Understanding Neutral (SmashConceptions) - Smash Ultimate 

Ah, the RU-vid algorithm outputting a hidden gem to my recommended feed. So thankful for this platform sometimes.

This is a really good explanation. It's something I kind of understand intuitively but haven't thought about much in my games. I got to a competent level in smash just basically by learning good moves/setups/punishes and not doing obviously dumb/unsafe stuff but you reach a hard plateau once you start to face players who don't make obvious mistakes. I initially assumed that this was a matter of them simply having more game knowledge/experience than me, but I think its more what you explain here, where their neutral is just more sophisticated than "doing good moves until they fall into your setups" .

1. No option covers everything 2. When anticipating incorrectly you leave an opening because of 1. 3. Everything you do influences your opponent and establishes some kind of anticipation

I could hear you talk for hours, you are so intelligent. What a hidden gem this channel is! I'm a total scrub, but I took your advice from your recentes videos and I really feel like i'm improving a lot already. Can you make a video that goes into the routine and principles of pratice? How do you personally train & etc?

Coincidentally, this video uploaded right after I struggled with this kind of neutral concept in a match. I feel like this also slightly dwelled on furthering advanced, back and forth exceptions, or "Reading reads" a bit as a result of explaining awareness of the opponents expectations in combination with knowing how you can be manipulated yourself in neutral. Either way, I found this video to once again greatly help in clarifying my next steps to take in improving, keep up good content, as this is great knowledge to pass along, and I'm sure it's helping many others find their struggle in neutral as I am.

Smash Ultimate is my first Smash game, having spent thousands of hours in the world of Tekken. You are really helping me understand Smash at a fundamental level, which is exactly what I need. And of course, you inspired me to play Big Boy Ganon. Thanks so much for these videos, especially love anything that breaks down the neutral game!

such a good explanation and video

This is the best video I've seen on neutral. I feel like you've opened up a whole new skill tree to tackle -- deserving my sub.

This is a very nice contrast compared to all the combo videos people do, I feel like more people should learn about neutral especially considering neutral is more important than a punish game.

This is the best explanation of neutral I’ve ever seen. I agree with other commenters that most of the high-level smash players understand these concepts without being able to vocalize them the way you did.

I find the background music coupled with your analysis of the neutral to be very mesmeric. Keep the videos coming!

Amazing video. I can hear the inspiration from the many martial arts you've trained in. Neutral is something so second nature to smashers and I really struggle to explain it to people who don't know it yet. I'm just going to link them this video.

This has to be the first video I've come across that focuses on the meat and fundamentals of combat in this game, and actually properly explained to me as a newbie how the mental game works. Thanks for the lesson, mate!

Who needs neutral when you got Ike’s nair

I love your videos so much, Verma. I agree with everything you say in them, and I'm sure I can get better by applying what you say. Do you think you'll ever make a video related to how to learn the concept of spacing? I know it's much more complicated than just hitting your moves with the tip, but it really is difficult for me to understand and I've heard it described in too many different ways for me to comprehend what it means.

Amazing video, I learned so much in just 8 minutes Extremely underrated channel

Correct me if I’m wrong, but It’s like that trick people used to do in rock paper scissors. You or your opponent may say “Hey, I’m going to play rock” and then actually play scissors like a boss. Except there is infinitely more options.

I found this video pinned in a smash ultimate discord and I can understand why, even after a year this was uploaded it doesn’t dwell on how characters behave but rather the players and how to manipulate the outcome, this is a well researched video. Nice job!

This guy is one of the smartest people I have ever stumbled upon. He explained it so easily in a really smart way. Great video!

"...it's harder to feed a man than it is to teach him to fish." Is it?

Why do you have so few subscribers? Your videos are the most informative and useful Smash Bros. content I have witnessed. I already have seen improvements in my play so thank you!

Great video. Keep them coming at what ever pace works with you. You have a talent for explaining concepts.

Please continue this series you are the best teacher of advanced smash concepts I have seen on all of RU-vid

This video is the best explanation of neutral

This is some Sun Zu, Art of War shit.

Awesome video. I struggle with neutral the most. I’m looking forward to the character choice video you talked about a few videos ago, and I’m certain it will be great!

Are we not gonna talk about how Ganons name is Daddy

I wish I knew you existed when I started playing last year. I would be so much better T.T

Great work on this video man (and all of your videos that is!). Watching your videos, I have noticed you sound more like a teacher and less like an instructor. I find there are lots of people on youtube providing instructions for learning how to play ssbu, but you sir are the first I have found who is providing a foundation on which to apply the skills so readily instructed by other players. Im gonna go watch the rest of your videos now, keep it up!!!

Thank you for this. I thought I had known what it actually meant but I was wrong, even thinking I did it "good". Very informative video and it got me to rethink everything I know about it, ahaha!

Great video, definitely showing this to some friends of mine

Your videos are EXACTLY what I've been needing the most help with & you have such a great way of explaining & teaching all those things! Thank you so much! You've earned a new sub 🙏😁

Is this a smash player or a philosopher geez he’s dishing out them thing is that making my brain hurt Will you be my therapist God

god bless the baten kaitos music

Super insightful, great work

Thank you, neutral explanation are few and far between and most of the time terrible. I have been trying to explain it several times and it's been really complicated to make people get it. I hope this will help. Good work.

Baten Kaitos ost, my man! Nicely made video as well. :)

I don't get it. This is harder than what I study at university lol.

I'm so glad I found your channel. I was familiar with you before I found it (reading about players on the smashwiki I found your page lol) but didn't know you had such great content, thank you for these resources dude, this is great.

So you DO have to attack where they're going to be as opposed to where they are. and you create situations for such moves to attack or whiff... thank you

I’ve seen videos on neutral game but I feel like this video explains it next level. I haven’t seen a better breakdown and understanding of it, thanks for the video, I’ve sent it to all my friends because this video really nails the concept perfectly

This video deserves an automatic subscribe

Absolutely wonderful video! If your content is as well written as this, you definitely have a subscriber who will share with friends. By the way, Kellen of FalseSwipeGaming linked me to you.

Nice Baten Kaitos music!

Underrated gem. Please do more of these

Very helpful

Insta like and sub, you're pretty eloquent when talking about these topics. Well done! I, as a newbie, find myself focussing too much on using fancy techs and trying to hit my adversary with them instead of actively avoiding their assaults... usually falling back on a standard pattern of defenses that are easily predictable.

Idk why it's so hard to find you

What’s the song for this video

I've viewed the video again with a friend and a glaring issue came to me. The gameplay behind is distracting. When you show it at first it isn't an issue. But when you start showing specific and commented upon clips it makes it harder to remember what has been seen before. This I'd advise to show the example clips again at a lower speed. To allow people to better connects the dots. Same thing regarding your diagrams. I had to stop the video to read the Isabelle one on the specific second it is shown. You have a lot of time used by gameplay that isn't relevant to your topic. You can afford to remove a lot if not most of it.

It's weird, because this video applies to the super competitive, elite Smash players, but also to super casual people who just play the game every now and then for fun. As an extremely casual player myself, I'm now realizing that the concept of neutral was always in play with my friends and me, but none of us realized it, it was more just going on in our subconscious. But competitively, mastering neutral is crucial, and you've really broken it down to a science.

Top tier explanation. Excellent video

Absolutely love how you write! Delivery is good, but you sometimes lose track of a sentence if it's too convoluted and lose flow even if the sentence is great in a written form - using appropriate punctuation and emphasizing that punctuation during the delivery should help maintain flow and clarity for sentences with a bunch of clauses and parentheticals.

ultimates neutral is a it's biggest flaw in my opinion. it's just straight up less in depth then smash 4. everything is safe on shield and has barely any opportunity to punish lag. it starts to get really noticable against characters like roy who have strong hits and insane frame data. I swear depending on the character allot of stuff in this game goes frame positive on block which is stupid because WHY DO YOU GET REWARDED FOR HITTING SHIELD??? also disadvantage in ultimate is super fucking terrible on the account of advantage being so stupidly good. god forbid your at ledge and your not pikachu or any of the other characters who have houdini recoveries that can reset to neutral for free. "oops I accidentally gimped you" . neutral is an almost ignored concept in ultimate. get into advantage. convert it to a stock. repeat 3 times. win.

There’s a lot of players such as Zer0 teaching us what tools to use in smash , such as short hop attacks, rars , and proper edge guarding . But what I appreciate about Verm is he is trying to teach us the hardest part, WHAT WE SHOULD DO WITH THESE TOOLS .

How this guy so perfectly explained this topic arguably better than ZeRo and ProSmash Guides is beyond me

I subscribed to you and am looking forward to more wonderful and informative videos!

I don't know why but the combination of the music and your profound logic makes this video give off creepy vibes for me, like trying to understand the mysteries of the human mind. Excellent video!

this is such a cool blend of mentality and gameplay combined into a solid vid on what most people struggle with... Neutral. I only recently started competing, and my local scene is quite tough. But last night i got the chance to get some practice in at a little smash meetup thing at a pc joint and got to have some 1 on 1 time with our best player. I asked him if he could point out my flaws, and what he actually ended up doing is describing step by step what he thinks about when hes playing the game. Through this talk, i realized that its not about random or specific bad habits that i had, rather, it was just i really dont know how to play neutral. I just throw out safe options hoping they run into it and then i can combo from there. Its not terrible, but its not getting me much further than going 1-2 or 2-2(my best) in bracket. I ended up here at this video and man, this is such an intricate and deep elaboration on what FOW (our best player) was saying about neutral. Cool stuff man, liked subbed and notifications on brotha.

Very few people seem interested in generalizing the way neutral works in their instructional videos, and that's a damn shame. It's great that you're taking the time to do so here, and you do a pretty good job of explaining it.

Ngl, you helped me a lot with understanding neutral, it's usually said as "don't get hit and rather hit your opponent" but you bro have made it clear for me, I don't understand usually how regular people would understand it since my brain doesn't think similar how others do, you made this very clear for me since now I get what I have to do, this will definitely make me make a huge list on how to exploit different characters moves, thank you very much!!

This explanation is gold. I never realized how complex and sophisticated neutral is until you broke it down like this. I'm on a grind to get to compete level and you've definitely brought me closer with this video. Also with the music and how you explain things you remind me of a smart anime character lol

Learning Nuetral is hard but I can understand the breakdown you’re doing. It also helps that I’m a Ganon main so Neutral is even harder based upon his tool kit properties. Thank you for making these videos and I hope someday to achieve your level of skill.

Your content is so bingeworthy I always forget to leave likes and comment. I am usually listening to your vids while playing haha. Solidified thoughts are cool

One of very few videos I've seen that actually add to machabos neutral triangle. Thanks for this. Great stuff. Edit - meaning add to as in, as a basic definition and understanding of what neutral is.

Thanks to this video I just won my first elite smash battle with my main! After weeks of getting in then immediately dropping out, I've done it!

How have I never come across your videos before today? Ive watched about 10 and I got more out of any "professional" smash youtuber

Why does the beginning music sounds so familiar...

Verm and MGK both have a complicated neutral with ganon IMO

I was sent here by Aligleed, I saw your videos and they were awesome. You deserve another sub my fellow Ganon comrade.

thanks verm- always manage to pique my interest and answer curiosity's from a fellow ganon main

This series is the most valuable smash-related content I've been watching recently. Thanks a lot for sharing!

But with sword characters (those with counters) it's not really a preemptive strike because you have to get hit for it to actually work

smash.gg/tournament/smash-ultimate-summit/nomination Don't forget that vermanubis is up for nomination to the smash summit! You can vote for him at the link above!

Your videos are fucking astonishingly high quality.

ah, ive always heard bout sword/spacie neutral, btu never about the roots of neutral. i love it!

This is simple and to the point i love it just give the diagrams and picture like more than 0.5 seconds of screen time

To really learn neutral, study Tai Chi.

those are branches too. you assume, that people in neutral are in a stance, where they try to not get hit. this is false for most people. they try to get a hit instead

God damn bro, some of the shit you said in first two minutes is poetry

The fighting game elders referred to these as 'conditioning' and 'baiting'.

My brain actually kind of hurts but I get it

The Emanuel Kant of smash neutral. Well explained.

I kind of got lost/uninterested at the beginning monologue describing neutral in metaphors. I feel a better structure would be to go over what typical options are in neutral and then give the metaphors so listener knows what you're referring to when you say neutral is like a tree for instance

Neutral = Rock Paper Scissors.

jesus, i feel like you're about to put me an exam for next week lol

Love you

"a children's fighting game"

I am do happy that i searched for your name after that tournament. great video

I learned more in this video than I learn in school

Coming here to learn the fundamentals again. Can’t seem to get any better

This definitely helped me better understand what neutral is

bruh. cut the annoying analogies and get straight to the point

people online: hrrgmm brain hurt me use c stick

wow what an excellent video, im impressed

I don't like this video because you talked about conditioning instead of neutral. I caught the yomi shout out though.

doesn't all of this anticipation talk also apply to dis/advantage? in advantage, your opponent doesn't want to get hit, so they act accordingly based on what you can and are likely to do, watching out for your position to make a good assumption.

You’re videos are amazing dude

Nice video verm! Also, umai?

thank you for this video. i’ve been playing smash for many years now and this is by far the best explanation of neutral. wish someone said it to me like this in 2013...