Be diverse, it could win you a tournament.

[Milk!!]

This is an article about the competitive gaming scene for Super Smash Brothers Brawl.

This was talked about on All is Brawl slightly, in another article, but I really want to expand on it, it's a great topic.

Here's the scenario: Lets say you're in the final's of a huge scale tourney, for instance, Genesis.  Prior to this event, during all your play experience, you never play the level Distant Planet, because you and all your playing friends hate it, but the random finalist decides, "This course is phenomenal for X character, and bad for Y character, so I'm going to pick it."  Such is the point of a counter pick, correct?  But on top of your character being bad at said stage, you have no experience on said stage, getting beaten even harder, and making you look like an unskilled player, and possibly costing you the tourney.

You never want that to happen against you, that could cost you an entire tournament for all you know, so basically, you have to toughen up, and play the stages you hate, even if only once, so you can have some sort of thrown together strategy, instead of having to completely wing it last minute.  One thing to do, as some people are research players(read information and apply,) is to read the stage thread for your said character, practice good stages for your character when your counter pick arises, and practice the bad ones as well, so if another research player comes across you in the brackets, and they've done their research, they will attempt the following: "Oh X character is bad on this stage, I'm going to counter pick it to screw with him," and due to your new found practice, you will hold much of a better chance than you would with going into the stage blind.  The odds will be less stacked against you.  It always helps to have some sort of experience on all the legal stages, so no one can ever surprise you with a stage you had no experience on, and maybe down the road, you might end up liking the stage for such and such reason.

Personally, myself, I'm not very fond of Brinstar, very small, lava, etc.  But anyways, I played that strategy through my head, with Brinstar and on countless courses before that, (Rainbow Ride/Cruise, I don't remember, Pokemon Stadium 2, Pirate Ship, Norfair.), I basically had the silly idea in my head that any course that wasn't Final D, Battlefield, and Smashville was terrible, so I completely shunned away from anything except those three.  Now a couple of my most hated courses, (Pictochat, Frigate, Etc.), are some of my favorite courses, because I found something I liked about them with said characters, and my friends inexperience to them gave me the upper hand for awhile, and after I told them this, they played their hated course, and learned to like/tolerate them, shortly after cursing me for picking "silly stages."

The same can be said for a character match up.  For instance, before meeting Legan, I never played a Link who was better than mediocre; the first time I played him, there went all 3 of my stocks.  I continued to get 3 stocked, until I thought I figured his strategy out, then boom, comes out a new strategy to destroy me, and I just couldn't understand why I could do nothing against him, I wasn't expecting to beat him by any means, but I could hardly touch him.

Another example is the one time I went to Metal's weekly Smash Fest.  A buddy of mine, Danny, is possibly the one Sheik player I know, not even kidding.  Brawleen was playing me and my buddy Kim Bo Slyce, and beating us pretty bad, one she is the better player, and two, I have little to no Kirby experience whatsoever, so I was clueless at what to do.  My buddy Danny comes up to the Wii, and takes a set on her.  Danny is good, no doubt, but his play style is very short minded, too offensive.  But anyways, we all told him, "You've got an advantage, no one knows how to fight Sheik," and it seems such is true.

I can say from first hand experience, these two scenarios happen quite frequently in the tourney scene, a prime example, the last tourney I hosted, Aerial Rave 1.1, a Ness made it to the grand finals, for the fact of he was an amazing player, and no one there knew how to handle a great Ness.  He took the other player to the 2nd of the 3 of 5 sets, and wow, was that a phenomenal set.  You never plan for there to be that one player that uses just about everyone, and is good on most stages.  Even people with bad match ups, can prevail in a match, due to no match up/counter pick stage experience.  

One of the main points of this post, in a nut shell: Be Diverse.

Don't main just one person, and stick solely to that one character, on top of that being boring, it can really help you down the road.  Broaden your horizons, pick up an un-noticed pocket character to throw out when people are getting used to your style, then change it up on them.  I myself play quite a lot of people, I've probably tried to main the entire cast at one point in time, so I've got general knowledge of most the cast, so I'll throw that wild card out once in a while to confuse people, and possibly win me a set.  I'm not the greatest player by any means, but I know I can hold my own against some of STL's best, and due to poor match up experience with some characters, It can win me a match when the odds are highly stacked against me.  Metal can vouch for me as well, he can play just about anyone and hold his own, due to his skill as a player, being able to punish well, and the oddball characters he picks.

Also, in response to having a pocket character, every player wants to find the one oddball course that might or might not benefit their character(s), and have that as a surprise card as well for friendlies and tourney scene alike.  A lot of my friends liked to use Pictochat against me, and I had no idea what to do on it, so I got destroyed accordingly.  Having that one that you practice on, come up with kill strats, learn to throw/hit into the hazards(Pictochat and Halbred chyeah!), can always be a nice finisher to a set if you're down a match.

So overall, those who main Random, I salute you respectfully, you disregard match ups, and play the game to the best of your ability, no matter what character you're given.

[radium88]

*squeal* you mentioned me! And you said I was good!  Lawl, we should play again sometime.

And I agree with all that but I have yet to follow it.  I still main only Kirby and I should have some secondaries...but i don't....and I shouldn't pick certain stages because I need to get better at all of the stages.....*sigh*

[Milk!!]

Gracias Brawleen.  We shall play again, if you attend the next AR, we'll play some friendlies ASAP!
I've been practicing.

[MetalMusicMan]

This is very true-- I have always been an advocate of playing multiple characters instead of just one, it helps broaden your view of the overal metagame.  I also almost always play the game with all counter pick stages on, because as a competitive player, you need to learn to pay the "gay" stages.

Once you play them and realize what strategies work on each stage, you should find all of them to be enjoyable, rather than "gay".  I personally love Delfino, for instance, and not just because I main DeDeDe.  I love the whole layout of the stage.

Your general idea about how most smashers feel is right, though.  They complain about weird stages or characters rather than learning the matchups and counter picks like they need to.  Most players aren't as diverse as they should be.  

This kind of laziness manifests itself in a lot of players, though.  Rather than sitting down for 20-30 minutes and just ironing out what they need to fix, they ignore their weaknesses and let them inhibit their gameplay far longer than they would if they just quit bitching and putting it off and worked on what they needed to fix.  

For instance, Rauleen still pretty much doesn't know how to short hop.  Steve still hardly ever grabs or properly edge guards with aerials, etc. etc.  If you sit down and work at these things, it should take you no more than like 30-60 minutes really and you will be good to go and never have to worry about them again.  Time and time again though, I see people put off the basics until it bites them in the ass, hard.

I used to be that way a long, long time ago.  I used to bitch about "gay" stages or complain about "difficult ATs"... but fixing that behavioral trait has made me exponentially better.  There isn't any specific stuff that makes me rape the shit out of Rauleen and Steve-- I just don't ignore my weaknesses or inhibit my options based on what I think I can or can't do; I look at what is possible and I learn how to do it or execute it in the right situation, even if it makes me play a little worse for a while, I'm better off as a player in the end.  It's as simple as that.




Good stuff Milk-- I'm gonna clean up some of the grammar and move this to the front page section, pookie   I will also post this on my All is Brawl and Smashboards blogs.

[Alt-F4]

Yeah, sorry about last night I was in a shitty mood from work. Usually I don't that shit get to me when I'm not there but shit is annoying right now. Also WILLLLLL we need a "Steve doesn't quite have it down" in-depth tutorial session. Usually I wouldn't have been so bitchy about trying to use a more "neutral" character but more on that when I get home from work and either have just calmed down, or decide to type for a few hours about work in the rant board. I will also sit down and apologize to everyone last night, for being kind of a d-bag.

[MetalMusicMan]

Oh Steve it's all good man, no worries.  You weren't being a d-bag at all, you were obviously frustrated but I don't feel like you took it out on anyone so I don't think you have anything to apologize for sir.  Huggles.

Hopefully either tonight or Thursday night you, me, Seth, and David can have another practice before Jokers.  I'll let you know.

[Alt-F4]

I unfortunately have some plans tonight, but I could get there by 8:30 ish, tomorrow I have to work, but I might be able to get out of it.

[Syphien]

Steve you were not a d-bag. You don't have to apologize to anyone.  You were obviously not 100% yesterday and you had shit bothering you.  If that's how you are when shit upsets you then your 100000000000 times better man then me lol.  I have to vent my frustration lol.

[radium88]

For instance, Rauleen still pretty much doesn't know how to short hop.  Steve still hardly ever grabs or properly edge guards with aerials, etc. etc.  If you sit down and work at these things, it should take you no more than like 30-60 minutes really and you will be good to go and never have to worry about them again.  Time and time again though, I see people put off the basics until it bites them in the ass, hard.

And I still definitely can't d-air...  When I move in with Steve, I will definitely practice those, especially short hop so I can short hop off the stage and d-air because I will have access to a Wii and I can practice more than once a week, even if it's on my own.  And definitely practice all the stages so I can get a feel fro them. (I have trouble going through platforms too)  99 problems and losing ain't one

Steve you were not a d-bag. You don't have to apologize to anyone.  You were obviously not 100% yesterday and you had shit bothering you.  If that's how you are when shit upsets you then your 100000000000 times better man then me lol.  I have to vent my frustration lol.

Yeah, I don't think I noticed any d-bagness last night.  So probably waaaaaay better than me.  When I get frustrated, I unfortunately snap back at the person and then I feel bad because I know they're just helping me (but sometimes I don't notice it....  -___-")  Bad trait....add that with PMS johns and you got yourself one huge bitch (which is bad because I try to NOT be the stereotypical girl-on-her-way-to-get-nature's-present girl but damn hormones plus cramps deter me from any success) I get some good months and some bad ones; I think they alternate but I haven't taken a survey.....   Also, my sarcasm/humor becomes a bitchy sarcasm/humor.  I probably was one so I will apologize for any bitchy stupidness I've done for the past week, not just for one specific day but yeah, pretty much this week and last week.  

[Milk!!]

In a nutshell too, this can be looked at as a classic case of "Don't knock it 'till you try it,"  but obviously more in depth.
In all seriousness, it only takes a couple times to get used to the "Gay" stages.
I myself just got over my mutual hate of Brinstar just today.

And I still definitely can't d-air...   When I move in with Steve, I will definitely practice those, especially short hop so I can short hop off the stage and d-air because I will have access to a Wii and I can practice more than once a week, even if it's on my own.  And definitely practice all the stages so I can get a feel fro them. (I have trouble going through platforms too)  99 problems and losing ain't one

In a sense, this is why I try to not play computers.  I might develop a bad habit or lose a good one, and it might be hard to break.  Hell, sometimes I DI the wrong way still.(I freaking DI diagonal towards the level. ) So if anyone can shock collar me to break that, it'd be much appreciated.   

Ironically Metal, I think the exact same way about Delfino, I love the level layout as a whole, not just for one char.  And I did love me some Sunshine.. <3<3!

The other night, one of my biggest problems was going WAY too offensively, and for some reason, now I just clicked it in my head to stay back sometimes, now I'm 3 - 0'ing people who usually destroyed me.

[Syphien]

Great post as well milky poo.

[radium88]

In a sense, this is why I try to not play computers.  I might develop a bad habit or lose a good one, and it might be hard to break.  Hell, sometimes I DI the wrong way still.(I freaking DI diagonal towards the level. ) So if anyone can shock collar me to break that, it'd be much appreciated.    

The other night, one of my biggest problems was going WAY too offensively, and for some reason, now I just clicked it in my head to stay back sometimes, now I'm 3 - 0'ing people who usually destroyed me.

I won't play computers for matches, but like for getting them off the stage and then d-airing them.

Yeah, I have problems being too offensive too.  Will kept telling me to calm down and slow down at the Aerial 1.1 and that echoed in my head during my matches and I got farther than I thought.  Then when I played that Mario, although he was good, I got too offensive and I lost.... (Heh, I blame that he wasn't there to yell that at me )

[MetalMusicMan]

When I move in with Steve, I will definitely practice those, especially short hop so I can short hop off the stage and d-air...

It should seriously take you no more than like 10 minutes to get short hopping down  Just make sure to press quickly, how hard you press doesn't matter.  Also pressing with the fingerprint of your thumb makes it harder, I recommend pressing with the back of your thumb's bending point with your thumb joint locked.

Seriously that is something that is soooo easy that you can hammer out so fast.

I have trouble going through platforms too

A lot of people seem to have problems with this... I have never understood why.  Seth used to gouge his eyes out trying to go through platforms and he still does sometimes... I just don't get why lol.  Just press down fast (smash it).  It's the same as dashing, only you press down instead of over.

In a sense, this is why I try to not play computers.

Yes, playing computers is bad!  Bad!  BAD!

[Milk!!]

Short hopping can be fairly easy to learn.
Before I couldn't do it to save my life, but now it's habit.
We'll all help Brawleen.
We all just gotta' help my buddy Danny, his Sheik is vastly improving, but he still needs the whole don't go on the offensive 100% of the time thing.

It seems like I won't fall through a platform when I want to the most.

[The_Gamdol]

I really should have written down all the things Will told me to work on...

Though I don't think I had enough paper with me to get everything =(