Practicing against 20xx 4.06 cpus

[Ladder]

What is you guys' opinion on practicing against cpu's?
Is there any way to avoid forming bad habits when playing against them?
Which cpu type is the best (you can choose the cpu type in 20xx 4.06) I mainly play against the normal ones (20xx) and alternate normal ones.
When playing against cpu's my main objective is to practice my combbo's and edguards and lately I've been practicing holding stage postition too.

The thing I have noticed though is the "20xx" cpu's are great for practicing combo's and edguards since fox and falco mix up their options a lot but it feels to me that you have to play neutral against them to get a grab to start practicing the combo. You'll probably form bad habits in doing so since the cpu's do a lot of the same stuff.
Also holding stage is pretty hard against them, not sure if that's because I'm bad at it or the cpu has something to do with it.

On the other hand of the spectrum we have to "alternate normal" cpu's. These are the same as the ones in vanilla melee but with random di and tech options. I think these are good for combo's but you can't really practice edguards vs them. You don't have to play neutral vs them though so you will form less or no bad habits.

Which do you prefer? Are there other things to practice against them or other 4.06 cpu types I should be playing against?

 

[Leyvaten]

I personally like 4.06 CPUs; however, as with all AIs, they will do the same option or a few select options in a given situation.

But the main thing I don't like about playing with the CPUs is that they don't play neutral at all. Many times I find myself dashdancing outside of Fox's Nair range and he just runs in and double-shines me without a care in the world. In that regard, the CPU is the game fighting you—it will read your inputs and react to them 1 frame afterwards. You can win, and its not difficult, but yes, you form bad habits if you try to play against them. Here is what I do with the CPUs:

Zoning Practice: I set the CPU to level 6 and try to dash dance in and out of their effective range without getting hit. Stay conscious of the fact that they will approach in similar ways and don't try to read them. Instead, react to them attacking you and punish. From there, you can immediately end the punish to continue zoning or begin practicing your punish game.

Practicing Specific Punishes: Using Marth's chain-grab on fox as an example, I go to training mode and I set the CPU's options to CPUType: 20XX and Action: Stay (Press DPad down to set these options). I save a state and begin practicing. With these options, Fox will DI randomly and escape when possible, encouraging perfect chain-grabs. When I mess up, I reload the state. If I want to practice a specific percent range, I set the percent, save the state, and begin again.

Dashing through Falco's Lasers: Using 4.06's replay function, you can have Falco shoot lasers repeatedly at any height. I use this function to practice my Dash Dancing with the presence of hitstun.

To set the replay take control of falco and perform these inputs using frame advance:

Frame 0 Save State and Begin Recording
Frame 1 Jump (Jumpsquat)
Frame 2
3
4
5
In air on frame 6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13 Press B
Advance frames until you hear the sound of the laser coming out, Advance 2 frames and press down on the 3rd frame.
When falco touches the ground, advance 5 frames and turn on loop on the 5th frame.
Advance 1 frame and turn on playback.

Load the state and turn off frame advance and start dashing!


If you couldn't tell already, I'm a Marth main, but 4.06 is versatile enough that with a little creativity, you can create your own training sessions.

Tl;dr 4.06 cpus are awesome, but suck at the same time. Watch the replay tutorial videos to effectively utilize them.

 

[EliTheFly]

I don't have the special 20xx CPUs, so I just go into melee and fight CPUs that way. I try not to read but but to react and punish with a wobble(I main icees). Sometimes I enjoy practicing disrespect by timing out by wobbleing the first stock but you can't do that in a tournament so that's when I'm bored. The CPUs lack the tech skill to actually be viable opponents so I just practice grab setups and sopo with them.