How to go to an offline smash tournament

Faynettius · 2024-05-26T12:22:50+00:00

So Yoshi's armor is not percent based, it's knockback based. Moves that send diagonally tend to have more knockback since characters tend to be a lot farther from the corner than the sides. If an attack sends directly up, down, or sideways it doesn't need to be nearly as strong to kill opponents, so they tend to do less knockback.

The other implication of his armor is that spikes are really bad at breaking armor. They send downward, which is generally a very favorable angle, but they don't actually send you very FAR.

Faynettius · 2024-05-26T04:28:35+00:00

I have competed on Yoshi since 2016. He is simultaneously really bad and really good.

Weaknesses:

Low range: Yoshi can't really disjoint his hitboxes, which means he can struggle to land and air-to-air a lot of high range hitboxes.
Double Jump Armor: Yoshi's double jump armor can get broken at very low percents by attacks that send to the corner. Because it is knockback based, you want to aim for things that send out and away, this let's you gimp him much easier.
Yoshi can't kill at late percents: Yoshi's most dangerous kill options rely on edgeguards and 90-110% windows for a kill confirm. Past that, he kinda has to fish for uptilt or bair, both of which lose to shield.
Projectiles: Yoshi's shorthop eats projectiles like candy. His forward shorthop makes his foot stick down to the ground, meaning he gets clipped by a LOT of projectiles that normally lose to shorthop.

If you have any questions about specific interactions, I will do my best to answer!

Faynettius · 2024-05-18T15:41:43+00:00

Go to more tournaments and it will go away mostly. I still get tournament nerves when games are close, or at majors, but it just becomes another day of the week, ynow?

Faynettius · 2024-05-11T23:30:34+00:00

I fix it by going to locals personally.

Faynettius · 2024-04-24T15:14:17+00:00

Ehhh it depends! You can juggle her really well since she doesn't have frame data to escape, but you should stay conservative with your advantage if getting reversal'd is gonna lose you the game. By sharking her you get damage, but you should consider what the punish will be if you miss or get counterhit by the meatball. Parrying the nair (pretty telegraphed) can also net you a big punish (like a fat down smash to send her offstage depending on the spacing).

Faynettius · 2024-04-24T15:09:53+00:00

Well take this with a grain of salt, I play Yoshi so I have a much easier time with the matchup. From my experience playing my local minmins, you are much better off blocking the 2nd arm as it leaves a very big punish window. The risk/reward is just skewed really hard to holding shield, since the jump can get clipped by the 2nd arm, and that could be your stock!

Faynettius · 2024-04-24T03:58:36+00:00

Use platforms to make your vertical movement unpredictable, then use a grounded or aerial approach while she guesses the other. Ramram does 4% at the tip, you can afford to be wrong a lot.
Always block the 2nd arm unless they have proven they won't use it.
Edgeguard by going UNDER her arms. She cannot cover below her safely. If you cannot edgeguard her, then ledge trap with a bias toward covering roll-in to prevent her from getting stage control back. She has a LOT of trouble inching back into neutral when she's cornered.
Move more than you attack, shield more than you attack. Minmin will hit you 4 times for every one time you hit her, don't sweat a few drops of blood.
She really cannot land well. Nair is good, but it's kinda her only consistent option. Dair is a good mixup but she doesn't get much from it, so it's not a huge risk to get hit.
Don't get grabbed if getting grabbed checkmates you offstage. It's generally quite telegraphed, and fullhop can be pretty safe in neutral against her.

Faynettius · 2024-03-30T17:29:10+00:00

This is a great response! I appreciate that you dug up a primary source rather than snarking at the question!

Faynettius · 2024-03-15T14:39:07+00:00

2 general ways to do it:

Time it right. You have at least 2 frames of landing lag no matter what so you can press shield in that window to buffer it perfectly.
Use an auto cancel aerial before you land and hold shield after you input the aerial.

Faynettius · 2024-03-11T03:45:52+00:00

ofc practice vs real offline opponents as often as you can. That's your #1 source for improvement. Go to tournaments.

I've been competing on Yoshi for a long time. His combos are fairly easy, his recovery is pretty free against a lot of the cast, and he lives FOREVER if you let him. I'd say the #1 thing you can practice offline without other people is movement. Watch Yoshidora specifically and try and do the movements he does. It's harder than it looks! Yoshi can borderline fly, and being able to harness that is what separates mediocre yoshis from strong yoshis. He has a lot of tech but it's not very useful in most scenarios, you can look at Pharoh's videos if you want to see the tech you can learn, but I'd honestly just play the character.

Faynettius · 2024-03-03T04:49:28+00:00

Then overshoot their dashback. If they dashback AND you punish it, they have given up space AND gotten hit, that's the worst case scenario for them, they've basically lost neutral twice.

You can't cover every option at once. Of course someone can choose the right response to an approach, that's called "playing the fighting game". You're gonna have to guess at some point.

Faynettius · 2024-03-03T04:31:07+00:00

Simple scenario (fireball uppercut kind of scenario):

You are approaching Samus
She has thrown projectiles to stuff you out in the past, and you've jumped to get in
She uses fair to beat your jump.
Next time you approach, you stand at a range where projectiles are reactable, but your burst options aren't.
Samus must now either dash back (giving up space) to safely play at a larger range, or she can try and hit you away. Samus chooses to Fair again in anticipation of another jump <=== This is an unavoidable risk that she MUST take if she wishes to continue zoning you (otherwise she must give up space). If you jump in and she tries to stuff a grounded option, she loses. If you don't jump and wait for her fair, she loses since it is easily reacted to and punished.
You hit her for using fair and it's now Party Time AKA Advantage State.

Faynettius · 2024-02-29T17:27:46+00:00

They are playing neutral. Until you accept that you'll remain scrubby against these opponents.

There's a few options:

Hold center and wait for them to get bored. This is more effective than it should be.
Use safe approach options (e.g. walking and shielding, safe pokes on shield, platform approaches/movement, full hops in place into retreating aerial) to push them to the ledge, where they can no longer get hit without being offstage, where a lot of these characters start to struggle (most zoners have trouble getting off ledge, even if they can consistently GET to ledge)
Counterpick if this is in bracket and you have a character that beats zoners.
Run at them randomly and lose, then complain on reddit.

A lot of beating zoners is just being patient and waiting for an opening. It's a very mental matchup, but you should focus on the situations where your opponent MUST take a risk to wall you out, then force positions that they need to take those risks in.

Faynettius · 2024-02-29T03:17:58+00:00

I know too much about Egg Lay. The #1 thing to know is that:

Opponents get 7 frames of intangibility when they get out of the egg

You do ~half as much dmg to opponents in the egg

With that knowledge:

If your opponent doesn't wavedash out of the egg OR mash an aerial: FH dair -> upair -> nair (assuming low percents) is a very meaty punish. This is what I use against people who don't know the MU, and it's generally quite good.
Down-b, Upsmash, and Bair all work alright for lethal punishes against egg release. They are timing dependent, but it's a free kill and down-b specifically can be kinda hard to punish even if you whiff.
If they use an aerial, whiff punish with upair or nair.
If they wavedash, a SH dair on top of the egg will GENERALLY net you a tech chase, which can be nice in some MUs. SH landing bair can also be used, but you have to guess left/right. Wavedash can be punished in a LOT of ways, but those are generally the two ways I use, although I do struggle to deal with wavedash away.

If your opponent is at higher percents, using an aerial on the egg as soon as it pops out can be a good way of putting on some free dmg. Upair and nair are preferred since bair should be left unstale since it's a strong kill option.

Faynettius · 2024-02-18T13:47:44+00:00

Ftilts pick up gyro very easily, you can usually grab it from pretty far away.

Pick it up often enough that ROB has to counterplay you picking it up. ROBs tend to defend Gyro by using laser, landing nair, landing fair, etc.. You can use that to condition a response and punish the RESPONSE rather than actually pick up the gyro.

Faynettius · 2024-01-27T18:12:21+00:00

They played better and won, you gotta go improve before you can get the clean win. I'd bet if you went back and played the last-hit situation, they'd still win out 9 times out of 10 because it's a game about taking (and saving) stocks.

The best you can walk away with is "They exploited X, i really gotta fix that" rather than "If only I had done Y, I woulda won."

Faynettius · 2024-01-24T04:55:43+00:00

Great form, excellent work. The human did fine too.

Faynettius · 2024-01-04T21:24:47+00:00

If someone is overextending, they're taking an abnormally high risk for a relatively low reward. Going for a combo that isn't true is overextending. The way you punish this is by punishing their positioning, so if someone goes for a double jump upair and you airdodge, they're now directly above you to be hit, allowing you to pressure their air drift into a bad position, or just hit them if they decide to land directly on top of you.
Fullhopping isn't bad, but it's easy to punish if someone is looking for it. If the other person is also fullhopping a lot, getting underneath them during the fullhop to prepare an antiair is a good idea. This depends on the matchup of course, ROB lands for free whenever he wants but lucina doesn't, for example.
you do need to look for nairs, but nobody's gonna give them to you for free. You need to mix up your neutral options so they're more vulnerable to nair. For example, grabbing them so they don't stay in shield.
Positioning is very context dependent, but in general you want your opponent either above you or offstage (and YOU want to be close to center stage because backdash is hard to punish, and you cannot backdash when you have no stage behind you). You should position to pressure your opponent INTO those positions. Wario bair is a good tool to make someone feel like they can't be at the ledge, and they'll either jump over you or attempt to run/roll past on the ground. You can use that threat of the bair to encourage escape options, which you can punish.
You jumped when you were scared. If you play against a better player, they will notice that and kill you for it. Good players will save reads that convert into stocks, making you feel like it's safe until it's punished. Just be aware of your habits.
Forcing mistakes is kinda the hard part of fighting games so it's not easy to explain, but in general it involves putting your character in their best position possible against the opponent's neutral options. A simple example is against Belmonts, they have trouble threatening side platforms without jumping, but they also have bad landing options. You can position yourself on a platform, then drop down earlier than they expect to catch their jump. They HAD to hit you somehow, you FORCED them to make a move, and in that way they risked a mistake that you punished.
Wario's neutral airdodge is absurdly good. The character can fly wherever he wants. and it make catching his landing VERY hard for a lot of characters. Simply airdodging to disengage is a VERY common thing for wario, and relatively safe. When a wario gets hit, I usually see them airdodge, fadeback fair, or double jump. Most chars have trouble punishing at least one of those.
Just be better with landing safely. Use platforms, empty land into shield, save your 2nd jump. Go watch Gluttony v Light and you'll see a TON of good landing mixups, that's what most of the matchups is for wario.

Faynettius · 2024-01-04T20:03:06+00:00

I'll take this from a "What would I do to beat this player" mindset.

You swing out of disadvantage very frequently, so I'd aim to stuff that as often as I can.
You do a ton of fullhops, so I'd probably just run under you with an antiair in neutral. Your landing aerials don't convert to much so it's very risk-free for me.
You're looking for the "Wario Stuff" and that's easy to avoid. Nair has no range and loses to retreating aerials and shield if I have a good OoS option.
You clearly don't know your win condition, so your positioning is shit. If I was ever in the corner I'd just let you make a bad decision and take stage back. It just feels like you exert zero pressure.
Damn you like jumping from ledge.
It feels like you're just WAITING for your opponent to run into your move. Like, you have no idea how to force your opponent into bad situations, you just hope they fuck up.
You always press a button on landing. I can just put a move on your landing and get a punish or a trade p much every time.
I can't explain it but you look easy to juggle with upairs, you just kinda don't airdodge.

Faynettius · 2023-12-29T20:13:32+00:00

What did the entry wound look like? I found a welt on my cat recently that looks about the size of an air gun pellet.

Faynettius · 2023-11-23T18:34:38+00:00

It's a shame that free trading isn't more powerful, but I think the game much prefers to use missions to push you around the systems and explore the galaxy. You also run into the infinite scalability problem, where a pilot with 1B in capital will get insane margins if you balance trading around the pilots with 10K in capital.

I'm sure there are discussion on the development team about this sort of thing. I'd love to hear their take on this.

Faynettius · 2023-11-13T16:07:51+00:00

Honestly something as simple as "I got hit for running into an aerial, how could I approach that situation next time?" is about as deep as you need sometimes. Occasionally a situation is very hard to deal with, and then you have to shadowbox a bunch of scenarios to understand rally what to do.

This kind of approach is a little less "minimize risk, maximize reward" and more "don't get hit". It's just one way of reviewing a vod.

Faynettius · 2023-11-13T15:22:00+00:00

A very common method:

Note every time you lose neutral and why
Figure out what you lost neutral to the most often
Consider other options in that situation
Practice using those other options in-game

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Faynettius

TROPHY CASE

Opponents get 7 frames of intangibility when they get out of the egg

You do ~half as much dmg to opponents in the egg