling options in hitstun and CCing to reduce hitlag. Ledge posession doesn't work the same way but ledge inv is whack as ****.
