1. Follow the pro tournament matches and watch as many 1v1s as you can and make mental or written notes of whatever you think may be important or help you improve. (2v2s can be too confusing for close hard study and are probably not going to help you much though feel free to study them as well if you like those kinds of matches.) For example, you could ask yourself: How do the two player’s styles of play differ from one another? Or how are they similar aside from them both being that good? What are they doing that I’m not doing or need to improve on myself?

2. Watch your replays, win or lose. You don’t have to watch every single one of course. Just take note of which ones you are particularly proud of (won, or lost but played very well against better players) and particularly unhappy about (lost) and study those specifically. The best way to do this is to have some sort of “Instant Replay” software feature running in the background (like Nvidia Experience has) and then simply clip the last match if you want to watch it later. This way you don’t have to muddle through the in-game replays to find the ones you are looking for, endlessly record everything, or interrupt your gaming session if you’d rather play more matches first.

Important Note: The in-game replays contain tons of useful data that you can individually toggle on or off. So you should definitely make use of them when you need to know things like hit boxes or whatever else. Having a retro-play video clipping tool is only for convenience if you're only looking at viewing the basic matches and don't need to be in the game.

3. Find a pro with a dedicated channel to follow and support. Your top choice for pro player should main or at least second-play a legend or weapon you main or are thinking of maining or switching to. Bonuses respectively if you like their play-style in particular and actual personality. Regardless of all that, you don’t have to marry them for life of course. At least see what you can learn from them while always being open to possibly changing to or adding another such player to your pro-play watch time. And the more varied pros and weapon mains you have time to watch and follow the better, of course.

1. Don’t constantly run away, suicide, or even leave the match outright because another player is that much better than you and you want to simply panic or give up. ESPECIALLY IN RANKED GAMES. Always use this opportunity to do things like practice your spot-dodges and dodge-reads – or whatever you think you should work on. Of course you don’t really want to practice a ton against a player that is significantly better than you otherwise you probably won’t learn anything other than how to be a good Nerf ball for them to smack around. That said, once in a while it might be good to take a sobering red-pill in order to remind you of how far you still have to go. So don’t be afraid to follow through as best you can (at least once in a while) on these sorts of vastly OP matches. Even one clean KO against such a stacked opponent can feel very rewarding and give your confidence a much-needed boost. Because then you’d know that at least you’re on the right track with at least one aspect of game-play even if you’re still not quite on their overall level yet or even mastered that one aspect yet.

2. Learn to lose gracefully even if you felt like you lost to a player worse than you (because of spam or sometimes luck – whatever the case may be). Getting mad isn't going to help you get better. Watch the replay and see what you could have done better and focus on that next time. Always remember that you’re never playing the legend as much as you’re playing the person behind it.

3. You don’t have to “GG” every single game to show that you’re a good sport. Just don’t run away a lot, don’t needlessly or excessively taunt, and don’t be salty in chat. (If you want to be salty in silence then go ahead. Just be sure to get over it as quickly as you can because I can promise you that it’s not doing you any favors. I myself will skip quickly through some post-game matchmaking and look away from the screen if I’m mad about how I lost but never type anything of course. Onward and upwards! Learn or burn!)

4. Don’t ever get psyched out by others players. They may taunt or rapid-pivot back and forth (can be meant as a distraction or "baiting") or press you hard with edge guards or rapid-fire attacks one way or another (try to “gimp” you). But don’t let them get inside your head and live rent-free there because of it. If it helps any you should pretend like they’re just bots with personal flair. Dehumanize them in your mind as you play against them, just don’t ever let your guard down ever as well of course. This game can be won or lost, especially if it’s close, just depending on one mindset vs. another. I’ve turned the tables in some of my matches against players probably even somewhat better than me in general, just because I refused to submit to their psychological tactics and (A.) effectively changed and stepped up my play style, and (B.) changed it in a way that in some cases maybe even scared them a little and made them panic until they lost. So sometimes you can turn this mind attack against them and completely turn the tables although I certainly wouldn’t count on it every time with every player. Some like me will undoubtedly be immune to it, even if we still lose just based on the technical play. If you’re going to lose the entire match then make sure it’s because of one or more things you technically failed at and maybe need to work on more, not because someone is upsetting you with unfriendly machinations of one kind or another.

1. Reading Play-Style: Identifying a person's immediate play-style is always more important than just knowing what their actual highest rank is. Lots of people can drastically change styles of play, even on the same exact legend. Sometimes, for example, some better players like to pretend to be weak players or blatant spammers before finally busting out some of their real moves on you, especially if you are starting to beat them. In those cases you will need to re-adapt your play style quickly and hopefully start making them sweat a little even if you won’t ultimately beat them. Another example: pro players in general tend to hold back on sigs except when going for a KO (which is like just the typical “text book” way to play – it’s more of a general guideline than a rule because you don’t want to unnecessarily waste recoveries in the event that you need them offstage), though they may try and suddenly throw out more sigs because it’s currently a "neutral game" where no one is really winning. This is where some luck may come into play if you’re not like at least 90% sure of what your opponent is going to do next by having identified how they “tend” to play (again, not that they can’t suddenly change that at any given moment). Play-style can change within seconds and then back again (or to something different entirely) just as quickly. Try to stay on top of it as best you can. Those ahead of the game win the game. Sure sometimes spam and luck can help weaker players win, but these are not big factors that strong players ever need to worry about.

2. Spammers are your friend. Learn to beat them. There’s a reason why no spammers, even the best ones who do it well because they also know other aspects like dodging, offstage, and recoveries, ever reach true diamond or a real tournament. That’s because they are just another stepping stone for real players to bypass on the road to diamond tier. These spamming types are practically begging you to get better than them! Sure they may wipe the floor with you at first if they are pro-spam and you’re not a strong player yet, but it will be worth it in the long run because you are getting better and they are not, even if it’s only slowly. So given well-practiced and consistent determination it’s just a matter of time before you will pass them by like the fairy tale tortoise passes the hare in the race.

3. Learn to identify the “neutral game” itself on the spot (a kind of temporary deadlock where no one is taking much, if any, damage at the time) and how to break it in your favor. This typically means either you suddenly change your style or direction of attacks (like sudden and close-quarter weapon throws), or your opponent does and you know how to counter it (like more sigs of a certain kind, or less, spot-dodging followed by a punish, whatever the case may be).

4. Stage control: Don’t let them dominate the hard platform stage regardless of skill level, spamming, or clean play. (Easier said than done sometimes, I know - just saying always keep this in mind.) Try to keep control or at least from getting hit without simply running away the whole time of course. Stand your ground and try to stay grounded as much as possible and don’t jump a lot, especially in ranked 1v1. Some players will well know how to exploit people who jump a lot to always try and stay clear of the next attack.

5. Spacing: For knowing which attack you should use and when. Battles can flow very quickly if players are really good so you will need to improve your reaction time and learn to predict the future in a manner of speaking, also known as “reading:” where you think your opponent is likely to end up within the next few frames of play and sometimes also knowing if they just burned a dodge as well so that you can take advantage of it.

6. Movement: Movement is both the most important aspect to learn in the game as well as the hardest to master and execute at the finest scale. This is about the skillful economy of such movement, from simple evasion to baiting and punishing. Movement literally gets you there, but it ultimately boils down to who does it better per each engagement in the match. Good placement equals hits, unless the opponent spot-dodges which is another matter entirely. Here, we just want to make sure that our movement always puts us at the most optimal placement for every attack or evasion.

Just remember that:

Ideal Movement = Ideal Proximity = Ideal Evasion
(and)
Ideal Movement = Ideal Proximity = Ideally Placed attacks

Playing Different Levels of Players On and Around Your Level

In general, it’s always better to mix up your play sessions between players who are maybe only a couple of degrees either worse than you, on your general level, and a couple of degrees better than you, and whatever else may fall in between.

Of course you can’t always control what level of players you’re going to get unless you have a dedicated sparring group, and even that may not cover all you need, especially if you get used to their styles and they aren’t improving. That’s why playing lots of matchmaking and trying your luck in various custom rooms as well sometimes will always be important. Always be on the lookout and try to identify these different degrees to your own:

Worse than you: You can practice moves you might not otherwise try on a better player (e.g. GC sigs).
About the same as you: Use everything you know (or at least as much as you need) to beat them.
Better than you: Teaches you to play safer and tighten up your moves.
Much much better than you: Once in a while try to play one and see what you can do. Take note of where you still need to improve most. Good to help you put a marker on your overall progress, just be sure to always clip (or watch in-game replay) these rarer matches and note all your weaknesses.

Game Modes & Rotation

1. Vary your practice sessions between matchmaking, custom rooms, and training mode. Use all matchmaking types for BP missions except for experimental mode unless you are interested in trying out the actual experimental features and understand what they are and how they may differ from the current version of the game. You can create a loose or strict schedule for yourself on how to vary between these or just play it by ear and change it up as you feel the urge, just do change up your modes at some point. (It doesn’t even have to be every mode in the same day but, for example let’s say, one or two different modes per day with five minutes of training mode and then changing those modes up on the next day or so.) In training mode also you don’t have to spend a great deal of time in it unless you really want to, but I do recommend you familiarize yourself with all its features so you can test and practice moves when so inclined.

2. Play and rotate on various legends for at least a couple of levels each before deciding on a main (or two or three mains which is also fine). You will have to know what they are all capable of by actually playing them yourself if you are going to have the best chance to avoid or spot-dodge attacks as needed and dish out successful punishes for failed attacks from those legends. (For example, don’t cry about Jaeyun mains being OP – play that legend yourself long enough for you to understand how all his meta works and there will be your first most important step in learning how to defeat him.) Especially if you are ever finding one type difficult to beat, go back and play that legend for a few levels and get its meta into your head where it belongs. Mmmm, that’s ah-good meta!

1v1 Strikeout: It’s almost like ranking 1v1 practice with the obvious exceptions (no rank and a different legend for each of your three stocks). So for this mode especially (unless you just want to try out different legends) you should pick up to three official mains for yourself. You can stick to your first one for the most part in other modes but here you can practice all three of your mains in 1v1 style as another mode of practice for ranking in 1v1. At the same time it will help to strengthen your second and third choices in case you ever want to use them anywhere else. Always pick them in order because you want to see if you can win with your first-choice main, and if not then your second choice, etc. Only mix them up if say you want more practice with a second or third main in this mode and put that one first. This mode is also good for testing out 3 different legends quickly, provided your opponent is just good enough to help you burn through the first two.

Custom Room for Practicing 1v1 Ranked: Make a room with a two player maximum. Set map to "tournament" and make them random picked. This way you can practice 1v1 Ranked if you currently don't want to risk losing elo.

"Extreme" Bot Training: Another way to practice is party mode with one "extreme" difficulty bot and maybe another "hard" or "medium" on your team (2v1) to help you practice against the extreme one. The "extreme" and "chosen" bots are OP AF but the point here is to better train and improve your spot-dodges and general reaction time against them. You don't even have to win against them, just see how many attacks you can dodge and counter.

Game/Party Modes: Modes like Kung-Foot and Brawl Ball: I won’t totally discount them as trainers in their own right, but if you’re pressed for time or just want to focus your training more then I would avoid these until you feel like your overall game has improved enough. Modes like Kung-Foot can be very good to train your patience and timing in general but again, stay away for now if you just want to focus more on say winning ranked 1v1 matches.

Training Mode: Learn how to use all of its features. There are many many different ways that you can practice here if you just experiment with various settings. Also watch some pro tip videos dealing with it, practice and adapt what they recommend you do in this mode, and then try and mix it all up and maybe even come up with some of your own ways to train here.

Don’t mindlessly grind for BP whether you bought the pass or not. By all means follow every mission as best you can, try and gain on multiple missions in the same individual matches by combining them if you can, but always treat every single mission match as a new opportunity to learn or to take notes on this or that. The BP is truly a godsend for players like me, because when used correctly it really boosts the training and practicing process by rewarding it with their added cosmetic incentives. Remember that BMG always wants new players and doesn’t want to lock necessarily “bad” players out just because a lot of other people have already gotten pretty good or even great at the game. This is also why some legends and weapons might seem like “OP” or “wheelchair” types. Because a newer player can pick them up and hopefully do decently with them as they try to learn the game – to hopefully not be completely discouraged by the amount of better players out there that can beat them. But at the end of the day the truth is that you need to first understand the legend being played against you and then get into the head of and beat the player currently behind it.

If you’re serious about wanting to improve then you should definitely buy the battle pass if you haven’t already. Even if you buy it later you will automatically win all the awards up to whatever you already leveled up to in the pass – just don’t buy it too late in the season and give yourself enough time to try and get every last award, like at least 3-4 weeks before it ends. The main reason for this is the ‘battle points’ award % increases if you buy the pass which means you will unlock rewards faster the more you complete missions. The increase itself isn’t going to help you get better, but the point is that it boosts incentive to train so long as you are focused on learning in each and every match.

Rotating on Legends & Combining Missions

Following these missions closely often means rotating on weapons and legends that you aren’t used to or aren’t in your mains. But this is still good because it trains your overall game and gets those other legends’ meta in your head for when you do face them with your mains. That is another big reason why the BP is so helpful for achieving overall improvement for middling players and those around that level.

Combine missions whenever possible to make best use of your time. For example, pick Petra if you have two separate missions for gauntlets and orb. Missions requiring a win can sometime be easier to do in 2v2 matchmaking if you are having a hard time achieving a win in "free-for-all" with your current legend.

Lastly, don't further buy into the pass to unlock stuff early unless you are just not using BP to train which is totally fine. Just saying if you're using it to train then don't cut your training options short by buying unlocking rewards early. I treat them as rewards for training successfully and you should as well if you are still looking to improve using this method.

Unlocking Everything & End of Pass (11/26/20)

You can unlock everything in the Battle Pass tiers without having to complete every single mission, as I just recently accomplished this myself. When this is achieved then you should still go for any and all remaining missions as a matter of training if you are using this method. And when the pass officially ends you've got your daily missions left to focus on, which you should continue to do. The important thing here, as I already stated above, is that this continues to familiarize yourself with various legends that are not your mains (so you can better fight against them) and helps to improve your overall game.

Here's some random info I may still better implement in this guide, but for now...

1. Be Unpredictable, Not Crazy
When in doubt be unpredictable. This doesn’t mean run away a lot or make random sloppy attacks. You still need to play as cleanly as possible. A lot of great and pro players can lock themselves into automatic robot-like playing and can simply “auto-pilot” against lesser players and still win. If you find yourself in this situation and are starting to get beat then the best thing you can do is be unpredictable but still play cleanly. A lot of these better players have long practiced spacing and attacks in ways that have conditioned them to react more than think given many typical scenarios, at least for when they don’t really have to think anyways. If you have to start making them think because you’re suddenly maybe “not as bad” as they first thought you were then you are already doing better overall even if you still lose. Just don’t take any one little victory against them (knock them offstage, KO them once, etc.) for granted but certainly don’t start thinking that you’re better than them either. Just remember it, use it, and learn to expand on it in case you find yourself in this situation with another player that much better than you. If you lose a match (or even win one) and didn’t learn anything from it then you’ve simply wasted your time, at least for improvement’s sake.

2. Legend Counter Picks
Every legend has a weakness to another legend or weapon and may have a slight advantage against certain other legends depending on what it is. I learned this by watching pro tournament matches and how some players can turn the tables simply by switching to the right legend when they are losing and their opponent stays on the same one. This can and must happen with lower tiers of players as well, just on a different scale as based on skill level. For example well-placed axe and hammer does a lot of damage, but lightning-quick sword attacks and close-quarter gauntlets can quickly turn the tides against them unless the axe or hammer player is simply wise and well-practiced against your play style. So I’m not saying it’s a foolproof thing by any means, but chosen wisely and under the right circumstances this can give a player enough of an edge over their opponent to win. This really isn’t going to be a thing except for in custom rooms where you are staying to have repeat matches with the same players.

3. Advancement Time
Everyone advances at the game at different speeds. Some pros may take as little as 600 hours to first reach that level while most others take around 2-4k hours. So if your friend is advancing faster than you then don’t get discouraged! Take a step back from yourself, take a deep breath, and seriously evaluate what you need to work on and maybe put in more training room time and focus on that for a while. Even if it still takes you more time to improve than someone else, that doesn’t make you ultimately worse than them as an improvement-seeking player. Find your own pace and balance and go with your own personal flow that feels right for you and you will always improve, even if only slowly. Be patient, learn from your mistakes, and just like with anything else in life you will see your own betterment unfolding before you.

In trying to improve my skill with this game I came up with the following classification system to try and determine what player types and levels of skill I am playing against whether I win or lose. This helps me to understand how much better or worse than me they are without having to rely on guessing their highest rank by their their overall prowess in the match. It’s most helpful and best used when evaluating players better than me so that I have some clearer idea of what my greatest weaknesses were in the match and how and why the player was generally able to exploit it. For worse or approximately equal players, I try to keep in mind a general idea of how often their attacks miss and from how far away, to try and determine if they are just spamming or I am just good at reading and spot-dodging against them.

Also because many people have alt accounts or haven't ranked the previous season, or may sometimes hide or lie about their true rank one way or another, you can't always tell anything solid just from their background art unless it's blatantly showing diamond art. Unless you already know they're diamond (or maybe even a strong high level platinum player) then you need to quickly read and identify where their skill is in actual game-play with them and adapt accordingly. Like if they're better than you, you may have to try to spot-dodge more, wait for punish, and not sig as much for example (like “passive” play but you’re not just running away the whole time). Against worse players on the other hand you can try to, say, practice more of your sigs because maybe they don't know how to punish it yet with whatever legend they are currently playing. In this way you can still learn or practice some aspect of play against slightly worse players than you where you might normally not take so many chances against a stronger player than that.

1. Bad-Bad – Newbs or anyone stuck in bronze or silver. Even try-hard golds might feel awkward beating them. Please be nice to them if you are any better and they seem to legit try.
   
2. Decent-Bad – Your classic “stuck in gold” players. They are either still on their way up or will never really ever advance in skill because of "insert one of a thousand reasons here".
   
3. Good-Bad or "Dominating" – High gold to low plats. These can be try-hard or minor spam types at times but they may generally try to play clean as well. These may tend to do a lot of various sigs which may be well-distanced much of the time. These may also be “stuck in plat” players as well or some plats just still on their way up to diamond.
   
4. Good-Good or "Berserk" – Middle plats to low diamond. Mostly very clean and well-practiced, well-read players with very few to zero attacks wasted or missed that are poorly distanced.
   
5. Pro-Good or "Legendary" – Low to mid diamond. These are the players that deserve diamond rank but may not be able to advance much higher, like getting to an official tournament level of skill. Or, again, they might still just be on their way higher up.
   
6. God Level or "God-Like" – Super clean and confident like Pro-Good players but have some extra touch of godly talent to push them above others not far below their rank. These are the upper diamond and tournament pros we see playing in the official streams and videos. (Of course there are going to be different subsets within this but I'm going to stop right here for the sake of my target audience for this guide which is gold and plats wanting to get better. If you want to see how many differences there are in skill between players in this top general category then you have to look no further than the official matches and leader boards.)

Clean players should be every improvement-seeking player’s pleasure to be beaten by, regardless of level difference, so long as the better player is not trolling with excessive taunts. Even so, you should ignore their childish antics if they do troll you in the match, and you should simply try and learn from it as best you can. Even if they “3-stock” you they may respect your efforts to play clean, at least in the moment before they move on to something else. If you’re really lucky and it’s in a custom room then these potentially cool players might stick around for another match or two and let you get some high-level practice in. Just know that most will probably not go easy on you if this is the case, as well they should not.

Higher level spammers on the other hand don’t deserve much respect if any. They’re desperate for game status and it tends to show in their play and general behavior, even if they’re pretty good at it. This is not to say that you should taunt them outright if you can beat them more cleanly than they are playing. Always try to be the better person across the board. It’s just good karma and this game gets enough hate for its more toxic players as it is. Now I’m not saying you can’t taunt them a little in this case because at least that much should be your right, just don’t be excessive about it.

I define spam in this game as any attacks made that are poorly spaced by an easily noticeable amount and occur more than just once in a while in the match, something that at any point may appear to be a trend in the player’s style. The degrees of it can be short-lived or more constant throughout the match, making them “small” or “big” spammers, let’s say. Plus someone can be "good" at it (let’s say roughly about half tend to actually miss, leaving a noticeable chunk that does connect and do damage, like with sigs especially) or they can be "bad" at it (most of their attacks miss because of considerable and consistent poor spacing).

Also, a new or simply poor player could be spamming moves without necessarily intending to spam them. They could just be trying them out and still don’t know how to yet gauge when any one of those moves should actually be used. So let’s forgive these kind of spammers if they’re bad (aren’t hitting much of anything) and simply seem like maybe they’re just trying to learn.

1. BAD SPAM – They can't dodge, dash, jump well, steer falls or manage recoveries but still spam like they get paid $10 for every attack they miss that isn't even close. Note: Not all “bad-bad” players are spammers. I have seen some legit bad-bads at least seem like they are trying to learn to play clean but they just started or are just that bad and aren’t getting any better yet.
   
2. DECENT SPAM – These throw out many poorly spaced missed attacks but still knows some dodging, dashing, jumping, etc. (Probably the least honorable way you can get to gold, but it’s not like it’s an officially recognized cheat or anything.)
   
3. PRO SPAM – They love tons of mostly calculated sig spams where generally half or more may tend to hit, plus know how to dodge, jump, and dash well out of the way after doing these. They also have good offstage and managing recoveries. These types are annoying AF but excellent practice to fight for sure. Of course some might be higher ranked normally clean players that are trolling but I'm just classifying their immediate play style and not their true skill if that's the case. More often than not though, most of these you may encounter really just play this way ALL THE TIME. There's nothing you can do about it other than learn to beat them by improving the strength of your overall game.

Getting beaten by bad players is very frustrating to an improvement-seeking clean player. The bad player has implemented some handicapped play-styles (meaning they handicapped themselves with a style they can handle and will probably not ever get any better, e.g. pro-spammers) that better players should not ever have any problems learning how to exploit and take advantage of. This takes practice just like anything else.

Put yourself in the mindset of a better player than this bad player currently knocking you around more than you’d like to admit and ask yourself: “How would that better player handle this situation?” The easy answer is always: “Read and punish.” How you achieve that is through focused practice to learn to identify different play-styles and adapt to counter it effectively. Muscle-memory for executing various options and reaction timing are more underlying factors here. Be aware of and use them ALL in your training and matches. Precision-controlling your movement is also very important to learn (see Section 3, Part 6).

1. Passive-Aggressive Spam – Many Yumiko gold mains are the perfect example of this. They tend to do things like sit passively on one side of the stage or the other (and maybe do some baiting as well) and then “expertly” hit you with sigs and combos. You can kind of tell by the way they carry themselves in these matches that they must think a bit highly of themselves in this game and it’s really sad. Especially if they can generally beat you at your current level of more or less clean play, this is another type of “good-bad” player that you will need to look out for and learn to counter.

2. Aggressive Moderate-Spam – Gold and maybe even some low level platinum Queen Nais are the perfect example of this. You know, the ones you hear other people complain about and maybe even complained about yourself at one time or another. You can kind of tell that they love their precious sigs though may not spam all the time. Though they may start suddenly spamming various sigs for edge-guards for example if the match is close and near the end and they’re desperately pushing for a win. This is a sort of a “I’ll just shamelessly spam as a last resort” type of play-style that you may sometimes see from time to time. Without honor for the current win but “check and mate” in your favor for the long game though if they’re doomed to never improve themselves.

3. Passive Play Non-Spammers – They rarely if ever charge or initiate attacks and simply wait for you to get into their comfort zones for setting up punishes against you. They basically just live on punishes great and small throughout all their matches. For example if you knock them off stage they are usually pretty good at doing a decently-timed GC sig of one kind or another on the way back if it looks like you are waiting for them. They may not actually be “bad” players overall and may be even fairly well-practiced (maybe even low plat), but the fact that they can’t safely and confidently engage on their own ultimately makes their play-style weak. Better players will simply hunt them down and both aggressively and cleanly attack them and win. You will probably have to learn the same if you encounter this type in your own matches. Learning how to not waste movement and momentum is big part of what you will need to defeat these types of players.

4. Black Color "Experts" – An expensive color (bought with the free in-game currency) that you unlock when that legend reaches 25th level. Some will sport this color and then taunt after every knock-out because they must communicate to you just how "expert" they now are to have both unlocked and bought this color. The sad truth of the matter is that they are very rarely if ever any higher than low platinum in skill (another type of "good-bad" player). (If you're feeling confident and playing well against them: After every one of their taunts I would "thumbs up" emote them, especially if you can beat them and then do one more right before the match ends but right before they can disconnect!)

The underlying question here is: “Am I ready to potentially depress or upset myself when I hit a losing streak?” This depends on the strength of your emotions and how well you can control them. If you can safely brace yourself from feeling most of the emotional defeat any one person will feel when encountering defeats and losing hard-won elo then I would say that you are ready to at least use ranking as another mode of training. Ranking 1v1 matches can be very raw and emotional and players can show both their best and worst (win or lose) inside this unique mode unlike in any other. At the same time, if you are mentally prepared and properly fortified in this regard, then this fundamental mode will help to further steel your nerves and best prepare you for the long and winding road towards diamond rank.

This is because 1v1 ranking is probably the best practice you can pursue if you had to pick only one mode to play, again, so long as you are not getting too emotional and can treat it as the learning experience that it needs to be. But if for any reason you feel like you are still a weak player in general and/or will be too emotional about losing then I recommend that you avoid it for now and focus on other modes until you feel like your overall game and confidence has improved enough. Even then, always be ready for defeat, especially losing streaks, and always be ready to stop and take a good break if you feel you are playing cold and/or are getting upset. Just remember to always warm up with other modes first before going into ranking matches for practice or just straight up ranking. Even if you are just in a "training" mindset there, there's no reason why you shouldn't also try to pick up as much elo as possible while you're there.

Here are some very helpful videos in case you haven't seen some of these yet to help get you started. I'm not going to do a lot of personal picks here so keep looking out there if you want even more - there's lots of great videos out there and this is just a curated sample for you. Also please be sure to sub and like the creators so they know that they're doing a great job helping out their fellow brawlers!

Great for going over the basics. Even if you already know this stuff I recommend you get a refresher and watch it anyway. This is also a really well-made video as well and make sure to check out parts 2 & 3 listed in his description. All 3 parts = extremely good and robust guide in a condensed format (short videos).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MavemDzzzGE
Some things I never knew about, like using the throw button to pick up weapons so you don't accidentally attack instead and potentially get punished for it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avFUVUJ1mKw

Note: Regarding refresh rate, the following probably mostly or only applies to higher level of play, like probably around only diamond or thereabouts, so please keep this in mind when reading the following:

Simply playing over wifi on a 60 Hz or lower display is not an even playing field (in and of itself) any longer. The game is hard-capped at 60 FPS but you can get it up to 62 with the steam launch option “-unlockfps”. Though this launch option may not make any difference if your monitor is capped at 60 Hz.

As far as Hz refresh rate, anyone more or less at your same level of skill may have an advantage over you if their monitor has a higher refresh rate than yours. I believe the next display refresh tier is 144 Hz and then 240 Hz. Go as high as you can afford. To find out where you truly stand in the game, you might need to play with the highest fps and refresh rate available while using an Ethernet cable. The real upside to this investment, mind you, is that higher refresh rates are preferable in ALL games, especially online FPS games. So you don't have to make this upgrade just for this game.

I have been testing this game on a laptop I got recently that has a 144 Hz display and I have already noticed some improvements in my overall play / reaction time compared to my previous 60 Hz play. It seriously almost makes me feel like I just hit a 1.5 kind of next level of play for myself. Now that I'm on 240 Hz monitor I have felt some improvements but they have all mostly worn off by now, probably because I have already gotten used to it. (At some point I might hook up my old 60 Hz just to see if I can notice a downgrade difference but as of yet I'm not sure.)

WiFi vs. Ethernet

I played quite recently over a very strong wifi connection for about a week or so and noticed a fair amount of lag and teleporting in my matches. Since this has not been an issue in the past, at least for me, this may have something to do with the increasing number of people that play this game and lack of enough servers to meet the increasing need. That’s just speculation on my part. What I do know is that since switching to ethernet cable I haven’t noticed any teleporting. Maybe some minor lag still very rarely, but that’s it. And my internet connection and wifi router are both pretty good in general, whether over wifi or direct cable.

Controller Type

I can’t comment on this too much since I use a quality wired controller at the moment. But I will bet that even if your wireless has very low latency and you play very close to the usb dongle or bluetooth receiver that wired will still be better, even if only by a tiny margin. A wired quality gaming keyboard will probably always be best, but so far I’m not yet convinced that a quality wired controlled is truly inferior to this by any observable amount.

1. Taunting Strangers: My Opinion
Far be it from me to tell people how they should play this game from a mannerisms viewpoint. But if you'd like my opinion on the subject then here it is: Basically, don't do it. Not if you're serious about playing and improving or at least just want to play serious and neutral (not try-hard or for fun) matches.

Taunts in a casual custom room and/or among friends is totally fine and to be expected. But in matchmaking games of any type (except in maybe some party-type games) generally just don't do this to strangers. Depending on which taunt is used and exactly when in the match, this can sometimes be difficult to interpret, even if you're intending this in a non-hostile way.

Even if someone waves at the beginning as if to just say "Hello there, my fellow brawler!" – this puts a burden on the other player to reciprocate in one way or another. If the other person wants to at the time and reciprocates this one way or another then win-win. Just don't emote at the start and think your opponent isn't playing fair just because he or she doesn't reciprocate your emote in one way or another.

Not taunting back is anyone's choice just as much as taunting is. Also, if people learned to taunt less and use them in more easily identifiable ways during key moments of the match, then this would simply increase the enjoyment of these taunts for everyone, because then they wouldn't be so overused. Most pro tournament players, for example, use taunts very selectively and very keenly, to express something usually very difficult to misinterpret in the moment that it's used (though some do tend to still overuse them a bit at times).

Don't Be: THAT Guy

For example, a stranger knocks you out or even just offstage and then does the "palm face" taunt. This is not a fair move on their part in relation to the situation. Even if they feel they’re just teasing you in a non-hostile manner, this is still at least somewhat hostile in the sense that it’s tacked on emotional feedback, especially if you’re still struggling to improve. In these cases I would say that players who do this to other players are basically being the opposite of fair, adding insult to the injury of the original offset. That's why I think that in general, taunts should be kept out of serious neutral matches completely, with maybe some small and specific exceptions, like in many party games and custom rooms.

Exceptions Example

Some people might be a bit (or even much) better than you and you knock them out or do something well that they didn't expect. After this they give you the "thumbs up" emote. Since it's hard to misread this as anything other than "good job" or "well done" more or less, then I'd say these kinds of things are fine because there is no shaming or the need for reciprocity implied in the taunt. (In fact, it's the opposite of a 'taunt' in the traditional sense.) Just keep in mind that if you do it to someone then you should not expect any emoted response back. If they do emote you back then fine, simply don’t expect any answer back other than the next attack coming at you. That is, at least to me, a way of mutual respect for all players, regardless of their interpersonal skill levels.

2. Complaining About Spammers
Don't validate spammers by complaining about them publicly or "asking" them to stop spamming. This basically validates their methods and probably makes them feel quite happy to continue with their "wheelchair" play-style (and it is a "wheelchair" play-style). So basically it is now your job, within this game, to learn how to punish bad sig spam wherever it may rear its ugly head!












3. It's Their World, We're Just Living In It: Balancing and Cheaters
It should always be kept in the back of our minds, those of us interested in pursuing ever-higher levels of clean-skill gameplay, that the devs are constantly changing the meta for every legend new and old, and that often older legends are tweaked in one way or another across updates. This may require some general understanding of how legends currently differ from one another on technical levels and which legends currently have certain exploitable advatages over most of, if not all, the other legends.

So it should be accepted that there are certain legends, most notably, that are highly spammable with certain attacks, that also have low recovery and slim punishment potential. This is most likely a marketing trend set by the devs in order to help keep new players interested. So while you're cleanly racking up neat K.O.'s with your hard to master main, somewhere, maybe even in your own game, someone is matching your numbers with spammed KOs.

But it's the devs game world and we're just living in it, meaning: if you want to get better then you need to acccept the cold hard truth behind the balancing decisions being made for us. No doubt they will always work to some people's favor, and for those who it does not, we must simply learn how to beat these "wheelchair" styles of play and nothing more. You can raise some fuss if you like on any of the usual discussion boards, but at the end of the day you'll still be stuck processing what the game devs themselves deem fit for public consumption.

Also there may be cheaters using macros and/or bots of some kind. If you ever suspect you're facing a cheater who doesn't seem to play quite "human", then you can't do anything about it other than, again, try and learn how to beat them or move on and hope that the next match is fair. The devs won't do anything to address cheaters because it will only make them look bad and hurt their growth potential. Especially now since they are putting more money into e-sports production, they will in all likelhood continue to systematically ignore complaints about cheaters as they try and expand their player-base to everyone from casuals only looking for friendly games to more serious players looking to break into diamond and beyond.

You don’t really need this to get good but if you want to pay for your skill and enjoyment of this game forward and help a much worse player than you then do this the next time you find yourself fighting one in a custom room: Let them fight you but ease up on them and let them try to figure some things out. Because lots of people complain this community can be very toxic so don’t contribute to that by meanly taunting or completely annihilating any player much worse than you who at least appears like he or she is trying to learn and not just spam.

You should by all means still win the match of course, just let down some of your guard and higher meta. You can certainly leave after one match if they don’t quit themselves (if in a custom room), but at least give them one match where they stand a chance of taking at least one stock off of you. This small kindness might give them some confidence to keep practicing. And if enough people do this then maybe it can help to improve the overall morale of the community!

Thanks for reading and always remember: BRAWL DON'T BAWL & LEARN DON'T BURN!

11/9/21
-Cut out training examples from Section 4.
-Added piece about Movement to Section 3.
-Cut out last two video suggestions from Section 12.
-Removed the "What Not To Do" section - there was not really any important info there.
-Added "important note" to Section 1. (under Part 2.)
-Reordered ending ✅ Sections with some minor revisions.

11/9/21
-Added Part 3 about "Balancing and Cheaters" to the Op Eds section.