Melee is more of a game about position and timing than anything else. Trying to face your opponent’s potential threats head-on and contest what they’re doing at the moment leads to a playstyle built around gambling every interaction and hoping you come out on top in every scrap.

When you spend more time anticipating and reacting to your opponent’s position and timing and playing around them safely and effectively, you open the door to huge punishes that don’t rely on pre-emptive reads or commitments that can easily lead to reversals. Time and time again, I see players too antsy to hit their opponent, throwing out hitboxes or haymakers, screaming, “Please, please, please run into this”. Matches between players who fit within this demographic end up boiling down to ‘who can get their thing more’. This notion of interaction is wholly unsustainable and inconsistent at best.

Regarding higher levels of play, neutral is far more defensive and reactive. Players throw out pre-emptive options with purpose and discipline without swinging for the fences. There is a lot more ‘nothing’ within the gaps between combos. Top-level players don’t just know how to pick their spots more effectively but also when to pick their spots. This is due to an acute awareness of their opponent’s range, options, and position. I have had experiences in the past of playing people significantly better than me and feeling like nothing I do can ever hit them. This dilemma led to a series of frustrating analyses: “Hungrybox gets away with pounding like this all the time! Why does it never work for me?”

The problem was never in the use of the pound. The problem was the ‘type’ of pounds I was trying to find. Whenever there was a place for me to pound, there was a good chance one would find itself occupying it. Next, I’m upsmashed by Fox or downthrow pivot tippered by Marth. Sure, the pound worked on occasion, but was it necessary to take every potential opening I saw at a moment’s notice? Absolutely not.

Coming back to reframing this idea, I concluded that Jigglypuff is fundamentally a defensive character. I realised that if I focused on forcing my opponent to play into my strong defensive mix-ups and scout for mis-spacings or mistakes, I would still find the options needed to take advantage of her explosive punish game. There was no need to try and back-air Fox just for the sake of it. I could play smarter. More efficiently. I could find grabs where my opponent was out of position. Checkmate.

Don’t get me wrong; I’ve adopted this playstyle with interaction in mind. I still approach and throw out my money-makers as long as it feels like the right place to do it but now that I’m not forcing these situations, I find my plate full of Fox McClouds and Falco Lombardis running it down into a robust reactive game plan that rewards me for my opponent’s mistakes. Only when my opponent respects my awareness and spacing do I start to make the first move. Seldom is that move a shoddy attempt at an overshoot bair though – Taking space and pressuring the position carefully without overcommitment, forcing my opponent to play around my walling aerials and closer defensive options – These are my win conditions now. Gone are the days of “I think I can pound this dash-dance”, barking down my opponent’s throat with option after option. Welcome to the neutral-game, Stylo.

“Melee is the space between the moves”

ShiftingShadows