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I, uh, literally can't watch that. Like, there are so few frames both of you are just teleporting around a bunch. I have to use the sound to try and guess at what's happening. I'm sorry =(
Yeah, I know, the quality is abysmal, but there's not much I can do about that. I was trying to make sense of it myself and having great difficulty. I'll see what I can do in terms of finding a watchable segment.
Yeah, the relaxation thing is a big issue of mine. I know I really need to work on my patience in neutral (I think it's one of my weakest traits right now). I'm happy that you pointed it out because it's something that I often forget to consider when I play. There are these times when I'll just feel on edge, especially when playing against heavy pressure, which makes me speed up my APM where I should really just take it slow and easy. I make the mistake of letting my opponent dictate the pace of the game, forgetting that I have the ability to slow things down of my own accord.
Slowing down has the added benefit of giving you the presence of mind to read your opponent's patterns. Since it is such a difficult MU, I would argue the best thing to do is play the player, not the MU. As such, I would recommend using your first actions as a means of testing your opponent. Whether its placing a Dins and seeing if they are afraid/dismissive/ignorant of it or teleporting and seeing where they expect you to go (while conditioning them to expect that movement in the future), picking a safe but "aggressive" option and seeing how they respond can do wonders for your game, especially on the first game.
Good stuff. I can always use some advice on fundamentals and on the mental game. I have most of my tech skill down, but since I've only been playing competitively since late September (i.e. less than a year), I don't have that great of an intuition for some of the more mental aspects of Smash yet. There are many cases where I know what I should be doing in a logical sense (either in retrospect or while theorycrafting), but I fail at the execution because I react poorly while in the moment, where it really matters. I think I need more experience playing against better players.
Better players play smarter, and outguessing a Chimpanzee is hard because not even he knows what choice he'll make!
I'm pretty good with my punish game once I get going, but I often have trouble converting into a good punish, so I really appreciate your description of how to "test" a player's reactions in neutral. It's something I often forget to do; most of my practice is against one training partner, and I know for the most part how he will react already, so we typically skip the step of feeling each other out when we play. It's nice having someone who's always around for a few games, since it means I don't have to rely on beating up computers to lab things out, but it's also conditioned me to deal with only a single playstyle (with some variations), so I sometimes choke when exposed to something new since I don't have a good grasp on how to scan for weaknesses on the fly, as demonstrated here. Because of how badly I felt like I was playing, I was actually reluctant to post this match for critique at first, since it didn't highlight any of the things I'm usually good at, but I'm happy I posted it, since it establishes a baseline for my gameplay at its worst, where my flaws are most obvious and pronounced. This makes it easier to evaluate exactly what they are and how I can go about fixing them.
I think your movement was decent, but you used waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too many LKs. They are a good move, but Fox can get between them so they aren't safe at all, and you were using them so much it was predictable. Generally (and especially against fastfallers), you want to try and lift your opponents into the air so they lose their defensive options and you can combo them. This means grabs, ftilt, and upsmash usually, but sometimes Dins, uptilt, and dair work too.
I really like your play style with Zelda, as I can learn a few things from your matches. For me, Zelda requires a lotta concentration to play effectively as well as precise timing to speed up my games, but during mid matches, I always seem to burn out, and in return, the tables always turn on me. My vids are coming soon, though.
A few things I noticed:
Thanks. The parts where I got stuck on a platform above Marth were simultaneously input errors and me used to playing a much better Marth and countering his playstyle by habit. I've lost to Marths that arent as good simply because they have a different style, so I have to do the thing I suggested to you, wait and watch. I did it a little here but I was still dropping inputs everywhere so it doesn't show. The same thing happened with setting a Din against Falcon. From playing with better Captain Falcons, I found times in their play where I could set a Din even in neutral, and I tried to do that here. This particular Falcon didn't choose the commitments that made Dins safe and I also screwed up my timing of it, so I got punished. Same with the tilts. Normally I techchase with grab but again, input error. Blech, it was a bad day.
Oh, thanks! I'm not really sure what that playstyle is, though, as I try to mix it up between all playstyles to keep things unpredictable and adapt to my opponent. Elaborating on what you think that playstyle is will help me notice patterns in my play, which is something I want to work on.
I can watch more later if you want, but I only had time to watch the Marth matches in winners. If you fixed these points in losers, disregard them. As usual, I will only talk about vague gameplans and such, as you can obviously see when a move was unsafe by the fact that you got punished, etc.
Haha, that's really good for a 3:30 am analysis. Much appreciated.
Something I noticed against Marth (at least in your first set, not sure if you adjusted the second set cause I didn't watch it) was that when you were near one of the ledges and getting grabbed, you would DI in toward the stage. It seems counter productive at first but you'd be better off to DI down and offstage especially at higher percents. While this doesn't put you in the most favorable position, it's much better than giving him a guaranteed spike. By DI'ing offstage you remove that follow up. Other than that I thought your combos were fine. I liked your use of pivot grabs in general. Something I like to do is forward throw my opponent offstage and see how they DI. If they know to DI away, I would then revert back to the pivot grabs. But if they DI f-throw in, that should be a guaranteed kick to the face (unless they're at really high percent =D)
DI is definitely something I need to work on in the Marth MU. Thanks for the advice.
Ok, a few big things.
I am not the most experienced player so take this with a grain of salt.
I feel like most of the time when you got hit against Charizard, you were just within range of Charizard's moves while not being able to hit with your own. I'd say be more aware of your spacing and work on the fluidity of your movements, i.e. try to know exactly when you can act out of certain attacks and begin others. Have as few empty frames possible.
4tlas
will have something to say too.
Thanks for the feedback. I need to get a better feel for Zard's preferred spacing, since it's not a matchup I often encounter. I often underestimate his range, thinking I'm safe when in reality, I'm right in his threat zone.I feel like most of the time when you got hit against Charizard, you were just within range of Charizard's moves while not being able to hit with your own. I'd say be more aware of your spacing and work on the fluidity of your movements, i.e. try to know exactly when you can act out of certain attacks and begin others. Have as few empty frames possible.
Against Luigi I feel you did fairly well with spacing and combos and stuff. A couple things I'll mention about him specifically:
1. He's a sitting duck in the air. He can't do anything that will beat your up air. Around the 2:00 mark I noticed you had Luigi in the air but you pretty much let him come down safely. What I like to do is if I have Luigi in the air, I'll camp directly under him and threaten with up airs (if he's high enough so that I can land with him still a decent distance above me) or just DD under him until he's within uair range. Most Luigi's know they can't do anything about it except to try to land. You might be able to bait an airdodge as well. If so, he should eat a kick to the face or an up smash or up air or whatever.
2. You pretty much gave him the ledge for free a couple times. I don't use dtilt very much, but this is one case where I definitely do. Dtilt will beat out any sweetspot attempts by Luigi when he up B's, or at worst it will trade meaning you take 1% and he takes 10 or whatever it is, + he can get dash attacked or kicked back offstage. Definitely use this to your advantage if you can't hog the ledge fast enough. Speak of that, try to work on teleporting to the ledge from the stage. I know it's scary to try to do in tournament, but you have about a 4 or 5 frame window to grab it which is more time than you might think. Try practicing on Battlefield or PS2 or wherever really. I practiced for a decent bit and now I rarely miss.
Something else I noticed is that in between your opponent's stocks, I didn't see you throw Din's once. I usually take that time to throw a fully charged Din's that hovers above the stage and will come down on detonation. That way, if it's clanked, it will make its slow trajectory back to me, and otherwise I have a safe place to teleport to. If anything else, it's one more thing for your opponent to be aware of. But yeah, most of your problem might be in your own head. You were doing decently against Charizard until you missed the angle, and even your last stock of game 2 you were doing pretty well until he started throwing you offstage.
One more thing I'll point out is around the 9:58 mark you had Charizard in a position where he had just airdodged and had pretty much no choice but to land onstage. You opted to try to forward smash him back off. Instead, try up smashing or grabbing him (I would recommend up smash) into uair or kick, depending on how he DI's. Charizard is tricky to deal with, as he's fast and has some decently long ranged attacks, but I feel that he's best dealt with trying to pester him with Din's (while being aware of his speed and position in relation to yours).
Speaking of Din's, you did a good a job of mixing up when you were throwing Din's out so that he couldn't punish. He kept electing to just get hit by it and letting it come back to you it seems like. Try mixing it up sometimes though: throw it behind him, stop it in front of him, let it go above his head. He never seemed to know to clank it either, but if an opponent ever elects to clank it, use that time to gain stage position.
Anyway, hope this kind of helps. I feel like I just spewed a bunch of unconnected thoughts at you, but maybe @
I'm still trying to get past the jumpy, excess inputs. It's going to take a long time. The neutral game is one of my greatest weaknesses right now in my opinion, so I'm glad you pointed out that my neutral needs work, especially since you mentioned specifics like teleport mixups, stage positioning (something I'm not great at), and poor options.
GDNALK
and we were wondering what we could both do better in the match up, such as things either of us do well, could use improving on, or do horribly horribly bad. Ayyy, it's video evidence of my impatience and lack of technical skill.
GDNALK
waaaaaaaaaaaay to many side-b's... it is extremely punishable. Work on your float/float cancel aerials to try and bait out approaches. Having said that I haven't played peach often enough to know her intricacies. Peach boards will likely give you a better break down. As far as general knowledge goes, learn your spacing. Also understand that Zelda in particular is generally committed to a small radius (slow ground and aerial mobility). She does have tele-cancel to get around quick but used to approach too often can become predictable. Just know that whiffed moves can lead to a lightning kick to the face.
I loved your Bowser play. It was great except sometimes it was predictable (like when you downB'd to ledge and he hogged it). I didn't watch the G&W game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxZloCJvER8&index=10&list=PLF7EpQS-96ilj8yrA-z1XYdHJh2Xl3tBU#t=50s would have been a good time to ledgestall and use the ribbon hitbox to gimp him. Your wavelands are nice. Some of the telecancels were pretty good as well.
I generally think it's better not to have the Din's out there unless you're coming from the other side of the stage, because Falcon can sideB it back (ZGE lost the stock when that happened), and dtilt->dsmash works just as effectively without it. Dtilt->dsmash might be even better without it because there's less uncertainty from where the Din's will hit Falcon. Agreed with the rest of your post though.
If you can get the angle right (we might be thinking of different angles) that means you are far enough from the edge to curve Dins around it, and thus the Dins will be a decent size. Should be an easy manual explosion in that case. Against Falcon I like to put the Dins out to intercept his drift, sometimes I explode it in his face, sometimes I detonate it to make it follow him when he tries to avoid it, and sometimes I Transform to Sheik and true combo him to death with it. There are a lot of options, and placing it at the spot where he can sideB it is sometimes a good one, namely when he's so far away he has to recover with an upB, whether for height or distance.
