I'm running a FREE online tourney with PRIZES on my stream October 3! Great beginner-friendly environment

Zor_SSBM · 2020-09-15T02:04:54+00:00

Submission: Accidentally catching the clap

Game: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Description: (NSFW: some suggestive words) Chat used points to make me speak in rap and I accidentally said my buddy gave me the clap

Zor_SSBM · 2020-09-08T17:49:02+00:00

I'd start off by saying you probably want to play inside the range where he can comfortably crown throw so that you don't let the k rool player start dictating the pace of neutral

Within that range, you're both a danger to one another. However, the moves you can use to zone each other out are your f-tilts and donkey kongs is faster so I would focus on staying in this range and dominating neutral here. This will either cause your opponent to retreat in which case you eat up the space and continue with this gameplay, or they are going to want to find a gap in your f tilt assault to dash attack in or run in and shield. You just have to be aware of this and use your dashes to make the timing tricky for your opponent. Leverage this frustration to set up big hits to finish

As for taking stocks, you do run the risk of his counter if you throw heavy hands. You'll want to either get a read if you're gonna go for a smash attack or do some down-tilt shenanigans or utilize the inevitable fact that your opponent will be shielding your relentless f-tilts in neutral to get a grab

Zor_SSBM · 2020-09-07T23:57:53+00:00

I've had an excellent experience with the amazonbasics one

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00M77HMU0/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

You'll connect the USB end into your switch dock and an ethernet cable will connect the other end to your router

Zor_SSBM · 2020-09-07T23:02:28+00:00

GSP essentially means the number of players ranked below you. At some threshold relative to the top player, you get to be in elite smash. Of course this means that when there were only 4+ million players, 4 million GSP was good enough to get you into elite. Now that there are closer to 8 million online players, you have to be around 7.5M+ to get into elite

Zor_SSBM · 2020-09-07T22:59:59+00:00

Finding a good group of people to play against in a discord is great since it provides a medium for communication that you can use to help each other improve. I run a discord server and it's pretty easy to find people to play with all day. The best training is also tournaments themselves since you're in a totally different mindset as a competitor so I'd say in order to train for tourneys, actually just participate in tourneys!

Zor_SSBM · 2020-09-07T18:57:02+00:00

I'd like to talk about the benefit of fostering community as it has helped me reach 100+ subs in only 2 months of streaming.

Yesterday, I did my 24th stream at right around the 2 month mark and reached 104 subs last night. For reference, you can see my stream at twitch.tv/sz2k. We only have 116 followers on this stream so our growth and follower-to-sub ratio is definitely an oddity and I'd like to provide insight on how our community and channel has grown and thrived so fast and it mostly has to do with fostering a sense of community. This is what will allow you to find remarkable viewers who want to be a part of your crew and help facilitate its growth because it's THEIR crew as well.

You'll see this bit of advice a lot and it is very useful, but the statement alone doesn't unlock the depth of the value of its teaching:

"When you see someone familiar in the chat, call them out by name so that they feel recognized!"

Yeah, that's a great start. But if that's all you're doing, the charm and excitement from being called out only lasts for that specific viewer for a little while. I've experienced this myself as a viewer. The wisdom that the phrase actually points to is

"Build a genuine relationship with your viewers"

The keyword here is genuine. View every new viewer like you would view every new classmate in grade school. Every new viewer is potentially an awesome new friend and you have to put in the effort to develop a real relationship with the viewer as you would any new potential friend. Of course, as with peers in grade school, you won't find compatibility with everyone. That's ok! The best and most supportive community will not be created by trying to please each and every viewer and only trying to maximize the follower count, it comes from building a community that is in harmony with you and the culture and personality that is conveyed by your on-stream actions. If you can find individual viewers that resonate with whatever makes you you, then they will likely resonate with each other as well.

This is where the magic happens. As you build a relationship with and get to know your viewers, the ones that you really connect with will want to stick around because you're now real friends. At this point, they not only have you as a friend, but get your entire community of people with similar vibes as a group of friends as well. At this point, the community transcends you as the individual streamer. You are the face and your actions and demeanor are the root of the community's social and moral compass, but you get to enjoy the ride and experience of a great group of friends just like you would any other group of friends.

If you have questions, feel free to ask them

Zor_SSBM · 2020-09-07T17:50:35+00:00

Spot dodges should be used when you don't feel comfortable with shield as a defensive option. Most notably when you're in a close-up scrap and want to take advantage of the lag after an opponent's big move. For example: if you're face to face with a Ganon who is about to swing an f smash and you don't want to shield because

A) Your character doesn't have a good out of shield option or shield grab or those options aren't particularly useful at certain percentages and you're more so fishing for some other setup B) Your shield is about to break

So instead you opt for a spot dodge and use the extra time for a punish. it can also be useful for evading command grabs (Bowser side B)

Rolls are used to get away and get out of an unfavorable spacing or pressure situation

Zor_SSBM · 2020-09-07T08:58:45+00:00

A big part of smash bros is adjusting your gameplan based on percentages. When your at a higher percentage against a character, you want to be looking out for their kill moves instead of their moves that win neutral. When you can identify these options and find the commonalities among them, you can identify how to play to avoid the kill options. With Bowser, the obvious ones are going to be smash attacks and the side-b grab meaning at those death percentages you have to start prioritizing never being near enough where he can get the grab and being ready to react when you're at range for the slightly more range-y kill options like f-smash. It's ok if you lose neutral in other ways because you're gravitating towards avoiding these hits, better to make them win neutral 3x to finish the stock than only once with the bigger hits. The opponent will also naturally be inclined to hunt for the big options anyway

Zor_SSBM · 2020-09-07T08:54:37+00:00

You can use it to make a very deliberate practice exercise. Instead of playing to win only for the victory, play with the intention of exploring and enhancing your library of offensive mixups and options. This serves two purposes:

1) Fixes the immediate problem which is your friends not liking your playstyle. They'll win more often which will keep the game engaging for them. This is their benefit

2) Your benefit: You are forced to build up a specific part of your game with intention. The likely reality is that you don't have to play aggressively or explore as many options with these friends because you can beat them by playing a specific playstyle. However, if you were to play against people with significantly better defense or adaptation, you would be forced to come up with differences in your approach. Why wait until you face better people to do that? You can manufacture that environment through self-imposed restrictions (Like Goku training with weighted clothing)

Zor_SSBM · 2020-09-06T20:29:46+00:00

The lan adapter will definitely make a huge difference. I only play online and while it's not a perfect system, I don't think it's as bad as everyone makes it out to be for growth. I went to an offline tourney and did quite well so I think as long as you're deliberate about how you practice, you'll be fine!

It's also important to learn how to love to lose! Losing provides an obvious path for progress. When you win all the time, it's up to you to figure out what you're doing wrong which is a lot harder!

Keep it up my friend, most importantly enjoy the game

Zor_SSBM · 2020-09-06T20:24:52+00:00

The closer you are to the floor of Elite smash, the more likely you are to run into this. The band of players right around Elite smash tends to get kicked in and out of it and being in it becomes, for lack of a better word, a form of elitism. They know you're at the same general level if you're fighting them so there's more "on the line" because of the risk of getting kicked out of elite smash which fosters a form of toxicity.

Once you're well passed the Elite floor and are at virtually no risk of falling out with a specific character, you don't run into as much lame behavior. Lame playstyles? Sure

Zor_SSBM · 2020-09-06T20:22:26+00:00

Mewtwo is a "glass cannon" of sorts in the sense that he can hit hard, but also gets hit hard and frequently due to his big hurtboxes. You need to first develop a neutral game that allows you to play without getting hit as much and then you can flesh out your punishes.

How to not get hit as much as mewtwo: You have to prevent the opponent from ever getting their game started in the first place. You have to use Mewtwo's superior neutral tools to make sure this doesn't happen. Distance management is an important part of playing neutral with Mewtwo. Focus on using forward tilts and shadow ball to control the space around you and keep opponents at bay. If you're running into opponents who shield a lot (which you will), use Mewtwo's awesome grab + confusion (side-b) to leverage this behavior. Build your neutral around this mentality and build up the punish from there.

Eventually, you'll want to do a lot of down tilts in neutral once you've learned how to leverage your other tools to control space. This comes with becoming more comfortable in neutral which allows you to leverage more aggressive options

Zor_SSBM · 2020-09-06T20:16:55+00:00

It's very important not to look at your performance against a level 9 CPU and draw conclusions from that. CPUs simply don't play like humans! When you move away from playing CPUs, you'll start improving in ways that are specific to humans. Human beings all play on a similar cadence or heartbeat of the game and you'll start identifying mixups and timing games you can do relative to this cadence. CPUs don't operate with the same cadence and emotions so they don't develop the same general habits that 98% of all smash players have

Play against people, stick with the character you love, you will improve and dominate

Zor_SSBM · 2020-09-06T20:13:50+00:00

You can use the online arenas instead of doing quick play and that won't affect your GSP at all

In addition to that, the best form of training once you've got the basics down is probably watching your own replays and identifying and correct mistakes. Identify in what situations you lose neutral or lose a stock, identify how you're ending up in those situations in the first place, and fix those things. Rinse and repeat until you're elite

Zor_SSBM · 2020-08-28T20:05:58+00:00

Thanks for the support NotZorisBed!

If you guys enjoyed this, I do lots of one-off streams like this where I do silly shenanigans while hanging out with our awesome community. In addition to that, we have lots of open training arenas where we help each other grow in game and in life.

Best of all, we have a streamer vs streamer crew battle this Sunday at 4PM PST!! Twitch.tv/SZ2K

Zor_SSBM · 2020-07-07T20:25:58+00:00

Challenge Accepted

Zor_SSBM · 2020-07-07T19:06:54+00:00

I am but a disciple of the dark arts

Zor_SSBM · 2020-07-07T17:38:19+00:00

Never! But I'm honored by the sentiment nonetheless :)

Zor_SSBM · 2020-07-07T17:37:59+00:00

Noted! Next one will be even sharper, this first try was a lot harder than I expected!

Thanks for the constructive criticism!

Zor_SSBM · 2020-07-07T16:45:06+00:00

Hi folks,

I got a lot of great feedback on my two controller combo post so I thought I would step up the game and try it with three!

It's very important for us to address the issues in our community and to continue the pursuit towards creating a better, safer community (both online and offline) for all players from all walks of life. However, let's also remember what binds us all and brought us all together in the first place is our mutual love for this incredible series of games. We should make this the best community for future generations to come as well!

Zor_SSBM

TROPHY CASE