How to find a Main

Finding a main can be difficult. Depending on the games roster, there could be a lot of possibilities to find a character to use in your competitive career. Some people don’t just find one main, they co-main or tri-main, or have secondary’s for counter-picking.

The way a player finds their main depends on the player and their knowledge of the game.  Of course, in this case, we are talking about Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

There are 4 basic archetypes of characters in Super Smash Bros Ultimate:

Rushdown

Zoners

Grapplers

Swordies

My personal favorite archetype of character is Rushdown. Rushdown characters must get close to the opponent to attack. Once a rushdown character gets in, they do a lot of damage and can keep their opponents busy trying to get out of disadvantage. Rushdown characters include Mario, Sheik, Joker, Fox, Greninja, and many others. Fox is the ultimate rushdown character. Fox’s job is to harass his opponent with super-fast moves that can be hard to punish. Fox also must call out a lot of whiffed moves from his opponent.

The Zoner archetype consists of characters that make it hard for the opponent to approach them with projectiles or moves that keep them at a distance; they also attack opponents this way.  Zoners include Samus, Banjo, Richter/Simon Belmont, Rob, Snake, and others. Richter and Simon Belmont are different characters with the same moves (these are called echo fighters). Both Richter and Simon keep the opponent at bay with moves that the opponent must maneuver to attack.

Grapplers have one thing in common: grabs are a major part of their neutral. Their grabs are considered some of the best in the game and are their best bet to rack up damage against their opponent. A majority of grapplers have grabs that can also take the stock pretty early. Some of the grapplers in Ultimate are Donkey Kong, Bowser, and Incineroar.

Swordies are a archetype in smash that wield swords in battle, but not every character that wields a sword is a swordie. Swordies have hitboxes that are intangible. Unlike most of the cast, those intangible hitboxes tend to be very powerful and longer than the normal hitbox size. Characters in the Swordies archetype are Marth, Lucina, Ike and more.

Now, there can be certain mixes of these archetypes. Some my even argue what archetype I placed certain characters. These mixes can go from Zoner/Grappler, Rushdown/Grappler, etc.

There are some archetypes of character that fall out of the norm when being placed. My favorite example would be Bait’n’Punish characters.

The Bait’n’Punish archetype plays exactly like it sounds, bait and then punish. These characters have an easier time getting into their opponents’ head and punishing them when they predict correct options. The main goal of these characters is to rack up damage once the opponent is baited into an option. Two characters that would perfectly fit this is Wario and Sonic. Wario has been taking the stock off an opponent from a bad option at 0 and it is a beautiful sight to see (a video clip I will never forget). I’ve also seen Sonic do this and it seemed to take less skill to do but I don’t play the character.

The archetypes described above are some of the many archetypes to choose from when choosing a main. It seem’s like a lot of thought but factors such as favorite series and favorite characters can shorten that thought process. If you like the character but don’t like the way the play, then that’s where you have to start thinking again.

There 3 ways I think finding a main could be made easier:

1. Playing random until you find a character that suits you.
2. Sticking to one character and that character only (learning the character).
3. Trying a whole archetype of characters and see what playstyle suits you.

1. Playing Random until you find a character that suits you

This way of finding a main is best suitable for people who haven’t really played the game and arent accustomed to every archetype of the game. This isn’t a secured way of finding a main, but it lets you try multiple characters, it makes your impromptu way of playing more skilled than it once was, and it has a surprise factor. That surprise factor being you don’t know who you might end up with as a main.

2. Sticking to one character and that character only.

This helped me find my main in Smash 4. After quitting mac, I devoted myself to playing Mario. Mario being an all-around character, I felt that it would help me as a player and help my fundamentals out to play anyone else I wanted (which it did). Sticking to one character depends on the dedication one is willing to give. Sticking to one character is hard but can be stressful, especially when there’s bad match ups for the character. The pro’s to finding a main this way are the tiny things you find with your character and learning how to get passed difficult match ups.

3. Trying a whole archetype of characters and see what playstyle suits you

This is somewhat a backup incase you find a character that somewhat suits you but not fully. Let’s say you play Link, and you like playing a Zoner playstyle but you don’t like everything Link has. R.O.B or Snake would better suit you then Link. Every Zoner (or whatever archetype you consider playing) plays differently so it would be best to try everyone in the archetype.

This is a short video on the archetypes of smash with clips of tournaments to show more of a physical representation of each one.

These are some of the best ways to find a main; from personal experiences and stories heard from other competitors. With these archetypes, the person trying to find their main is bound to find someone to dedicate time to.