FE_Hector
Smash Lord
First off, I'm sorry about the extremely eloquent title for the thread... naming stuff isn't something I'm very good at. Anyways, this post is mostly going to be my fleshing out thoughts on a number of things that I've been thinking about for a while and which PPMDs r/smashbros AMA via DailyDot helped me to realize. This likely WILL be a wall of text... just letting you know. Anyways...
Actually, a quick disclosure before I go any further: I know that I'm actually a pretty low-level player, but I'm definitely up-and-coming. These are just my thoughts as of right now and are subject to change, but I don't see it happening in the forseeable future.
So, during his AMA, PPMD actually mentioned that Falco is an extremely high-energy character. He pretty much just broke this down a bit by saying that when he plays Falco, he has to be completely aware of everything that's going on during the entire match. This is why he started playing Marth a lot during his depression-- he didn't have the necessary energy to play Falco. This forms the basis for a lot of my thought.
So what if Falco's a high-energy character and one of the best players in the world needs full mental awareness to play him? Well, the way I see it, that's how Falco actually just inherently is. You've got to understand what your opponent is doing, what they're looking for, and how they intend to do whatever it is they intend to do all at once in order to play Falco really well. It's just how he flows. This all leads into far stronger neutral and punish game because your opponents habits are kind of obvious to you. So, instead of focusing on techskill (not saying it's unimportant), why haven't I been trying to focus more on what my opponent's been doing? That's the main thing that came to mind. And after reading the Drastic Improvements thread here on Smashboards, I don't have a reason.
Knowing that I fully intend to become great with a high-energy, high-awareness character, I decided to employ this as soon as I could. I have a total scrub that I beat up on every Sunday who I got interested in the game, and I decided to test out my new detail-oriented mindset on him earlier today. The results were amazing. I focused on just playing a strong neutral game through positioning and lasers to force him out when I had to, but other than that, all my energy went to watching him. I saw what he was looking for and I directly countered it. The third game we played, I had him mostly figured out and obliterated him. An easy 4-stock. He landed one or two random hits I didn't expect, but it was a blowout otherwise. I'm not saying that my neutral and punish games were flawless, but I saw what I was looking at. To be honest, I loved it.
Alright alright, so how the heck can anybody actually use this to their advantage? Well, I honestly can't guarantee that you can, but if I were me from a month or so ago, here's what I'd see from this:
-Remember that your main is high-energy, high-awareness.
-Look at your opponent and strive to understand what they're doing.
-Know your options and just execute without having to think about it. You know your stuff, so get over it.
Now, I actually literally just decided that I'm going to include a private message that was part of an ongoing conversation with a person that I met here on Smashboards that also deals with some of the same topics. I think that I kind of fleshed out some ideas better in there, but I can't just insert portions of it alone.
You've mentioned in the past that you watch a lot of M2K sets and that you feel as if you're starting to think like he does. I don't have an issue exactly with this, but there is a risk to it. PPMD said he thinks that M2K is the easiest of the Gods to beat because he has a set list of rules for every one of his characters that he plays that he WILL NOT stray from. As Marth, he needs dtilts to occasionally wall out opponents, and he'll use fairs/nairs to help his followups, but he just wants a grab. He'll use all the trickygrounded movement in the world to get that one grab, and he'll capitalize upon it as much as he can. He understands the %s at which everything that he wants will work, even taking all kinds of DI into account, but he still has the rules he refuses to break. Commentators have noticed some of them, too, most notably being his staunch refusal to approach.
Another thing that I've heard commentators say before is that every single amazing player (I'm going to look at the Gods) have something unique they bring to the game that makes them amazing. PPMD has probably the best neutral in the world and has excellent decision making. Armada decisively has the best Peach in the world and is well-known for being slightly flow-charty in a way that benefits him, though he's always willing to experiment in minimal-risk ways to optimize it. Leffen is a full-optimization player and will never go for an option he views as even slightly subpar. M2K is 100% flowchart, like I mentioned earlier, and has strict rules he has for the game, but also has amazing edgeguards. Hungrybox knows his stuff very well and uses Puff and gets Rests he knows he can get-- excellent risk-reward game. Mango has probably the world's best combo DI and impromptu combos, along with a slightly swaggy playstyle.
This all being said, I want to get to my main point: aspiring to play/thinkexactly like anybody else can set you up for major failure because you're not including your own creativity in your gameplay. On top of that, aspiring to be like M2K is even riskier because of how easily his habits can be picked apart by somebody who understands his playstyle fundamentally like PPMD (look at SKTAR 3 and Apex 2014 for examples). On top of that, Armada has actually said that Fox-Marth vs M2K is sort of difficult to play, but once you start denying him his grabs, he just falls apart.
I'm also not saying that I'm not victim to anything like that, though. I really look up to my own hometown hero, PPMD. I appreciate his extremely calculated style of play that also leaves him a lot of room to understand his opponents habits, such as laser -> tight DD in your face -> punish as Falco. He might do one or two of these sequences where he doesn't actually punish to see reaction, and then he starts putting in whatever punish he feels is the best for the situation. However, he also has several different fallback techniques he can use, so I'll admit I kind of try to play like him. I also try to play a bit like Mango and Westballz, though, in occasionally going for hard reads or slightly unorthodox choices as a way of tripping up my opponent. As the years go on and I get better and better, my playstyle will likely evolve into something with shades of all their styles as a part of it, or it could become something entirely my own as I discover aspects of the game I enjoy.
Basically, you (me, and all other low-to-mid-level players) have to remember that aspiring to be and think like one particular smasher can be really detrimental because their bad habits can become yours and you won't bring anything exceptionally unique to the game. There's nothing wrong with taking, for example, M2Ks chaingrabs, but don't only look for them. Maybe look for PPMDs really unique SH late uair to cover an entire platform and also incorporate the Euro Ken Combo when you feel like it's safer. At the end of the day, don't get stuck in glorifying your favorite smashers TOO much.
Just let me know what your thoughts are if you want. It's not intended to be any kind of amazing massive guide or anything, these are really just mindset-oriented thoughts that I've been having recently that I really wanted to flesh out.
Actually, a quick disclosure before I go any further: I know that I'm actually a pretty low-level player, but I'm definitely up-and-coming. These are just my thoughts as of right now and are subject to change, but I don't see it happening in the forseeable future.
So, during his AMA, PPMD actually mentioned that Falco is an extremely high-energy character. He pretty much just broke this down a bit by saying that when he plays Falco, he has to be completely aware of everything that's going on during the entire match. This is why he started playing Marth a lot during his depression-- he didn't have the necessary energy to play Falco. This forms the basis for a lot of my thought.
So what if Falco's a high-energy character and one of the best players in the world needs full mental awareness to play him? Well, the way I see it, that's how Falco actually just inherently is. You've got to understand what your opponent is doing, what they're looking for, and how they intend to do whatever it is they intend to do all at once in order to play Falco really well. It's just how he flows. This all leads into far stronger neutral and punish game because your opponents habits are kind of obvious to you. So, instead of focusing on techskill (not saying it's unimportant), why haven't I been trying to focus more on what my opponent's been doing? That's the main thing that came to mind. And after reading the Drastic Improvements thread here on Smashboards, I don't have a reason.
Knowing that I fully intend to become great with a high-energy, high-awareness character, I decided to employ this as soon as I could. I have a total scrub that I beat up on every Sunday who I got interested in the game, and I decided to test out my new detail-oriented mindset on him earlier today. The results were amazing. I focused on just playing a strong neutral game through positioning and lasers to force him out when I had to, but other than that, all my energy went to watching him. I saw what he was looking for and I directly countered it. The third game we played, I had him mostly figured out and obliterated him. An easy 4-stock. He landed one or two random hits I didn't expect, but it was a blowout otherwise. I'm not saying that my neutral and punish games were flawless, but I saw what I was looking at. To be honest, I loved it.
Alright alright, so how the heck can anybody actually use this to their advantage? Well, I honestly can't guarantee that you can, but if I were me from a month or so ago, here's what I'd see from this:
-Remember that your main is high-energy, high-awareness.
-Look at your opponent and strive to understand what they're doing.
-Know your options and just execute without having to think about it. You know your stuff, so get over it.
Now, I actually literally just decided that I'm going to include a private message that was part of an ongoing conversation with a person that I met here on Smashboards that also deals with some of the same topics. I think that I kind of fleshed out some ideas better in there, but I can't just insert portions of it alone.
You've mentioned in the past that you watch a lot of M2K sets and that you feel as if you're starting to think like he does. I don't have an issue exactly with this, but there is a risk to it. PPMD said he thinks that M2K is the easiest of the Gods to beat because he has a set list of rules for every one of his characters that he plays that he WILL NOT stray from. As Marth, he needs dtilts to occasionally wall out opponents, and he'll use fairs/nairs to help his followups, but he just wants a grab. He'll use all the trickygrounded movement in the world to get that one grab, and he'll capitalize upon it as much as he can. He understands the %s at which everything that he wants will work, even taking all kinds of DI into account, but he still has the rules he refuses to break. Commentators have noticed some of them, too, most notably being his staunch refusal to approach.
Another thing that I've heard commentators say before is that every single amazing player (I'm going to look at the Gods) have something unique they bring to the game that makes them amazing. PPMD has probably the best neutral in the world and has excellent decision making. Armada decisively has the best Peach in the world and is well-known for being slightly flow-charty in a way that benefits him, though he's always willing to experiment in minimal-risk ways to optimize it. Leffen is a full-optimization player and will never go for an option he views as even slightly subpar. M2K is 100% flowchart, like I mentioned earlier, and has strict rules he has for the game, but also has amazing edgeguards. Hungrybox knows his stuff very well and uses Puff and gets Rests he knows he can get-- excellent risk-reward game. Mango has probably the world's best combo DI and impromptu combos, along with a slightly swaggy playstyle.
This all being said, I want to get to my main point: aspiring to play/thinkexactly like anybody else can set you up for major failure because you're not including your own creativity in your gameplay. On top of that, aspiring to be like M2K is even riskier because of how easily his habits can be picked apart by somebody who understands his playstyle fundamentally like PPMD (look at SKTAR 3 and Apex 2014 for examples). On top of that, Armada has actually said that Fox-Marth vs M2K is sort of difficult to play, but once you start denying him his grabs, he just falls apart.
I'm also not saying that I'm not victim to anything like that, though. I really look up to my own hometown hero, PPMD. I appreciate his extremely calculated style of play that also leaves him a lot of room to understand his opponents habits, such as laser -> tight DD in your face -> punish as Falco. He might do one or two of these sequences where he doesn't actually punish to see reaction, and then he starts putting in whatever punish he feels is the best for the situation. However, he also has several different fallback techniques he can use, so I'll admit I kind of try to play like him. I also try to play a bit like Mango and Westballz, though, in occasionally going for hard reads or slightly unorthodox choices as a way of tripping up my opponent. As the years go on and I get better and better, my playstyle will likely evolve into something with shades of all their styles as a part of it, or it could become something entirely my own as I discover aspects of the game I enjoy.
Basically, you (me, and all other low-to-mid-level players) have to remember that aspiring to be and think like one particular smasher can be really detrimental because their bad habits can become yours and you won't bring anything exceptionally unique to the game. There's nothing wrong with taking, for example, M2Ks chaingrabs, but don't only look for them. Maybe look for PPMDs really unique SH late uair to cover an entire platform and also incorporate the Euro Ken Combo when you feel like it's safer. At the end of the day, don't get stuck in glorifying your favorite smashers TOO much.
Just let me know what your thoughts are if you want. It's not intended to be any kind of amazing massive guide or anything, these are really just mindset-oriented thoughts that I've been having recently that I really wanted to flesh out.
