∫unk
Smash Master
Hi Marths,
For those of you who don't know me, I'm Junk. A few months ago, I was like most of you. I was getting 3-stocked by every legitimate player.
After a few months of solid tournament attendance, however, I can now proudly say I sometimes get them to 2-stock.
But enough about me, this is about you, the Marth that's stuck in anywhere but SoCal or MD/VA, limited by your enivornment.
This thread will be updated with a new "class" whenever I feel like it/have time to write. The subject matter of the thread will usually be Marth specific but sometimes it will be general or philosophical.
I hope you'll find this thread useful and feel free to ask any questions about the stuff I write on.
<3 Junk
This used to be called "Class with Junk" and the topics were "Lessons" but I don't like this idea. I'm learning just as you guys are. To be honest I don't know much about this game but I'll try to share what I do know.
Topic #1 - Patience on the Kill
I cannot stress how important this is for Marth. Against someone good you can lose an entire stock just spamming smashes or even what you think is "smart" use of smashes at high percents.
None of Marth's smashes are safe. Every time you hit a shield with any of Marth's smashes you get punished. Marth's smashes are punishers.
You shouldn't be using any of these smashes in any sort of predictable fashion, like when they're at high percents. They expect the smash so the chances of it actually working go down significantly.
If they weren't aware of the smashes before, as soon as you use a smash once even if you've somehow done it safely, it's now in the opponents immediate memory that that's what you're going for. And they will do a good job avoiding it.
However, Marth has other kill moves!
Every single aerial can kill. u-tilt can kill. Even db up version can kill the light characters.
Your f-air is stale? Either do one db combo, grab pummel (you should get in a significant amount if they're at high percents), or just don't use f-air. You have plenty of other options but having a fresh f-air on an opponent at the edge of a stage is an extremely powerful tool to have.
Marth has a lot of kill moves but none of them are completely reliable. You can't really think about which one you want to use. They're all reactionary and/or situationally predictive.
Sometimes the opponent won't let you hit with anything but staled f-air or grab. That's fine. Be patient. They will start showing a predictable pattern or mess up eventually, especially at high percents. When people are cornered or feel vulnerable, that's when the most obvious patterns come out, and that's what Marth should take advantage on.
Another key aspect to keep in mind is to not do a death move when it has no chance of killing as it will stale it in the process. Marth's smashes have a faster degeneration than other moves.
Summary
Expect that the opponent expects the smashes and the Dolphin Slash out of shield. If they're good they will even bait it. Use your other moves and always remember your fresh aerials. If you do a have an opportunity for a kill move make sure you've spaced it so it actually kills. If you aren't sure if your smash will kill it's better to do a setup move or a damage racking move that refreshes your other moves so you can push the opponent into percents where you can kill with moves that are safer, like your aerials.
Topic #2 - What to do at Death Percents
This is similar thinking to the previous lesson but from the other side. Against most characters you should be living to 150+% This has to do with good DI but also by not getting hit by strong attacks.
As your percentage builds you have to be aware of what moves can kill you. You must avoid these moves that kill you at all costs. This may seem obvious but people still rush into smashes when they know they can die with one spacing mistake.
Example: You should almost never get hit by a G&W smash (any of them). They're slow to start up and are easy to space away from. If your G&W friend is consistently landing smashes on you for the kill, then you are doing something wrong. You are playing risky, you aren't spacing well, you're being predictable.
So how do you live to godly percents even with mediocre DI? By playing even safer than you normally do when you can die. You should be near impossible to hit when you're over 100%. That's not to say that you should be easy to hit if you're at low percents, but it's much easier to retaliate and regain control when their isn't much hitstun or knockback.
Safe play does not mean completely defensive and running away the whole time. That is being predictable. Safe play means you don't take calculated risks that will lead to damage strings. At death percents you are always going for chip damage*.
Example: You just shielded the Metaknight d-smash. You immediately shield drop and do the full regular dancing blade combo. No db1 to grab or any other shenanigans you've thought of. Why? If your trick fails then you might die. If you do the full db combo nothing happens the situation is reset and you've done a little more damage.
If you become hard to hit, opponents will become impatient, they will make more mistakes. Most often they will even show you the death move they're going for. And you can punish them each time they try.
So clearly your style will change at death percents. You will not go for follow ups if the opponent has a chance at retaliation (especially with a death move). Against most of the cast you will hide in your shield more. This is because the worst that can happen is you get grabbed (which won't even combo because you're at a death percent). Obviously don't hide in your shield so long that you get shield poked. If your shield does run low from shielding a charge smash you can always ledge stall until it's regenerated.
In terms of punishment, getting grabbed for shielding is much better than eating a charge smash for spot dodge. Most Marth's spot dodge too much and they get punished, especially at death percents.
At death percents you also shouldn't care as much about stage control. It honestly doesn't matter what part of the map your on (except maybe the ledge) because one hit from the opponent (weak or strong) will knock you out so far out that fighting to gain stage control is near impossible. That said, if the opponent does give you the opportunity to fight in the middle, take it! You'll have more space to DI and you'll have more escape options from a bad situation.
If you have no idea how to DI... at least hit up (unless its a vertical death move) so you have a much easier time recovering.
Summary
Make yourself incredibly hard to hit by playing even safer when you're near death percents. This means sticking to your safe moves and shielding more. You also won't care much for stage control (a staple of Marth's gameplay), but you will focus on squeezing in as much damage as possible before you die. Learn to DI because Marth's recovery is below par, but you can still live to high percents if you avoid the strong attacks.
*The only exception to when you're not only going for chip damage is if you're both at high percent. Then what you're trying to do is a combination of lesson #1 and lesson #2 where you're playing extremely safe but you're also baiting the opponent into doing a laggy death move so you can punish them with your death move.
Topic #3 - DSF: "It's just Friendlies."
The past few weekends DSF and some of the best WC smashers have been coming to SB. As you can imagine, this immediately jumped my skill level. There has been a LOT that I've learned in the past few weeks that I'll share with you in the next few lessons, but one of the most important things (as it applies the most often) is what DSF told me, "It's just friendlies."
Let me explain: Winning and losing doesn't matter in a friendly. You have to remember this even if you are playing against anyone important. Maybe it's your idol smasher, maybe it's just a really good player, maybe it's your rival, maybe it's someone you know will take the result of the friendly as something that matters. It doesn't matter, you have to keep in mind that it's just friendlies.
Once you realize that nothing is being lost (except maybe your ego), you can try new things, you can just stand there and watch the opponent, you can hit random buttons and pray, you can try different DI, you can try that RoyR combo you saw in a video. By stepping outside of your normal playstyle you become less predictable and in turn help your core playstyle.
That being said, you still play to win. Don't just start spamming unspaced shieldbreaker because it's punishable, it's predictable, and you would NEVER do it in tournament. If you're thinking shieldbreaker go for it when you've spaced it and you see a shielding pattern with an opponent.
If something worked (even if it was stupid), do it again in the exact same situation. Keep doing it until they adjust, then the next time expect the adjustment and punish that. This is where you'll build muscle memory behind certain situations (ex. if you shieldbreak with normal spacing and they run forward to punish they probably will not get their shield out in time for you to up b).
If something didn't work (it probably was stupid), do it again but in a different situation. Different spacing, different %, different stage, whatever. The exception to this is if they got away by powershielding then punishing or you tripped or something that suggests that if you did do it again in the exact same situation it would work.
As Marth what you want to practice in friendlies are your setup moves. u-air, db1, grab release, throws, d-tilt, f-air are your setup moves. That's a lot. Try all of them, try different follow ups, try different spacing. Try crossing over the u-air, try throwing into more throws, try db1 into f-air into a full db combo. Try sh ff f-air d-tilt db1 dash away pivot f-smash. There's a lot of cool, very safe things that Marth can do that you can try out in friendlies. Some things that seem safe might not be safe, and you will get punished. That's okay because it's friendlies. Keep trying different combinations and figure out tricks that work for your playstyle (more on this next lesson).
The overall goal in friendlies is to become a better player, which most often means become less predictable. This is where you just have to ignore the possibility of losing and try new things, so you can win when it really matters. Because of this, if you lose always ask the other player what you did wrong. Some players are bad at explaining. Some are really good at explaining every weakness you had in the game that they exploited.
Summary
The key to friendlies is to not care about the actual result, but still play to win. Try to incorporate new set up moves and combos, which will make you less predictable and help your core playstyle. If you do lose always ask the other person why they think you lost, and try to correct it in the next game. Keep trying things that work to see what options the opponents have to get around it and even if it doesn't work keep trying things to see if they work in different situations.
Finally, if an opponent does start taking the friendly seriously, and you feel you are a similar level, ask to money match. Really if the player is taking the result of a friendly and telling other people then they probably aren't very good anyway. You can also play a 'seriously' but you learn about tournament pressure when money is on the line.
Topic #4 - Conditioning
Alright, first to define Conditioning. Conditioning is making your opponent think some option is safe, then punishing them for it. I think of conditioning as offensive, you're going to destroy whatever defensive option they had in mind (not immediately, but further down the line). Some people might argue that this is simply mindgames, but to me mindgames is at particular moment while conditioning is manipulation across a whole stock.
Why is conditioning good? It is the easiest way to land kills with Marth. If I don't set anything up or condition before I have the opponent in death percents, I find it very hard to kill good opponents.
This all sounds good on paper, but it doesn't always go as you want it to. Nothing is guaranteed, people are random. You may have got them in the exact situation where they definitely should do option A, but for no real reason they do option B.
That said, conditioning will persuade the opponent into choosing an option that you will cover when it matters. In most cases, this involves a roll, air dodge, or being in your good zone. You're making the opponent think that roll behind you after a shielded db1, that air dodge away after a throw is safe.
Here's an example:
You run forward and db1. They shield then roll behind you. There is no reason to punish this roll as Marth, even if you predict it. The reason is all of Marth's punishments are in the 8-18% range. You're giving up that damage for higher chance to KO (the hardest part of Marth's game). You can spend an entire stock just trying to kill someone (there's countless top-end videos showing this problem).
So instead of immediately punishing, walk away and make sure you don't get hit trying to fight in a bad situation (you're lagging and they just rolled behind you). Every time you db1 a shield and you see the roll, just reset the situation.
When they're at a death percent, that's when you can run up to someone db1, then just start charging a pivot d-smash or do a running u-smash. If you've only been doing forward moving attacks off your run (sh aerials and db1), you could just run up to them shield and start charging. They will be so used to you doing something as you run forward that they won't expect you to sit there and wait.
This sort of example can be replicated in other situations... the most notable being off grabs. The reason is because it's much easier to grab someone at higher percents than lower percents, and Marth's grabs set up into KO moves if you read the opponent correctly. With conditioning, you can make guessing their option a lot easier.
Maybe the few times you grabbed earlier in the stock you just threw them and waited to see what they did and reacted according. Now when they're at death percents, not only do you know their tendency, but you could run forward and dolphin slash KO. You gave the illusion of safety off the throw from the first few throws, then punished the hardest when it mattered the most.
There are a few keys to conditioning:
1) Keep yourself safe. This should be your number 1 goal at all times.
2) Sometimes this won't work on a player at all. They will just randomly input an option in every guessing situation regardless of what was proven to be safe before.
3) Against some players you won't need conditioning at all. They will just have obvious patterns.
Note on #2: Against these kinds of players it's best to just do the option that covers most of their options.
Summary
Conditioning is natural to a select few players, but I think most Marth's can learn to "force" the opponent into what you want them to do to get the KO easier. Make the opponent think an option is safe by not doing minor punishments on that option even when you could, so you can destroy them when it matters. Remember the keys of conditioning.
Looking back at this, I disagree with topic #4. Why? I think you can make so many reads in this game that you don't need to save your "good reads" for the KO, especially as most good players change their style to a be much safer and much more conservative when they're at death percents.
Topic #5 - Stage Control
Disclaimer: This concept is really old and is a fairly common thought process among traditional fighters. clowsui helped me with some of this.
The player you constantly lose to... do you notice you're on the ledge a lot vs them? It's because you give up stage control too easily.
Stage Control is the EASIEST way to limit your opponents options. When you limit your opponents options, your reads get easier. How do you go about this?
In the neutral situation, it seems like no side has the advantage. As you play your friend it's hard to get hits in consistently, and at times you feel like you're just throwing out attacks hoping they run into it.
This is not a winning formula. Try this instead.
Constantly look for small spacing openings where you can move forward. This isn't a massive run across the stage, or jumping as far as you can with your character. Against someone good it will be a minor shift, they move back a little you move forward a little. You don't even have to attack, just your mere presence and the possibilities you present will push them back. Eventually this leads to the opponent being near the ledge, and forced to do a defensive option or fall for a ledge trap.
The #1 most common habit I see among developing players is f-roll when they're near the ledge. Why? because I slowly push them there (or they just ran/jumped backwards on their own) and because they're thinking in the moment, and now that they're near the ledge they realize they're in trouble and do what's worked for them. Note that this is really the only option I have to cover. Every other option you try just me standing there will put me at advantage.
So how do you avoid this situation where strings of 50+% can easily be done? Minimize spacing windows and don't move back unnecessarily. I see this too often. You're spacing in the neutral situation, but because you don't understand the purpose behind what you're doing, the opponent shows a spacing window and you jump backwards. This is a double negative because you could have moved forward and you decided to move back for no reason.
That's why when you face an amazing player, you find yourself on your heels constantly. Not only is he looking to push you to the ledge, you're probably jumping backwards when he makes a spacing mistake, which is usually the only mistake someone of that caliber is going to show you.
Here I'm going to caution you guys that looking for spacing windows doesn't mean move forward all the time. The opponent is spacing too, and even if he doesn't know what he's doing other than trying to be safe, sometimes you'll make a spacing error and have to move back a little bit, give up a bit of stage control. What happens when you move too far forward is the opponent gets behind you, which usually immediately puts you in a bad situation.
This is similar thinking for ledge traps. If they're hanging on the ledge and you run off and try to go for "combo video material" when you miss now you're in a horrible position. You were in a winning position with the only requirement being a little prediction but mostly reaction, and you decide to run off and put yourself in that horrible position.
Also note that if you do happen to hit someone in the neutral situation, they're either going to move really far back or try to get behind you. Most players make it very obvious which way they're going. If you notice after you hit someone they get behind you a lot, just hit them and stand there. You will laugh at how they air dodge right in front of you. A GREAT example of this is Marth's f-throw, especially near the ledge. I've gotten sooo many players by simply f-throwing, then standing there and seeing them land right in front of me with air dodge. Then I f-throw again and usually they adjust by DIing away and not airdodging, so I run forward and f-air.
This topic is a lot deeper in terms of limiting options, and it's also matchup dependent (ex. Falco has illusion and boost pivot grab which makes him comfortable at the ledge), but if you have more questions just ask.
Summary
Think about what's going to happen next instead of where you're at right now. If you run off stage and miss what's can happen? If you jump backwards what can happen?
Next Topic: Whenever I feel like it whatever inspires me.
For those of you who don't know me, I'm Junk. A few months ago, I was like most of you. I was getting 3-stocked by every legitimate player.
After a few months of solid tournament attendance, however, I can now proudly say I sometimes get them to 2-stock.
But enough about me, this is about you, the Marth that's stuck in anywhere but SoCal or MD/VA, limited by your enivornment.
This thread will be updated with a new "class" whenever I feel like it/have time to write. The subject matter of the thread will usually be Marth specific but sometimes it will be general or philosophical.
I hope you'll find this thread useful and feel free to ask any questions about the stuff I write on.
<3 Junk
This used to be called "Class with Junk" and the topics were "Lessons" but I don't like this idea. I'm learning just as you guys are. To be honest I don't know much about this game but I'll try to share what I do know.
Topic #1 - Patience on the Kill
I cannot stress how important this is for Marth. Against someone good you can lose an entire stock just spamming smashes or even what you think is "smart" use of smashes at high percents.
None of Marth's smashes are safe. Every time you hit a shield with any of Marth's smashes you get punished. Marth's smashes are punishers.
You shouldn't be using any of these smashes in any sort of predictable fashion, like when they're at high percents. They expect the smash so the chances of it actually working go down significantly.
If they weren't aware of the smashes before, as soon as you use a smash once even if you've somehow done it safely, it's now in the opponents immediate memory that that's what you're going for. And they will do a good job avoiding it.
However, Marth has other kill moves!
Every single aerial can kill. u-tilt can kill. Even db up version can kill the light characters.
Your f-air is stale? Either do one db combo, grab pummel (you should get in a significant amount if they're at high percents), or just don't use f-air. You have plenty of other options but having a fresh f-air on an opponent at the edge of a stage is an extremely powerful tool to have.
Marth has a lot of kill moves but none of them are completely reliable. You can't really think about which one you want to use. They're all reactionary and/or situationally predictive.
Sometimes the opponent won't let you hit with anything but staled f-air or grab. That's fine. Be patient. They will start showing a predictable pattern or mess up eventually, especially at high percents. When people are cornered or feel vulnerable, that's when the most obvious patterns come out, and that's what Marth should take advantage on.
Another key aspect to keep in mind is to not do a death move when it has no chance of killing as it will stale it in the process. Marth's smashes have a faster degeneration than other moves.
Summary
Expect that the opponent expects the smashes and the Dolphin Slash out of shield. If they're good they will even bait it. Use your other moves and always remember your fresh aerials. If you do a have an opportunity for a kill move make sure you've spaced it so it actually kills. If you aren't sure if your smash will kill it's better to do a setup move or a damage racking move that refreshes your other moves so you can push the opponent into percents where you can kill with moves that are safer, like your aerials.
Topic #2 - What to do at Death Percents
This is similar thinking to the previous lesson but from the other side. Against most characters you should be living to 150+% This has to do with good DI but also by not getting hit by strong attacks.
As your percentage builds you have to be aware of what moves can kill you. You must avoid these moves that kill you at all costs. This may seem obvious but people still rush into smashes when they know they can die with one spacing mistake.
Example: You should almost never get hit by a G&W smash (any of them). They're slow to start up and are easy to space away from. If your G&W friend is consistently landing smashes on you for the kill, then you are doing something wrong. You are playing risky, you aren't spacing well, you're being predictable.
So how do you live to godly percents even with mediocre DI? By playing even safer than you normally do when you can die. You should be near impossible to hit when you're over 100%. That's not to say that you should be easy to hit if you're at low percents, but it's much easier to retaliate and regain control when their isn't much hitstun or knockback.
Safe play does not mean completely defensive and running away the whole time. That is being predictable. Safe play means you don't take calculated risks that will lead to damage strings. At death percents you are always going for chip damage*.
Example: You just shielded the Metaknight d-smash. You immediately shield drop and do the full regular dancing blade combo. No db1 to grab or any other shenanigans you've thought of. Why? If your trick fails then you might die. If you do the full db combo nothing happens the situation is reset and you've done a little more damage.
If you become hard to hit, opponents will become impatient, they will make more mistakes. Most often they will even show you the death move they're going for. And you can punish them each time they try.
So clearly your style will change at death percents. You will not go for follow ups if the opponent has a chance at retaliation (especially with a death move). Against most of the cast you will hide in your shield more. This is because the worst that can happen is you get grabbed (which won't even combo because you're at a death percent). Obviously don't hide in your shield so long that you get shield poked. If your shield does run low from shielding a charge smash you can always ledge stall until it's regenerated.
In terms of punishment, getting grabbed for shielding is much better than eating a charge smash for spot dodge. Most Marth's spot dodge too much and they get punished, especially at death percents.
At death percents you also shouldn't care as much about stage control. It honestly doesn't matter what part of the map your on (except maybe the ledge) because one hit from the opponent (weak or strong) will knock you out so far out that fighting to gain stage control is near impossible. That said, if the opponent does give you the opportunity to fight in the middle, take it! You'll have more space to DI and you'll have more escape options from a bad situation.
If you have no idea how to DI... at least hit up (unless its a vertical death move) so you have a much easier time recovering.
Summary
Make yourself incredibly hard to hit by playing even safer when you're near death percents. This means sticking to your safe moves and shielding more. You also won't care much for stage control (a staple of Marth's gameplay), but you will focus on squeezing in as much damage as possible before you die. Learn to DI because Marth's recovery is below par, but you can still live to high percents if you avoid the strong attacks.
*The only exception to when you're not only going for chip damage is if you're both at high percent. Then what you're trying to do is a combination of lesson #1 and lesson #2 where you're playing extremely safe but you're also baiting the opponent into doing a laggy death move so you can punish them with your death move.
Topic #3 - DSF: "It's just Friendlies."
The past few weekends DSF and some of the best WC smashers have been coming to SB. As you can imagine, this immediately jumped my skill level. There has been a LOT that I've learned in the past few weeks that I'll share with you in the next few lessons, but one of the most important things (as it applies the most often) is what DSF told me, "It's just friendlies."
Let me explain: Winning and losing doesn't matter in a friendly. You have to remember this even if you are playing against anyone important. Maybe it's your idol smasher, maybe it's just a really good player, maybe it's your rival, maybe it's someone you know will take the result of the friendly as something that matters. It doesn't matter, you have to keep in mind that it's just friendlies.
Once you realize that nothing is being lost (except maybe your ego), you can try new things, you can just stand there and watch the opponent, you can hit random buttons and pray, you can try different DI, you can try that RoyR combo you saw in a video. By stepping outside of your normal playstyle you become less predictable and in turn help your core playstyle.
That being said, you still play to win. Don't just start spamming unspaced shieldbreaker because it's punishable, it's predictable, and you would NEVER do it in tournament. If you're thinking shieldbreaker go for it when you've spaced it and you see a shielding pattern with an opponent.
If something worked (even if it was stupid), do it again in the exact same situation. Keep doing it until they adjust, then the next time expect the adjustment and punish that. This is where you'll build muscle memory behind certain situations (ex. if you shieldbreak with normal spacing and they run forward to punish they probably will not get their shield out in time for you to up b).
If something didn't work (it probably was stupid), do it again but in a different situation. Different spacing, different %, different stage, whatever. The exception to this is if they got away by powershielding then punishing or you tripped or something that suggests that if you did do it again in the exact same situation it would work.
As Marth what you want to practice in friendlies are your setup moves. u-air, db1, grab release, throws, d-tilt, f-air are your setup moves. That's a lot. Try all of them, try different follow ups, try different spacing. Try crossing over the u-air, try throwing into more throws, try db1 into f-air into a full db combo. Try sh ff f-air d-tilt db1 dash away pivot f-smash. There's a lot of cool, very safe things that Marth can do that you can try out in friendlies. Some things that seem safe might not be safe, and you will get punished. That's okay because it's friendlies. Keep trying different combinations and figure out tricks that work for your playstyle (more on this next lesson).
The overall goal in friendlies is to become a better player, which most often means become less predictable. This is where you just have to ignore the possibility of losing and try new things, so you can win when it really matters. Because of this, if you lose always ask the other player what you did wrong. Some players are bad at explaining. Some are really good at explaining every weakness you had in the game that they exploited.
Summary
The key to friendlies is to not care about the actual result, but still play to win. Try to incorporate new set up moves and combos, which will make you less predictable and help your core playstyle. If you do lose always ask the other person why they think you lost, and try to correct it in the next game. Keep trying things that work to see what options the opponents have to get around it and even if it doesn't work keep trying things to see if they work in different situations.
Finally, if an opponent does start taking the friendly seriously, and you feel you are a similar level, ask to money match. Really if the player is taking the result of a friendly and telling other people then they probably aren't very good anyway. You can also play a 'seriously' but you learn about tournament pressure when money is on the line.
Alright, first to define Conditioning. Conditioning is making your opponent think some option is safe, then punishing them for it. I think of conditioning as offensive, you're going to destroy whatever defensive option they had in mind (not immediately, but further down the line). Some people might argue that this is simply mindgames, but to me mindgames is at particular moment while conditioning is manipulation across a whole stock.
Why is conditioning good? It is the easiest way to land kills with Marth. If I don't set anything up or condition before I have the opponent in death percents, I find it very hard to kill good opponents.
This all sounds good on paper, but it doesn't always go as you want it to. Nothing is guaranteed, people are random. You may have got them in the exact situation where they definitely should do option A, but for no real reason they do option B.
That said, conditioning will persuade the opponent into choosing an option that you will cover when it matters. In most cases, this involves a roll, air dodge, or being in your good zone. You're making the opponent think that roll behind you after a shielded db1, that air dodge away after a throw is safe.
Here's an example:
You run forward and db1. They shield then roll behind you. There is no reason to punish this roll as Marth, even if you predict it. The reason is all of Marth's punishments are in the 8-18% range. You're giving up that damage for higher chance to KO (the hardest part of Marth's game). You can spend an entire stock just trying to kill someone (there's countless top-end videos showing this problem).
So instead of immediately punishing, walk away and make sure you don't get hit trying to fight in a bad situation (you're lagging and they just rolled behind you). Every time you db1 a shield and you see the roll, just reset the situation.
When they're at a death percent, that's when you can run up to someone db1, then just start charging a pivot d-smash or do a running u-smash. If you've only been doing forward moving attacks off your run (sh aerials and db1), you could just run up to them shield and start charging. They will be so used to you doing something as you run forward that they won't expect you to sit there and wait.
This sort of example can be replicated in other situations... the most notable being off grabs. The reason is because it's much easier to grab someone at higher percents than lower percents, and Marth's grabs set up into KO moves if you read the opponent correctly. With conditioning, you can make guessing their option a lot easier.
Maybe the few times you grabbed earlier in the stock you just threw them and waited to see what they did and reacted according. Now when they're at death percents, not only do you know their tendency, but you could run forward and dolphin slash KO. You gave the illusion of safety off the throw from the first few throws, then punished the hardest when it mattered the most.
There are a few keys to conditioning:
1) Keep yourself safe. This should be your number 1 goal at all times.
2) Sometimes this won't work on a player at all. They will just randomly input an option in every guessing situation regardless of what was proven to be safe before.
3) Against some players you won't need conditioning at all. They will just have obvious patterns.
Note on #2: Against these kinds of players it's best to just do the option that covers most of their options.
Summary
Conditioning is natural to a select few players, but I think most Marth's can learn to "force" the opponent into what you want them to do to get the KO easier. Make the opponent think an option is safe by not doing minor punishments on that option even when you could, so you can destroy them when it matters. Remember the keys of conditioning.
Looking back at this, I disagree with topic #4. Why? I think you can make so many reads in this game that you don't need to save your "good reads" for the KO, especially as most good players change their style to a be much safer and much more conservative when they're at death percents.
Topic #5 - Stage Control
Disclaimer: This concept is really old and is a fairly common thought process among traditional fighters. clowsui helped me with some of this.
The player you constantly lose to... do you notice you're on the ledge a lot vs them? It's because you give up stage control too easily.
Stage Control is the EASIEST way to limit your opponents options. When you limit your opponents options, your reads get easier. How do you go about this?
In the neutral situation, it seems like no side has the advantage. As you play your friend it's hard to get hits in consistently, and at times you feel like you're just throwing out attacks hoping they run into it.
This is not a winning formula. Try this instead.
Constantly look for small spacing openings where you can move forward. This isn't a massive run across the stage, or jumping as far as you can with your character. Against someone good it will be a minor shift, they move back a little you move forward a little. You don't even have to attack, just your mere presence and the possibilities you present will push them back. Eventually this leads to the opponent being near the ledge, and forced to do a defensive option or fall for a ledge trap.
The #1 most common habit I see among developing players is f-roll when they're near the ledge. Why? because I slowly push them there (or they just ran/jumped backwards on their own) and because they're thinking in the moment, and now that they're near the ledge they realize they're in trouble and do what's worked for them. Note that this is really the only option I have to cover. Every other option you try just me standing there will put me at advantage.
So how do you avoid this situation where strings of 50+% can easily be done? Minimize spacing windows and don't move back unnecessarily. I see this too often. You're spacing in the neutral situation, but because you don't understand the purpose behind what you're doing, the opponent shows a spacing window and you jump backwards. This is a double negative because you could have moved forward and you decided to move back for no reason.
That's why when you face an amazing player, you find yourself on your heels constantly. Not only is he looking to push you to the ledge, you're probably jumping backwards when he makes a spacing mistake, which is usually the only mistake someone of that caliber is going to show you.
Here I'm going to caution you guys that looking for spacing windows doesn't mean move forward all the time. The opponent is spacing too, and even if he doesn't know what he's doing other than trying to be safe, sometimes you'll make a spacing error and have to move back a little bit, give up a bit of stage control. What happens when you move too far forward is the opponent gets behind you, which usually immediately puts you in a bad situation.
This is similar thinking for ledge traps. If they're hanging on the ledge and you run off and try to go for "combo video material" when you miss now you're in a horrible position. You were in a winning position with the only requirement being a little prediction but mostly reaction, and you decide to run off and put yourself in that horrible position.
Also note that if you do happen to hit someone in the neutral situation, they're either going to move really far back or try to get behind you. Most players make it very obvious which way they're going. If you notice after you hit someone they get behind you a lot, just hit them and stand there. You will laugh at how they air dodge right in front of you. A GREAT example of this is Marth's f-throw, especially near the ledge. I've gotten sooo many players by simply f-throwing, then standing there and seeing them land right in front of me with air dodge. Then I f-throw again and usually they adjust by DIing away and not airdodging, so I run forward and f-air.
This topic is a lot deeper in terms of limiting options, and it's also matchup dependent (ex. Falco has illusion and boost pivot grab which makes him comfortable at the ledge), but if you have more questions just ask.
Summary
Think about what's going to happen next instead of where you're at right now. If you run off stage and miss what's can happen? If you jump backwards what can happen?
Next Topic: Whenever I feel like it whatever inspires me.
I wish this was more frequent