12KIR4.
Let's look at the second game against your friend's Link.
0:03 - You grab and uthrow. You input an utilt but he double jumps over it. Well, first of all, if you're going to try an uthrow -> utilt combo, learn the timing. By this I mean learn the soonest possible moment when you can utilt. I'm not saying he couldn't have jumped out of your utilt anyway; it just appeared that your utilt happened later than it possibly could have.
Instead of uthrow, I would suggest that you fthrow Link at lower percents, especially since the ledge was directly in front of you. At very low percents you can fthrow -> regrab Link. At medium low percents, you can fthrow -> dtilt or fthrow -> fsmash depending on their DI.
0:05 - Whether you intended to or not, you managed to ftilt his boomerang. Marth's shield is pretty small, so in general you're better off conserving it when you have better options. Rangs and bombs can be tilted an jabbed away with good timing. It's useful to be able to do this proficiently. It's also handy to be able to grab bombs in midair.
You then approached him with a dash attack, which connected because he was in the middle of pulling out a bomb. He might have assumed the boomerang was going to hit you, and so he thought that he would have time to pull that bomb. But you punish him with a dash attack and follow it up with an ftilt. The ftilt stuns him long enough to, probably, screw up some of his button inputs. As a result, he is left standing there, and you strike with a tippered fsmash.
0:10 - For some reason, the Link opts to bomb recover, even though he could have just grappled the ledge or simply up-b'ed from that distance. Now you jump up and try to spike him as he up-b's. You don't space the dair very well, unfortunately. Your dair misses, and you get hit by Link's up-b.
When I think Link will recover with his up-b from directly below the stage, I wavedash (or you can just jump backwards; whatever works better for you) onto the edge. Then I time my ledgehop dair so that it connects as I'm rising. I land on the stage, Link get's spiked to his death. It's all cool. You've probably seen pros like Mew2King do this before. It's very effective, as long as you have the timing down.
0:17 You go for an fsmash but it narrowly whiffs. Link manages to jump over it, somehow. He hits you with a nair.
Now
here is the first point in the video where you can start to pick up on your friend's habits.
As soon as he hits you with the nair, he rolls behind you. You respond to this ... by rolling the other direction. Okay - so now you're in a neutral position. He's on one side of the stage; you're on the other. You both stare each other down for half a second, then Link remembers he has projectiles. He fires his bow and you intercept it with a jab. He follows up his projectile with a dash attack, which clanks with your second jab. Notice what happened here. He fired a projectile, then he rushed in to attack you directly. Take note of this pattern!
When he sees that the dash attack didn't succeed as well as he had hoped ... what does he do? He rolls behind you. And your response? You roll away from him again. Position essentially resets.
0:24 - You throw out an fsmash, rather randomly, and Link ... rolls behind you. He punishes your laggy move with an utilt juggle, but you manage to regain your feet by descending with a fair, which catches him in the middle of his own missed fair.
You attempt to follow up the fair with a dash attack. He wisely tech rolls to get away from your new attack, and he immediately throws a rang. But you dash attack a second time to follow his tech roll and it connects before his boomerang happens. You keep the pressure on him and get a grab. You choose to uthrow. It sends him up way high. You try to follow his DI with a full jumped uair but you miss. You eat a boomerang. The reason why you missed is because he double jumped to the right and you didn't really stay under him. Link has a lot of air maneuverability. Sometimes you just have to dash after him to catch up when he's above you. It'll open up more windows for you than if you just stay put after you uthrow.
0:40 - VERY good decision to fthrow him at the edge. He makes a poor recover decision, and you time the punishing fsmash excellently. It gets you a kill. In general, getting someone off the stage with Marth is essentially the same thing as killing them (assuming they aren't Jiggs). In your mind, you should always be thinking about this, because if you play your cards right, you can edgeguard them for a stock everytime. ^_^
0:45 - Okay. You run away while he respawns with invincibility. That's a legitimate tactic. Then you jump and double jump over him. I guess you were still worried about getting hit while he had the advantage on you in the sense that he was still invincible, possibly. Fortunately, you were at least kind of tricky with how you double jumped, making it seem like you were going to land and then jumping while he futilely dsmashed where he thought you were going to be.
0:49 - I don't know why you up-b'ed. He was in the middle of an airdodge and couldn't hurt you. But I guess you were trying to take advantage of the speed of Marth's up-b at close range. For the most part, it's not a good idea to up-b randomly on FD, because there are no platforms for you to land on and therefore you're vulnerable for longer. But this time you don't get punished, so it's all good.
0:51 - After landing from your up-b, you roll away from his utilt. Nothing to criticize there. After rolling you dash dance for a couple of iterations. He jumps over you with a bair and then you jump away from him.
I'll tell you what you did wrong here. As soon as you started dash dancing, you should have been thinking "I'm waiting him to make a bad move. If he rolls towards me, I grab him. If he shoots a projectile, I shield it. If he dash attacks, I shield it and shield grab (or dash dance away and run back in and grab him)."
But in that moment he jumps over you with a bair that misses entirely. Your immediate response should have been to SH and uair or fair depending on the rhythm of your dash dance. At the very least, you should have recognized that he was in the air with limited options. Instead you just jumped away from him and limited your own options to bairing.
Not a huge deal. But it's absolutely crucial that you pay attention to the actions of your opponent and position yourself to punish mistakes.
0:54 - After rolling away, you space a couple ftilts nicely. Whenever you are doing any kind of spacing, be sure to pay attention to
how your opponent gets around the obstacles you're throwing out. Notice that he rolls in toward you here. You dtilt several times, and he spotdodges them all and then manages to get away with a roll behind you.
Remember what Sveet was telling you about the dtilt. It's a very fast poke which allows you to do multiple things at the same time. While poking away at Link, you should have been thinking "I wonder what he'll do to escape my pressure. Will he roll? Will he continue spotdodging? If so, I can just time a grab so that it gets him as soon as his spotdodge ends." And then you should have read that roll and grabbed him. Oh well.
0:58 - You jump up and this time you notice that he's rolled directly in front of you. You punish this severely by locking him down with an fair, then catching him with an utilt -> tippered fsmash to set up for a potential edgeguard.
1:04 - He goes for the bomb recovery again! Seriously, you should just start grabbing the edge and bairing when he does that. It's easy as pie. Just grab edge -> hold away to let go of the ledge -> jump -> cstick toward him for a bair -> recover with reverse up-b. Instead you let him back on the stage.
1:07 - You go for a dash attack as he's lying on the ground. He rolls away and tries to grab you. ^_^
You're patient, dash dance offensively to check his options, and grab him out of his spotdodge. You uthrow. Then you throw out an uair to force him to double jump. He does so and descends with a dair. You fall back and allow him to land in front of you in dair lag, prepped for an fsmash which you deliver. That ends up being the stock due to sloppy recovery.
1:19 - Looks like a missed wavedash. Got you dsmashed. No big deal though.
1:24 - You jump into a bomb and get a little reckless. You use your double jump to come down with a fair, which gets you shield grabbed and thrown into the air. You fall down with bair -> shield, but Link is prepared and grabs you for a dthrow utilt auto combo.
It's very important that you l-cancel your aerials. You gain immense mobility that way. The first time, when your fair got shield grabbed, you could have l-cancelled the fair and then run through his shield. Then he would have missed his grab entirely. Same thing when you baired and then felt pressured enough to shield. There was enough space between you and Link for you to not have to worry about too much. You could have l-cancelled that bair and then short hopped straight up. The grab would have missed, due to you being in the air, and he would have been left open. When you l-cancel, you have very little lag, so you don't have to feel like you're in a bad situation necessarily everytime you land from an aerial.
1:34 - He pressures you with projectiles and eventually lands a bomb, which sets up for an fsmash to send you offstage. You do a good job of recovering this time. However, at 1:45 he dash attacks and pushes you off the stage via your shield. You panic and up-b too early, and you get fsmashed in the face.
Try not to get scared every time you're off the stage. Just remain calm and sweetspot that edge. ^_^
1:50 - You respawn and read his roll. Free fsmash! Woohoo!
1:57 - You dthrow, wait, and fsmash. By waiting you give him time to tech and spotdodge. Always time your fsmashes such that they hit immediately after the tech's invincibility frames end, but before he can do anything. Or just fsmash after he spot dodges. One or the other.
2:03 - You score an utilt -> fsmash combo to get Link offstage. You go for a spike again but he airdodges. 0_0
Whenever someone recovers high, they're going to either fall to the stage with an aerial or airdodge. You can wait for both and punish!
2:09 - Nice read on the roll.
2:14 - Link charges a dsmash and you run right into it! XD
Whenever someone charges a smash attack, just wavedash close enough to them that your fsmash will hit after they release theirs. Then wait, I repeat:
wait until they release the smash. It should be pretty easy to time your fsmash. ^_^
Everyone punishes charged smashes differently. But I find waiting for the move to finish the least risky. A lot of people just run into the smashes because they're impatient.
2:30 - Link charged an fsmash, and you jumped right onto it. This situation is trickier because you were already in the air. You might have been able to counter it. I don't know. A lot of your options were covered in that situation. I probably would have just airdodged behind him to be 100% safe. Any other shenanigans might've still gotten you hit. X_x
2:33 - The projectiles pressure seems to be working on you. Someone already mentioned it, but wavedash out of shield is beastly in this match-up. You can literally approach him with your shield. Just dash dance until he throws the bomb. Immediately run towards him and shield the boomerang -> wavedash out of shield -> fsmash.
You mentioned in one of your posts that you have trouble stopping when you're in a dash. There are actually 4 effective ways to stop yourself in a dash (or gain control over your character mid-dash).
1. Click L or R while running to stop and shield instantly.
2. Hold down to crouch in place.
3. Jump. If you hold back you'll jump straight up instead of forward.
4. Wavedash.
They all have their uses.
2:48 - You fair and shield. Why shield? I guess you held the button too long after l-cancelling. If you had successfully l-cancelled, you could have followed up that fair with an nair or something equally devastating.
Part 2.
0:01 - Your friend up-b'ed in the air again. 0_0
I'm assuming he knows the move is stronger on the ground, right? It's also slightly safer.
0:09 - Okay. I can't overlook this any more. This is like the 4th time in the same match you've full jump daired and missed. Don't go for those spikes. They look cool but they're not likely to work when your opponent has that many options. Just wait for him to airdodge and fsmash him again. Sweet and simple. >_>
0:13 - Why dash dance? He's charging an fsmash. You could just space an fsmash guaranteed. I guess you expected the second hit of the fsmash. Mindgames? Haha.
Anyway, you got punished for your belated dash attack by a dthrow -> utilt for the kill. Yikes!
0:24 - The reason why the fsmash seemed to teleport and hit you is because when you faired, your hurtbox got extended enough for you to get hit. Anyway, stop jumping into smash attacks. >_<
0:43 - Instead of up-b'ing, you could have just let yourself drop and grabbed the edge. Never go on the stage with an aerial or any kind of move when you could just grab the edge. People will always wait for you to land on the stage and then punish you. The edge gives you invincibility frames and no lag from landing. Pretty obvious why it's the better choice.
0:47 - You get dsmashed straight up. You quickly use your jump. OMG! Don't do that! You let yourself take more damage from being in the "bubble". Plus, you used your jump, which limited your options as you landed. You ended up airdodging into a bomb -> fsmash and died.
Never use your double jump unnecessarily. That cuts your options at least in half!
1:05 - Why did you shield when he landed in front of you. You could have hit him with literally any move! Instead you allowed him to roll behind you again and get away from a dangerous situation.
1:09 - Try to avoid fairing when it's not going to hit.
1:14 - Nice edgeguard to wrap it up.
In summary, work on your edgeguarding. Don't go for flashy KOs like dairs when fsmash is 10000X more likely to work. Wait for your opponent to roll / spotdodge / airdodge. Being patient pays! Don't waste your double jump. And ... work on your tech skill. It will be very useful to you.
Hope this helps. Happy smashing!
