Explain Like I'm 5: Neutral game

[Leirkov]

Okay, so I've been actively trying to improve in Melee and been practicing tech by myself, and recently started to go to this local store that hosts monthly Melee tournaments.

I got trashed my first time as I expected, but I did learn a lot. One person told me I really need to work on the neutral game, and I feel like I understand what it is, but can anyone elaborate on what the neutral is, what your general goals are for it, and any type of strategy?

 

[Twinkles]

Neutral game is neither you nor your opponent have an advantage against each other and are just fighting normally. This is opposed to punish game, where one of you is comboing/edgeguarding the other.

Your goal in the neutral game is to start up a punish game against your opponent IMO. Which means you want to start up a combo or an edgeguard. How do you go about doing this? Two ways (afaik anyway).

Aggressively: Actively push your opponent towards the ledge (the corner). Choke out their movement and they'll have a more difficult time escaping moves. This requires to keep in mind what your opponent might do to either turn the situation on you or to escape into center stage. Play smart and keep them locked into the corner for maximum effect until you can either hit them offstage for an edgeguard or get meaty hit for a combo start-up. A player who exemplifies this is Mango.

Defensively: Bait your opponent to come in and punish their approach. Give up some center stage with tricky dash-dances, but you must be ready to dodge an approach and punish accordingly, either with grab -> throw off-stage or a meaty move to start up a combo. A player who exemplifies this is Mew2king.

Your exact strategy should really depend on what char you use in what MU. For instance, Marth is a lot more likely to grab -> throw offstage for an edgeguard versus Falco than vice-versa because Marth has better options for doing so than Falco.

Hope this helps.

 

[JediLink]

The neutral game is when neither player has an advantage over the other. It's just "neutral". The neutral game is when you're both dash-dancing around, fishing for grabs, throwing out hitboxes, shooting lasers in the case of Falco, etc, so that's probably the stuff that you have to work on.

 

[EPsilon933]

What character do you play?

 

[Leirkov]

What character do you play?

Falco main, secondaries include Marth, Falcon, Doc, and working on a Fox. But I play Falco 95% of the time.

 

[Varist]

The neutral game is when both players have all of their options available to them and are on the stage. Winning the neutral game is about moving toward or around your opponent in a manner that limits their safe, available movement options. Often what this means is pushing your opponent toward the edge and then punishing their attempt to get past you and back to center. Rolls in, attempted full jump double jumps over you, trying to take a platform, or just throwing a move at you and expecting you to move away are examples of what a player who has been cornered in the neutral game will attempt to do to reset the field or swing momentum in his favor.

In some matchups something as simple as taking a platform is losing the neutral game. Some characters don't want to be on a platform against other characters.

FD is a weird stage because it alters every matchup's neutral game. It has the single largest impact on how the neutral game is played out when compared against any other stage barring really radical ones that move and force movement (pokefloats, ice mountain etc)

To leave the neutral game a hit must be scored. Sometimes it's beneficial to stall the neutral game if your character has a projectile available to him or her. But it's a struggle to get the first hit, some will be solid and lead into combos, some will be grazing and reset you to neutral.

Top players play the neutral game in a very composed way. Throwing out a naked fsmash is something that can be considered a loss of composure and it's what high level players like to bait out of lower level players. Four stocks happen this way. When you're consistently losing the neutral game against your opponent you will not win the match unless he suicides three or four times.

It's the most important part of competitive play. It means everything.

 

[KirbyKaze]

Neutral game = Combat BEFORE someone hits someone

 

[Signia]

Falco main, secondaries include Marth, Falcon, Doc, and working on a Fox. But I play Falco 95% of the time.

As Falco, you're hardly ever playing a true neutral game, unless you count firing lasers outside their range as neutral. One could say that Falco dominates the neutral game with ease, or that he has the strongest neutral game.

But I also disagree slightly with the other posters' definition of "neutral game," I think it also ends when someone shields something, not just when you land a good hit, or any time you enter an advantaged/disadvantaged state compared to the starting state. Also, I think of it a bit differently, and this way applies to all other fighting games, and possibly in any real-time game or even real combat:

In the neutral game, you don't actually cover options, but you can still affect your opponent by threatening options. What's a threat? Well, you threaten options just by making them possible, or more specifically, in range. It's these ranges that provide a sense of zone control, and degree of control over zones is dependent on a few different things:

The range at which it's possible to react to an option is a region of strong control. Falcon's nair has it's own range, but "nair" isn't the option in the neutral game, it's "dash-SH-nair," which covers a maximum distance. Reaction time determines what you can do about moves at various ranges. You can determine whether someone is moving toward you sooner than you can identify the move that's being used, and what you're reacting to decides how much control you have. You might be able to see a fox jumping at you with a nair from a distance, but up closer there's no time to react. Choice-based reaction and knee-jerk reaction is also an important distinction. If you don't have time to react, you won't be able to decide anything in time, and can only do a knee-jerk response or no response, which is difficult to consciously change. Taking note of your opponent's knee-jerk responses and trying to stay conscious of your own is recommended. Knowing how decision time affects behavior is one way to take the guesswork out of reading your opponent.

The strength of the move, the reward for success and risk of failure. Falco may be able to laser at a long distance, but that isn't particularly strong until you're close. However, get too close and powershielding becomes dangerous. A move like Marth F-smash isn't very threatening in the neutral game since using it would be too risky. Standing or dash-dancing around the end of the range of a move adds a chance of whiffing, which increases the risk. Dash-dance also constantly changes the state of neutral game by moving and turning around, but make sure you can handle the mental load at least as much as your opponent.

The tendency to choose options, choice capability and execution capability. It's not quite right to consider all possible options a threat for every opponent. If the Fox opponent can't shinegrab, shielding in response to him jumping at you is good at makes his approach not so threatening. But ability to execute is just as important as willingness to do options. If a Marth never F-smashes in the neutral game, they might as well can't, and the area in front of him becomes less threatening. But showing that you're capable of high-risk choices has the effect of expanding your threat even if you suddenly stop doing them. Those who haven't shown that they're capable of doing certain options appear to not be controlling the ranges that the options control. Interesting mindgames can be played by hiding capability or overplaying it. The metagame can give you a starting point, but that can be used against you (or them).


So, in your mind, trace out the threat ranges from the opponent. Color them by their risk/reward. Darken them by the ability to react to them. Lower their opacity the opponent's capability of choosing the options. Next, draw your own options. Now, you can see the neutral game at a particular moment in time. Next, watch a match and see how it changes over time. Finally, play a match now that you know where you're strong and where they're weak.

 

[Leirkov]

As Falco, you're hardly ever playing a true neutral game, unless you count firing lasers outside their range as neutral. One could say that Falco dominates the neutral game with ease, or that he has the strongest neutral game.

But I also disagree slightly with the other posters' definition of "neutral game," I think it also ends when someone shields something, not just when you land a good hit, or any time you enter an advantaged/disadvantaged state compared to the starting state. Also, I think of it a bit differently, and this way applies to all other fighting games, and possibly in any real-time game or even real combat:

In the neutral game, you don't actually cover options, but you can still affect your opponent by threatening options. What's a threat? Well, you threaten options just by making them possible, or more specifically, in range. It's these ranges that provide a sense of zone control, and degree of control over zones is dependent on a few different things:

The range at which it's possible to react to an option is a region of strong control. Falcon's nair has it's own range, but "nair" isn't the option in the neutral game, it's "dash-SH-nair," which covers a maximum distance. Reaction time determines what you can do about moves at various ranges. You can determine whether someone is moving toward you sooner than you can identify the move that's being used, and what you're reacting to decides how much control you have. You might be able to see a fox jumping at you with a nair from a distance, but up closer there's no time to react. Choice-based reaction and knee-jerk reaction is also an important distinction. If you don't have time to react, you won't be able to decide anything in time, and can only do a knee-jerk response or no response, which is difficult to consciously change. Taking note of your opponent's knee-jerk responses and trying to stay conscious of your own is recommended. Knowing how decision time affects behavior is one way to take the guesswork out of reading your opponent.

The strength of the move, the reward for success and risk of failure. Falco may be able to laser at a long distance, but that isn't particularly strong until you're close. However, get too close and powershielding becomes dangerous. A move like Marth F-smash isn't very threatening in the neutral game since using it would be too risky. Standing or dash-dancing around the end of the range of a move adds a chance of whiffing, which increases the risk. Dash-dance also constantly changes the state of neutral game by moving and turning around, but make sure you can handle the mental load at least as much as your opponent.

The tendency to choose options, choice capability and execution capability. It's not quite right to consider all possible options a threat for every opponent. If the Fox opponent can't shinegrab, shielding in response to him jumping at you is good at makes his approach not so threatening. But ability to execute is just as important as willingness to do options. If a Marth never F-smashes in the neutral game, they might as well can't, and the area in front of him becomes less threatening. But showing that you're capable of high-risk choices has the effect of expanding your threat even if you suddenly stop doing them. Those who haven't shown that they're capable of doing certain options appear to not be controlling the ranges that the options control. Interesting mindgames can be played by hiding capability or overplaying it. The metagame can give you a starting point, but that can be used against you (or them).


So, in your mind, trace out the threat ranges from the opponent. Color them by their risk/reward. Darken them by the ability to react to them. Lower their opacity the opponent's capability of choosing the options. Next, draw your own options. Now, you can see the neutral game at a particular moment in time. Next, watch a match and see how it changes over time. Finally, play a match now that you know where you're strong and where they're weak.

I really apreciate this response. Do you play LoL by any chance? I'm making the "Zone control" comparison here - because I calculate certain heroes spaced threats. Is this how I look at Smash? So all the fast paced techs all include themselves in Neutral? Constant wavedashing back and forth/dashdancing/waveland approaches etc. If I'm right with this, how would someone recommend practicing WD/WL to improve in neutral, rather than being able to WD/WL alone.

 

[Signia]

I really apreciate this response. Do you play LoL by any chance? I'm making the "Zone control" comparison here - because I calculate certain heroes spaced threats. Is this how I look at Smash? So all the fast paced techs all include themselves in Neutral? Constant wavedashing back and forth/dashdancing/waveland approaches etc. If I'm right with this, how would someone recommend practicing WD/WL to improve in neutral, rather than being able to WD/WL alone.

I play HoN but yeah it's super important in those games since they're largely about having good positioning. You can look at Smash in the same way.

Falco doesn't really need too much WD/WL in the neutral game since the SH laser approach into SHFFL-aerial-to-shine-* is mostly all you need, but make sure you can SH turnaround laser and WD out of shield (and then SHL). Properly angled WD makes Falco move faster along the ground than normal.

If you want to get creative, I could think of a few other things. WL to platform and SHL up there to shoot a platform-height laser. Fake-out your SHFFL aerial approach by SHing at them and then WLing back. Face away and wavedash into position and uptilt. You don't really have to be tricky, though.

With Marth you want to be able to WD so you can threaten with dtilt or other standing moves and both him and Falcon can use it to control their movement when they go past the initial dash or to do the short hop wavelanding tricks. Otherwise, those two should just dash around.

Idk, how to use WD and WL in the neutral game is pretty character specific. In general though, I think it's most important to WD out of shield, WL to platforms to escape or improve positioning, or to WD if the game's movement system has you stuck.

 

[Leirkov]

I play HoN but yeah it's super important in those games since they're largely about having good positioning. You can look at Smash in the same way.

Falco doesn't really need too much WD/WL in the neutral game since the SH laser approach into SHFFL-aerial-to-shine-* is mostly all you need, but make sure you can SH turnaround laser and WD out of shield (and then SHL). Properly angled WD makes Falco move faster along the ground than normal.

If you want to get creative, I could think of a few other things. WL to platform and SHL up there to shoot a platform-height laser. Fake-out your SHFFL aerial approach by SHing at them and then WLing back. Face away and wavedash into position and uptilt. You don't really have to be tricky, though.

With Marth you want to be able to WD so you can threaten with dtilt or other standing moves and both him and Falcon can use it to control their movement when they go past the initial dash or to do the short hop wavelanding tricks. Otherwise, those two should just dash around.

Idk, how to use WD and WL in the neutral game is pretty character specific. In general though, I think it's most important to WD out of shield, WL to platforms to escape or improve positioning, or to WD if the game's movement system has you stuck.

Thank you very much for the advice. I know a lot of the basic tricks you need to use on Falco, so learning the proper movements to set them up will be a really big help. I asked about neutral-WDing because I watched Dr.PeePee do quite a bit of dash-WDing and it seemed to really give him a speed edge to get a good hit that lead into a combo, so I was hoping I could figure out a good usage of that rather than blindly learning it and not knowing how to apply it like I don't with most tech I know, haha.

Thank you again though, very informative and helpful.

 

[Bones0]

1. Don't get hit.
2. Hit the opponent.

This is obviously an overly simplistic way of viewing a fighting game, but these are the core goals you will have in mind when learning how the neutral game works. Virtually every other detail about Melee will branch from one or both of these aspects. Lasers make Falco's neutral game more unique than anyone elses imo, so a lot of problems new Falco players have is learning when to use lasers.

The first thing you need to understand is what moves laser combos into. Many people think they can get away with laser into aerials and it doesn't work. Unless you land directly in front of the opponent (close enough to jab, grab, tilt, or shine), you don't have any solid links. Even if you do land with a laser close enough to do one of those attacks, they are all pretty likely to get punished if the opponent shielded the initial laser. I like to think of lasers mainly as a way of slowing down the opponent to your level. Fast characters like Fox, Falcon, Marth, and Sheik would be able to avoid almost any aerial approach you have if you didn't have lasers to push them into the corner and pin them before jumping. Even if you're not immediately thinking about approaching, these lasers protect you from all sorts of approaches the opponent might otherwise attempt. Understanding how every laser you shoot works towards one of the two initial goals of the neutral game will help you realize which lasers are useful and which ones are putting you at risk for no real purpose.