Actually I was thinking about this the other day, and came up with a few thoughts.
1.) You can't play Sonic the same way you play your other characters in Brawl. Sonic does not have the priority, kill power, or safe combo ability to take the same risks you could with MK, Snake, Falco etc.
2.) As a good sonic, you should never, ever be looking at your own character. You should have enough practice by now that you know what you are doing and you know exactly what all your inputs will do and how you can change/cancel them. What you should be looking at is the other player and an opportunity to punish what they are doing based off your retreat cycle.
3.) Sonic vs a High Tier is not a short match. We all love to watch Shugo destroy Overswarm with his crazily precise Sonic skills, but in all honesty, when you absolutely need to win then the game most likely won't play out like this. More than likely, it will pan out similarly to Shugo's match vs Lain on Yoshi's Island, where Shugo narrowly loses by time out. Even though he loses, Shugo is able to adjust and adapt his playstyle constantly and stay defensive the whole game. Shugo plays a near perfect Sonic that game too, but it just narrowly isn't enough. Don't be afraid to use time to win as Sonic. Hell, in alot of match-ups its the best strategy.
4.) Sonic is fast, crazy fast. Never exchange blows with characters or use the logic that you are exchanging blows since it is low percent (often called jarring or close-combat) Of course there are exceptions like Falco and Pit who will spam you on certain levels. But Sonic is too fast to risk trying to go blow for blow with characters. Simply run away and bring the position back to neutral. Run a crap ton to trick opponents, but don't let yourself go into autopilot where youre spamming down+b -> b -> b -> b -> up -> forward air -> spring -> downair, regardless where the person is. As Sonic, you literally cannot be cornered by characters without amazing range attacks, so don't jump into the ****. Spring, spinshot, do anything because once the position is neutral again, you can start watching their character waiting for an opening for free damage.
5.) Sonic's grab is probably his best move. If you are only watching your opponent and you know where you are, you should be able to tell when your opponent attacks/shields/down dodges. Using Sonic's speed in combination with Dash - Shield - Grab, Dash Grab and Boost Pivot Grab, you can grab grounded players on so many occasions. Grabbing a great way to not only rack up damage, but it is so easy to get the situation back to neutral after one.
Basically, all I am saying is that to be good at Sonic is to have no one to want to do friendlies against you.
-4nace
