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Why are mindgames viewed as more important than technical skill?

Hylian

Not even death can save you from me
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That's like, every pro, with very few exceptions... >_>
Thats because they realize they being good at both is beneficial, rather then just bashing people who have good techskill.
 

theGreatDekuTree

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"mind games" that phrase is thrown around too much like a game of frisbee, its ridiculous, kids think if they say "omgz mi mindgamez r awesum" itll make them some pro

"mindgames" is just a dumb term to begin with, it shouldnt be a term, it should be an individual technique, thats like saying "thinking" is a technique...
 

Pierce7d

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i'm pretty disappointed that the first post in this topic wasn't "tech skill is useless if you wavedash right into my FALCON PAWNCH"
ROFL!!!

All I can really contribute to this is that for all of those that like to give examples of how mind games > tech skill because they were able to beat a technically superior player early in their smash career, I'd like to point out that I'm sure there are 10 examples to the contrary. Sometimes, opponents' minds are on the same level, and then it comes down to tech skill. My mind games are awesome, but I still get thrashed at tourneys for the simple fact that my Tech Skill is garbage compared to most good players out there. While I can beat all my friends, and I know the game, I haven't been enlightened about the deeper technical elements of smash for more than a year, so I lose, because I lack practice and experience. My mind games have been developing since I started playing smash when it first came out, but I lose due to less technical skill.

When you take a pool of players with nearly maxed out tech skill (aka Pros), then naturally Mind Games seem more important. But if it's you vs. me, then it's probably not really going to be about the mind games as much as the tech skill.
 

?!?

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lol I remember when I used to say that too."when 2 players have the same mind level it comes down to tech skillz" there will never be players with the same smartness level who ever figures out their opponents tactics wins. tech skillz has nothing to do with anything in smash tourney wise. the smarter one always wins
 

S2

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Tech skill is your tools
Mind games are how you use them

Without tech skills your mindgames will always be limited, but your tech skills will only bring you so far if you don't play smart.

Just don't start the argument of which is more important - they are both important and there is no way of measuring which one is more valuable.
 

?!?

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yea thats what I meant. but yea its true tech skillz is your tool and your mind is how you use them and whoever uses them in the right in other words use the right tactic to counter our opponent wins. whoever adapts the fastest wins whoever figures thier opponent out wins. in the end it all comes out to adapting. in other words experience.
 

DoH

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the reason "mindgames" are so important is that there are 1200 foxes out there that can waveshine. 1185 of them are terrible.
 

-Hoggle-

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A lot of characters don't even require a whole lot of technical skill but they are still good. So I would agree that mind games > tech skill, but you still need to have both in order to be amazing.
 

Sensei

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IMO, playing smart and tech skill are equally important. Mindgames comes second. The reason I believe this is because from a logical point of view, you would want to play in way that results in the best outcome for yourself with minimal risk, which means playing smart. However, having good tech skill helps you achieve this since you must have full control over your character, otherwise you are not playing smart to your potential. The reason mindgames falls behind this is because mindgames relies on prediction, psyching out your oppenent, etc but this is not always guaranteed it will work. If you can overwhelm your opponent by limiting their options and creating the best results, then you will have a higher chance on winning. This is especially true for higher tier characters that are faster and can "shower" down their opponents with attacks and tech skill. Lower tier characters require a little more mindgames but playing smart and having good tech skill are still relatively more important.
 

SqueakyMetal

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i think i got a good example of mind games > tech skills
out of ever1 at my school, im 1 of the only ones who browses the smash boards.(there's gotta be some1 else near me....i just havent found them yet)
so any tech skill they know is limited to the stuff i tell them, but there is a kid at my school with alot of expirence who doesn't care much for tech skills.
He thought that i was totally gonna destroy him, but the matches we played were close...(really close)

When he asked me y i didn't use the tech stuff to much i replied..
"well i may have mastered them in training mode, but i still don't know the best way to use them against a human player that constantly changes his strategy."

So basically, becuase my mind games weren't good enough, i couldn't use the tech skills to help me much. If your oppenent can think fast enough to see your SHFL attack coming then he isn't going to run into the attack, even if he can't use SHFL, wavedash, or l-cancel
 

spacemanspiff

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way too many posts to read through so sorry if you've heard this a million times already. but no matter how good you are at technical stuff, if your predictable you'll be countered every time by someone with good mind games. like lets say you can shffl with the best of them. perfect knees l-cancelled every time with CF. thats great. you'll get a ko or two just from that knowledge. but if all you do is jump in with the knee you'll get sheild grabbed every time. you gotta switch it up so the opponent never knows what your going to do. the perfect character to watch videos of for mind games is sheik as they are essential for her mmove set to be useful in competative play. hope this helps
 

g-regulate

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bottom line is, if you wanna get good, then just watch vids of pros, and emulate what they do. then go to tourneys all the time and play the best people there. if they wont play you, money match them. play with them as much as possible and you will eventually understand everything about the game.
 

g-regulate

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doing these things will improve your tech skill and mindgames, so you dont need to ask people on the boards about them, youll just know.
 

greenblob

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It is written: Tech skill without mindgames is blind. Mindgames without tech skill is lame. (Isai Chapter 13 Verse 37)
 

tutata

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Samus is a good example of a character that a person needs to have real good mind games with. She dosent have real big combos and you have to find new way to trick your opponent. The greatest mind will always end up winning.
 

SiegKnight

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Mindgames is a stupid name for it which will confuse new people and make them feel like they're missing an aspect of the game they can't understand. Just call it prediction. Thats something everyone can understand. If someone always follows a certain pattern of movement and attacks in a 2D fighter - eg spamming smashes - then do what punishes that predictability - eg, fast moves which work around Smashes, or a counter in the time frame they usually spam them smashes if you're Marth or something.

Prediction, reading enemies styles, thats what the community should present it as. Easier to understand, then. You don't need to do it generally until an enemy is owning you, but in a very uniform way that could benefit from being countered. If they can own you even after you render their current fighting style useless, well, then they're a better play than it looked like and you're gonna have to predict that too or else you'll get killed.

Theres nothing stating you can't play purely off your reaction times if you make sure everything you do is hard to counter and that your enemy isn't the type to predict your movements easy.

Thats why predicting is as important as combo knowledge and technical skill. When you predict someone, you want to punish them by seeing two steps ahead with a counter move before they predictably do what you, well, predicted, aye? Punishing works much better with technical skill as you can punish for higher damage, and thus win easier.

You can however over predict. Its when in simple games like Pokemon you're vs a fire type, have a water type out and expect them to switch to an electric type as its logical for them to; but they out thought you, and instead kept their fire type out even though you switched to a grass type to weaken electric moves. Pokemon takes up your turn to switch and you can't see what they're gonna switch to before they do it, so you have to predict, mhmm?

Smash and other fighters follow this mechanic of prediction but more loosely. If they're spamming shield grabbable moves vs you, shield grab them. If they're spamming them at you as they need to, but are variating between unshield grabbable moves to make it harder, then you're gonna whiff grabs at the air. If you over predict and wait for an unshield grabbable move, they can take advantage if they're smart or really oblivious to 'mindgames' and prediction by spamming you with shield grabbable moves when they need to.

Very loose example and theres probably more choices in that situation, but its an example.
 

RevN

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Mind Games can change the game around, while being technical can cause you to fall for stupid sh*t. It depends on the character your using.
 

Aberu

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Technical skill can be cold and calculated.

Mindgames are warm and creative.

Each are not more important than the other. After competing in Red Alert 2, DotA, CS, and KoF at various lower end tourneys and online ladders/leagues, I can say that Metagame/Mindgames (which in DotA those terms are not synonymous but I realize in a lot of communities they are for some reason) in my experience need to be used hand in hand, as per the discretion of your instinct and attack, with your techniques and skill.

If you coldly calculate everything in Football, Patriots should win. Instead mindgames were played, and the Giants kept harassing the mildly injured QB to keep his throws shorter and more reserved. His conservative play allowed the Giants to bring the game into their defensive pace, bringing them on an even playing field, even though in all respects the Patriots are about the best team ever in NFL history, they can still lose. In any type of competition, the unpredictableness of the human factor, the upset, luck, all exist to a degree, and taking them out completely or trying to for yourself ends in failure.
 
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