Ever feel like you went to an event and underperformed? Maybe you had a ‘tough' bracket, didn't practice enough, or maybe there was something else on your mind, and you lost to someone you shouldn’t have. We've all been there at one point or another, it's nothing crazy unique to anyone, just a bad tournament outcome.

Smash players love to talk about mentalities, the tournament mindsets that act as outlines to their overall gameplans. Mentalities can shape how an individual's game or set flows. This backend aspect of the game can shift leads between players, whether in a specific game or in an entire set, resulting in a wide range of possible comebacks.

While traditional fighting games tend to have a concrete resource that can act as a comeback mechanic that gives you an additional edge, examples like Street Fighter V’s “V-Trigger,” or Dragon Ball Fighter Z’s “Sparking,” and "Dragon Balls," Smash has only one universal mechanic like this; human momentum. All forms of competitive games have momentum shown either through the game in terms of ‘resources' or the human aspect. Games like League of Legends are good examples of both, as there are clear indicators of true leads (gold, map presence, objectives, etc.) which act as strength determiners, but also the team's skill as a human resource.

Smash is unique as the game’s momentum shifts so quickly, it can be difficult to establish who actually has a momentum lead. A joke in the SSBM community is that “one stock isn't a lead,” and while it is technically a lead, the theory behind the joke itself is that a stock can be lost faster than one might think. This is because of human momentum, the ability to shake your nerves, execute better, and cause your opponent to fear you more than they did just a few moments ago. Some people refer to this as being in the ‘zone,’ whatever you'd like to reference it as, every player has experienced those wonderful moments where everything works just how they'd like, or their opponent starts to ‘throw the match,’ just overall heightened gameplay for their level. Everyone wants to be able to play at their best, everyone wants to make a comeback on one level or another.

That's where focusing on your mentality comes in. Since SSBM is a game that is centered around your game knowledge and fundamentals to understand and execute mixups against real opponents, there is plenty of room for thought to go into your mentality. Your mentality can be a ‘make it or break it’ point for victory against any opponent, regardless of how much stronger or weaker they are than you. Obviously, a day one player couldn't match up against a professional-tier player, but a good-mentality player will always put up a better fight than a bad-mentality player.

It is important to understand that you, as a player, are different and not just any mentality will work. Mentalities are to be practiced just like execution or match-ups. Some players don't understand that mentalities are a system of thoughts that take time to truly have effects. While there are key phrases or abstract thoughts that can help your mentality, overall your mentality towards competition is a process that can take a while and won't just happen in a day. There are those group of people who will read “The Inner Game of Tennis,’ or watch Ping-Pong: The Animation, etc, and think they've got everything figured out in regard to mentality. Reading/studying mentalities is super helpful and can be inspiring for a bit, but what matters is how you actually process the information as well as how your subconscious acts. Having a good mentality requires you to train your subconscious as well in order to filter out negative thoughts, or at least to the best of your ability. This is no easy thing, by any means. Your subconscious is a complex system, it's not meant to be easy to change how it works.

Have you ever played an intense, close set? Game five, last stock, last hit, your heart rate racing, the sound of your pumping blood filling up your ears, you can't execute how you want, you can't think clearly - you're nervous. We've all had that experience at least once in our lives, it is a fundamental part of being human. Having a good mentality will help reduce some of these symptoms for nerves, and hopefully net you some clutch saves.

Some people like to say “just play for fun or love of the game and don't focus on results,” and while this can be a super strong mentality, it's also pretty short and simple. Our conscious is an incredibly complicated system, most of us probably don't even understand what the best way to think about something for ourselves is. This is totally okay. Mentality practice can be about finding what works for you whether you like it or not, it can be about self-discovery. As cliché as it sounds, you're finding what will help you grow and become the best you can be.

As a general disclaimer, these mentality tips are just things I've noticed based on personal experience. I've been on many ends of the scale, being the person experiencing the thoughts/mentalities as well as watching friends and peers directly ‘under' me (people I’ve played with the intention of helping them improve). These aren't meant to be some kind of ‘solution,’ rather they should act as suggestions for you to try and adapt into your own mentality. Also, sometimes the mentality that works the best for you might not be what you think; but sometimes moving backwards can be the best way to move forward for some. Keep in mind that if your life outside of the game is stressful/hectic, maybe now isn’t the best time to think about your mentality so much as trying to find balance with other aspects of your life, usually when the rest of your life is better balanced/less stress your gameplay can improve much faster/better than when you’re stressed/overexerting yourself. Always look out for your health outside of the game before spending too much energy on the game.

#1: Confidence-based Mentality

Players who have the necessary technical ability and enough game knowledge to use it can become quite fearsome when they play with confidence. In my past, I’ve seen players who ended up improving at alarming rates once they had more self-confidence. This can be difficult to grasp for some people, but a simple phrase to think of is; just do it. Just thinking to yourself that yes, you can do x-y-z, so why don’t I just do it can help give your mentality an edge. You might watch a player do some crazy risky play, or have an answer to a scenario that you’ve just never seen before, but they made the decision to do it, so why can’t you? There have been many times when I personally played with a player better than me, and they commented on some ‘crazy thing’ I just did, but to me it was just a normal decision because I was confident in that decision.

I told them, even though they were (and still are) much better than me, if you think you can do it and it makes sense, just do it, and they started to take more calculated risks and enjoyed the payoff. I think that focusing your play around confidence (provided you have the correct technical ability and game knowledge to make decisions) can be a great mentality. Just like with anything related to confidence, overconfidence will be your greatest enemy, meaning that while yes, you should be confident in yourself, you should understand when to hold yourself back as well. Confidence is like a flame, it can be incredibly dangerous when left alone, but if controlled well - by noticing when you’re (for lack of a better term) ‘inflating your self-confidence’ and reeling it back, you can play with confidence when you choose.

This can be hard for players who are struggling with issues outside of the game. Obviously if playing with confidence is already working for you - great, keep doing it! Some people might just not be confident enough and should try playing with more confidence. It sounds funny, but if you notice yourself subconsciously doubting yourself more often than not, give confidence a shot! Just “fake it ‘til you make it,” again this might sound funny but just fake confidence if you can and it might do wonders!

#2: Humbling Yourself

MIOM - Wobbling Then and Now

On one hand, while confidence can be a powerful tool for your mentality, maybe you are too confident or have high expectations of yourself. More often than not I hear players say things like “I shouldn't have lost to player X, I know I’m better than them,” or “I only lost because I accidentally SD’d X amount of stocks,’ and while these may be true statements (maybe you are better than that player, maybe it was a one-off accident), you should evaluate the reasoning behind the statement. Sure, maybe you made an execution error causing you to lose a stock, but errors can be minimized and eliminated with correct practice. If you notice you're consistently losing stocks to execution errors (missing ledgedashes, side-b offstage for some characters, bad DI), then there needs to be some form of narrowed practice.

When you catch yourself saying or thinking these types of excuses, evaluate, question those statements, and come up with a plan so it won't happen next time.

Ex./ Did you lose a game because of a missed ledgedash? -> actually practice ledgedashing until you're at a comfortable point. Practice on your own. Practice in friendlies. Practice in money matches. Practice while playing tournament sets.

Excuses are created when we are unable to achieve a goal we previously set. At the root of every excuse is a truth statement about why something happened. You're not a professional level player until you've reached that professional player. Understand what goals are reasonable for you and how you can consistently work towards that goal. You know yourself better than anyone, and you are the one playing the game. You can't expect to just ‘be the best,’ you need to set goals for yourself and not be too hard on yourself if you can't reach them. I see players all the time expecting themselves to be a ‘top 8 at a local’ quality player, then get upset when they place lower than that, but then consistently start placing lower than they think they should.

So clearly something isn't working as well as it should for them. Try accepting yourself for what you are, whether that's an 0-2’er, 17th placer, or 5th placer. When you stop setting unreasonable goals for yourself, you can focus on goals that are right in front of you and currently in reach: I need to practice more to polish my techskill edges, I should focus specifically on this match-up I’m proving to myself needs work, I should focus on beating one specific person to show improvement from last week.

You also need to accept one of the cold truths of this game; it's pretty difficult. Some people are just better at this game through less work or time, some people just learn this specific game easier than others, and that's okay. You just need to find out what works for you and makes you happy. When you are happy with how you play and can accept the game for what it is you might improve crazy fast.

#3: Humbling Your Opponent.

This can be a tricky mentality set to try, but can pay off if you try it correctly. Sometimes when you play someone better than you, you can get in your own head about your opponent. “Oh, he’s a locally power-ranked player, oh he's on the SSBMRANK Top 100, he won't mess x-y-z up.” Sure, they probably won't mess something up or do something completely unsafe, but they're human too. There's no reason (within reason) for you to be unable to grow to their level.

Keep your opponent honest. If you can give them a reason to take the advantage/lead over you, they should be taking it. You need to give your opponent fewer opportunities to take an advantage in the game. Some people like to refer to it as “giving your opponent too much respect,” but it's the same idea. While you should probably and it is usually safe to assume your higher leveled opponent will do something ‘good,’ or ‘safe,’ you also need to understand and pick up on their weaknesses and treat them as an equal or lesser player. Again, your assumption should be that they will do something good, but giving your opponent too much respect will lead to them giving you less respect and the mental advantage. Once you start treating a high level opponent as an equal (even if you are still pretty far behind them in skill), you can stop getting in your own head about the contrast in both of your relative skill levels.

If you don't really understand what respect or honesty might mean in terms of SSBM, its sort of an invisible value that high level players tend to have that shows their strength in the game through their skill. This can be shown in all sorts of different capacities: their neutral game makes them hard to land a hit on, their punish game causes you to lose your stock off of one exchange, their recoveries are good, the list can go on and on. “Keeping your opponent honest” is playing in such a way that forces your opponent to play a certain aspect more real than they would otherwise.

You can see examples of this when high level players play other high level players; there's a good chance they are going to put more effort into choosing safer, more correct options than they would against a lower level player. If you can't force your opponent to play honestly by treating them as an equal, maybe try something like this out for your mentality.

#4: Acceptance with Yourself and the Outcome of Your Game.

The Classic Melee Nod

This is closest to my personal mentality, and I've heard from a couple other players that something along these lines is what they use too. A common thought that players tend to have in game when they've started to lose their lead (stocks or games) is: “I don't want to lose here, what if I lose to this guy, I'm going to get knocked out here, etc.” These thoughts then cause you to become more nervous, which leads to more mistakes and nerves. Some people have their own ways of dealing with these types of thoughts, but to me I have recently found something that helps clear my mind in these situations. I've been able to ‘clutch out’ more sets than I probably would otherwise. This just works for me and a couple others and sounds unorthodox, but accepting your defeat/outcome before the end of the match can help you focus on the game.

Players tend to end up focusing on results, placements, and rankings, and overall forget to think about the game. When you catch yourself thinking distracting thoughts like “if I lose to this xxFalcomaster69xx guy here I’ll get 33rd, it'll be so embarrassing etc.” You're taking your focus away from the game and onto irrelevant thoughts. It sounds weird, but accepting that it is okay to lose can help you forget these thoughts. If you can accept that after the set “yes, I lost to this player because of my own faults/their strengths, then you can focus more in the moment about the game itself, and that's what matters.

It's important to clarify this is about accepting defeat and giving up, this is about accepting defeat so I can try harder than I was a moment ago. You notice that you're starting to lose your game, the set, the situation, it doesn't matter. What matters is that you can accept your defeat in whatever shape or form in order to come back and try harder knowing the result won't matter as much to you. This is again just the general structure to my mentality that has helped me clutch out sets to players I would rather not lose to, but can accept they worked harder than me to achieve their win. Once you accept your loss before it happens, your comeback can become easier knowing that you won't be as disappointed or upset with the result. This can help answer those questions people have for themselves once a set is over, when they think back and remember having negative or distracting thoughts.

Beyond just the in game aspect of this mentality, I also think this acceptance factor can be extremely healthy for long term growth. If you can learn to reduce your own ego and accept that there are other players who are, plainly put, just better than you, and that's okay. You know that you can work just as hard or harder to give yourself a better opportunity next time.

Concluding Thoughts

Mentality is one of the most interesting aspects of any competitive medium, and it can be really fun to experiment around and learn what works best for you! Another fun thing with mentalities is that they can be applicable to pretty much anything you do, there is always a different mindset that can change how you perceive an event and it might make something more enjoyable when you start playing with a different lens.

Like our content? Support us by getting our merchandise in our shop