EPT
The first part of my blog explains why I am practicing SSBM and what I'm attempting to accomplish at MLG Anaheim: win one (1) match. I'm roughly at the halfway point of practicing before the event in late June.
Before we get into what I've been learning, some positive news. I think I'm pretty good for someone who has "trained" for 3 months. I can often look like a passable player for small portions of matches. I am playing Falco mostly.
However, this game is a textbook example of ignorance being a gatekeeper to accurate skill assessment. I'm almost infinitely better at Smash than a few months ago, but now I can finally accurately see where I am on the spectrum of Smash players, and I can see that I am pretty far away from where I need to be.
I suppose the first question would be, is it even feasible to try to win a match in the MLG open bracket after practicing for only 4-5 months with a moderate amount of non-competitive SSBM experience previously? It appears I may just simply be praying for bracket luck.
What am I doing to practice?
I've never really trained for any competitive video game before. It seems to me, looking at Smash, that the biggest issue for newer players is simply techskill. The knowledge and matchup stuff will come with advice from better players and match play, but techskill is something you can literally just grind yourself in single player. Without a solid base of techskill you can't even do any of the stuff you're supposed to do in matches. I think most new players really need to just get their mechanical ability to a moderate level before even really attempting to form good habits / strategies.
Obviously, Smash isn't my fulltime job, but I try to get as much solo techskill practice in as possible.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/RP9kUOA.png)
Obviously grinding single player for 5 months can make you become Westballz 2.0
Smash is one of those games where in the pressure of a match without time to think or prepare, you're messing up simple shit that you executed perfectly 100x in practice. The answer to that really is to just repeat actions so much that it becomes muscle memory so you don't have to worry about it. And even if you do that, there will be times when you just still fuck up. So that is what a lot of time is spent doing, I'm sitting wavelanding on platforms and shield pressure on a computer and making sure my lasers are the same height.
I've also been playing a good amount on Dolphin netplay. I've found that you simply can't do a lot of stuff reaction and timing wise because of the buffer and input delay, but going from netplay-to-live is far, far more easier than the other way around. After an hour or two I'm fine with the timing of playing on a TV, its almost like Goku taking off the weights. It's incredibly hard the other way around, you feel like you're playing in water after a full day of CRTs.
The skill level in the #dolphin-ssbm channel is mixed. I'm in a weird zone where I beat everyone who is new very easily, and get 3-4 stocked by the actual good people in the channel. The good news is, Smash is fun even when you get owned, and combined with my endless tolerance for grinding 50 losses in a row from StarCraft means I have a pretty mentality for practice and motivation.
The hardest thing it seems is actually applying new stuff I learned to situations in game. Every player seems to have two mental modes, one being where they're trying hard and focusing and the other being this half assed "autopilot." I suppose that's why money matches are cool, they make players try. I try, as much as possible to stay "focused" and treat matches as extended training instead of just trying to win.
Lots of New Players
Lots of people I know who used to play smash for fun before seems to be getting back into it. MrBitter is trash talking me about playing at the Red Bull offices before MLG. I'm getting messages from old college roommates about the game. I even played Liquid Snute who randomly knows how to play Yoshi.
I went to a Dutch local tournament a few weeks ago, where after I was out, I played friendlies for nearly 8 hours straight. It is actually fun to just watch how some of these better players move around the various stages. Everyone was nice and there was a nice atmosphere of everyone cooperating to try to get better. The best player I played in a friendly there was a Marth that casually powershields seven straight lasers on his way to 4-stocking me.
There were a decent number of new players (though I was probably the "newest" since it was my first tournament) and they're all there because of the documentary and because of EVO. I tell them about my quest for an MLG win the reaction is largely mixed, some think I can do it with some luck and some think I have no chance.
There's this prevailing feeling that SoCal is some mythical place where dragons and unicorns exist next to random Luigis who will 4-stock your country's best players, like Korean Brood War circa 2008. That makes it even more exciting.
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