Project M-etagame Brawl Development
Saturday, March 5, 2011 at 9:39PM
Richard Terrell (KirbyKid) in Metagame, Super Smash Brothers
This article is part of Project M-etagame. Find out more here

 
 This record is to the best of my knowledge. If you have an addition, correction, or video link submission send it my way. Info on the main page linked to at the top of this article. 


Brawl Metagame Development
Offense/Defense

A: 2008 A New Beginning


B: Stale Moves. Sharpening moves. Smash DI.
  • Stale-move negation is more effective than ever. Conserving and mixing up attacks became instantly necessary. Smash DI added variation to the route combos that were developed (especially from grabs).
    • Conscious  variation and conservation added to playstyles
    • b1: Sharpening Strategies. grab+pummel, jabs, stage structures (to counter stale-move negation)
    • b2: Stale baiting. Staying in zones to temp the opponent to use a stale move (to counter stale-move negation & a1)
    • b3: Smash DI (to counter grab combos)
  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nuQOp_2Dcg
  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wNKeQIN0HA
  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWgdR6wNwXI
 
C: 2008-9 In-and-Out

D: 2008-9 Shield Play  
E: 2008-10 Beating the air dodge with Spacing and Timing.

2009-10 Back to Level B.
  • With new pressure and follow up techniques, smash DI became even more stressed. The better we got at smash DI the more stale-move-negation revealed the weakness of a singular effective kill move/strategy.
    • b3: Smash DI to counter all kinds of attacks.


F: 2009-10 General Coverage
G: 2010-11 Focused. Calm. Deadly

Recovery
  • In general characters can recover better than ever especially with the aid of the ledge snap.
  • We learned that getting up from the ledge can be difficult because the invincibility doesn’t last as long as Melee, attacks are easier to react to, and the air dodge system is more limited for the recovering player.
  • Planking (edge invincibility abuse and stalling) emerged and was soon discouraged. From soft bans to new tournament rules limiting total ledge grabs in the even of a time out.
  • Off-guarding (going off the stage to edge guard) is picked up.  But wasn’t very developed because stronger DI allowed players to recover from higher up.  
  • Edge guarding is a mix of on and off the stage actions. Pressuring a recovering player to either land on the stage or grab the edge. Is just one step in pressing one’s advantage against a recovering player.
View the complete tier list history here.
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