The Art of Brawl: Lesson three: Learn your characters, Learn your matchups!

[Haven]

Hello there again, I am Haven and this is if you haven't noticed (which I doubt by now) is a new idea I am trying in which I post advice every day.. This one however may be shorter than others... so I am really going to focus on this one.. and if it ends up shorter I will make a Lesson four later today to fill the gap. I want to focus on something important, something that in my very honest opinion makes up 50% of whether you are going to win the fight or not, if not 75%. Learning your characters in brawl, learning their matchups, and learning your specific matchups at hand.


This is a very, very, VERY important part of Brawl, if not the most important part of it. Your matchup's are very crucial... Brawl happens as we all know to be very unbalanced, character's have huge advantage's on certain other characters, and you may not know how to fight specific characters in general due to a lack of knowledge. Picture this, you are in a tournament playing a match in loser's final's against your close friend. It's 2-2, you knocked him into loser's before getting knocked into loser's yourself by the best player in your region. He knows that his main (Let's say it's DK) Can't fight against your main (Let's say it's Pit). Now because of that he decides to Counter Pick BF, a good stage against Pit, but... he is also switching his main. You are surprised, and he picks Wario, one of Pit's worst matchups, and not only that you have never fought a Wario user before! Because of that he 2 stocks you, and you only make third place and $40 dollars when you could of made $100.

Now you are very upset I imagine, well it's your fault.. You should of researched the character a little more.. This site is full of many people who easily play the entire cast, not only that you can also research on Smashboards, research on Youtube videos, or try the character yourself to learn his style. A Matchup is a very vital part of Brawl, knowing how to fight Marth if he was your worst matchup is very crucial.. Knowing what to counterpick, knowing the character's style, and knowing your opponent could just get you that win in a match.

Of course, some matchup's are just very, very hard (Link v.s Meta Knight LOLquaza), and you'll just probably have no chance to really be honest.." Now you ask me, I don't want to switch my main!?!? What do you do?!" Relax.. you don't have to switch your main.. What you do now is get a secondary! Secondaries are very important when you main characters with hard match ups, or hell Secondaries are just useful in surprising your opponent. I just countered your Marth with Snake, now what!? Knowing which character's can handle the bad match ups of your main and learning them is definitely useful in the long run.

Another funny thing that people may not expect is, the Brawl meta-game changes as time passes. Let's go take a blast from the past, back then before DDD's infinite was discovered, him v.s DK was actually a hopeful match up! In DDD's favor, but still very possible nonetheless, but now let's face it, that match up is hopeless and sad due to new discoveries.. Meta knight used to have bad match ups against Snake and DK, but as his meta game jumped up the Smash community has decided now that he has no match ups.. If you fail to keep up with match-up development, I promise you will fall behind on strategies and matchup's, keeping up with the development of the meta-game will definitely aid in your match-up's. And also, if you don't feel like going to Smashboards or keeping up by going to super competitive smash sites (Which I actually recommend doing), You could always go to the meta game active members on this site (Vio, NaPPy, etc), they are knowledgeable and if you ask nicely they'll help you out

A large reason people have problems with match-up's is majorly due to the lack of practicing against the matchup in person. If you want to gain the first step to learning a match up you really have trouble in, I would reccomend going to the forum's on Smashboards and searching up matchup's on it, that really helps. Using the character and learning their strategy doesn't hurt as well, like I said before.

One more thing!... You don't have to be like everyone else, you can be a Marth player that has trouble with good matchup's too... like Kirby. Some people have bad matchup's against character's their character is supposed to have an advantage on.. It's perfectly normal and it's just something you should learn, or switch character's on.

Learning one's matchup's is easily the best accomplishment a smasher can do, so far although all my thread's serve equal importance, this is the one you should learn first if you haven't already! A Matchup is a very vital thing, Looking up matchup chart's and experiencing it first hand is a key step to becoming a better player. Although some people just have a hard time with matchup's in general, this will definitely help you become a great player in the long run.

I hope you enjoyed =D.

To learn matchups btw:

http://www.smashboards.com/forumdisplay.php?f=118

^Useful info there.

[isaac]

Wario main, secondary ganondorf. I'm set.



I didn't know pit had a hard time against warios, I'm guessing it's due to the bike being anti-spam?

Good ************************ Haven, though i fear your lessons of gold will be buried by ************************ topics soon enough unless these are stickied ._.

[Haven]

Originally Posted by isaac Wario main, secondary ganondorf. I'm set. I didn't know pit had a hard time against warios, I'm guessing it's due to the bike being anti-spam? Good ************************ Haven, though i fear your lessons of gold will be buried by ************************ topics soon enough unless these are stickied ._.

Lol 2gud, 2 of the most fun characters in Brawl XD

Wario's air movement rapes Pit, upclose he's faster and it's easy to approach Pit's camping due to a broken Aerial dodge and aerial movement. His D-air eat's through everything Pit has, Arrows aren't useful due to aerial dodge again.. Fart Kills Pit too early while it takes me up to 175% to kill the average good DI Wario.. It's very hard, but not impossible, definitely 6:4 Wario's favor though x_x, I still have my N-air though :P. Bike also does make approaching easy <_<

lol yeah Josh is moving these to the Brawl Dojo thing soon enough so that doesn't happen =(, and thanks

[isaac]

Males sense, i always just thought the pits I've been raeping were n00bs. ._.
Darn.

I recall living to 260% against a pit. I think Vio's? I know the pit wasn't the guy i was playing's main at least.

And kickin' the uber mini saves the day

[Haven]

Originally Posted by isaac Males sense, i always just thought the pits I've been raeping were n00bs. ._. Darn. I recall living to 260% against a pit. I think Vio's? I know the pit wasn't the guy i was playing's main at least. And kickin' the uber mini saves the day

Oh yes lol, Pit is bad against Wario if done wrong.

I wonder if anyone will see this now.. -___-

[Visto]

lolololol haven needz sage back

[Haven]

Originally Posted by Visto lolololol haven needz mini-mod and Sage

Aww thanks =D, lol jk

[Vio]

You mentioned me ._. slut

[Drew]

Haven can't be a sage ._. he's 2gud for that.

[Abyss]

I only have three mains: Link, Falco, and Ike. And sometimes ZSS. How would I fair with that?

[Haven]

Originally Posted by Mario Metroid Fan I only have three mains: Link, Falco, and Ike. And sometimes ZSS. How would I fair with that?

Falco's only matchups that are bad are Snake, ROB, and Marth I think, Link handles Snake really well, Ike can handle Marth, and ROB isn't really used that much so that should be fine =)

[Sploosh]

I know all of this ecept some matchups