Quest to Become the Best: ROM 3 goals, Amsah vs Jman discussion?

[Riddle]

that's what I'm going to be working towards. My next 50 posts are probably going to be me complaining about how I can't figure out how to play like that again haha

Sounds like heroin or something lol. You get the amazing high and then can't get it back no matter how hard you try.

I'm really happy you achieved that level of play though. With all the work you've put in you truly deserve it. I hope I get to this point sometime. I'm way at the beginning of this road, and am already reaching some mental blocks but I'm practicing as much as I can and hopefully I'll get there eventually.

 

[JesiahTEG]

Haha, Riddel that's funny...But nah, like whenever I used to hit new peaks I always used to get really really happy and be like, "Yes, I'm so much better now, I can **** people, etc." but then when I played again, it was just back to average, and I used to get super disappointed.

So, yes I hit a new peak, but I know it's going to be a while, probably a few months before I make that my consistent play. Hopefully I can speed that process up though.

 

[Kuraudo]

Is your sig based off of the elemental fiends of Final Fantasy?

 

[da K.I.D.]

no its based on the elemental bending martial arts in Avatar.

 

[Kuraudo]

Ohhh, I see. lol /FF nut don't mind me lol

 

[Riddle]

Sorry for hijacking your blog, Jesse, but theres something I need to get off my chest.

I've had serious trouble with melee. I can never choose a character or stick with one thing for any length of time so I never become good at all. Now though I think I've figured out why.

I have really low self esteem. I really want to be the best (or one of the best) but I've never truly believed that I have any chance of getting there. So I convince myself to set dumb goals instead like being the best in my region at a certain character, which causes me to main low tiers/characters I don't really like. This stops here, I've realized that nobody really cares if I'm the 5th best DK main in the world or the best Falco in the Rochester/Syracuse area (which I'm not, just an example).

Now that I know this though, I feel like I'll be able to break through this mental barrier, but I have lots of other barriers too. My region has very few tournaments (not a single one in the month of October) and a lot of them are in Syracuse (which I can't go to, because I'm 15), so I'm mostly stuck playing by myself or occasionally going to smash club to get play time against real people. I consider myself fairly untechnical, and I get frusturated when I practice tech skill pretty quickly (and then discouraged, and so I pick up a new character). Time will help fix the travelling problem and I feel like I'll be able to work through the tech skill problem now that I know about it, but theyre frusturating as it is.

I still have no idea how to pick a character that suits me the best, and I'd appreciate any help from anybody on that. I also don't even know where to start in my quest to improve except with tech skill.

 

[RTF]

Sorry for hijacking your blog, Jesse, but theres something I need to get off my chest.

I've had serious trouble with melee. I can never choose a character or stick with one thing for any length of time so I never become good at all. Now though I think I've figured out why.

I have really low self esteem. I really want to be the best (or one of the best) but I've never truly believed that I have any chance of getting there. So I convince myself to set dumb goals instead like being the best in my region at a certain character, which causes me to main low tiers/characters I don't really like. This stops here, I've realized that nobody really cares if I'm the 5th best DK main in the world or the best Falco in the Rochester/Syracuse area (which I'm not, just an example).

Now that I know this though, I feel like I'll be able to break through this mental barrier, but I have lots of other barriers too. My region has very few tournaments (not a single one in the month of October) and a lot of them are in Syracuse (which I can't go to, because I'm 15), so I'm mostly stuck playing by myself or occasionally going to smash club to get play time against real people. I consider myself fairly untechnical, and I get frusturated when I practice tech skill pretty quickly (and then discouraged, and so I pick up a new character). Time will help fix the travelling problem and I feel like I'll be able to work through the tech skill problem now that I know about it, but theyre frusturating as it is.

I still have no idea how to pick a character that suits me the best, and I'd appreciate any help from anybody on that. I also don't even know where to start in my quest to improve except with tech skill.

Realize the similarities between characters. It will help you develop strong fundamentals.

 

[JesiahTEG]

Riddle- I'm putting together a post as we speak that I think is really going to help you out a lot. Hang tight for an hour or so.

First off, to anyone interested in peering into the mind of a top professional, including the world's best low tier players (lol), I highly recommend reading Taj's thread on Mewtwo philosophy. It may be the most informative, interesting thread on smashboards at this point. Here's the link:

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=279010

The last page has a new post from taj on overcoming your glass ceilings. I'm gonna quote his post here, and also my reply to it.

Thank you Mister Dr. Peepee. :D

Shadow Claw IV if you haven't checked it out yet.

Anyway, it seems most of you want me to talk about reaching the next level. What you're about to read may disappoint you, but I REALLY want you to think about what I'm saying, and after you think about it, then you can ask questions for clarification.

Reaching the Next Level: Overcoming your Glass Ceiling

So, I've been having a few AIM conversations with JesiahTEG, the man on his quest to be the best. He asked me a few questions about options in certain situations, things he should be looking for in order to maintain a decisive advantage during his matches. My son, Tai, also asks questions like this in a similar fashion, so I thought I'd post my opinions on the general subject of self-improvement in this game or any competitive activity.

Billy Mitchell, one of the highest scoring arcade gamers in history's first bit of advice to everyone striving to be a world champion was, "Forget it, you don't become a world champion, it is in your DNA."

The dude is a general cocky *******, but to some degree, he is correct. Ability has a lot to do with what you can actually be the best at. Someone has to lose, I wish everyone could obliterate each other and win first prize at every tournament but that's simply not possible in competition.

My opinion on the subject is that everyone, however, is capable of achieving a degree of mastery in almost anything. Research and general consensus has shown us that traditional mastery of any field or subject is associated with 10,000 hours of practice and involvement. Assuming you work 250 days a year for 8 hours a day, that is around 4-5 years of time mastering a skill.

Of course, there are people that are more masterful and more knowledgeable, but as long as the time spent was effective practice, I think most of us can agree and acknowledge someone's skill.

Obviously, a genius or prodigy will approach mastery level significantly faster than most people, but a lot of the time, even they will hit a glass ceiling and they still have to be determined and dedicated at what they’re good at in order to achieve their maximum potential, whether it be martial arts, music, sports, or videogames.

Almost everyone that has asked me or others for advice about getting better often claim they’ve heard it all before, or they already know what they needed to do. If that were the case, there should be no reason why they shouldn’t be best in the world. Maybe you’re just asking for comfort? Maybe you’re hoping the answers will change. If multiple prominent players in the community are reinforcing what you’re asking, then you need to stop and really think about what everyone is saying, because your perceptions of the advice and the game may be wrong or shortsighted. It may not be, but part of discovering what you're missing is reevaluating everything you know.

Sometimes the advice is very simple and very easy to overlook. In 2006, I had a lot more difficulty with Falco and Fox than I wanted with Marth. It wasn’t until Forward came back from his travels and showed me how to “blow out the candle” that my perceptions of the game took me to the next level. It was that next level edgeguard that gave me the competitive advantage that I was missing. I could easily apply that “go get em” mentality against multiple characters and subsequently it became standard and second nature.

Everyone is different in how they want to play the game. Axe likes overwhelming offensive pressure, Tai likes mix-ups and technical edgeguards, I like placing people in situations where I can react and influence responses. You all have your own strengths and weaknesses to work on. It is good to watch vids, learn, and emulate great players and their moves. Forward and I had a conversation where we both agreed that it was good to copy, but ultimately you want to work on developing your own style and refining it the most, because that is the consistency of all great players. They have a very clear and distinguishable style.

.When I lost to PC Chris in at FCD, I asked him for advice on what I could do better and he said, “I don’t’ know, you’re already good.” I had to respect that advice, because I not only respected him, but it meant to me that I basically had to refine, discover, and advance to the next level myself and I have to be confident that I can do it even if I can’t. There wasn’t anything fundamentally wrong with my play. I was simply outplayed and I had to learn to correct the few small mistakes from that match. My match against PC in crews was 3 years in the making. I haven’t played PC with my Mewtwo since the OC2 tournament where he completely destroyed me, and I’m proud that even though I only took his 3 stocks that I had the mental toughness to go toe-to-toe with him now where I couldn’t in the past.

I encourage people to ask questions. I and I’m sure many other players still playing don’t mind trying to help when they can.

Just remember, there are A LOT of very good players playing this game, it is a constant struggle for power, and matches vary a lot as we play them. Players can be down 1 stock to 4 and come back. Players can be 4 stocked in a match and secure the set. This game has an ocean of depth with many paths and ways to play that are effective and ineffective against other types of players.

One of the consistent traits of most champions is dedication. Breaking through your glass ceiling requires you to chip away at a glaring weakness that you may have. If that weakness is concentration, indecisiveness, reaction, or technical proficiency, then you can work on all of those things with practice. It’s up to you to acknowledge, interpret, and execute the advice given to you. Not everyone can be the grand champion, but everyone can approach a level of mastery that leads into exciting matches for yourself and everyone else to enjoy, because that’s where the fun is. =D

Everyone striving to be the best is the best part of watching Melee players and their growth.

Taj- As always, your posts fascinate me and I always take so much out of them. Don't ever stop posting lol.

however, one thing I disagree with is that not everyone can be the grand master. I read a book on my trip called "Talent is overrated: What REALLY separates world class performers from everyone else" and it basically was an extremely analytical book that talked about how the best get to their position, and mainly it's by how they practice. You should read it actually, you'd probably take a lot out of it considering your philosophical/analytical personality.

A few random things I've realized too, that I think are very worth mentioning.

With how many good players there are now, there comes with that a ridiculous amount of information/help that any player has access to. We have an insane amount of videos, multiple threads from great players like u and pp and others, in addition to other really good players posting in help threads, answering questions. Also, the tone of the community has become less arrogant I think, and good players are willing to help other players on AIM whenever really.

This is a very great community to be in, and an exciting time for any player trying to reach the top to be playing this game.

However, with all of this advice, there is a downside. I think there are a lot of players out there...great players even, that can make it out of pools at every national...That have not developed a unique playstyle due to all of the resources available to them. They've gotten good, very good and most can even beat me. However, a lot of their game is shortcuts, techniques and whatnot copied by these players.

I'm delighted to see them use these techniques at such a high level with their degree of success. But, I think unless those players truly tap into their creative potential, they are going to have an immensely difficult time breaking through to the next level. Like, when I say immensely difficult, I mean they will be clueless as to what's holding them back.

I can relate this to me. My improvement is always slow and gradual. It's been speeding up as of late, but I'm always moving forwards, even if it's very slowly. One thing I am super aware, conscious and careful of, is never copying a technique without understanding it's ins and outs, and I'm always trying to develop my unique playstyle that you're talking about.

However, sometimes this creates a lot of problems. I think I will NOT have the problem I described above, where I get to a certain level and I don't know what to do next to get to a higher level. I won't mention any names, but take a look at tourney results for the past year or even more, and you can see who has this problem...The good players who have been placing the same for a reallly long time. That's because, having your own unique playstyle is an abstract concept. It's a concept that is hard to identify when trying to figure out why u can't improve.

That being said, I do have the problem of not using as many of these effective techniques because I'm scared to have them fully integrated into my playstyle. I have problems determining which techniques to use, when to use them, etc. I think I really need to follow my instinct more when it comes to this.

One thing that was really interesting to me was when I went on my trip, I chose to stay with Forward first because, from watching his videos over the years, i had always felt my playstyle was very similar to his, so I wanted to play with him because I felt that learning from him would be easier and i'd understand his advice better.

So when I started training with him for hours on end, my first conclusion was that, Forward and I don't play alike at all. He's naturally much more patient than I am, and makes very different decisions regarding tech skill and execution.

Then though, I thought that my natural playstyle actually was like his, and I had made a mistake. I then determined that, my playstyle actually is a lot like forward's, but his experience and mastery over the game has just refined his playstyle/decision making, creating sort of an illusion that I didn't play like him at all.

Then, I just got super confused and decided to stop comparing myself to other players altogether, and I think part of the confusion comes from what I've posted above. My playstyle is averagely unique at this point, so when comparing my decision making to other players, it's very tough and confusing sometimes.

Haha, that's great. After reading your post and posting yourself, I have something new to work on that I think could really help me: Refining my personality through my playstyle, and developing it's uniqueness. Thanks

I hope that post was clear enough.

I think Taj's post is amazing, and if I'm gonna share that, I might as well share my post as well. Not really anything crazy, but it's just something small to read to pass the time. Gotta work on Riddel's post now haha.

 

[Riddle]

Make sure you spell my name right

 

[ranmaru]

Sorry for hijacking your blog, Jesse, but theres something I need to get off my chest.

I've had serious trouble with melee. I can never choose a character or stick with one thing for any length of time so I never become good at all. Now though I think I've figured out why.

I have really low self esteem. I really want to be the best (or one of the best) but I've never truly believed that I have any chance of getting there. So I convince myself to set dumb goals instead like being the best in my region at a certain character, which causes me to main low tiers/characters I don't really like. This stops here, I've realized that nobody really cares if I'm the 5th best DK main in the world or the best Falco in the Rochester/Syracuse area (which I'm not, just an example).

Now that I know this though, I feel like I'll be able to break through this mental barrier, but I have lots of other barriers too. My region has very few tournaments (not a single one in the month of October) and a lot of them are in Syracuse (which I can't go to, because I'm 15), so I'm mostly stuck playing by myself or occasionally going to smash club to get play time against real people. I consider myself fairly untechnical, and I get frusturated when I practice tech skill pretty quickly (and then discouraged, and so I pick up a new character). Time will help fix the travelling problem and I feel like I'll be able to work through the tech skill problem now that I know about it, but theyre frusturating as it is.

I still have no idea how to pick a character that suits me the best, and I'd appreciate any help from anybody on that. I also don't even know where to start in my quest to improve except with tech skill.

Well, first off, who do you REALLY like to play with? : ]

 

[Riddle]

Sheik, Falco, Marth, DK, Ice Climbers, Yoshi, Fox, Peach, Falcon, Doc, Mario, uhh thats it I think .

I'm so hyped for your post Jesse, FYI.

 

[ranmaru]

Sheik, Falco, Marth, DK, Ice Climbers, Yoshi, Fox, Peach, Falcon, Doc, Mario, uhh thats it I think .

I'm so hyped for your post Jesse, FYI.

LOL. Well, then think of the ones you play the most... Err, I know with Brawl, I have trouble really starting ANYWHERE with a character. I picked Diddy Kong because he was the closest to Doc as a character, more so than Brawl Mario.

I picked Doc because, I'm a mario freak. Mario all dai.

Now you should ask yourself "Why do I like all these characters?" I guess it's ok to have variety. I mean, you can counter pick people's characters with one of many characters that you have at your disposal.

Me, I only have Doc.

I want secondaries, possible secondaries for me are:

Falcon, Ice Climbers, Sheik, Jiggs, and maybe Falco.

I chose based upon possible tournament viability and fun factor.

I would choose DK as well but my DK is DOO DOO. ;-;


Now, about your self-esteem... You'll have to look yourself in the mirror, and tell your self HOW SKILLED you are. You have to KNOW yourself. Once you do, you will know that you might not be the best yet, but you can work on your flaws and BECOME the best. Ash Ketchum can do it, so can you! You just need will power. Do you WANT to be the best? Well you will need to put in the time, effort, and dedication. Remember, you are a smash warrior. Practice in your room like a ninja. Practice your tech alot.

Can't wavedash well? Practice it! (If you can awesome)

Ok, so you don't get to play much people. I had the same problem before. But, don't look at it like "Oh well I can't play with people"...

Take this as an opportunity to practice by yourself! Practice all the tech you can. By the time you GET to play people, your tech will be fine. You won't need to hurry up and get better at tech.

 

[JesiahTEG]

Ok sorry about spelling your name wrong, there's a character in Chrono Cross (my 2nd favorite game ever) whose name is Riddel lol, maybe I'm just used to that idk.

Ok, soooo first off: I hear everything you're saying dude. I know what you're talking about, setting weak goals for yourself so you don't disappoint yourself, not being able to consistently choose a character, as I'm going through that one right now. You seem to have the right attitude towards it though, so that's good. About the whole setting weak goals for yourself thing...That takes dedication to be able to admit that to yourself, but it also takes a champion to actually produce the results necessary to overcome that hurdle.

Being the 5th best DK would probably be a lot harder than being #1 in our (Awesome) region, that's why we set those goals for ourselves. They're easier. But, if you're willing to admit that as an obstacle, then the next step is to actually be the best in the region. It's going to be tough and difficult but that's what you have to focus on.

Ok next, you have a ******** amount of good things going for you, you don't even know...Which is why I'm going to lay them out for you lol. You have to be able to harness your advantages.

1.) You are very young, meaning you have more time to play than most college students, and meaning you're going to be in the game longer than most people. You are at the perfect age to start. How I wish I was that young when I started dude.

2.) You are new at the game, which means you don't have any really bad habits, you haven't formed bad decision making skills that can be tough to stop, and just in general you haven't done anything stupid yet, and that ACTUALLY holds people back. An example is that a lot of the players in our region are trying/practicing a lot of technical stuff that doesn't matter as much as being able to L cancel consistently, or being able to act the first frame possible after your grab animation ends, which takes practice.

You have the advantage of being able to build up a fundamentally solid technical game, which will take you so far and give you a huge advantage over so many different players, from our region and more. You're a blank slate, clean for the molding. That's also an exciting stage to be in btw.

3.) You came into our scene at a very potentially big time. Most of the region is more motivated now than they've ever been to get better, and we have new players who are already getting better. We have an apartment where 4 of us live with each other, which is available to you at any time to come over and pracitce. I'll even chill with you and just teach you stuff if you want, then let you practice against some of the other players here, which are a little bit lower level.

I'm willing to sit there with someone and just have tech skill practice sessions, where we go back and forth practicing things like SDI'ing Peach's Uair, or edgeguarding scenarios.

That's a dream come true for some smashers. There are TOP level Smashers that didn't have it that convenient. Yeah, we don't really have that many high level Smashers yet, arguably none even, but we have the manpower to do it. Aaaaaand, that also means, you can potentially be a defining moment in our region's history. That's exciting enough as it is, and with the dedication you have (I can tell you have a lot just from talking on AIM) it's more than possible for you to rise to a top player in this region, especially with the advantages you have of being able to learn from the ground up, but also learning from me, which is good cuz I'll make sure you don't learn with bad habits.

Now, that takes care of the first part I wanted to post. The next part is where you said you're not sure how to practice besides tech skill.

At the stage you're at right now, tech skill is definitely the most important thing you need to work on, so if all you did was practice tech skill...That's actually perfectly fine haha. It can be hard to practice other things on your own, but if you want to I'm basically going to write out a list of things you can practice at home. I took the concepts from an SSFIV player's podcast. His name is Juicebox and he has really good podcasts that relate to Smash as well.

So, basically the game can be broken down into different pieces, and you can practice the major pieces at home. Here they are:

tech Skill, spacing/zoning, footsies, offensive options, defensive options, matchups, yomi

Tech Skill- he uses what's called the 30 times method to practice his technical execution. Basically with every technique you practice, you practice it 30 times in a row, and if you mess up anywhere along the way you have to start back at 0. That will probably be enough at that point to commit the execution to muscle memory. If you want to go even farther, practicing with no sound will help commit it even more to muscle memory. If you play with music and focus on the music, that means you'll have to have even higher levels of muscle memory, so practicing like that with the 30 times method is also effective. You basically want to get to the point where you don't have to think about it in a match.

Bread and Butter Combos- Every character has combos you need to be able to pull off consistently. Watch high level matches, or go online to the Character Specific section and ask in the Q and A threads what that character's B and B's are. I'm talking about things like chaingrabbing spacies with Marth, Downthrow --> Slap on all applicable characters with Sheik, Drill shine--> Grab on Marth with Fox, Uthrow Uair with Fox and so on. Use the 30 times method for this as well.

Spacing/Zoning- You can plug in another controller and pick a character, and then figure out where you normally want to space yourself in that matchup. Like, say I pick Sheik for my character and Ganondorf for the 2nd controller. I'd play around a bit with Ganondorf to see his hitboxes, his range and speed of his moves, and the area they cover. Then, you can compare that to your own moves to figure out how you want to position yourself, and which areas to stay away from. An example would be Ganondorf's fair being able to beat out Sheik's fair. That means when Ganondorf is in the air, you never want to be facing directly in front of him in the air, so don't do stupid and do things like trying to contest Ganondorf in the air like that. However, Sheik's back air has just as much range as Ganondorf's Fair and also comes out faster. So maybe playing with your back to Ganon and reacting to his jumping, or even walling him with Bair would be a good strategy to mix in. Then turn the Ganondorf on CPU and just practice the spacing you came up with, and the strategies like Bair walling.

Footsies- Footsies just means navigating in the neutral position. With Marth you're going to be dash dancing a lot, same with Falcon. With Fox, if they're far away you want to be able to laser consistently but when they get close you want to either switch to a dash dance or maybe attack, with a SH Nair or something. But, what if you're playing vs Marth as Fox, and the Marth is dash dancing close to you to scare you into attacking? Then you don't want to attack, you want to hold your ground and try and stuff the Marth's approach. But who will approach first? Maybe you actually decide to approach, so to stop the dash dance of the Marth because he's going to be dashing away from your attack, you can overshoot the aerial. Those little mindgames are footsies. The best way to learn this part of the game is through practice with other people, but for now just watch the videos of the top level players with whatever character you choose, and pay attention to who gets the first hit in during the neutral position. Slow the video down and look to see exactly how they do it.

Offensive/Defensive Options- Offensive options would be your effective approaches, edgeguarding and shield pressure mainly. So you want to figure out what approaches your character has vs. certain other characters, and this can be done by watching videos or asking in a Q & A thread. If you ask in a thread, you can also get explanations of why and how those approaches work which is a healthy way to learn. You can do the same for edgeguarding and then practice that vs. the cpu. As for shield pressure, you just have to do a combination of watching videos and thinking of strategies. Say you watch Mango's Falco, and you notice that he does Nair-> Shine-> Retreating Nair on shield. Go into a Q & A thread and ask them why that is effective, or try to figure it out on your own. Then, plug in a 2nd controller and turn that controller to handicap 9, and put you at handicap 1, and also turn the damage ratio down to 0.5. Then with Falco you'd practice that string on the CPU who will not be moving at all from it, making it easy to practice. That timing isn't exactly the same as hitting a shield, so when you play against people you will have to adjust. But if you practiced it well enough you'll at least have the feel for jumping out of your shine with a SH, and also retreating the Nair. Or Marth, you might think, since his Dash Dance is so good, good shield pressure with him might be to Fair their shield and then go into a DD, which will cover every option OOS they have mostly. Roll, Dodge, and Attack OOS are all covered by his dash dance, and he can't be shieldgrabbed due to how long the range on the fair is.

Defensive options would be how to stuff approaches, getting out of pressure and getting back on the ledge. Videos are really good for this as are asking in Q & A threads once again. You'll find the answers to be things like, Falco's Bair, Utilt and sometimes Nair can beat Falcon's Nair due to priority and positioning of the moves, so turning around when you predict an approach can be effective. Getting out of pressure, for that you just have to study what all of your OOS options are. Sheik has roll, jump, dodge, shieldgrab, wavedash OOS, nair OOS. You want to know when and how to use those options. If Fox does a nair early on my shield, I'm going to shieldgrab because I can get him before the shine comes out. If he does a late Nair though, I'm going to wait for the Shine and then WD backwards OOS, that way I can grab him if he tries another aerial on my shield, since I won't be where he aimed his aerial anymore. And you can use that same process for getting back on the ledge too. You don't want to spam ledgehop Fairs against Marth because he can WD back and outrange it with Fsmash. But, if you see that he's going to do that you can jump up as if you're going to Fair and then airdodge through the Fsmash and grab him in his lag. That's a little mixup game that you can just come up with being creative and watching videos.

Matchups- This is just an in depth knowledge of all of the above plus other, deeper aspects of the matchup. Knowing exactly which percent to switch to a pivot grab if Fox doesn't DI your Uthrow as Marth, and knowing which percent and what DI to Utilt at. Knowing how to avoid CC from certain characters is another example. This comes with experience so when you play people keep your eyes open for what you're losing to so that you can figure ways around it. The best substitute for experience is just talking to people in Q & A threads, and watching vids and being creative.

Yomi- Yomi is basically your ability to read your opponent. You have to know every option in a certain situation, know which options beat which and then be able to outpredict your opponent accordingly, by mixing up the options correctly. Like the example above, Sheik vs Marth on the ledge. If you think Marth is going to WD back Fsmash you if you try and Fair from ledge, jumping and airdodging through the Fsmash and then grabbing him in his lag. However if you do that once vs. an opponent, you now run the risk of them waiting for the airdodge and Fsmashing. So maybe now next time he's near the ledge, you want to do an invincible waveland because he won't be expecting it, and jab or grab or Ftilt him. Another important part of Yomi is having a feel for what level your opponent is at. Because if you try and overpredict it could get you in trouble. An example would be, maybe it would actually be smart to spam ledgehop airdodge vs your opponent if they can't adapt or punish it. Or maybe their nerves are making them not aware of them losing to it over and over. If that's the case you can use it more often. But again vs a good opponent you have to mix it up. That's Yomi, being a step ahead of your opponent.

Lastly you really need to get your parents to let you go to Smashfests. Get good grades and let them know that it's not just something you want to do when you're bored. Let them know that it means a lot to you and offer to let them come to tournaments to watch so they can feel safe, and then eventually they'll let you start going more and more, once they become acquainted with the people.

In the worst case scenario and they don't budge, by the age they do start letting you go out more and more you'll already be a monster haha. Sorry this post took so long too, I fell asleep. Oh and also, what happened to Falco haha

 

[Gaia_x]

Riddle just play everyone until you get really good with everyone. I did that back in 08. Now i really dont practice unless people wanna play. Yet i still go to tournament and usually win or win money. You wont be the best in the world obviously. But at the age of 15 (not being able to travel) you should really just focus on winning in our region and nothing else. My opinion.

I dont travel as much. And i know i probably wont travel a lot. And because of this i dont really apply my self 100% to get better. Just enough so that i win some more in our region, or give players of our region good games. sometimes playing low tiers isnt a bad thing either. Being the best at a low tier character can truly help someone else for their out of state experience. Had i not lived here and play san so often, i would possibly lose going against a good ike main out of state.

Since your cant travel to places as close as syracuse. Set a small goal like being a top player in your region, than move up from there.

 

[RTF]

ability to travel, playing the game as much as you want to.

I agree whole-heartedly.

 

[Riddle]

Set a small goal like being a top player in your region

Lol I wouldn't consider this a small goal at all. I picked up melee two weeks ago so I'm going to have a tough time passing up Jesiah . I don't work well with small goals anyway.

Thanks for that post btw Jesse, it really, really helped.

 

[Gaia_x]

Its not a easy goal but its not an unreasonable one either.

 

[Riddle]

Yeah, thats true. At least I can actually play against everyone in this region.

 

[Gaia_x]

You have the best possible melee practice in upstate. So its doable to get good.

 

[Riddle]

Yup, thanks for all the support guys!

Sheik's SH is really annoying .

 

[Sharky]

playing low tiers isnt a bad thing either

I'm gonna keep this quote for ever and ever XD

 

[Gaia_x]

well ur gonna suck obviously but it helps me play against ****ty characters so that i don't accidentally choke again someone bad.

 

[Nø Ca$h]

jesiah, the style you're developing sounds like a mixture between 08 cactuar tryhard and hugs.. it seems very interesting to say the least.

 

[JesiahTEG]

I'm definitely going to be working on refining my personal creativeness in order to help solidify my uniqueness. I don't want to rush it though, and I'm done comparing myself to other players as well. I'm going to be working on my Marth, and that's perfect because there's a tournament in Syracuse on the 6th, which is 1-2 weeks before ROM. I'm going to be setting goals for both tournaments probably tomorrow, I just have to think a lot of stuff out first.

 

[Nø Ca$h]

i hope to see you at rom ^_^ and i want you to get top 15 w/ marth

 

[Gaia_x]

i hope to see you at rom ^_^ and i want you to get top 15 w/ marth

Thanks ill try, I still have my consistant moments but i really think i can do it.

 

[Riddle]

Jesse are you going to be at smash club tomorrow? If so what time?

 

[ranmaru]

I'll see you at Rom3 as well. ;p

 

[JesiahTEG]

Jesse are you going to be at smash club tomorrow? If so what time?

Riddle- I'll be there at 8 man

 

[Nø Ca$h]

Thanks ill try, I still have my consistant moments but i really think i can do it.

**** you i was talking to jesiah the mesiah

 

[ranmaru]

**** you i was talking to jesiah the mesiah

aww don't mean to the person who actually replied to your response. ;-;

Plus you didn't quote. ;p

We'll see you there too, Gaia. ;D

 

[JesiahTEG]

Gaia was making a joke haha.

Update for today- I'm in super practice mode with my roommate and my friend. I'm practicing my Marth a lot, and I'm basically just going to tighten everything up. Increased accuracy, comboing, and edgeguarding. I'm REALLY working on my spacing as well. In terms of developing that uniqueness, I kinda analyzed my playstyle today, and I learned a lot about the way my Marth plays.

There is definitely some stuff I want to tweak, such as switching from covering options to prediction once in a while in order to get early kills w/tippers and whatnot. Like, I can edgeguard someone from 0-death, it just takes like a minute and a half of them trying to get off the ledge. It looks impressive, the only problem is there's more room for error the more situations I put myself in, even if I'm winning them all. What happens against better players when I can only win 50% of the situations? Then I get maybe 50% on them and they get off the ledge, whereas if I learn how to efficiently take risks that pay off, I can lower the amount of chances they have to outthink me.

 

[ranmaru]

Gaia was making a joke haha.

Update for today- I'm in super practice mode with my roommate and my friend. I'm practicing my Marth a lot, and I'm basically just going to tighten everything up. Increased accuracy, comboing, and edgeguarding. I'm REALLY working on my spacing as well. In terms of developing that uniqueness, I kinda analyzed my playstyle today, and I learned a lot about the way my Marth plays.

There is definitely some stuff I want to tweak, such as switching from covering options to prediction once in a while in order to get early kills w/tippers and whatnot. Like, I can edgeguard someone from 0-death, it just takes like a minute and a half of them trying to get off the ledge. It looks impressive, the only problem is there's more room for error the more situations I put myself in, even if I'm winning them all. What happens against better players when I can only win 50% of the situations? Then I get maybe 50% on them and they get off the ledge, whereas if I learn how to efficiently take risks that pay off, I can lower the amount of chances they have to outthink me.

LOL I see, yeah well I just laughed. I can laugh at it now since I know what tone it would be expressed in.

Good luck with the practice.

 

[JesiahTEG]

Haha, alright dude. I'm going to post something I posted in Forward's thread just to document it here, because I like to go back and look at everything I write so I always have something to work on, and I never forget.

Good posts by everyone, and I'm glad you use that too Drugged Fox haha.

So, I was just playing for a few hours, and a new obstacle presented itself to me, which is good because that's what improving is all about, finding what you need to do to get better and doing it.

So first lemme start by saying that I've just started training my Marth in a "campaign" to breakthrough to another level with him. I've been analyzing different areas of my play a lot, and the one thing that I can confidently say Marth has that might be the best in the game is his corner game. I know we can all agree on this obviously, but to the extent in which it ***** can be discussed farther. (lol that sounded funny)

So first off if you combine 3 of his options, grab, dtilt and dash dance, you come up with a 2 layer wall capable of covering many options. you can dtilt into dash dance which covers everything they would try to get past you.

Now as we've discussed, most good players won't immediately try to rush past you. They will either hold their ground or jump/double jump to keep their space. You could keep mixing up those 3 options and remain extremely safe and make it hard for them to get out. But once you force them to play this corner game that we're talking about, and not just trying to get past you, you're going to want to add other options in, those options being: Fair, Uair and side b.

The situation goes like this. You dtilt let's say, Fox's shield and then you go into a dash dance. He jumps forwards with a full hop and Marth retreats with a dash dance. A smart Fox will then double jump backwards and land, which has opened up the space between Marth and Fox significantly, giving Fox more room to breathe.

This is also nearly impossible to purely react to. This is an option that cannot be covered along with others, so you're going to need to read it/predict it. Wait lemme back up. You can't punish out of reaction, but you can keep the advantage in your favor by wd/dd'ing to where the fox landed and spacing a side b (first hit) perfectly, because as he lands he's going to have to do something. Shield, dodge, roll, jump, attack, and by spacing a side B, that will stuff jump, and attack if they try to so you can continue with the side b, if they shield you return to the first position, and now you have information to **** them with. if they dodge or roll, side b is so lagless you can react to both afterwards.

Now say you side b them when they land after closing in on them, and now you have the information that. Now you can wait for the jump and then start zoning in the air with fairs. fox jumps towards you, you jump backwards with fair. Marth wins in the air vs Fox when he has time to space, and in this situation he does.

Fair'ing to begin with in this situation is not that beneficial, since Marth is kinda floaty and as he's in the air either fair'ing or about to fair, his opponent can roll away or something. So, yes you CAN use this as a base corner game strategy, but I would say save it. Save zoning with fairs once you have the information that they are a smart player who will jump back and forth. Then the game changes and now you have evidence that will support your decisions.

I think of it as starting off with no information about your opponent. So, you cover as many options as possible. Then as you begin to narrow down the options, you can switch strategies to cover the options you know they will do. This is what creates that feeling of someone being in your head, when people start saying "No matter what I do, you always beat it."

If you think about it, really you just know what they're NOT going to do, so you can focus on efficiently ****** what they CAN do.

Now, if you want to increase the amount of prediction you use, which comes with more risk, then you can bait the double jump and run forwards as fast as you can or do a really long, quick wd forwards and try to catch him BEFORE he lands with a uair or even Fsmash. The advantage to this is that they will have no jump so it's pretty much an instant kill. The downside is, this is VERY prediction based, so this only covers that option, giving you no time to react to anything else.

If you think about it, you're playing the game ahead of where it is, because you have to rely on the fact that the Fox isn't going to land with a nair or drill during their first jump. So instead of DD'ing away and punishing that, if you KNOW they're not going to do it, you DD away for a second, then start dashing very fast behind the Fox, right around the same time he would have landed from a full hop with an attack. This gives you time to get under his double jump and also doesn't give him any reaction time to counter.

Now, let's bring this back full swing. In order to bring Marth back up to the top of the metagame, (He's actually making a move now with IB and if Taj starts playing Marth again) Marth can't just rely on his option covering skills. Yes he's amazing at that, especially in the corner.

But the problem is by covering all options, you have to use quick moves like dtilt, side b, grab. Those don't lead into high rewards at all, so if Marth has someone in the corner at 0, he can spend a good minute, minute and a half building them up to like 100% just by covering their options. But by doing it this way, you're relying on yourself to not mess up one situation at all, and also you're relying on your opponent to not do something risky in order to get out, which good players do. (Like just straight up run past you)

Fox can get away with this because he has guaranteed combos so if he gets a grab off at killing percent, it's a wrap, not to mention if he forces a roll behind him let's say, he can just Usmash for the kill.

With Marth though, he has to take risks with high reward. That's when he becomes an unstoppable machine, when all of his advantages are utilized through the prediction/reading abilities of a great player.

In the above example of cornering someone to 100%. Let's say you cover their options 8 times in a row, leading up to 100% in damage. If I can predict on say maybe the 3rd or 4th time what they're going to and that leads into a death...That's so much more effective it's not even funny. This is what a lot of Marth's need to work on IMO and it's what I'm working on too.

Also, i hope this makes sense lol it's a lot and I wrote it quick

Next up, goals for ROM3.

 

[JesiahTEG]

Rom 3 is coming up, and I have the advantage of having a pretty big tournament right before that, and if a lot of OOS people come that's even better for the practice. I have goals to accomplish at ROM that I'm going to be working hard to do. Play higher level players to determine weaknesses I can't find by myself, bring my Marth out better than it's ever been, and others too. Those are all fine and nice but I need tangible goals. Goals that can be measured with results. That being said....

*Make it out of Pools - A tough goal in itself for any player nowadays. I have 2 different thoughts/feelings on this goal. A big part of me feels like I should have already made it out of pools at the last ROM, and I almost feel a little embarassed that I haven't made it out yet, considering how much I play/talk about the game. However there's another part of me that realizes that this is a big challenge, and when I think like this instead of the first thought process, I get very nervous.

I'm going to use the time in between now and Syracuse to practice being perfect, which will automatically raise my confidence. If I can go into Syracuse fully confident, I'll feel much better about this goal when ROM3 time comes.

*Top 15- Someone posted that in this thread, and I figured it'd be cool to reach for a goal someone else set. There's no thinking, "Am I being too hard on myself with this goal" or "Am i setting an easy goal just to feel good when I hit it?"

That being said, I think top 15 is realistic. I looked at the results for ROM2, top 15 and the logical thing to do would be to see which players are concrete better than me and which players are not, and which players are relatively even.

I can do that to an extent from knowledge of tournament placings and from watching videos, but during tournament you never know who you're going to run into or what can happen. That being said, I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure everything goes my way, so there's no "I would have won, but this happened." I want to be on the winning end of every factor that goes into a tournament match, which will prevent me from losing to people who are technically less skilled, but may have gotten a win due to unforseen factors. (Me playing bad, them playing amazingly good, crowd interference, unexpected counterpick, double blind and i chose wrong, random SD's, etc.)

So I guess that's it. Make it out of pools, and top 15.

 

[RTF]

unforseen factors. (Me playing bad, them playing amazingly good, crowd interference, unexpected counterpick, double blind and i chose wrong, random SD's, etc.)

Don't let fate stand in your way...

 

[wWw Dazwa]

I think I'm going to ROM3, but just to hang out, not planning on entering. We should play friendlies there!

 

[da K.I.D.]

just dont beat him with kirby...

 

[Gaia_x]

**** you i was talking to jesiah the mesiah

Bring some of that salt to rom ill **** you up.

 

[SnowMan]

I don't doubt you can reach those goals, Jesse. Hopefully you'll even surprise yourself and end up in top 10.