Stop it with the Lazy Man's Way Out! /rant thread

[∫unk]

You forget to mention learning mk is amazing for learning how to fight mk's and... mk is amazing on teams. I'd much rather develop my MK than anything else because he's so versatile.

He's also less matchup dependent than a lot of characters. I can get away with d-air camping if I don't know the matchup. I can get away with bad spacing (ex. me vs WarpStatus videos) if I'm predicting well. That doesn't work with... Kirby or Marth or whoever you mentioned.

 

[¯\_S.(ツ).L.I.D._/¯]

You forget to mention learning mk is amazing for learning how to fight mk's and... mk is amazing on teams. I'd much rather develop my MK than anything else because he's so versatile.

He's also less matchup independent than a lot of characters. I can get away with d-air camping if I don't know the matchup. I can get away with bad spacing (ex. me vs WarpStatus videos) if I'm predicting well. That doesn't work with... Kirby or Marth or whoever you mentioned.

^^^^^^

This.

People pull out MK even if they rarely use him, and they can win with him. With Marth let's say, you just can't do that, it doesn't work.

Knowing the matchup as MK is helpful nonetheless, but it's not as vital as with other characters. Like Junk pretty much said, you can get away with not playing the matchup like it's supposed to be played, and still have a shot at winning, or at least have a better shot than if you tried to do the same thing with Marth or another character.

 

[AvaricePanda]

The whole, MK beats having a better secondary thing works...on paper.

Even on paper:

1)If you lose the first match, you can counterpick with a character who beats them a lot more soundly than MK would. Instead of CPing MK against ICs, you can CP Snake and have a better chance.

2)If you win the first match and you have an easily counterable character, then you can still choose a character who would beat the person he CPs better, or you can choose to stay with your main. Say you're a Wolf, and you just beat a Fox. Do you think he's going to counterpick D3? If so, Falco is your best bet. Is he a notable top Fox main, and do you think he's going to counterpick in the first place? Stay Wolf.

There's two things that are wrong with the whole counterpick argument anyway though:

1) You should know who's in your region. When you go to a tournament, you don't see 50 random people who you don't know and don't know who they use. You should know the big names of your region, the good players of your region, and the lesser players of your region. You should know who's more counterpick happy (usually the lesser players, in which case you shouldn't have to worry). Really, unless you're playing against Azen or Ninjalink, you should go in a match and already know who your opponent's going to play.

For example, let's pretend I'm playing Anther (midwest) and I somehow win the first game (lolimpossible). Anther's is THE Pikachu main. When I win and he gets to counterpick whoever I play, do you think he's actually going to counterpick Peach or Luigi to beat my Diddy? Or will he stay Pikachu (which he 99% most surely will). He's going to stay Pikachu, so there's no reason I should pick MK just to be safe in case he counterpicks (especially considering my secondary will be worse anyway).

2. Which brings me to what Gheb said. Your main is your best character 99%of the time. Unless you have a match-up that really is unwinnable (Samus or DK vs. D3, for instance), there's no reason to have to counterpick a character. If you're going to counter-pick against a person who has a 6:4 match-up against your main, chances are you're going to lose even worse because your secondary is going to be bad. Same with the reverse. Most people aren't going to use a secondary against you, especially when your worst match-up is 6:4 or 65:35 and they're playing against a 6:4 match-up anyway. They're better off sticking with their main who they actually know the match-up with, rather than saying, "lol i'll pick Kirby because he ***** Falco it's 65:35 there's no way I can lose!!!1"

The people who are actually going to be counterpicking against your character (AKA, 95% chance it's not a known top player with their character) probably won't be that great to begin with, so unless it's like a 7:3 or worse match-up, you shouldn't worry.

tl;dr: A secondary isn't necessary for a lot of characters to begin with, and counter-picking characters is already a risky, unnecessary move, but MK is not always the best secondary for your character (though he is always a good one).

 

[Xerit]

The whole, MK beats having a better secondary thing
1)If you lose the first match, you can counterpick with a character who beats them a lot more soundly than MK would. Instead of CPing MK against ICs, you can CP Snake and have a better chance.

2)If you win the first match and you have an easily counterable character, then you can still choose a character who would beat the person he CPs better, or you can choose to stay with your main. Say you're a Wolf, and you just beat a Fox. Do you think he's going to counterpick D3? If so, Falco is your best bet. Is he a notable top Fox main, and do you think he's going to counterpick in the first place? Stay Wolf.

In general I agree with you, sticking with your main unless you're up against something that really is near unwinnable is probably your best choice. However the above has some things wrong with it.

In example 1 you say I can just pick someone who beats them more soundly. Thats the same argument SuSa is trying to make in the OP which I debunked in an earlier example. So say you secondary Snake because IC's beat down your D3 (I just picked a main for you based on who IC's are supposed to beat). You win the second match so now its 1:1 and your turn to get CP'd. Who do you choose? D3? The opponent will IC's you again. Snake? Better hope they can't play a D3 as well or you're back in the same boat your were in.

Once again its not that MK is stronger than other CPs its that hes SAFER than other CPs. Which is what makes him a solid dependable secondary.

In example 2 you assume you know your opponent, and his CPs and that one character (who isn't MK) is going to match well against both of them. Also you're either assuming you can just pick up and play any character you want, or you're assuming that you just lucked out and happen to be a Wolf Main/ Falco Secondary when your opponent is a Fox/D3.

In reality once again MK would be your best choice if you're worried about being CP'd, because he can't be CP'd. The "Your best secondary is the one who beats your weaknesses" argument only works if your opponent isn't allowed to have a secondary as well.

Like I said above though, in general I agree with you, sticking with your main is best and honestly more fun. However if you're worried about CP's and you need a good secondary that is safe and dependable regardless of your main, there really isn't any reason not to choose MK.

 

[B!squick]

But MK is so easy to learn, and using Snake as an example is silly. The lower tiers are generally lower because of infinites and MK does much better against DeDeDe and Ice Climbers than, say, my main would.

Also, MK can plank when he has a percent lead on the last stock, thus making several match ups even better for MK.

 

[CRASHiC]

The lower tiers are generally lower because of infinites

What?
R.O.B and Donkey Kong say hi.
Try to intinite Jigglypuff.

 

[Xerit]

What?
R.O.B and Donkey Kong say hi.
Try to intinite Jigglypuff.

D3 tells DK to sit back down.

 

[B!squick]

What?
R.O.B and Donkey Kong say hi.
Try to intinite Jigglypuff.

I don't know what ROB and DK have to do with anything as they are higher tier... :/

And DeDeDe has an infinite on Luigi of all characters. D:

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

His point was that ROB and DK both are affected by infinites and remain above low tier.

 

[Xerit]

Ah misunderstood then. Still doesn't seem particularly relevant.

 

[B!squick]

Ah misunderstood then. Still doesn't seem particularly relevant.

Indeed, especially since both have steadily dropped as the tier lists are released...

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

ROB in particular won't stay high tier for long, heh.

 

[Ruuku]

I usually would prefer to CP stage/character depending on how I'm adapting to my opponent's play style.

 

[Xerit]

Even still you must have a best a handful of characters who you can play competetively and this thread is about who should be on that exclusive list (which for most people is 2 characters long).

I mean obviously you react to the person you're playing against. No one switches to their secondary when they just trumped their opponents logical CP with their native main (read as, if my D3 already beat his Falco, why switch now?).

 

[CRASHiC]

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/love-of-the-game-not-playing-to-win.html

The Japanese players definitely proved to me that by sticking to one character and learning everything about that character, you win the unwinnable matches. In both Street Fighter games I played in Japan, I saw Japanese players who devoted themselves to supposedly weak characters and demonstrated that the topological peaks for those characters are miles higher than I had realized. One might think that that invalidates some of the points I made about exploring many mountains in hopes of finding the highest, yet the winner of the CvS2 tournament used the same old unfair, broken characters and tactics that we’re all aware of (A-groove, roll-canceling Blanka/Sakura/Bison for those who care). That same player, Tokido, won the CvS2 portion of the 2001 tournament I mentioned above, so perhaps he’s proved my point after all. He’s identified what many players agree is the highest peak of that game, and devoted himself to perfecting it. Unfortunately he’s an incredibly boring player, but nonetheless a boring player who won the US National and Japan National tournaments!

Apply to Brawl. Just input new names, and change the country with the boring best player, cause that part is us

 

[Xerit]

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/love-of-the-game-not-playing-to-win.html



Apply to Brawl. Just input new names, and change the country with the boring best player, cause that part is us

What side are you on?

That quote seems to say that although low tier characters can be played, and played better than people thought, they still end up losing. The people who win tournaments are the ones playing the high tier characters and abusing the high tier techs.

That would seem to be the exact opposite of the argument you seemed to be trying to make.

I mean I agree with the sentiment in the URL (love of game not playing to win), but that doesn't cause a strategy to become valid. Actually it tends to indicate exactly the opposite. Although the person using the losing strat simply doesn't care he/she is going to lose (love vs win).

 

[CRASHiC]

This was in reaction to people denying the ability to play without a secondary.
And yes, it does prepose some contradicting things, but we can apply this to Japan, where we see the best player maining Pit, and we find a new situation in our game, and in Melee, the best player maining Jigglypuff.

 

[Flayl]

Pit doesn't have unwinnable matchups.

 

[Matador]

Character boards are not reliable sources for match-up numbers. Neither are match-up charts

<---Loves quoting for the sake of truthfulness

Also, MK is also easy to pick up. Your secondaries aren't as well-trained or as battle-tested as your main, so it kind of makes up for that. AND you can always be sure that he covers your bad matchups.

 

[Ruuku]

The Brawl community is full of people that hold back in "friendlies". That just defines yet another problem. People always say how much those don't matter or don't mean a thing. People that will only show their skill in a tournament setting or in money matches show that the community doesn't matter to them. It isn't conceivable for someone to only practice in tournament or in money matches. Then what is the point of "friendlies" if it is only in tournaments that you will find out that what you do doesn't work?

To me it feels like some characters may require more research to advance their metagame. But research alone with no effective experiments won't get anywhere. Is sandbagging in casual matches part of a player's strategy to win in tournaments? If so, it means that a lot of the characters with tools that aren't as obvious as Metaknight/Falco/Snake/DDD's, will perhaps never reach anything close to their full potential./rant

 

[AvaricePanda]

Anyone's easy to learn if you put it that way.

D3:
1. Side B a lot
2. Grab
3. D-throw
4. B-throw if you can't chaingrab them
5. B-air
6. repeat throws
7. U-tilt

Falco:
1. Short hop
2. Fire two lasers
3. Repeat steps one and two.
4. Chaingrab if they get close.
5. Repeat steps one and two.
6. Jab, B-air, Dash Attack when needed.
7. Repeat steps one and two
8. Repeat steps one and two but DACUS right afterwards LOL MINDGAMES

Snake
1. Blow **** up.
2. F-tilt if they get close.
3. Use broken pivot grab range.
4. Throw
(super pro version: d-throw and tech chase)
5. U-tilt

Game and Watch:
1. B-air
2. F-smash

Wario
1. D-air
2. Run away
3. Waft

....yeah. Any character can be easy to pick up really, especially when you already know the basics of the game. This doesn't mean that the character will be any good, though; practice does that.

MK being easy to pick up shouldn't matter anyway, even if he by a margin compared to the other characters. It's not like you're hard pressed for time before you head out to a tournament. "LOL YOU HAVE ONE HOUR TO GET A SECONDARY READY, GOGOGOGO." You have time.

He is the safest option as a secondary, but not always the best.

 

[DMG]

MK is the best overall secondary because he's the best character. For individual matchups, in specific cases, it's true he may not be the strongest choice for that particular matchup. However, you don't have issues with character weaknesses that other characters have.

Say you go double blind first round. You play as Falco normally and your opponent is known to play as Marth. Let's say you second Snake, but you also know he seconds Dedede. You go to double blind because basically when you move over to Falco he moves over to Marth and when you move over to Snake he moves over to Dedede. So either choice is risking being CP'd from the getgo. You could try Olimar for Dedede, but he loses to Marth. If he seconds Snake, then IC's are out of the option, and etc. If you used MK as a secondary instead, you don't have this issue. You don't have to worry about Dedede going up against Snake, Marth against Diddy, Falco vs IC's. You have to worry about being the better player, but you don't have matchup issues weighing down on you as well.

It also doesn't help that MK is fairly easy overall to pick up fast and do well with for the majority of people. It also helps people that pick him up as a secondary because his matchups from the getgo are already in his favor or at best even, so there's no "hard times" trying to beat IC's with Falco or trying to overcome Diddy vs Wario. I mean yes it's not neccesarily easy to win with MK, but it's certainly nice to have a fantastic matchup spread.

If you really want people to second or main someone other than MK, you need to be able to illustrate some clear bonuses for maining that character that at least attempt to compensate for that own character's matchup issues. If someone's region is flooded with Falco, Olimar, Diddy, Wario, etc. Then you can use that as a selling point for someone to use Marth. If the region likes Snake, then you have a good reason to go Dedede. If the region likes IC's and Marth, hell you have a great reason to go Snake instead of MK.

That's the only way I can see people using secondaries other than MK, aside from being inherently bad with him, disliking him as a character for whatever reason, or something similar to that.

 

[Matador]

Various character playstyle generalizations

No.

The reason why MK is easy to pick up is that he has the most, and often the BEST options out of anyone in the game. Not because he has a simplistic "too good" playstyle, or because he has good matchups against the high tiers.

He's the best character because for every action ANY character has, MK has an opposite and superior reaction.

....yeah. Any character can be easy to pick up really, especially when you already know the basics of the game. This doesn't mean that the character will be any good, though; practice does that.

Way to miss my point. Nowhere did I even suggest that your MK will be as great as M2K's or anything without practice. I said he's easy to pick up. Easier than pretty much any character. AND he covers every matchup.

Why wouldn't you make MK your secondary?

MK being easy to pick up shouldn't matter anyway, even if he by a margin compared to the other characters. It's not like you're hard pressed for time before you head out to a tournament. "LOL YOU HAVE ONE HOUR TO GET A SECONDARY READY, GOGOGOGO." You have time.

He is the safest option as a secondary, but not always the best.

Let me simplify it for you.

I main Mario. Mario's worst matchup is D3. I'm not going to go through the painstaking process of learning IC's CGs for D3 just to have them wrecked by GOOD D3 players.

I'm going to pick up MK.

I'm going to play MK for a week, and with that action, cover every bad matchup I can possibly have. Will my bad matchups now be 65:35 my favor? Maybe not. Will I be guaranteed even or better? Yes; and for much less effort than looking for the one perfect puzzle piece that gives me my arbitrarily decided 60:40 instead of the 55:45 that MK nets me for ALL of my matchups.

Yeah, by my logic, you should just go ahead and MAIN MK...Well you should. Yay Brawl.

Edit: I didn't even read DMG's post. That's exactly what I was getting at.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Matador, do you expect to beat the good King Dedede players any better with Meta Knight than you do with Ice Climbers? Honestly? You're going to lose with both of them. You can't just pick up a random character, including Meta Knight, and expect to beat people who are actually good with certain characters. You might as well just stick with Mario, lose anyway, and save yourself the grief. If you want to seriously learn a character, it's not like Meta Knight is even less work than most characters, including Ice Climbers. Ice Climbers are more about being technical than anything anyway; you have an instantly tournament viable secondary even if you are pretty bad as long as you literally always kill off an appropriate grab (you still won't beat anyone good, but you'll do better than you will with a scrubby Meta Knight).

Honestly, if you really think Meta Knight is that good and so overpowered (he isn't), just main him and get it over with. The truth is that he has large and exploitable weaknesses just like the entire rest of the cast, and I'm extremely doubtful at best of the claim that he has no bad matchups (Snake uses utilt?). The culture that hypes Meta Knight so much is a bit ridiculous, but that's getting off topic...

Do consider this. You really don't have an advantage in most matchups if you secondary Meta Knight for a simple reason. Against other high tier characters, Meta Knight has a pretty small advantage in general (usually 55-45 or 60-40). Now, assume he is actually your secondary, and assume they are using their main. You have an abstract matchup advantage of 55-45 (very small), they are using their main (their best character), and you are using your secondary (a character you are probably noticably worse with than your main). Assume equal overall player skill; who wins? I'd bet my money on the guy using his main. I honestly can't think of ever seeing anyone go Meta Knight if they weren't already very serious Meta Knight users and do anything but lose badly; it's just plain not a good way to win.

Also, I'd like to point out that not many characters who are generally good have really awful matchups (what is it; DK, Wolf, Fox, Ness?). If you want to use those select characters, secondaries really do make sense. Otherwise, you're probably already low tier and looking at awful matchups you want to use secondaries to avoid. That's a sign that either you already have some killer strategy worked out on your character use (far beyond what simple advice could help with) or that you are not selecting your characters for the purpose of doing as well as possible. That's fine (you can pick characters for whatever reason you want), but if that's the case, grabbing a very high tier secondary (like Meta Knight) just to win seems very silly and inconsistent with your previous standards. Of course, low tier isn't blanket like that; lots of low tier characters are not low tier for having hard counters. Pokemon Trainer is probably a decently uncontroversial character to be in low tier, and he has zero awful matchups. Secondaries don't help him very much at all.

I didn't mean to say previously that secondaries are always a bad strategy, but I do think mot players would do better without them. Most players do main a character who is high tier and has no hard counters, and I do think it makes sense to talk to them. If you main Diddy Kong, do you really need a secondary? I mean, maybe having one just really suits you personally, but Diddy Kong can do it alone, and you might benefit from the focus if you did as such.

 

[Flayl]

Matador, do you expect to beat the good King Dedede players any better with Meta Knight than you do with Ice Climbers? Honestly? You're going to lose with both of them. You can't just pick up a random character, including Meta Knight, and expect to beat people who are actually good with certain characters. You might as well just stick with Mario, lose anyway, and save yourself the grief.

You greatly underrate how bad the matchup is for Mario and greatly overrate how hard it is to pick up a character in Brawl.

 

[Rapid_Assassin]

I am not convinced secondaries are even a good idea at all for a lot of players. Every secondary you have you really do have to be ready to use in any matchup (when your opponent gets to counterpick on you!) so you can expect to play every character you use worse for every character you have. Using just one solid character and just playing through your worst matchups is a pretty good strategy.

If you can get a secondary that has a much better matchup than your main and actually be good with that secondary, it's not entirely a bad idea. Just use your main first and after you win, and then only use the secondary on a good counterpick stage to make sure that you win the match after you've lost a match. Or if you know that you're going to be fighting an opponent who say only plays Bowser against everyone, feel free to counterpick from the start (but be careful with that - many people learn secondaries or switch mains seemingly at random). But yes, I mostly agree with that. Especially for players who are just starting off, and aren't even remotely competent with one character.

Let me know when you beat D3 as Wolf. Who's other matchups are all better then 20-80. His next worst is 35-65 against MK, then everything else is 40-60 or better. Meaning if you don't have a solid counter against D3, you should be getting knocked out by D3.

Next time you win a 20-80 match against someone your skill level, let me know.

@salaboB
But Snake covers all of my Peach's bad matchups. :| who is my MAIN. Secondaries are meant to COUNTER your MAINS BAD matchups.

I wouldn't recommend that most new players main someone who has matchups that terrible. They're usually better off maining someone in S or A tier for the most part. Someone new will probably get better if they play a character who actually has options in most situations than if their main is so limited that they have no options whatsoever against a large portion of the cast. If they main a good character, they'll be able to learn to consider their options. But if they main a bad character, they'd end up just getting killed in a lot of situations that they wouldn't have if their character had the option to do something.

 

[Xerit]

I fully admit i'm not the best player out there, but I'm not the worst either. I main D3 who is an upper tier character with relatively few bad machups (and even those are mostly winnable). However trying to fight even a decent Falco is an extremely uphill battle for me because of his chaingrab -> spike and lasers which force me to approach (setting me up to get shield grabbed because of D3's poor approaches in general, discounting dash grab which can't be used because of lasers).

So for me at least until I figure out a way around that particular technique (if I can) I have to pick up a secondary at least for that match. If i'm going to pick one up, it might as well be easy to play, and perfectly safe MK. The only other valid option would be Kirby (since learning IC's would take up too much time away from my main), but Kirby wont help me against G&W or Pikachu who also give D3 a hard time.

Next the claim that "easy to pick up doesn't matter because you still have to spend time on the secondary". The thing is ease of pickup drastically lowers the amount of time you have to spend practicing on your secondary to get him "good enough" to handle your personal unwinnable matchups for your main. MK only needs good spacing and a few basic combos as opposed to say IC or Snake who have to learn CG/Explosives and THEN spacing/combos as well.


This isn't a MK is OP rant, so all the people getting all worked up over MK not being overpowered need to chill out a bit. No one in this thread has said anything other than hes easy to play and hes safe, which most people who i've talked to agree is true. That doesn't necessarily make him broken, it just makes him an ideal secondary. Which is what this whole discussion is about.

Edit: The reason I wont just main if I think hes so safe is because I think hes lame and don't think its fun to play him.

 

[CRASHiC]

Try these against Falco Xerit. Its pretty beast.

GUYS GUYS GUYS!!!

I was looking into pummel breaks, and if you space your grabs right, you can chain grab to where the opponent is just off the edge, pummel break, and they will break as if they are hitting the ground, but fall down, you then grab the edge, and some characters, LIKE SNAKE!!! have no viable recovery option you can't block from low. If you can also land a grab like this on one of the space animals, it is essentially grab to death. Don't hang to far over, or they will air break. Its ****ing sweat, going to go test more.

There is so much information in Vayseth's thread that it is pretty easy to miss a thing or too.

However, just finished playing with some friends, I think I may have found a way to use zoning on FD to turn Falco's camping game against him.

Below is FD

________________DDD__F____

If you can close him in here, you can mix up a game of low air camping and dthrow to ftilt to keep him pretty much at bay, since the only move he has to get through you here is his side b, but it is low enough prority that you can easily stop it. The only acccuarte way through is to double jump and side b, but that ends with him not being able to move and having quite a bit of landing lag, in which you can chase to set up this situation on the other side, or uptilt. His down b can cause problems if you aren't careful however, but with careful dodging, it should be a problem. You should be able to keep him within this zone, then, when the time is right, abuse the pummel release at ledge to foot stool to dair for a kill, as he respawns, attempt to set up this situation again,

No, if the Falco is smart (and lucky with our grab range) enough not to get grabbed and pushed off stage, you will eventually use dsmash or utilt for the kill. The pummel will make him go the same distance regardless, footstooling him will take away his second jump, or just grabbing the edge right away will keep him from getting back on, and when he goes for his Upb, his only vertical recovery move, Bair of Fair to stage spike for early gimp. However, this is not auto win, and will take a very alert game from you to be able to punish his every movement as he tries to reposition himself on the other side of the field.

Another note, do NOT go for gimp or go on the offense. Your goal is to keep him pinned and rack up damage, abusing dtilt, ftilt, bair, fthrow, bthrow, and inhale to your advantage. You should become a wall, not giving him any chance for escape or to rezone himself. When he is off stage, throw waddle dees to pressure him. He most always feel the pressure, but you must not give him opportunities to use side b safely above you and escape. He can only jump up high and side b, and as I said before, when that happens, be ready to punish big because of the lag he will receive.

 

[Xerit]

Thanks very much I will look into giving those a shot at my next smashfest. Sounds pretty decent on paper if I can just get him to that point, and work out that first grabs spacing and such.

 

[Ruuku]

MK being easy to pick up shouldn't matter anyway, even if he by a margin compared to the other characters. It's not like you're hard pressed for time before you head out to a tournament. "LOL YOU HAVE ONE HOUR TO GET A SECONDARY READY, GOGOGOGO." You have time.

He is the safest option as a secondary, but not always the best.

Well, it seems to me like there is no time. Otherwise people would look deeper into the potential of some characters that not a lot of people look at/care about. And if people disagree with that and believe that all is known about this game, then why are you still playing this currently unbalanced game? Free money?/ end of rant

Next the claim that "easy to pick up doesn't matter because you still have to spend time on the secondary". The thing is ease of pickup drastically lowers the amount of time you have to spend practicing on your secondary to get him "good enough" to handle your personal unwinnable matchups for your main. MK only needs good spacing and a few basic combos as opposed to say IC or Snake who have to learn CG/Explosives and THEN spacing/combos as well.

This is exactly what I was talking about earlier. People would rather use a safe character with relatively obvious strengths and weaknesses in order to win. Combine that with holding back in "friendlies" and you got a good winning combination. Winning is mostly what it's about. Screw the community, right?/ end of rant

Right now it seems like MK is indeed a good choice for a secondary. But there are other factors including play styles and stages which should be taken into account. Some characters are perhaps being overlooked. I agree with most of what Amazing Ampharos said. And the thread's title makes a lot of sense to me.

 

[DMG]

Ampharos, it's true that for the most part people cannot just pick up a character and expect to beat the dedicated main of a character. HOWEVER, that's what I was pointing out with MK; your only thing to worry about when you play as him is to be the better opponent. You don't have matchup issues with MK weighing you down, where as with any other character you clearly do.

If you decide to main Diddy, and you go up against a Marth/Wario, you have to worry about being the better player AND you have matchup issues to deal with, requiring you to do more work than a 50:50 or even 45:55. MK doesn't have this issue.

You might lose as MK to a dedicated character main at first, but at least you can see that the MK lost simply because they did worse/weren't as skilled as the opponent (if you lose in a matchup where you clearly have the advantage, then you either weren't as skilled as your opponent or you played bad enough for them to win). If I use Wario and go up against a Marth, I may be 10x better than him but if he plays the matchup right, there's nothing I can do about it. If you play as MK, and you are 10x better than someone else, chances are you are going to beat them, barring huge mistakes or extremely sloppy play.

I'm glad people are trying to convince other players to use secondaries other than MK, but when he is the best overall choice as a character, it's kinda hard to really sway people to characters with worse matchup spreads.

 

[Xerit]

Well, it seems to me like there is no time. Otherwise people would look deeper into the potential of some characters that not a lot of people look at/care about. And if people disagree with that and believe that all is known about this game, then why are you still playing this currently unbalanced game? Free money?/ end of rant



This is exactly what I was talking about earlier. People would rather use a safe character with relatively obvious strengths and weaknesses in order to win. Combine that with holding back in "friendlies" and you got a good winning combination. Winning is mostly what it's about. Screw the community, right?/ end of rant

Right now it seems like MK is indeed a good choice for a secondary. But there are other factors including play styles and stages which should be taken into account. Some characters are perhaps being overlooked. I agree with most of what Amazing Ampharos said. And the thread's title makes a lot of sense to me.

People don't look "deeper" into their secondary characters. That is what mains are for. You develop your main to its and your fullest potential, your secondary exists solely to cover the holes in your main's game. Thats the textbook definition of the main/secondary relationship.

Plenty of people main less popular/lower tier characters. It would be great if everyone picked their character without worrying about tiers and worked on them until they could compete. However you can't really blame people for not intentionally gimping their chances of winning a fight by picking a main like Ganon or Samus who just plain aren't as strong as other characters. Its possible for the player to make up for problems in the characters game, but most of the time switching to a higher tier character can drastically improve your performance and according to conventional wisdom raise your potential in the long term.

Also I don't hold back any time I play, I might tend to have more fun and play a little looser when theres nothing to lose but I think everyone does that. When money is on the line winning IS all that matters. Which is why all my arguments for why Metaknight is the best secondary have revolved around the counterpick system which punishes CP'able characters, of which MK is not one. Tournaments are for measuring yourself against other players, bringing your A game and seeing how you stack up. Thats why people seem to play worse in friendlies, the pressure is off and you're allowed to experiment and "have fun" with the match as opposed to tournaments which for most people are all business.

 

[tekkie]

All I gleamed from the first post is that MK isn't ALWAYS the best secondary, just the vast majority of the time.

MK is the safest option pretty much always.

 

[¯\_S.(ツ).L.I.D._/¯]

All I gleamed from the first post is that MK isn't ALWAYS the best secondary, just the vast majority of the time.

MK is the safest option pretty much always.

I believe you mean gleaned.

 

[Xerit]

Could have said that in a PM couldn't you? I mean I thought internet spellcheck police stopped being the "In Thing" a long time ago.

 

[¯\_S.(ツ).L.I.D._/¯]

LOLOLOL you're funny.

No you see I was told to post more so I am.

Would you like my posts to have more substance?

 

[Xerit]

Yes please.

 

[Reizilla]

Could have said that in a PM couldn't you? I mean I thought internet spellcheck police stopped being the "In Thing" a long time ago.

You joined in 2009. You have no say in life.

 

[Xerit]

Not just 2009, but this month! Obviously I could never have read these boards or played this game before that date! Your logic is infallible and I bow to your superior intellect.

Either way this is completely off topic, sorry to the OP. Apparently I've angered the trolls.

 

[SuSa]

Good lurker from 2009 is good, now STFU people. lol

Upon further, non-2AM thought into this. I wish I could delete this thread. It's correct only 50% of the time. When you lose and they switch characters to a counterpick of yours. In which most cases, they don't.... because they just won

Which means it's a 1/39 + (depends how many characters your secondary covers) chance of that 50% that your secondary counters them if they stay.

Oh goody.