Switching up your style according to matchup

[-ACE-]

So, I've been thinking about this for a while. An extremely common problem amongst melee players of ALL LEVELS is their inability to truly switch up their general strategy from matchup to matchup. Players often find success in 1-2 matchups, feel a well-deserved sense of accomplishment (perhaps after beating a number of skilled players in those matchups), and subconsciously use this same general strategy (mostly talking about neutral game and setups) or they don't adjust nearly as much as they should in other matchups and get rekt.

This is due to (but not limited to) the following 2 reasons.

1. Melee's depth. Most of the characters in this game differ quite a bit, in many ways. The sheer number of options in any given situation vary significantly from character to character, and the options themselves vary immensely regarding their general properties (what they accomplish, how safe they are, etc.). This variance is amplified by the changes to the game brought forth by the differences in the legal stages, and high variance of play styles between players that play your current opponent's character.

2. Limitations of the human mind. Although we realize all characters are different, and even new players understand that it isn't optimal to play the same way (or even similarly in many cases) against all of them, we often do it anyway. We often can't see why we lost to the mid-level Samus when we just beat a high level Ice Climbers, and reach for justification in our minds. This can be blaming our own character, blaming your opponent's character, blaming the matchup, blaming ourselves for the wrong reasons, or finding any other excuse that isn't 100% accurate. This can be due to denial, but it's most likely due to one's inability to thoroughly analyze the situation, one's inability to recognize his or her own habits, or one's inability to adjust/adapt in a timely manner.

As a result, numerous melee players get frustrated, they feel the need for a secondary or even a tertiary character (or the possibility of dual maining), or search for simple solutions to a complex problem, when this might not be the best course of action-- but it could be).

There exists an issue of any character's general effectiveness in relation to the current metagame. Take Amsa for example. He rarely gets 1st place in Japanese tournaments, but it's by far the highest nationally ranked player from Japan. This has a significant effect. On the polar opposite side, if one chooses to main fox, they know they must become an exemplary, well-rounded fox to make waves in today's meta.

There is also the point that some characters do much better as a solo-main character, strategy-wise. Take Ice Climbers for example. You have to respect each opponent differently, but at the end of the day you're playing patiently and fishing for a grab. In contrast, although sheik is often incorrectly viewed as a vastly simplistic character, she has to switch her style significantly between matchups (some are best fought through ground game, some more aerial based, and the punish game isn't always as easy as ftilt+fair lol). The characters that require the most adjustment between matchups augment the problem I've tried to address in this thread. The goal of this thread to provide discussion on this topic, which could be accomplished by answering questions similar to these:

1. Which characters require the most variation between matchups? Do they require secondaries at high level (opinion)?

2. Which characters can see the most success while relying on one general strategy?

3. What can be done to address this issue in-game (big one)?

4. Which players have best conquered this issue?

5. What characters are the most untapped?

Tell me what you think. I know this post isn't well organized, but hopefully you guys can see my general points.

 

[itsbme]

I'll give my two cents. I'm not an accomplished player. I'm actually only on NetPlay. But I'll give this a shot.

2. Which characters can see the most success while relying on one general strategy?
I think Jigglypuff, Fox, Falco, and maybe Sheik.

4. Which players have best conquered this issue?
I would say Mango. If you go on YouTube and watch him versus any character, he pretty much can use Fox and win. You can't get lucky with him because 1) He's very smart and observant 2) he has about 10 years of experience so there's not a lot you can do to surprise him, and even if you did, 3) he'll just keep his cool, then adapt and win. 4) He has good enough tech skill so you can't really exploit him having poor timing since he's consistently good enough to control his character and not flub much, and 5) again hes aware of the different timings in the game so you can't count on him doing something dumb. He doesn't shut down just because someone gets him with a gimmick. The way he plays allows him to not really have any kind of weakness against pretty much everyone. Before someone says well HBox beats him with Puff. Well yes, but only him. It's not like he runs into any other Puffs and gets stopped dead cold in tournies. He's just losing to the player. But there's not a specific character that gives him a huge problem.

5. What characters are the most untapped?

Probably Mewtwo and Roy. Especially Roy. But I think because Roy has weird hitstun, it would take years of using him deliberately to get better to be able to be precise enough. Also hardly anyone mains him, so there's not a lot of people with experience with him.

 

[-ACE-]

Thanks for your input!

I'll add that answering the questions is not mandatory, and I'm not even suggesting that anyone needs to. Just shedding light on the issue and curious of others' opinions.

 

[Synnett]

I think DK is really untapped. He can do insane stuff and his back air is one of the most broken moves in the game. But it isn't really a character that anyone like... so no one picks him.

Most of the top tier characters are pretty straight forward to play. Fox you run everywhere and hit your opponent - but other characters have different concepts, and you can't do the same as Fox. Mewtwo has an insane movement speed, but any hit is hard to land as you're always flying everywhere. It takes more practice than top tier characters to start doing good against other people, and pretty much no one is motivated to do all this work, mostly when they believe the character won't do good. Also you can't use the same tactics for every match up, it simply won't work, but for the birds it works to an extent on less skilled players. Also, some moves have some hitboxes that are simply not logical. Mewtwo's bair might be good but I can't seem to catch the hitbox.

There are also options that works on some characters, but not others. For example, I was playing a Puff main and he decided to try Boozer. Everytime I came to shuffle him, he'd try to spot-dodge, and I punished it with a koopa klaw. Spot-dodging is simply not a good option for Bowser, as it's garbage.

Spoiler

And he's so slow when you don't know the advanced techniques, no one wants to play him.

I guess for some people it's not ''their style''. Even if Luigi is good, I'll never be able to do good with him, because I simply don't enjoy playing him - same thing for Falcon and the spacies. Of course there are characters that are easy to learn. I think it would be a great idea to make a chart to list how hard the characters are to learn, in term of tactics and tech skills.

 

[-ACE-]

I guess for some people it's not ''their style''.

This is true. And as soon as mango was mentioned, I remembered that some people just want to play the game a certain way, because they enjoy it, they don't want to succumb to the norm, or they refuse to copy certain other players who obviously have a particular matchup down. Another example is n0ne, who has a good amount of faith in his Ganon, but would often rather play falcon in order to accomplish better results without switching his general style. This is not a problem really, especially when the vast majority of us mostly pay this game for fun. But the OP is more directed at players that don't fall into this category-- the ones that are die-hard solo mains that have trouble adjusting between matchups.

 

[Kor_Hey_1]

I think if the reason people hae difficulties to adapt their playstyle is beacause they just can't train against every top tier main. It's not common to have 8 friends that all play 1 of the 8 top tier character. Furthermore, training with few people tend to create gimmicks that work only against your training partner.

I think Falco, Fox and Marth have more variations in gameplay. Falco can be played very defensively, with a lot of laser and very aggressively. For Fox, we have a lot of example: Armada plays a punish game oriented Fox and play patient. Mango is very aggressive. M2K is very campy as fox... For Marth, I think there is 2 catagories: FD Marth, they play for chain grabs, tech chase and are combo oriented. They like to have space
and Yoshi's story Marth, like abusing the length of the sword, have stage control and search for early tipper, they like small stages

Some characters tend to often be played the same way, for example Puff (wall of pain) or sheik (defensive, looking for grab->chase chase). The reason is that Puff die early but can punish errors very hard so it's far better to don't rush in. For sheik I think she hasn't so many option to approach, so you have to play pretty defensive.

If you struggle against a specific character, just train with someone that mains this character, the person can give you tips and your playstyle will adapt the matchup.

I think the players that are good at adapting don't have much issues with changing their playstyle. Armada is can adapt very well. Also, PPMD is good at downloading his opponent.

I think Pichu is the most underated character. He can do amazing combo but is die early and take damage wit electric attacks. Link and Young Link are also underrated. A French player named Aether has an amazing link. I think with more work, people could do amazing things with him.

Sorry for crappy ENglish, I'm not a native speaker.

Don't take my opinion seriously I'm a beginner at Smash.

 

[Spak]

1. I think that Falcon and Marth have the biggest variation in optimal playstyles for a given MU. Their combos are very percent-oriented and vary greatly depending upon if you're fighting against a floaty or a fastfaller, and Falcon's neutral against Falcon is very different than against Marth (I usually try to bait out F-Smashes or put out well-spaced Nairs in neutral for Marth, whereas I'm more aggro vs. Falco and tend to go to platform more because lasers get frustrating fast and I don't like my movement restricted.) I don't think that Falcon or Marth need secondaries at high levels.

2. Shiek. Chaingrab city on half of the cast, and F-Tilt/D-Tilt -> F-Tilt Fair is super strong. Also, all of her aerials last forever and have high priority, meaning they automatically stuff a lot of the cast's options in a given recovery situation. There are some percent-specific things that Shiek mains need to memorize, but she can do pretty much the same thing against a vast majority of the cast and win the MU.

3. If you know percents that work to combo the other character, use those percents (duh.) If are informed on how to play the MU, then try to remember what people better than you have said about playing vs. that character. If you are not informed on how to play the MU, take your defeat (unless you're good at adapting or you're up against a scrub, then hopefully take your win) because you didn't do your background research and learn the MU. If you're having trouble switching playstyles mid-match, then analyze what you're doing, how you could improve upon it, and fix it. Using the wrong playstyle is 100% the player's fault, and like everything in Melee, you have control over the game if you train smart, learn smart, adapt to your opponent, and let go of your insecurities and preconceptions. The game will rarely be what you think it should be, but it will never change for anyone (unless you're moving to Europe; in that case RIP you.)

4. I'd say Armada has conquered this technique. Not only does he have to switch between playstyles, but he switches between character as well. He switches from a super slow, campy character to one of the fastest in the game. Additionally, I've noticed that he plays all of the MUs very differently (such as Shield -> WD OoS -> Jab to try and catch Jiggs out vs. Fox neutral stuff in the Fox ditto.)

5. Probably Ness. He has a lot of jank that people tend to not know about, and I feel like his design is broken enough (not necessarily in a positive manner) to still have some undiscovered tech. I never said he was particularly good or that this tech would help him get too much better (I'm thinking he'll eventually go up one or two spots on the tier list), but he's still got some untapped potential.

Alternatively, you could just be a True Champion.

 

[Swagic]

I'd say one of the easiest ways to combat this "lack of adaptation" if you will is to keep notes on matchups. Keep separate notes for different playstyles, then review the playstyles mid-set. Have, for example, some general Fox notes, then once you play and see it's a very campy, runaway DL Fox, check notes on that specific playstyle. Do it enough and you'll start to memorize them.

Most untapped character? That's a tough one. The Ganons are working hard to advance the meta, Amda has almost maxed out Yoshi, Abate/Blea/Eddie Mexico have perfected Luigi, Axe has his Pikachu, Hugs and Duck have Samus...

You know what, most untapped? Transforming between Zelda and Sheik. And I think that comes down HEAVILY into adapting to playstyles. Sheik against a campy Fox? Test his patience with a counter-camp as Zelda, or try for some of those fair/bair kills. I think that's Sheik's strongest untapped potential and maybe even biggest in the game.

 

[X WaNtEd X]

1. Which characters require the most variation between matchups? Do they require secondaries at high level (opinion)?

From trying out a bunch of characters this year, I think there's a correlation between tiers and the amount of variation required between matchups. The exception to this rule is Marth.

At a high level, the following characters require secondaries in my opinion:

-Sheik (ICs)
-Peach (Fox)
-Falcon (Fox, Puff)
-ICs (Fox, Peach)
-All mid tiers and below

2. Which characters can see the most success while relying on one general strategy?

Fox and Falco. Both of them can have very flow chart and successful neutral games. And then the combo game is just adaptation to opponent's DI and the matchup.

3. What can be done to address this issue in-game (big one)?

I don't think it's an issue.

4. Which players have best conquered this issue?

At the highest level play, which player do you see play a single character without switching? Hungrybox. He's figured out all the matchups for his character. He's the only person to do this in Melee. Everyone else either does not know every matchup, or uses multiple characters to cover matchups/players.

5. What characters are the most untapped?

Falco. Everyone is just too lazy to push him as far as he could go. He's probably one of the hardest characters to play at a high level. This is because although his neutral game can be flow charted really easily, his punish game requires a lot of adaptation. Both this and his defense game require faster reflexes and more on point technical skill than any other character in order for him to be good in all matchups.

On the other side, I obviously think Ganon has a lot of potential, which is why I play him. His movement is actually much better than people give him credit for. With fully optimized platform movement, he gains a lot of options in neutral that haven't bene fully explored. I think Ganon has to play pseudo neutral a lot. If people can get really good at always winning neutral in favorable positions (like when you have center stage and have someone in the corner) Ganon can be much better. I think Ganon is really good at playing these positions. The technical potential is pretty high. And on top of that, the punish game on spacies and Falcon can be pushed much farther than it's currently at. I believe chaingrabs at 50+% into death can be a consistent punish off grabs on at least Fox and Falco.

There are other characters I think are really untapped too. I just know more about Ganon and enjoy his playstyle more.

 

[Dark Byte]

I'd say one of the easiest ways to combat this "lack of adaptation" if you will is to keep notes on matchups. Keep separate notes for different playstyles, then review the playstyles mid-set. Have, for example, some general Fox notes, then once you play and see it's a very campy, runaway DL Fox, check notes on that specific playstyle. Do it enough and you'll start to memorize them.

Most untapped character? That's a tough one. The Ganons are working hard to advance the meta, Amda has almost maxed out Yoshi, Abate/Blea/Eddie Mexico have perfected Luigi, Axe has his Pikachu, Hugs and Duck have Samus...

You know what, most untapped? Transforming between Zelda and Sheik. And I think that comes down HEAVILY into adapting to playstyles. Sheik against a campy Fox? Test his patience with a counter-camp as Zelda, or try for some of those fair/bair kills. I think that's Sheik's strongest untapped potential and maybe even biggest in the game.

Yes!!! The way I look at it, Zelda can be played exactly like jigglypuff, campy with a lot of timing mixups. And if things start to go south, transform into good moves: the character. Imo, m2k really hurt the Zelda metagame by trashtalking her so much. If someone as good as hbox mained her, who knows what the tier list would look like. Rip Cosmo...

 

[-ACE-]

I'll give these questions a shot.

1. Which characters require the most variation between matchups? Do they require secondaries at high level (opinion)?

There are definitely characters that require the ability to drastically change your strategy, but the necessity for a secondary character matters more on how bad the matchup is at top level. The words "require" and "necessity" are strong words though, and many players will have an easier time using a secondary than they will adapting to certain characters/playstyles due to their natural habits/personalities/etc.

Although Marth plays several floaties the same general way, he certainly has to play differently vs Fox, Falco, Climbers, Falcon, Sheik, Ganon, etc. So he's up there. His punish game is much different for floaties as opposed to fastfallers and the amount of effort that has to go into his neutral game varies from character to character.

Falcon also. He has to play much more patiently against characters that can contest or counter his approach (Marth), and in some matchups it's better to go in and pressure hard (Climbers). Marth's dash away does a great job of avoiding Falcon's nair as his head and upper body is tilted forward, avoiding the hitboxes at head-height. Just an example of little things he has to respect.

Guess I'd have to go with those 2. Both have good general matchup spreads but not many of their matchups are a cake-walk (especially for Falcon). So I don't think either really "need" a secondary, although it could be the most optimal choice for some marth/falcon mains.

2. Which characters can see the most success while relying on one general strategy?

As touched on in the OP, I believe IC's can get extremely far with the simple "respect your opponent and fish for a grab technique" (they obviously use other things too, abuse of uair/bair/utilt etc). In today's meta it seems as if peach is essentially forcing many IC mains to pick up a secondary, but this could change.

Although this is a bit if an oversimplification, I think Falco can see a lot of success through one general strategy. Historically this is much more true than it is now, but I still think his laser and combo game is still fairly flowchart-ish. He's also probably the best character for constantly attacking and making it work out, although you have to go about it the right way. Edgeguarding is also fairly straightforward imo.


3. What can be done to address this issue in-game (big one)?

It's certainly difficult for some characters/players to play optimally every set when they may face 10 different characters/players in pools/bracket at a national. There are general things that are a must to remember as well as specifics, regarding neutral, combos, DI, etc. Most people don't have access to enough players to get ample training for each matchup they encounter, and even if they do, they may not be prepared for certain play styles (even if you do fairly well vs high-level aggressive Falcos, it may not be enough to prepare you for someone like Zanguzen). To combat this, some people take and review notes, some people try to get practice in the matchup before tournament matches, some theorize heavily, some people watch YouTube videos of their opponent (if possible), some ask high level players questions about specific matchups and scenarios, and some just wing it. It can be difficult not to just "go through the motions" when it counts (as habits are habits), especially when tourney nerves and frustration come into play. It's hard to say what the best mental strategy is, and what is "best" will vary from person to person. I believe though, the most important thing is keeping a good mindset. Frustration is probably the biggest thing that causes a player's focus to diminish imo. So I guess my answer would involve some kind of mental strategy that doesn't allow your mistakes to hinder the way you play from that point forward. It's better to laugh at your mistakes, remain confident, and not get intimidated.


4.Which players have best conquered this issue?

Although mango may be the best for keeping a good mentality and not getting "shook", I feel the need to mention players that are true solo mains, not just for characters but for every play style they encounter. So hungrybox is certainly up there. I also feel the need to mention s2j and sfat. I really think s2j knows how to play matchups very well despite seemingly mostly playing so instinctually. I also think it's fair to say that falcon has more trouble mastering all matchups than does jigglypuff. I also think sfat has done extremely well in a variety of matchups, which to me speaks volumes as fox has so many options (lots of decision making has to be made). And almost everyone knows how to fight Fox.

5. What characters are the most untapped?

Honestly, I think maybe Doc. I haven't seen a single doc main truly exploit his chaingrab on spaceys/falcon/sheik to the absolute max, or use really good mixups out of uthrow (wd into dsmash, pivot usmash/utilt to kill DI options, etc). He also has a decent matchup in jiggs which means a lot. He's not high tier, and sheik/Marth are tough (not to mention top spaceys), but he is in a big low period right now, and aside from shroomed (whose punish game was slightly lacking despite his general level of mastery imo) no one has ever really made waves with him in the recent meta.

Well, these are hard questions to answer and I'm sure I forgot things, but I gave it a shot. I really just wanted to shed light on this issue and perhaps get some people thinking in the right direction towards minimizing it.