Alternative Strategies in SSBM
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- Опубликовано: 30 май 2024
- (possible photosensitivity warning at 3:08)
Super Smash Bros. Melee is a highly technical competitive fighting game honed by years of high-stakes competition and meta development, and yet, many players will continue to play it in ways that may seem absurd to some. Even as players' gameplay has optimized itself further over the years, people continue to play Melee "wrong". Sometimes, these players even win.
Here are some stories and examples of ways that players have and continue to bend the rules of "the jazz of fighting games".
big thanks to: lovestory4a, @nonbinary, rienne, harriet, druggedfox, soulofficer, iBDW, unsure, keeta & more for their help with this project as well as to my lovely ko-fi supporters.
support the channel, get access to early/exclusive content: ko-fi.com/wusstunes
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alt account for music, archived content and whatever: @Wuss2ns
business email: matt.callosum@gmail.com
chapters:
00:00 The FD Gambit
01:38 Intro
03:08 The Blindspot
10:45 Two of them
17:45 Gary gets busy
19:45 optimalternative
23:33 The Reverse Counterpick
songs featured (in order of appearance)
Jefferson Island Quarantine B, Madworld (WiiO
Poke Mart - Pokemon Alpha Sapphire/ Omega Ruby (3DS)
dice-dance days - Gunstar Heroes (Arrange album)
last party on the moon - Gunstar Heroes (Arrange album)
Cavern Caprice - Donkey Kong Country 3 (SNES)
Full Exposure - Side Pocket 2 (Saturn)
Sharp Eyes [For Dancers] - Street Fighter III Arrange Album
Main Theme - NBA Hangtime (SNES)
Aspects_3 - wusstunes
Zelda's Theme - Ocarina of Time
32 銭形ロボット暴走プレミアムリーチＢＧＭ - Lupin III World is Mine OST
Get More Tea - Yuzo Koshiro
Quiet Insanity - Yuzo Koshiro
Operations D - System Shock 2
Track 3 - VATLVA (Saturn) 
Игры
Your interpretation of iBDW’s reasoning for counterpicking FD at Summit 12 is incorrect. His intention was that if he lost game 1 after striking to Stadium (Marth’s 2nd-best stage in the matchup), he’d counterpick FD, assuming Zain would win. However, then he would be able to reverse 3-0 Zain without ever having to worry about either stage, because Zain couldn’t pick them, and he was confident in being able to do so. Him winning, and the “mental damage”, was just a neat side effect. This is from Cody himself.
Gotchu. I've heard it a few different ways between the summit interview, his stream and heresay and ended up just kind of summarizing a mix of it without much cross referencing.
ive talked abt this a bunch with him and yeah this is a good summary of his logic
@@BoltTheEmolgaRUclips usually auto deletes any comments with links. That’s probably it
@@creative_commander4973 The link I understand, but then it deleted a comment that just had “14:52” in it.
The Meele gods are trying to silence you. Be safe my friend.@@BoltTheEmolga
my alternate strategy is to pay commentators $12m to commentate my set vs level 1 cpu pichu. makes you feel like a god
This is also nice because they need the money
Win/win
12 million or 12$ a minute? Lol
@@sellerspiano981112 million
@@sellerspiano981112 million a minute
@@sellerspiano9811twelve meters of money
never heard of Harriet, but he's immediately one of the most interesting Melee players I've heard of. "I take [the opponent] very seriously and I want to see what they do, I want to see their full creative potential without following the script" is actually beautiful in a way
awesome thanks for getting it. Im usually the one approaching and want people to meet me halfway in taking that risk on, and I want to see what openings they can make on me! There's a lot more to learn from being outplayed than being outperformed
@@eternalharriet well said! your gameplay is beautiful!
My favorite "alternate" strategy is to blackmail my opponents into either sandbagging or dq'ing. Hope this tip helps new players!
Worked well on Ally
We call that one the Captain's gambit. Classic Smash 4 opening move.
What’s dqing
@@shadowling77777disqualifying
Havent tried that one yet, ill see how it works
Harriet the kind of guy to ace a bunch of job interviews and jusr decline them all
@kk12ie if you're a sociopath
@@LoopZoopler is the boss a sociopath for not immediately hiring them?
This is actually true of my real life (applying to several restaurants to see who the best offer is, end up declining due to schedule conflicts)
This kinda reminds me of gambits in chess. Gambits are on paper, worse.
If the opponent knows the proper accepted counterlines, you just lose material and thus eventually lose the long game.
But because gambits force interaction, they drastically reduce the number of lines required to memorize on the gambiter's side while allowing them to dictate the tempo.
Which makes them great in practice.
Just like declining a gambit, you don't have to engage a blindspotting fox or a skittle shield fox or blindly techskill labbing fox, especially when you have a percent lead.
They're purposely putting themselves at a small disadvantage so that they can bait you into approaching where they have potential to gain a bigger advantage.
Really cool video.
Really good comparison, didn’t even consider something like that
Literally not true lmao. Queens gambit is one of the best openings in the entire game
@@alexanderbateman5581 That's because the Queen's Gambit is not really considered a "true" gambit, it's just a solid opening and its naming is a bit of a misnomer
@@deelanders1I wouldn’t say so. It definitely fits the formal definition.
@@Caleb-zl4wk what's the sac
Excellent video, loved it!
An often overlooked alternative strategy is bringing your own modded Wii to the tournament, which has a modified ISO which boosts the performance of a low tier yellow rat.
funny nair x3 range go brrrrrr
but only on port 3 and while wearing a specific costume, they'll never figure it out even if they take your wii and examine it no siree
Ideal Alternative Strategy (tested, 99% consistent, except when it isn't)
>walk into tournament
>Bring in modded setup wherein being a low tier, with a particular costume and button combination on a particular port that will give you a completely broken character where the already best move that character has is just made unbelievable
>Run the fade on everyone who dares run into you in pools and brackets
>Explain nothing
>Fucking leave
Honestly though chaos had put himself in a Catch 22 by the time he was caught, if he didn't end up leaving when he was invited to go to the Sheetz and thereby leaving the setup behind, they'd have probably ended up directly confronting him over it.
My alternate strategy is to just explode into a million pieces and calling a TO for unfair play
Oh!
I'm not really a competitive player but I did have an alternative strategy where I'd intentionally use throws that didn't fit the situation I was in. For example, I'd throw people back on stage even if I could have thrown them off stage and started an edgeguard. Mostly I did this just to watch their reactions, but I always had the hope that maybe if I did it enough, I could eventually get them to DI the wrong way.
That's a mixup and valid.
That's what a mixup is in essence, but also you aren't likely to get terr ble DI out of your opponent if your tactic is to n or get them off stage, because the D I they would use to prevent getting edge guarded won't get punished nearly as bad as if you just edge guarded them.
I wonder if you could use this trick to connect with Mewtwo's f throw projectiles.
i'd never heard of harriet, this is very interesting stuff, love somebody who plays for other reasons and puts aside winning
Great video! I loved how players who were interviewed earlier like Harriet kept occasionally joining to comment on the next player's strategy. Really pulled it all together.
Yeah when Harriet came back to talk about Mew2King's win against hbox it was awesome
My alternative approach is entering tournaments, drowning in pools 0-2 all the time, dont play ever again and watch matches from a distance! Thanks for the banger video btw
Drephen and Ice are I think the only players to ever use Zelda at the highest level of play seriously. Ice used her to counter Hbox and Drephen is just REALLY good with her.
My favourite "alternate" strategy is to bribe players into Pichu dittos and still lose
I've been away from Melee for a while, but thank you for introducing me to my new hero, Harriet. I feel like their nonsense is the exact same brand of nonsense that I aspire to whenever I play. I always thought of it as challenging my opponent to see if they can beat me in some stupid minigame that I just came up with, hoping that they forget that they don't actually have to. It's like you set this trap for them, and they spend all of this time and effort trying to outsmart the trap when they could, at any time, just ignore it and walk beside it. The concept can genuinely take you so far and has won me so many tournament sets all on it's own.
On a related note, I play Sheik and never actually learned to properly deal with getup attacks while tech-chasing (I think something's wrong with my controller?) so I just got really good at playing this mindgame over whether someone will getup attack or not, and I'd always get super excited when someone would realize that that's what I was doing, because I swear they would subsequently put so much energy into trying to beat me at this mindgame instead of putting that energy into just... y'know, not getting grabbed in the first place, which they probably would've if I could actually dash out-of-crouch. It's so easy to trick people into focusing on the wrong things.
Harriet is like the SFIV Jyobin of Melee. Whiff shoryuken into hit shoryuken and blindspot into back air both resemble each other so strongly lmao
wait i just started playign street fighter im stealing that
@@wusstunes go check out some videos of jyobin. I dunno how to describe it other than "he played wrong and won"
Phenomenal video friend. I came for the DK doc, stayed because you rule. I just want to say, I hope you don't put too much pressure on yourself because of the success of the DK video (not that you've indicated anything like that). You're clearly great at what you do, so I hope you keep having fun with it. Cheers.
One of the nicest comments I've gotten. I honestly have struggled a lot with the heightened expectations that come with my audience growing, and that's part of why this video took a while to finish. Still figuring out what the most sustainable way there is for me to work on these videos and just figuring out how to make them in general.
ditto, great comment
Pikachad really is just a chad shows up to a regional once claps a great fox for two games. Loses the next two games after his opponent developed a whole new playstyle
So glad to see the drephen shoutout that set against army was the reason I got into melee
Awesome video! Alternative strategies are definitely a huge part of the mind game. My fave that I think I heard from Toph is when performing timing-sensitive inputs, you physically react before you actually press the button to like psych out your opponent on the timing. Only works on LAN and when sitting near/next to ur opponent but hilarious when it works
I do this all the time, I even instinctively do it on netplay when there’s no one around me LOL
my favorite alternate strategy is walking up slowly, and downsmashing
Big fan of this topic and you highlighted many of the best examples of this. Some others I can think of are Drephen using the chain on FD to cheese his opponents past knockdown %, ycz's many Samus recovery tricks (like the walljump upair bomb jump stall on yoshis you can do forever because Randall will come out), that one Ginger vs Zuppy netplay set with The Essence vs The Fill, Borp's whole existence though there are more than enough videos about him haha, and probably some others I can't remember right now. Really enjoyed this video!
Oh and speaking of Sheik's chain, HTwa and Kounotori using it to get down from juggles is a really good one!
Chain rules
Harriet is such a hidden boss it’s funny
My favorite alternate strategy is losing
My favorite in neutral is to start just walking places instead of running. Throws peoples expectations off, and it's really safe. You have all the same options as when you run, and more, cuz you can still jab and tilt. Sneak a few steps in here and there.
Yeah walk is broken
Practicing and fucking around mid match is an actual strat
I always loved the concept of 'it just works'.
Not everything needs a direct reason, sometimes it just works.
The most interesting use of blindspotting isn't technically blindspotting at all by definition and just something interesting I've noted. When Mang0 and Westballz had a hard time winning real estate, they would instead retreat and jump as far as they could into the upper corner of the screen which just baffled the fuck outta me. They're both Falco, they can't really contest much without a double jump and their aerials would get easily edged out in the spacing game. But it worked. The opponent would chase and Falco would win. Mang0 would win neutral interactions and Westballz made it back almost like he Sharingan teleported with the enemy using wavedashes and edge canceled side b's. If someone can figure out how this works lmk.
this video is amazing, the fact that you put the effort into getting all of these interviews on top of the editing work really elevates it above so much of the other melee content out there
A thought that I had watching that M2K v Hungrybox set at The Big House was that M2K started to exploit the conception that his own playstyle was formulaic and predictable. The moments where he varied from his usual tendencies in neutral, especially in game 5 at FD, landed even harder for HBox. This is because HBox was making commitments in neutral that he wouldn't have against someone like Mang0 or Zain.
Didn't even realize Rienne played, I thought she just did controllers
Also surprised there was no mention of the TX Zelda that beat Zain, Zeldafool
hope i remember to watch this in 3 days, if i don't i'll still add to his comment via an edit to say my thoughts on it ( as a non-melee player )!
it seems very interesting upon first look (:
edit in question: as expected it was very interesting, blindspotting seems very strange to me, it seems effective though
CPU teammates seems hilarious to me, love how people mainly pick ganon and luigi
M2K practicing mid-match against HBox was amusing
the whole thing about counterpicking FD on marth even though it's his best stage is interesting, i never knew about this as i don't really watch competitive sets, but now i know!
video is good, kept my attention, talked about characters i like, 10/10
here's your reminder
lol thank you! i was watching the video as you sent this reply, very kind of you to remind me in case i forgot (:
The Dan theory: Tier lists reflect characters popularity, not their capacity.
You can also hard counter people with F-tier characters if you prepare better than your opponent.
im an alternate strategy enthusiast now! thank you for sharing this wuss this was incredible!
Love the CFL lore. I played against Harriet recently and he's still very good
I've regressed to getting stuck in my own shine and then getting 5th in amateur bracket, idk man
@@eternalharriet around here we call it an alternative strat. Genius
God it gets me when harriet just grins after the spacing stuff its like he is having FUN playing this game and it is so funny
my favorite backup plan for when all seems to fail is counterpick to fd with falcon and run away for the longest amount of time possible without taking any openings or initiating any type of offense until I can sense my opponents frustration and misery, then I fish for a grab at ledge and try to cheese them in the ledge. 40% of the time it works every time
You are my worst enemy
Looking forward to the video!!!! Greatings from Brazil
Great video. Surprised you didn't mention Hugs' Multi-Tournament Conditioning though
He knows what he did
My favourite strategy is to look at my opponents controller to see where he's firefoxing to
Back when I played on keyboard, and wavedashing was damn near impossible to do on my setup, I decided that instead of buying a controller or changing my controls to make wavedashing easier, I would use the fact that G&W neutral B canceled upward momentum entirely to slide around, and thus the chef cancel was born.
Also independently discovered a little known doc tech. If a pill hits right on the line between the water and the grass on fountain of dreams, they bounce at a very different angle. Also works with base Mario, but it’s hardly advantageous in his case. Also also affects link/yink boomerangs, though I’m not sure how you could use it effectively.
Some smaller moments like this is Jmook choosing to slow walk or jwalk in moments others would dash or run. Also Wizzrobe employs standing conpletely still in neutral sometimes and it seems to always throw the opponent off. Also swag players like Bab Activated or SquidTheCat employing the strategy of going insane swag non optimal to the highest degree.
Great video! Had never heard of Harriet prior to this, was really interesting to hear his strategy and thoughts on it. Keep up the great work, you've got a new sub :)
Quick note about Zelda vs ICs: it immediately reminded me of The Lake vs Nintendude, where the latter won 2-1... winning the second game by a single wobble, and _getting four-stocked_ in the first game.
RIP the lake
good shit, harriet's change of win condition is definitely super interesting and i didnt know about it
As someone who used to enter locals in CFL all the time a few years back, I can say with full confidence that Harriet plays exactly like that all the time and it's the funniest shit ever, I love that guy
new favorite smash player added to the list, thanks for showing me what I didnt know about the scene already-. great content!
Such a good video! Really interesting topic, loved the interviews and editing too
I think now more than ever, people either or too new or have forgotten the ways of old where you could test whatever you wanted and it be competitively viable. once the meta takes shape then everyone tries to chase the meta but forgets how good some of these forgotten characters or strategies are
shoutout to guex (yoshi player, among the top 15 players in new england) for picking pokemon stadium against cupofwater (fox player, also top 15 in new england) and somehow winning the set
I swear Yoshi has no bad stages
last 30 seconds is my career peak
Hey Wuss, I love your long form content! Keep on making these masterpieces king
My "alternative" strategy is to DK hand slap center platform and pretend like I'm fighting wireframes mid-match. On a more serious note, moves like that make me wonder how much you could get away with by just setting up dumb things to see if people willingly walk into them. Because there has to be a point in a metagame where so many people are in an almost bot-like script of thought that the hard mixups, if not forced, works.
one thing druggedfox told me about while making this was that when he plays with top players he will hit them with very hard reads on things they are doing that are generally considered good. the players will often be annoyed or angry that their optimal options are getting punished.
@@wusstunes more like BasedFox
I do this in ultimate with puff, constantly wave dashing, empty slingshots, and walking slowly destroys any flowchart they think they have
i literally don't even watch competitive melee really but your videos are so consistently entertaining that i always watch 'em
i really love how you structured this video :) good stuff!!
My alternate strategy is getting super upset when losing so my opponent feels bad and throws
Mindgames bitch
This is really good content you honestly deserve way more attention. Great stuff.
Almost 10,000 subs! Keep it up Mr Wuss!
I am the proud inventor of the "Dry Grab". Psychological tech meant to frustrate your opponent. Grab an opponent and don't press any buttons until they mash out. Most devastating at high percents, or in the middle of a combo/tech chase where a throw could easily lead to more punish. Stops the tempo dead in its tracks, and as an added bonus most people aren't going to DI a mashout as optimally as they would DI the throw they're expecting, and you end up getting more followups than you'd expect.
the last clip of plup and his “homie” was great lmfao
If anyone remembers Disafter from TX, his play style is very similar. I'm a big fan. 😂
I love Harriet’s strategy because it exposes one enormous blind spot in melee: No one plays for time.
In several clips Harriet doesn’t have the life or stock lead and people are still approaching. Why not just stand still and tell him you’re not playing blind spot?
The fact that the timer is so so long in melee really makes it odd sometimes
Part of it is how much melee players hate the idea. It's part of the reason why for the longest time, HBox took flak just for playing puff and "playing lame". Half of the reason is because the melee community itself regularly antagonizes stalling behavior when ahead.
I love yelling at people mid combo so they drop it
Calm down MikeHaze
I love this video because as a newer fox I tend to hold forward and run in way too much. and then watching the Army/Dreph G7 match on stream had me more hype for Melee than most of top 8.
this harriet the guy is a master at baiting. he just doesn't come to his opponents. he acts silly until they let him hit!
Harriet is my spirit animal. I do so many similar things as samus, like throwing out the worst grab in the game to bait them to get off ledge and attack. or blindspotting missiles or charged shots, or just not using projectiles at all, or bomb camp top platform. People, just don't know what to do in these situations.
weed lesbian is such a powerful name tbh
By far best video you have ever posted. Keep it up
Bro Link is the best character in the game, nobody has realised his potential yet.
They even had to nerf him in PAL
Lets go hunk
great video, really good move bringing the druggedfox interview in, i feel like it added a lot of legitimacy to your arguments
My alternate strategy is to face a lvl 9 Jigglypuff and pretend it’s HBox
Blindspotting, thats a good word. I've never heard a term for one of my favorite comeback strategies. When I'm losing, I like to start doing weird things to throw my opponent off their rhythm. It's a exercise in creativity, going through everything that can be done in your head and picking the thing that'll make your opponent hesitate and falter. It's often very volatile, fliping the situation or putting the nail in the coffin. I feel evil when I do it cause I'm bored of winning the same way and my opponent was just about to try a solution for the last weird thing I was doing. Like whoops, too late to counter that, here's the next test.
Welp, I main Sheik and I tried Zelda (and switching between them) today in unranked. It was pretty cool. I've always liked the idea of swapping characters but I thought Zelda wasn't worth it. This video inspired me and now I've got a fun new way to play Melee :)
keeta using it used to destroy me at locals but having spoken to him i feel more composed fighting it. its got its own weaknesses and strengths like any playstyle, though some people may always treat it as disrespect
17:46 “(besides being a total snack am i right?!!?!)”
Doing unconventional plays to mess with your opponent risking your own stocks is my kind of thing
Awesome vid wusstunes you are killing it
This is one of the better melee videos I've seen. Thank you.
Goated content
First thought of the sheik/Zelda swap is Ice playing Zelda vs puff after puff gets to a high enough percentage.
great video as always wuss
Sometimes you just need to be a goofy little fella to get things in motion
I've met Pikachad/knew him personally. Cool guy, crazy ass Pika
Harriet jump scare at the end
Harriet's outlook is amazing. Honestly it's kinda lame playing Melee against people who go all MLG because they just do the same 3 moves over and over again
@@Anti_Society_Society I don't find chain grabbing particularly exciting but each to their own
My alternate strategy is choosing to play doctor Mario.
Basically blindspotting is exactly what that central florida (represent!) Guy was talking about with changing terms of victory or winning without exaggeration, an extraordinarily sun tzu way of seeing it lol also an age old strategy to run away and force the enemy to approach you to select the terrain to it's most advantageous I can't believe we're talking about a video game
Loved the video! I do have one piece of feedback though if you don't mind. I think it happened a couple of times in the video, but at 21:20 I think it's pointless to say what is about to happen if you're gonna show it right afterwards anyway. Just takes away a bit of suspense.
Awesome video, thanks for uploading!
I admire players who bend conceptions and push the road less traveled to its limits. I'm dogshit at fighting games but it's an attitude that I do my best to apply wherever I can. Love what you do, keep on keepin' on!
Cody's reverse pop-off tech against hbox
great video all around, surprised i didn't see character counterpicks like armada's young link but maybe that's for another video lol
That decision was strangely optimal in my mind
@@wusstunes To be fair it was working
Well made and entertaining!
Great video!!! Loved this!
ngl i like the new thumbnail more than the original; fox lasering into the corner is still funnier lol
Harriet w the bolo tie drip
Hungrybox is the living example of an alternative strategy overtaking the central meta - but only for one man.
He's so weird that it would take over the entire video if I talked about it
glad to see the guy who took my name on every platform is finally getting mentioned. bro better have an impact if he’s gonna vanish from the internet and take my name everywhere
Duuuuude. Dude. This video pairs so well with your DK doc! As a new player I've been real tired of hearing people tell me what's optimal and what's proven. This is a goddamn video game. Let's just make some new shit up and have fun with it. I refuse to grind endless spacie tech until my fingers bleed.
(G&W main)