Hey guys. First off to everyone in this thread: thank you for the wealth of knoweldge that yall drop on a daily basis, been following this thread for a while.
My tag is ZEN | ADVANCED, hailing from the Tristate region (NY/PA/NJ).
The start of my competitive career in my opinion was when I first learned to wavedash and L cancel in June 2014 and attended my first tournament very shortly after (Yes I am a documentary kid, and have been playing fox since the day I learned to wavedash lol).
For like 10-11 months I got beat up over and over again because I couldn't use fox at all. The character is hard as **** lol but like in the past 3 weeks I finally got most of the tech down and have been placing very well at all tristate locals (top 8 usually, behind DJ nintendo, moon, G$, Smuckers etc). My only notable win is Beerman AKA Lambchops.
I went to this great ~60 man local called Max's Celler last Sunday and also yesterday, got 9th last time and 7th yesterday.
Here is a pools match against a player called THX (he got 27th at Zenith 2014, so he's pretty good). I was 3rd seed in the pool of 7, he was 2nd seed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srJ_pBGk6u0
Looking for critiques and comments! Yes besides the eternal "improve your tech skill" advice. I AM WORKING ON IT LOL. Also I know about unsafe aerials from far away. They are easily grabbed.
Ok sooooo...
Next time you post a match, try to post one that's close, where you lose preferably, instead of a double 2-stock. While it's still possible to learn a lot from these matches, it requires a completely different approach. You can't just look at yourself and think "what could I have done better?" since you may not see it. Instead, you (and I) are gonna have to watch from THX's point of view and look at what HE did wrong and what he could have done, to spot YOUR flaws. Aight let's go.
0:04 - The first striking thing that already sets the whole pace for the match. You both drop down, except you do nothing and keep dashdancing. Look at it, THX had plenty of time to run in on you and Nair you after that Dair but instead wavedashed back and gave you ALL THAT SPACE. You even walked off the stage (don't do this please). What THX should have done here is recognize your crappy position after running off-stage, see your early double jump and intercept with n-air/u-air. Moreover, he shouldn't have backed off.
0:07 - Nice I love seeing this grab because I want all Foxes who still do this nair to get painfully 4-stocked.
0:11 - This is an issue of optimizing punishes. You do one U-throw, wait for the tech, U-smash. That's great. He DI's away and you have plenty of time to chase for a grab, instead you just U-smash. Why U-smash? Because you expected tech in place. Grab would have gotten that, and you would also be able to react to a tech in or tech away, and definitely to no-tech. Don't tech chase with U-smash when you don't have to, especially at low %, grab beats it anyday.
0:13 - Bad dair but you know this. You get U-thrown for it, ok. The part that bothers me is that you don't tech it. This signifies that you didn't expect the grab, which seems to me to think you thought the D-air would hit the whole time. If you want to get out of punishes sooner, you have to let go of the fact that you'll hit and recognize your miss and be prepared immediately to get defensive. For the U-throw this means a tech roll to the right for this case, or maybe good DI for U-smash at high %. Recognize your misses.
0:23 - You already had a scout on his habit that he'll jump off with an aerial from the side platform, as you just punished his dair before. However on this nair you completely retreat. One thing you could have done is pretend to run away and retreat under the platform and let him do a Bair with forward momentum, or just space your grab for the Nair. You gave him all this space with the lasers that he (sadly) didn't use.
0:30 - Jab U-smash doesn't work on Fox. If you wanna cheese, try jab grab. It was a pretty costly mistake.
0:40 - Ledgedash U-smash is pretty good but definitely questionable here. He was above you, and you relied on him jumping in to it. A much better option would have been ledgedash full hop Bair with forward momentum, since this hits him (shield maybe?) and gives you center stage. If you miss that U-smash, you can get bodied for it.
0:47 - You do a ledgedash and this is the 2nd time that THX covers the platform for you to waveland onto it or something. He has also done his own waveland to the side platform from the ledge twice. He probably has a fixation on that and it would be interesting to see if he goes there more often from the ledge, since he also thinks this is your ledge tool.
Ok now look at the position. He just whiffed an aerial ABOVE you. He's on a platform above Fox. And what do you do? You run away :'(. Try an U-air or just dash dance to wait for his falling Bair.
0:53 - Next time you see THX tell him to stop doing this Nair or read this.
0:58 - This happens all the time. Tech in place shine. What you have to do is space your body so that your grab hits, but your body doesnt get hit by the shine. You were actually starting up a dash so it might have been a missed input.
1:23 - That was a bad nair despite it hitting. That should have been dash dance grabbed.
1:27 - I'm sad to see that THX didn't try to punish that double jump backwards with an aerial. Why? Because you dropped through a platform. When you do that, it's very difficult to still input an aerial so you had to land without covering yourself. I definitely would have ran in and grab/aerial. THX was probably scared you'd punish him for the missed grab he just did, but that's his fault for not actually looking at you.
2:04 - Got 'emmm. He went to the side platform again from the ledge.
2:09 - Where was the shine after the Bair? Just pressuring there would have been great since you'd push him off the ledge.
2:23 - You did this three times and none of them worked. He double jumps and you try to cover his landing with a Nair. Another possibility instead of nair here is a running Shine. I really want to see more running shines actually.
Okay this was just the first match and already way more elaborate than I wanted, so I'll end it here.
Chainz
My source is mainly this page http://www.ssbwiki.com/Fox_(SSBM)/Neutral_aerial
