Guide Drastic Improvement

[ShrieK1295]

Obviously what I said applies differently to different techniques. Spamming Falcon's utilt is going to be ****. Certain things are going to be hard to incorporate into your game if you don't have good fundamentals. But other things, like that falco uair, are pretty obvious--continuing combo = good

 

[Deleted member]

You gotta learn the rules before you can see exceptions. Of course question everything and blind following is bad, but coming up with new stuff before you have learned how to accurately judge quality seems like a slow way to go.

I...

I think I love you.

~<3 <3

 

[Deleted member]

updated the theory section.

 

[S l o X]

Incredible write-up. Applies to improvement in any environment. Thanks a lot, Umbreon.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Very meta and vague, but that is probably intentional. My biggest concern is not knowing what strategies are quantifiably optimal, having no transportation, and living 4 hours from any other player.

 

[clowsui]

the first one is fixable

watch videos, pause a lot whenever you see x y or z happen that you think is interesting to study

cycle through all the possible scenarios that could be generated, ask yourself which ones you think are better/worse

write down what you think is better/worse, find a different video which has that better/worse option in it, see what happens, see if you like what happened

takes a lot of time especially if you're bad at visualizing/generalizing. you could try to training mode it and replicate it yourself but that's not a great solution without much play-experience

 

[clowsui]

We should make sure this thread stays on the first page

 

[Anand]

Spoiler

The CP system has been in place for a long, long time. It is finally being threatened as an unnecessary part of the tournament system. That said, we can still milk it for all it's worth until it gets removed, if it happens.

First, you should know your character's best stages for CP options, and use them openly. Have a CP list for each character the opponent could be. Yes, for every character. It's a minimal time investment with huge pay-offs later. Write it in a notebook and memorize it. Also, have no weak stages. Just don't. Be good at all of them.

Understand that each player gets to ban a stage. This means that when you are formulating your Plan, you'll want two stages ready for a solid CP choice, as well as one ban. This is important to note because if you feel that you have some definite advantage on two stages, your opponent banning one is essentially worthless. That ban no longer has any value. You want to minimize that tool of your opponent's as much as possible, so yeah learn to CP each character to 2 stages pretty much. On the other hand, you should ban your obviously weakest stage.

Finally, understand that when you ban a stage, your opponent cannot pick it. You still can. Some TOs are shaky on this, so clear it with them in private prior to the event. If you ban a stage, your opponent will consider it banned and choose a different ban. This is brilliant because you can ban your own CP options to "protect" them later. You absolutely must win the first game to properly exploit this point. Only ever attempt this strategy after you’ve already won the first game. For example, here's your plan:

Match-up: Marth (me) vs Fox (opponent)

I, the Marth, won the first game.

Plan A:
-CP to Final Destination (first choice), and if it is banned by your opponent...
-CP to Yoshi Story (second choice)
-Ban Dreamland 64

At most events, bans are decided after game one and before game two and before any stage selection has been made. After you win your first match, you will be asked for a stage ban because loser picks stage first in slob picks. If you are unsure what the opponent will pick for his game 2 CP, then banning RC can be a good idea, or it can be a wasted ban. It is risky to decide. Instead, ban FD. While you are definitely risking losing game 2, you are also in a way securing that you will win game 3 and therefore take the set. You also get to pick your ban first because the opponent must pick a stage at that time. It then looks something like this:

Plan B:
-Ban Final Destination
-CP to Final Destination if you don't win game 2, win the set 2-1 in a secure manner.

Usually a cautious opponent will let you ban a stage first because it gives him more information when deciding what to ban for himself. In the event that your opponent decides a stage ban before you, you can stick to Plan A and take your second CP as per usual and waste that ban. Regardless of what the opponent does and at what time, it assures you to go into match 2 with the least amount of a disadvantage, and you also go into match 3 with the heaviest possible advantage. Since this is just another way to net free wins, you should abuse the ability to react here as much as possible.

Have a Plan A and a Plan B like I have above for every character. Having no "weak" stages and always having strong choices will hand you free wins repeatedly, even against players that are better than you.

What if you ban FD and your opponent calls your bluff and bans FD? Then you've totally wasted your ban by not banning DL64 or RC, while gaining absolutely no advantage in the event of a third game.

 

[Deleted member]

that's a clever point, but i've never had that happen. either way, that might be a bit archaic in the current counterpicking rules. i'd remove it entirely but it may have some use still on a tactical level. not sure.

 

[Druggedfox]

You refer to the concept of "structuring your learning" twice in the opening post; can you explain exactly what you mean? Or aim <3

It was pretty refreshing to read the opening post haha

It's like years of conversation and nostalgia or something

 

[Deleted member]

we are mutual teachers are worst and much more than that at best.

 

[Awstintacious]

Any chance you have more to add. I remember reading this when I started playing competitively, and wanted more this second read.

 

[Deleted member]

Any chance you have more to add. I remember reading this when I started playing competitively, and wanted more this second read.

give me a suggestion?

 

[Druggedfox]

Elaborate on structuring your learning? I think that might be a good idea, at least

 

[Bones0]

I'd be interested in hearing more stuff from the "drastic" perspective. Obviously the whole article is about improvement, but I already feel like I am improving at every tournament. I don't feel like I am ever drastically improving, however. It feels like I get a bit more insight into the game every few weeks or every month, and then I go to a tournament and I can see that improvement, but then I feel like I've wasted a full month just nailing down a concept that pro players catch on to and apply within days, or even minutes. I remember a post knightpraetor made about PP and how he played Mahone's Puff and in just a few hours went from having no idea what to do to knowing exactly what to do and how to do it. I want to replicate that level of improvement. I've always felt like I already learned less efficiently than other people. My style of learning seems very broad, whereas to get good you usually want to learn with great depth. So I can do things like pick up several new games and really quickly figure out the basic strategies, but then when it comes to moving onto more complex strategies, I have to painfully trial-and-error my way through a million options. Once I have gone through all those options and broken them down, I can easily access the best options. This tends to work fine for games like FPSes where my individual actions are fairly limited. I am really just choosing between certain routes and from there the rest is micromanaging my shooting/grenading style, but with a game like Melee it's not really feasible to think of the game in terms of a list of options because there so much "analog" that a digital approach of "Perform action A or action B in this situation" doesn't really work. There's too many variations of A, and even more variations of each variation of A. So I guess the best way to phrase it is that I want to learn to improve more efficiently. Perhaps the structured learning part Druggedfox mentioned is related to this, actually.

 

[Tarv]

I remember a post knightpraetor made about PP and how he played Mahone's Puff and in just a few hours went from having no idea what to do to knowing exactly what to do and how to do it.

Going off of this I would like to improve my game in terms of reading my opponent and thereby learn to adapt to any situation. Seems like being able to understand your opponent and being able to react appropriately would be an essential way to improve one's gameplay.

Thanks!

 

[Bones0]

Going off of this I would like to improve my game in terms of reading my opponent and thereby learn to adapt to any situation. Seems like being able to understand your opponent and being able to react appropriately would be an essential way to improve one's gameplay.

Thanks!

I don't see any real connection between being able to read your opponent and being able to adapt to situations... Reading is just yomi with different risks/rewards for being right and wrong. Adaption is just realizing what they're doing and figuring out how to beat it on the fly.

 

[Tarv]

I don't see any real connection between being able to read your opponent and being able to adapt to situations... Reading is just yomi with different risks/rewards for being right and wrong. Adaption is just realizing what they're doing and figuring out how to beat it on the fly.

In that case, I think I was confused by what it meant to "read" the opponent. Admittedly, I still don't quite understand what it means to read your opponent. Won't someone teach me how to read?

And if they are in fact completely different concepts I would like to improve my skills in adaptation as well not sure if that sort of thing goes with what Umbreon is trying to accomplish though.

Also, what is yomi?

 

[Bones0]

In that case, I think I was confused by what it meant to "read" the opponent. Admittedly, I still don't quite understand what it means to read your opponent. Won't someone teach me how to read?

And if they are in fact completely different concepts I would like to improve my skills in adaptation as well not sure if that sort of thing goes with what Umbreon is trying to accomplish though.

Also, what is yomi?

Reading is just prediction. A Falcon player might read a tech roll away to get an early knee KO, or a Falco might nair-shine crossup someone's shield and then RSHL to cover their WD OoS option. Generally, you don't want to rely on tactics that require you to read/predict your opponent. It's still okay to read though. So if a Marth has someone trapped by the ledge and he predicts they will roll, he can just DD so he is able to grab the roll on reaction, but if the opponent jumps instead, he can still react to the option he didn't read. If you've ever heard the term "hard read", that is just a reference to a player making a read and covering only that option. Perfect example is when Lovage shield pressured Tope and hard read his roll from the ledge. If Tope had done pretty much anything else, the usmash would have whiffed, but his read was right so he looked like a boss. lol But again, you can imagine how that kind of read would be pretty inconsistent/risky.

Yomi is a term Sirlin uses in his Playing to Win articles. I would just read all/most of them starting from the bottom (skipping SF-specific articles, obviously).

 

[clowsui]

 

[Deleted member]

"yomi" is just the japanese word for "read". It has nothing to do with gaming. Sirlin's advice is poop and playing to win is a terrible philosophy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtdqJ9hHlcY

and no, it's not.

I don't think you should be reading the opponent anyway for reasons that I have already outlined many, many times.

 

[Bones0]

"yomi" is just the japanese word for "read". It has nothing to do with gaming. Sirlin's advice is poop and playing to win is a terrible philosophy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtdqJ9hHlcY

and no, it's not.

I don't think you should be reading the opponent anyway for reasons that I have already outlined many, many times.

http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win-part-3-not-playing-to-win.html

 

[Tarv]

Thanks for clarifying the term Bones0 and the great advice. I'll try to look around for your posts regarding why I shouldn't be reading my opponent Umbreon.

Thanks again!

 

[Deleted member]

check my recent post history, there's some good stuff in the marth boards from there.

 

[Tarv]

I'm not sure how I missed this post, but thanks Umbreon. I'll take a look as soon as I can. Keep up the good work with the knowledge dropping.

 

[BTmoney]

Rule #2: Pick your character, and stay with that character.

I don't care what anyone says, picking multiple characters hurts you in the long run. It's one thing to switch characters and to just focus on that character, but I'm talking about you people out there that can't decide between Fox and Marth, you will never be good at either if you try to excel at both. They are just too different and you will at some point see smash better through either one lens or the other. But more importantly, you can't have both. If you're worried that your character isn't good enough, you may very well be right and it's time for a change. But pick one character and run with it. It just hurts your focus to do otherwise.

You told me before you're not a meme guy but I had to lol.
Somebody might appreciate this.
I'm usually very against posting giant pictures but it is called for.

 

[Deleted member]

i'm not so sure that he's the clear best at either of those characters.

 

[Bones0]

Armada is the best Peach and Young Link.

Check mate.

 

[Deleted member]

Armada is the best Peach and Young Link.

Check mate.

you are my favorite community pariah.

 

[Goodin]

I just read the OP and the rest of this thread for the first time and its my favorite thread. It both clarified a lot of my current beliefs and pointed out many things that I need to eliminate in my game.
My main problem is the single character method of improvement.I hate how I consider falco my main, but at the same time, I play fox, marth, and falcon because they are all fun... i guess i will have to just sharpen up my falco and not worry about the others for now.

Great read

 

[Bones0]

you are my favorite community pariah.

You should come to Sypher's tourney this weekend and coach me. There's nothing funnier than a community where the best competitor is a pariah.

 

[Doomolish]

Armada is the best Peach and Young Link.

Check mate.

Actually the best YL might be Axe.

 

[Bones0]

Actually the best YL might be Axe.

I agree, but I was hoping no one would point that out. Tbh it's probably debatable since I don't think Axe can beat Hbox with YL.

 

[BTmoney]

I'd be willing to bet Armada's YL would beat more players than Axe's would. Armada is a freak and I'd put my money on him taking the ditto as well.

Armada is like a Mew2king without any inconsistencies and a cool accent. That's just a perfect player.

 

[choknater]

armada is def a better young link than axe

it's def possible for axe to beat hbox with YL though. last i saw he got really close to taking a game.

 

[Divinokage]

Well... to be good at multiple characters requires deep game understanding. You can do it but Id recommend to do it after you mastered 1 character.

 

[Xyzz]

You never master a char, there's always room for improvement! :D

 

[Doomolish]

This thread made me win a SSB. doubles tournament over Mariguas (arguably one of the best players in the world), and finish second on Melee doubles over Yu (arguably the 3rd best player in Mexico). So please, Umbreon, finish it.

 

[SilentJ]

This is exactly what i've been looking for to step up my game, Thanks a ton!

Hoping to hear more soon!

 

[Dr Peepee]

max u don't even play this game

we should talk about this sometime