Im putting both of these questions in the same thread. FIRST off, How do I put pressure on my opponents? What I mean is that when I play against good opponents, they put pressure on me by constantly attacking me and putting me in bad situations that are hard for me to escape. Secondly, How do I read my opponents? I hear people talking about it but what is it really? I understand the basics but I don't know how to "read" my opponents. I want to start going to tournaments and I know I need to learn these 2 things if I want to succeed. Thanks.
Reads are simple: You guess your opponents actions based off of habits that they've shown in various situations. Here are a few examples:
- Whenever I run up to my opponent as
, they roll backwards to avoid the expected dash grab and punish me. The next time I run at them, I can predict their defensive option (roll back in this scenario) and punish accordingly. To get their roll back, I can run past my opponent to where their character will be after the roll is completed and pivot grab them to catch them after the invincibility is over.
- My opponent is on their last stock at a high percent, and the ledge option they chose on their 1st stock when I was waiting near the ledge was mostly a neutral getup, followed by an immediate shield. I can hit them offstage, and based off of their previous habits I can read the neutral getup and grab their shield. Or if I'm playing someone like or, I can hold Jab/Chomp to catch the getup before they can shield. Obviously if my opponent most often did another option, I would read and punish accordingly (ledge rolls and jumps can be punished by timed attacks).
- My opponent always air dodges when I get close to them, so I wait for it and punish with an aerial like the Knee or a meteor.
Reads can go into deeper levels of exchanges, such as how you might wall out an opponent based on their approach/response to pressure, reading DI, or reading them reading you… but the basics are punishing habits that the opponent exhibits throughout the match (i.e. if they roll on the stage twice when you're in the same spot its most likely a habit).
Pressure is a bit harder to grasp. I can't explain this nearly as well, but its basically utilizing options that limit the opponent's options. For example:
- using lots of spaced Fairs on shield since its unpunishable when spaced correctly. It also deals a good amount of shield damage, so repeated uses whittle down the opponents shield. With the threat of a shield break, they have to drop shield and stop using it for a while to let it regenerate, giving a huge advantage by taking away the opponent's go to defensive option. Link
- can throw out Lloid in neutral to create free pressure. What it does is force the opponent to either shield Lloid or jump over it (some characters can do other things like reflect it, but thats aside the point). The Villager player just limited the opponent's options at the press of a button, and since Lloid moves slowly, Villager can run along with it to punish the defensive option. Most players don't mix-up and either shield or jump in response, so after Villager sees the habit he can read them by either running up and grabbing in response to a shield or wall out the aerial approach with his slingshot.
- can take away 3 ledge getup options by simply holding jab (neutral, jump, and attack). This pressure makes the opponent far easier to read since they have to stay on the edge, drop down and jump, or roll on stage.
These are just the basics of pressure and reads, I'm not the best Smasher out there or the best person to explain these concepts. I hope this post helps though.
