How to play Brawl, and a guide to understanding the metagame: UPDATED 10/18

Introduction to "How to play Brawl"

This is a rather large project, and definitely won't be completed today. This will NOT be your typical guide compilation, and I will be writing MOSTLY fresh material in this guide. While I'll inevitably touch on smaller aspects of Brawl, and minor tactics, I'm mostly going to attempt to gear this towards teaching each player to understand higher level Brawl play in a general sense, so you can begin to ACTUALLY improve, instead of just practicing incorrectly.

This guide is not for you if you're new to Brawl. While some of the things that will be covered in this guide are basic, this guide is more for helping players who have at least a basic understanding of the game, and expanding that knowledge into a fuller understanding. I'm definitely going to be using all types of common terms, like "Bair", "Hitbox" and "DACUS" and I'm going to elaborate on concepts you should already be familiar with like approach, camping, spacing and zoning, so if such terms are unfamiliar to you, then you need to go learn about the basics of Brawl before you can start understanding how high level play is executed. Of course, you can feel free to ask me any questions in this thread, and I'll gladly answer when I can.

To use analogy, I'm not here to teach you that the knight moves one space in a direction, and then two spaces in a perpendicular direction, I'm here to teach you how the high level players calculate their moves.

At first, this guide is going to be very unorganized. There is so much content, that I'm likely going to just type things out, and sort them as I go along. There may even be segments of ideas I put down as they come to mind, but they won't appear to be complete thoughts. Don't worry. Eventually everything will fall into place.

The Metagame: The effective strategies, and why they work

As in most fighters, Brawl is mostly played through spacing and zoning. Characters like Snake and Diddy have unique ways of controlling space through items. Metaknight and Marth control space in the typical way of creating brickwalls with large, disjointed swords. However, it's very important to acknowledge that the VAST MAJORITY OF PLAYERS create their walls and zone incorrectly. Since most players use only standard hitbox oriented walls, they are easily broken and approached by the most powerful and dominating tactic and approach in the game: The sliding shield.

Typically in many fighters, moves are safe on block because they provide a frame advantage on the opponent when they block. However, this is not the case in Brawl. In Brawl, very few moves have frame advantage, even after the 7 frames to drop the shield, or the 5 frames to jump from shield, or use a jump canceled move is calculated. But there are other factors that allow us to be safe on block. In Brawl, we zone mostly with aerials, because we can retreat away from the opponent while attacking, since unlike in most other fighters we can control our movement and momentum while in midair. Using an aerial with decent range while moving away from them often gives little to no opportunity for them to punish. This is especially true when you calculate shield push in this game, meaning that your opponent is pushed even further away from you when you hit their shield, reducing their ability to approach or retaliate after you hit it.

However, this is not true when taking the sliding mechanic of shielding out of a dash into account. In Brawl, when you block out of a dash, you maintain quite a good part of forward momentum. Frame advantage is generally already in your favor when you block, but often you lack the range and speed to take advantage of it. Now, you're sliding towards your opponent as you block. If your opponent was zoning you with a stationary move, such as Marth or MK's dtilt, you are likely to now be in shield grab range, especially if you powershielded. If it were executed against a move such as Kirby's Bair, you might be in range for a quick Fair of your own, or another sliding shield to get you even closer to your opponent. Being able to move towards your opponent while blocking is obviously advantageous, since we have frame advantage on block.

This tool is one of the many reasons MK is particularly powerful. MK has one of the best ground dashes in the game. He can easily get in to score amazing rewards off of his grab game, and it adds yet another mix up to his plethora of options. It's also one of his best options in the ditto. It significantly helps Diddy Kong as well, since Diddy has amazing dashing speed. If your character runs fast on the ground, and you're not abusing sliding shield, you're doing it wrong. In fact, this is one of the main reasons that Captain Falcon saw a raise on the tier list. He can penetrate the zoning of many characters, and can get a grab (which has decent follow-ups) or a Uair.

Now, if we take a look at the tier list, we can begin to see how some of the higher tiered characters might base their strategy around this sliding shield system, whether they abuse it or counter it. We've already talked about Metaknight, so let's move to Snake. Snake obviously has a lot going for him. His monstrous weight coupled with awesome range and power allows him to just guess with a dodge and get massive rewards if he's right. However, Snake has virtually no air game to speak of. How is it that Snake can counter sliding shield?

When Snake plucks a grenade, it allows him to walk (fairly fast) both forwards and backwards. He cannot attack from this state, but he can shield (and hence, dodge or grab). Being able to grab while moving backwards or forwards has obvious advantages against a strategy like sliding shield. He can also use his own version of the sliding shield, by walking towards you with the grenade. Lastly, the nature of the grenade makes hitting him harder and more risky.

Diddy Kong is able to pressure opponents with projectiles, that lead into combos and kills when connected. Furthermore, you can still slip on a banana on the ground even while shielding. This means that running up to Diddy and shielding is not an option if he's camping behind a banana on the floor. He also has a move which allows him for fling himself at you and grab, which is good, particularly because he can jump away, attack out of it, and still grab when holding a banana. This makes him particularly effective against slide in and shield, and he can also use it effectively himself, especially with the speed and range of punishing through banana toss.

Falco's silent laser is +3 on block. He actually has real frame advantage when he hits you with this move. Furthermore, Falco's ability to retreat through his opponents, between phantasm and dash attack are very effective. Falco also gets very good rewards off of grabbing.

Ice Climbers have Blizzzard, which can be shield DIed, but this tactic isn't frequently employed. They are generally resistant to grabs, since you hit your opponent with the other climber if they grab one. Furthermore, they are trying to grab you, so excessive shielding against this character isn't advised. Generally, they will be trying to employ sliding shield against you a lot.

Wario uses massive aerial mobility and a high priority Dair to zone vertically and play a keep away game. He also has bite to grab his opponent's even when he's in the air.

Marth has enough aerial mobility to to safely retreat two properly spaced fairs, and be alright against sliding shield if executed properly. Furthermore, Marth has a reasonable amount of ground speed and grab range of his own. However, double powershielding Fairs should produce an opportunity to punish. Marth's susceptibility to this tactic is probably the primary reason why he is not higher up on the tier list.

At this point, you can use common sense to see why this tactic is effective for some of the higher tiered characters, or how it might cripple other characters.

Now, common counters to sliding shield include pivot grabbing, grabbing approaching targets, or moving. Retreating pivot grabs were largely misunderstood when discovered, but their hitboxes are amazing, and not only can the repel aerial approaches, but also sliding shields.

Grabbing in place, or dash grabbing an approaching target seems like a dangerous thing to do, since grab is a low-priority option that loses to pretty much any attack approach, but sliding shield is very popular, and often easy to bait by throwing up a brick wall. I often fake a brick wall camping strategy to bait my opponents into using a sliding shield, enabling me to dash grab them.

Sliding Spot dodge can counter grab, but it is a less popular and less rewarding option, and can be punish massively if read, so keep an eye out to see if your opponent likes to do this, and punish accordingly.

M2k popularized the sliding roll strategy with MK. MK has the second best forward roll in the game (Lucario's is the best) and is actually reasonably safe to cross up with. Once behind the opponent, MK has a lot of options and the opponent has very few. This can be countered by retreating walls, or pivot grabs as well. Sliding roll is also reasonably effective against sliding shield and dash grab, and is one of the many reasons M2k is so successful.

Now, sliding shield isn't the grand finale of approaches. As I already listed, there are basic ways to counter it, primarily through grabbing. However, please keep in mind that you cannot shield immediately out of a dash, and hence sliding shield is actually a mid range tactic. It leaves the user susceptible to preemptive strikes, and cross-ups. However, since it beats out all basic attacks, it's probably the most popular approach.

A large reason why MK's Dair camping is so effective is because a rising Dair cannot be shield grabbed. MK can repeat this style of wall with little no threat of being shield grabbed, and though he must eventually return to the floor, he has many options of doing so. MK Dair camping is highly effective in many MUs because of this safety factor.

For closing remarks on this tactic, I'll finally mention that if not countered, sliding shield gain a lot of stage presence, and is very good at shifting your field of control.

Popular Baits and Reads, and Effective Punishes

Often, many players are taught of conditioning, and even grow moderately effective at conditioning, but still don't evolve into high level players because they lack knowledge of key, stock winning baits.

I'm going to cover a couple of the most popular baits and reads, as well as some underused ones, which will allow even characters with "no K.O. set-ups" to find themselves in an excellent position to remove their opponent's stock.

First off, probably the most IMPORTANT READ IN ALL OF BRAWL, the Second Jump defense.

At low levels of play, if a player finds themselves in a position near their opponent and falling, they will often airdodge to avoid an incoming aerial. However, at higher levels, players often find airdodging is very predictable, and easily punishable. Instead, they will opt to use a mid-air jump, which will evade the attack, and possibly allow them to land in a more favorable position. This is ESPECIALLY true if you would have otherwise ended up airdodging below the stage; many, many people reflexively try to jump back to the stage or edge, instead of falling fully away and then recovering. This habit will often stick with a lot of high level players, because very few players ever punish it (shoutouts to Atomsk and M2k for ****** me every time I do this.)

However, if you are under the misconception that you cannot punish this action, you're doing it wrong. Often, you can read this, and punish by using your own ground jump and double jump from the ground. Now, despite double jumping being far less punished than an airdodge, it is far riskier an option because IT CONSUMES A RECOVERY AND MOVEMENT RESOURCE. If you attempt to make this read, and your opponent airdodges past you, you might feel as if your action was silly, as now you are the one in a bad position. However, correctly nailing this read can often result in capturing your opponent's stock. Once hit out of their double jump, your opponent is forced to land with very limited options and recovery. Correct reads from there are often easy to make (when your opponent's options are airdodge or don't airdodge, and you're adept at covering it, you're pretty good to go). Additionally, hitting them offstage will result in a stock loss if you're decent at edgeguarding at all.

Unfortunately, MK and other multi-jumping opponents are generally immune to this tactic, because he has multiple midair jumps and landing options, but it's still good to keep in mind against other opponents. Additionally, it's still better than running into a jump away Dair, when you have an opportunity to score a hit, especially vs. King Dedede.

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Another option I wanted to discuss is the empty short hop. Generally, jumps are the pre-cursor to aerials. If you SH, it is generally a given than you intent you use an aerial. Aerials put you in lag until the ending duration of the move, be it an auto-cancel or the natural ending, so often dodges are moderately safe during this time, as well as anti air attacks. However, we must remember that these anti-aerial maneuvers have lag themselves. The empty short hop is a great way to provoke a dodging reaction from an opponent, which can then lead to punishment. The most common use of this, is to cause a falling player to airdodge. If you opt not to swing the aerial, you will have less lag, and often time to punish with a smash attack as they fall into striking range.

Additionally, if you use an empty SH against a grounded opponent, they will often block if you have good attack power, and are in striking range. Characters like Marth, Lucario, Diddy, MK, all have very good forward, and alternative aerials that are excellent for attacking and come out quickly. This very often will provoke a shield. The primary counter for shield is grab, but your opponent knows that you cannot grab them while airborne, and often keep their shield raised. Since dropping the shield takes 7 frames or jumping takes 5 frames, you are at a significant advantage, especially against opponents who do not have fast striking options that are safe.

For this reason, not striking the shield at all is actually relatively safe, because your opponent cannot safely drop their shield at all, until the THREAT of the attack has passed. If I'm Marth, and I've SHed at you, and you shield, you are probably going to hold that shield until a Fair connects onto it. Almost all smart players will wait for a block confirm on their shield before attempting retaliation, if you are in striking range.

This enables tactics such as Empty SH cross-ups. I find this to be effective with characters that fall quickly (giving their opponent's less time to react) and have good aerials. It's often easier to cross-up this way as well, because you don't have to compensate for pushing your opponent backwards, and it can sometimes wreck sliding shield as an approach, if they use it from the ground. Once back on the ground behind a shielding opponent, you will have frame advantage and positioning advantage. Often, now is a good time to turn around and grab the shielding opponent, or learn what option they commonly try to escape with, and punish that.

It should be noted that most Bairs hit high, especially those done while rising, and you can evade many retreating Bairs by crouching instead of shielding, which gives you much better frame advantage and no shield push.

One of my favorite set-ups into this cross-up is to crouch, to persuade and bait my opponent into using a sliding shield to counter my presumed dtilt, then to jump behind them from crouch, and then turn around and crouch behind them. This often leaves a very confused opponent, and very often results in me landing a hit, when done correctly.

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Reverse Aerial Rushing can also be an amazing way to cross up/bait an opponent. Bairs are generally LARGELY effective at hitting falling targets, and are more frequently responded to with airdodges than other forms of anti-air. Simply passing through your target, and then punishing with a Fair or alternative aerial can often score great results.

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Almost everyone at a mid level or higher range of play will opt NOT to airdodge the next strike if you just punished an airdodge in a string. After punishing an airdodge, feel free to swing again, and it will most likely connect, enabling you to confuse your opponents, and landing excellent strings that can result in high damage and great positioning.

Underused tactics


There's a lot of really useful tools that characters can do that people really don't take advantage of, but can really boost your gameplay to new levels. There's a lot of skepticism around some of it, so I'm here to throw in both facts, opinion, and examples, of how some tactics can actually be used.

Footstooling:

This option is really, stupidly underrated. It's just good in so many instances. Let me just teach you a few things about footstooling basics, that everyone SHOULD know by now, but many people don't.

-If you footstool someone while they're doing nothing except possibly moving or jumping, either in the ground or in the air, they will go into an animation of some sort where they cannot act. All other self-inflicted character animations override the footstool animation. However, you can still footstool someone in the middle of an animation, and it's slightly disjointed, so you can occasionally use it to complete evade attacks (I often like to use it to jump off of MKs using Shuttle Loop, so I don't have to airdodge, but you must LEARN the spacing for this.)
-I believe (though I have not confirmed this) that since footstools are triggered from your mid-air jump, they also come out frame one.
-You cannot footstool an invincible person at all. This means you cannot footstool someone who just grabbed an edge, however you CAN footstool someone hanging from the ledge if they aren't still invincible.
-Lucario does not get hit upB back if he is footstooled after cancelling his UpB into a wall. Also, footstooling someone clinging onto a wall sends them into tumble.
-You cannot DI or tech a footstool.
-You can do short hop and full hop footstools. Often, people find it difficult to do SH footstools, however, it almost always has greater profit.

Now, some usages for footstooling:

-Often, when a character with multiple jumps (the Kirby characters, as this isn't as applicable to Pit or Charizard) is recovering, they will opt NOT to swing attacks, because the ending lag leaves them with blatent, well targeted openings. This is a good time to footstool, because it sets up gimps extraordinarily well.

-In doubles, you can footstool a partner Snake while he's recovering, and he'll be able to UpB again, even if his first UpB wasn't over.

-Often, if you over-commit to spacing, and your opponent DIs in, you can combo a footstool where you would not be able to quickly enough land any other attack. However, few characters can get a guaranteed follow-up off this, but it does lead to a tech chase.

-You can footstool a shielding character. This can help to escape a trap.

-Footstooling is just an overall useful tool that is applicable in many situations where you would not consider it. Explore it more and find ways to make it useful in your character.

Crouching and Crawling

Crouching is EXTREMELY useful in many, many MUs. My main usage of crouching is to evade rising aerials, ESPECIALLY BAIRS. Almost ever Bair ever hits higher than most character's crouch, especially if the Bair isn't used the first possible instant the opponent left the ground. Characters like DK, D3, Mario, Luigi, Kirby, and many others prefer to zone with their Bairs, as they are superior to Fair. Crouching thwarts all these moves when the opponent is rising.

It's also a lot easier to powershield incoming aerials or attacks when crouching. Having a reduced hurtbox means your opponent will have to reach, and often overcommit to hit you, making powershielding far more viable. This is ESPECIALLY true vs. MK's Dair camping and Mach Tornado, making it far easier to punish.

Obviously, crouching is good for evading certain projectiles.

One of my favorite usages for crouching is to feint a landing trap. Often, a SH is very good to bait an airdodge against a falling opponent. Conversely, crouching is good to encourage an opponent NOT to airdodge, as it makes it appear as though you have decided not to jump, when you actually didn't eliminate jump as an option.

B-Reversals

B-reversals are typically the first tool that you should be using to escape a juggle if your character has the ability to do so. The reason is because it doesn't consume any of your recovery resources. Also, if you're returning to the stage from high, and someone is jumping out of an edge-guard, try B-reversing out, then back in. This is very hard to read, and makes it very difficult to guard you.

Do note that all directions of specials can be B-Reversed. Not every special can be B-reversed though.

Intermediate tips and strategies for both attacking and camping.

Hmm, I want to talk about camping first.

Effective Camping:

Now, I'm going to throw out a basic definition of camping so we can be relatively on the same page of what I'm talking about when I say "camping."

Playing in a style which emphasizes taking as little damage as possible, as opposed to damaging your opponent.

I have several pet peeves about notions of camping in Brawl, so let me clear up some things.
A) There is no such thing as an unbreakable wall. B) You don't need a projectile to camp
C) NOT ALL PROJECTILES ARE MEANT TO CAMP BEHIND

There are a couple of key theories that will probably likely boost your camping game.

First off, when you begin to camp, you must still make decisions, just as if you were on offense. Typically, if your opponent is exceptionally aggressive (like myself) then you'll probably have to be able to repel a series of attacks at a reasonable rate. Consider the following:

A) How is my opponent likely to approach me?
B) Am I able to make my opponent take risks when I'm camping. Am I able to punish those risks?
C) Is this actually safe?
D) Am I defending a ground that my opponent has the MOST DIFFICULTY approaching me from?

Falco is a character good at camping, so I will use him as my example. I will also use Battlefield as an example, as it provides a fairly good amount of options for camping, while being a popular stage.

Let's say you are Falco fighting Marth, and you want to camp. Let's go through the checklist.

A) Marth is most likely to approach head on, and be very powerful in this aspect.
B) Marth approaching Falco has to contend with lasers. He also has to manage to pressure me hard enough to prevent phantasm, while not leaving himself open to roll or spot-dodge. Roll is very effective vs. Dancing Blade, and spot dodge is very effective against anything else. Dancing Blade is Marth's best approach on Falco, so I probably want to roll more. I can punish very effectively if I spotdodge an attack, or roll behind Dancing Blade, and sometimes Dash Attacking after an auto-canceled laser will catch Marth off guard, allowing for yet another mix-up. These are the basic tools that I want to utilize when camping.
C) Well, laser is safe when used from a range. Phantasm is safe unless it's predicted, so I'll be careful about using phantasm, since that option is frequently covered. I'll use my other options as they find more or less success.
D) Both Marth and Falco are very powerful horizontally, but Marth has huge upper-hands in controlling nearby space, and fighting in the air/on platforms. This means I want to be on the ground most of the time, and should try to avoid being on the ledge or platforms.

And hence, the strategy for fighting against Marth and Falco is borne. Analyze your ENTIRE MOVESET and determine whether it's possible you're overlooking any of the tools that might be useful. Ftilting and Grabbing should be thrown into the mix because of how safe the ftilt is, and how often the opponent will shield. Zoning Bair isn't effective in this MU, because Marth's sword beats it. Shine is good for edgeguarding, since Bair is not as good due to the lack of safety.

Now, let's consider Falco vs. Snake on Battlefield instead.

A) Snake is likely to approach head on, and be very powerful in this aspect. Also, while he can throw grenades in many ways, he will mostly be throwing them forward.
B) Snake's ftilt isn't safe on block, but it's a pretty nasty frame trap. Once Snake is out of chain-grab range, it won't be too easy to put him in a bad spot, and grab is less rewarding, and risky to do. Snake can punish phantasm pretty well with a read, or sometimes on reaction. Snake also has a frame 2 jab, which can battle with my frame 2 jab.
C) It's possible to remain mostly safe, but Snake can leave C4s to punish phantasm even from far, or use DACUS.
D) Snake has low mobility, and typically combats camping opponents by punish lag or landing with a Dash attack or DACUS. Perhaps camping the platforms is a better option against Snake, because he has a far more difficult time navigating them.

Falco can full hop to the top platform of Battlefield. He rises and falls faster than Snake. Grenades are very telegraphed and easy to avoid while on platforms. Dair beats out an Usmash, or you can just jump around it. Falco can phantasm from one side platform to another, and Snake will have a MUCH harder time punishing this, and Snake can definitely be punished for committing to a predictable aerial. If I mix up some laser phantasm camping, on top of a platform camping with strategy, I can remain REALLY safe, while not giving Snake many options to approach me. This forces Snake to take huge risks, especially if I take a stock lead, and through careful play, I can typically avoid risky moves, and repeatedly punish them with high rewarding moves. Utilt is dangerous if I'm on one of the lower platforms, but almost all attacks can be avoided through shielding on the center of that platform, and jumping around on the high platform will allow me to conserve shield.

Take some time out to analyze you own camping strategies.

Before I talk about approaching, I want to preface it by talking a bit about my own primary strategy in Brawl, which is an aggressive style. However, I don't simply rush in and try and hit my opponent whenever possible. I enter the match with a very specific strategy in mind. This is not the only strategy that is effective for approaching, but I feel that it's my most effective method, and perhaps the best method.

Utilizing Stage Control
Even at high level play, players still don't seem to understand the basic concept of stage control, so I'm going to break it down for a moment.

For the simplicity of this particular article, I'm only going to be discussing stage control on "standard stages". Basically, stages that resemble FD, Battlefield, Smashville, Yoshi's, Lylat, and the like. This will apply to most stages, but there are some dynamic stages like Delfino or Rainbow to which this applies DIFFERENTLY.

In competitive Brawl, to defeat your opponent, you must force them past a deathline. For the time being, we are going to disregard vertical K.O.s. Not that they aren't relevant, but they just don't serve as much purpose in articulating the point of this article.

If your back is to an edge, and your opponent is in front of you with their back to the middle of the stage, you are unlikely to K.O. them horizontally. Through good DI, most kill moves will not land a K.O. until at least 150% or more, and that's IF the opponent DIed too far upwards, not considering their position. However, if the reverse is true, than your kill moves are likely to kill much earlier, sometimes even at 90%. Even if the opponent isn't outright K.O.ed, they are set up for an edgeguard, or potentially a gimp.

But how does the opponent get to this position in the first place? What you must learn to do is control the stage. When I go into a fight, I often like to think of my opponent as a lion, while I think of myself as a tamer, with a chair and a whip. In the very beginning of the fight, I will often rush to the center of the stage. You start on opposite sides of the stage, so why not further yourself from the deathline? Though you are not recovering percent damage, you are effectively making yourself more distant from death. From here, I consider the following:
A) How can I stop my opponent from advancing?
B) How can I push my opponent closer to the deathline?

Now, it is unrealistic to expect to outright K.O. my opponent at the beginning of the match. However, using these basic considerations, I can make decisions which not only damage my opponent, but push them closer to their demise.

I greatly enjoy the fact that my sparring partner mains Lucario, because Marth vs. Lucario is a perfect example of a match that depends a lot on stage control. Lucario is very difficult to maintain stage control against, because he has a powerful roll that makes him difficult to capture in one location. I know that when fighting Lucario, if I don't want him to get past me, it is important to cover that roll above all else.

Once I limit the opponents options by making it clear that I'm not going to let them roll back into the stage, or use a similar method to easily regain stage control, I proceed to make a read to hit them again. At early percents, I aim to generate a combo/attack string. At later percents, this does something very important. It pushes them to the ledge.

The ledge is a pivotal part of stage control. Once you've knocked your opponent off the ledge, they are all but off the stage. As the Lion Tamer, you have now forced your lion into a cage. That's pretty much how Scar was able to beat an opponent as powerful as Mufasa. Got him on dat ledge and then finished him off. Once your opponent is on the ledge, I like to think of them as halfway dead. They have lost almost all their main options for returning to the center of the stage, they are near the death line, and you pretty much have the upper hand.

Approaching and Attacking:

There are three primary forms of approach in Brawl:

A) Poke
B) Blitz
C) Trap

Poking is basically attacking your opponent with a relatively safe option. This might be a spaced aerial designed to hit instead of parry. Hopefully, this option is relatively safe on block. It might also be a grounded move with a lot of speed and range. Poking typically leads to pressure, or follow-ups, which I'll get to in a bit. Good pokes are moves like Marth's Fair or MK's Dtilt.

Blitzing is essentially picking a rush-down option that allows you to penetrate the opponent's wall, counter-act a defensive option you predict, or using a fast/tricky/confusing option to produce a mistake from the opponent. Blitzing is a lot more risky than poking, but often less predictable, and sometimes more rewarding. Common Blitz attacks are Snake's Dash Attack, or Diddy's SideB.

Trapping is a typically done with projectiles. It utilizes a combination of hitboxes that attack in succession or simultaneously to encourage a response from the opponent, and then immediately capitalize on that response. A good example of a trapping move is Pikachu's aerial Thunder Jolt, which encourages the opponent to block so Pikachu can get in.

Using one or move of these tactics successfully will allow you to approach and attack your opponent, and counter-act their defenses. Once you do this, you will typically generate advantage. Normally, your opponent loses options when they are hit, and successfully following up, and capitalizing on casting them from neutral and into a poor position is virtually mandatory at high level play. Very often, a successful offensive attempt can lead into high damage strings even without any true combos. To do this, you must realize which of the opponent's options have been eliminated (hint: most of the good ones that involve blocking) and proceed to cover their remaining options.

Mixing up the three forms of approaches can make you very effective at attacking your opponent.

Modern Defense: Types of Walls
This section is pretty advanced and confusing, so bear with me.

Walling is frequently discussed in competitive play, but I'm going to break it down in a new and unique way, that is extremely prevalent to the modern metagame.

First, I'm going to loosely define a "Wall" as a series of actions and hitboxes that make it difficult to hit you. That being said, there are two different types of Walls in today's metagame:

The Static Wall:
This is the type of wall most characters utilize. It typically involves mass production of ranged, disjointed hitboxes, that are quite hard to penetrate, in a calculated, but inconsistent pattern that makes it difficult to predict, while still remaining relatively safe. Characters that are amazing at producing static walls are Marth and MK.

The Dynamic Wall:
The dynamic wall uses independent agents to defend against the opponent, often allowing a player to remain extremely safe. Characters that have awesome dynamic walls include Diddy, Snake, and Olimar.

Dymanic walls are still relatively new to the metagame, and in my opinion, they currently are the strategy to learn if you want to win defensively. While many players have developed ways to break a static wall, dynamic walls are both new and tricky, a powerful combination that is being used to great effect.

I currently think Snake's dynamic wall is under-developed. Playing a camping game that utilizes Down-Smash as an option to repel grounded approaches, while using grenades to repel aerial approaches is an heavily underused strategy.

Hyyyyppeee

I look forward to reading all of this

A small part of it is up, if you'd like to read.

nice read, i hope to get a betteru nderstanding of the metagame ive been missing out on cuz of focus on melee hehe

Hmm. Good post-never thought of dashing in and just blocking. Not as effective the way I play (you know, with shieldstun so high that MK's dtilt is a shield lock against a wall), but useful for vBrawl or the like.

Great job Pierce, learned alot. Looking forward to the rest!

can't wait to read it Pierce.

really hoping you can show how high level players think in a typical match like " he's doing option A, but hasn't used option B at all, so l'll just use my option C when he uses option A" stuff like that.

"moving" being a counter to shield dashing made me lol.

"M2K approaches with a sliding shield! Oh wow, Ally counters by standing in place! M2K drops his shield! Ally lazily walks away! This **** is about to get real!"

...jk.

Pretty good read Pierce, I still think one of the problems with the Tact board is we have no distance standard established in brawl, so we can't quantify a large number of things that would help the community. Like if we had an established distance of 1 Captain Falcon Helmet, and metaknight's airspeed is 1 CFH/30 Frames, Snakes Ftilt on meta's shield pushes him back 4 CFHs, and he has a 7 frame advantage OOS on snakes Ftilt, so if he immediately jumps OOS and moves forward while using dair, which has a range of 3.8 CFHs in front of meta, so 7 frames at 1 CFH/30 frames would move him 0.233333333 CFH forward, plus his 3.8 CFHs range on dair means metaknight has a guaranteed, measurable followup to punish snakes ftilt OOS, and we could test and verify it.

Obviously those are BS numbers and that was not meant to be an actual scenario, but instead a suggestion that with an actual distance standard we could quantify movement speeds, range, and match that up with our current knowledge of frames.

Pierce7d said:

However, this is not true when taking the sliding mechanic of shielding out of a dash into account. In Brawl, when you block out of a dash, you maintain quite a good part of forward momentum. Frame advantage is generally already in your favor when you block, but often you lack the range and speed to take advantage of it. Now, you're sliding towards your opponent as you block. If your opponent was zoning you with a stationary move, such as Marth or MK's dtilt, you are likely to now be in shield grab range, especially if you powershielded. If it were executed against a move such as Kirby's Bair, you might be in range for a quick Fair of your own, or another sliding shield to get you even closer to your opponent. Being able to move towards your opponent while blocking is obviously advantageous, since we have frame advantage on block.

For closing remarks on this tactic, I'll finally mention that if not countered, sliding shield gain a lot of stage presence, and is very good at shifting your field of control.

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I love you for this. I've been trying to find a way to explain this to people and why characters with a long grab like DeDeDe or Wario and this words it perfectly

Thankyou

Interesting stuff. I've never considered the sliding shield' concept this way.

the small blocks in training mode would suffice for that

edit: not training mode. stage builder my bad lol

Pierce, what do you think of running spotdodge? I was considering using this instead of my shield since I don't really have one I can use to approach.

Hopefully this is completed rather soon, it's way more convenient to link my newer crewmates to something like this than to teach them a bunch of stuff by myself.

Shield Dashing is like the only way you can play a character like zelda, who has abysmal approach. She needs to get close and react to the way her opponent reacts to her getting close.

Delta-cod said:

Pierce, what do you think of running spotdodge? I was considering using this instead of my shield since I don't really have one I can use to approach.

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I touched upon this. Yoshi has an above average spot dodge, which makes this a decent approach from him, but in the end, not having a proper shield will always hold him back. However, I would advise Yoshi to refrain from approaching when possible.

BestNessn00b said:

Shield Dashing is like the only way you can play a character like zelda, who has abysmal approach. She needs to get close and react to the way her opponent reacts to her getting close.

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I disagree. I prefer to play Zelda with offensive reads. Her dash attack is her best tool, and she has devastating kill power. Attempting to read your opponent to death has been the most effective strategy for me with Zelda.

Pierce7d said:

I touched upon this. Yoshi has an above average spot dodge, which makes this a decent approach from him, but in the end, not having a proper shield will always hold him back. However, I would advise Yoshi to refrain from approaching when possible.

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You know me, I never approach unless I have to.

I didn't even know it was called Slide Shielding xD.

I like this thread. It's informative so far, and am hopeful that it will get even better :D

Pierce7d said:

I disagree. I prefer to play Zelda with offensive reads. Her dash attack is her best tool, and she has devastating kill power. Attempting to read you opponent to death has been the most effective strategy for me with Zelda.

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You use Zelda. You get cool points

This thread seems helpful and hopefully i can improve from it. It appears this thread will go very far so I'll check back in often.

Cant wait for the rest of it :D

So, Ironically, I just made a thread that is similar to this for the lucario boards to only find out that you are doing pretty much the same thing. IDK if it is because we are in the same crew, or that I have known you for like 6 years, that we ended up with an idea that almost matches each other, but I must say this is one hell of a coincidence LOLOLOLOLOL.

they do say great minds think alike, and its true

humble said:

"M2K approaches with a sliding shield! Oh wow, Ally counters by standing in place! M2K drops his shield! Ally lazily walks away! This **** is about to get real!"

...jk.

Pretty good read Pierce, I still think one of the problems with the Tact board is we have no distance standard established in brawl, so we can't quantify a large number of things that would help the community. Like if we had an established distance of 1 Captain Falcon Helmet, and metaknight's airspeed is 1 CFH/30 Frames, Snakes Ftilt on meta's shield pushes him back 4 CFHs, and he has a 7 frame advantage OOS on snakes Ftilt, so if he immediately jumps OOS and moves forward while using dair, which has a range of 3.8 CFHs in front of meta, so 7 frames at 1 CFH/30 frames would move him 0.233333333 CFH forward, plus his 3.8 CFHs range on dair means metaknight has a guaranteed, measurable followup to punish snakes ftilt OOS, and we could test and verify it.

Obviously those are BS numbers and that was not meant to be an actual scenario, but instead a suggestion that with an actual distance standard we could quantify movement speeds, range, and match that up with our current knowledge of frames.

Click to expand...

Perhaps, but a lot of things are better learned in the field than textbook. I learned that Marth could punish Snake's 2nd hit ftilt on block by simply trying it, and finding that Dancing Blade was successful. I highly advocate this style of learning. However, studying data and learning about style in a general sense are good for reading. Both combined is optimal IMO.

Pierce7d said:

I disagree. I prefer to play Zelda with offensive reads. Her dash attack is her best tool, and she has devastating kill power. Attempting to read your opponent to death has been the most effective strategy for me with Zelda.

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why does this matter?

but irregardless

you cant "prefer" to play zelda offensively. she cant camp at all, so she will be forced by someone who wants to win to approach.

I disagree. You most certainly can camp with Zelda, it's just not nearly as effective.

I'll read this even though I've gone crawling back to Melee.

This is long overdue and necessary in order to improve the community's skill level. I can't believe I haven't thought of "Dash Shield" or "Sliding Shield" approach was actually considered a viable approach. I've always used it, but thought of it as a defensive/counter-acting approach because of the powershield benefits and OOS options that it produces. This is probably a reason why Pit is so good, and should be mentioned in some of your future sub-articles. Pit's sliding shield is up there with the rest of the high tiers, and he has a lot of fast OOS options like jab and his smashes.

Pretty good read Pierce, I still think one of the problems with the Tact board is we have no distance standard established in brawl, so we can't quantify a large number of things that would help the community. Like if we had an established distance of 1 Captain Falcon Helmet, and metaknight's airspeed is 1 CFH/30 Frames, Snakes Ftilt on meta's shield pushes him back 4 CFHs, and he has a 7 frame advantage OOS on snakes Ftilt, so if he immediately jumps OOS and moves forward while using dair, which has a range of 3.8 CFHs in front of meta, so 7 frames at 1 CFH/30 frames would move him 0.233333333 CFH forward, plus his 3.8 CFHs range on dair means metaknight has a guaranteed, measurable followup to punish snakes ftilt OOS, and we could test and verify it.

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I prefer measuring stuff in units of Squirtle.

Great thread, subscried.

Seeing as there is a built-in, universal unit of measurement regarding hitbox size, and 10 of those is about the size of one jigglypuff... We should use either said unit, or jiggs.

^I was actually referencing this one post I remember reading a long while back (before I started attending tournaments and actually getting serious, I think) that made me laugh, about using Squirtle to measure things.

Although I think measuring things in "Puffs" would be good, too.

there probably is some form of measurement put into the game or launch distance would be random

Pierce7d said:

I disagree. You most certainly can camp with Zelda, it's just not nearly as effective.

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the only character i can see her "camping" is ganon bro. everyone else either outcamps her or gets in and *****