The Art Of Improvement: Super Smash Bros. Melee

Fraser Cunningham

Improvement in any hobby or skill in life I believe is one of the most fulfilling things you can do. The satisfaction and self-reflection that comes with achieving goals along with doing something you enjoy is a rare feeling. It’s the act of pushing your boundaries past ‘just the video game’ and then further introspectively. This sort of thing can light a fire in people and bring out both the best and worst in them. It’s a battle of the mind;a reflection of oneself – you will fail many times, but you will appear from the other side if you learn from them.

Sorry for the dramatics, but improving at Melee was something I was once extremely passionate about. I’m going to keep my history brief because that’s not what I’m here to do.



I have played competitive Melee for slightly over 3 years. Competing at tournaments frequently, starting from a local level to eventually national. I improved steadily over time to peaks I didn’t imagine I would ever achieve – becoming best in my region and highly acclaimed in Europe (42nd in European Heir Rankings). I cherish the experiences I’ve had with the game and wouldn’t think about changing them – it helped me improve to become who I am now. However, my passion has eventually dwindled and I no longer feel this way. I decided instead of wasting my knowledge/experience, I would attempt to work on the most informative guide I can on improving at Melee.

I’m hoping this guide will comprehensively cover all categories I feel are relevant and to the extent of the knowledge I have available. Some sections may be familiar for more experienced players and others interesting for new ones – regardless, you should be able to pick and choose between categories which feel suited to what you want to learn.

So you want to play Melee?: An Introduction

You have most likely came to this guide because you want to either get better at or learn Super Smash Bros. Melee from the ground up — you have come to the right place. This resource should be able to teach you everything you need to know from a complete beginners level to potentially somewhat advanced. How far you go depends on how well you pick up the information and what you decide to do with it, and most importantly; your passion for improving. I tell mostly everyone who comes to me wanting to get better and asking “How did you get good so quickly, what’s your secret?”. There is no secret, I practiced and I learned, because I wanted to get really good. That’s not to say everyone’s journey isn’t different, it absolutely is – however, latching onto something as fragile as a ‘secret’ will get you nowhere; hard work is required unfortunately. Trust me though when I say this, when you try really hard at something and you succeed, it’s significantly eclipses all the failures it took to reach that point. I will go further into this topic in another section, I just wanted to let you know what you’re in for.

One of the things you have to be prepared for when you start playing this game competitively is the amount of learning you will have to do. The curve is steep and this is commonplace with any other serious fighting game. Melee holds a niche in the scene due to it’s unique movement options and surprisingly intricate technical requirement. I hold this opinion with a few others in my scene who began playing roughly the same time as me, that you truly don’t feel in control of your actions or that you’re ‘playing the game’ until 2-3 years into playing. This may sound daunting at first, but this is not to say that there isn’t fun to be had prior to this – you will still enjoy playing; it’s more like your training weights have been lifted off or you can see potential you couldn’t before. I actually believe this happens a multitude of times throughout improving at the game, enlightening moments that breathe a whole new fresh air into your thought process. Again, learning process is different for everyone – you might pick up some things faster than others or totally skip certain processes. I usually recommend to most that first begin playing or haven’t been playing for long to focus on the fun aspect. This is how I learned the best because it was intuitive for me, then once I wanted to break past my next hurdle I needed to ‘hit the books’ so to speak. I think you can lose the focus of the game easily if you’re going try-hard from the get-go – hell even I have sometimes when I’ve been playing for so long! There’s a tolerance and an optimal balance for everyone and that’s something you will be needed to judge yourself – this skill is valuable so get good at it ASAP (self-evaluation).



Character Choice

Choosing your character is one of the many hurdles that players first come up against and rightfully so – choosing a character is your identity and what you plan to invest your time into. Depending on the type of person you’re you can be drawn to characters for various reasons. Maybe their play-style clicked for you, it just felt ‘right’, perhaps you love Fire Emblem and are excited to see Marth as a playable character – or you could just not give a damn and want the strongest tool for your domination of your local scene. It’s an important decision and can cause lots of problems down the line if not done correctly.



There are twenty-six available characters to choose from and they vary from some being downright terrible to insanely strong. When it came to my own character choice, it was drawn from a lot of deliberation and consideration. I was personally curious of how almost every character functions, but was able to draw a pattern on the ones I liked because I would play them more frequently. I came to a decision based on this frequency, enjoyment, opinions of friends and of course how successful I was with it. My own opinion also had a factor to play, my philosophy of character choice was that I didn’t want it to hold me back – so deciding on a ‘top tier’ was essential. Fox was the character I eventually chose – I liked the potential the character had and that I could mold it into whatever playstyle I wanted too. From doing my research and playing the character I also came to find that it was be a difficult road ahead of me in regard to technical prowess; there would be a lot to practice. I came to terms with this as I knew I was learning a lot anyway, plus I was very keen on the game so it didn’t bother me so much.

So what can we take from this, and what would I recommend for you when deciding on your very own character?



Experiment. Stay open to all possibilities and extensively test what you like so you can eventually narrow into a group of choices. This is important because characters you may gloss over could be perfect for you.

Enjoyment. Do you enjoy the character you play? Could you see yourself continuing you to do so in the future? Is there lots to improve on? Why do we play, because it’s fun, don’t pick something not fun – that’s your drive.

Perspective. What do others say, do their descriptions and recommendations resonate with you on any level? What does the road of improvement look like from a fellow character expert? Listening to others that are experienced can allow you to not waste time and feel more confident in making your decision.



Winning. This one can sometimes can top all the other factors, if you’re winning is that not ideal? It’s different for everyone, you just need to know how you weigh them to each other.

I believe this is an effective method and will definitely help you narrow your decision. However, there are many other possibilities I would like to include. Character strength is a common topic and as you have read previously my opinion is that a character that holds you back is not viable for improvement. Take this metaphor for example:

Climbing a mountain in which you have to carry several rocks in a bag to the top. The mountain is divided into several checkpoints in which you may drop off one of the rocks, and the peak is obviously the goal. The goal is to master all the aspects of Melee, the rocks represents various aspects of the game which you drop at various checkpoints as you learn them. Eventually you would hope to reach the peak and have mastered all the aspects. But let’s assume you begin the trek with a few of your friends, except all of you receive an extra rock – of varying shapes and sizes, you think this seems unfair, but don’t mind because you’re excited to get going. You begin all at the same time, however some don’t make it as far as they wanted too and some find it a breeze. These varying rock sizes are your character choices – they can often act like a weight that will affect your journey and the thing is you will always have it, even until the top of the mountain.



My point here being you don’t want to make an already difficult task more cumbersome, unless of course some other reason outweighs it and you have come to accept that fact – like enjoying a weaker character enough to put in the extra work required and coming to terms with being at a disadvantage.

I don’t plan to go into detail on character archetypes etc, because I feel Melee is too open-ended and a character can be right for anyone. I will however in no particular order list the characters I feel are viable enough to enjoy playing at a high level: Fox, Falco, Marth, C. Falcon, Jigglypuff, Peach, Sheik, Samus Yoshi, Pikachu, Ice Climbers, Mario, Luigi, Y.Link, Link, Dr. Mario. This is probably the most subjective thing I’ve said so take it with a grain of salt.

The only other topic I feel that is worthy of mention is the concept of dual-maining, or practicing multiple characters at the same time. This usually happens for several reasons, either the simple enjoying two characters equally, a matchup dependant choice or desperation. I also have my own personal anecdote for this particular situation I would feel is relevant to share.



For the majority of my career I’ve been a Fox main, however there have been various phases, character doubts and desperation acts. Phases being like when you really think you’re a die hard metal fan in school, but you drop it the week after. It’s easy to convince yourself that you suddenly connect with another character and I think it’s a very natural feeling. You should play other characters for more reasons other than this one, but keeping these ‘phases’ in friendlies and not in tournament should keep this sort of thing in check – doing this will allow you to gratify those urges to switch for whatever reasons and learn while you’re at it.



Character doubts however are a whole different story and are inherently linked to mindset, which I hope to discuss more later. When you switch character based on impulse or assuming it will fix the problem with your current one, that’s a bad assumption. Like we have concluded previously, choosing a character is an important decision and should not be quickly changed on reaction or by a sudden negative emotion. It’s best to come to terms with what your problems are and make a switch over a long period of time.



Desperation acts are similar to character doubts but are a much more extreme version. It’s like a build up of the previous and is more directly related to impulse like I mentioned. An example of this would be a Jigglypuff player switching vs a Fox to a completely unpracticed character because the match-up is ‘bad’. This can happen sometimes so don’t beat yourself up about it, but don’t get into a habit of doing this – nip it in the bud and come to terms with what you must do. A lot of self-introspection comes in here, you will eventually realise the odds may be against you in some situations, but you will become a better player by overcoming them instead of shying away.

While I believe focusing your efforts on one character is the most efficient use of your time, there are manageable ways to to do more than one. Make sure you have a lot of time to dedicate to both, or are just comfortable dividing your time and understanding this will most likely reduce your success. Players usually only pick up another character when they’re at the top percentile of the game and not out of enjoyment, but rather to counter a troublesome opponent – even then some disagree with their decision.



Ultimately, pick what feels right.

Chapter 1

Improvement: Do you really want to improve?

Now that we have all of the preliminary stuff out of the way, we can begin to develop our topics into chapters and the first of those will begin with discussing improvement. I had mentioned previously one facet of improving that was in specific regard to Melee and how that journey looks; here I will discuss the general concept of improving at something that you will hopefully be able to apply to many things, but it will be tailored to Melee.



I believe the first question that many new players do not ask themselves when they first begin is “how far do I want to take this?” or “how badly do I want to try”. Of course they are too focused on enjoying the game in front of them and don’t consider all the possibilities. What happens however is their beliefs about their improvement and the game become conflicting with each other and can cause a lot of discomfort. Like I’ve said before, getting better isn’t supposed to be easy; if it were, it wouldn’t be any fun right? Some people think they want to get better and improve, but they haven’t acknowledged what amount of effort is required – they don’t understand the significance of the statement.

Improving is a mental state, it’s preparing to accept potential flaws and is high focus. You have to go into practice sessions with the thought in mind of improvement, it’s not a half-assed exercise. This is not to say you will never have a laidback game of Melee, but majority of your sessions should be focused if your goals are aimed high.



This brings me to the point of what you want out of the game. Whatever you decide that is will be your motivation for improvement. It’s similar to when we choose a character; some do it for the pleasure of fun and some are die hard set on winning. I would figure most lie somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.



Personally I felt I was somewhere in the middle too, despite what it may have looked to others. I was addicted to the rush of adrenaline, the winning of tournaments and I also loved the game. People find their fun in different ways, I enjoyed the act of improving myself and witnessing that growth. Most think fun correlates to cool and flashy combos etc – but it’s actually really defined by the person in particular.

So ask yourself: “What motivates me to play?”, “What do I enjoy about Melee?”, “How much does winning mean to me?”, “How much effort am I prepared to invest”.



These things change over time so you can come back to it later on and it’s okay for them to change, but this along with character choice is the beginning practices of self-evaluation. You want to be honest with yourself and don’t attempt something that isn’t you. While I’m embarrassed to say, I enjoyed how Melee made me a spectacle at times. There’s also the consideration of long-term goals etc, but I want to address that in the next section. This is just covering the general concept of improvement, methods and such will be continued later in the chapter.

Goals:

Another topic that is brushed to the side but is well documented on giving huge success to whomever makes use of it’s benefits. Goal setting is used in all walks of life – from the workplace, education and even abused in certain instances as mobile video games. It comes back to the topic of motivation. Goal setting acts as stepping stones to help us through the tough times and keep our eyes on the prize. Well set goals will maintain a nice steady pace, grant satisfaction and be realistic. Poorly set goals will be ambiguous, confusing and leave you dissatisfied.

There are various types of goals you can use to benefit you. They come in the form of time scale: short, mid and long-term; or daily/weekly, monthly and yearly goals.



An example of a daily goal would be something like a tech-skill routine. It’s something that is required to be maintained at a consistent rate. It’s also building up to something that improves over time – it’s also very achievable with some basic discipline (I will return to tech-skill routines in a later chapter). In addition to this, weekly would be like a reward in relation to this or just something that you want to achieve in this short time scale. For example: having more consistent ledge-dashes. If you perform enough of your daily goals, they should allow you to complete your next set of goals. Your daily should complete your weekly and your weekly should complete your monthly – and so on.

Monthly would be an example of a mid term goal, it’s purpose it to be a middle ground between dream like goals and something functional. For example: winning a local tournament. To achieve the goal of winning a local tournament, you have to consider what is required to do so – and this is what the place of your short term goals should be. However, in the same sense you also want to consider your long term.



Long term goals are the reason we need to split this stuff up in the first place, to make sure that it’s a manageable process. These are the dream goals I was referring too; the ‘end game’ if you will. This is where you want to be by the end of a year or perhaps longer than that, your ultimate goal in Melee. This goal may change over time as you begin to develop, but if you adopt this structure you will see growth.



How difficult your goals should be are often decided by the long-term goal itself. If each one is a reflection of the other; then each should be difficult enough to represent that. If your long-term goal is to become the best in the world – will winning a tournament every month suffice? If you just want to be PR’d in your local area – is practicing for 8 hours a day really necessary? Just be reasonable with yourself and realistic.

Knowledge/Experience:

If you’ve ever went up against a player who has been playing a lot longer than you, it can be quite a strange experience. You might get completely obliterated just because they’re much better than you; or you bring them really close on their last stock and they just play entirely differently than before and clutch it out. Having experience over your opponent is a distinct advantage, it’s learned differently than the traditional method, in that it’s just over time.

The beauty of experience and why people are always wary of veteran players is because it can’t be taught; only lived. Some situations you can’t foresee or be prepared for, no matter how good you are. Sometimes you have to have experienced it. I think what you should take from this is that Melee is a learning experience in many different ways. You should approach with an open mind mentality and accept that you will not be ready for everything. Thus you will be able to eventually define your own veteran status.

I believe a good example of this is travelling out of region for the first few times. Newcomers to this situation may react in different ways, but I think the majority will be nervous about it. They didn’t even consider how they would feel, last stock, last game, almost about to beat x in an unfamiliar location in such a large crowd. And why would they? I’ve seen people ask about how to replicate playing on stream (guilty of this myself), and the thing is — you just can’t. You cannot choose to simulate a rare experience like this, but what you can choose to do is learn from it. That is the power of experience.

Practice:

You may have already been doing this without your knowledge. If you are anything like me, you would’ve lost to something you didn’t understand, then highlighted what went wrong, and then practiced. This is a form of a very important concept called ‘deliberate practice’.

This is the idea that you’re choosing something specific to practice with focus. I’m using the previous example because it was something that drove me to the point of practicing and not a mindless routine. Whenever you decide to practice there should be deliberate reasoning for it.

This is only possible providing you’re paying attention and are able to discern your various weaknesses with solutions. However, we will get on to that later. For now, I want to explain practice concepts and why practicing is important.



Practice can come in many forms, it’s just how you decide to improve yourself. The problem lies with the efficiency of how you practice and the methods which you follow. Obviously practice itself is important because it’s the only way you can improve yourself, but the latter is more important because it increases the rate of that improvement and the productivity of it. I always agree with the notion that ‘working hard does not equal working smart’. You can make better use of your time with a focused hour than you can do with a mindless week. This is why it’s important to schedule our practice.



The ways in which you practice will vary and the ways in which you define it will not always be clear. One session may be a focused effort on an obviously flawed piece of your game; whereas another may be vague and more difficult. The importance is to be mindful of what you’re achieving with your time. If you feel you aren’t progressing, evaluate that through your practice – your routine will evolve and develop constantly and it’s essential for this to happen. It’s essential because if you don’t change with the new things you’re learning you will become comfortable and therefore stagnate.



Returning to the scheduling — when you first begin the majority of your practice regime will be taken up by what we refer to as ‘tech-skill practice’. This is the major stepping stone new players should overcome as soon as possible, because it’s simply a barrier to another level of play. Without our execution we cannot perform our gameplan, and in Melee execution is in high demand. Take it upon yourself to ease the schedule into your lifestyle in a way that is comfortable for you. If an hour feels like too much, aim for 25 mins – remember, the goal is to be efficient and mindful with our practice. Although, when it comes to tech skill practice it’s often just following the button presses to build up your muscle memory. I would highly recommend the use of the Pomodoro technique if you’re looking to improve your time-management of this.

I can already hear you questioning “but what do I put in my routine?”. I get asked this a lot and honestly it baffles me a lot of the time. If you cannot decide what it is you think is important to practice, how can you decide what is an important option to use in game? Consider an aspiring weightlifter, he has no prior experience in weight-lifting of any kind, where does he even begin? Straight into the 100kg deadlift? Surely not. His end goal is to become an olympic weightlifter, so he needs to build himself up over a time period – improving his weights according to his increases. So ask yourself, what is it I’m looking to achieve with my routine and what are the tools I must learn to utilise if I want to achieve it.

The also common, but more appreciated question is “but how long do I practice for?”. Like I stated previously, you want to fit it around your life-style, but this is more in regards to specific sections of the routine; i.e. dash-dancing for 5 minutes. I think this comes under a similar category to picking what feels comfortable, because 10 minutes to someone else can feel unbearable, but a pleasure for you. Personally I’ve always been an advocate of short, but consistent sessions: 1 min of l-cancelling, 1 min of short hop fast-fall, 3 min of ledge-dashing etc. As long as I did this every day I could still achieve the results I was looking for at a pace that was enjoyable for me. To add to this, I would add more time into the sections that you feel you’re weaker on and obviously less on the others. This way you’re dedicating your resources more efficiently and maintaining the already learned execution.



Once you break past the barrier of tech-skill and it becomes second nature to you, more time can be assigned to the likes of: analysis, notes, theory-crafting etc. I feel this does not happen for quite some time and depending on the player, tech-skill may require consistent maintenance at some level. I would play a lot outside of my tech-skill routine, so I potentially have been advantaged in that respect; but I would still have specific tech that I would need to practice if I wanted to remain sharp (U-throw > U-air vs Puff for instance). Again the way in which you schedule this is life-style related, however the thing I would recommend most is to not over do it. Many times I’ve found myself overly hungry for my goals and created an impossible schedule which I could not live upto. I think it’s good to break up this stage of practice into character matchups and reflect your schedule with the goals you’re attempting to achieve in these matchups. An hour of Sheik vs Falco analysis a week as an example.



Practice overall is a vague term and can mean what you want it too, but I think we can dumb it down to deliberate focus on improving our game. Prioritisation, scheduling, self-evaluation and commitment are some key words to take away from this section. There is more to come related to practice in this guide, just not as direct as this.

Analysis:

Analysis is our disguised way of saying VOD review (or video review), which would be looking deeper at gameplay of either your own or another player’s to gain further insight. What this is not is skimming through some footage and noticing situations as they come. This is an attempt to challenge your current line of thinking and to steadily consider various situations. Other than that, there isn’t any wrong way to analyse, but there are some steadfast rules I think it would be worthwhile for you to follow.

Pick a theme – Unless you have several hours to dissect every micro-situation in an entire set, it is probably worth your time to outline some interests to focus on. This rule will both save you time and will make your analysis more efficient; therefore being more beneficial to your improvement. Ideally, you would want to pick something you want to work on rather than something you are already familiar with. An example of a theme would be “Shine conversions vs x character” – you would watch a good player and skip to the situations where a shine connected. This brings me to my next rule. Question everything – Since the idea behind this analysis thing is to get your brain switched on, it’s imperative that you begin to question both your own and others thought process. Just because a top player is a top player; this doesn’t always mean they’re right so attempt to challenge that (though there’s usually a reason for their decision). In the same vain, don’t give yourself a free pass. Perspective – Have you ever had an argument with a friend, and then once things cooled down you found that you felt a little sympathy when you heard their point of view? This is a similar situation, not that you will feel sympathy for your opponent DI’ing in for a full combo; but that you will see things you didn’t consider, just because you saw it from your opponents point of view. Take notes – This one may seem obvious for some, but I know many players who don’t just because they’re lazy or didn’t see the benefit. Just the act of taking notes is a way to engage your brain and the archival advantages are great to look back upon.

Slow it down – Slow down the speed of the game. It’s quite hard to analyse at a deep level when the game is going so fast, so don’t be afraid to slow things down and give yourself some time to think.

Other than these basics, make sure you utilise the various resources available such as: www.flowfeedback.com and https://vods.co/melee. Finding a balance between playing the game and thinking about the game is very important. Focus too hard on either and you will burn yourself out easily, along with wasting potential improvement.

Labbing

Another required process which you will utilise in both your general improvement, but also specifically practice is the concept of ‘labbing’. The name is derived from when scientists would meticulously test and experiment – attempting to reach the conclusion of something, most likely a base hypothesis. This is very similar to how we use the term nowadays, just adapted into our framework that is Super Smash Bros. Instead of the laboratory as our home base, we in-turn have training mode. That’s if we still were back when the game first came out, now we have a plethora of utilities to use as ‘lab-work’ – 20xx being the leading force in this along with resources like Ikneedata (founded by Schmooblidon) created by community members and much much more.

However, instead of listing these resources out one by one and their uses; I would rather delve into the intricacies of what makes labbing necessary in the first place. We are scientists of the game, and Melee is actually a very mathematical game in various ways. We must come to understand the game we play, in order to play it at a deeper level.



Labbing Melee actually became a secret love for me. During the time I began playing, labbing was looked down upon as a nerdy thing to do, however as the game has progressed over time, becoming more precise and analytical is more common. It was always a weakness of mine, I was very much an instinctual learner – meaning that I learned the game more efficiently through trial and error in a real environment. Jumping into 20xx however was quite a daunting task back in 2015, it was lacking many features and in general wasn’t the most functional piece of kit. Even with the leaps and bounds it has made today, 20xx is still daunting. Many times I thought it wasn’t worth it, because I would attempt research, would get something wrong, and then think ‘what a waste of time’. Oh how wrong I was. This is kind of a two-pronged analogy because 20xx was useful for me to learn in two major ways:

A way in which I believe people learn is categorised as the following: analytical/instinctual. Some learn better via doing, and others learn better via thinking. There may be research which implements this thinking a bit more, but I think you get the picture. I think these learning types could exist on a spectrum of sort, and everyone of course is situated somewhere on it for whatever reason. You could say before I began lab-work, I was very right side biased (instinctual). However, after conquering this weakness I have shifted further towards the left side (analytical). This is important because becoming immersed in this weaker side of my learning style overall improved my learning methods as a whole. This could apply the same to players who are more attuned to the thinking sides of their brain, and could benefit further by challenging their weaker right side of thinking. 20xx improved my style of thinking, but it also just improved how I approached the game in general, and therefore to my overall skill. Like I mentioned before, understanding why the game works the way it does is key to playing with further understanding. Breaking down situations and having concrete answers to whether ‘x’ works or not is both incredibly interesting and confidence boosting. Because of 20xx I created several charts which did not exist before to overall improve the Fox metagame along with my overall skill (Peach/Sheik U-throw flowcharts for Fox).

Although I have made my strides in my usage of 20xx, I do not feel I am the one to break down using it to you. There are already many resources out there which explain to you how the tool functions. What I feel these resources do not concern themselves with however is how the tool is useful. Not everyone is a gifted 20xx guru, it’s not ideal for everyone to utilise all the features of, so what do the common-folk of the Melee community do with it then? What situations should I be looking at?

It is very easy to get wrapped up in some overly detailed situation which may not help so much in the long run. This is why you must prioritise what is likely to provide the most benefit. I learned this is the best method through the use of the 80/20 rule and is applicable to many areas of life (it was actually hinted at in the analysis section). I’m not going to get into that in this section, just understand that deciding on situations that are: not too complex, will benefit you in some way, and are a weakness of yours are generally situations of importance. How you define this importance is what differentiates a Llod from an Armada.

The other thing about 20xx that is more generally utilised is how efficient it makes your practice. With the use of save states you can greatly increase the rate of your execution by basically simulating these occurrences. The rules in regard to importance follow suit for this as well. The recent release of Uncle Punch’s Training Pack (as the time of writing this guide), is a way to train execution with 20xx tools, however with the increased accessibility for newer players.

Lastly the thing you must learn to do is when not to use it. Yes, you heard me right. What I mean by this is to use already what others have found for you. There is no reason to lab Link’s tech-chase potential if it’s already been done for you. Sites like Smashboards and The Melee Library already have archives of data which have been mined since Melee’s inception. The only thing I would suggest you to consider is if the data is correct – it can be difficult to know without testing yourself, so make sure the source is reputable before taking any piece of data as gospel. One of the major problems with the Melee community is the spread of misinformation – you can see the frustration in better players (specifically Leffen) when untrue information is being spouted from Twitch chat. Be careful with what others may say, and also be careful with what you relay yourself. The lab always has the answer, if you really want to know… did I tell you how I got my PhD?

Building Matchups

This is a skill/technique which I think is very valuable in pretty much any fighting game and is essential to learn early on. Character matchups stack up the building blocks of a players improvement and also game-plan development. It’s one of the most effective improvement methods I’ve found for breaking into a higher tier of play; evidenced through my own triumphs.

I learned this skill through a lot of trial and error, much like learning anything else – however, what sparked this idea in the first place was the questions like “how do I play x matchup” and “how much do I actually know about this matchup”. With these constant questions floating around in my head, I needed to flush them out, and the best way to do so was by creating matchup notes. There was quite a few benefits in doing this:

Specify Weaknesses – Just through the act of writing down what I knew about a specific matchup; in-turn, I could find out what I was also lacking in.



“Ah my Falcon neutral-game is totally filled, but it seems there’s nothing in the punish-game section?”.



This sort of thing is much more difficult only through the act of playing and is also much more objective. You could be appearing to do well in a facet of a matchup, but when you have it written down (or not), then you have a much more clear indication of what is going on. Knowledge Increase – You could say that when we play against one another we’re having a conversation in a sense. Conversation is a way of communicating, and it’s known that communicating around a subject in various ways is a sign of mastery. Thus discussing matchups through writing is a way to expand our levels of thinking. Mindset/Game Plan – Having everything laid out in front of us about how we have decided to approach playing against a character is actually very good for our confidence. Being prepared allows us to ease any anxieties we have and also feel confident in our ideals – that we have worked hard and anything which results to this is just a reflection of that work. It allows us to be honest with ourselves. Along with that, having a subgenre of a game plan is great for having in both something to fall back on and greater understanding. Tournament Preparation – With these notes, you can update them based on which matchups you may be facing in a tournament. You could also just use them as a refresher before a set if you haven’t played the matchup in awhile for example. If you wanted to be even more specific you could also break it down into player specific matchups too, but personally never felt the need for this.

Unfamiliar Matchups – As an extension of the previous point, I’ve found great success in using this technique to prepare for matchups that I never even play. Jigglypuff and Ice Climbers are characters that are completely barren in Scotland so are limited in practice. With these notes combined with other things such as analysis and netplay, I could beat the best contending representatives of each character in the UK, despite never playing them before.

The way in which we take these notes could vary from each individual, but I think there are several things we must cover and which I use in my current method. If I were to start creating notes for a matchup from the ground up, I would break it down into sections as follows:

Character Name – e.g. Peach (used to identify the character)



Matchup Rating – A term which I think is useful for gauging where you think you’re at with the matchup. Give yourself a high rating if you’re comfortable with the matchup and your results prove it; and give yourself a lower one if the opposite.



Character Strengths/Weaknesses – I think this is a good way to identify quickly what defines the character. It can be something that is useful to refer to over the notes as sort of a baseline. Peach has a poor ledge game, that means it should be something you take advantage of later in the notes by referring back to it. Similarly Peach has strong shield pressure, so finding ways not to have your shield attacked could be a recurring theme.



Win/Lose Conditions – Similar to the previous point, but more plainly put. A win condition would be something that would allow you to gain advantage to eventually win the game – this could whatever you consider it to be. Shine, Drill, Laser would be some examples in Fox vs Peach. Lose condition again would be the opposite effect, D-smash, Grab, Dash-attack from the Peach perspective.

Neutral – While the method of how I do this isn’t fully fleshed out, I would still highly recommend it as I still found it quite beneficial. I usually would do it similar to a brainstorm via bullet points – writing out the first things that come to mind in the matchup and then expanding on them best I could. Neutral is a topic up for interpretation a lot of the time so perhaps this way isn’t the most efficient for you, so I would recommend experimenting. .



E.g. “It’s important to be always outside of dash attack range, so you have time to react to options like Peach pulling a turnip or doing a high float. If she begins to approach you can usually take a precaution against a dash attack approach – such as a drill, run up shield, full hop etc”



Punish – Again this section would be similar to the previous one, however the context would be in terms of punishing your opponent. Brainstorm initially, and eventually develop further when ready. If you are having trouble, breaking it down into sections and focusing on the parts you don’t understand can be effective.

E.g. “Grab is hard to get real punishes off of, specifically from U-throw. It’s best to adapt to how much the Peach knows. If they can jump out at the correct times try to read the jump or escape. If they can SDI change your timing or use B-air as a mixup.”



Game States: Advantage/Disadvantage – This section concerns the concept of either having a lead or being behind. It is further broken down into: corner, off-stage, ledge and juggling respectively for each. I feel this coherently manages various different topics in one sweep and designed in a way you can see it from each characters perspective.

E.g. “Corner: Peach is very strong when her opponent is in the corner. She excels at trapping your options by forcing you to pick an option with her FC F-air – if you choose wrong you can be punished quite hard. You can either beat it out, shield and hope for bad pressure or get a roll in, or jump around it and go via the top platform (it’s hard for her to cover). If she’s staying on the ground you could expect a dash attack, but is still quite risky to go for from her perspective. You ideally want to use your speed here to either run straight past her or go from the platform.”

There are of course optional sections you can add to your notes, such as: things to work on, resources, things to research etc. Starting with these will give you the best headstart and you can add further findings once you increase your level of competence. Matchups and building them will always stay relevant to you, no matter which skill level you reach, so make sure you get good at this.