The Flow of Battle
In order to improve your game you need to understand the three states at which battles are waged. The three states are DEFENSE, OFFENCE and NEUTRAL and it is paramount that you understand the importance of these three in order to make the best of every situation you find yourself in.
DEFENSE STATE
This is the state that the enemy has encroached into your space and trying to either force you into a bad spot or downright damage you, the key to having a good defense is to have enough knowledge regarding both your options and the threat posed by your opponent, and then reacting in ways that either puts you in a better defensive position or get back to a neutral space.
Keys to maintaining a good defence are:
The ability to react to your opponents advances like anti airing, blocking/teching correctly or counter poking/wiff punishing. Now having a good to great reaction is parmount to finding your way out of a tight jam, being able to react to what your opponent does is very important.
How do you improve your defence? by practice, recreate situations like anti airing jump ins and trying to punish or wiff punish your opponents attacks as well as finding out what is punishable and what your best punish are.
OFFENCE STATE
Now this is the state where you venture into your opponent’s defensive area, now doing this bears a lot of risk so you have to first of all overcome the fears that come with going in to attack your opponent, the fear that makes you want to jump in or throw an unsafe move with the hope that miraculously it will hit.
Now don’t worry if you are guilty, there’s always time to start changing your attitude to offense. now in order to attack successfully you have to gather data, data on our opponents character and the tendency of our opponent and how their ability to react plays a crucial factor in the goal of attacking successfully and also allow you to build a valid strategy.
Now you have to identify the following factors
-
Ability to anti air: at what range is your opponent capable to anti air you on reaction? find out what range your opponent can punish your jump in and at what range he cannot or is less effective, it may cost you getting hit but it’s worth establishing this as early as possible. Because many strong offense start from the air as well as great risk it is a good place to start. Remember that emotions play a part in the ability to react so in the heat of battle sometimes can put off even the most super reactive player
-
Ability to wiff punish: Can he counter your pokes? if yes then try to be on point with your pokes, if No then use wiffed attacks to deter him from approaching you from the ground.
-
Ability to tech or defend: first establish whether he is a masher or not, if he likes to block, if he likes to backdash, if he likes to focus, remember that each defense stronghold is breakable and if you successfully determine what his defensive weakness is and attack that.
NEUTRAL STATE
This is the single most important state, the range that your opponents cannot harm you or damage you per se. The good thing about this range is that you have time to think up a strategy of either offence or defense, now a good neutral is one that you have enough space behind you, the more space you have the more neutral advantage you possess, your goal is to maintain this as much as you can while keeping your opponent at bay and conservatively taking small chunks of health here and there. If you watch most top play the control of the neutral is where matches are won and lost. so if you are defending find out the best route to a neutral state, if you are attacking aim to get as much screen real estate behind you and as much as possible hold that space. the more space behind you the better chance and more time to think up a strategy on the fly.
CONCLUSION
The goal of this article is not to over whelm you but rather to enlighten you, remember that the more you take advantage of the Defense, Neutral and Offense states then the better your chances at winning at the game, keep in mind that the way your opponent reacts depends on how much life he has, how much meter he has, how much time is left and his emotional tendencies. With this in mind try to take a life lead as early as possible and never be in a hurry to force an issue.
Thank you for reading and let me know what you think by commenting below.