We started this tourney all the way back in August, and though it's taken us awhile, it's finally finished. The grand finals ended up being between Rocketman (Fox) and myself (Sheik), with Rocketman coming in with a strong 3-1 victory. So congrats to him, first and foremost.
In order to commemorate the finals, however, I thought it would be fun to do an in-depth analysis of our match. I'll have videos down there, with a short explanation of what was going through my head as I was playing. I can't exactly account for any of Rocketman's decisions, but I'll do my best.
These videos were created with SSB4's in-built highlight reel feature. Unfortunately, the game is only capable of uploading full matches if they are around 3~ minutes in length (for some reason), so the only other option is to have the game chop up each match into short little clips (or highlights) for you.
Player Analysis:
VerbatimCharacters: Sheik, Ganondorf
Tournament record: 6-3
Okay, so allow me to just talk myself up for a moment <_<
A brief synopsis on my tournament history
Originally a Ganondorf main, I eventually came to my senses after losing to CK97 during the Grand Finals of the 3DS tournament we had last summer. Since Ganon is one of the worst characters in the game, I knew I needed to find a stronger character to face CK's Greninja with. So, I picked up Sheik in a surprise effort to deal with CK's intense Greninja shenanigans, BUT, in a surprise twist, CK unleashed his (newly patched) Charizard on me instead. My day 1 tactics with Sheik simply weren't enough to deal with his new-fangled Charizard tech, and it ultimately resulted in my crushing defeat.
My sodium levels were through the roof, as Sheik has been considered one of the best characters in the game for awhile, and Charizard was bordering on one of the weakest, and I still lost. I knew what I had going with Sheik was a good foundation, so I went back into the lab. And, over time... I... still have the worst Sheik in the universe <_< But not bad enough to prevent me from joining the next tournament. Especially considering my Ganon is still on-point, despite him not being main-material--he's more of a counterpick against other low-tiers.
Early in the group stages of the tournament, I had already fought Rocketman--and the only reason I won was because he was using Captain Falcon (his sandbagging character). He SD'd on accident, and I received what felt like was an undeserved victory. Later, I went on to face foes such as MistaNosejob, Alphy, TBlocks, and RadicalClass--the last of whom ended up putting me in loser's bracket, with his strong Mewtwo play.
While I wouldn't consider myself a bad player, I tend to fall apart when I have to face a character I never see. Very few people play Mewtwo, so it's difficult to know the match-up--and even though Sheik vs. Mewtwo is almost guaranteed in Sheik's favor, my unfamiliarity with his play-style is what led to my defeat. However, to my frustration, I faced Radical again in a couple of sparring fights, and ended up losing a first-to-five. It was like his Mewtwo had my soul in a glass jar--I just couldn't beat him.
However, when Rocketman ended up defeating him, I had an opportunity to run it back with him again in Loser's Finals, I ended up coming out on top. I adapted to his play-style very well, and though it wasn't a very handy victory, it was enough to give me the confidence needed to face Rocketman in Grand Finals.
I like to have a very fast-paced, aggressive, yet cautious play-style. I only try to do as much damage as necessary--I don't like to take risks, and Sheik's speed, agility, and low recovery frames allow me to be supremely cautious when on the offense. Defensively, I am also very strong, but I tend to get bored of stalling quickly, and just want to start hitting things after awhile. My main flaws are that I'm too easily flustered, and I have below-average execution.
Rocketman287Characters: Fox, Captain Falcon
Tournament record: 6-1
My adversary is a strong Fox player. Like me, Rocketman chooses to focus his play-style mainly in hyper-offense, always being on the offensive, and never letting his opponent take a breath of air. His choice of character reflects this, as Fox's speed is comparable to that of Sheik's--the main difference being that his attacks are much more hard-hitting. His execution is comparably superior to that of my own, and he appears to have a ready insight into where and when his opponents are going to move or strike, making him a formidable and mentally exhausting opponent.
His only loss in the tournament was against myself, when he used his Captain Falcon character. He's stated in the past that he only plays Falcon when he's having fun or fooling around, so I barely count this as a victory--especially when the last game ended in an accidental self-destruct (where you fall off the stage by yourself and fail to recover). My lack of experience with the Fox match-up wasn't doing me any favors, either.
Game Analysis:I didn't know exactly what to expect during the first match. With Sheik, my general game plan is to juggle my opponent off the stage fast enough so that their % doesn't go too high--once I start reaching 80%, it becomes very difficult for Sheik to juggle her opponent's off-stage and KO consistently, considering her low number of killing moves.
Instantly, I felt overwhelmed by Fox's hyper offense. I was having trouble dealing with Rocketman's neutral game--I had no issue rolling and side-stepping away from his attacks, but I was having great difficulty punishing any of his whiffed moves, because Fox is incredibly fast. More often than not, my punish would whiff, and be swiftly counter-punished, either by a powerful smash attack, a throw, or Fox's supremely annoying rapid jab combo.
One mistake Rocketman made, and kept making throughout the duration of the set, was that he kept performing his side special--the Fox Illusion. It's a move that propels Fox horizontally at light-speed, causing minor damage and high annoyance. Its main use is for getting Fox back onto the stage after being launched, but he also used it as a way of getting some damage on me. So, because he kept doing it so often, I nailed him with an up-smash after anticipating that he'd use it once again (0:11).
This didn't appear to shake Rocketman a bit, however. Fox's pressure, along with his aerial game (0:27), were beginning to test my patience. Once I lost my second stock, I knew I was going to lose--so instead of wasting energy trying to win, I preemptively thought about what I was going to do during the next match instead.
Game 2In the Street Fighter community, we have a saying--"the first round is data."
It doesn't matter if you lose the first game--the important thing is that you learn how your opponent plays.
In an effort to adapt to Rocketman's play-style, I made sure to play a little bit, well, better. This was difficult, because Fox has a way of tiring you the fuck out, which was really beginning to take its toll on me during the second half of this match. However, I managed to win this match with a bit of style.
In spots like (0:13) and (0:31), you'll notice that I'm using Sheik's forward-smash a lot to get KOs on Fox. One of them was another Fox Illusion read. That's cool and all, but this ended up being a mistake: Since it
won me the game, I ended up over-utilizing it in all future matches. It's not a safe move by any means--I have no idea why I used it so much, other than my dumb brain telling me, "Well, it worked the first few times!" So that ended up being a major flaw in my game down the line.
During this game, I noticed Rocketman was doing a lot of down-smashes (0:26). In Smash 4, down smashes are especially useful for punishing rolling dodges, because they (usually) strike on both sides, and have a long-lasting hitbox, making them ideal for reading rolls. Whereas I over-utilized Sheik's f-smash for punishing purposes, Rocketman ended up over-utilizing Fox's d-smash. I tried to be very cautious with my rolls during this set, so as to never get bopped by this attack.
The coolest thing I pulled off in this set is at (0:18). In Smash 4, there's a trick you can do with Sheik's down-aerial. Sheik can use this move as what they call a "meteor smash" (or spike), which allows her to send her opponents straight downwards. These are very flashy moves that are difficult to recover from--they're basically Smash's equivalent of a "slam dunk".
Anyway, the way Sheik's meteor smash works is like this: Normally, her d-air sends her propelling straight downwards herself, so using it off the ledge will often result in an SD--making it a very risky move to use off-stage.
However, as depicted in
this video (where I picked up the technique), it is possible to use the move
and still survive when Fox uses his up+b (the Firefox). The flames created by this move form hitboxes all around Fox's body, allowing Sheik to strike him with her d-air (as he's charging the move) without falling to her death, because her foot ends up contacting the hitboxes. It's the only safe method of using Sheik's meteor smash that I know of.
As you can see, however, I still kinda fucked it up--I fell to my death anyway,
while taking Rocketman with me. This wasn't intended, but it ended up working in my favor anyway. The reason it didn't work was because Fox had already launched himself by the time I hit him--it only works during the brief moment that Fox actually charges the attack.
Game 3This is where it starts going downhill for me. I'm already very worn out mentally from the first two games, and Rocketman was still going full-blast. It's actually pretty amazing how consistently fast he can play--I wish you guys could see the full replays.
Or, maybe I don't, because I got absolutely destroyed in this game and there's no denying it. At (0:11), you can see Rocketman landing a well-placed back-aerial on me--somehow, I didn't see that coming. I needed to figure out a way to tire him out somehow, but I was having a lot of trouble. His neutral game was just overwhelming me again, similar to how it was during game 1, but even worse this time around.
This is the point where Rocketman started to feel like a wall. Similar to how RadicalClass was. It just seemed like everything I did to him would be countered in one way or another--my confidence started dropping, and my performance started to suffer as a result. He's just a lot better at quick decision making, whereas I'm a little more apprehensive--which doesn't mix well with my aggressive play-style.
Upon losing, I knew the next thing I had to do was go on Battlefield--arguably, Sheik's favored stage.
Game 4Ah, the final game... What could have been. The number of mistakes I made during this game are immense, but I won't go over them all. The one cool thing I managed to pull off during this game was at (0:10), where I managed to hit-confirm a Bouncing Fish after a shield-grabbed back-throw. Normally, my Bouncing Fish game is pretty awful--there was a point I forgot to mention in game 2 or 3 where I kept doing the move
in the wrong direction, but whatever.
Rocketman just outplayed me during this game, bar none. All the issues I've been having up to this point,
especially with regards to Fox's neutral game, were beginning to compile--which was infuriating, because there's no excuse that I should've had such a poor performance on Sheik's home stage.
Because the platforms are situated in such a way that Sheik gets a free sweet-spotted up-smash (that is to say, her up-smash is the very strongest when you land it exactly where her palms meet above her head), I kept trying to utilize it, but to no avail--I didn't even pull it off once. However, Fox has a similar advantage with his up-smash, and I don't recall him ever landing anything like that, either.
At (0:13), I SD like an idiot. That's all I have to say about that. <_< At this point, I was
very flustered. Fox's speed was just dizzying me--I couldn't keep up with him at all, and Rocketman was making liberal usage of his most irritating attack--his rapid jab. Every time he used it, I just got more and more annoyed--which is good for him, because it fucks with my reasoning, and I end up taking more brash measures to get hits on him.
There were numerous opportunities to utilize the meteor smash trick I mentioned earlier, like at (0:23), but I didn't want to take the risk--I only had one stock, and if I fucked it up again, I'd look like the biggest dumbass ever. My only other KO was a dash attack out of utter desperation (0:27). You
never should have to use Sheik's dash attack for KOs.
After a grueling fight, Rocketman finally seals the deal at (0:33), with a well-placed forward smash.
A well-deserved victory--he outplayed me almost every step of the way.
Fox is one hell of an annoying character to fight, but he's definitely strong, and someone I'll have to practice for in the future. Congratulations again to Rocketman, and I hope I gave you a fair amount of coverage in this thread <_< I didn't want to just talk about me the whole time, even though it's a lot easier to. I don't know what's going on inside your head, man
Well, hope you enjoyed my analysis. This was a fun tournament, even though it took forever. I can't tell you how ecstatic I am that we not only have our own little Smash community here, but that everyone here is formidable in their own right. I thank all of my opponents for their matches, and I humbly await our next tournament.
I have a few requests, however: Next time, let's go with
Evo rules (scroll all the way down).
3 stock is a lot, and I think we'd benefit a lot more if we had 2 stocks instead, with a 6 minute time limit.
That said, I'll see you guys in the next tournament.
Verbatim vs. Rocketman - Match Analysis