Uncontrollable nerves are one of the most difficult problems to overcome in Melee. When you feel you have all of the tech skill, matchup understanding, or neutral game to overcome a tough opponent, it can be the nervousness and lack of focus that brings you tumbling down. I’ve compiled a few tips down below that can help your deal with some of the most prominent nerve-racking situations in tournament sets. They can be used to help out your mindset in all fighting games, but the terminology used is Melee oriented. Who knows, one might just give you the edge it takes to win an exceedingly tough set!

Find What Generally Makes You Comfortable

This method varies the most and is the most general compared to all the others to be mentioned. When you’re either in a tense situation and your heart starts beating rapidly, or you find yourself easily flustered by your/your opponent’s actions, it can be easy to let these emotions pull your mind out of the game. Since there are so many different emotions that a lack of nerve control can cause, it may seem hard to quickly bounce back and exert all of your focus in the match. Even the best Melee players suffer in intense situations. What’s the best way to attain full focus in that case?

When it comes down to it, the loss of focus is usually related to the player thinking about the result of the match. The best way to tackle this is to stay in the present as best as possible. Whether it’s listening to your favorite playlist, enveloping yourself in the game audio, making your in-game name tag something motivational, or just thinking about having fun, what makes you comfortable matters most. Pinpointing the emotion that disrupts your focus the strongest is key to finding out how to stop it.

Feeling overly tilted? Try focusing on your breathing rather than your stocks getting wobbled or rested away. Abundantly anxious? Try to wash away your worries of doing poorly by listening to a song that makes you happy. Again, these are just some examples, knowing yourself and how to tackle your negative emotions is key. Finding out how to feel relaxed during a high-pressure situation such as playing a tournament set is essential to your growth as a player. While the methods to focus are very player dependent, a single, broad tactic that you click with can become a good starting point to hone in your focus on the match in front of you.

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Don’t Think About Your Next Match

One of the easiest distractions that can come your way when playing a tournament set is who you would have to play next if you win. This thought commonly occurs if you have a lead in the set and get overconfident thinking that your victory is secured. In any level of play, however, this mindset is extremely dangerous. Daydreaming about your next match pulls your head out of the game swiftly and is one of the more common ways to lose focus and end up giving the edge to your opponent. When you get too comfortable with a lead and decide the set is over before it actually is, your discipline basically disintegrates. So the question remains; how can you fight this particularly invasive thought?

A simple way to not think about your next opponent during a set is to not look at the bracket in the first place. Although it is tempting to take a look, being unaware who your next opponent is will leave your mind clear from any preconceived thoughts about the odds of the match before it starts. This effectively cuts any of the buildup of negative ideas.

For example, if you notice your next match will be against a player or character who usually gives you no trouble at all, you could begin the set with a feeling that you shouldn’t lose. All that will do is leave you overly confident and playing too laid back. Eliminating this component completely is a great first step, but it still doesn’t account for the problem developing exclusively in the set. To counteract that, a much more time consuming and traditional approach is required, which is simply to practice discipline. At the end of the day, hanging on to your game plan and staying in the present isn’t as clear cut and simple as keeping your eyes off the bracket, but it’s the key to destroying the mentality of focusing on your next opponent only.

Imagine an Intimidating Opponent as a Training Partner

For most mid-low level players, facing off against a god, top 100 player, or a player PR’d in their region can be very nerve-racking. A decently sized crowd usually gathers around the setup, filled with onlookers eager to watch a well-known player exert their skill. If not that, then top player’s matches are usually put on stream, making the set filled with even more pressure for the lower-leveled player. All of these components can make it hard for a lower caliber player to focus, play their best, and not choke. Everyone has to experience playing against a top player at some point in their Melee career, so what should you do when faced with this road bump?

What makes playing against the top player so nerve-racking in the first place is the expectations set in one’s head before the set even begins. If you’re a low or mid leveled player who hasn’t had a breakout win yet, it makes sense not expecting to beat a top player. While this is the case in most situations, the mental baggage set upon someone before playing a top player might be the only thing preventing them from winning. Completely removing the title of “top player” before playing one and perceiving them as just another opponent is a necessary first step. Removing that idea from your head starts to wash the expectation of them winning away and opens up the possibility of victory.

Of course, winning is determined on who the more skilled player is during the set, but attempting to throw away any negative thoughts allows you to play your best. If removing the title of a top player isn’t enough, imagine the foe as someone you’re comfortable playing against, such as your training partner or friend. This is the most effective if the top player plays the character of your friend/training partner, but can ease a lot of tension nonetheless.

Don’t Focus on the Stock Count

For a player of any skill level, last stock, high percent situations are a common cause of mental deterioration and the loss of a match. The desire to win is at its height for most players at this point in the match, and their discipline begins to slip away, as they are eager to end the match and claim victory. The hasty drive to close out the game or set will steal that victory away from you. On the opposite side of things, many may find their drive to win at the lowest when faced with an extreme stock deficit. Nobody wants to get four-stocked. It’s demoralizing and can crumble the mental perception you have for yourself as a player. Overcoming the stress of these two strikingly potent problems are some of the hardest mental feats to achieve in Melee. Despite this, though the two situations are different, a similar approach can be taken to their solutions.

The stock count, a defining factor of any Smash set, is the cause of getting either anxious or depressed when faced with a tense game or an extreme disadvantage. Having just one last stock to get rid of or being forced to climb over four of them can definitely negatively change your mindset, and therefore your playstyle. Whether it’s making you play hasty or underconfident, the stock count can unknowingly control your gameplan. The straightforward solution to avoiding this issue? Ignore the stock count completely. Ignore each stock lost and treat either a tense or disadvantaged situation as a fresh new game, four stocks to four. The upside is that you still retain the information you gathered off of your opponent in the Melee played prior to the negative situation. The straightforward approach; however, does not take to account that your opponent is also in the same situation you are in, whether it be up by four stocks or fishing for a set-ending kill. When feeling more mentally composed, the best thing you can do is to take advantage of this and overpower your foe.

Conclusion: Keep Practicing!

At the end of the day, mentality and nerve control is an aspect of Melee that can be practiced alongside tech skill. While the four tips above can prove to be great starting points to achieve mental stability in game, constant practice in anxious, demoralizing, or aggravating gameplay is the surefire way to hone the difficult skill. Most importantly, have fun achieving the mental edge you need to improve as a player, and to become one of the best!