Entering my first tournament soon...

[raymundoTheGod]

I'm wondering how and what I should be practicing. I have a lot of basic techs down, and I don't get to play with real people too often. Any advice?

 

[Jackson]

I'm wondering how and what I should be practicing. I have a lot of basic techs down, and I don't get to play with real people too often. Any advice?

I haven't played In any tournaments, but I am a seasoned player so I may be able to offer good advice. Many things may be character specific , so who do you main?

 

[raymundoTheGod]

I haven't played In any tournaments, but I am a seasoned player so I may be able to offer good advice. Many things may be character specific , so who do you main?

Diddy Kong mostly.

 

[Jackson]

Diddy Kong mostly.

Ahh, nice. I would practice any advanced banana combos and general glide tossing down in training until you have them down and can basically do them at will. Especially glide tossing, I know that it's the foundation of the diddy game. Although CPUs can be predictable sometimes, practice combos on Level 7 CPUS (they dont airdodge inhumanly) and practice punishing mistakes of Level 9s. Once you get to the point where you can combo to high percents and read/punish the mistakes of your opponents, you should be a formidable opponent. I hoped that helped a bit, and good luck! I hope you do great in your tournament!

 

[infiniteV115]

PA is a fairly strong region, they have good players like Chibo, Vex and Xzax. Make the most out of your first tournament by playing as many people as you can and asking for advice. Don't get discouraged if you don't place well; you're in a strong region and pretty much everybody gets bodied at their first few tournaments (even if they're in a weak region). These two things are by far your biggest priorities; staying motivated and getting the knowledge/experience you need to improve.

Everything below this line is not as important but it's a general guideline for pre-tournament preparation I guess. Basic Diddy stuff; things that will become second nature to you as you improve, so you don't need to look at them now, but I guess if you want to it'll provide you with a jumpstart on your improvement.

If you play Diddy, make sure you can do the following

-DI well
-Glide toss
- Punish properly off of bananas (eg if you glide toss into an opponent and the banana hits, you can usually walk up and fsmash/dsmash, or run up and grab)
- Punish unsafe moves on shield with banana tosses
- Bait people into shielding (people shield a lot against Diddy cause they're afraid of his bananas) and punish the shield with a sideB (assuming you're holding a banana). SideB is a grab, so it goes through shield, and it allows Diddy to grab even when he's holding a banana - most other characters don't have this option.
- Camp well with peanuts. A good thing to remember is "the fortress" (one banana in hand, the other on the ground right in front of you, and shooting peanuts)

What makes Diddy so good is his solid defensive game, his high damage output and his reliable kill setups.

His defensive game is good because the fortress is really hard to get through (for most characters) if the Diddy is doing it correctly. Diddy also has a good shield (ie it's hard to shieldpoke him) and he has great out-of-shield options with his bananas, and bananas can punish almost anything that hits Diddy's shield.

His damage output is high because generally banana strings/punishes deal a solid 20 damage or more, and he has plenty of moves that even independently do a lot of damage (any smash, fair, sideB). His moves also string together fairly well, and he can camp with peanuts for additional chip damage. Banana combos are the epitome of low-risk-high-reward.

He has reliable kill setups because bananas are ridiculously safe, and they easily combo into kill moves like fsmash/dsmash

 

[BlueXenon]

Since you have no one to play with currently, I recommend you only work on your execution. Make sure never have any "That's not what I meant to do" moments, because you're not going to want that to happen during a tournament match.

If you're very new to the game, you should accept that you're not going to place well and use your tournament matches to learn as much as possible. There is A LOT more to learn about the game, but I think you should learn what was mentioned in this thread first.

 

[raymundoTheGod]

Thanks guys! Appreciate the help!

 

[Thor]

Diddy Kong mostly.

DI well

This includes momentum cancelling (if you hadn't already figured that out). It should always be a back air (this is the lowest duration aerial as Diddy Kong) and either Monkey Flip (side+b) or a jump. To my understanding Monkey Flip negates more momentum than just a double jump, so it's probably more advisable to do that (plus then you still have your jump, and if you get hit your Monkey Flip refresh while your jump doesn't [but don't hit the attack/special button while flipping to cancel momentum or else you lose your Rocketbarrel Boost (up+b)]).

Some other stuff:

Unless it's Meta Knight banned, you should also be comfortable (as much as you can be) at least dealing with Mach Tornado (being able to shield it properly and [when used far away as an approach] quickly smack people out of it). I've seen otherwise decent players (not good by any stretch, but they're new and not rolling like crazy) lose to Meta Knights who just mash the B button with good timing, because they are unused to how to beat his Mach Tornado.

You should also be comfortable (as much as you can be) avoiding being grabbed by the Ice Climbers and separating them/gimping Nana. Your bananas are probably most valuable in that matchup specifically. This character may not be as common as MK, but if your Diddy is 10X as good as someone's MK, if someone can play ICs and get 3 grabs [and convert] before you get 3 Nanas you could lose to them despite being a better player vs their every other character.

Be ready for good players to catch your bananas (or shield them and pick them up) and throw them back at you or else straight down so that they can't be tripped by it and you can. You should try to be familiar with how close you need to be to a banana to pick it up [air or ground] (to deal with this), and if you can get used to catching items, that's all the better for dealing with these people. As an example of two players who are very good with items,find on Youtube a match between ADHD and Salem (there are a few).

Not actually related to the question, but play lots of friendlies if you get knocked out of bracket early. They'll help you improve more for the second tournament and get some more value for the money you paid to enter. Play lots of friendlies if there is down-time after a match (make sure you aren't late to a start time) as you can fix things if you noticed you did something wrong and/or keep warmed up. If people want to hang out and play friendlies afterwards, you should probably do that [unless it's really late or whatever] - playing people (who don't suck terribly) is the best way to improve your game if you have most techniques down, and you've indicated that people to play are what you lack.

And if you can, try to see if these people would be willing to meet and play more, especially players better than you - that will help the problem of not having good people to play against.

 

[Taytertot]

PA is a fairly strong region, they have good players like Chibo, Vex and Xzax. Make the most out of your first tournament by playing as many people as you can and asking for advice. Don't get discouraged if you don't place well; you're in a strong region and pretty much everybody gets bodied at their first few tournaments (even if they're in a weak region). These two things are by far your biggest priorities; staying motivated and getting the knowledge/experience you need to improve.

well said.
I went to my first tournament recently and although it was small, my first match I played a falco player and he destroyed me the first round. second round went pretty even but I got sent into losers and put out of the tournament my third match, but it was incredibly fun and I wish I had gotten to play more people so definitely get some experience at your first tournament.

I'm wondering how and what I should be practicing. I have a lot of basic techs down, and I don't get to play with real people too often. Any advice?

I'm not sure if you watch many matches on youtube or if your interested in doing so, but ADHD is one of if not the best diddy kong player and that might also help you with diddy's tricks.

 

[Vex Kasrani]

Do you live in Philadelphia? If so, we can play at some point and I'll give you advice.