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Q&A "Everyone Look At Me!" The Marth Video Critique Thread.

DkDkDkDkDk

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jun 21, 2013
Messages
9
Location
Charlotte, NC
Overall:

Watching you play is like watching me play around six or so months ago before I started working on being safe and playing more reactively. I think you have a lot of potential and that with a slight change of mindset you can improve tremendously in a short amount of time. Go and read up as much as you can in Peepee's thread and take in all that advice towards playing in this new way and you will be a much better player for it.
Thanks! Only been playing competitively for about 2 months so I'm still improving but in the last game I definitely got into his head and realized I could crouch right out of the sprint animation and immediately do a d-tilt. Also I've been practicing that iasa frame with it too. F smash is a habit I just need to get over. It's kind of my panic option but I feel with experience it will start to be thrown out more reliably.
 

Swiper

Smash Rookie
Joined
Nov 6, 2013
Messages
6

Before you read this, don't think i'm saying u suck or anything just because i have a hefty amount of critiques. (ur actually way better than me lol) your not bad at all, that sheik was actually really good.

First of all, I don't think that you dash-danced even once, and that's not very good, considering you need to find spots to attack, and DDing creates some. without having places to attack you have to either: A - Charge in and pray or B - just wait back and don't attack. Both of those will not win you a game. If you dashdance people will whiff and you can punish accordingly.

That brings me to my next point, you seem to just charge in without thinking about how you're going to approach, just doing the same over and over every time. You would either dash attack or SH Fair. Marth has other approaches like jumping over people to Bair (just dont do it too often, it gets really predictable.) or running in and wavedashing back to punish an oncoming move (usually with F smash but it kinda depends on percent).

You didn't really seem go on platforms on battlefield, and when you were, you would be in a hurry to get off. Platforms are a big point in marths game, he can waveland onto one and go from there, or if someone else is on one above him he can U-tilt/Over-tilt/smash. Also, you didn't really seem to care if you got grabbed or not, which you should, especially against sheik. ( if you dash-danced she might whiff a grab and you could get a free safe attack in.)

Overall you have some work to do, but who doesn't? I didnt even tell you all the good things you did ( F-smashes, Some spikes, good spotdodges etc.) Just keep on working and you'll be able to beat that sheik no problem :b:.
 

ChivalRuse

Smash Hero
Joined
Jun 13, 2007
Messages
8,413
Location
College Park, MD
You're trying to force kills too much. Marth can't really gimp Sheik so he has to whittle her away by avoiding her traps and not getting baited by needles. You really have to work the hardest on the first stock because whoever gets the lead will dictate the flow of that match. Down tilt is really good against Sheik, for checking her ground movement (which is pretty big in the matchup), and crouch cancelling in general. Short hop fairs are pretty safe but you have to be careful obviously. You need to up-throw Sheik every time you grab her, pretty much with no exceptions. She sucks in the air coming down.
 

MT_

Smash Ace
Joined
Nov 8, 2009
Messages
791
Location
Austin, TX
Nike: work on sweetspotting your up-Bs. Your neutral game consisted of mainly fairs and shielding. It should have more dtilt and DD grab which I'll get into later. You had some really cool dair setups and were doing a good job reading JF's hasty double jumps aerials to return to the stage which were good, so keep that up. I would say the main issue you're having right now in the matchup is how to approach/set up baits, so I'll elaborate how I personally see the neutral game versus Sheik.

In the set, the only approach I saw you do were cross-up aerials... which with Marth are actually really slow and not THAT good (better than poorly spaced aerials though). There were some decent reactionary fairs to when JF jumped, but whenever JF just stayed on the ground you usually lost out. So how do we force Sheik to jump? We have to use space dtilts and enclose on their space in a methodical way... The one time I saw you use dtilt was right after you respawned and you ran in deep to d-tilt (JF just jumped behind you). Run in dtilt actually isn't so good against Sheik. Run in dtilt is good against characters with good dash dances like Marth, Fox, Falcon because they run away from you and can run FAR away from you while maintaining mobility. Sheik on the other hand can make quick adjustments in spacing (her dash is FAST) but can't make huge arching movements (her dash is SHORT). Thus, the kinds of dtilts you want to do are more like walk->dtilt or run forward WD down->dtilt. As long as you aren't extremely predictable to when you want to poke with dtilt, Sheik has a difficult time trying to hit you between dtilts without committing to something big (dash attack, dash grab) because you outrange her so dramatically and with such little lag.

Now to get past dtilt, Sheik has two methods really. Ground and air. The ground method never really showed up in your set with JF because you were jumping and not really dtilting, but I'll elaborate anyway as it's essential to understand the matchup. She can really only dash attack or dash grab as an approach. Both of these are kind of all-in methods and rely on a read by Sheik's part. You can beat these by continuing your wall of dtilts, OR if you read the approach solidly you can DD grab these things. DDing in the matchup should be done sparingly and in reactionary bursts IMO. If you're just DDing without having set anything up, you don't really threaten Sheik at all. It's highly difficult to run up and do anything meaningful out of DD without getting hit in the face by ftilt or something like that.

Now Sheik's aerial approach is the other way she gets around your dtilt. Sheik likes to do this short hops into slowly-enclosing fair/nair. At the spacing where dtilt is threatening, this aerial spacing is actually very dangerous for Marth. As Marth mains with an amazing grab, our first instinct is usually to shield once Sheik jumps at this spacing. However, if you step back a little bit when Sheik jumps then she becomes completely unthreatening. Maybe a wavedash back after dtilt if you think she is going to jump? This is when you can leave the ground though, when Sheik puts herself into the air. If she is trying to approach you, a fair with some precision should beat out anything she does once you've backed up at little bit. Further, you don't necessarily even need to leave the ground. You can DD grab her landing (have to be quick or she can do stupid things like jab or spotdodge upon landing) or even utilt if you've set up the spacing correctly. The key here is not to get stuck in shield when Sheik jumps. Ideally you'd have some amount of stage control so that you can back up if Sheik does jump, but that usually isn't an issue from neutral position because Sheik is required to back up more from Marth than vice versa if the matchup is played correctly (Marth simply controls space better via longer hitboxes).

I'm not sure if this helps, but this is how I see the matchup played in the neutral game. JF didn't so very many full hop needles to take space so I didn't talk about that here. My advice for now would be to stay grounded and not be so tempted to jump in with aerials. Good luck :)
 

SAUS

Smash Ace
Joined
Aug 20, 2008
Messages
866
Location
Ottawa
Hi guys, first time playing in tournament last week and I got to play Frootloop on stream! Marth vs Fox. Appreciate any advice I can get, thanks in advance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=974euvLKZMQ&list=PLhLCpkhWRXN-pYzY7WBhUAQrkq2FVh94t&index=4
I feel like you wanted the grab too much. You threw out a lot of them that were not going to hit anyway which got you punished a few times, and your opponent started just side-step dodging a lot of your grabs since he knew they were coming. Ultimately, you became predictable because you kept going for the grab at the same timing. I've heard people call it "the PewPewU special" before, but basically, when he misses a tech chase by a little bit or something, he will dash dance one more time to bait out their dodge or attack and then grab after. It's not so much that it is the optimal strategy as it is just complete mindgames.

I feel like you tried to do standing up-tilt a bit too much as well. I think you are better off try to move around more so your opponent can't move around so freely/do whatever he wants. You want to pressure through movement and safe moves, and punish mistakes they make.

I hope that helps. I think there is more to say but these are the main things I picked up on.
 

AppleAppleAZ

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Nov 29, 2011
Messages
318
Location
Ayy Zeee
Hey all,

I money matched Venom (used to be known as HairyNipples), a pretty good Southern California falcon who some people think may have a good chance at getting ranked in the top 20 on socal power rankings soon.

http://www.twitch.tv/macdsmash/c/3451970

If y'all could offer some critiques, let me know :)
I feel you don't maximize your combos a lot of the time (no pun intended), one thing I found that's very strong against falcon, as janky as it sounds is first hit dancing blade into grab > upthrow > regrab (sometimes) / utilt / uair / fair juggle at 50%ish. Actually, I find upthrow the superior option most of time time, except with dthrow techchases if you're good at them or fthrow to get them offstage. Just walking forward is pretty strong because you can dtilt out at any time. Hopefully someone else comes along to give you a better critique though, Venom is a solid falcon haha.
 

MookieRah

Kinda Sorta OK at Smash
Joined
Mar 7, 2004
Messages
5,384
Location
Umeå, Sweden
From the data I compiled a while back the consensus was that you dthrow > tech chase Falcon below 30%, and then begin uthrow > juggle stuff afterwards.
 

PCwizCube

Smash Cadet
Joined
Jan 10, 2010
Messages
60
Location
United States
Hello! Can someone critique my Marth vs. this Fox? It's from a few months ago so my neutral/punish game has gotten better since then, but there's still one big problem I can't seem to resolve.

The fox likes to full hop and double jump a lot, and honestly it confuses the crap out of me. I've never played/seen any fox like him. I don't know what to do about it because I feel like with his full hops and double jumps he can cover so much area and yet he's moving too fast for me to find an opening to punish. So I feel really pressured by his movement (I'm running away half the time).

Watching any of the matches is fine, I think now the neutral game is the biggest roadblock for me. Thanks a lot!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVcClbp9ZkU
 
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Beat!

Smash Master
Joined
Jan 8, 2010
Messages
3,214
Location
Uppsala, Sweden
Hey guys, I haven't played for long, but I'd like for you all to critique me. Be as brutal as you need.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO0HBA277Lw

Reference Code: BBYJ
-90% of the time you're literally just throwing moves out as soon as possible hoping it will hit. You don't seem to be actually considering your opponents' possibilites for dealing with your decisions. You just run or jump at him and when he's in range you throw out a move. This is made even worse by the fact that you often opt for fsmash.
The only reason you aren't being punished without mercy for this is that your opponent has the exact same issue. The result is a non-existant neutral game because whenever there's any distance between you, you both immediately come at each other with dash attacks/running fsmashes/COUNTERS/nairs etc. You need to really stop and actually think about what you're doing in any given situation and why. Autopiloting to this extent isn't gonna take you very far. I suggest finding opponents who are a good deal better than you and playing with them, because that will quickly make you realize how punishable everything you do is. It's of course possible to notice and work on this on your own as well if you really pay attention, but it's always a lot easier and more efficient when good players expose it for you.

-Also, don't waste a guaranteed punishment opportunity by just doing whatever move comes to mind first. Like at 0:09. He was in landing lag from an up-B and you had all the time in the world to decide on a punish. Since you were really close to the ledge, grab -> dthrow would've been a good choice because it would set up a very favourable edgeguard for you. Alternatively, you could've tried uptilt -> something because getting your opponent in the air is always good for Marth.
I could continue listing some potential alternative punishment routes, but the point is that what you went for, a non-tippered fsmash which sent him towards the middle of the stage , accomplished nothing. In fact, it gave him the opportunity to reset the position to neutral (but he went for a doublejump dair instead which let you fsmash him again). He had 69% pre-hit. There was no way in hell that a sourspot fsmash would've sent him all the way across the stage to set up an edgeguard on the other side, and you would've realized this if you had stopped and thought about it for a split second (which you most certainly had time to do).

And yeah, grabbing more is good advice, but it shouldn't be a main priority right now. Prio #1 right now for both you and your opponent is to actually realize that you're playing against a human opponent, and that any decision you make in the neutral game should be heavily influenced by what options your opponent has available, because an opponent who pays attention isn't just gonna stand there and let you hit him for free. Quit autopiloting and start actually paying attention to where your opponent is - both on the stage and in relation to your position - and what he's doing.
 

xCardiac

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Nov 7, 2013
Messages
86
Location
Peabody, Massachusetts
Hi everyone. I need a little help. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. i can beat the sheik but barely any tips and advice you can give me please?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzzMKxdqRf0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ucxM0uCruI


The second video, first match.

I could see that when you would try to recover, shiek was perfectly spaced to punish whatever attack you threw at her. I could see you were mixing up your attack each time, which may have been your way of "changing it up", but I'd say to recover differently each time you come back from the ledge, be it a wavedash, a simple ledge hop, an attack, or even jump up to the platform. The shiek was baiting an attack out of you and each time you fell for it.

When you've got a shiek in the air above you, her only viable moves are dair and nair, both of which can be beaten by your upair or uptilt, so juggling her on the platforms is a good way to rack up damage.

GRAB. Literally, just dash dance away from her grabs/dash attacks and run back in with a jump canceled grab, as it has less lag time in case you miss.

Under platforms, I could see you were using Fsmash a lot, which is alright as long as you space it correctly and do it right out of your opponents tech, which they can't move. Try incorporating some uptilts in there, as they are amazing underneath platforms.

I've actually never critiqued someones video before, but I hope you've taken something away from it.
 

AppleAppleAZ

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Nov 29, 2011
Messages
318
Location
Ayy Zeee
Hi everyone. I need a little help. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. i can beat the sheik but barely any tips and advice you can give me please?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzzMKxdqRf0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ucxM0uCruI
Getting up against a sheik that's patient can be hard. Try mixing In Neutral b from the ledge (goes a little farther than your aerials and if you are fast enough you'll regrab the ledge) getting up on the very edge with a waveland down, or ledge dash.

You generally want to take the ledge when edge guarding to force her onto the stage. If she goes to a platform come up with an uair; if he goes to the stage than ledge dash fsmash or reverse up b her to get her offstage. Dtilt works well against sheik and forces her to the air where you can fair or grab her. If she's close enough to hit you with her fire then get off and go for center stage and keep her on the ledge. Just be patient and you'll rack up damage or get serious positional advantage.

Juggles are OP against sheik, shark out her Double jump and uair her until you can get her offstage with a bair or fsmash.

As for your Marth, you aerial too much against sheik and go for a lot of hard reads with fsmash. You really never want to jump against sheik until you can get a grab. And don't fsmash unless it's out of an aerial or a platform tech chase.
 
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Emrys

Smash Rookie
Joined
Dec 23, 2013
Messages
8
Location
Germany
Last weekend I went to a tournament for the first time, one of my sets was on the stream:

(it's not available anymore) http://www.twitch.tv/saltyplayground/b/505431289

01:18:00 – 01:26:00 (I played the black Marth, my opponent was the red one)

I would appreciate some general feedback but would especially like to hear answers for the questions I thought about after rewatching the set:

- After upthrowing Marth, how do I bait a side-b/jump without risking to let him get back to the stage for free? I grabbed him quite a few times but didn’t really get much out of it.

- What are the best options after a royzone-grab and how do I counter each of them?

- If Marth spams shorthop fairs, should I go for a shieldgrab?

-If I get grabbed by Marth, should I always DI away just in case he uses forward throw? The punishes for wrong DI seem too strong to risk it.


Edit:
The Stream got deleted already -_- ... I would still like to hear answers for my questions though because I think they would help me a lot in the Marth Ditto.
 
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DwightDL

Smash Cadet
Joined
Jan 31, 2011
Messages
41
Got one match from a tournament last weekend:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkNXQgOCpI8#t=416
Not the best video of my play because:
-It is in a crew battle
-I'm playing against a pretty good Mario which is a very unfamiliar match up for me
-I was exhausted from running this tournament for the last 10 hours so I have a lot of technical flubbs

I'd like to get some other vids up, since now that i've been maining Marth for ~3 years I feel that I've gotten all the basics down and need critique from better Marth mains.

So yeah take what you can from this video. I appreciate any kinds of advice. Hopefully I can get a better video of my play up soon.
 

JesiahTEG

Smash Master
Joined
Jan 30, 2007
Messages
4,126
Location
Rochester, NY
Yo yo people what's up. I've got some new vids vs an up and coming Falcon in my region, Gravy. He's getting really good, even beat Vanz' Peach and Sheik in tournament recently.

I've analyzed these vids myself and have some good ideas and see A LOT of mistakes, tech errors, bad decisions, and overall sloppiness on my part.

However, I can't see everything and am REALLY wanting to get better haha. So yeah, take a look, enjoy, and throw whatever ya got at me.

Grand Finals-- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tGp4h8ipCA&list=UUrgOLAsUwxZbhxORVjgSkAA

Winners Finals- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87FnGS2uJr4&list=UUrgOLAsUwxZbhxORVjgSkAA

I'll have more vids vs. other characters soon, they're just being uploaded. But there's more than enough in these vids for you guys to tear apart. :)
 

Sempai

Smash Ace
Joined
Apr 9, 2007
Messages
614
Location
Wildwood/St.Louis, MO

Beat!

Smash Master
Joined
Jan 8, 2010
Messages
3,214
Location
Uppsala, Sweden
Ugh. I'll try to do write-ups for most of these but not making any individual promises since there are so many unanswered requests (some help would be appreciated haha).
 

itsbme

Game on!
Joined
Aug 16, 2008
Messages
262
Location
U.S.A.
Slippi.gg
BME#828
I had posted in a thread before this. Then I remembered this thread, haha. Here's a set against a Peach. The player is ED-E. We played these on Dolphin Net Play.

Match 1
Match 2
Match 3
Last match!
I never tried to learn melee before, and the only competition i've ever had have been CPUs. This is really the only way i'll play people, so forgive me if this isn't considered real melee. I had a lot of fun though, and although I don't have time to practice a lot like I did when I was younger, i'm open to critiques to get better. Thanks!

P.S. Boo Peach.
 

Sempai

Smash Ace
Joined
Apr 9, 2007
Messages
614
Location
Wildwood/St.Louis, MO
I had posted in a thread before this. Then I remembered this thread, haha. Here's a set against a Peach. The player is ED-E. We played these on Dolphin Net Play.

Match 1
Match 2
Match 3
Last match!
I never tried to learn melee before, and the only competition i've ever had have been CPUs. This is really the only way i'll play people, so forgive me if this isn't considered real melee. I had a lot of fun though, and although I don't have time to practice a lot like I did when I was younger, i'm open to critiques to get better. Thanks!

P.S. Boo Peach.
I can help you out a bit.

1.For starters from what I've seen you use your special moves too much, especially Dolphin Slash(Up-B). Its decent if it hits, and hits on the strong hitbox but if it misses and or hits with the other weak hitboxes, you will get punished, hard.

Luckily you were against peach who is a little slower but if you do that aginst a spacey, you just got comboed to near death. Use up-B for recovering or if they attack your shield at high % (100+), because at high percent a grab wont convert on to much.

2.Counters, make sure you use them sparingly, they have a lot of lag if you dont connect (like 49 frames) so if you miss, your eating a combo, again peach is more of a trading character, and doesnt combo non spacies too hard. Unless your armada lol.

3.Try to stay more on the ground, Dashdance around more, you did sometimes which was good, but that should be one of your main "approach" tools. Dont just run in and dash attack or aerial there shield with bad spacing, you will be grabbed and punished. Try to DD around looking for grabs, wavedashing back and forth Down-tiltiing (becareful with this against peach though, if she Crouch cancels and hits you with a downsmash while your holdind down, your eating a lot of percent [40-60%]) or you can play the zoning game and safely shorthop and spam fair.

4.Fsmash, is our god send tool, and its a great tool, but dont overuse it. If it gets sheilded, you can count on at the very least, getting wavedashed in on and grabbed. stick to grabs and maybe dtilting and or fair to rack up percent, try to save fmash to cover options or end a combo. I think in your first macth you had a peach on a platform at like 30% and you fsmashed here the opposite way. I mean damage is damage, but I would have gone for maybe an utilt into a fair and maybe a dair off stage or utilts into u-airs, keep her above you. In general, you want people to be above you as marth. Since you have a disjointed hitbox(you can hit in places you cant be hit), AKA a sword, you are very good at juggling people in the air without real threat of them hitting you back.

5.Tech skill, your tech skill definitely is not bad, but you want to make sure your short hopping not full hoping most of the time, if peach gets a dash attack on you while your in the air, you in a very bad spot, especially if its your second jump, you can kiss that stock goodbye. Make sure your hitting all your lcancels, incorporate more dash dances and well as wavedashing .

That should be enough for now.

To recap
1.Dont Up-B as an attack
2. Counter very rarely
3. Stay grounded DDing or short hop Fair zoning
4. Try not to fsmash whenever you can, look for combos/juggles in air
5. Practice tech skill, lcanceling, wavedashing and dash dancing.

Hope this helps :p
 

Sempai

Smash Ace
Joined
Apr 9, 2007
Messages
614
Location
Wildwood/St.Louis, MO
Got one match from a tournament last weekend:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkNXQgOCpI8#t=416
Not the best video of my play because:
-It is in a crew battle
-I'm playing against a pretty good Mario which is a very unfamiliar match up for me
-I was exhausted from running this tournament for the last 10 hours so I have a lot of technical flubbs

I'd like to get some other vids up, since now that i've been maining Marth for ~3 years I feel that I've gotten all the basics down and need critique from better Marth mains.

So yeah take what you can from this video. I appreciate any kinds of advice. Hopefully I can get a better video of my play up soon.
aww man so close!

Anyway I only going to go over the two points that would help you the most. AKA, what got you killed in the end there,

1. Nair approaching, as Marth you dont really want to approach, as more zone your way into there space. You cant just run up to them and start throwing aerials in their face(like fox can). Try to stick to zoning fairs, or Dash dancing looking for a grab ,but the problem was you miss spaced your nairs most of the time. This lead to free grabs and small combos for the mario to start to come back into the game.

2. Side B into Utilt. This is a great tool to get rid of floaties, Marth suffers from the problem that he can kill at 70% or 170%. Later on in the match, you started spamming Nairs like crazy and fmashes which lead into combos for the Mario, and everybody knows you had that game won a long time ago. So side B is quick and non-commital so DD around and sideB, just one, and if it hits you get an utilt, which can kill floaties very easily. As a bonus, if you dont kill them you have them above you, which is a great position for you to be in.

To recap
1. Less Nair approaching, if you REALLY want to approach, at least space the nairs properly, but I would stick to DD grab and Fair
2. Dont get desperate throwing out fsmashes hoping to kill, look for openings for sideB utilt, and or zone with Fair and wait for him to make a mistake.

Hope this helps!
 

Xyzz

Smash Champion
Joined
Feb 7, 2011
Messages
2,170
Location
Gensokyan Embassy, Munich, Germany
There is no help, it's a fairly even matchup and your opponent usually has vastly more experience in it.

That being said, don't use smash so much in neutral (especially on shields. Yoshi's OOS game is horrible, but even he can punish that if you don't tip), and don't attempt to aerial him out of his DJ, it doesn't work till like 200 percents
 
D

Deleted member

Guest
I actually play vs a yoshi player A LOT with marth
Yoshi vs Marth is actually very even, it's yoshis best top tier matchup. You basically don't have any juggles vs yoshi because trying to fair into fair for example is an instant double jump cancelled nair. You can't U throw u tilt him, no u air juggles, fair followups, you pretty much have to scare yoshi on the ground with tech chasing and stuff like safe d tilt cause it shuts down a lot of his options. Grab Grab Grab Grab Grab vs yoshi is pretty good.
Edge guarding vs yoshi is weird, sometimes tippers at lower ish %s don't even break his double jump, so you might want to just focus on grabbing him as an edge guard and wracking up % cause you'll have a tough time killing him early

Also the yoshi player I play against loves FoD, so ban that
 
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net1234

Smash Ace
Joined
May 15, 2013
Messages
738
Location
SLC Utah
http://www.twitch.tv/aisight/b/519373300
im the blue marth. im kinda a scrub so even basic seemingly obvious things will help.
also i know i forward smash too much xD
also maybe say what i do good so i can do more of that
2 things i really need help on are my dashdancing and
Also whats a good way to get back onto stage after i've grabbed ledge.

Ref Code: ferdershmer
 
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