Damn, you did great!
Some things I notice from watching Ally and Zinoto play each other a lot:
Bait mario's grab harder. There were clear times where Ally really wants a grab and even a player of his calibur will want the grab. Like when you two were at low % in the final stock of Game 2, he whiffed a couple grabs as evidence. Something you can easily do with good reward is run up, then jump back and backair because they will try to run up and grab you out of your dash or grab you out of your shield dash. Or you could run up and pivot smash if he's at high % and it will kill. Ally himself does this a ton vs Zinoto in the many times they've played (although as Mario instead of jumping up and bairing he just runs up, then does the skid/turnaround animation to slightly change his hurtbox, and then punishes with a grab or whatever).
I was surprised to realize that simple baits like this were that easy and that effective. Even watching players like ZeRo vs Mr. R at G3 do super simple baits (only ZeRo's diddy baiting mr r to grab). I was thinking how could it be possible such simple baits work, and so many times in a row, to top level players? Surely they'd recognize the bait after 1 or 2 times and adapt and try to maybe bait the bait...?
Basically I think my conclusion is that when someone is looking for something in neutral (like a grab to start a big combo), they are inherently tunnel visioning to some degree. They are putting aside their ability to react to and think of other things for increased reaction to opportunities that may get them the grab or whatever they want. So simple baits work really well when you know what they want. And by using simple baits you can seriously nullify the opponent from getting the things they really want (or they'll be stubborn or optimistic and keep going for it as top players like Mr. R do very commonly). BTW for reference:
https://youtu.be/MZL7LDmOf3U?t=164
Note how ZeRo baits Mr. R so many ****ing times at the beginning into going for a grab with just empty hops, walking, and sometimes dashing. Look at 2:55 ish. In neutral ZeRo telegraphs to Mr. R a pattern: ZeRo will move forward, shield, then short hop backwards. He knows Mr. R is going to want to look for a grab, so Mr. R doesn't process it as a bait. What he sees instead is an opportunity to grab as he knows ZeRo will keep doing that shield. After telegraphing the same movement (move forward shield, empty hop backwards) Mr. R bites it and ZeRo punishes with fair after jumping. He does it too towards the beginning of game 2. Honestly it's really weird but the only plausible interpretation to this for me is that when someone wants something, they will inherently tunnel vision and have poorer judgement of the overall picture in neutral, and that simple baits really are that good to do. Zinoto said that "It's not just Mr. R it's all sheiks". So it's not just him being greedy, it can be applied to any character. The more drastic the reward for something (fox dash attack or uptilt, sheik or mario's grab, etc.), the better it is to go try to bait it.
The second thing I've been thinking about recently from asking Zinoto for advice and such is "how to avoid being in disadvantage state" and "how did I get in this bad situation to begin with". When I watch Ally or Zinoto, they are both greedy about landing on the stage, because the reward is worth it compared to forfeiting stage control and grabbing the ledge. Both of them will aggressively try to get back to the stage in neutral, almost always with falling airdodges.
You probably noticed Ally did a ton of airdodging though it's actually pretty hard to catch them since you can mix up your fall speed as well and whether you want to land on a platform or not. But you could stay under him better and be more ready to catch the landing with a dash attack. Ally told me something good for mario that he and others do is airdodge, then do something out of it like dair or other aerial (he did that vs you too). But since we have invincible bair and dash attack, we have something really useful for stopping that and forcing them to just accept grabbing the ledge.
Anyway these are some of my recent thoughts and observations from good players.
