How come I can't improve

[Octocrunch]

I've been playing for 3 years now and I still get out my first two matches at every tournament I go to and I just cant improve does anyone know what is wrong with me or should I just give up

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

Neither. You can watch videos and improve and practice. Would you like some resources? Also each player is different so you may have to get used to each playstyle before you can progress.

 

[Nah]

Everybody learns in different ways, so there's some methods of improvement that won't do **** for you, and some that'll do a lot.

But the first question to answer is this: what have you been doing exactly to try and get better so far?

 

[maybe.]

Best advice I've ever gotten was to watch videos of my own play, and to always have a focus when you practice. The first one can be kind of tough for all kinds of reasons, likely your tournament matches aren't getting recorded so you'll have to resort to for glory or online practice / offline practice with friends (if you do that). The other one is really quite easy and is just kind of a mindset change. I used to always just play messing around with friends and I never really thought about it much but when I decided to try to be a competitive player I starting looking up practice methods and every pro who has shared their practice techniques seem to say this: Every time you sit down to play treat it like you're practicing or training, figure out something in your play you want to focus on and make sure you're focusing on it, never just auto-pilot or mess around even against players worse than you. Another thing that helped me is going in training mode or against a level 1 cpu for like an hour per day and once again, focusing on a certain combo or a certain setup and just repeating it over and over and over again until your so on point that you can do it without even thinking, once your own punishes are on point you can shift your in game mindset off of thinking about what you are doing and onto what your opponent is doing, another thing I've heard from every good competitive player is that during a match they aren't really even watching what their own character is doing, all of their focus and thought is on their opponent and trying to predict their next move, this is kind of a complete mindset change for most people who are just focusing on their own moves and their own character, I found that this mindset change was really helpful for my improvement.

 

[Crosstails20]

Well, we can't help you if you don't give us specifics like, how often you play, how you train, who you play, and stuff like that. But I can recommend one thing, pick up Mario and Ike, from what I have heard they will help teach you the fundamentals of Smash. Mario will teach you how to adapt your play style to your opponent and Ike will teach you the basics of reading and spacing. All of which are important in the neutral game.

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

M maybe.

To add on to this, matches recorded with a phone can help too for tourney matches. Either prop up your phone or lend it to a friend or player that you trust so you can record it and then share it with the rest of so we can help.

For the part about giving it your all against players who are worse than you even if it's not for competition or you know without a doubt that you can win, sticking to your competitive mind-set and being on high-alert can help train you to expect the unexpected situations where an option that you think is not optimal is done and it catches you by surprise so you get hit by it.

You got the repeating a scenario thing correctly. Like you said, it helps your mind to focus on other things while the thing you previously put a lot of effort into is now converted to muscle memory.

For the last point about watching your opponent rather than yourself can give you a noticeable advantage in a match. Since a player is usually a main of their chosen character, they should be familiar with the range and tools that said character provides. By focusing all of your attention on your opponent, you may be able to notice some of their actions before they use them, or if they manage to step into range of one of your attacks, you will know from muscle memory and can respond swifty. Also by not focusing your eyes on your character, you can free up some space and thinking in your head.

 

[Deleted member 269706]

Get a practice buddy. Learning how to exploit each others mistakes and learn to avoid being exploited are the two best things you can work on