Purposeful Play in a Leaky Liferaft

This is a single section from a short series of essays on how to improve. The goal behind these essays is to demonstrate that the process of improvement is multifaceted, definite, knowable and achievable by anyone, and to provide some concrete insight (should anything I say have the honor of such qualification) into what I feel is a poorly understood and, in far greater measure, poorly communicated concept. Moreover, to demonstrate that there is infinitely more to improvement than the refrain I'm sure has frustrated enough otherwise good players into giving up: "just practice."

I plan on posting one every few days, and will eventually conglomerate the whole thing and post it as one great, big... thing



Though I’d be remiss to say most players are guilty of autopiloting in neutral, it certainly seems safe to say that many are. Now, before I continue, I want to clarify that the idea here and autopiloting in the popular sense of the word, that is, maladaptive and generally playing without thinking, are mutually exclusive. The latter is due in large part to being on tilt, tired, or just any state in which your mental stamina isn’t the best. The former is, I argue, due to a lack of awareness.

In a game as punitive as Sm4sh is for small mistakes, you kind of have to play the game as if you were flying a helicopter through a wind tunnel: anything that’s generating drag will probably kill you. So, if you have no use for something, then, as the old saying goes: get it the fuck off the helicopter. Likewise, if you’re doing things in neutral and you’re not entirely sure why, then that could hold a large stake in why you lose neutral a lot.



When you operate in neutral, you should strive to understand why you’re doing what you’re doing. To wit, consider the following multiple choice question:



You’re fighting Meta Knight. You’re in neutral. Should you:



A. Throw out a move that covers the high line

B. Order an expensive haircut

C. Jump a lot



The answer is D: don’t do any of those and instead do things that cover the low line because Meta Knight has a lot more incentive to not jump in neutral than he does to jump.



To develop your neutral, not only do you have to understand your own motivations, but your opponent’s as well. You don’t want to cover lines that your opponent never enters, and moreover, cover lines that sacrifice precious space unless there is an explicit purpose. As a Ganon, the most tempting thing I have to use in neutral is my BAir: it’s safe, very high reward and almost invariably trades a cut for a concussion. That being said, in spite of its utility, there’re finer parameters to its use that make it either appropriate or inappropriate to use and so it goes for any other move in the game. A Ganon has no business trying to pick spacing fights with BAir with Ike, Marth or Lucina in neutral. Though small missteps may seem like no big deal, they multiply tenaciously in this game.



Unless you’re a weirdo, you wouldn’t carry a sack of bricks onto a leaky liferaft (no need to announce yourself if you’re indeed one of those weirdos who would). Sure, the bricks might come in handy for beating large, predatory marine animals to death, but the chance of that is very low with a very high cost. Similarly, you ought to be expressly thoughtful about your modus operandi in neutral and not bring extra weight along when you really can’t afford to.



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