I seem to have hit a wall with Snake.

[Underload]

Ever since Brawl hit store shelves in America, I've had a huge intrigue with Snake. About a week after purchasing Brawl, I began trying to determine a mine. Humbly, and with no knowledge of tiers or matchups or any of that, I picked Snake as my main. Reason being; I love Metal Gear Solid, and I loved using C4 to flank all my friends in matches.

Almost a whole year has passed since then, and now I'm starting to get serious with my perennial main, Snake. I'm an alright player, I have a very good grasp on his techniques and moveset, and for a while I was beating most players in my crew and the All is Brawl ladder, but now I've hit what seems to be a huge wall (not the ones on Shadow Moses, either.)

I've always played a non-campy Snake. I use grenades rarely, and only to counter opponent's moves. Now that I'm a little bit more serious with using Snake, I've gone the more traditional route; the route to winning. I practiced cooking grenades for days, against CPUs, my friends, and various members of the AiB ladder. I expected my playstyle to suffer a little bit, if not a lot, because using mortars, grenades, and mines is a big change from using jabs, tilts, DAC's, and smashes. It's now been about a month since I overhauled my playstyle, and I've only gotten progressively worse. I always undercook grenades, forget to set mines inbetween stocks or during grace periods, and don't limit my opponent's options like a good Snake player should do. That's why I've come to Smashboards to hopefully share their great knowledge with me.

I only have one video on Youtube of me playing Brawl, and it's back in the days where Snake was nothing more than fun and giggles. The quality is pretty bad, and my opponent wasn't exactly a professional. Here's the link, anyway. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66IP219e3Uw&feature=channel_page WARNING: Gimping myself and many mistakes in this video.

I have attended one offline tournament, which was last Saturday. I opened up the first few friendlies with Snake, but eventually I moved my little P1 cursor to Diddy Kong, and I never really changed after that. I pretty much went all Diddy Kong that day, which I'm not proud of, since Snake is my favorite, and probably my best character. I placed 9th out of 18.

Smashboards, I'm looking for nothing more than tips. I'm going to read up on every matchup I can, look at Snake's techniques, watch some Afro Thundah and Ally videos, and do nothing except play him in friendlies and ladders. What I'm pretty much begging you to do is to diagnose what my problem is, and provide some support on how to obliterate the wall that's standing before my in my growth as Snake.

Will edit things in as necessary.

EDIT: Questions that I would like answered:

Q: In what ways should I practice furthering my grenade game?

Q: What kind of tricks and techniques should I know if I want to use grenades well?

Q: For a conventional Snake, what aspects of his game do you think are very important to master, besides his grenade usage?

Q: Do Diddy Kong and Snake supplement eachother well, matchup wise? I've heard that Falco still can give them both hell, but I've yet to play a good Falco, online or off.

Q: Who are some good Snakes to watch and to take notes from, besides Ally, Afro Thundah and ultimaterazer? I'm a bit unfamiliar with who the best are in this category.

 

[HybridTheory]

EDIT: Questions that I would like answered:

Q: I currently play all of my characters with tapjump on, should I turn tapjump off for at least Snake?

If you find it hard to Utilt then yes, I personally keep tap jump on however.

Q: Would you recommend any changes to the mapping of my controller setup to better my Snake? Don't take other characters that I may play into consideration. All of my controls are default, including tapjump on. I'm totally open to suggestions.

If you turn Tap Jump Off, then you might want to set L or R to Jump, depending on which one you use to shield/roll.


Q: In what ways should I practice furthering my grenade game?

Work on cooking your nades, you'll get the timing after awhile.

Q: For a conventional Snake, what aspects of his game do you think are very important to master, besides his grenade usage?

I didn't see any d throw tech chasing, look at Havokk's thread on it.

Q: Do Diddy Kong and Snake supplement eachother well, matchup wise? I've heard that Falco still can give them both hell, but I've yet to play a good Falco, online or off.

Falco isn't too bad if you can keep your distance at low percents and force him to approach.



I noticed that you roll way to much based off the video, try walking.

Don't try to spike with FAir offstage, you might get lucky a couple times, but it's better to stay onstage and lay a nade and throw out an f tilt or an N air or a mortar or two.

 

[Underload]

@HybridTheory:

Great advice, and some things I haven't heard of. I've been told that I roll a lot, but rolling instead of walking is a very passive thing. I watched that video from Nov. 2008 again, and it was the first time I noticed the excessive rolling. That'll be one of my priorities, definitely.

I don't utilize up tilts nearly as much as I should, but I don't know if it's related to me having tapjump on. I'll first see if I can mix up tilts into my game more before I blame it on tapjump. I like your suggestion on setting jump to L, maybe I'll finally start using that button, then.

Snake's dthrow is quite good, yes, and I usually don't try to chain them together. Most of the time, I'll try to predict a getup after a dthrow and follow it up with either a forward tilt or dash attack, depending on their movements. I really like what Havokk does with his Snake guides, so I'll look at that dthrow thread asap.

I was a bit spike-happy back then, you won't see any forward air from me at all nowadays.

Good advice on Falco, I'll abuse that crouch more against Falcos and Foxes, I guess.

Thank you so much for your advice, you helped more than you may think.

 

[Panix]

Q: I currently play all of my characters with tapjump on, should I turn tapjump off for at least Snake?

Turn it off good sir, easier to do tilts and uairs without the worry of using a jump.

Q: Would you recommend any changes to the mapping of my controller setup to better my Snake? Don't take other characters that I may play into consideration. All of my controls are default, including tapjump on. I'm totally open to suggestions.

Just tap jump really.

Q: I have played on the same Gamecube controller for over 8 years, and it's still going strong. Should I invest in a new one? I've never gotten around to it before, and it seemed a bit unnecessary since all of the buttons still work

You answered your own question =).

Q: In what ways should I practice furthering my grenade game?

Don't always plan to throw them, plan to drop them and leave them there. plan to take dmg with the nade in hand, snake has a problem getting back on stage, and a pulled nade with some sacrificial dmg can get you back on and your oppenet in the fray. try to also rack up damage by Pegging the nade at them, 4 dmg is alot. Also a good thing to have in mind is that if your controller port is higher then your oppenents. (IE. your port 4 he's port 1) and you pull a gernade, then grab a oppenent. if the nade blows up and hits both you and your oppenent, your oppenent takes dmg and not yourself.

COOK COOK COOK COOK.
you should know by now that snakes nade blows up in 4 seconds. pull one, hold it for as long as you like (even till it explodes, as long as you shield yourself) it provides snake with defense from chain grabs, which is a area that snake falls to.

Q: What kind of tricks and techniques should I know if I want to use grenades well?

Gernade wall. Soft throw nade,uncharged Usmash,pull nade wall back out of the nades hitbox, soft throw nade, rinse and repeat. great defence.

Q: For a conventional Snake, what aspects of his game do you think are very important to master, besides his grenade usage?

Spacing, recovery, and metagame And OMG DI! (watch allys DI lol amazing....)

Q: Do Diddy Kong and Snake supplement eachother well, matchup wise? I've heard that Falco still can give them both hell, but I've yet to play a good Falco, online or off.

You don't want to, nothing but lazer spam with a few side b's. A good snake secondary is C Falc =P otherwize, I use snake and snake only (but i herd falco himself is a good snake secondary, or metaknight =]) Also if falco and 3D are the only ones pissing you off in a competitve scene, take up GnW.

Q: Who are some good Snakes to watch and to take notes from, besides Ally, Afro Thundah and ultimaterazer? I'm a bit unfamiliar with who the best are in this category.

check out 9b, shu, candy, DSF, or Inui. All have good snakes.

 

[abit_rusty]

Gernade wall. Soft throw nade,uncharged Usmash,pull nade wall back out of the nades hitbox, soft throw nade, rinse and repeat. great defence.

You didn't come up with this by yourself, did you? I'm curious where you learned it.

 

[yellowroy]

I think some japanese snakes were doing that, it was a halberd match but I fergot who though.

 

[Lawlmahbawls]

You didn't come up with this by yourself, did you? I'm curious where you learned it.

Ally

<________<;;

10allys

 

[theONEjanitor]

i play with the default controls just because i'm used to melee.

cooking grenades isn't really that important imo, just keep grenades on the stage, and mix up the timing.
simply having your **** on the stage gives you an advantage

i dont really do anything tricky with grenades, I just put them on the stage somewhere, preferably near my opponent somewhere

use c4 to further limit your opponents options.

like snake is easy to play just put **** everywhere, but be careful not to spam ftilt too much, like noob snakes spam ftilt like they aint got no sense. i mean its your main damage building move but its really easy to just block and punish it, so pick your moments

then when you master all that, watch ally videos and fastfall upairs off the stage and ****

 

[Sandst0rm]

Q: In what ways should I practice furthering my grenade game?

Q: What kind of tricks and techniques should I know if I want to use grenades well?

Q: For a conventional Snake, what aspects of his game do you think are very important to master, besides his grenade usage?

Q: Do Diddy Kong and Snake supplement each other well, matchup wise? I've heard that Falco still can give them both hell, but I've yet to play a good Falco, online or off.

Q: Who are some good Snakes to watch and to take notes from, besides Ally, Afro Thundah and ultimaterazer? I'm a bit unfamiliar with who the best are in this category.

1. If you already have grenade countering down. Practice getting into the habit of putting them on platforms on stages like Battlefield and Yoshi's. Grenade placement is important. Try and practice b-reversals to help your recovery.

2. B-reversal is one. Grenade counter is great. Learn to dash > grab with a grenade. (Shield drop grenade, dash, hit shield+A) . Grenade usage is very versatile.

ex: Edgeguard method. Shield drop a grenade and do a full hop nair. You auto-pick up the grenade. So you can either hit them with a nair, or throw the cooked grenade at them if the nair misses.

I use the grenade for different things. Sometimes if my utilt doesn't kill or I launch the opponent high in the air, I throw a few grenades up or bounce them by throwing them down hard.


3. Don't roll too much. Start getting into the habit of perfectly cooking your grenades, and knowing placement/countdowns for your other explosives. Walk > run unless dashing is safe. Be creative. Know your moveset well. Snake has many kill moves, you don't want to camp the entire time and you don't want to rely on 2 moves for kills. Remember to save that utilt so it's fresh when your opponent is at high percentages. And abuse that dthrow. Snake's techchase is amazing. It really messes people up because once they only have 4 options after it, and they can all lead to getting grabbed again. =P

4. I don't know much about Diddy Kong, sorry. My Snake doesn't really have a problem with Falco's unless they laser spam the whole time, but there are ways to make openings. PM me if you need any tips on this matchup.

5. Check out DSF too. You could learn a few things. Just remember that there's a situation for everything they do. Don't just try to emulate what they're doing in the videos without knowing it'll work, just b/c the pros do it.

Hope that helped. :]

 

[Panix]

Ally

<________<;;

10allys

9b actually showed it to me, ally just showed me it was a noteable move.

 

[The Cunning Weasel]

TwentyTwo has a good snake. Me, I like to use Snake's throws to make some space.

 

[Excellence]

You've never hit a wall with any character unless you're beating everyone you play mercillessly. If you are beating everyone you need to play some much better opponents. All of the improvements to your game will come naturally as you need to solve problems that arise. You can ALWAYS add to your stock of mindgames, so get to it because Snake has too many.

 

[PCyph]

Q: In what ways should I practice furthering my grenade game?

Basically practice, practice, practice. 1v1s online or versus a level 9 metaknight. The reason you should 1v1 is because that's where your real grenade game is going to be developed.

Q: What kind of tricks and techniques should I know if I want to use grenades well?

Learn to cook extremely well, the key is getting 2 nades to blow up on impact around the same time, that will rack up tons of damage and keep opponents on their toes.

Q: For a conventional Snake, what aspects of his game do you think are very important to master, besides his grenade usage?

No contact mortar slide, I can't even tell you how useful it is. There's great info about it everywhere, but IMO you should use the tap jump off method, it's much easier. It'll take you a while to adapt to tap jump off but it will be worth it.

Q: Do Diddy Kong and Snake supplement eachother well, matchup wise? I've heard that Falco still can give them both hell, but I've yet to play a good Falco, online or off.

If you're talking about Main/Alt then that's my combo, and it works rather well. Against fast characters Diddys naners can really disrupt a metagame. But you should get a secondary alt for Falco, wolf, and fox if you dont like your snake game against them. With reflectors Diddy's bananas fail against good players, and trust me there are some GREAT Falco players out there.

Q: Who are some good Snakes to watch and to take notes from, besides Ally, Afro Thundah and ultimaterazer?

Actually don't know, I basically watch Ally because his metagame is very similar to mine, I've learned a lot watching him.

 

[xsephirot]

i play with the wiimote+nunchuck and i don't know which controller you use. But on the wiimote i set the up-pad to upsmash and dpad to downsmash. Turn off tap jump and i have shake smash on just for the occasional quick reverse forward smash.

As for the playstyle, I feel like I was in your boat a few months ago. But you just need to get more matches with the new style under your belt. Timing your cooking of nades as well as shield dropping combined with tilts will make you awesome. Like dropping a nade and then using the 1st hit of the tilt to hold an opponent in place until the nade blows for example. As for c4, i always drop it when I'm recovering and landing with ground+opponent below. So you can either blow it or air dodge depending on waht they do. I don't like planting c4 unless i am going to use it asap just incase i need it for recovery.

also, watch lots of good snake player vids. Ally is considered the best snake player by many and he does great combos by combining nades with tilts and grab holds.

 

[Mr.-0]

Wow. That's my problem exellence XD. I"m a Snake second, and I kinda suck too so all the advice that I can give you is watch ally and take note of what he does. Don't just watch him in awe like I do. ACtually say to yourself, " that was a ice combo, I should reinact that." pause the video, reinact that, and write it down. Anytime you see something that looks look it would pwn in a match, take note of it. But yeah, just watch ally videos. After you get enough stuff practice it. The way he does it should be the " guidelines" on if your using it properly or if your using it right at all. Wow, wall of text. Wait, hmmm.... not really. Not it all in fact.

 

[SuSa]

5. Check out DSF too.

No. He may win, but from everything I've seen of his Snake. It's horrible and he makes use of nothing. In fact, I saw a match where he didn't use a single grenade. Grenades that if he used to pressure his opponent, he may have won.

10Idon'tknowhowheevenwins1matchwiththatpatheticexcuseforaSnake.

 

[Blitzmidfielder]

No. He may win, but from everything I've seen of his Snake. It's horrible and he makes use of nothing. In fact, I saw a match where he didn't use a single grenade. Grenades that if he used to pressure his opponent, he may have won.

10Idon'tknowhowheevenwins1matchwiththatpatheticexcuseforaSnake.

If he wins matches with such an unorthodox Snake, doesn't that give even more reason to watch him? You seriously need to be more open-minded.

 

[Sandst0rm]

If he wins matches with such an unorthodox Snake, doesn't that give even more reason to watch him? You seriously need to be more open-minded.

Yep. Also, I've seen matches where all he does is use grenades lol.

 

[HizoSturm]

if you wanna improve your grenade game... you should learn how to nade stall. really helpful. and also not to just nade drop then pick it up and throw. try throwing the nade down or dropping it with Z.

 

[SuSa]

If he wins matches with such an unorthodox Snake, doesn't that give even more reason to watch him? You seriously need to be more open-minded.

He lost that MM with (I forget. Some Zamus) and was either sandbagging, or having a really hard time.

Many of his matches I've seen of his Snake, he does poorly/horribly and barely wins due to his opponents large mistakes and Snake's great punishing game (for mid-range/close-range)

His Snake was better a long time ago, his recent Snake is horrible and his MK is great. I'd watch OLD OLD OLD DSF's Snake, but not anything from Nov/Dec. 2008 and on

DSF wins because hes simply the better player, not because his Snake is any good.

 

[napZzz]

DSF seems like he's just really good at spacing teh ftilt. -.-