Tips on maining random

[Kulty]

Hi people,

While my signature says that I solo main, Smash 4 is probably the only game along with maybe 64 (not sure) in the Smash Bros. franchise that I love to play almost the entire cast. In Melee, I only enjoyed around half of the characters, while in Brawl, I hate most of the cast due to how badly designed the characters are with very few exceptions. Luckily in Smash 4, I enjoy 46 characters out of 55 (not including Mii fighters since they're not part of the ''random'' button). While I may not be very good or enjoy all of them the same way as some other fighters, there's at least one thing that I enjoy through these 46 characters that makes me want to play and learn them. So for those of you who main random, I want to have some feedback based on how I proceed to play random:

Spoiler: How I play ''random''

I created a personal tier list based on how much I enjoy the 46 characters (order doesn't matter in that case). Here's the tier list if you are curious:

Spoiler: Personal tier list

• Main (S):
• Favorites to play of random (A):
• Other favorites (B):
• Interested in learning (C):
• Fun, but I rarely use them (D):
• The ones that I didn't mention are characters that I'm personally not interested in learning or just personally dislike them (sorry but that's just me. I don't want to offend you guys. That's from my experience of the game)

After I finished my Mario training, based on that tier list, I choose 4 other characters to learn per day (1 character from A tier and 3 random characters on B, C and D tiers). What I usually learn from these characters is to practice basic fundamentals and techniques (fast fall, B-reverse, RAR, etc.), basic combo starters and kill confirms along with learning their MUs against my main Mario. I don't practice for that long with them (max 10 minutes per character), because I mainly want to focus on Mario. Usually it's better to be proficient with one character if you want to improve faster at the game, but I also feel it's important to learn every character to understand matchups and just have fun and variety.

Do you guys have any other tips on how I should play the ''random'' button?
How can I learn the 9 characters (that I don't like or not interested) without playing them?
Let me know and I would love to be proficient or at least decent with all the 45 characters aside Mario. I know it's crazy and it does hurt player development, but I am really interested in learning all of them.

 

[MarioManTAW]

You put twice.

So the characters you're not interested in are . I notice of those, at least and maybe are all notorious for requiring a lot more effort to play effectively (a mixture between extra thought, like is required to effectively use 's aura/'s can/'s Pikmin, and tech skill).
Let me ask you a question. Are you wanting to actually choose the Random button, or are you just wanting to have lots of characters to choose from?

 

[Kulty]

You put twice.

So the characters you're not interested in are . I notice of those, at least and maybe are all notorious for requiring a lot more effort to play effectively (a mixture between extra thought, like is required to effectively use 's aura/'s can/'s Pikmin, and tech skill).
Let me ask you a question. Are you wanting to actually choose the Random button, or are you just wanting to have lots of characters to choose from?

Oh my bad. Just fixed it. Yeah true, but the amount of skill acquired did not affect how I appreciate a character ( as ex.). I'm just not a fan of how they are designed as fighters and I just personally don't enjoy them or I'm just not interested in them. It's just that. While I appreciate that you noticed that, it did not affect my choices at all. In fact, I didn't even thought of that in the first place.

Anyways, to answer your question, it's a bit hard to properly describe what I want exactly. On one hand, I prefer solo maining and not counterpicking, so I just playin tournaments and ''random'' for friendlies (no secondaries at all). My main goal in Smash is to optimize the one character I absolutely love and want to master. On the other hand, it's just that I really like to play all the 46 characters I've mentioned. I feel that if I play almost every single character in the game, it will allow me to understand the game in an another perspective compared to if I just played Mario. When I play almost every character, I get to understand the different objectives in neutral, their frame data for each of them and their different matchups. Most importantly, it allows me to learn how to play a certain MU as Mario against X fighter. So in short, I don't plan to choose random in tournaments. I just want to learn at least the basics and some advanced tech of almost every character in the game, because I enjoy how they play and how they're designed. Even if I were to have all these characters, I won't be capable of optimizing all of them and I generally am not a fan of counterpicking. Hope that answers your question. I know it's a bit hard and long to explain, but that's the best response I can give you.

 

[MarioManTAW]

Oh my bad. Just fixed it. Yeah true, but the amount of skill acquired did not affect how I appreciate a character ( as ex.). I'm just not a fan of how they are designed as fighters and I just personally don't enjoy them or I'm just not interested in them. It's just that. While I appreciate that you noticed that, it did not affect my choices at all. In fact, I didn't even thought of that in the first place.

Anyways, to answer your question, it's a bit hard to properly describe what I want exactly. On one hand, I prefer solo maining and not counterpicking, so I just playin tournaments and ''random'' for friendlies (no secondaries at all). My main goal in Smash is to optimize the one character I absolutely love and want to master. On the other hand, it's just that I really like to play all the 46 characters I've mentioned. I feel that if I play almost every single character in the game, it will allow me to understand the game in an another perspective compared to if I just played Mario. When I play almost every character, I get to understand the different objectives in neutral, their frame data for each of them and their different matchups. Most importantly, it allows me to learn how to play a certain MU as Mario against X fighter. So in short, I don't plan to choose random in tournaments. I just want to learn at least the basics and some advanced tech of almost every character in the game, because I enjoy how they play and how they're designed. Even if I were to have all these characters, I won't be capable of optimizing all of them and I generally am not a fan of counterpicking. Hope that answers your question. I know it's a bit hard and long to explain, but that's the best response I can give you.

Okay. I think if you just want to know them to learn the matchup, playing against them should be adequate. If you do want to play random though, even if only for friendlies, there is a good chance you will have to play some of those characters (especially ).

 

[Kulty]

Okay. I think if you just want to know them to learn the matchup, playing against them should be adequate. If you do want to play random though, even if only for friendlies, there is a good chance you will have to play some of those characters (especially ).

Yeah & unfortunately, (no insult towards these two, but that's from my experience of the game) happen to be my least favorite characters in the game, but I guess that's the disadvantage of random. Sometimes, you get the best character and others, you get the worst character. However, I still like random in friendlies and plus, I have 9 chances out of 55 that I fall on to a character that I don't like. So I guess it should be okay then since the risk of falling into them is minimal. It's like my main focus iswhile my ''friendlies'' secondary is ''random'' if that makes sense.

 

[MarioManTAW]

Yeah & unfortunately, (no insult towards these two, but that's from my experience of the game) happen to be my least favorite characters in the game, but I guess that's the disadvantage of random. Sometimes, you get the best character and others, you get the worst character. However, I still like random in friendlies and plus, I have 9 chances out of 55 that I fall on to a character that I don't like. So I guess it should be okay then since the risk of falling into them is minimal. It's like my main focus iswhile my ''friendlies'' secondary is ''random'' if that makes sense.

The thing is, I think the random button is designed to pick more frequently the characters who are picked less frequently. If the characters you don't want to play happen to be popular, then you may be okay, but in your case, they're not, with the exception of and sometimes . happens to be one of the least played characters, and as such is one of the most common to appear in Random.

 

[Kulty]

The thing is, I think the random button is designed to pick more frequently the characters who are picked less frequently. If the characters you don't want to play happen to be popular, then you may be okay, but in your case, they're not, with the exception of and sometimes . happens to be one of the least played characters, and as such is one of the most common to appear in Random.

Yeah and that's really unfortunate. What I thought on how ''Random'' works in Smash 4 is that they completely choose the character by pure random. It doesn't matter the amount of times you pick a character often or you rarely play them. I thought that every character has roughly an equal chance of getting chosen from ''random'', but maybe I am wrong. I don't know to be perfectly honest. If you happen to be right and that is proven, then I may just consider focusing on Mario only and drop ''Random''.