An Introduction to Positioning

In its simplest form, positioning is just where you are on the screen. The more important part of positioning though, and what this article is really going to get down, is where you are relative to your opponent. In non-platform fighters, positioning is still a very important part of the game, but the addition of platforms in Smash games makes positioning a bit more complicated. In Super Smash Bros. Melee, this is especially true. The complex movement in Melee, as I will refer to it as for the rest of this article, make things even more complicated.

Now let’s move on to the breakdown of what this article will look like from here. First, I’m going to go over the importance of center stage and how you limit your opponent’s options by having them in the corner. Next, I’m going to go over the importance of platforms in positioning. Third, I’ll go over the importance of the distance you play at when positioning. Then, finally, I’ll go over how the position you want to be in will change based on matchups and if you’re in the lead, losing, or even.

Before moving on though, I want to emphasize that many of these concepts are going to be matchup dependent and while I have my ideas of what to do based on matchups, a lot of this will be up to what you determine is best based on your own playstyle and what you take from this article.

Center Stage

Before we go into the benefits of center stage, we must have a loose definition of what center stage is for the purpose of this article. For this article, we will define center stage as the middle half to middle one-third of the stage on the bottom ground.

In Melee, I would argue that center stage is the place you want to be the majority of the time in neutral and you should often time actively commit in order to potentially gain this position. This position allows you a multitude of benefits, but most of it comes down to the control you get over how neutral can be played out. Now, let’s take a look at some of those benefits.

First off, if you have center stage, you considerably limit your opponent’s defensive options. From the corner, moving back is much less viable because of the limited space you’re working with. This can allow you to set up more consistent situations to overshoot since, even if you’re farther away, your opponent doesn’t have much of an ability to mix up how far they can move away. This is especially important against characters like Captain Falcon and Marth who have very strong dash dances. In addition, if your opponent is going to move away in order to set up zoning, you have a much better idea of where they’re going to stop to do that out of their movement. Having a more concrete idea of when your opponent might jump or attack can allow you to set up more consistent timing mix-ups in order to get openings on your opponent.

Second, having center stage can allow you to force aggressive options from your opponent. This is especially true when you have a stock lead, but can still be true if you’re even in stocks based on the matchup, or even if you’re losing based on how your opponent likes to play. The majority of players fall into either a more aggressive or more defensive category. Your defensive options being limited as explained above along with the fact that your offense is clearly less strong when you don’t have center stage causes more aware players to actively try to fight for center stage when the risk is truly beneficial. By having control of center stage, you can set up zoning and movement that allows you to cover all of your opponent’s options from the corner while taking as little risk as possible. Characters from the corner to be aggressive are going to look to attack, jump, or take stage out of the corner. By playing a mix up-game that effectively covers all of those you can maintain very strong corner pressure. Marth is especially good at this because of his forward-air and grab.

Finally, having center stage gives you more of an idea of where your opponent might approach into. This could have been added onto the explanation of how having center stage can force aggressive options from your opponent, but I think this is important enough to justify a separate section. If your opponent is trying to be aggressive from the corner, they are most likely trying to do one of two things, attack you or attack or move in a way that gets to center stage. By being at center stage, you can put up a wall that covers the space where your opponent will most likely try to attack or move into. One character that this strategy is especially powerful with is Captain Falcon because of his ability to start long combos off of his neutral aerial which acts as his most common zoning tool.

Platforms

The additions of platforms in the Super Smash Bros. series has made positioning more complex, especially in a game like Melee. Like having center, there are multiple benefits to being positioned on a platform. These benefits are even more based on the matchup and who has the lead.

First, if you are on a platform you significantly limit your opponent’s offensive options. In order to do something quickly, you need to an aerial attack, whether it be a normal aerial attack like a neutral aerial or a special aerial move. Grounded moves are significantly weakened because from the ground you will have to wave land onto a platform if you want to challenge someone on a platform. This is especially important when thinking about grabs. This limitation of options from your opponent can allow you to very easily intercept your opponent’s options with much more confidence. One example of this how Fox can use full hop drill in order to intercept almost any character trying to approach him on a platform. This is a technique you can see Leffen use often.

Second, if you’re on a platform, being in shield becomes significantly stronger. This is very largely due to the advent of shield dropping in Melee’s modern meta. Like I said before, for your opponent to threaten you on the platform, they have to either do a slow option by wave landing or they have to use an aerial maneuver. Both of these can be beaten by shield dropping. Shield dropping is frame 1 and can be buffered within 6 frames. This means almost anytime you’re on the platform, you can buffer a shield drop anytime your opponent wave lands or hits your shield on a platform. There are sequences of shield pressure that can get around this, but they’re few and far between. Yoshi especially gets a lot out of shield dropping because of his inability to jump out of shield and the fact that he doesn’t experience shield stun.

Finally, we have the use of the top platform specifically. This is more niche then the previous two benefits, but can still be very powerful especially if you have the lead. The characters that are by far the best at using the top platform in the way I’m about to describe are the fast fallers in Melee. Those characters being Fox, Falco, and Captain Falcon. These characters explosive full hops, quick dashes, and high fall speed allow them to get from the ground to the top platform extremely quickly. This is very important against floaty characters like Luigi, Peach, and Jigglypuff who struggle to reach high platforms quickly. This strategy is especially abusable against Peach on Battlefield since she has to use her very slow double jump in order to reach the top platform. This allows a character like Fox to very easily react to Peach trying to approach and get out of the way.

Distance

One of the most important parts of playing Melee is the distance you play at. This is heavily due to a concept called threat range. Threat range is the maximum distance a character can play at in order to initiate mix-ups that cannot be reacted to. For Fox, this is his dash instant approaching short hop neutral air range.

This, however, does not mean every part of the sequence that more or less defines your character’s threat range can’t be reacted to. For example, against Fox, you can react to the dash forward and know to respond with an action of your choice at that point, but from there a mix-up begins. For this section, first I’m going to go over your threat range, the benefits of it, and how to get to it. Then I’ll go over the importance of playing outside of your opponent’s threat range.

Now let’s look at your threat range. For every character, this is going to be different and it’s going to be up to you to figure out what your character’s threat range is. The first important thing to know is whether you or your opponent’s character have a larger threat range. Knowing this will help you determine how safe it is to initiate your offense. The second benefit of being at your threat range was discussed before. Using threat range allows you to create situations that your opponent can’t react to with a guaranteed punish. Finally, we have how to get to your threat range. Every character has multiple ways of doing this and this can often change based on your opponent. Different characters have different movement or sequences that work best for this and again it’ll be up to you to determine what sequence is best based on the situation. One character that’s especially good at getting to his threat range is Falco. This is due to his ability to move forward with his laser which allows him a nearly lagless approach that creates frame advantage.

As a follow up to getting to your threat range, one important thing to keep in mind is that your opponent can get to your threat range for you. Make sure to keep in mind how your opponent likes to play and whether they’re defensive or aggressive. This can allow you to set up a mix up your opponent can’t react to as they enter into your threat range.

Second, let’s look at the importance of playing outside of your opponent’s threat range. As you’ve probably gathered by now by playing outside of your opponent’s threat range you can much more easily react to your opponent’s options. This is largely due to a concept I’ll refer to as the two-step problem. If your opponent wants to attack from their threat range and they’re outside of their threat range, it takes at least two steps. First, they must use some sort of action that gets them to their threat range then they can attack. Next, if your opponent attempts to attack at you from outside of their threat range, you can react with openings that lead to harder punishes. Abusing this concept is something Marth is especially good at because of his great dash dance allowing him to easily get around reactable approaches and his huge grab allowing to him to very effectively intercept movement meant to take stage.

How Desired Position Changes

While some positions in Melee are generally good, the most desired position constantly changes. Matchups, stock counts, and percent can change all change your goals. For this article I’m going to go in depth on how your desired position will change based on who’s in the lead. Positional goals based on matchups could be its own separate article, so I won’t go super in depth into that for now, but there are a couple of notes I’ll give you for now.

First off always keep in mind what gives you your hardest punishes in order to have a better idea of what range is most threatening for you in any given matchup. Second, keep in mind what characters you have a bigger threat range then. This can allow you to stay outside of your threat range, while also being threatening based on your character.

Now, let’s move on to how position changes based on who’s in the lead. This all depends on the matchup and the playstyle you want to play with, so we won’t be looking at these two categories simply from the perspective of who’s in the lead. We will, instead, be looking at this aspect of Melee from the perspective of using aggressive positioning or defensive positioning.

First, we have using aggressive positioning. The idea here is that you desire to initiate to get a hard punish. This will often happen as a result of your opponent being in the stock lead, but can also happen as a result you simply not having a stock lead based on your preferred playstyle in a matchup. One example of a matchup where I believe using aggressive positioning is good when you simply don’t have the lead is Fox vs. Falco as Fox. In that matchup, staying at your threat range is very important because it allows you to suffocate Falco for trying to shoot lasers, whereas if you don’t, you’ll often end up losing the long-range game.

Now, an example of a matchup where I believe using aggressive positioning is only good when you’re down in stocks is Marth vs. Ganondorf as Marth. In this matchup, Ganondorf’s lack of ability to quickly take stage or overshoot allows Marth to constantly avoid Ganondorf by staying as far away as possible, so being within Marth’s threat range is really only necessary when you as Marth are at a stock deficit.

Second, we have using defensive positioning. The idea here is that you desire to have your opponent play into you. This will often happen as a result of you having a stock, but can also happen as a result of you simply not being at a stock deficit based on your preferred playstyle in a matchup. One example of a matchup where I believe using defensive positioning is good when you simply aren’t at a stock deficit is Fox vs. Peach as Fox. In the Fox vs. Peach matchup, close-range interactions can majorly benefit Peach. Fox’s great run and jump speed and lasers can allow him to rack up damage while avoiding those situations that benefit Peach the most.

Now, an example of a matchup where I believe using defensive positioning is not necessarily only good when you’re up in stocks, but is definitely better given that situation is Falco vs. Captain Falcon as Falco. Falco has some of the best tools for walling characters out with his back-air and up-tilt. By abusing these tools, along with his laser, while he has the lead, Falco can force Captain Falcon, who’s move are some of the easier ones to beat out of the top tiers, to approach into Falco’s extremely large and effective hitboxes.

Final Thoughts

As you’ve probably gathered from reading through this article positioning is a rather complicated part of Melee. There are so many little things to consider, but I think the important most important parts can be summed up in order to give anyone who’s trying to get better at this part of the game a place to start. First, remember to abuse center stage. Second, figure out your character’s threat range. Finally, figure out how to abuse paying at farther distances. Really, Melee is an abusable game and it’s up to you to find the best way to abuse it.

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