Guide 3.6 Match-Up Thread

[JOE!]

Seeing as the old MU thread is nearly a year old with no activity, and 3.5 shifted the meta considerably for us, I figured we may need a new one of these.

Here we will be discussing MU's for 3.5 Zard and Beyond, and organize them into a scale based on perceived advantage / disadvantage. For a preliminary/example listing, here are a few MUs that were talked about via our skype group:

==Under Construction==​

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We have a lot of match ups to go over, so lets get to discussing and ordering!

 

[TreK]

*Zen kinda stopped playing when 3.5 came out so I have yet to play him at his best in this version, is the Ivy matchup that bad ? I had no idea

For the record I thought it was Ivy 55-45 Charizard in 3.02

 

[JOE!]

Us in the skype group have very little Ivy exp lol. Based on mostly theory we can see how she'd still be annoying as all hell to play against. How do you see it now?

 

[Life]

Tether changes make Ivy/Zard an edgeguard fest, if it wasn't already. You should in theory be able to kill her pretty easily if she goes offstage.

That said, she can probably do the same. Our best local Ivysaurs haven't been around lately, so I can't say for certain.

 

[TheGravyTrain]

Is Samus a bad matchup. I recall for WCS, the Samus people said it was awful because Charizard juggles forever. Must have just been whiny people.

 

[Life]

Is Samus a bad matchup. I recall for WCS, the Samus people said it was awful because Charizard juggles forever. Must have just been whiny people.

I could see Samus' CC and projectiles giving her options against Charizard.

 

[TheGravyTrain]

I agree, I just was surprised about though. I am not really at the level to call matchups, so usually just take peoples words for it, so when they conflict I like to know why.

 

[Ogopogo]

Ivy vs Char was in Ivy's favor in 3.02 for sure, but with Ivy as nerfed as she is I can see the 3.5 matchup being close to even.

 

[Jacob29]

What gives you trouble with Bowser to make him only a 55-45?

Pretty sure d-throw tech chases for pretty much ever if you can consistently react (this happend on netplay i'm sure you could do it on a crt).

Then he also has a really fast dash making Bowser sweat trying to chase him and you edgeguard him really well.

 

[TreK]

Us in the skype group have very little Ivy exp lol. Based on mostly theory we can see how she'd still be annoying as all hell to play against. How do you see it now?

idk, I haven't really looked into the matchup thoroughly.
Judging from the patch note, I think the two biggest differences are on Ivy's side.
She lost her ridiculous dthrow-upB combo so you might get to live past 80% now, and her stupid new tether mechanics will make it extremely easy for you to set up kills.
You still have the speed and range that allowed you to keep up against 3.02 Ivy (aka the heavy character's greatest bane ever), and although down B seems to have suffered a bit (but tbh all those pretty numbers make no sense to me), your recovery still looks more than decent.

On paper it looks even-ish but we all know how reliable theory is. Can't wait for *Zen to get back into PM and kick my butt =3

 

[JOE!]

Ok, as I've said the list above is like a first draft. We should probably go through the ones that people find questionable, but on the whole I think most people are where they should be.

 

[Jacob29]

I just want to say I don't think you are necessarily WRONG with Bowser but I just wan't to hear your thoughts on it from your side of the mu.

 

[Yomi-no-Kuni]

@Ivy: edgeguarding ivy has gotten alot easier (=doable), but ivy still has options. (hanging as long as possible to force charizard off the edge for example)
the neutral game is horrible in my opinion, the leaf just covers to much and approaching from above isn't a good idea against the vines.
so yeah, i think ivy has a favorable matchup. she gets to dictate the action.

@bowser: downthrow techchasing doesn't really work against bowser. Neutral tech to DownB is terribly hard to deal with and makes it one heck of a guessing game. It's been a while since I played a good bowser, but i think this is still unchanged. If you want insight on bowser vs Charizard, ask Ace or look for his old posts on here. (He mains Bowser, used to play charizard, great player!)

@samus juggles: Bombs give samus a good dodge and decent coverage (will produce doublehits for samus in the worst case scenario). I used to jugge Samus with overcharged DownB to reverse Nair sweetspot because of this, but now that the Nair has been nerfed so hard, it's not really worth it because you won't kill before ridiculosuly high percents. can't say much about the matchup except for that. I don't think missiles are a big problem, samus cannot follow up her projectile in close combat as well as falco, ivy or formerly Zamus, so you can usualy just bite/dashattack/Jab through them

i'm not sure if DDD isn't a more favorable matchup though. easy edgeguards and easy combos... what does DDD have? waddledee's that are terribly easy to shield through (dash->shield->wavedash)?
and diddy in my experience is pretty hard to deal with. Banana hinders ground movement, catching the banana isn't great because of the very slow throw, sideB allows for juggle escapes, ...

 

[Jacob29]

neutral tech to down-b hard to deal with? do you mean up-b..?

you can just shield-grab or even just grab without shielding a tech to down-b.

 

[Yomi-no-Kuni]

haha, yeah obviously :D sorry
you can shield it, but reacting to the neutral grab and grabing is really hard. shieldgrabing bowsers UpB it is also not as easy as it sounds!

but yeah, grabs are the go-to option vs bowser in general

 

[metroid1117]

It's also worth noting that Bowser's up+B has invincibility frames on frame 1, so if you're trying to tech chase DThrow -> regrab, you either have to grab them during the vulnerability frames on their tech option (only 6 for standing tech, IIRC) or react to their missed-tech option; otherwise, if they standing tech and you're a couple of frames late with the regrab, up+B will go through it.

From personal experience, it's difficult to shieldgrab Bowser's up+B since he can hit your shield and then drift away, but you can also wavedash OoS to chase him after you shield the attack. However, Bowser also has the option of canceling up+B on the ledge after hitting your shield depending on his spacing/timing.

 

[Sabre]

I'm just wondering as a marth main, why do you think that marth is a good matchup for charizard. I usually play with a guy about my skill level(which admittedly isn't particularly high), and the only time I've ever gotten a JV 5 is in marth-charizard. I find it easier than my other characters, fox or ike, because marth can punish his recovery unless he sweetspots and it seems like his big body is kind of combo food for my marth.
He's the only guy I play with, so I'm probably missing something, but would you mind explaining it to me?

 

[Life]

I'm just wondering as a marth main, why do you think that marth is a good matchup for charizard. I usually play with a guy about my skill level(which admittedly isn't particularly high), and the only time I've ever gotten a JV 5 is in marth-charizard. I find it easier than my other characters, fox or ike, because marth can punish his recovery unless he sweetspots and it seems like his big body is kind of combo food for my marth.
He's the only guy I play with, so I'm probably missing something, but would you mind explaining it to me?

IMO it's even. That said, I think other Zards like it because Marth's recovery is fairly straightforward, so edgeguarding it is no huge issue; because Marth isn't super hard to juggle, another Zard strength; and because Zard has a reach advantage AFAICT, which is unusual for Marth mains to have to deal with.

 

[Blazing Ambition]

Haven't played any Zard mains in a while, but I was wondering if the Zard-Falcon matchup is as tough for falcon as it was in 3.0.
Falcon has a tough time getting around Zard's anti-air options (jesus christ that jab), gets tech chased for free, gets comboed hard, and generally has to respect charizard's space if he doesn't want to die.
Is the matchup any different in 3.5?

 

[JOE!]

Marth I have as a light advantage overall due to most of what Life said. Charizard is actually faster than marth, can juggle marth rather easily, has similar grab range and can go further out to make good on offstage vs marth.

 

[JOE!]

Haven't played any Zard mains in a while, but I was wondering if the Zard-Falcon matchup is as tough for falcon as it was in 3.0.
Falcon has a tough time getting around Zard's anti-air options (jesus christ that jab), gets tech chased for free, gets comboed hard, and generally has to respect charizard's space if he doesn't want to die.
Is the matchup any different in 3.5?

Those things didn't really change, but the two honestly just sort of touch of death each other. Charizard's slightly altered recovery makes it probably even but I haven't played a good falcon in a while....

 

[Mera Mera]

Imo:
Samus is 50:50
Snake seems to be a good match up? Kinda confused by this but Yomi would probably know better... did he suggest that?
Falco is 40:60
Sheik is 40:60
Marth is 50:50
Lucario is 40:60
Mario is 45:55
And I don't know a ton about the DDD match up but I thought it was good or even from what little I've played it.
Also we might invalidate jiggs, not just beat her... but maybe I just haven't played a good jiggs yet.

Ask why on any and I'll elaborate I guess. My thoughts for now.

There are a few others I think might be wrong but I have too little match up experience to say for sure.

 

[S£NPAI]

How highly would you recommend Zard for countering Ganondorf. My Roy has been struggling against his edge guarding game. Looking for a character to counter with. I'm pretty familiar with Zard.

 

[Life]

The thing about PM is that there are basically no unwinnable matchups right now, so you're free to play whoever you enjoy the most. I mean, I play Squirtle (who some people think is low tier, for some unfathomable reason) and I win in his supposedly-difficult matchups all the time.

That said:

The Zard-Ganondorf matchup in a nutshell is that both characters struggle to recover against each other (it should be basically impossible for Ganondorf to recover, Zard fares a little better) and both characters struggle in neutral (but Ganondorf slighly more so because Zard's dashdance is decent) but both characters hit like a train (Ganondorf slightly harder than Zard).

If you think you can outplay Ganondorf in neutral as Zard, then I'd recommend that matchup. But do you have fun playing Zard? Because if you don't, it won't matter.

(Roy-Dorf strikes me as even, though I don't play either character so it's hard for me to say that definitively.)

 

[Dandizzle]

Considering the R.O.B vs. Charizard was considered pretty bad for R.O.B in 3.0 I don't see how he would win now, Charizard still has a lot of really good things to do against R.O.B that I could go on for awhile about.

 

[S£NPAI]

The thing about PM is that there are basically no unwinnable matchups right now, so you're free to play whoever you enjoy the most. I mean, I play Squirtle (who some people think is low tier, for some unfathomable reason) and I win in his supposedly-difficult matchups all the time.

That said:

The Zard-Ganondorf matchup in a nutshell is that both characters struggle to recover against each other (it should be basically impossible for Ganondorf to recover, Zard fares a little better) and both characters struggle in neutral (but Ganondorf slighly more so because Zard's dashdance is decent) but both characters hit like a train (Ganondorf slightly harder than Zard).

If you think you can outplay Ganondorf in neutral as Zard, then I'd recommend that matchup. But do you have fun playing Zard? Because if you don't, it won't matter.

(Roy-Dorf strikes me as even, though I don't play either character so it's hard for me to say that definitively.)

I agree that the Dorf-Roy matchup is pretty even, my problem is mainly how easy of a time Ganon has with edge guarding roy. I'm much better at the falcon matchup than the ganondorf one, idk. I love playing Zard though and I do feel like charizard has a bit more capability in neutral than Roy, he also has better offstage presence.

 

[Avro-Arrow]

I have to question your placement of the Charizard:Sonic matchup. I agree that Charizard wins, but I feel like the matchup is definitely easier than 55:45 and I'd like to spark a discussion on it. I heard from @ _Chrome that you guys are a friendly board and like discussions.

To be honest, I thought Sonic was top tier this patch, after I got settled in after the changes. There have been a few red flags recently that have caused him to drop in my mind however. One of these was Charizard.

I have quite a bit of xp against Chrome's zard but for some reason it was never as Sonic. I chalk it up to us playing many characters and him finally deciding to main zard recently (this was a time I decided to pick up Wolf so Sonic:Zard was unplayed). I understand all of Zard's hitboxes and how to space and zone safely. However, I found that Sonic struggled a lot getting in on Charizard's hitboxes, go figure, Sonic has virtually no disjoints (frame data), while Zard's boxes are generous (I have not verified data for this one). Zard also has a fantastic tech chase on Sonic that should be inescapable if the zard is playing optimally. I myself am good at getting out of tech chases so these two factors alone didn't do me in.

The juggles really aren't a problem at all: Sonic can spin dash away, dair, jump, HA (homing attack fyi) and use the spring. So no problems there.

But I also found Sonic's punish game on zard to be rather poor: The throws don't lead to much, the side and down b and easy to stop with Zard (as the moves don't take much precision due to being so large), and chaining aerials together isn't all that easy due to Zard's floatiness. I was content stringing two crossup nairs together to tack on ~26% as an approach or punish. Of course, Sonic can recover from anywhere so this shouldn't be a problem.

I might be inclined to say this could be one of Sonic's worst matchups (but only against a skilled/experienced Zard, Sonic crushes any player without both of those qualities). I understand this MU might be tense to deal with from your end as well, but even Chrome said he felt in control the entire time each and every game. And I agree. I was scraping things together as best I could and played as patient as I could. Our gaems became very long.

That being said, Chrome deserved the ~8-0 he got on me. All of the games were me trying to catch up and losing by a stock.



TL;DR, Zard wins neutral and punish IMO, and I feel like this MU is more in Zard's favour than you might think, but I want to discuss it so we can all learn more about our favourite game.

 

[_Chrome]

I have to question your placement of the Charizard:Sonic matchup. I agree that Charizard wins, but I feel like the matchup is definitely easier than 55:45 and I'd like to spark a discussion on it. I heard from @ _Chrome that you guys are a friendly board and like discussions.

To be honest, I thought Sonic was top tier this patch, after I got settled in after the changes. There have been a few red flags recently that have caused him to drop in my mind however. One of these was Charizard.

I have quite a bit of xp against Chrome's zard but for some reason it was never as Sonic. I chalk it up to us playing many characters and him finally deciding to main zard recently (this was a time I decided to pick up Wolf so Sonic:Zard was unplayed). I understand all of Zard's hitboxes and how to space and zone safely. However, I found that Sonic struggled a lot getting in on Charizard's hitboxes, go figure, Sonic has virtually no disjoints (frame data), while Zard's boxes are generous (I have not verified data for this one). Zard also has a fantastic tech chase on Sonic that should be inescapable if the zard is playing optimally. I myself am good at getting out of tech chases so these two factors alone didn't do me in.

The juggles really aren't a problem at all: Sonic can spin dash away, dair, jump, HA (homing attack fyi) and use the spring. So no problems there.

But I also found Sonic's punish game on zard to be rather poor: The throws don't lead to much, the side and down b and easy to stop with Zard (as the moves don't take much precision due to being so large), and chaining aerials together isn't all that easy due to Zard's floatiness. I was content stringing two crossup nairs together to tack on ~26% as an approach or punish. Of course, Sonic can recover from anywhere so this shouldn't be a problem.

I might be inclined to say this could be one of Sonic's worst matchups (but only against a skilled/experienced Zard, Sonic crushes any player without both of those qualities). I understand this MU might be tense to deal with from your end as well, but even Chrome said he felt in control the entire time each and every game. And I agree. I was scraping things together as best I could and played as patient as I could. Our gaems became very long.

That being said, Chrome deserved the ~8-0 he got on me. All of the games were me trying to catch up and losing by a stock.



TL;DR, Zard wins neutral and punish IMO, and I feel like this MU is more in Zard's favour than you might think, but I want to discuss it so we can all learn more about our favourite game.

Cool post, bro. I think you mean at least. 8-0

 

[Phoca017]

I feel Sheik and Link the worst counters of Charizard.

Sheik has an amazing edgeguard on Charizard, and you have to bring the game all tthe time to the center of the stage. If she takes you offstage, your jumps must be used with too much wisdow.

Link has a wall of projectiles and charizard is big and fat. Its really a complicated match up.

Fox, in my opinion, is "easiest" than them. Its a hard matchup indeed, but zard has range, combos and flametower against him.

 

[Avro-Arrow]

Sheik is definitely really hard for Zard. You got that one right

 

[TreK]

Hey =V

*Zen just got back into PM so we might get to see some *Zen vs Leon action soon and I want to be able to give proper commentary of that when it happens since they're the two best French players by a margin.
Could somebody explain to me how the matchup goes ? I've seen *Zen vs Prof Pro this summer in person but I'd like to know more.
From my understanding, the reasons Charizard loses it are :
-what makes Charizard work is that he's a fatty with a good recovery, which lets him actually profit of his heavy weight (unlike Bowser/DK) and have superior survivability compared to the rest of the cast. But Snake doesn't care about that, because he mostly kills from the top, not the side or by edgeguarding.
-Charizard likes platform camping (*Zen especially), but that simply doesn't work against Snake because he can use the opportunity to plant a C4 through your shield, or use the upB land cancel grab technique, or use projectiles to put on some pressure from a place that your nair won't hit. He's also able to crouch under your platform nairs, which is worth noting I guess.
-Charizard still has a couple strengths : Snake doesn't seem to enjoy characters with a lot of range and movement speed, and Charizard has a lot of that. They counter his projectiles too well by being able to blow them up without trading 10% in the process. Charizard kills from the top and the sides, mostly, I mean he can edgeguard with nair but that's not something he actually has to rely on, so Snake's Infinite recovery doesn't make you too angry from what I can tell.

I need more details though, such as what stages you would tend to ban/CP, in example.


On another note, I still think Ivy vs Charizard is even :V

 

[JOE!]

Perhaps we should focus on a few characters at a time?

Going in CSS order, what do We think about Wario,Mario and Luigi?

 

[buttermilkbiscuits]

Anyone have any tips for ganondorf matchup?

 

[The Bear]

Hi, guys. I'm new here. I was once a Zard main a while back, but now he is one of my prominent sides. I think this is pretty straightforward as far as an MU list goes. Pretty accurate, too. Btw, isn't it ironic how Ivysaur wins this matchup, and how Squirtle loses it? Maybe it's just me.

 

[apollosol]

So ever since 3.5's release I'm been getting demolished by this Lucario. It was gradual but now I'm finding myself getting juggled to death, the worst is when I get hit by 4-5 consecutive up-a's, like straight up 0 to 70 in a matter of seconds. Hella hard to come back from that.

Then he's got that side b he can combo into outside the stage which equals instant death. And even if he doesn't grab, the pulse will screw you over. The hit stun seems crazy to me.

So, I think this match-up is nowhere near 50-50 unless yal can tell me how to combat all that. I could very well not know how to counter Lucario properly but with the glide nerf, being a big target, and naturally juggle bait, it looks grim.

I pretty much have to go to Rob by the end of every first to 5 loss..... But it's just not the same if it ain't the lizard doing the bodying.

 

[LeaveScars]

Anyone have any tips for ganondorf matchup?

Ganon is primarily a punish character: he sits back, waits for you to screw up, then combos your stock off. To beat this, you have to be the better punisher. Charizard not only outruns Ganon, but he also outranges him.

In the neutral, make him approach. You can play footsies a bit and find openings through that. If Ganon approaches with SHFFL Fair/Nair, jab. Charizard's jab stuffs most aerial approaches, so that should help.

When edgeguarding Ganon, stay onstage unless you know you're not going to get command grabbed by Flame Choke. Usually just legdehogging will do it, but something I like to do is sweetspot Dtilt or Ftilt angled down while onstage. Ganon's recovery is really punishable; you should have little trouble with it.

Other things to look out for: chaingrabs, Flame Choke techchases, random followups off of Dair, and one-two-punch combos like Downthrow to Fair/Bair. In the case of the latter, mix up your DI. If you DI down and away, you can tech before Ganon lands the fair. If you DI behind him, he'll simply Bair. Mix your DI up based on what you think he'll do and you'll be fine.

 

[bubbaking]

Ugh, Charizard really sucks this time around. I think he lost a lot of good MUs, and his neutral game is so linear now.

In any case, I think Zard:Sheik should be around 40:60 in Sheik's favor (if not worse for us). It was a bad MU in 3.0 and so many things that worked for us in pretty much every MU (nairs on plats, flamethrower, glide, etc) are considerably worse now. On the other side of the MU, Sheik got slightly better. We still get outcamped. We still get destroyed in CQC. We still die at 100 to bthrow > tipper usmash. Flamethrower is easier to punish, even on hit, we get gimped even harder now, and Zelda's improved recovery, among various other Zelda changes, make Shielda a real threat now. In fact, we should probably make Shielda a character to consider in here. However, that is probably a different discussion for a different time.

I also think we lose to Zelda 45:55 (at least). We are liable to be shieldpoked by nearly everything Zelda does, and she can kill Zard ridiculously early. Also, her kicks have the range and speed to make most of our moves extremely unsafe on her shield. Apparently, there's some kind of glitch that lets people tech our uthrow (has happened to me multiple times already), so uthrow is not even a reliable kill option. Disarming her Din's Fire is awkward for Zard, and if she gets that and a teleport in, it's curtains for us. I've done some testing and Farore's Wind's explosion clanks with or beats out all of Zard's ground moveset barring his fsmash and semi-charged dsmash (uncharged just clanks). Up close, we kinda just lose. Between safe smashes on our shield and a throw mix-up that can get us kickilled, she has the edge in CQC. We used to be able to match her in the recovery and edgeguard departments, but not any more. Edgeguard-wise, it's really hard to force Zelda into a position where she does not have multiple options (really, why is it OK for a character to have an omnidirectional teleport with controlled length and a strong hitbox at the end all while she's recovering?), and she can always just teleport on top of Zard. We still have the juggling edge on Zelda, so if we can bthrow or usmash her, then we can get something going, but no extensive combos unless you like being kicked.

As a quality check statement, I play with a high-level Zelda (Face) very regularly. IMO, Face is on the same level as Zhime and he has some high-profile wins (Poob, Almighty, Malachi, etc.) under his belt. We go back and forth a lot and this is one MU we've played a ton.

For some more optimistic words, I believe Zard:Samus is a helluva lot closer to even. Samus gets juggled real hard. Nair isn't as broken but it's still good, and usmash still pretty much beats all of her air options. Missiles can be jabbed, tilted, or DA'd. The universal tether nerf hurts Samus badly, and Samus in particular got a character-specific tether nerf in its length, so edgeguarding her is pretty straightforward: force her onto stage and then fair her (at high %'s) or stomp her into a combo (will kill her if she tries to weave back). Samus does does have a good CC and overall ground game, but that is an area I believe we're better than her in. Our tilts have better range and more power, and we have a decent grab game; good grab games always mess Samus up hard.

 

[JOE!]

On the bright side, Glide is being fixed and I have brought to the PMDT's attention just how... bad FT is now so hopefully that gets some love.

 

[OnFullTilt]

Saw you guys talking about the Charizard vs. Bowser matchup. I've played against JOE!'s Charizard with my Bowser- anything you folks would want to know from my perspective?

Edit: oh whoop, you're talking about other characters now it seems, my bad.

 

[JOE!]

Saw you guys talking about the Charizard vs. Bowser matchup. I've played against JOE!'s Charizard with my Bowser- anything you folks would want to know from my perspective?

Edit: oh whoop, you're talking about other characters now it seems, my bad.

Nah, we can talk about whatever