@Xdeath: You just pick unsafe stuff a lot lol. Like watch the video, and watch how many times RedHalberd does nothing but just sit there and wait, then punishes the option you picked. Like at 0:10. He was fairing in a position where you couldn't really just run up and dash grab him. He sees that you pick an attack that doesn't work against the option he chose (he may've had that in mind when he chose the option, he may not have. But either way, he had like all of your dash options covered at that spacing with grounded tilts lol).
Then he dash attacked you, and sat there in his shield an waited for whatever option you'd choose. If you air dodged, he could've naired (assuming he times it right. It's possible he may not have, but it's still a potential followup that's based on technical stuff (IE not ****ing up something that he shouldn't). If you daired (which you did) he could nair you and put you in a bad position. If you'd double jumped he wouldn't have had any technically guaranteed on reaction (and I'm being totally practical when I say guaranteed on reaction, I think) followups from the option he'd chosen. You could've fallen and uair'd, then buffered an Froll or something, which, actually, might've beaten his shield option, but he always has the option of doing a nair earlier (which can still beat both your air dodge and dair options), so he had your **** COVERED.
Then immediately after, look at the position that he put himself in. You landed almost off stage, and he dashed up and waited in a position where he could punish like all of your getup options on reaction (except normal getup and back roll, maybe).
You recover really smart with your tornado, imo. Although be weary of being predictable with it. You kinda were, but he wasn't punishing it a lot, so idk whether you were being smart and picking an option over and over again because he wasn't covering it, or whether you were just picking a good option and hadn't noticed that it was kinda predictable. It worked for you, but again, just be aware that it may get predictable if you hadn't noticed it.
Just from watching, I'm noticing that you're getting waaaay out-comboed. Each of his hits is counting for way more than yours, because he's dealing a lot more damage at the advantaged position than you are, even if you're going kinda even with him at the neutral position. Work on your followup game, I'd say. He was tearing you apart with his.
When he was gliding at you below the stage, why'd you nair? I can't even think of what option that nair at that spacing and timing would've covered lol. Maybe it was a technical error on your part, but I thought you should know that that looks like a dumb option, and it got you killed lol.
I don't have time to say more. But what I noticed is that he was covering your options after landing a hit, or you gave up stage control REALLY well. I mean after you landed on that platform right after taking his second stock, and he was below you, you took 65% just from him staying in spots where you can't hit him, and he can poke at you safely.
And I think a good example of you getting baited (he did it a lot, but this one you can see him literally waiting for you to do something) is at 1:22ish when he lands on the stage, and you fsmash, then Dtilt, and he just stands there, then dash attacks RIGHT after seeing you Dtilt. It wasn't his safest bait, imo, but it's a REALLY visible one lol
maybe I'm dead wrong, but you wanted critique and those are the things I noticed most (you were picking unsafe stuff, and he was just waiting it out/baiting it, then ****ING YOU UP with followups)
This is all stuff I noticed from the first two and a half minutes, though. You might've changed up and played better later on, didn't get the chance to closely look at and write down what I noticed for the last minute of it.
Table, just out of curiosity, how do we lose options when we are in the air, off stage? I would think you actually get a lot MORE options in that case, since most people seem to be drawn to counter only set recovery moves (like SL and nado). You can bait an edgegaurd/gimp "attempt" and punish with jump+F/Bair if they think you are going to SL (which usually means they spotdodge), you can grab the ledge and invincinair if they think you are going to nado (since that seems to draw aerials so people can get in their spikes and dairs), or you can drop below and RSL-cancel into grabs/another SL/nado/SH nair/ shield, or any number of things.
If you bait a REALLY laggy attack, DC behind them + grab, and you've completely shifted the odds.
It just seems like you aren't taking into consideration just how much of a mind**** we can cause with our off-stage approaches. Or did I read that whole thing wrong? o.O
EDIT: Be aware, MAJOR TL;DR ahead, and most if it is nonsense and rambling. But I thought it'd thoroughly explain what I meant to Grump, why it's bad, and give an idea for how you can exploit that bad position in other players.
For one, I'm assuming people that don't do stupid stuff like do REALLY laggy stuff while you're offstage, and safely bait YOU to do laggy stuff with their very unlaggy safe things (shield beats out all your aerials, and has less lag than them, too, and comes out faster).
Yeah if the person is dumb enough to just JUMP OFF STAGE AT THE BEST GIMPER IN THE GAME (or if there's not a ledgegrab limit and their only option is to jump at you, but I'm assuming an LGL) then, sure, being offstage is fine. But in our metagame we have a ledgegrab limit (and I doubt there'll be many tournaments without one after SiiS lol), and we aren't able to stay on the ledge forever. We have to get off eventually (assume that we haven't run the time way down. Basically MK is in a bad position when he's on the ledge if he has to get off at some point, he only really thrives there if he never needs to get off of the ledge), and it's very difficult to get on stage against certain characters if they cover our aerial options with their safer, less laggy grounded options.
I mean... if they just stand there at a range where your ledge drop > fair can be shielded on reaction, what options do you have on the ledge against someone who is waiting for YOU to do something laggy?
It's not an auto-lose position, but you have very few options that aren't countered on reaction, and the ones that aren't usually have you in a disadvantaged position where you're beaten out by a lot anyways.
And RSLing people who are on stage and ready to shield is just ASKING to get punished. I mean it's a mixup, sure, but it's risky as **** because it can be covered EASILY, and without risk.
We lose options because we don't have access to our grounded options. If we're standing on the ground, we have the option to shield, spot dodge, roll, grab, tilts, jab, smashes, walk, dash, and jump.
Shield leaves spot dodge, roll, grab, and jump immediately open, along with all of your other options being a bit slower (only like 7 frames slower, which is significant, but it's faster than anyone's reaction time, so it's not HORRIBLE), but still doable. And it covers a lot of options (or atleast it can depending on the spacing)
Spot dodge is laggy and committing to something. Once you've spot dodged, you can't do anything until it ends, and it's really laggy, so if someone outwaits (waiting is pretty damn safe, since you still have access to all of your options) it, then they get a punish on reaction. Spot dodge is good if you predict something that spot dodge beats, but otherwise, your opponent can bait it by simply waiting (which they can do to a lot of your moveset, including jumping, going offstage, etc).
Roll is like spot dodge, but less invincibility, faster (IIRC anyways. Maybe not lol), good for crossups or getting out of a tough situation (back roll is pretty damn safe, because your opponent has to practically read it, because it covers a lot of distance in a short time, and the majority of your opponents options don't cover it), but you can't back roll forever)
Walking leaves all of the options open that you have while standing, but you're changing position.
Dashing, however, LIMITS options, and gives you 2 new ones, along with different spacing control. You can't shield immediately after dashing, you can't use tilts, or smash attacks, either. Once you dash, you've just gotten rid of attacks -- or options -- that your opponent has to think about and cover. Your opponent not only has to spend less focus to try and read you, he has a higher chance of throwing out something that beats your options because he simply has more of them (well, okay, in most scenarios this is true. I mean sometimes staying in the air to dair camp, even though you have limited options, the option is so good that it out-weighs the loss of inferior options. But let's just say this is the ditto). His old gameplan of walking forward and shielding is no longer necessary to cover your godly tilts because you can't use them anymore. So he can try options that beat the highest amount of remaining options that you have.
Jumping is a bit different in that it gives you a large amount of options, like nair, fair, dair, uair, and aerial shuttle loop are all different options than you had previously, but you lose your tilts, smashes, and grab (your only thing that outright beats shields, and has huge followup potential). You can get those options back, but you have to predictably, and slowly, get back to the ground to use them.
All of that is stuff that you already know innately. But the major thing is that you can jump WHILE grounded. You can give yourself access to all of your options from a walk, or a stand still position. If you see something that is best responded to by jumping, you can jump while grounded, and you only lose FIVE frames (IIRC that's how long it takes MK to jump anyways), and all of your aerials STILL come out faster than reaction when buffered from a jump. Whereas getting from the air to the ground takes much longer, and limits your options for a longer period of time. Not to say that going from the air to the ground and doing something grounded isn't a fine option at times, but once you're in the air (depending drastically on your spacing) you now have like 6 options (and most of which don't work in every situation. Usually only like 2-3 are good options in any given aerial situation).
Compare that to being grounded where you can commit yourself to a TON of different options, at ANY time you choose. And your opponent KNOWS this, and has to base his decisions on ruling out what you can do from a ton of different options. Shield (which you can still do aerials out of that are all faster than reaction, along with shield drop which isn't THAT laggy), spot dodge, and Roll can all work in a lot of situations if you're spacing well.
You get the general idea. You simply have MORE options while grounded than in the air, because you can choose virtually any of your options at any time.
I probably rambled on too much about stuff that you already know, but with those things established, it's a lot easier to explain why being on the ledge is a bad position in a lot of scenarios, assuming your opponent isn't playing really risky, and is playing relatively safe (along with assuming that you're not attempting to time your opponent out by planking).
If you short hop, you lose your grounded options until you hit the ground and suffer landing lag (small, unless you're covering yourself with an aerial near the ground). If you're grounded, you always have the option of short hopping and using an aerial.
Out of a short hop, this isn't a very big commitment; because it doesn't take long to hit the ground. Out of a full hop, if your opponent is grounded you likely have less options just because of where your hitboxes can be in relation to your opponent (like you're a bit too high at full hop position for hitting most opponents with most attacks lol). And it takes significantly longer to land on the ground.
But now think about when you're on the ledge, and you need to get off. You need to land ON the stage to even THREATEN your opponent with your grounded attacks. Combine that with someone who spaces themselves (and has practiced enough to do stuff like shield/PS getup attack on reaction (it's honestly pretty practical to be able to shield or perfect shield it on reaction. It's like 20 frames or something ******** like that, and shield comes out on frame 1. I can personally do it consistently, no matter the timing, nor what's going on around me (unless something really distracting like lesbian porn is on another TV or something) with very little practice) in a position where they can, by waiting, potentially punish your ledge roll, ledge getup, getup attack, ledge hop fair, and your own waiting below the stage JUST ON REACTION.
Ledge hop fair might be impractical to cover on reaction to an extent, but it's pretty practical for someone to hit the shield button (at 0 risk because you can't punish it) when you're at the spacing where a ledge hop fair to be an option, and punish it if you get onto the stage while using it, and be completely safe if you don't.
Again, it's not an auto-lose position, but it's a ****ing sucky one because you have less options available to you, and there are more options that your opponent can cover on reaction due to the position in question.
The mindgames you talk about are mindgames that are present in every single situation in the game. But in situations like this particular one, your mixups and mindgames are far easier to stop with very safe options than they are at a position where, for instance, you've pressured your opponent into being on the ledge, or just a simple neutral position.
Of course this is just baaaarely scratching the surface, y'know? There's a lot more to it than this, and a lot of what I'm talking about changes depending on the situation, and MOST players will not pressure you well while you're offstage. But it's good to know that they can; because it's something you can do back to them (this is something that MK can do to like every character in the game when they're off stage lol, but they can't all do it nearly as effectively to MK), and you don't want to be completely ***** by people who do know about it.
I know that personally this stuff has made a really big difference on my game, and it makes sense, so I think it might be right. But I'm bad, so I could be COMPLETELY wrong. And sorry for writing so much about stuff that you all likely already get lol. Although this was mostly just in response to Grump, and I kinda thought I needed to go through everything so I could explain it in depth more.
TL;DR: Yes, it's a bad position that limits options in most scenarios against players who know how to exploit it lol.
EDIT: Hell look in that match of XDeath vs RedHalberd. You can see RedHalberd exploiting the **** out of XDeath's stage habits. Or atleast that's my first impression of the video. Look at how often RedHalberd just waits there like a full Ftilt away from the ledge. Good use of stage control can be seen at 1:03, again a few moments later at like 1:12 with his waiting below the platforms, but staying more in the center than XDeath, so that if he gets a hit, Xdeath is either offstage or up in the air (and it worked. Xdeath got hit offstage, and RedHalberd waiting below the stage to punish recovery. Xdeath tornado'd, and Red had a badly drawn out tornado covered (basically Xdeath let it go on too long, and RedHalberd waited and had that option covered so that he can punish on reaction, which he did with a Dthrow, then walked forward and waiting a full Ftilt's distance away from Xdeath. In a position where he was able to punish Xdeath's tech on reaction, and do a followup which sent Xdeath off stage. Where did ALL of this start from? Smart option coverage at 1:03, and 1:12 giving RedHalberd a positional advantage, and a spot where he could punish Xdeath's options on reaction (which he did multiple times. A lot of his followups weren't reading, just reacting to the slow options that Xdeath had (and that RedHalberd kinda forced him into having)).
Another clear example of stage control is at 1:34, where he got onto the stage and just shielded. What options did Xdeath have in that scenario? He could've stayed below the stage and uair'd Red's shield (although if he misspaced one, Red could've GSL'd it OoS on reaction), which would've been pretty safe actually. Although Red could've also safely Frolled and been in a safe position to pressure him harder. Xdeath could've SL'd (which he did, and it was baited and beaten on reaction, and then lead to 51% of damage ALL dealt from covering Xdeath's options on reaction (the tornado was covered on reaction plus the 39% uair string), combined with the stage control he STILL had after all that damage. It's not like Xdeath took 51% and then the situation was reset. He took 51% from RedHalberd just picking an option that safely covered all of Xdeath's options (he couldn't have air dodged to grab because of RedHalberd's spacing), AND the situation was just as bad as it was before. That damage was JUST because of option coverage due to Xdeath having limited options and Red not needing a hard read, just picking his safe option that could **** up a lot of Xdeath's options). He could've done a falling aerial, which would've been kinda safe, but he still would've been in a super ****ty position.
At 2:11 you can see it again. It's practically the same situation as when he covered Xdeath's platform options the last time and it lead to a ****load of damage, but this time Red does it even better (look at how he dashes from Xdeath being between him and the center, to being closer to the center (because when you're closer to the center, all of your attacks hit them AWAY from the center, instead of potentially towards it. It's just more options covered) and does platform pressure) and spaces his **** really well, and it leads to Xdeath being off stage. I mean once Xdeath landed on that platform, and RedHalberd beforehand (while Xdeath was in the air) made the smart, and completely unpunishable, choice to dash closer to the center than Xdeath, Xdeath had practically no options other than push himself away from the center, and the options that could've done that may've been covered on reaction (atleast to the extent that he would still be pressured even after rolling to the left of the platform).
You get the idea I'm sure. Although, again, I may've been completely misreading what Red was doing there, but even if it was unintentional, that's the effect that those particular movements and options he chose had.
Sorry 'bout all the rambling and TL;DR and typos (since I pretty much just wrote down what came to mind and didn't rewrite really any of it), tried my best
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