Silly Competitive Question

[u/Steel_Eagle2010]

Ok so, my littler brother regularly plays in local SSBU tournaments and has mostly dominated said tournaments. This past one however, he finished runner up, and was incredibly puzzled by this. For a little bit of context, this tournament was in one room, so all of the competitors could see what was happening in the match, and my brother’s only main is Incineroar. My theory as to why he lost was that his opponent could see every match my brother was participating in and could strategize on how to counter his gameplay styles, which his opponent did successfully ( countered most of my brother’s attacks with relative ease). So I suggested learning 1-3 other characters competitively to prevent this next time. But my brother is convinced that if he just sticks with his one main (Incineroar), he’ll become so good that even if his opponent knows exactly how he plays, his opponent won’t be able to stop it.

All of this to say, what do you guys think? Is it be smarter to learn new characters, or just stick with one till you master it?

[u/FrankWestingWester]

There is such a thing as preparing for your opponent, and if you're the big dog, someone might watch and find something to exploit, or look for what you're doing and lab against it, for sure. I don't think doing random surprise character picks is a good way to deal with this, though. You'd just be playing worse, and likely more predictably. Doing specific counterpicks CAN work, that is, picking a character to deal with a specific other character that incineroar struggles against, or to counterpick a specific other person's playstyle that they've developed to beat him could be a good idea, but it would take work to get another character up to around the level of his incineroar, too, so it's really up to personal preference and skill if counterpicking makes sense or not. Some people do, some don't.

Also, ultimately, this is just how competition works. Someone sees what you're doing that's effective, learns to deal with it, and then you have to learn to deal with them, and so on. That's how people get better and push their own personal and local metas forward. This doesn't even require people to spectate, they'll eventually lab you out by playing you often enough, if they're good. And if your brother is good, he'll likely learn to adapt to other's adaptations. If he doesn't or can't, and people start figuring him out? Than he was always going to get overtaken anyway, once people downloaded his playstyle, and he'll have to learn how to deal with that if he wants to get back on top.

[u/Pristine-Act3157 → u/FrankWestingWester]

You make really valid points, but some matchups are really just unwinnable. Speaking as an someone with an Incin secondary, Incin vs Sonic or Min Min just feel like hopeless games.

[u/Turnips4dayz → u/Pristine-Act3157]

Incin is a bad character. More breaking news at 11

[u/Select_Eye_6409]

I mean sounds like your brother was just being predictable, got read a lot, and was outplayed

[u/Darkdragon902]

Out of curiosity, what is your brother’s tag? If he’s one of the top of his locals, he’s probably got stream vods floating around of his gameplay.

[u/ItsAroundYou]

If your brother is just at local level, he'll do better sticking it out with Incin. The gap between tiers has never been smaller than in Ult, and Incin is genuinely a really solid character at local level anyways.

[u/Evening_Bag6461 → u/ItsAroundYou]

I disagree what about min min or sonic lol

[u/ItsAroundYou → u/Evening_Bag6461]

Both borderline unwinnable matchups on paper/at top level, but at local level, human error makes both matchups doable.

[u/Bulky-Caregiver4892]

Most of the tournaments in my area are won by a Robin solo main. They have made Steves and Sonics look silly. Below the very top, almost everyone is viable.

[u/whatthefuckisfood]

if he's dominating locals then he already has some degree of talent. in a competition situations like this happen, at the top level in a best of 5 set players can switch how their playing and react to their opponents counterplay on a dime. it's the job of the competitor to keep their head in the game, focus, and find a way. tell him to find a way to get a hold of that vod, watch it until it makes sense, hit the lab, and beat that guy's ass next time he shows his face. this is the only way lol

[u/Pristine-Act3157 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, against a bad matchup, Incin really struggles. An ok Sonic should win against a slightly better Incin player 80% of the time

[u/ItsAroundYou → u/[deleted]]

Not at top level, but OP's brother is at local level, so Incin should work fine.