Minds Games > Technical Skill. Always.

A little bit of discussion as I briefly touch upon this subject regarding competitive play. It's something I want to set straight, personally, so people know the differences and why it is that having better mind games is better than having tehcnical skill.

So what are mind games? Basically, it's how you, as a player, reads your opponent's movement in the game. It's being able to predict where he's moving and attack at that moment where he's most vulnerable. It's also about having the ability to counter your opponent. In addition to that, in the case of having your counter countered by your opponent, it's being able to counter the counter your opponent used against your first counter. Make sense? Good.

What is technical skill? To put it quite simply, it's ability to string combos from one move to the next without fail. Fox, for example, tends to be a very technical character. As a player, you can do the following:

Shffl n-air > shine > waveshine, shffl d-air > shine > waveshine > JC shine > JC shine > waveshine > Up-smash

Basically, all that good fancy stuff.

Now, having technical skill is good, and it can certainly help get some recognition for doing some of the more complex combos in the game, but that doesn't mean it can win you matches. A person with awesome technical skill but no mind games will always lose to someone who has awesome mind games but no technical skill. Why is this so? Because the 2nd player will always have control of the match, watching how you move, leading you on to do what he wants, laying traps for you that you can easily fall into, and striking at the right moments. Mind game players will mostly play a defensive game. Meanwhile, the 1st player might just be tumbling about, using every single combo he knows, and possibly not landing a hit at all. Most technical players are aggressive, and charge in without thinking.

If you'd like a simple analogy, think of the differences between having an automatic gun and a single-shot gun. With an automatic gun, the shooter may continually spray his fire into your general direction, hoping that one of the bullets might hit you. That can be compared to an aggressive player of technical skill.

Whereas, a person with the single-shot gun waits carefully, takes his time, watches his opponent, aims with deadly accuracy, and kills you with one bullet. This is a person with excellent mind games.

Of course, a person who has both great mind games AND great technical skill will make an awesome player, since they'll only use complex combos when neccesary, but with great significant effect. Not only so, but they'll have more options for them to use in order to fake you out and lay more traps for you to fall into.

So, discuss.

I'd have to say i agree and disagree. While at many very high levels this is true id say at lower levels(still good though) having better technical skill reigns supreme. I don't think its fair to compare someone with no mindgames to anything because simply put no one doesn't have any mindgames.


Lets take me and my friend Mask o Sheik for example. We play each other very often and his most commonly used chars are c.falcon and falco. His falco isn't quite as good as his falcon and is probably slightly worse than my peach(which i use incredibly frequently). While i'd like to say mind games are good and that i do surprise him at times he knows a lot of what i'm going to do. He has only been playing falco recently though allowing him to have many mindgames. The fact is that I win the matchup a majority of the time, this is because i have been playing peach much longer than he falco making me have the better tech skill, even though his mindgames are better.

I don't really have to go in depth on the falcon vs. peach match because our mind games are about equal there and he has better technical skill so it's obvious who normally wins that.


But as I said earliar i do agree that at very high level mind games win

Edit: This kinda makes it seem like a may be better than him and im just pointing out that im not, while our high level chars are pretty nearly even he is way better at just picking up characters.

It sounds to me like you win because you know the way he plays and capitalize on it better than he does.

Mind games win. I'm technically better than Gea by far, but he still matches up to me like perfectly and beats me a fair bit.

Holy crap, you came out of nowhere Tobias.

Anyone should know that by finding anyone weak point and striking at that point will always give the other person an advantage to a win. It is simple how the whole process works. I am glad you said something about this WarriorofZarona because this will/should teach people that have problems wins matches against other people or can't think of ways to win in some cases on how you should look at your opponent. This game is not all about just running at someone and pressing A and B all of the time. It is also about stratagy and whatnot.

My technical skills are, good enough. I usually can tell what my friend is going to do because he uses the same things over and over and tries to copy what I do. I usually go at him on a ten stock one on one match. He's never beaten me when I'm my best characters (Marth and Captain Falcon) because I have better technical and mind skills.

That right there is a good example of it. I know people that say it is all about timing on the moves and how long it takes to do the move and then for you to recover from it and I look at them a little wierd for the fact that they think that is the biggest part of the game when it isn't

I've seen a pro vid with Wes owning some less experienced player. Though the other guy had a few tech skills(he dashdanced teched, and did some short hops), Wes owned him because Wes could see what he was doing before he even started. Just looking at the video makes me feel like I can't even touch Wes >_>

...

that's harsh, cylun.

Minds Games > Technical Skill. Always.

i don't like this phrase. it makes about as much sense as "Velocity > Work. Always." mind games and technical skill don't come in the same units of measurement; mind games are the efficacy of choosing between options, and technical skill is number of options available to the player. so it makes NO sense to say that mind games are more important than technical skill. they don't compare.

edit: schill, i have an ortho 2:30 on friday, but can you play some smash before then?

On 04-Nov-2005 WarriorofZarona said:

Holy crap, you came out of nowhere Tobias.

Yea, I'm busy all the time nowadays, but I still try and pop up to surprise people. >.>

Surprises are SECKSEE >_>

Yah mask ill prolly be able to play before than. Of course well be playing ddr too, I'm getting drastically better just a little more till i can pass PS without going to the arcade and raping the bar

Speaking of mindgames, My marth always gets overwhelmed by the space animals. How exactly does marth go about chain throwing them?(i've done a 45% chain throw on falco in training, but I can never get it to work in real battle because its harder to pull and they DI. Furthermore, I haven't perfected it in training, as I can't seem to be able to grab falco much at all from 25-30 ish damage.)

P.S. Is that Tetsuo I see their, WoZ? reminds of k9999, except Tetsuo isn't a blatant ripoff :P

i'm not the expert on this, but i'm pretty sure the up chain on falco works like this (you should probably test this out though, on your own - di with your foot :p):

up till 25%, grab no matter how falco di's (of course you'll have to turn around for the backwards di-ing)
after 25%, grab if falco di's either direction, but up tilt if falco doesn't di.
at higher damages (35-45% and above?) you can fsmash off a di'd up throw.
from the utilt, you should grab (if at low damages), utilt (higher damages?) or fsmash.

On 07-Nov-2005 Take_a_Schillpill said:

Surprises are SECKSEE >_>

Yah mask ill prolly be able to play before than. Of course well be playing ddr too, I'm getting drastically better just a little more till i can pass PS without going to the arcade and raping the bar

don't tell me you passed it at the arcade - i was practicing with the stepchart so i could pass it and brag to you about it :(

i suck at bar raping. my arms are way too weak and the bar isn't high enough >_>

i'm working on a secksee witch doctor routine too

(i know it's a double post and off topic, screw you mods ;)

OMG DOUBLE POST WAH!

Anyway, as mask-o-sheik says, look at the percentages, then follow through with an up tilt or forward smash as they get to 50%. Personally, I can get out of it with Fox by shining on the way down without any DI.