vegeta18
Smash Journeyman
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2012
- Messages
- 321
Hey, so today I had a tournament at my house, I ended up losing in the grand finals. I often talk to reflex about these kind of things especially as I was a PT main for a long time and he has given me much helpful advice over the years. I have always done a lot better with people in casuals than I do in tournaments, my tourney luck isnt so great. Here is me talking about my experience to reflex, hoping to get some technical advice and also to maybe help some others out with things they wouldnt think of. Here is the super long message i sent reflex.
"Hey dude, I just had a brawl tournament at my house, unfortunately we all got so hyped up we forgot to record it 
Overall it was a success, it was just my friends and stuff but a lot of them were very good and have a lot of experience.
Im just telling you all this, cuz its nice to write it down and let it all out, and your one of the only people that would understand and give me good feedback lol. A lot of it has become marth talk because he is who i main now.
We were just doing single set matches, not out of 3 or out of 5, because of time issues. The stage choice was just selected randomly out of FD, battlefield, smashville, pokemon stadium 1, and yoshi`s island (brawl)
I ended up placing 2nd which I am pretty happy about, there were 32 people and I lost in the 3rd round, but it was double elimination. I played pokemon trainer against a game and watch player and had a few crucial mistakes, i was jumping around with squirtle and sd`d which costed me the match, also kept messing up on my zero lag switch on smashville. The game and watch player lost to a metaknight/olimar player in winner finals.
Lately ive been playing marth, so i basically played him all through out the rest of the losers bracket. I beat a few people who were thought to end up winning the entire tournament, and was quite happy with myself. In losers finals, I ended up beating the game and watch player who beat me earlier with snake out of nowhere it was pretty cool , i never learned my marth vs gw match up very well, so i just decided to try something crazy and go with snake, worked out great.
So, here I am in grand finals, I felt myself becoming more and more confident with each match.I was playing far greater in my last couple matches than I was in my first few. First match, my opponent chose olimar, we went on battle field, and i controlled the entire match and 3 stocked him, only taking about %90 damage. Next match he went with metaknight.
I have been working on my marth vs metaknight match up a lot because I knew metaknight was a very common opponent, I was doing very good, it ended up with me and him both on our last stock with over %120 damage. It was very close, but I did end up losing. Here are a few of the problems I noticed after re-evaluating the entire match in my head.
Technical things
1. I messed up every single GR, Id grab him, and just completely mess up the dash, id try and dash and end up doing something stupid and getting punished.
2. Completely forgot about marth`s counter move, I was shielding his tornadoes but hed back up near the end so i couldnt get a good punish in safely, there was a part where he used tornado, wore down my shield, than it was obvious he was going for a second one, i forgot to use counter because I rarely use it, although it could have helped me many times in the match. I ended up trying to dolphin splash out of it, but they all messed up cuz i didnt hit him with any of the DS, so ended up getting punished. I now noticed some of the uses especially against MK, hed often side-b back on the stage which i could have used it as well.
3. Was constantly messing up my Dancing Blades, it requires a bit of timing, and that was something that I messed me up numerous times, I always get them off on CPU`s but often make mistakes against friends even in casuals when I am trying harder. I do try and remind myself about that, cuz I know that it could become a problem.
4. I do all my aerials with c-stick, but sometimes I hit c-stick down when trying to hit forward, prolly nothing you can say to help me with that, I just got to work on it, and it is getting better I do not do it as often.
Mental Things
1. I started really strong, confident, and was doing well. I was almost angry but I wasnt in reality, just really motivated to smash him, this feeling kind of died down as the match went on and wasnt as strong throughout the match.
2. Any thoughts about drinking an energy drink like monster or redbull b4 a match? thats what i did today i feel it made me more focused and possibly helped with reaction time, but idk that could have all just been hype as well. I was also exhausted that day from setting things up for the tourney since it was at my house.
3. I forgot simple things that help me remember how to keep my spacing, such as draw an imaginary bubble around myself, and just make sure im outside of my opponents grab range.
4. I vividly remember a point in the match where my opponent started coming back, after my strong start, I started thinking about how cool it will be if i won this tournament, and almost played on auto pilot for a bit, after being hit by a tornado, i kind of snapped back into things.
5. When it came down to the last stock, similar to last i started thinking about how cool it would be if i won this tourney, only this time it was different because i was so close to actually doing it and we were both at high damage, and I often become scared to attack at times like this because im scared of getting punished or losing, this will often make me be overly defensive and get hit. I think that is how I ultimately lost the match, I also remember thinking about things like how this is so close and stuff.
Post Tournament- more mental stuff
1. losing sucks, thats why everyone wants to win, its a bit more anoying for me because I am the one who practices the game a ton and by far plays the most, but often lose to players who havent even touched the game in a very long time, or have any experience in competitive brawl scene.
2. It is all i can think about for awhile, maybe i just need sleep and some other things to get my mind off of this? It is becoming bothersome though
Conclusion
It is always frustrating to lose, especially when coming very close, I can only imagine how m2k felt after losing Apex 2013 to salem lol. Overall, After my first loss I was disappointed in myself thinking in my head "why do I do so bad in tournaments?" since most of the people there I can beat in casual play. I was very pleased when I ended up winning losers bracket, I beat a lot of people that I thought would be very hard and I thought would beat me for sure. Its a shame I don't get too many tournament opportunities because this one was great but id love to get out there more and play with new people while learning tons of stuff like this. As matches went on in the tournament, I felt like I improved drastically with each match which was very nice, Its going to bug me forever that I ended up losing in the end. I still gained a nice $20 for 2nd, but its more the bragging rights and the joy of winning that I wanted rather than the money. I will probably write something similar to this on the marth`s board and maybe focus on more of the technical stuff to help me improve. With all that being said, it was a great time, everyone really enjoyed themselves and im happy at how I drastically got better, and how I am really able to analyze and see where I went wrong, which will obviously make me a better player in the future. Just typing this out has made me feel a lot better, realizing that its just a game, I did great and everyone had fun while the event at my house was a great success.
Sorry for Length lol"
ohh and last thing, its always a bit comforting knowing that I destroyed him when he wasnt a really OP character, and i beat everyone else besides the best metaknight player there. And really any kind of feedback would be nice, I feel like you always got some useful stuff to say lol.
Overall it was a success, it was just my friends and stuff but a lot of them were very good and have a lot of experience.Im just telling you all this, cuz its nice to write it down and let it all out, and your one of the only people that would understand and give me good feedback lol. A lot of it has become marth talk because he is who i main now.
We were just doing single set matches, not out of 3 or out of 5, because of time issues. The stage choice was just selected randomly out of FD, battlefield, smashville, pokemon stadium 1, and yoshi`s island (brawl)
I ended up placing 2nd which I am pretty happy about, there were 32 people and I lost in the 3rd round, but it was double elimination. I played pokemon trainer against a game and watch player and had a few crucial mistakes, i was jumping around with squirtle and sd`d which costed me the match, also kept messing up on my zero lag switch on smashville. The game and watch player lost to a metaknight/olimar player in winner finals.
Lately ive been playing marth, so i basically played him all through out the rest of the losers bracket. I beat a few people who were thought to end up winning the entire tournament, and was quite happy with myself. In losers finals, I ended up beating the game and watch player who beat me earlier with snake out of nowhere
it was pretty cool , i never learned my marth vs gw match up very well, so i just decided to try something crazy and go with snake, worked out great.So, here I am in grand finals, I felt myself becoming more and more confident with each match.I was playing far greater in my last couple matches than I was in my first few. First match, my opponent chose olimar, we went on battle field, and i controlled the entire match and 3 stocked him, only taking about %90 damage. Next match he went with metaknight.
I have been working on my marth vs metaknight match up a lot because I knew metaknight was a very common opponent, I was doing very good, it ended up with me and him both on our last stock with over %120 damage. It was very close, but I did end up losing. Here are a few of the problems I noticed after re-evaluating the entire match in my head.
Technical things
1. I messed up every single GR, Id grab him, and just completely mess up the dash, id try and dash and end up doing something stupid and getting punished.
2. Completely forgot about marth`s counter move, I was shielding his tornadoes but hed back up near the end so i couldnt get a good punish in safely, there was a part where he used tornado, wore down my shield, than it was obvious he was going for a second one, i forgot to use counter because I rarely use it, although it could have helped me many times in the match. I ended up trying to dolphin splash out of it, but they all messed up cuz i didnt hit him with any of the DS, so ended up getting punished. I now noticed some of the uses especially against MK, hed often side-b back on the stage which i could have used it as well.
3. Was constantly messing up my Dancing Blades, it requires a bit of timing, and that was something that I messed me up numerous times, I always get them off on CPU`s but often make mistakes against friends even in casuals when I am trying harder. I do try and remind myself about that, cuz I know that it could become a problem.
4. I do all my aerials with c-stick, but sometimes I hit c-stick down when trying to hit forward, prolly nothing you can say to help me with that, I just got to work on it, and it is getting better I do not do it as often.
Mental Things
1. I started really strong, confident, and was doing well. I was almost angry but I wasnt in reality, just really motivated to smash him, this feeling kind of died down as the match went on and wasnt as strong throughout the match.
2. Any thoughts about drinking an energy drink like monster or redbull b4 a match? thats what i did today i feel it made me more focused and possibly helped with reaction time, but idk that could have all just been hype as well. I was also exhausted that day from setting things up for the tourney since it was at my house.
3. I forgot simple things that help me remember how to keep my spacing, such as draw an imaginary bubble around myself, and just make sure im outside of my opponents grab range.
4. I vividly remember a point in the match where my opponent started coming back, after my strong start, I started thinking about how cool it will be if i won this tournament, and almost played on auto pilot for a bit, after being hit by a tornado, i kind of snapped back into things.
5. When it came down to the last stock, similar to last i started thinking about how cool it would be if i won this tourney, only this time it was different because i was so close to actually doing it and we were both at high damage, and I often become scared to attack at times like this because im scared of getting punished or losing, this will often make me be overly defensive and get hit. I think that is how I ultimately lost the match, I also remember thinking about things like how this is so close and stuff.
Post Tournament- more mental stuff
1. losing sucks, thats why everyone wants to win, its a bit more anoying for me because I am the one who practices the game a ton and by far plays the most, but often lose to players who havent even touched the game in a very long time, or have any experience in competitive brawl scene.
2. It is all i can think about for awhile, maybe i just need sleep and some other things to get my mind off of this? It is becoming bothersome though
Conclusion
It is always frustrating to lose, especially when coming very close, I can only imagine how m2k felt after losing Apex 2013 to salem lol. Overall, After my first loss I was disappointed in myself thinking in my head "why do I do so bad in tournaments?" since most of the people there I can beat in casual play. I was very pleased when I ended up winning losers bracket, I beat a lot of people that I thought would be very hard and I thought would beat me for sure. Its a shame I don't get too many tournament opportunities because this one was great but id love to get out there more and play with new people while learning tons of stuff like this. As matches went on in the tournament, I felt like I improved drastically with each match which was very nice, Its going to bug me forever that I ended up losing in the end. I still gained a nice $20 for 2nd, but its more the bragging rights and the joy of winning that I wanted rather than the money. I will probably write something similar to this on the marth`s board and maybe focus on more of the technical stuff to help me improve. With all that being said, it was a great time, everyone really enjoyed themselves and im happy at how I drastically got better, and how I am really able to analyze and see where I went wrong, which will obviously make me a better player in the future. Just typing this out has made me feel a lot better, realizing that its just a game, I did great and everyone had fun while the event at my house was a great success.
Sorry for Length lol"
ohh and last thing, its always a bit comforting knowing that I destroyed him when he wasnt a really OP character, and i beat everyone else besides the best metaknight player there. And really any kind of feedback would be nice, I feel like you always got some useful stuff to say lol.
