The Art of Playing from Behind in Smash
by Mario Macchiarulo (supermario)
You start a game, lose a neutral interaction or two, something goes wrong off stage, and now you are down a whole stock 40 seconds into the game. Things don’t look too great. What do you do from this point? Well, I’ll tell you what NOT to do, panic! Game’s not even close to over!
Now many who have played in competitive environments know this. They’ve been down many times and made many comebacks many times. But what is the actual process of doing it? Undoubtedly, playing from behind is significantly different than playing a game that is even in its duration or when you have a lead. I’d venture that playing from behind in a game is an art, a special type of process, that is so important to be capable of. There will be games where you are genuinely on the backfoot the entire time. You’re down, you’re constantly on ledge, you’re constantly pulling out crazy recovery mixups just to even get back to the stage, and your opponent is just on an utter tear, and you can’t catch a break. But the game is still close! How….
Playing from behind does not mean suddenly turning up like crazy and taking your opponent’s stock to immediately even the game. Could it happen? Yes, but more often than not, your OPPONENT will now not be holding forward and doing whatever they can to prolong THEIR survivability and get extra credit. And chances are, they will. But here’s the philosophy that I, personally like to keep in mind: when the stocks are even, the game is even.
Is that literally true? Not really. If I just took a stock and I’m at 90% on my 2nd and now my opponent is just getting on their 2nd, I’m down a bit. BUT. Am I? I myself could win two neutral interactions and put my opponent off stage, get more damage or a stock, etc., and suddenly, the game is basically even again. The mere capability that the game could BECOME even, makes it even. That’s kind of my psychology about it. Playing patiently until getting that stock to make things on the same page is the key. Because once you’re on the same page, things are good again. Letting neutral play out will allow an opportunity to take the stock be presented. Your opponent wants you to try to force things to end the stock so they don’t get extra credit.. However (I venture to argue), feeding into the idea that you need to take the stock instantly, will make you more susceptible to being down even more.
Even when you’re down, you don’t need to PLAY like you are down. Games are 7 minutes long. There is plenty of time. I’m privileged enough to play as ZSS who I feel can actually do this really well. She has plenty of tools to safely pressure and protect herself (flip kick is an automatic get out of disadvantage button). And great for her, ZSS has a ton of ways to suddenly swing a game with things like nair-flip kick or simply hitting a down-smash boost kick at the ledge at the right (sometimes low) percent. And many other characters are capable of getting those early kills. I reiterate, the mere capability that it could happen, makes the game even (psychologically). So, SURVIVE, and give yourself the chance to do so.
I’m going to pull an example from a recent set I played against KeMonito. I was down 1-0 after getting 2 stocked, and there was quite clearly a skill gap between us. In Game 2, I pretty much was playing the whole game from behind. BUT I had solid enough survivability to never let the game get so ahead of me and I was able to stay on the same stock as them. This allowed me, despite being quite down on the last stock, to pretty much bring it to last hit. I SD’d unfortunately, but the positives were there. Check the screenshots and clip below to see just how quickly a game can become even.
(pardon the swapped tags)
In 23 seconds, the game became even again.
Here is when I finally managed to lose my stock, and only to an SD (Plasma whip not tethering, thanks Sakurai). ALSO, notice the CLOCK! Makes sense right... game is bound to take longer when you play to survive.
On one ledgeguard sequence, the game basically became even again, very quickly. The fact that a game can become even at any time by itself must push you forward!
Playing from behind itself is an art. You might spend an entire game behind, both stock wise and gameplay wise (such as you being on the backfoot in neutral interactions, etc.). And especially, when you are playing against someone that may be of a higher skill and experience of you. But games are not won on paper and are not won in the first minute. Make things hard for your opponent, no matter how good they are, because you can! Make yourself hard to kill and play patiently, you WILL have opportunities to make things even. I hope you enjoyed this article, thanks for reading! Please ask me any questions about this nutty ‘psychology,’ I’d love to talk about it more.
