Written by Lily (@mx_li_99)

And I don’t mean the best Smash 4 player in the world for either of those – it wouldn’t be much of a newbies’ article then, after all. But this could be a good place as any to start, with the disclaimer that not everything works for everyone.

Every veteran smasher knows how the first tournament they attended went. For the average one, it likely looked like a big 0-2 score, haunting their smash.gg or challonge bracket. Fast forward a few weeks, and maybe it’s changed, or maybe it hasn’t. Chances are

unless you’re a prodigy or someone who has a plethora of experience with the Smash games in general, winning a significant amount remained a far goal for some time. Smash, as with most fighting games, requires an endless amount of patience, loss, and review to constantly improve.

Unfortunately, not everyone can withstand the unrelenting polishing process. Looking at big tournament streams, it’s easy to falter knowing how many notable players there are out there, and even fewer winning anything. Expanding your horizons is a good thing though, and finding out new information should never be discouraging. As a new player, a path to improvement would loosely follow: goals, methodology, and execution.

As a new player myself, and certainly not a good one by any means, I’ve felt a lot of these struggles. I started attending DAT Team’s Monday Meltdown and Lab Team’s Lab weeklies regularly at the beginning of January. I went in with few expectations for myself, and I can safely say they were met. I had easily begun acquiring a plethora of 0-2’s, my victories numbering less than what I could count on one hand.

Initially, it would be a lie to say I wasn’t at least a little discouraged. I had been putting what I considered plenty of time into the game. Surely the dedication that was being given hadn’t been going to waste, right? The answer, I would soon find after being comforted by a friend, was that it wasn’t being wasted at all. It was just that, compared to those who had been playing Smash 4 for years, the time I’d spent was a paltry amount. Every hour I spent would help me catch up to them.

With that, my goal became to improve until I reached a point where I could be respected as an average player. Nothing too outlandish like winning a supermajor or weekly within my first year of playing. After all, it’s important that for the sake of your motivation, your expectations are grounded in reality – or you may be in for a rude metaphorical slap to the face.

Next up would be how to improve to the point you want or would be satisfied with, and the method to doing so is pretty much known by everyone at this point – but I’ll still compile it here for the convenience’s sake.

First, when people tell you to find a main quickly and stick with it, they aren’t joking. Of course in Ultimate, the roster can be incredibly daunting – I probably swapped mains about 7 or 8 times before finally finding one I was happy with. If you’re a series/character loyalist, have a character from a past game, or someone who plays a specific character based off X quality, then you’re already a step ahead of other new players.

It’s important because each character has their own unique gimmick; barring echoes, for the most part. Consequently, the faster you decide, the faster you can get down combos, strings, matchups, kill options, stage knowledge, frame data, options, and so forth. That sounds like a lot of things, right? But do get the character’s bread and butter down before moving onto the next – comprehension equals enjoyment, so make an effort to understand first.

Second, save your replays, and try to get players to give you advice on what you can work on. As a new player, it’s difficult to analyze yourself and directly incorporate it into the match while it’s ongoing. Even more experienced players find VOD review incredibly useful because your mind is freed from the stress of playing. If you’re having trouble identifying what you’re doing wrong, don’t be afraid to ask other people – the worst thing that can happen is that they say no. I’ve found it extremely beneficial when I ask other people for advice after a set or friendlies in person when I managed to work up the courage. And keep in mind, trying out new tech and forcing yourself to make plays might make your performance go down a bit. That’s natural since you’re not used to doing these things, but once you readapt, you’ll be better off than you were before. Try to not fall prey to the mindset of ‘I did better like this, so this is just better’.

Last, of all, diversify. The people you play with, the characters you play against, good players, not so good players – all of them might have something to teach you. Playing against Timmy from three houses down who thinks Ganondorf is a top 1 character all the time isn’t likely to help you improve. In the same vein, getting beaten up constantly by the local hero who uses the entire cast could help greatly, but at some point, you also learn to play against the person rather than the game. This is a great reason for you to attend your locals because regardless of your tournament performance, you can get a bunch of friendlies in with other people so long as you remember to ask.

After you start doing these things, you’re in for the long haul. Progress will be slow, at times invisible, and you’ll think you’ve plateaued for ages. But just because it’s invisible doesn’t mean you’re not improving. The most important part of execution is to keep faith and try to find the root of a problem. If you feel yourself burning out, take a breather! It’s better to come back with a healthy mindset than it is to continue grinding in a harmful one. There will be days where you play poorly, and there will be days where you can’t believe how much you improved. What matters, in the end, is that you keep coming back.

My best record remains a 7th place finish in a  wifi tournament (albeit one with some fairly fierce competition) for now. Even though I’m still racking up those L’s, I know winning more will come eventually!