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How do you keep up momentum?

AnchorTea

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Last week. I was at a tournament and first round, I faced a ROB player. I was doing very well, I had the perfect flow, and then I two-stocked him. It was best 2/3, so in the next battle.

I got my ass handed to me

Same thing happened in the next battle.

So, I noticed that I do well with a good flow/momentum, and if you can't tell by the thread title.

How do I keep that momentum?
 

HeroMystic

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If you got your ass handed to you, it's because he adjusted to your playstyle. If you want to keep momentum, it's often best to go in with a refreshed outlook of your opponent because it's on him to react to what you're doing.

In more simpler terms: Mix-up your movement, your combos, and always keep him guessing and confused.
 

AnchorTea

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If you got your *** handed to you, it's because he adjusted to your playstyle. If you want to keep momentum, it's often best to go in with a refreshed outlook of your opponent because it's on him to react to what you're doing.

In more simpler terms: Mix-up your movement, your combos, and always keep him guessing and confused.
Well I got my answer, feel free to close this thread moderators.
 

ATH_

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Momentum is a great thing, you do not want to lose it. Only the best of players have the ability to let it carry them more than once in a set, EX: Leffen v. Armada @Paragon 2015.
When going into the next game with momentum, do as the previous poster said, star fresh and be prepared for them to change up their style, play it safe and get chip damage if you need to. Switch up your playstyles so that you can outsmart them and hopefully take the game. Pay attention to both of your habits and based on those, start conditioning them and punishing.
Keep in mind, if the other player can feel your momentum, alla a 2-stock situation, they will likely have to force motivation just to push ahead. If you can successfully nullify that motivation, say by taking the first stock and getting good damage, then they will likely begin to crack. This is one of the main differences between the greatest and the good. The fact that they almost don't ever crumble and sometimes even use it to their advantage.

Of course, if you're on the other side of it, you want to be pushing with as much motivation as possible. Always tell yourself "This is possible, I can beat them" and then focus entirely on the match. If you can give your full attention to it, you'll see results.
 

Octagon

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i know it sounds weird but I think positive thoughts. I realized this morning in fact on for glory that when my mind would wander and I'd start to think negative thoughts, I started to lose focus and the momentum I was building
 

ZomBiehn

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Learn from your opponent, if your predicable then you'll always have trouble keeping up. Here's a tip, next match your having issues back off a little ( not so projectiles come and wreck the hell out of u) but so you can watch what he does and counter when he/she is open
 

makemesmellbad

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I think you have the wrong idea of momentum. Momentum is more accurately described via an individual match basis, not through a set. In order to get momentum, you should take the advice of everyone here and learn simple mindgames and reads. Try throwing out a few attacks and when they land, go for follow ups. If your follow up is thwarted, go for the same attack you started with, and instead of following up, just stop your flow altogether. This will make your opponent either:
A. React the same way as before (easily punishable)
B. React a similar way as before (punishable)
C. Get confused
D. React accordingly and punish you

There's a 75% chance out of these options you'll be safe, and a 50% chance you'll get more damage on. However, the most important option here is C, which really helps condition your opponent to play the way you want them to in order for you to win. Of course, it's harder to pick up immediately, so save your replays and watch where you are punished. Learn from your mistakes and implement readings rather than new approaches to the same problem.

Let's say you use your f-air for a safe poke on your opponent, and they just block it. That's a bit of knowledge for your next approach, but you need more information, so you do it again. This time, the roll around it. Now, you have some information. They are playing defensively while trying to figure out where exactly you're weak in the attack, so, since third time is the charm, you do your short hop, but this time... do nothing. If they shield, you've already conditioned them into playing your game and not Smash Bros. In order to really utilize this technique, however, you have to have a general understanding of how most people react to your character, so once again, don't do the same things over and over. The next time you try to get your opponent to react, spam f-airs forever (as long as it's safe to do so), and then, at the last minute, throw out a Lloyd, run up to them, and get super aggressive. If you get punished, don't worry, because you're still learning at this point, so don't get too worked up over being outread.

Finally, the hard part comes into play--you need to know exactly what you can do, when you can do it, and how your opponent will react to it in almost every situation in that match. If you throw a Lloyd and they block it often, you can punish with grab. They'll catch on and start jumping over it, so before you go in for a grab, predict after the first or second time you grab that the next Lloyd they try to avoid will put your opponent in the air. They jumped, so you you punish with a f-air, b-air, or n-air. All of these stuffed defensive plays will make most opponents flustered and they'll panic, making worse and worse decisions, allowing you to use more risky moves like f-smash and Tree (and hitting them consistently).

It's like rock, paper, scissors, and you've learned your match up likes really sharp, shiny objects, yet they also know you know that, and since you know they know, you know they'll throw paper to beat your rock that would beat their scissors... but you threw scissors all along. It was scissors all along...
 

Big-Cat

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Sometimes, momentum is just having stage positioning. It's a good idea to stop for a second and see what happens next instead of trying to pursue a followup.
 

Raijinken

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Momentum is important, but so is keeping ahead in the mindgame. It doesn't matter how much momentum you have going into your combo if the combo is the exact same chain of run-grab-dthrow-uair-uair-uair every time. Eventually even slower opponents will learn to read it and prevent it.

So as mentioned above, keep the momentum up more mentally than in your gameplay. Learn your character well enough that you know not just their general good option, but a lot of good options so you can keep the gameplay momentum with varied approaches. It'll make you a better player in the long run, and it'll also help you learn to identify a good player from an average player - the good player has a bag of tricks, the average player only knows one or two.
 

deepseadiva

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If you got your *** handed to you, it's because he adjusted to your playstyle.
This is something I see happen with new and experienced players alike. If they win once, they seem convinced they'll always win?

Fighting games are a constant conversation that works in both directions. Simple things like this seem overlooked at times. >_>
 

Terotrous

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I think you have the wrong idea of momentum. Momentum is more accurately described via an individual match basis, not through a set. In order to get momentum, you should take the advice of everyone here and learn simple mindgames and reads. Try throwing out a few attacks and when they land, go for follow ups. If your follow up is thwarted, go for the same attack you started with, and instead of following up, just stop your flow altogether. This will make your opponent either:
A. React the same way as before (easily punishable)
B. React a similar way as before (punishable)
C. Get confused
D. React accordingly and punish you

There's a 75% chance out of these options you'll be safe, and a 50% chance you'll get more damage on.
It's worth noting that there's no guarantee that these options are equally likely. A very good player will almost never do C and may do D most of the time.


This is something I see happen with new and experienced players alike. If they win once, they seem convinced they'll always win?

Fighting games are a constant conversation that works in both directions. Simple things like this seem overlooked at times. >_>
Yeah, this, you have to be constantly adapting to your opponent, and their adaptations to what you're doing. If you're doing something, and it stops working, do something else. Better yet, do something else just when you become convinced they have caught on rather than afterwards.


Divekick was an amazing game for teaching you this kind of thing because it's very simple and each match resets to the neutral position many times, giving you a chance to choose an opening strategy each time. One of my favourite things about this game is doing a certain setup the first few times, then when I think the opponent has caught on, I do something completely different that will instead beat the correct punish. They assume that I'll do the same thing, then get blown up, and they're like "how did he know?"

This is also applicable to Smash Bros and all other fighting games.
 
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makemesmellbad

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This is something I see happen with new and experienced players alike. If they win once, they seem convinced they'll always win?

Fighting games are a constant conversation that works in both directions. Simple things like this seem overlooked at times. >_>
This post was based solely on a mathematics perspective. The execution, of course, will never be 100% accurate, no matter how good or bad the player. He wasn't asking how to win, he was was asking how to keep momentum, and momentum is just keeping your opponent on their toes while keeping a significant advantage.

EDIT: I replied out of context, lol. My bad, yo.
 
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makemesmellbad

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Assuming players are on average grounds, all of these are likely. A very good player can be confused a lot of the time in the midst of a mentally intensive match just as much as a newer player. The reasons for confusion may be different, but most players can admit to times where they just have no clue what happened in a certain situation and were punished for it accordingly.

A large part of mind games (if you plan on winning and playing competitively) happens when something completely crazy happens, like if a Samus player spikes an opponent into the side of the stage, sending them at a different angle and they survive as opposed to dying to the spike. The physics of the game have some loopholes, and while they can't all be exploited like Perfect Pivoting on a consistent basis, those little trip ups that make people laugh in denial or raise their eyebrows do put a tilt on the mindset of the receiving player. As rarely as its discussed, doing these crazy things is totally random and almost luck-based, but exploiting them as a mindgame shows the maturity of the player, adapting to even the most unlikely situations and using them to a significant advantage over one's opponent.

Instead of taunting when the game does weird stuff, play like you do it all the time. It doesn't matter how good you are fundamentally. At that point, it's all about discipline and poker faces. Mindgames can keep even inexperienced players making veteran players stay smart and play with thought. That's why no good Smash player can play "brain dead". They are always focusing on what are the best options and reactions. Even when they know that Pikachu is going to spam B when afar, they don't want to get caught with their pants down and get punished for it.[/quote]
 
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