Practicing shield game?

[L33thal]

Hey guys. I've been following Smash since '06 through Youtube videos, but I've never played anyone who could SHFFL until recently.

I just went to my first tournament a week ago (Mayhem) and my inexperience hit me in the face. Up till now, all I've done was practice my tech skill against Lvl 9s. I thought that I had a good game plan and that I can just wing it against human players but that wasn't the case. I kept getting shield grabbed every time I tried to shield pressure people or space aerials so that they can't grab me (I main Falco/Marth).

Anyone got tips for working on your shield game when you don't a lot of people to play with? Or just any tips for practicing vs. non-CPU players? Thanks.

 

[Game Freak201]

Chances are that you were going up against some spacies and were overwhelmed by their shield-pressure game. I can't really offer any Falco help, but I can help with Marth.

When going up against Falco as Marth, stay within tippered Fsmash range to make it so that the Falco player cannot bring out his laser without getting severely punished for it. Since Marth is faster than Falco, you should be able to cover all the options he can take with either grabs or dtilts.

In general, realize that approaching with fair is sub-optimal, especially if you don't l-cancel it. It's usually better to dash dance and control the game through Marth's movement. His dtilts and grab game will put him at an advantage when going up against most opponents.

As for practicing against non-CPUs, go into the battle with a plan and take notes on what you are doing right and wrong. You can then later look at those notes and improve your game from there. If you can record your own matches, even better. You will likely be able to look over the video and notice faults you may have overlooked.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

Hey guys. I've been following Smash since '06 through Youtube videos, but I've never played anyone who could SHFFL until recently.

I just went to my first tournament a week ago (Mayhem) and my inexperience hit me in the face. Up till now, all I've done was practice my tech skill against Lvl 9s. I thought that I had a good game plan and that I can just wing it against human players but that wasn't the case. I kept getting shield grabbed every time I tried to shield pressure people or space aerials so that they can't grab me (I main Falco/Marth).

Anyone got tips for working on your shield game when you don't a lot of people to play with? Or just any tips for practicing vs. non-CPU players? Thanks.

I'll use an analogy. How does one explain color to a person who is blind. Or what sound is to someone who cannot hear? Similarly, its going to be a bit confusing to talk about "shield play" with such little experience.

Its good you got out to a tourney to see the threshold for playing. When playing as Marth if you hit a shield that is not spaced well, you are doing to get punished most of the time regardless if you land or L-cancel or not. If you Fair someone coming down and its a shield people will be able to grab it unless you spaced it well. Only thing you can do for this is to make sure you get your L-cancels right to minimize the time they have to react and hope they mess up to punish you. Or make sure you get your tipper spacing. Although, I won't really advocate trying to attack shields anyway with Marth's sword.

For Falco, make sure you are not too slow coming out of an l-cancel -> shine -> w/e. You might be missing L-cancels due to various things as well. For one, hitstun in greater on light shield which means you need a more delayed timing for an l-cancel. Or the timing is adjusted depending upon the height you do your aerial at too. One method I heard of was to practice with say 1 or 2 ICs to get ahold of timing L-cancel.