Your Smash Career
1.I rented smash64 as a 11 year old (Or somewhere in there) and thought it was great, never used anyone but link, I wouldnt say that my career started there though. When I was 13 (Or 14) I got melee and used no one but link cause at the time ocarina of time was by far my favorite game so who else would I use? Every now and then I would meander over to sheik but I wasn’t very good with her. I could beat everyone, EVERYONE, I rarely lost a match to anyone and if I did I would correct all my mistakes and wreck them in the following match. In fact I won so much that I stopped playing cause nobody could beat me not even those nobody else could beat, funny eh?
Well after a couple years of not playing melee to much I read an article in Nintendo power about wavedashing and some other technique, and it mentioned smash world forums. So I began to check it out and stumbled on alpha zealots Advance technique thread, I was enthralled and obsessed with mastering them all, then I saw germ videos (Link main here) and started mimicking his style, it was at this point I began to suck at smash. I was forcing advance techniques into my game. I wasn’t trying to read people like I used to, for some reason it clicked in my head that wavedashing equaled an automatic win for me. Anyway I got in touch with yatta dante, another smasher who at the time was competitive. I started to lose, every single match I played I got *****. The simple answer was I got worse at the game cause I was trying to hard to play like the pros or whatever. Only recently have I gotten better than I used to be.
I’ve only been attending tournaments for about a year but..In Oregon that means about 4 tournaments a year, especially in my area. This year I’ve been to I think 5 different tournaments. But I don’t think tournament play helped me improve one bit, the only thing that helped me improve was sandbagging. (Read here for details
http://allisbrawl.com/blogpost.aspx?id=45928) My tournament history isn’t really up to discussion cause for the most part I have either tired johns or otherwise.
What keeps me stuck on this game? Im not the best yet.
Pre-tournament
1. To warm up for a tournament I play as many people as I can that are better than me, that’s right, if there someone better than me I’ll try to get the most matches in with them. But the biggest thing is I try to play a variety of people so when the time comes I’ll be already used to adapting to different styles. (Most important aspect of pretournament preparation)
How early do I start training? Early as I can, in short Im always training, always doing upkeep on my techskill by taking it to a level 1 so I don’t get rusty, but when a tournament is coming up I practice about twice as much as I usually do.
4. Do you view matches of opponents that will be at the tournament?(study them?)
Yes, if Iknow a very good player will be at the tournament I study their matches and habits in particular match ups, but for the most when Im studying videos before a tournament I study match ups im bad with and percents I can launch a combo, but I don’t just study two players doing that match up, I studying as many players as I can doing that match up so I can get a varied idea of what to expect from that particular character in high level play.
5. What's your mindset going to the tournament?
When I go to a tournament I don’t look forward to the actual tournament (As of now anyway) I look forward to playing friendlies and learning from people better than me. For instance if there’s someone that plays a character I have a hard time with, I play them as much as I can to learn the match up after the tournament. In short my mind set is , Have fun.
Pre-match
1. The TO announces you have a match on TV 3 with a smasher you have never heard of, what's your game plan? What do you assume about the player, if anything?(Are you thinking about what character you will use, sizing your opponent up, underestimating him, overestimating him?)
I go into the match assuming that this player is the exact same level as me. I do this because if I assume he is worse than me and he turns out to be better it’s a hard mindset to break and you end up being at a disadvantage (Trying thing that wont work even though you know your opponent is better than you). This is also so I don’t over estimate my opponent and miss opportunities I should be able to seize otherwise, when you overestimate your opponent and shy away from being aggressive you are actually giving your opponent more opening in your defense to attack and this could be fatal to your stock. So assuming they are on the same level as me and as such will have an effective counter to all of my attacks, with that in mind I pick a relatively safe character to spam with or camp with and try to learn their style for the first match. In most cases I use Marth or sheik because of their mobility/defensibility. (I plan to go all link at my next tourney though)
2. What about a match with a smasher who you know/heard of, but are fairly confident of beating?(what are some specific thoughts to describe your mental state; "K I'm going to win this one, wonder who I have next" "I usually beat this guy in friendlies, I should win" etc. etc.)
First I have to ask myself the following questions, How long has it been since I played them? How badly did I beat them last time we played? How many matches did I play them for? Did they adapt to my style well? This opens up a plethora of possibilities.
1. If I played them more than 3 weeks ago I assume that they could have gotten better in that time and I feel them out for the first half a stock or so to see if they HAVE improved.
2. If I ***** them last time we played and it wasn’t to long ago, and I played them for an hour or so without them adapting to my style then I go into the match with absolute confidence in what Im doing.
3. If our matches were close, it was last week and they adapted to my style then I go in with a totally fresh and open mind to how I will play this match and feel them out, try a character I didn’t use against them last time and play a defensive style in comparison to that last time I played this person and look for holes in their offense, see what character would best compliment these holes in their offense. And have fun XD
4. If I’ve never played them I may ask a friend how good they are, then ask what character they recommend against them if time permits. But if it does not I pick my best character and feel them out for the first minute or two and be careful not to jump into the ****.
5. If I usually beat the guy in friendlies consistently I don’t worry at all but Im not going to let that fact make me go easy on them. One of the best rules you can go by at tournaments is even if you always wreck these guys, do your best to wreck them harder in the set.
3. What about a match with a smasher who you know/heard of, but have classified him as better than you?("****, gonna lose this one." "I still have a chance, always have a chance" etc. etc.)
You never know how good someone is until you play them, yes there are given player that you can assume are better than you, (M2k, zhu, ss, mango). But even when I know they are better than me I feel them out the same way I would any other player. (This is where studying videos comes in handy). Once again I pick the character Im best with. For instance if I were to go up against Ka-master in the first round of a tournament (And I did) then I would think to myself,
“Ka-master is definetly better than me, he could beat me, but that doesn’t mean Im giving up this match, I know he plays luigi which means staying in for an extended combo wouldn’t be wise, and if I go into my shield he can pressure that pretty effectively”
In short I start by analyzing what a player this good would do with that character and how that will effect the character I use/my style. For instance when I went up to play Ka-master I thought this..
“My style is very aggressive and I like to combo, so if I do stay with my style Im sure to get punished a lot for it, I need to adjust to something semi defensive and use attacks with good range when I do “combo” him.”
From there it’s a toss up of whether or not I can find an effective and consistant way of exploiting the holes in their defense, Im not sure since I haven’t experience this match up to often, but I imagine It would be very much the same as playing an entirely new match. It’s a matter of being able to make yourself play on their mental level.
Pre-match 1
1. You both plug into the cube, pick your characters, and move to the stage selection screen to pick your bans, how do you decide what to ban?("well if he's falco, I'll ban FD", "I really hate BF so I always ban it", etc. etc.)
Again this is a matter of either knowing the player or not knowing the player. If I know them well then I know what stages they do well on and thus I ban their best stage. It also depends on how well I do against them on said stages. But for the most part I don’t know the people Im playing at tournament so I ban stages based on character selection. But if Im really unsure what to ban for that character I just ban the stage I do the worse on.
2. Is your mindset still the same? Are you nervous? Where is your head at when you press start and it selects a stage?
My head? On my shoulders of course, XD LOL LOL. But honestly my head is in the match, totally and %100, if its anywhere else I’ll get distracted and play a great deal worse than I actually am, forcing yourself to not think of anything but the match is one of the best thing you can do, especially if your unsure of your opponents skill level (See my above answers)
Match 1
1. Game starts, announcer says GO, what position do you take?(offensive, defensive, if you have projectiles do you get them out there, be general if you want cause I know it might depend on the characters you're playing, are you trying to be fancy or playing conservititve?)
When I use link I want to know how they deal with my projectiles so I throw some stuff out there to rack up damage and see where they jump when they see a incoming boomerang or bomb, if they shield , roll sidestep ect. Theres an appropriate response to each of these reactions and once I see which one they do I’ll know how to react to them next time.
If Im using marth and their character isn’t one that keeps me at bay (Falco, link, samus, ect.) then I advanced just close enough to be out of range of a tipper, the reason for this is because they will see im out of range if I miss on purpose and then will advance into my ridiculously large grab range (this works wonders against spacies CHAIN GRABS XD) but this is also so I will have time to react to whatever they choose to do and if its something I already know how to punish then great! But if not I retreat back and construct a solution to what they just did, EVERYTHING is punishable, you just need to know how to punish it.
2. What are you looking for, if anything, in your opponents playstyle?(is he rolling predictably, teching predictably, is he playing really offensive, shielding too much?)
The most notable things to look for are if they play offensive or defensive, then after that you should memorize which way they like to tech, what attacks they shield and how to punish that, I look to see what their laggiest move is and wait for a punish opportunity on that. But if they are really offensive and depending on which character they use I look for the open spots, everyone has open spots in their attacks, for instance Falco’s will jump out of habit when someone shields their shine, USMASH OOS FTW! If I successfully punish their first or second approach with an %80 chain then they will usually lose their back bone and back off enough for you to construct a counter offensive strategy.
3. Are you looking for how your opponent is punishing you?(is he predicting your rolls, your spot dodges, your techs? Do you change up your play style to keep the lead, or do you get more aggressive, do you go for more fancy ****?)
This is the opposite side of the spectrum from my answer to an earlier question. For every attack there is a hole to exploit. Its always a good thing to look at what your opponent punishes, if he punishes your teching in place then stop doing it. If your lucky he wont read you, he’ll still attack in the same place and you’ll role away and be up and ready to launch an offensive. If im getting punished for every move I make (It has happened before) then I don’t move, I camp in a small radius and thwart their incoming attacks with attacks that have high priority while I think of a way that I can move around without getting *****. This is a difficult position to be in with today's meta game, often you will find you barely have time know that you just got drop zoned or wave shined or whatever. But it IS beatable, when I find myself in this situation I construct a defensive strategy that makes my opponent sorry they ever stepped inside my bubble.
4. You are ahead, got a stock or two up, how are you feeling?(confident, staying humble, trying to keep focus)
The answer to this is simple, your two stocks up… so what?! **** them and keep ****** them until they have no stocks left. You cant afford to feel cocky, that makes you play worse. Play each and every stock like its your last. I’ll say it again, you cant afford to get cocky, Mango..Kage…nuff said. (If that was in fact the case)
5. You fall behind, not too far, but you're behind, do you change your style?(start playing more defensive/offensive, stop going for fancy edgeguards or cut out some new techniques you have been trying?)
Usually my instinct is to start playing defensive and run away but unless you are ready for an onslaught from your opponent its not the best idea. But I have a good story for just such a question. I went to a tournament put on by seattle smash a few years ago and went up against judeko’s young link. (If you don’t know who judeko or seattle smash is that’s fine) to shorten my story I fell behind because I wasn’t ready for his mad offensive play style (I was using marth) and I was down a whole stock, it didn’t look good but I memorized what his approach was and developed a counter offensive for it and came back to win the match (and the set). but It wasn’t till I saw what I was doing wrong that I could develop what I could do right, so in short when Im in this situation I see what Im doing wrong and correct it. I do my best not to make risky maneuvers either or do things that are expected of that character, that is until I develop a counter offensive strategy.
6. Games over, based on what happen (win or lose), what are you thinking about?(“yes! I won, I got this, he’s not very good”, “crap, I loss, I don’t think I can beat him” and everything in between.)
If I win with ease- “Ok, I won that match with relative ease and my current strategy is working wonders against this guy, no need to fix what isn’t broken, unless he counter picks something that screws me over…”
If I barley win- “Alright I managed to pull that one off but this guy is reading me just as well as Im reading him so I need to use a good counter pick and stop doing things that don’t work and try something else in their place. Also, he use ____ a lot and it usually hit me, I need to watch for that one since I know he will want to keep using it. What was it that he was doing that was giving me trouble? If I can identify it I can counter it.” Or,
I think of what character I could use that would easily punish a lot of thing that my character was having trouble with. For instance, At a tournament a few months ago (P.R.I. Smash) I went up against a falco with my sheik and he almost beat me, It was a hard match up, I thought he was getting more used to my style so I switched over to fox, counter picked yoshi story where I could move around the whole stage in a flash and then four stocked him.
-Theres a lot more than that that goes through my head but that’s the jist of it.
If I get ***** – I think of what they were punishing the most and consider if I would make those mistakes with another of my characters or if I could stay my character and fix my mistakes. There are holes in every offense so I identify those and think of counter strategies for each of my characters and pick the one I think will be the most effective.
If I barely lose – It’s the same process as “If I barley win” except Im thinking of my counter pick and a possible character change.
Match 2
1. Based on how the last match went, what are you thinking about going into match 2? ("I noticed he was rolling/reading my rolls so let me adjust for that", "I need to gimp/not get gimped this time", "Hope I get lucky/hope he gets unlucky", etc. etc, anything that's going through your head)
I think of what I was doing wrong and how he was punishing it, for instance. If Im fighting jiggs and I rush her at the edge twice with fox, I get thrown off the stage and fair/baired to death. Don’t give into her baiting you to run to the edge of the stage. Instead I space myself away from the edge of the stage so they will eventually have to come to me ( check out this match
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wW10vLaKio ). I also identify where the problem lies, is it in my approach? My defense? Are they baiting me into things so they can punish me? Once I answer the problem I come up with the solution. This rings true even If I **** them, If I three stock the there's still something I did wrong to lose that first one, im not saying always go for four stocks. Im saying wreck your opponent to your fullest extent. I only hope I get lucky if my opponent is so far over my head I don’t know what to do. But I should never allow myself to think that, it’s the same as saying your going to lose no matter what.
2. Do you change characters?(specific situations, or do you always change characters? do you pick characters to counter playstyles?)
I do change characters to counter play styles more than anything. But sometimes I pick off characters in the chance that they just don’t know the match up or under estimate the character (Link). If I feel someone is getting used to my play style and I don’t feel a mix up in my own plays tyle is efficient then I change characters and mix up my play style.
3. If you are in the position to counterpick, what do you base it off of? ("I noticed he was playing like this, I thought this stage would counter that", "I'm really comfortable on this stage, so I chose it",
First of all I identify if they were using a lot of space or not, if they are the type that runs away a lot then I would counter pick a smaller stage that compliments my character. If I was using marth and they another character, I would counter pick either yoshi’s story or fountain of dreams. Because it screws with their retreating playstyle and gives me an advantage in stage control, or another option is to counter pick a character with good projectiles to control their escape area.
4. Match 2 starts, depending on how the last match went how are you playing?("I won last time so I'm kinda ******* around this time", "I loss last time so I'm playing a lot more careful this time", "I already know I'm gonna win/lose so I'm not really focused")
I only **** around if I don’t care about the match, but once again if I won the last match easily, if it aint broke don’t fix it and do my best to **** them even moreso then I did last time.
If I did lose last time, I already covered this haha.
5. Depending on how the match is going, you're winning/losing, how's your mindset?("When I'm losing I kinda give up since I'm already a match behind.", "If I'm winning I get excited and lose focus")
I already covered this in an earlier answer but I’ll reiterate. If Im winning then I don’t let myself get cocky and focus on nothing but the match. There’s never a more crucial time to stay focused then when you’re winning, I try to remember im winning for a reason and that reason is Im not losing focus, so why would I screw around, lose focus and risk them making a comeback? I don’t think so.
Already a match behind? That’s a terrible thing to think, I once went into tournament finals against my ex-rival in smash Yatta Dante and picked Link because I knew he would pick fox, and while I knew that I could very well win the match (I have before) I didn’t. But that’s okay because I picked link for a few reasons, one being I KNEW he would pick fox and in the match directly after that I picked marth and took him to the stage he hated the most and three stocked him. But I never let myself enter the mind set of defeat, its stated in several guides and asking any pro smasher, they will tell you to never let yourself enter that mindset.
Match 3(if)
1. Last match, you've played your preferred characters, your preferred stage, how are you feeling?("I'm pretty confident I can win, I'll focus to be sure", "I got lucky 1 match, don't think I can win now", "I've figured out his playstyle and he doesn't seem to be switching it up, I got this", "Juss happy to have taken a game off him")
There is a point were im very confident but if they take you to the third match by winning the second then its not wise to underestimate them. If you take THEM to the third math then you’re entitled to feel a little more confident depending on how well match 2 went. If I take them to the third match my mind set is this, I’ve figured out their play style well enough to beat them, as long as I don’t provide any opening I can win this set. But don’t get cocky. If they took me to game three then my mind set is this. They’ve figured out my play style well enough to beat me but I’ve developed a counter strategy and indentified all the holes in my style that they exploited last match so If I fix those I can probably end this match before they have time to figure out new ones.
Post-set
1. Depending on if you won or loss, what are you feeling?(did you surprise yourself? did your opponent surprise you? are you happy/mad? reviewing your mistakes?)
Usually im reviewing my mistakes, if the video was recorded then im watching the video, often times I get mad if I lose the set, its not a good feeling to get knocked out of a tournament in the first couple rounds, if I made it a bit further then I don’t get to mad. For instance I went to a tournament in Washington a while back and when my match was up I hadn’t slept in about 20 hours, I couldn’t function for ****, I could have beaten this guy I WAS beating this guy but then I was just like..screw this I want to sleep I don’t care that I get knocked out of the tournament, and I threw the match. I was pretty pissed about that. I’ve never lost sleep before a tournament since, if there’s a legitimate john or the fact that I didn’t know the match up involved then I get upset but if not then I don’t get to upset.
Misc. Questions
1. What character(s) do you use in tournament matches, and when (fox when I'm serious, falcon when I'm not)?
I have a character for each match up, I have my sheik/fox/link for falcon, fox/sometimes link for falco, but when im not serious and just screwing around for the fun of it I use falcon lol, He’s fun and I don’t intend on picking him up as a serious character.
2. Are you constantly adapting new techniques, are juss trying to perfect the basics?
I always practice the basics, after all the basics are the foundations of everything afterwards. And yes Im always doing my best to adapt new techniques to each of my characters, Im learning proficient chain grabbing again with marth and the thunders combo(s) with fox.
3. Does your playstyle vary from friendlies to tournament? Do you play 'better' in one versus the other?
Not really, I play better when Im relaxed but if there is a different its that I am aware that more is at stake, which makes me nervous >.>.
4. What are some things you think a lot of people overlook, when it comes to winning?
Have fun, people get to stiff when they are in a tournament, they forget that the reason they started playing the game was because it was fun. That and that you never know how good the person sitting next to you is.
5. What would you say the main aspect of your playstyle is? Tech skill/mindgames/reading?
A healthy combination of all three, there are times when I switch from concentrating on finding an opportunity, to executing a combo perfectly with a technical character. I.E. Fox.
6. Who was/is the most influential smasher to you?
That’s a hard question, but all of the better players are an inspiration, M2k in particular because of his range of skill levels he’s had since he started playing the game to becoming the best and maintaining a very high ranking.
7. Whats up with your name, why did you choose it?
My name is dumb, well the zodiac part is, I don’t know why I chose it, I wanted to sound cool, now I don’t care if I sound cool so I added Mofat to the end of it cause that’s a variation on my last name so yea.
8. What is your personal favorite technique to use in a match?(technical or psychological, either one )
Infuriating my opponent, once their pissed off its like taking candy from a baby lol, but that’s hard to do so I would have to say the shine..I love the shine.