Weekly Match-up discussion 4: Wario

A basic overview of the advantages:
Wario:

Good Aerial Game
Super Armor frames on certain crucial moves.
Awesome recovery


Ganondorf:

Hits like a Bus full of fat people
Some powerful early combos
Has a release grab on Wario (him and 90% of the cast)
Can gimp Wario



A few questions that should be explored in this match-up (others may be added in the course of the discussion):

TBA



GO!

I'm gonna go into full discussin just yet (too early in the mornin' for me), but a good thing Ganondorf can do against Wario:

He can easily Murder Choke Wario on his Hog (motorcycle).

Wario used to be one of Ganondorf's worst match-ups.

Then we got a grab release infinite.

...Yeah.

(honestly doesn't know **** about Wario)

OK Seriously, did you have to pick the onion pajama picture. Is it just me or is he wearing a speedo on his head.

Anyways, the flame choking on the hog is very easy, and I would say the grab realease really hurts wario. Not to mention the fact that f-tilt eats wario alive. The real question is, if the grab release and gimp are better than warios super armor and air game.

It's not Wario's super armor or aerials you guys should be afraid of so much as the fact that Wario's bite literally can defeat you on it's own.

It eats the choke, eats grab attempts, eats fsmashes, hell, it even eats kicks along the ground and warlock punches if spaced right.

All this is on top of being able to combo you b/c of aerials and your weight.

What you guys have over him is the upair toe spikes off his bike, if you can get into position, that is.

Dtilt becomes especially useful against this fat boy. It's got better range than warios melee attacks, and you can sneak it in underneath some of his aerials before they make contact with you. Swoops reverse buffering thread works here nicely in theory insofar as the dtilt is such a fantastic move with which to buffer all your aerials. Since Ganon's height is often a problem vs characters like wario who have huge lateral aerial movement and strong aerial attacks, the dtilt doubles as a crouch in the sense that your height is essentially halved, but it also puts a hit box out in front of you so that if a wario tries to come in too quickly or too low, he eats the boot. Bear in mind also that (and some of this may sound ridiculously obvious, but IMO salient nonetheless) you can crouch into a dtilt, crouch out of a dtilt, shield out of crouch, crouch out of shield, etc. That is, if you're aiming to poke wario's aerial approach with your dtilt and you miss, don't necessarily stand up and try something else. Try staying crouched, try crouching til wario is real close then perfect shield the attack directly out of the crouch in order to create a gap of a few frames to transition from defense to offense.

Also, the bite isn't as effective against ganon as phantomx says above. The scenarios described above only become effective and consistent against a player who doesn't know how the hell to space himself. Phantom, (or anyone else) does wario have super armor on the tail end of his bite? are there any open frames (lag?) if this is the case, then bite - which is described above essentially as a punishing move - becomes a move to be punished instead.

No doubt about it, this can be a rough fight for ganon, but it's not the large disadvantage that both match-up charts have agreed upon. Spacing is the name of the game here, as per usual.

Wario is basically screwed if Ganon grabs him, and Wario makes one mistake and he gets shield grabbed, might as well say KOed. This should be of prime importance in the match up, releae grab. Wario can't do jack about it and you basically get a free KO on him. In fact, with Wario's worst reach, he has to be even more careful when dealing with Ganondorf.


Ganondorf has his early combos on Wario, which once again brings up more effort for Wario to avoid a release grab F-smash, lest he beat oliterated.

I'll ask, if it's easy to grab wario, then I won't say a big advantage, but this should be at least a 6:4 advantag in Ganon's favor. Also considering that Ganon can go toe toe with Wario's other moves.

Grabbing Wario isn't easy at all. Relying on Grab releases isn't the most effective thing against him. He still hasn't a big disadvantage, especially since Ganondorf hasn't got anything else on him

I have to disagree on that. Ganon can actually go toe toe with Wario's aerials, being that Ganon's are longer, more powerful. Wario takes it though IMO, because of his vastly better aerial mobility.

Same thing on the ground, Wario MAY have a better ground game, but we have moves that hurt Wario almost as much as Wario hurts us.

Wario may show to have a small advantage against us, but we have things that can work just as well agaist Wario and then we have things like the grab release that completely wreck Wario. Not to mention that Ganondorf always seems to get the bad end of the deal when facing release grabbers, I see no reasons why it shouldn't be any different in Wario's case.

hyperstation said:

Dtilt becomes especially useful against this fat boy. It's got better range than warios melee attacks, and you can sneak it in underneath some of his aerials before they make contact with you. Swoops reverse buffering thread works here nicely in theory insofar as the dtilt is such a fantastic move with which to buffer all your aerials. Since Ganon's height is often a problem vs characters like wario who have huge lateral aerial movement and strong aerial attacks, the dtilt doubles as a crouch in the sense that your height is essentially halved, but it also puts a hit box out in front of you so that if a wario tries to come in too quickly or too low, he eats the boot. Bear in mind also that (and some of this may sound ridiculously obvious, but IMO salient nonetheless) you can crouch into a dtilt, crouch out of a dtilt, shield out of crouch, crouch out of shield, etc. That is, if you're aiming to poke wario's aerial approach with your dtilt and you miss, don't necessarily stand up and try something else. Try staying crouched, try crouching til wario is real close then perfect shield the attack directly out of the crouch in order to create a gap of a few frames to transition from defense to offense.

Also, the bite isn't as effective against ganon as phantomx says above. The scenarios described above only become effective and consistent against a player who doesn't know how the hell to space himself. Phantom, (or anyone else) does wario have super armor on the tail end of his bite? are there any open frames (lag?) if this is the case, then bite - which is described above essentially as a punishing move - becomes a move to be punished instead.

No doubt about it, this can be a rough fight for ganon, but it's not the large disadvantage that both match-up charts have agreed upon. Spacing is the name of the game here, as per usual.

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Wario revels in close combat, Ganon moves slower than tar, while Wario is like superman in the air, good luck spacing against an aggressive Wario XD Hell, he can essentially just double jump into your face and bite as he falls either onto your shield, or reverse the bite to catch your roll.

Bite is vulnerable when the mouth is closing, otherwise it acts as a suspended grab (the range is shown by the little white "sparkles" that appear when he opens it, meaning at times wario will take damage but the bite will stlil go off. Wario is vulnerable from behind and above during this time, so if the idiot stands there with his mouth open, dair his ***.

You guys are also severely underestimating Wario's baiting and punishment game (which is amazing with his DI), and his airdodge is almost as good as most character's rolls with respect to invincibility duration, meaning if you're doing anything that's not upair or backair, Wario SHOULD have time to airdodge and then hit you with his nair (which comes out hellishly fast).

Last but not least, the grab release. While this is more than deadly when it happens, Wario is a tough bugger to grab b/c of his shield pressuring game and his DI, especially in this case since Ganondorf's grab reach leaves much to be desired, it saddens me when I use him and I can't grab out of a get-up attack after a murder choke b/c they hit him too far away. Not to mention the grab release issue is fairly simply fixed by picking a stage w/ a large stationary platform.

I think I can add some input since I like playing Wario quite alot as a secondary character.

First thing I will say is everyone badly overrates the effectiveness of the grab release on Wario, to begin with Ganny will almost never grab a good Wario. Why? Simply because his grapple is laughably poor even Wario's own grapples can easily outrange it and his >+B attack will simply outprioritize you and just about every ground based move in Ganny's arsenal not named FTilt. Wario's grabs are also every bit as lethal to Ganon as I'm pretty sure a D-Throw sets Ganny in range for a F-Smash due to how heavy Ganny is. Also most of the time Wario's strategy is about constant aerial pressure, he'll almost always be in with a attack and out of your range before you can react.

Single hit attacks are all invitations to Wario to push you around making Ganny's Nair actually one of his better counter approaches. DTilt is relatively useless, Wario's main methods of approach are all SH'd >+B or his DAir which absolutely ruin. In fact a DAir will always combo straight into a >+B on just about every character in the game. Against someone like Ganny an extremely fast Wario user can do it twice even. However because of this Ganon's shuffle U-Smash is actually an incredibly effective punisher against Wario as it just about beats out every single aerial move Wario has.

In Dorf's favour however his aerial Gerudo will beat out every move in Wario's arsenal not named the >+B. Wario on a bike is an easy Thunderstorm or Gerudo. Ganny also has the upper advantage in aerial priority, I'm pretty sure outside of a half charged Wario Waft he has no moves which can beat Ganny's UAir or get close enough to his NAir. Even the Bair can punish to an extent here. Wario however actually has the advantage here when it comes to finishers despite all Ganny's KO power, his F-Smash has Super Armour which can make it difficult to get away from or suitably counter it.

In summary-
-Ganon should beat Wario in aerial priority and can force him into a ground game. However Wario's ground game is noticeably better than Ganny's.
-However Wario's agility means he'll be all over you to begin with, literally he'll even be crawling up your butt.
-Wario gimps Ganny easier than Ganny can gimp Wario. Ganny can't even jump as high as Wario can half the time.
-Both Wario and Ganny are actually very much punishers with long lastability, one offensive one defensive. This will actually more than often be a fight of endurance.
-Both Wario and Ganny have their grab advantages against each other.
-Wario can finish Ganny easier than he can finish him.

In short I'd put this as a 60/40 or 55/45 matchup in Wario's favour, they are similar in being heavy punishing characters. However Wario's agility and speed will **** all over Ganny who does have the priority to hold his ground and control the match but its not quite enough. Wario's agility and easier time keeping pressure on Ganny alone edges it in his favour.

Ganon has itty bitty arms and you must play terrible Warios if the slowest character in the game, with one of the worst grab ranges in the game, can grab Wario consistantly.

Also wario fsmash being faster than anything ganon has is hilarious to me.

Lol.

It's not about grabbing Wario constantly. As I've said, Ganondorf can KO Wario at incredibly low percentages because of the Release Grab---> Fsmash. Ganondorf has an array of early, hard hitting combos that puts up a load of heavy damage on Wario.

If Ganon can get Wario up to 70% and beyond, and he grabs him at any point. Wario is dead, there's just nothing he can do about it. If Wario can keep from getting his damage at the level indicated (Which I must say this must be a pretty good Wario if that happens.) And he can avoid any grabs, shield grabs and such too from Granondorf. Than Wario will do ok.

I think people are getting confused here...no one is suggesting that ganondorf is going do D3 wario and chain grab him to hell...it's quite the opposite. All I have to do after getting wario to about 100% is land ONE grab. One...that's it. I'm not going to continue trying to put ganon's chode arms around fat boy, leaving myself open over and over again. I'm going to rack up his damage the old fashioned way - through smart, opportune, defensive play - and land one grab when he's ripe so I can land one fsmash.

The benefits of this are two fold. Once a wario realizes that ganon will be prioritizing a grab when his percent is around 100, he will have to change his play style. He can't be as recklessly offensive as he normally would because just as ganondorf is putting priority on landing that grab, wario is putting priority on avoiding that grab. That's the basic formula as I see it. Any wario who enters a match with a ganondorf who's running to hug you the whole time is in for an easy match full of punishment and win...but that means that wario would be facing an idiot, and it has little to do with which character inherently has the advantage and instead is a matter of the intelligence of the people holding the controllers.

Do you even play Warios? You saying that Wario is reckless leads me to believe you don't, or you play terrible ones.

Wario has one of the best aerial spacing games in the game, with one of the best grab ranges in the game. You cannot tell me that it's going to be a walk in the park to land "one grab" on Wario when your own grab range is atrocious and your running grab is terrible.

Honestly the only thing Wario has to not do in this match is avoid using fsmash. That's it. Their playstyle can continue the same.

Peach players just recently did this matchup, and they talked about how hard it was to land a grab on Wario for their utilt/usmash releases.

Peach has better running speed, and 1.5x the grabrange that Ganondorf does.

You got to be ****ting me if you think you can actually take stocks off of Wario at a constant basis due to grab release.

Everything that needs to be said has been said already.

55:45 in Wario's favour.

LinkSceptile333 said:

Everything that needs to be said has been said already.

55:45 in Wario's favour.

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Close enough for me. Cheers.

This looks like the Marth matchup, except that you outrange Wario BY A LOT, and Wario is harder to gimp.

Wario has some nice zoning and pressure techniques. He's got some decent edgeguarding that will give Ganon a hard time.

6/4 or 65/35 in Wario's favor.

If he bikes, you can Flame choke if he doesn't do a wheelie. If he does, I'd try to Up-B or do an aerial out of shield (haven't tried this yet. Looks promising though)

I wouldn't count on grab releases on Wario myself. <<

Oh yeah, and U-air >>> bike recovery.

hyperstation said:

The benefits of this are two fold. Once a wario realizes that ganon will be prioritizing a grab when his percent is around 100, he will have to change his play style. He can't be as recklessly offensive as he normally would because just as ganondorf is putting priority on landing that grab, wario is putting priority on avoiding that grab.

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Sorry but Wario players are NEVER reckless no matter what percentage they're at. In fact they have the best spatial awareness and adaptivity of any player an in the entire game simply because thats how Wario plays. The only one who comes close are good Jigglypuff players.

Wario has no range virtually and nearly everyone acknowledges that, but Wario also happens to be able to move faster than moves can come out half the time. He doesn't even have to dodge half the time because hes just that good at aerial spacing. Wario's can normally read your moves like they're psychic because they have to if they want to get anywhere. You're actually freakin lucky if you even grab Wario more than twice throughout an entire match.

Ok, then 60/40 aprox. seems to be the consensus. Grab is usable... but against a good wario, you're not punishing with it, he's too good a spacing character, and has too many tools to avoid grab distance.

Shadow Nataku's post seems to be the best summery on this matchup overall, so I request that Gleam uses that for his thread.