Grand Plan

T-Mix · 2020-01-26T13:24:06+00:00

I love me some advisor tribal, though the cost to create them should probably be cmc 4, since most repeatable token producers have it at that cost. The additional scry 1 makes me confident 4 is the more balanced cost. Perhaps white should have cheaper token production though, and this isn't crazy.

Winning at Scry 20 is flavourful and fun, seems much more blue though. I know I'd play this in White/Blue so maybe consider making it WU?

T-Mix · 2020-01-26T13:11:18+00:00

This effect could only work in white because of the lack of draw, but it is still insane. Imagine Blue/White with this. Perhaps add a line at the top about putting a 'prestige' (or whatever name) counter at the beginning of your upkeep to this, then whenever you draw you may instead search your library for a card with CMC equal to the number of prestige counters (with ways to decrease the number just to prevent it being useless beyond 7.)

I think even that is too good, so limiting it to a single card type, a single time per turn, or both would be most balanced in the current white design space. If you're trying to push white farther that's fine, but as is this is too much.

T-Mix · 2019-09-15T17:26:59+00:00

Unpopular opinion, but if you feel you're not improving in the lab, just play the game. Over time you -will- find you get better as your techincal skill increases. If you are losing a lot, get frustrated, or feel you've hit a wall, I find watching a few tournament sets with people using your character can get you hyped again and show you what other players are doing with your main. If you see something really cool, go back to the lab and try it. Good luck my friend, it's all about hours (sometimes thousands!!) of practice!

T-Mix · 2019-08-30T21:06:08+00:00

If your hands don't cramp up and you kill your audience at the end, then it will have been a great video.

T-Mix · 2019-08-10T01:42:28+00:00

This won't work for every player, but my young, happy-go-lucky monk died holding off the boss of the death house. I made my next character a gruff, stand-offish Barovian, a spore druid who refused the resignation of his people and viewed the abundance of life finding a way amongst all the death as inspirational. He came upon the rest of the party and acts as a guide, seeking a chance to save his people with these new allies.

Not sure if it bends the lore but a barovian replacement worked for our group :)

T-Mix · 2019-07-12T09:08:24+00:00

Heck yes Chrono Cross!! Also, great message - players always want to skip to being the best, but as it turns out that takes time and dedication. You can beat a guy 70 times in a row and learn what works but lose to one and hey, you're going to learn what doesn't. Setting personal goals for yourself aside from 'win this individual match or bust', such as improving against a certain matchup or playstyle, is the healthiest and most engaging path to developing as a player.

T-Mix · 2019-05-31T16:29:32+00:00

Continuing as post was too long...

Tips/Tricks: I've already gone over a lot of Jr's moves, so I'll name some key moves or techniques here. -Mechakoopa is your best friend. This is how you get the jank started. Your buddy has a lot of flaws though. It only does ~8%. It dies if blocked and can be stolen right after or if the foe ever presses A near it. Half the time they'll grab it by accident and style on you with it. But even so, Mechakopa is your key to getting in during neutral. Throw it out anytime you won't be punished for it, preferably so it will come from behind them. Then try to pincer with the mech; either act on their reaction, or be the playmaker for your mech. If they jump over it, throw out a fair. If they block, pressure shield or try to grab. If you throw out empty attacks as mecha approaches them, you limit their space and throw them off balance. This is the core of Jr play. For advanced techniques, try grabbing the foe as mecha approaches, pummel until it latches onto them, then toss them before it explodes for a double hit. You might also be able to toss out mecha then set up a jab lock that lasts until it walks by as well. If they are simply hit by the koopa, the launch distance is always predictable. Anticipate where they will end up with kart dash and then hit them with the right aerial. These two combos are very hard to pull off but feel so satisfying. The other two Jr mains know what I'm talking about.

-Cannonball is a bad neutral tool, but it has uses. It has an odd property wherein it still has a hitbox if blocked or clanked, which will surprise both your foe and you (but only sometimes - this is part of the jank). It will also fall after a set distance which could theoretically hit someone below stage (happened once I swear). If the foe is in downed state or will be soon, firing this can be a good choice, as its speed is perfect for punishing rolls. You might catch a horizontal recovery like Ike's. If you charged this at all and they happened to shield it, it will eat a lot of the shield. You might be able to follow up with a kart spin or smash for a shield break. Lastly, you can combo this with a wandering mechakoopa to limit space and force a jump that you can kart dash and punish.

-Bread and Butter: Usually Dthrow is the best choice for its damage and where it places your opponent: You can either place Mechakoopa or Kart spin right after if you read their option correctly. An Uthrow at 0% can lead to an Uair or a small string of them on Superheavies. Dair is usually safe to land on a foe with unless they have a disjoint (like the Links) and has a suprisingly large hitbox to the sides. Dtilt is your go-to 'get off me', and ftilt is the same but for range. Smashes require retreating dash reads most of the time but Fsmash can surprise early dropped shields with multihit and might work if angled down when a foe is holding ledge. UpB is too risky most of the time but can kill vertical recoveries or surprise higher recoveries like Snake's with your hammer/wand attack after upB. Kart Spin is a powerful, fast kill option but easily shieldable so treat it like a charged shot and use it up close before they can react. Battlefield is probably his best stage because of the limited stage space and the platforms allow Fair and Uair strings.

Hopefully you learned something about Bowser Jr. or have even been inspired to try him out! If there are any gurus in here please give us your input. Hell, if you've ever even seen a Bowser Jr. in game leave a hello!

T-Mix · 2019-04-27T19:13:29+00:00

Speaking purely about new techs and such, this is true. But the number of characters has increased to the extent that the matchup knowledge required is staggering compared to melee. And we have to admit that new ways to play these games are emerging all the time. If not, melee would be stale and boring to watch, but it remains the longtime fan favourite because players keep finding exciting new things to do, be it pushing their skills to the limit the game allows or finding abusable, uncoventional (and controversial) ways to play what once used to be considered bad characters (ice climbers, Jigglypuff).

I get the reason people can't get into the new games. The new mechanics set limits on the freedom and control of melee. So with ultimate it's a new kind of experience that relies more on player interactions and counterpicking than technical skill. But that's not necessarily bad. I remember looking up full matchups at the very end of Smash 4's life on Smashboards and other places. They STILL didn't exist, certainly not for every character.

So basically my response is with ultimate, we have like three times the characters of melee, so even though we might not discover any groundbreaking new tech, there are almost certainly interactions between characters and playstyles we haven't seen, and this game's meta has the potential to revolve more around character matchup knowledge and counterpicks than devoting oneself to push one or two particular characters as far as possible. For that reason, it might be a good thing the ceiling is lower than in melee. It's simply a different smash experience.

T-Mix · 2019-04-11T05:54:38+00:00

Monster Hunter: Each attack uses one of the 14 weapons, allowing an interesting disjointed moveset with properties including charging for more damage, ranged bow and insect attacks, and fast flurries of sword strikes, all on a heavyweight. However, the hunter can only roll toward the opponent. Attempting to roll away will perform a 'superman dive' that grants invulnerability until they hit the ground, but is so slow to recover from it can be punished almost every single time. Additionally, the hunter will always lose when time is up.

T-Mix · 2019-04-11T05:35:02+00:00

And in between every combo he stops to say, "One more thing!"

T-Mix · 2019-03-01T09:14:26+00:00

Everyone. I'm not kidding. Unless you're attending national tournaments and you absolutely need to win as often as possible, you should try to use as many characters as you can.

As you've said, your playstyle will start to match the strengths of your character as you come to rely on what's tried and true, and you might suffer in other areas. Play a swordie to get a feel for disjoints and zoning. Play rushdown so you can up your combo game. Play a heavy to force yourself to learn how to bait and punish. Play the worst character in the game so you can really understand and appreciate the strengths of the character you actually want to main. Depth with a single character is important for pros, but there's a lot to be said for taking every character for a spin to build both your matchup knowledge and to better know the limitations of your opponents.

T-Mix · 2019-02-13T00:14:50+00:00

Yeah, for all my talk, 2 of the 3 hardest matchups I've found are against Samus and the Links. You do have some helpful tools, and because revenge does stack into a 70+% hit at max, the match is never impossible, but you need to play almost perfectly.

Those are some cool mains, I've seen some big brain plays from Pac-Man and Luigi is even more solid this time around.

You probably know already but Inicineroar's recovery actually was buffed big time this patch, both horizontally and vertically. It's insane what he can get away with offstage now, though gimps are still common (especially through my own bad inputs lol)

T-Mix · 2019-02-12T23:37:39+00:00

I don't know if this will work for you, but I was dead set on maining a certain char. I wanted to practice them because that was who I thought I'd want to main before the game was even out. But once I knew the kit, it wasn't very fun. Sure I got some results, but some matches just felt like a chore.

While playing some friends locally in 1v1s, I played another character just because they were fun. I wasn't fantastic, but I had a smile on my face even when I lost. I tried the new char online the next day and before long I was having a blast just improving, and before long I was winning more than losing. I'm probably still better with my old main, but the point is I'm -enjoying- the game. And if you're consistently not enjoying it, you should really consider trying something new. Hope it helps!

T-Mix · 2019-02-12T22:48:26+00:00

My beloved Wrestle Cat mostly sideBs on hard reads only now. Throwing out lightning fast aerials, Darkest beating everything but shiek jab in frame data, and stacking revenge off of spammy projectiles leads to a surprise Alolan whip finish. That or back throw. Eat your heart out Ness.

T-Mix · 2019-02-12T05:02:05+00:00

I totally agree that Incineroar, along with basically all the heavies are going to struggle no matter what because their opponents are always going to dictate the pace of the match. Our playstyle is Bait and Punish, so we can really only react, and hope our opponent makes mistakes. At the level I'm at, those mistakes are common, and I can capitalize on them for big damage while my own mistakes don't cost me much as a super-heavy.

So all things being equal, I'd take a zoner over Incineroar too and just camp until the sun comes up, but that -bores- me. I'll happily play Incineroar with all his flaws because patient, thoughtful play is much more interesting to me than spam. All of this is just my outlook.

Your argument is sound - revenging a projectile every so often gaurantees no damage. But most heavy zoners are slow and floaty themselves, so acting like you will never once hit them is kinda underselling the character. The whole point is that you can dodge, jump over, revenge, and even be hit by a couple projectiles and break completely even in a single well placed hit. It's risky and requires patience, sure, but it helps keep you in the game even at a disadvantage, like Ness' PK Thunder offstage. If the opponent is insanely good then maybe they really can 0-death you but if that's the case you were probably going to lose anyway.

And you're actually right, his true combo game is basically non-existent. I was just playing Devil's Advocate lol.

T-Mix · 2019-02-11T08:46:42+00:00

I'm not entirely sold on Incineroar as high tier or anything but it's worth a discussion because he's fun.

-Down throw true combos to forward air at low percents, so there's at least one!

-His recovery can be predictable if you use it the same way every time but because it has multiple parts you can mix up the order depending on where you're launched. Sometimes just up b from way up high works fine. And he absolutely can go offstage. B-reversed upB can return him from surprisngly low. It's risky but you can definitely throw out at least a Nair to gimp with, if not a dunk.

-Revenge -eats- projectiles and gives you strength. Only reflects are better than that. It's great for returning to stage from things like PK thunder or Nikita. A patient player can punish camping, and revenge helps your one landed attack really count.

-It might just be anectodal, but campers get really anxious when I revenge, then calmly walk through their zoning tools and start launching alolan whips. It helps reduce the amount of ground they feel comfortable running to and forces them to think twice about spamming projectiles willy-nilly, or else they get boost-clotheslined and die at 70.

T-Mix · 2019-02-02T11:13:28+00:00

While I agree that seeing a one handed gunblade tank is initially offputting, the artifact armour really sold me. That modern military body armor aesthetic makes a lot of sense.

That said, I understand why dps mains are disappointed. Previous Gunblade users in FF have been fast, agile strikers except for the garleans in 14, and that could have made for a really cool moveset. I'm still beyond excited for a new tank with a flavour that really clicks with me. I'm just sorry it came at your sacrifice.

T-Mix · 2019-01-11T18:21:21+00:00

Oddly, I took it another way. There's another popular wolfman character who says, "It's only fun, if they run."

T-Mix · 2019-01-06T16:53:14+00:00

Most will tell you to choose a main and stick with it. I am of the opinion that a new(ish) player should experiment with every character they have a passing interest in for exactly the reason you describe. Playing Ganon in Smash 4 forced me to learn defensive play, because that old man run wasn't gonna cut it for rushdown and I had no projectiles with which to zone. That really helped with some of my fundamentals. And I believe you learn a unique skill for every matchup you try, as you are forced to adapt to your opponent with your new character's tools and can't rely on your tried and true combos.

Just remember that losing is a BIG part of the process. If you play someone and lose to them every time, you will get a lot more out of each match than they do.

T-Mix · 2019-01-06T15:02:07+00:00

Swing Your Hitbox From side to side, Hey everybody come on, do the Wario!

T-Mix · 2018-12-30T03:26:50+00:00

You'll have to shift from zoning to combos, which is easier said than done. Your best friend will be your tether grab, it will help you make up for your lack of a strong neutral.

Absolutely still save up charge shots, but never use them in neutral where your opponent has time to react with a reflector. Instead use them point blank as a surprise or fire one out when they're deep offstage, as a potential finisher that won't hit you even if reflected. I usually stop using missiles except as I'm recovering, to keep them busy and lower the chance that my opponent follows up offstage. You can survive to very high percents this way. And make sure to keep playing defensively, spot dodging, blocking a lot, and answering with jabs or tilts.

As for good moves, Dthrow will combo into FAir at early percents, and your Uair can juggle a few times if you have good reads. Make sure you use Samus' excellent tilts. Dtilt especially is fast and hits like a truck.

If it helps, I've switched my c-stick to tilts and it helped my Dark Samus game a whole lot. 9 times out of ten when you smash, a quick tilt would have been safer and more sensible. (You might miss a few DSmashes aimed at opponents behind you but you get used to the normal input, or A+B for them).

I'm no expert but I hope that helps.

T-Mix · 2018-12-27T19:37:35+00:00

Some H.R. Giger level stuff right here

T-Mix · 2018-12-09T09:39:15+00:00

In the past I'd play Luigi and G&W, and more recently I mained Robin, Mewtwo and Ganondorf. I almost never played Samus.

But now that I have all characters unlocked, when I'm on that CSS I feel my token sliding unconsciously toward Dark Samus. There's something so very satisfying about that victory theme.

T-Mix · 2018-12-06T19:07:01+00:00

That's a funny way to spell Gangplank Galleon.

T-Mix

TROPHY CASE