Post by Mentaculus on May 20, 2015 11:59:55 GMT -5
As per our previous conversations, I have created this thread to discuss the recorded video from this week of the smash league.
Formatting: I will link all of the videos in the first post, and underneath each post my own critique of the set, as well as updating it continually to add other's critiques as well. Please indicate which match you are reviewing and be clear in your comments. Constructive criticism is desired, but please remember to be helpful and considerate. Without further ado:
--> Adin v. Noodle <--
+ Let Adin get away with D-Attack on shield because you grab too quickly.
+ AMAZING movement. I love your D-dances, dash cancels and WDs.
+ Good SDI on U-airs.
+ You have a very interesting tempo to your play. Game 2 v. Adin, you played quite aggressively in the beginning then began to back off, and let him run at you so you could get DD -> grab.
- For how good your movement is, your OoS is pretty bad, simply incorporating WDOoS would make you so much more threatening.
- Edgeguards could use work. 1st match against Adin, you were too cautious when EGing, giving him edge and retreating to Center stage.
- Adin U-Smashes your sheild, WD OoS and grab is guarenteed, I think.
Adin:
+ You use lasers very conservatively.
- You use lasers very conservatively.
- I think lasers would have been a great help vs. Noodle, because of the way he got most of his openings: using his movement to bait your approach.
--> Jav v. Ahenobarbus <--
+ Very nice Tippers on you throws and in general. This is something I've noticed in other matches of yours as well
+ You got nice mileage on short hop F-air/ Double F-air once you got Jay pinned down.
+ You have a good idea of when it's safe to grab Jiggs, though there are times when Jay will wait to bait a Jump OoS when you could have grabbed too. Overall though you playyed it very safe on that front.
- Jay had unsafe pounds on your sheild at least once. SH F-air OoS would punish though I'm not sure if theres a better option.
- More movement in neutral? Dashdances to threaten, especially since you might pick up a SH F-air on a wiff (Jay doesn't always fade away).
Jay:
+ Good at pinning opponent in sheild and baiting the jump out so you can get an U-tilt or whatever.
+ Edgeguarding is good (especially with your jiggs) but sometimes you don't go for the edgehog when it's free.
- Getting way too risky with Pounds off ledge or onto sheild.
- Getting off ledge in general you can fall into a rythm that can be punished (in friendlies I F-air you all the time.)
- Got punished on a raw F-Smash you did out of instinct after a string.
- You leave openings sometimes when you pressure sheild. This is fine because you bait the jump, but sometimes got grabbed for it.
--> Delpho v. MarthZ <--
+ You don't go for anything super fancy.
+ You play very safe as far as knowing what you can get away with.
MarthZ:
+ You have good instincts as far as what will work in what situation, just need more practice to be able to pick them all up.
+ You remain calm and don't panic ("Melee is 100% a mental game" ~ Mango).
- Crouch cancelling (especially as Roy) ruins Sheik. I don't know the percent off hand, but you can crouch cancel for quite a long time before you get knocked down. Just CC her tilt or dash attack, and then D-tilt into F-airs or U-airs or whatever fits.
- U-throw is basically not good unless you're chaingrabing Fox or Falco. Use F-throw the most, as you can dash or wavedash forward into another grab or D-tilt. Down and Back throws are also acceptable as mixups or to get them off-stage.
- Roy benefits A TON from his wavedash, as it increases his movement so much, and he has a great ledgedash (drop from ledge -> double jump -> waveland onto the stage).
- Don't be above sheik as YL or ROY if you're close to her. She has an incredibly fast jump and incredibly fast ariels. YL can be above (like Pokestadium platform) as long as she isn't in his face. Bomb -> D-air is the best.
--> Danny Z v. MarthZ <--
--> MarthZ v. Mentaculus <--
Let me start out by saying this MU sucks. Basically, Roy wants ganon to commit to something so that he can get a D-tilt or grab. So baiting with Dash dances and plenty of movement in neutral is good. Roys other hope is to edgeguard very well, which unfortunately you didn't have many opportunities to do. Since Ganon literally can't sweetspot the edge, if he's recovering low, just do Neutral B and time it well, or F-smash if you don't have time to charge. So yeah, grab -> F-throw -> F-air or F-smash if you can get it off. Just try to get ganon off stage and keep him off with F-smashes. If he lands on stage, his Up-B has a lot of lag, so run up, press down to cancel your dash, then F-smash.
For Ganon vs. Marth edgeguarding is even better, just once he is off-stage, D-tilts wreck ganon because he can't sweetspot the edge. If he goes high just do what you can to keep him off. F-air or F-smash or whatever. If he doesn't DI carfeully, F-airs wreck him too. Once you get on him, keep on him. Ganon doesn't have very effective Out of Sheild options, so if you just keep spacing your F-airs you're pretty safe.
--> Jay v. Poptab SEMIFINALS <--
--> Jay v. Slope <--
--> Jay v. Mentaculus GRAND FINALS <--
Jay
+great recovery techs
+you're really good at using falcon's mobility to keep your opponent (thinking they're) pinned down.
+edge-cancelled aerials so sexy
-Be more patient when you're holding ledge against ganon's recovery. If he has the option to either recover on stage or go straight to ledge, just wait on the ledge. His upB's landing lag is so bad that you can just ledgehop to reverse knee his landing after he lands. I'm referring in particular to stock 1, game 1, but there were other instances too.
Brian
+Really proficient tech chases
+ idk how you always hit with exactly the right part of the uair but it's really admirable
+/-You're really quick to use your double jump in neutral. Sometimes this lands you a dair into whatever, sometimes it leads to a death combo. Just be more cautious about when you do it.
-When Jay is really moving in neutral with falcon, you sometimes tend to just stay kinda motionless, waiting to spotdodge his approach and punish or roll to reposition. That's exactly what falcon wants. You're at your best when you're being tricky with ganon's (admittedly limited) movement--use that. Try backing up and punishing his landing or intercepting him while he's rising before his hitbox comes out
-Against puff, idk why you were full hopping oos. IIRC you got one hit by doing this, and got punished a lot. Maybe they were missed WD oos inputs?
--> Mister Moo v. Michael <--
+ Nice safe play, good at controlling center stage
+ Nice job staying grounded and keeping up movement on the ground
- Need to secure edgeguards better.
- L2 reverse needle cancel. Not super hard, but super helpful.
- When you edgehog falcon, ledgehop F-air or ledgehop grab if he lands on stage. B-air him to keep him off stage if he's recovering somewhat low.
Michael:
+ You're good at reacting to what is happening. You just need to work on predicting things.
- With Falcon, work on picking up combos when you have the opening. Stomp -> nothing a couple of times.
- Spacing with falcon, N-air zones really well, though honestly it's hard to beat sheik tilts.
- When edgeguarding sheik, remember she ALWAYS wants the ledge cause her up-B lag is soooo long. like at 0:40, you grabbed ledge like you should have, but basically, you just need to wait until right when her *poof* happens, then just do the stand up from the ledge. if she goes for the ledge she'll get hogged, but if she goes on stage, she'll have so much lag you can still punish with U-smash or waveshine or something.
--> Poptab v. Danny Z <--
--> Sqweeeeeeeeejji v. Noah <--
Sqweejji:
+ Hell yeah for grab combos
+ Nice job stealing some kills with smashes when he missed ledge.
- Work on wobbles dude. I don't know what your opinion is on them, but if you have op for some early kills do it.
- Seems like you could incorporate wavedashes into your game more.
Noah:
+ You have good awareness and don't just work off of a script.
+ Good B-air game
- When you get pressured sometimes you get overwhelmed. Don't forget that you can always retreat to platforms.
- Rising pound is baller and not too hard to do. side-B and roll the stick up to top is a good way to do it.
+ You definitely get extra credit on the pummels you do rather than just doing the desync fsmash immediately after getting the grab
+ You appear to understand how fricking good ICs dsmash is
+ You take good advantage of the fact that hammer is disjointed and you make people respect your space. I feel like it is very important as ICs to make people respect your space
+ Your WDes between stocks looked pretty clean (ICs just have a pretty WD in general)
+ It looked like you got Noah frustrated, and honestly as ICs that is one of your biggest advantages - using a character that a lot of people find annoying to put them on tilt and then exploit their panic stuff / bad habits / impatience
- I know they worked in this match, but pls be careful about those yolo fairs at low % (or really at all). They lead into nothing, and you could totally hang yourself by doing that. That move should really just be a combo finisher
- You never actually use WD to accomplish anything. Since ICs don't really have a powerful dash dance, you should definitely learn to WD to make your position/movement more ambiguous and close space / retreat more quickly and cleanly
- This is rarely relevant against Puff (there were only a couple times where it mattered in this set) but this is something I've noticed in your play in general - you never use ice blocks when someone is recovering low, and you should. Usually you just stand there and wait for the dsmash when you edgeguard, and ice blocks could help that a lot. Since dsmash only works if they pop up over the ledge, you can get a lot of mileage out of bothering people's recovery with ice blocks and making it more likely that they expose themselves to the dsmash
- In Brian's analysis he mentioned wobbling. Idk if you are akin to post-Evo Wobbles who decided that trying to wobble makes him worse at everything else or if you don't know how, but if you want some tips I actually spent some time learning how to wobble a while back, so I could potentially help you out with that (although I'm probably rusty on execution, I think I have a pretty good understanding of how it works).
Noah:
+ When you did spaced bairs, it was good. Spaced bairs really annoys ICs (and everyone, but ICs struggle against it for sure)
- You didn't do spaced bairs very often, and I think that as a Puff, when you have a bad stock or get frustrated, hanging out doing spaced bairs for a bit can get your head back together and maybe even establish a bit of control in the match. Also, you should vary the placement of your bairs (fade back, do them at different heights, etc) so that it is harder for opponents to get around them.
+ Good call recovering high when you could, ICs have to commit super hard to cover that and you can usually dodge it
+/- fsmash. When you get it, it almost always either closes out a stock or sets up an edgeguard. I like your aggression, but you should definitely make fsmash a read-based thing. It seems like some of your fsmashes are more hopeful than anything, and you got punished kinda hard for them
+ I was happy to not see any missed rests in this set, I feel like it's not worth the effort against ICs and they can wreck you for missing
- You roll up from the ledge a lot. That's obviously great when you're ledgehogging, but you got dsmashed more than once for coming back to the stage with roll because it's slow and easy to react to. I also think you did it instinctually around 7:10ish and could have hit him with a number of ledgehop moves instead
- Also, techroll toward ICs is never good unless you seem them actually preemptively commit to techroll away. I don't think they can react to techroll away fast enough, and techroll in got you grabbed and hit for 30+% and knocked offstage more than once
--> Alex J v. Poptab <--
+ Stick to your fox, dude. I think your fox is a lot better than your falco. Not dissing your falco though.
+ Nice movement and gimping with your fox.
+ Shine spikes.
- Your lasers were very high.
- Stop upsmashing with falco... please... just stop.
- Stop SDing, lol.
Alex J:
+ Nice movement. I liked at 0:53 when you wavelanded on platform and then F-air'd.
+ Good waiting and baiting, like at 0:43. That is probably why you jump more.
+ Nice recovery usually actually. Brad just had pretty consistant edge guards.
- Work on Chain grabs. You did't have much of a chance to in this set, but just practice. It's too effing good.
- You jump a lot even when you don't need to. Staying grounded and opening up with tilts is best, I think, but I'm not a sheik player.
- Don't airdodge when you should up-b (lol)
- Work on Power Shielding falco's lasers. Since you're on the ground anyways, sheik's low crouch makes PSing falco's lasers really easy. And Brad's lasers were really high that game.
- Secure your edgeguards. Needles are OP, at 3:40 you could have either needled again or commited to the F-air you started for.
Formatting: I will link all of the videos in the first post, and underneath each post my own critique of the set, as well as updating it continually to add other's critiques as well. Please indicate which match you are reviewing and be clear in your comments. Constructive criticism is desired, but please remember to be helpful and considerate. Without further ado:
--> Adin v. Noodle <--
Mentaculus said:
Noodle:+ Let Adin get away with D-Attack on shield because you grab too quickly.
+ AMAZING movement. I love your D-dances, dash cancels and WDs.
+ Good SDI on U-airs.
+ You have a very interesting tempo to your play. Game 2 v. Adin, you played quite aggressively in the beginning then began to back off, and let him run at you so you could get DD -> grab.
- For how good your movement is, your OoS is pretty bad, simply incorporating WDOoS would make you so much more threatening.
- Edgeguards could use work. 1st match against Adin, you were too cautious when EGing, giving him edge and retreating to Center stage.
- Adin U-Smashes your sheild, WD OoS and grab is guarenteed, I think.
Adin:
+ You use lasers very conservatively.
- You use lasers very conservatively.
- I think lasers would have been a great help vs. Noodle, because of the way he got most of his openings: using his movement to bait your approach.
--> Jav v. Ahenobarbus <--
Mentaculus said:
Ahenobarbus:+ Very nice Tippers on you throws and in general. This is something I've noticed in other matches of yours as well
+ You got nice mileage on short hop F-air/ Double F-air once you got Jay pinned down.
+ You have a good idea of when it's safe to grab Jiggs, though there are times when Jay will wait to bait a Jump OoS when you could have grabbed too. Overall though you playyed it very safe on that front.
- Jay had unsafe pounds on your sheild at least once. SH F-air OoS would punish though I'm not sure if theres a better option.
- More movement in neutral? Dashdances to threaten, especially since you might pick up a SH F-air on a wiff (Jay doesn't always fade away).
Jay:
+ Good at pinning opponent in sheild and baiting the jump out so you can get an U-tilt or whatever.
+ Edgeguarding is good (especially with your jiggs) but sometimes you don't go for the edgehog when it's free.
- Getting way too risky with Pounds off ledge or onto sheild.
- Getting off ledge in general you can fall into a rythm that can be punished (in friendlies I F-air you all the time.)
- Got punished on a raw F-Smash you did out of instinct after a string.
- You leave openings sometimes when you pressure sheild. This is fine because you bait the jump, but sometimes got grabbed for it.
--> Delpho v. MarthZ <--
Mentaculus said:
Delpho:+ You don't go for anything super fancy.
+ You play very safe as far as knowing what you can get away with.
MarthZ:
+ You have good instincts as far as what will work in what situation, just need more practice to be able to pick them all up.
+ You remain calm and don't panic ("Melee is 100% a mental game" ~ Mango).
- Crouch cancelling (especially as Roy) ruins Sheik. I don't know the percent off hand, but you can crouch cancel for quite a long time before you get knocked down. Just CC her tilt or dash attack, and then D-tilt into F-airs or U-airs or whatever fits.
- U-throw is basically not good unless you're chaingrabing Fox or Falco. Use F-throw the most, as you can dash or wavedash forward into another grab or D-tilt. Down and Back throws are also acceptable as mixups or to get them off-stage.
- Roy benefits A TON from his wavedash, as it increases his movement so much, and he has a great ledgedash (drop from ledge -> double jump -> waveland onto the stage).
- Don't be above sheik as YL or ROY if you're close to her. She has an incredibly fast jump and incredibly fast ariels. YL can be above (like Pokestadium platform) as long as she isn't in his face. Bomb -> D-air is the best.
--> Danny Z v. MarthZ <--
No critiques yet.
--> MarthZ v. Mentaculus <--
Mentaculus said:
MarthZ:Let me start out by saying this MU sucks. Basically, Roy wants ganon to commit to something so that he can get a D-tilt or grab. So baiting with Dash dances and plenty of movement in neutral is good. Roys other hope is to edgeguard very well, which unfortunately you didn't have many opportunities to do. Since Ganon literally can't sweetspot the edge, if he's recovering low, just do Neutral B and time it well, or F-smash if you don't have time to charge. So yeah, grab -> F-throw -> F-air or F-smash if you can get it off. Just try to get ganon off stage and keep him off with F-smashes. If he lands on stage, his Up-B has a lot of lag, so run up, press down to cancel your dash, then F-smash.
For Ganon vs. Marth edgeguarding is even better, just once he is off-stage, D-tilts wreck ganon because he can't sweetspot the edge. If he goes high just do what you can to keep him off. F-air or F-smash or whatever. If he doesn't DI carfeully, F-airs wreck him too. Once you get on him, keep on him. Ganon doesn't have very effective Out of Sheild options, so if you just keep spacing your F-airs you're pretty safe.
--> Jay v. Poptab SEMIFINALS <--
thrash said:
...One thing to note about Jay's Puff is when he does the dair to cover firefox he can immediately run off and throw a fair, the hitbox is long and it'll hit Fox/Falco charging their Up B and will also trade if they manage to get it off in time. He kept using dair to cover it like 3-5 times when he could've just finished the stock--> Jay v. Slope <--
No critiques yet.
--> Jay v. Mentaculus GRAND FINALS <--
Mentaculus said:
I suck Ahenobarbus said:
I'll just steal Brian's notation. Honestly though, a lot of the things I noted as +'s when you were doing them, could equally be -'s when you weren't. So + is more like "keep doing this" and - "stop doing this"Jay
+great recovery techs
+you're really good at using falcon's mobility to keep your opponent (thinking they're) pinned down.
+edge-cancelled aerials so sexy
-Be more patient when you're holding ledge against ganon's recovery. If he has the option to either recover on stage or go straight to ledge, just wait on the ledge. His upB's landing lag is so bad that you can just ledgehop to reverse knee his landing after he lands. I'm referring in particular to stock 1, game 1, but there were other instances too.
Brian
+Really proficient tech chases
+ idk how you always hit with exactly the right part of the uair but it's really admirable
+/-You're really quick to use your double jump in neutral. Sometimes this lands you a dair into whatever, sometimes it leads to a death combo. Just be more cautious about when you do it.
-When Jay is really moving in neutral with falcon, you sometimes tend to just stay kinda motionless, waiting to spotdodge his approach and punish or roll to reposition. That's exactly what falcon wants. You're at your best when you're being tricky with ganon's (admittedly limited) movement--use that. Try backing up and punishing his landing or intercepting him while he's rising before his hitbox comes out
-Against puff, idk why you were full hopping oos. IIRC you got one hit by doing this, and got punished a lot. Maybe they were missed WD oos inputs?
--> Mister Moo v. Michael <--
Mentaculus said:
Moo:+ Nice safe play, good at controlling center stage
+ Nice job staying grounded and keeping up movement on the ground
- Need to secure edgeguards better.
- L2 reverse needle cancel. Not super hard, but super helpful.
- When you edgehog falcon, ledgehop F-air or ledgehop grab if he lands on stage. B-air him to keep him off stage if he's recovering somewhat low.
Michael:
+ You're good at reacting to what is happening. You just need to work on predicting things.
- With Falcon, work on picking up combos when you have the opening. Stomp -> nothing a couple of times.
- Spacing with falcon, N-air zones really well, though honestly it's hard to beat sheik tilts.
- When edgeguarding sheik, remember she ALWAYS wants the ledge cause her up-B lag is soooo long. like at 0:40, you grabbed ledge like you should have, but basically, you just need to wait until right when her *poof* happens, then just do the stand up from the ledge. if she goes for the ledge she'll get hogged, but if she goes on stage, she'll have so much lag you can still punish with U-smash or waveshine or something.
--> Poptab v. Danny Z <--
No critiques yet.
--> Sqweeeeeeeeejji v. Noah <--
Mentaculus said:
I don't know Sh*t about this match up, lolSqweejji:
+ Hell yeah for grab combos
+ Nice job stealing some kills with smashes when he missed ledge.
- Work on wobbles dude. I don't know what your opinion is on them, but if you have op for some early kills do it.
- Seems like you could incorporate wavedashes into your game more.
Noah:
+ You have good awareness and don't just work off of a script.
+ Good B-air game
- When you get pressured sometimes you get overwhelmed. Don't forget that you can always retreat to platforms.
- Rising pound is baller and not too hard to do. side-B and roll the stick up to top is a good way to do it.
psych said:
Skweejji:+ You definitely get extra credit on the pummels you do rather than just doing the desync fsmash immediately after getting the grab
+ You appear to understand how fricking good ICs dsmash is
+ You take good advantage of the fact that hammer is disjointed and you make people respect your space. I feel like it is very important as ICs to make people respect your space
+ Your WDes between stocks looked pretty clean (ICs just have a pretty WD in general)
+ It looked like you got Noah frustrated, and honestly as ICs that is one of your biggest advantages - using a character that a lot of people find annoying to put them on tilt and then exploit their panic stuff / bad habits / impatience
- I know they worked in this match, but pls be careful about those yolo fairs at low % (or really at all). They lead into nothing, and you could totally hang yourself by doing that. That move should really just be a combo finisher
- You never actually use WD to accomplish anything. Since ICs don't really have a powerful dash dance, you should definitely learn to WD to make your position/movement more ambiguous and close space / retreat more quickly and cleanly
- This is rarely relevant against Puff (there were only a couple times where it mattered in this set) but this is something I've noticed in your play in general - you never use ice blocks when someone is recovering low, and you should. Usually you just stand there and wait for the dsmash when you edgeguard, and ice blocks could help that a lot. Since dsmash only works if they pop up over the ledge, you can get a lot of mileage out of bothering people's recovery with ice blocks and making it more likely that they expose themselves to the dsmash
- In Brian's analysis he mentioned wobbling. Idk if you are akin to post-Evo Wobbles who decided that trying to wobble makes him worse at everything else or if you don't know how, but if you want some tips I actually spent some time learning how to wobble a while back, so I could potentially help you out with that (although I'm probably rusty on execution, I think I have a pretty good understanding of how it works).
Noah:
+ When you did spaced bairs, it was good. Spaced bairs really annoys ICs (and everyone, but ICs struggle against it for sure)
- You didn't do spaced bairs very often, and I think that as a Puff, when you have a bad stock or get frustrated, hanging out doing spaced bairs for a bit can get your head back together and maybe even establish a bit of control in the match. Also, you should vary the placement of your bairs (fade back, do them at different heights, etc) so that it is harder for opponents to get around them.
+ Good call recovering high when you could, ICs have to commit super hard to cover that and you can usually dodge it
+/- fsmash. When you get it, it almost always either closes out a stock or sets up an edgeguard. I like your aggression, but you should definitely make fsmash a read-based thing. It seems like some of your fsmashes are more hopeful than anything, and you got punished kinda hard for them
+ I was happy to not see any missed rests in this set, I feel like it's not worth the effort against ICs and they can wreck you for missing
- You roll up from the ledge a lot. That's obviously great when you're ledgehogging, but you got dsmashed more than once for coming back to the stage with roll because it's slow and easy to react to. I also think you did it instinctually around 7:10ish and could have hit him with a number of ledgehop moves instead
- Also, techroll toward ICs is never good unless you seem them actually preemptively commit to techroll away. I don't think they can react to techroll away fast enough, and techroll in got you grabbed and hit for 30+% and knocked offstage more than once
--> Alex J v. Poptab <--
Mentaculus said:
Poptab:+ Stick to your fox, dude. I think your fox is a lot better than your falco. Not dissing your falco though.
+ Nice movement and gimping with your fox.
+ Shine spikes.
- Your lasers were very high.
- Stop upsmashing with falco... please... just stop.
- Stop SDing, lol.
Alex J:
+ Nice movement. I liked at 0:53 when you wavelanded on platform and then F-air'd.
+ Good waiting and baiting, like at 0:43. That is probably why you jump more.
+ Nice recovery usually actually. Brad just had pretty consistant edge guards.
- Work on Chain grabs. You did't have much of a chance to in this set, but just practice. It's too effing good.
- You jump a lot even when you don't need to. Staying grounded and opening up with tilts is best, I think, but I'm not a sheik player.
- Don't airdodge when you should up-b (lol)
- Work on Power Shielding falco's lasers. Since you're on the ground anyways, sheik's low crouch makes PSing falco's lasers really easy. And Brad's lasers were really high that game.
- Secure your edgeguards. Needles are OP, at 3:40 you could have either needled again or commited to the F-air you started for.