DO create a well balanced team of sidekicks that work well with your captain.

Selecting what sidekicks you want to use is a hugely important part of the strategy of this game. While all of the sidekicks have their own strengths and weaknesses, what you want to do is create a team that is balanced, while still being able to focus on your captain’s strengths. For example, if your captain is DK, you’re going to want a team that can pass well so that you can quickly charge the ball, get it to DK, and use his godly shooting ability to score goals. At the same time however, you’re going to want to cover for DK’s slow speed as well, so a defensive and speedy character like Dry Bones is a must. Experiment with different combinations of sidekicks and captains and see what works best for you.

DO NOT create a stacked team of a single sidekick unless you’re really, really good.

Let’s face it; some sidekicks are simply better than others. Not only is Dry Bones an excellent defensive sidekick, but he also has one of the best skillshots in the game, which makes him both an offensive and defensive powerhouse. Similarily, while Birdo is slow and has a pretty weak pass, her skill shot can be used all the way from the midfield line for a guaranteed goal, she’s one of the best shooters in the game, her deke is great at incapacitating defenders, and her tackles have incredible range. With all of these advantages, you might be tempted to just make a team completely made up of all Dry Bones or all Birdos, right?

Well you could, but you better hope you get some great items because you are going to have a hell of a tough time getting the ball up the field due to both of their crappy passing abilities. However, if you’ve got the skill to somehow make up for your sidekicks glaring weaknesses, then by all means go for it. In general though, it’s usually a much better idea to create a well balanced team of sidekicks.

DO play to win

Some of the strategies in MSC might be regarded by many as cheap. But you know what, screw them. This is an online game and you play to win. Use your characters with jumping dekes to jump right over a goalies head, use your teleporting characters to teleport into the goal, if they keep falling for your dekes, then forget what I said before and abuse the hell out of them until they pick up on it. The best players of the game won’t pull any punches towards you, so neither should you to anyone else.

DO NOT be a douchebag.

That being said, there are a couple of things that you can do that just make you seem like a bastard. Don’t score one goal and then just hide by your goalie for the rest of the game. Also, get your ass kicked graciously and don’t disconnect when you’re down six goals. It’s really not worth it since you still get the loss, you lose five points from your ranking, and you have to restart your Wii and the game just to get back to playing.

Oh, and for the love of god, stop watching the replays everytime you score. If someone does this to you, don't sink to their level and start making them watch all of your replays. From my experience these people mostly stop if you don't do it back to them.

Basic Strategies:

Knowing Your Captain’s Special Moves:

There are a couple of little tricks that are specific to a few captains that make them stand out a bit among the others.

Daisy: You can use her character special move on the opponent’s goalie when he has the ball to make him drop it and stun him. All you have to do from there is kick it in.

Waluigi: Wall-Luigi can easily be the most devastating character special in the game. Use it to dash ahead of your defender and seal yourself off in the corner so you can charge a six ball megastrike with no one being able to do anything to stop you. At least that’s if they don’t have a bob-omb.

Diddy Kong: By using Diddy Kong’s special and then hiding behind the beam of light, you can essentially use it as a shield to charge up at least a four ball megastrike. If an opponent tries this on you, do not under any circumstances try and tackle Diddy while the beam of light is still on the field. Wait to block the megastrike or if he was late in starting up his charge, wait until the light disappears to hit him.

Playing Volleyball

How to do it:

One of the most common and most effective strategies in MSC is what I like to call playing volleyball. What this means is building up the ball’s charge by continuously lobbing and passing the ball back and forth between your teammates and then getting it to your power player so he can spike it into the goal. To set up a team that’s built around this strategy, you’re going to want a power character as your captain (DK works the best from my experience), a playmaker like Toad or Boo set in the back, and an offensive character as at least one of your wings. The other sidekick is up to you, but I would recommend a defensive character like Dry Bones so you’re not totally gimp when it comes to defense. You can also get a head start on your charge by kicking the ball to your playmaker in the backfield and holding down the B button to charge the ball and lob it to your teammates.

The great thing about this strategy is that even if someone tries to stop you by tackling the character about to receive the lob, you’ll get an item because of it, which you can use to score a goal by using a skillshot or megastrike.

Countering:

Initially, the best way to counter this strategy may seem to be by simply tackling any potential receiver of the lob pass. While this does work to stop the volleyballing strategy, it also gives them items which they can use to score even easier skillshot goals. Tackling should be used only as a last resort. Instead what you should try to do is anticipate who the ball is going to go to next, run up right next to them, and press the A or B button to intercept the ball. Pressing A will intercept the ball with a pass, while B will intercept it with a lob or a shot depending on whether you are in the front or back field.

Obtaining and Using Items:

Getting smacked by a defender when you don’t have the ball isn’t the only way to get items in MSC. You can also obtain items by charging a shot to the point where a blue glow starts to emanate and then shooting. Try to have at least one item for a last resort at all times, because sometimes there is just nothing you can do to prevent a player from knocking you out and charging up a skillshot. It’s times like those where you need that shell or bob-omb to save yourself from giving up a goal.

One thing that you should avoid doing is careless using of items like bananas and mushrooms because they seem less useful than shells or bob-ombs. Bananas are great for taking out oncoming or tailing defenders. If the opponent is running towards you from the front, run towards them until they get close, then quickly turn around and drop the banana on the ground. Mushrooms also are great to use on already speedy characters like Toad or Dry Bones. With a shroomed up Toad, it’s easy to bypass all defenders and simply jump the keeper for a free goal. Similarly, you can use Dry Bones to run past all of the defenders, get to the corner, and charge up a skill shot before anyone else even gets a chance to catch up.