Hi NeoSmashers. I'm Checkmate, or CM for short. I'm really known as in the tourney scene/SWF as Hippiedude. I joined this site last summer around July only recommended by Etherlight to join a fresh starting crew called "Basic". From there on, I trained under this crew and this site, to get better. So here I am today with a striving smash goal.

I've written some guides on SWF, so I have a general knowledge of what I'm talking about. Here's some silly guides that I've made on my own. http://www.smashboards.com/search.php?searchid=2397541

But enough about me, This is about you Neo. I'm about to pull out a "class session" just for you students. Now I know many of Neo's smashers are already experienced and have read these kinds of things before, but it doesn't hurt to read it again for a fresh reminder of the basics as well. I'll be writing anything under the competitive scene, general player stuff, my own personal silly experiences and maybe some casual stuff like items since I know many Neo isn't competitive sided.

I'll be able to update this weekly/bi-weekly/monthly depending on my free time. Hope any of you find this useful. Let the class begin!

LESSON #1-Observation

This is without a doubt, the most important aspect of ANY game. Basketball, Soccer, Baseball, Handball, and yes lastly, videos games specifically Brawl.

This thing increased my own skill level by over 9000 hit points! Seriously. Observation is more player based thing. The best way to get better is through observation (aka WATCH YOUR OPPONENT!) You shouldn't even be looking at your controller, nor your character. ALWAYS LOOK AT YOUR OPPONENT! You should know what your inputting to your controls and know what's going to be the outcome!

Watching every move of your opponent is vital to winning. Does he airdodge after you do a aerial attack? Where does he DI after you hit him with a Fsmash? Does he put his shield after you ftilt'd him? Watching your opponents patterns, habits, and able to measure his tech skill is to win. If you can detect his patterns and habits very quickly, then you got yourself more than 50% of the battle in your favor.

Simple observation habits are : Rolling, Spotdodging, Shielding, Approaching, DI-ing, On the edge, Gimping and so forth. It keeps going on. But these are the more simple ones that any can point out quickly in a match.

Observation takes ALOT of time to train. You do not quickly get the skills for it, because it's a player processed thing so it can go either way for any player. It also takes time slowly to develop as well. Once you reach your max tech skill level, there's nothing to improve except pretty much observation skills.

At this level analyzing matches and decisions in play are key. Learning small things, like individual player habits with a given character, go a LONG way towards breaching the next level. Being able to quickly identify habits and patterns is the first step towards learning how to control players and establish the flow of the match. Simply put, observation skill is what dictates your personal growth. I very much recommend that players record their matches and analyze them. It makes it INCREDIBLY easy to pinpoint your problems as well as things you can expand and improve upon.

Summary
What have we learn today class? We learned that observation can go a very long way and is the BEST WAY to improve yourself in any match. Observation skills is what dictates your personal growth. Picking up player habits and taking it into your advantage in however you please is makes it in your favor. I hope you guys do your homework on this as it will reach you very high in the future.

Lesson #2-It's just friendlies..

Rust:CM is no nubb
hippiedudeCM :just cuz you rape me doesn't mean you have the right to call me n00b D:
Rust: I HAVEN'T CALLED YOU A NOOB
Rust: ;_;
hippiedudeCM: YOU JUST DID!
Rust: CM is quite Badass
hippiedudeCM: besides every time you rape me, I'm not playing srs nuff cuz it's just friendlies ._.

So some of you wonder, what is a friendly anyways? Well taken from SmashWiki.

quote Smashwiki

A friendly is a match that takes place during a tournament and at a tournament but is only used for practice. This means that the outcome will not be recorded. A friendly match can also be an online match, usually only two people, that are friends on Wi-Fi.

Now I know IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE AT A TOURNEY. Here's a CM definition of a friendlies.

quote CM's definition

A match where no prize or title is on the line that is played for enjoyment or practicing new/old tactics. These matches are not meant to be overly competitive."

quote CM's definition

"I'd venture to say that you could also say that normal matches would be friendlies as well, as long as they aren't in tournament, and are actually played as they would in the tournament environment. (Ex; not FFAs)"

quote CM's definition

"A match where money is not on the line, and which does not count towards one's tourney placings"

Now that we've gotten the formal definition of a friendly, let's go indepth with it shall we?

Papa CM, why do you call it "it's just friendlies?" Well students, ask yourself, are you playing for anything? Are you playing for the best *insert character* title? Are you playing because you know your better then them? Well, *bleep* NO PEOPLE!!

Get it straight to your head that :WINNING OR LOSING DOES NOT MATTER IN FRIENDLIES WHAT SO EVER! It could be your favorite idol smasher (Boss<3), it's your arch smash rival, it could be someone whose a jerk and uses the friendlies you played to prove that their better. Well Johnny, TELL'EM IT'S *bleep*ING FRIENDLIES. It doesn't matter. But when there is money/pride/rep/etc, THE PRESSURE IS ON. A whole different game.

Now I'm talking from a offline and wifi but right now offline competitive environment aspect. I'll get into wifi abit later. If you w anna go to the wifi section (which many of Neo's people are, I'd highly advise you to skip the tourney/smashfest friendlies section and go to wifi friendlies in bold).

When your at a tourney, purpose of friendlies is to have fun and get yourself warmed up if you happen to enter the venue early. You'll want to play as much as possible friendlies before a tourney starts to get yourself preped, remember all your techs and what not. Remember you can lose a few in friendlies for the laughs, or just don't care. But PLAY TO WIN! usually in tourney settings, regionals, you'll want to play to win to maintain that tv spot so you won't have to move. Now don't take it as if your the champ but more of the smash who maintains the TV so he can keep playing as he can get better from analzying people, or just keep theirself occupied for time-being.

When your at a tourney (or smashfest with crewmates or friends), friendlies lets you do stupid things that you've always wanted to do. If you wanted to do a Shoryuken at Meta-Knight's Tornado, sure why not? If you manage to actually land that stupid thing you wanted to do, TRY IT AGAIN! This is how you invest techs into your game. The more you experiment, the more you find whether things can work, for yourself, for your playstyle, or maybe even for your character's meta-game. You JUST MIGHT contribute something to it if you can experiment stuff randomly. Do it in different sitauations that it might work. USE YOUR HEAD!

Now how about that Wifi friendlies hm? I pwnt you by using lucario and rolling and fsmashing you haha nubcake get wrecked!

No. You won because it worked on Wifi. But good games though.

This ^^. Many of Neoseeker's greatest problems boils down to this. Wifi at best are merely friendlies. You are not playing for money, rep, best character title, pride. YOU ARE PLAYING FOR FUN. Now people are affected by wifi because everyone is so different since many can attend tourneys and play some wifi, or people just wifi train to get better at offline tourneys (CMpowertraining<3) or some people just wifi because they can't go to tourneys or vice versa.

But no matter who you are, what character you play, what skill level you are at, remind yourself that it's just WIFI. Wifi brings a different aspect of brawl because input lag and lag itself is 2 sided and can vastly affect a person's game play. Many smasher's favorite characters could have a upper advantage on wifi (lucario) or some can have a very huge disadvantage (Marth).

Learning to accept a loss when you know your better then that person on wifi is the hardest thing can do espically for people who have anger issues and take everything seriously. : But in all srsness, take it like a man (or a women like Menkoy<3) accept it, say GGs, lol and move on. Input lag screwed you over? Ok then just move on, DO NOT JOHN.

Wifi johns Everyone has these. It's the most brought up on wifi history. People expect these and tend to back up whatever arguement they'll pull and cause a flame war, stress and probably a GC controller if your on a roll. But seriously don't try to wifi john. It causes stress, anxiety for a player and they don't want to hear *bleep*ing shit from you. If it's *bleep*ing laggy, get the *bleep* away from that room and look for a better connection. Everyone gets affected by wifi in many different ways because players could be so used to wifi, that there isnt really wifi lag compared to a player whose dedicates their time to the REAL DEAL (VH<3).

Beating your favorite idol pro smasher doesn't mean shit Seriously. it's just a friendly to them. Majority of the time, they'll just lol and make this face --> seeing wtf happened. Why? Because they know their far better then you, they win money, they get to play the REAL DEAL. Alot of the times they'll just be fooling around, or testing something, or trying to read a particular matchup. But to them it's a friendly on wifi. Don't take it your better then them because chances are, if you fight them on offline, you might just get m2k'd raped by. (This category has been specifically pointed at ChocoNaner for his non-sense that he spreads. Read this carefully Choco.)

Summary

So what have we learned class? *Students = It's just Friendlies Papa CM.."

Yes it quite is. The point of friendlies is to not care about winning or losing, it's still a play to win game, but the experiments you do, the more you play at a higher level, the better you become.

In friendlies, you can ask a person whom you think is definitely better and the right person to be asking for what stuff your doing wrong, what's more viable in what situation, or a overall critique.

If your feeling confident with someone, ask them to play a serious game, or more like a money match when you feel you have pinpointed your skill level from his. Just make sure you don't john and cry about it lol. Also friendlies has no pressure on you at all; but when you money match someone, both of you are pressured so it'll lead to nervous-ness so take the money match as if it was a friendly but still be serious to play to win because money is on the line here.

Next Lesson-Ledgeguard Habits. (Subject to change unless someone really needs a specific lesson lol


This message was edited by Checkmate on Jun 23 2009.

This message was edited by Checkmate on Jun 23 2009.

This message was edited by Checkmate on Jun 23 2009.

"See what they do then own them with reads"

I can haz cookie? :3

Very nice Hippy, very nice.

quote ChocoNaner

"See what they do then own them with reads"

I can haz cookie? :3

You get 2 AND beer bottle for being a good boy since you do your homework often.

*raises hand*
CM? Why is my teacher a scrub?
Jk CM good shit there.
You only did that to have a second post about 4 sentences though, admit it.

Oh and ledge habits is the one thing I don't see nearly enough of. I almost never get edgeguarded good enough, a drop down-uair scores me from 8-25% on an opponent because they don't know how to edgeguard oli right. Most people underestimate ledge get-up attacks too. They don't study them and seem to think it's okay to be hit by one even though they do around 8% or something? And puts you in a worse position than you previously were, where you could have easily gimped your opponent. Bad ledge games are easy shit to capitalize on, but so is a bad edgeguarding game.
Make next lesson about getting up from ledge/edgeguarding/DI, those are the three least understood things I've seen, when your MK is still airdodging instead of Uairing for DI, URDOINITRONG

Dude CM

This is Delicious.

Yes!!! Yes!!!

quote Checkmate

quote ChocoNaner

"See what they do then own them with reads"

I can haz cookie? :3

You get 2 AND beer bottle for being a good boy since you do your homework often.

Yayz! :D

Underaged drinking ftw. You should make all your lessons this simple. ;3

Drunk Haruhi shows that Hippy knows what he's talking about.

Lol of course I know what I'm talking about. I'M FROM THE *bleep*ING SOS BRIGADE HOMIES!!

@ SF Stop being such a good boy.

@ PoS thanks

@ Menk, I'll definitely put that in for sure. And yes I admit because I got motivated of more than of my 4 sentence srs posts <3

I don't think you really needed to type anything after the drunk haruhi pic.

Good read either way.

lol. what is with you and your obsession with teh Japanese Hanna Montanna

good read btw

What's wrong with Haruhi? Haruhi can be a good model and teacher ._.

idk. I'm more of an Asakura kind of guy

quote GirugaMarc

lol. what is with you and your obsession with teh Japanese Hanna Montanna

good read btw

you should never compare Hannah Montanna with Haruhi.

I might make something similar to this soon....