So you have learned the basics. How to move, attack, and block. But if you want to actually compete, there's a whole layer of mechanics that the game never tells you about. This guide covers all of them: how to escape combos, survive kill moves, recover safely, and generally make your opponent's life miserable. Let's dive in.

While you are in hitlag, that brief freeze frame when an attack connects, you can wiggle the analog stick to move your character a short distance. The most common use for this is escaping multihit moves. 

You can SDI in any direction, but up and to the side is usually the fastest way out.

You can also SDI inward if you want to be silly and extend their multihit forever.

While you are in shield, your options are limited. A smart opponent will apply pressure to make it hard for you to escape.

When you take enough knockback and hit the floor, you'll enter a knocked down state. Your options then are limited to roll back, roll forward, neutral getup, or getup attack. Your opponent can read these options and punish you, or reach you before you can act. That's why it's often better to avoid entering this state altogether.

Teching - Press the shield button right as you impact something. You can tech off walls and off the floor. You can choose a neutral tech or a rolling tech by inputting shield + a direction.

A-Cancelling - The other way to avoid the knocked down state is to do any action before you touch the ground. Performing an action takes you out of the tumbling state and into a normal aerial state. You can throw out a random aerial, use an up special, airdodge, anything works, as long as you're in an actionable state. Using certain aerials very close to the ground will interrupt them before they start, allowing you to land laglessly. This is called a-cancelling.

If you jump away from a wall while next to it, you can kick off the wall without using or requiring a double jump. It is a great option for recoveries and movement mixups.

Only one person can be on a ledge at a time. If you grab it, your opponent can't. This is called ledge hogging, and it's a powerful way to deny recoveries.

If their recovery has no hitboxes, it's easy, just grab the ledge.

If their recovery has active hitboxes, you need to time your ledge grab so that the brief intangibility from grabbing the ledge protects you from their attack.

This can kill certain characters exceptionally early. Just be aware that some players might get upset, it can feel a bit cheap.

Most special moves can be b-reversed, including up specials and down specials. A b-reverse does two things, it turns the move around, and it converts your momentum in the new direction.

Perform a special move, then immediately flick the analog stick in the opposite direction.

This is easiest to practice with neutral specials. For example, jump forward with Spongebob and try to b-reverse a bubble:

If you airdodge into the ground, you'll slide along it while staying in an actionable state. This game even has a shortcut, press Jump, then instantly press Shield. You'll wavedash either forward or in the direction you're tilting.

Wavedashing lets you move less predictably, close gaps quickly without sprinting, and do normal grounded moves out of a slide.

Despite the similar name, DI is completely different from SDI. It's a mechanic that allows you to slightly influence the direction of your knockback while in hitstun.

Tilt the analog stick in a direction while you're in hitstun, before the knockback occurs. Tilting left adjusts the knockback counter clockwise. Tilting right adjusts it clockwise.

DI is easiest to practice with throws, since there's a long window between when you lose control and when the knockback actually happens.

Important nuance