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Mind Over Meta #39 - Losing

Mind Over Meta is a weekly series of articles on /r/SSBPM, the Project M subreddit. Written by several different authors, this series covers many of the mental aspects of playing smash and other subjects related specifically to Project M. This week user orangegluon wrote about losing. The original article can be found here. To read the rest of the series check out the Mind Over Meta Archive. Sit down, read, and enjoy.

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Hello everyone! We are back this week with another Mind Over Meta. This week, we want to talk about something deeply integral to success in competitive Project M. This is an aspect that, while crucial to winning, is sometimes overlooked in discussions about improvement. Many threads here on /r/ssbpm by newer players attending their first tournaments will bring it up, but it usually isn’t discussed in detail.

So, let’s talk about what may be one of the most important parts of winning: losing.

Short Stick

Competition is an ancient trait of human civilization. A contest to see which combatant, contender, or competitor, is the best. Or maybe just to win a medal, or healthy satisfaction.

But the other side of this competition is that in order for one person to win, another must lose. And obviously, this is just as true in competitive Project M. And this process happens in every single match of every single tournament.

Because not everyone can be the best, the vast majority of you readers will lose at some point in any given tournaments (speaking statistically). Therefore, it’s important that you all learn how to lose.

Dignified

Losing hurts. I know it well; I’m extremely well-practiced in it. But there are a lot of steps you can take toward making the best of it.

The first thing I’d like to cover is a matter of etiquette. One of the worst things you can do when you are upset after losing a match is to let everyone else see your negativity. This isn’t to say that being upset is bad or wrong (and I will touch on this later). But portraying frustration in a destructive way does not, in general, serve competitors well.

There are a number of stories about players becoming physically destructive after they become enraged. People throw controllers; they yell and criticize the winner, the tournament, and the game. A lot of people are quick to dismiss this as just salt, but these sorts of behaviors are symptoms of deeper attitudes toward play that can potentially hinder or even ruin a player’s future performance.

So when you lose, I recommend that you take it slow. You may be irate with yourself, for making mistakes that cost you a match. You might be angry at your opponent, for having unfairly taken a win. Or you may just be upset about something else. Whatever it is, when you finish the match, just after finishing the match is not the time to deal with it. Any time you win a match, would you not appreciate a handshake and a congratulations from your opponent? I suggest handling losses then, by showing humility and giving a genuine “good game” before stepping away. Doing this can sometimes take pretty strong self control, but a deep slow breath and small shoulder roll personally helps me to keep my cool under this sort of frustration. Whatever you can do to help quietly relax in these tense situations is worthwhile.

It also helps to recontextualize myself after a loss. If I have just lost a tournament, then I know I have a lot to work on toward a better performance next time. At that point, I can take some time and effort to study what went wrong in an objective way, and I can spend time practicing and fixing my problems. Losing a tournament does not mean the end of a Smash career. If I am in the middle of winner’s bracket and I am knocked down to loser’s bracket, I still have a chance to swim through to finals! In fact, I have been able to come back to grand finals from loser’s bracket more than once. Losing one match does not mean the end of a tournament. If I lose a game within a match, then I can take a moment to quickly scan my memory of the game and see if any defining issues jump out at me, and then take steps toward correcting that, like dealing with counterpicks and updating strategies. Losing one game does not mean the end of a match. And if I am in the middle of a game and lose a stock, I have several seconds on the respawn platform to review what just happened and see if I can make any adjustments to adapt to the game. Maybe I should be more cautious, space attacks better, change up approaches, or do whatever else is necessary. Losing a stock does not mean the end of a game. Taking steps like these helps me to continue staying focused on the short-term goal of winning whatever is up ahead.

Controlling your emotions and actions is harder than it seems on paper. But by keeping your attitude together enough to graciously acknowledge the opponent’s win, we are able to move onto talking about the loss at a personal level afterward, in a more private setting.

Inner Strength

As I mentioned earlier, most of you will lose matches at tournaments somewhere. Only the top echelon of players will be able to walk into any tournament and breeze through with no losses.

Winners don’t need to get better; they already have their pie. As long as no one can beat them, why try to improve? Why look inside and analyze? Melee gods Liquid’Hungrybox, [A]rmada, and MVG | Mew2king don’t need try harder, since they are already winners.

But wait: All of them have, in the last year, lost at least one set - against - somebody. Even the infamous Smash 4 tyrant Zero fell to Seagull Joe just this weekend. This only goes to show that winners as I described above do not exist, in that there is no one who will never lose again. This means that, if you ever lose a match in tournament, you are at least in good company.

But why do some players, like the ones I mentioned before, differ from others? Why do they lose so much less often? Why do they look invincible, except for the rare falterings in tournament performance?

I’ve got a secret most of you are probably already aware of: those players at that uppermost level? They weren’t born wavedashing. Those players rose through the ranks and fought through their own losses and wins. And moreover, those players are not the best players in the world; even the “gods” of competitive Super Smash Brothers Melee will lose to players in high level play.

I would, in fact, argue that losing is beneficial. Aside from forcing you to learn to be humble (a helpful skill in all facets of life!), losing gives you incentive to improve. Indeed, how you deal with your losses characterizes your future success. And to answer my original question, I submit that this is what distinguishes players, what makes one person become a hero and another stagnate. It’s their reaction to losses and their ability to analyze their loss and correct mistakes that, in the long run, that determines the ultimate destiny of these players as competitors.

Here’s a statement from Super Smash Brothers: Melee legend and Project M aficionado COG | MVG | Mew2king . Through dedication and determination, Mew2king fueled his play from his losses in order to skyrocket to success over the course of a year or two. What an accomplishment! It is no accident of course; Mew2king consistently took losses and turned them into assets to his own benefit and continues to do so today.

Mew2king is no isolated case. Consider another famed Melee legend’s example, as described here. KoreanDJ used repeated losses against the same players in rapid succession to his advantage, even losing substantial amounts of money for the opportunity to lose. And yet, somehow, he improved “exponentially.” As the documentary points out, KoreanDJ used his losses to not only figure out his opponents’ playstyles, but also to reflect on what his own mistakes and strengths were, and worked to improve his game. In this way, losing allows for a deep introspection that winning does not so easily grant. Losing is, paradoxically, anadvantage in the long run. Without having the courage to lose continuously, KoreanDJ would have never gotten better.

The bottom line here is that losing is universal. No one “never loses,” unless they live isolated from players better than them (and such players do exist, I assure you). But as I said earlier, how you respond to losses is what will make or break your success in Smash.

Rise

It is easy to become frustrated at yourself or something else after your losses. It feels like a failure, especially after a close game, and the most heartbreaking losses feel like a punch to the stomach. Overcoming these feelings in the short term and the long term are challenging.

After I lose a game, after a deep breath and a moment of relaxation, I remind myself that Project M is a game, and people play games for fun. Every game should be played because competition is enjoyable. And while winning is great entertainment, losing often is too! Some of my most memorable games were ones that I lost in a very close struggle, where the opponent barely pulled ahead at the end of a game. Often I became upset at how I failed to just close out an advantage, or I feel the opponent slighted me in some way. On the other hand, if a game was one where I felt I had no real shot at victory because the opponent was so far ahead of me in playstyle, skill, or “cheesy” tactics, I’ll also fall into patterns of negativity, and it is like swirling into a toilet bowl.

Being positive when you come out of a losing game goes a long way toward letting you improve. This is not to say that you ought to accept losing as a style of play. What I mean is that if you take losses in stride by acknowledging the opponent’s good play, as well as your own flaws, and keeping a good attitude toward the game, it becomes significantly easier to improve. Mentality is everything.

Melee god Cloud9 | Mang0’s interview after a devastating loss at Apex 2015 this year demonstrates a good outlook, in my opinion. While he doesn’t entirely shrug off his losses, Mang0 leaves this loss behind him, remarking, “sometimes you go out like a buster.” The loss happened, but it will not define Mang0’s play, and he will look toward the future for better performances.

To combat negativity toward an opponent, I find it helps a lot to remove any sense of entitlement. In our last Mind Over Meta Project M maven @Sethlon helped in analyzing what comprises a good competitive mindset, and made an interesting comment regarding a “code of honor:”

"The game doesn't care how a win happens. A win is a win. You may subscribe to a certain code of ethics when competing, that winning in certain ways 'doesn't count' or different ways of winning 'mean more', but understand that your opponent is under no obligation to keep to that code, or to care."

As I explained in last week’s article, in Smash you never deserve anything, ever. You only earn things, whether it be a neat 50% combo, a position to let your opponent recover for free, or an accidental SD. If a player wins a game, a match, or a bracket within the confines of tournament rules, they have earned victory, regardless of skill or smarts. Recognizing this will let you turn inward with a cool head to improve for future competition.

Rewind

But how do we improve? By going back to study matches, we can start to pick apart what mistakes we made. If your match was recorded or on stream, making improvement is that much easier, because you can go to concrete, rewindable footage to examine exactly what happened. Redditors often post to /r/ssbpm with recorded matches, asking others to critique and analyze them, which is great. But I believe that asking for criticism on matches you win, while better for ego and compliments, is not as helpful as throwing the matches you lose into the “lion’s den.” After all, when you appear to do everything well enough, what can anyone say to help you improve? Don’t be afraid of criticism, and don’t be afraid to let someone show you where you can improve in a match!

If you do not have the luxury of recordings for your match, you may have to run back through the game in your head as best as you can (if you find you cannot remember much about the game, perhaps it’s a sign you should improve on focusing and being more aware during the match!)

Losses can happen from a lot of common issues. A failure to adapt well or enough is often a critical point in the outcome of games. Those very close photo-finish games are frequently decided by which player is able to adapt better. Nervousness, inconsistency, and flubbed tech skill also are fatal. In general, these things are fixed only by playing continually with the determination to develop reliable hands.

Mis-spacing attacks or rushing headstrong without caution toward the opponent are common mistakes as well. Underdeveloped fundamentals also will also partly seal your fate in any given match. Or maybe something more specific decided the match, like the opponent’s dash dancing or projectile pressure, or maybe their combo game and edgeguard game was on point. In that case, you can start formulating counter strategies against them. These are all issues you can hopefully try to pick up on by analyzing your losses in detail.

I’d like to point out that analyzing these flaws is not the same as berating yourself for mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. Perfection is not your goal in any short term, so it should never be a realistic expectation as you go back through matches. Even when you facepalm hardest at that dumb SD, or that damage trap you fell into, just keep in mind that all of your analysis should be from a neutral point of view. Being upset while reviewing your play is not productive; being insightful and attentive, on the other hand, will help you improve, while approaching the replay with arrogance, believing you lost even though you made no mistakes, is obviously foolish. Everyone makes mistakes. If you can’t understand what went wrong, feel free to ask someone to help you analyze a match. There are lots of resources available online, so use them!

While I cannot enumerate all the possible ways you can improve on your mistakes, I hope that this helps to give you some orientation for introspection about matches you lose. Whether you play some random joe-schmoe at your local or Junebug at an important national tournament, every loss can be informative and productive toward your improvement.

Invigorated

Losing hurts. Sure. It’s awful to lose and then subsequently become trapped in a negative, echoing box. But every player that ever had or will have a reputation in Smash knows this struggle well. Losing is a rite of passage of sorts, or a barrier to improvement, and you cannot let that discourage you from playing Project M, no matter what level you intend to play at. In the words of Chumbawamba, "I get knocked down… but I get up again! You’re never gonna keep me down."

Thanks for reading this week, and I hope you all see yourself improve in future tournaments. We’ll see you next week!

Take care -- The Mind Over Meta Writing Team.
 

Comments

The MoM team always includes discussion questions on their post so I'm including them here for anyone interested.

Discussion questions:
  • When is a time where you felt horrible losing? How did you deal with it?
  • What do you recommend to players struggling to deal with a loss?
  • When have you ever used a loss to your advantage?
  • What are some other steps one can take to improve after a loss
 
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The MoM team always includes discussion questions on their post so I'm including them here for anyone interested.

Discussion questions:
  • When is a time where you felt horrible losing? How did you deal with it?
  • What do you recommend to players struggling to deal with a loss?
  • When have you ever used a loss to your advantage?
  • What are some other steps one can take to improve after a loss
I lost when my opponent shino stalled me to a timeout.
For two minutes.
 
My personal tips when losing:

1. Take the loss as a learning experience, a lesson to be remember for the future. That way you can understand that you may do better the next time you play.

2. Talk to your opponent on things you did wrong. It really helps and will get you thinking on how you can improve

3. Even if you lose your 2 out of 3, there always losers bracket, who knows. You may adapt quickly to your situation

4. Don't ever think your the worst player ever. That will drop your confidence a lot, just keep in mind that there are players worse than you.

5. Just have fun and play the game, I main Game and Watch in Melee and in Pm cause I like the character, I don't really play to win necessarily, I just want to play people and enjoy it. :)

Hope this helps :)
 
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The rewind section is very true. Watching old matches no matter what the game really shows you what you need to fix
 
learn when to back off from a bad situation... often times when I get beat by something often enough, I get frustrated at my difficulty to adapt to it...

just the other night, I found myself facing Dr. Mario on Sm4sh for Glory, and this guy had a big habit of pelting me with grab combos and shield grab counters. I failed to adapt to this consistently, and because I felt determined to figure it out, I got saltier the more I failed. I tagged "good games", and was still fuming when I got the bad luck of meeting a regular Mario of a similar strategy. it didn't end well...

I wound up looking up ideas on how to counter someone whose strategy centers on grabs... none of them are recent, but they do present some ideas
 
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