I think sometimes we over think the process to improvement in Melee when much of our improvement can be done by simply plugging in the controller and playing whenever possible. I actually do believe that you can win against a decent size of tournament players by being technically and mechanically sound. When I watch amateur level ping-pong players, the winner is usually the person that makes less mechanical errors than the opponent. In the same vain, the winner of an early bracket or pools SSBM set is usually the player that has made less technical errors and capitalized more on follow-ups.

Much of a player’s technical proficiency can be attributed to practice. When I watch Mango at a national, I can tell when he’s been practicing based on his technical consistency. There are fewer missed L-cancels, less awkward wavedashes, and better aerial movability with his Fox. In addition, he’s able to follow up on openings and hit-confirms with his movement, leading to longer punishes. In your path to improvement, if you REALLY want to get better, then technical proficiency should be one of your top goals to growing as a player. What does this look like?

– You should be able to input moves/movement on command, 100% of the time (technical skill)
o Never miss L-Cancels, wavedashes, etc…
– You should be able to execute the proper follow-up/move based on matchup and percentage (Game Knowledge)
o No missed conversions, no wrong throws, or sub-optimal punishes

These are both things that can be theorycrafted or practiced on your own. In an ideal scenario, everyone would always have a sparring partner to practice with. However, a lack of regular partners should never be an excuse for sloppy technical skill. Believe it or not, my technical proficiency was really awful (and it still is). I would routinely miss short hops and I would miss tech-chases, even on characters such as Captain Falcon. It was sad and almost frustrating to watch me play because of how incompetent I was (Look up Tafokints in 2011 on Youtube).

If you are a player aspiring to get better, turn on the Gamecube and practice. It’s not the easiest thing to do. Wife would practice and aim to get 100 consecutive shffl’d aerials. M2K used to study frame data and timings to make sure his combos were crisp. Armada would routinely practice 0 to death combo’s to the point in which he could execute the combo without even looking at the screen! Maybe you don’t have the time to be that extreme, but even a simple 15-30 minutes per day of practicing platform movements or shffl’d aerials on a level 1 CPU will pay dividends with your execution during a tournament. In an era as tough as 2014 Smash, the people who remain at the top are the ones that are constantly practicing and looking into ways to improve.

MIOM|Tafokints