Spacing

Let’s start with the simplest fundamental concept: Spacing. When beginners think of spacing, they generally think of it as nothing more than hitting with the right part of their attacks. However, this is merely a tiny piece in the grand puzzle of this wonderful game.

I think part of what throws beginners off is the word spacing. I think it’s a little misleading, and I believe a more accurate term to describe what I’m talking about is positioning. Positioning is extremely important in Smash because positioning is ultimately what defines what you and your opponent can and cannot do. Positioning is what defines how you interact with your opponent.

Having good spacing requires a good understanding of both your opponent’s and your own character. Understanding your opponent’s character allows you to position yourself in a way that minimizes your opponent’s threat to you, which makes them work harder and reach further to do anything to you. Understanding your own character allows you to see openings when they are presented to you, letting you know what actions you can take in a given situation.

How do you get started on developing your spacing? A good way is to try to visualize it when you are playing the game. When you are playing, try to imagine your opponent’s quickest, safest options (for example, Fox’s running SHFFL nair). The area that the opponent can cover with that option is their effective range (effective ranges vary depending on situation and matchup). Try to visualize this effective range, and then try interacting with it. See what happens whenever you position yourself right outside of it. See what happens when you go inside of it. Try to weave in, out, and around this range, and observe. I can’t give you a three-step lesson on how to space. I can only point you in the right direction.

The other side of the coin is understanding your own effective range. Personally, I think it is more important to focus on your opponent’s effective range rather than your own. However, I’m not saying that you should ignore your own effective range! I just think it’s more important to watch your opponent’s effective range because not getting hit is more important than getting a hit. Not getting hit is the first step to getting a hit! Secondly, focusing too hard on your own effective range can tunnel-vision you onto your own options, which can make you try to force things when you shouldn’t. Third, since you’re in control of your own character, you should naturally have a much better idea of where you can go and where you can attack, which simply means that you don’t need to dedicate as much active attention on that. However, since we’re not ignoring it, let’s talk about it! Understanding your own range is key in learning to control your character! Once again, an important tool in developing this skill is good old trial-and-error. The next time you play, try to pay very close attention to not only WHAT you want to do, but WHERE you want to do it. Let’s say you’re using Marth. If you want to use a fair, don’t just throw out a fair and think nothing else. Think about WHERE you want to throw out that fair and why you want to throw it out there. Go into training mode, pick out a few of your most trusty options: for example, SHFFL fair, wavedash in -> dtilt, run-in -> dtilt. Use them and pay attention to exactly how far they go.

Spacing is extremely important for Marth because he is a bad character in close quarters, but his movement and long, disjointed hitbox give him almost unparalleled ability to control the game from further away.

Why is he so bad in close quarters? First, his attacks are fairly slow (contrast with Fox/Falco shine, Peach d-smash) and most of them are big, swinging arcs (contrast with Falco dair or Fox nair), making it so that he needs to be really precise with how he throws his attacks out. Marth needs room to be able to use his sword safely and therefore make the most out of his influence, or else the opponent will easily force their way in on him before or after he swings his sword. Secondly, he has a tipper sweetspot, meaning his attacks are extremely weak at close range (they’re honestly not exceptionally strong tippered either, with exceptions), making them susceptible to crouch cancel, shield, and making it so that he will lose an outright trade with almost any other decent character. Third, he doesn’t have moves that engage the opponent very well. What I mean is, he doesn’t have any moves that, (a lot of the time) when landed, will DIRECTLY lead to a big punish. Moves like Fox’s nair and shine, Falco’s dair and shine, Peach’s fair and d-smash, Falcon’s stomp and knee. In other words, Marth is not good at landing strong, stray hits at close range. Whenever he *does* land stray hits, he doesn’t always get that much off of them.

So now I’m done depressing you with why Marth is so bad at close range, LET’S CHEER YOU UP AND TALK ABOUT WHY MARTH IS SO GOOD AT LONGER RANGE.

The first obvious reason is that 36-inch disjointed hitbox he carries around. Marth’s sword is what makes him so bad at close range, but it’s also what makes him god tier at long range. Whenever you interact with your opponent on YOUR terms (i.e. at a spacing that is good for you and bad for them), they WILL NOT win the exchange. The fact that they WILL NOT win the exchange gives the Marth player a lot of leverage to influence and control the match. Your sword forces your opponent to respect it, meaning the opponent needs to adjust their gameplan to deal with your sword. Your sword essentially lets you take options away from your opponent, because those options WILL NOT work against your sword when you use it right. After you take these options away, you can continue to use your movement and your sword to follow up on their actions after they respect your sword. However, you will not be able to effectively use Marth’s sword unless you have a good idea of when it is good and when it is bad, i.e. a strong grasp over Marth’s spacing.

The second reason that spacing is so important for Marth is his amazing movement. Marth probably has top 3 movement in Melee, along with Falcon and Fox. His movement gives him a lot of freedom and mobility. It lets him set up good positions for himself, and it lets him get out of good positions for the opponent. It lets him manipulate space in a very tricky way. His speed lets him aggressively threaten the opponent. His speed lets him defensively evade the opponent and get grabs. Having a good handle on spacing is what allows you to understand how and where you should be moving with Marth.