Not sure how you did not see it when I put it clear as day in my post. I'm just gonna break this down to you and tell you why this match up is not as terrible as you and the others think. I'm not gonna go on too much about his strengths cause that was already dished out to death here.
First I am gonna go on about how Peach is suppose to play the neutral vs MK. The
neutral game, or just
neutral, is a phase during gameplay when no player has a situational advantage over the other. In this phase, either player's objective is to "win the neutral game", i.e. land a hit with possible follow-ups, or
punish the enemy for a failed attempt to do so. So for me, to avoid stuff from MK, I need to keep a distance such as this:
At this range, MK is no threat to me. Him coming at me with air attacks won't hit. The fastest thing he can come at me with is his dash attack. If he was to dash attack me from this range, I will not get hit. You can check out the gif right here showing that in the link below.:
The issue here is that you assume you can stop Meta Knight from positioning himself outside of your range but keeping inside of his. You cannot. Meta Knight is faster than you on the ground, has better means of repositioning, and between the distance covered by dash attack and the initial dash animation you are always vulnerable. I would also like to mention that you only have so much stage to space with to reposition yourself, and while playing at the edge is something you want to do at specific percent ranges, you cannot do this the entirety of the time because it limits your ability to stay out of my range even more.
His dash attack is disjointed but there is a lil problem with this. The hitbox is only active for 4 frames. After that he is still in the dash attack animation but he is just a plan moving target.
It's active for 5 frames, frames 7-11, and very few characters are able to viably punish this move. A smart Meta Knight is not going to use dash attack 1 unless it will cross up on shield, and Peach does not have the mobility to punish the cross up. A smart Meta Knight is also not going to use dash attack 3 unless you throw out a move or action because it is unsafe on block, but this also means you cannot do much because of the distance it commands.
That's why the dash attack dud not hit Peach when MK went in with it. This is one of MK (if not the best) starters for his combos. With good micro spacing and movement, MK can not really hit Peach if she maintains this range. If he does, its a free punish. After the hit box is gone, he can't do anything for 21 frames. Depending on this distance, you can punish him or just back off. Cause you would leave yourself open and then eat damage for it.
Peach does not have the mobility tools to outspace Meta Knight. He has one of the best fox trots and perfect pivots in the game, his dash attack commands a lot of space, and Peach cannot reposition with enough space to account for this and Meta Knight's disjoints. Not to mention that you cannot reposition at the ledge, which is where you need to be at early percents, and the punishment for a single mistake is that you die.
Now going back to the first picture on distance. If Peach has a turnip in hand, its even better since she can punish something wiffed from a distance. Meta knigts movement options on the ground are not that great to bait things from the enemy.
Except they are. Meta Knight is the epitome of a bait and punish character in Smash IV. Fox trots, perfect pivots and stalled dash attacks mixed in with empty hops and air jumps all good choices. Not to mention Turnips are not threatening. They don't throw you into a tech knockdown like Gyro, or trip you like Diddy's banana. The risk reward for me going after you while you are holding a Turnip is heavily skewed in my favor.
Good Meta Knight's do not give you openings to punish them. They bait you into an action and punish you for it. Even if you manage to punish with a Turnip, what does that give you? Percent. If I can manage this against competent Sheik players, why should I be concerned about what a Peach is going to do with a Turnip in hand and poor mobility?
Characters like falcon and lil mac do it better.I fear them on the ground way more them MK, and he has death combos. All he really has is speed. That's about it. And his air speed is average. Just being three spots over Peach. What Peach lacks in speed she makes up for in ground movement. The vid below explains it:
So you pick Little Mac, who has the best ground game in the entire cast, and Falcon, who has an unreactable 50/50 on the ground, as a means to establish your comparison? That's like me saying Ryu isn't heavy because he's not Dedede or Bowser.
He has better speed, better movement, better disjoints, more accessible damaging combos, better kill options. I am well aware of Peach's ground movement and it means next to nothing in this match up. You can't shield during float cancels. You start skipping around in neutral and you are going to get laddered, and you cannot use it to move in and out of my space because again you do not have the mobility to dictate that.
If Mk is in the air using multiple jumps, Peach should not be trying to chase him air attacks. A turnip is best. If she does not have one, nor can safely get one, then what she should be doing is being in a zone MK would land and the range he is no threat.
If he is about this height dishing dairs, a turnip to the side will take care of that. And if he short fairs/bairs, he suffers lag with a turnip can punish. If no turnip, its best not to challenge. But if one sees a pattern, they can FULL hop dair and hit MK. Other wise, best to respect and wait till he lands. Peachs moves on will get get her punish alot. They are either slow or short range.
There is no reason to do this. You retreat to the air against characters with strong grab games that have large grab boxes or good speed. Peach has neither. Meta Knight's goal is to stay on the ground and either wait for you to make a mistake and kill you, or punish you for playing defensive and kill you.
At this height, unless Peach has a turnip in hand, she has to respect him. Multiple jumps in neutral are usually use to fake out a landing or bait a pursuit. Then come down with a punish. MK does not get good air speed when jumping in the other direction like jiggs. So Peach can go under MK and hit him from under. Or create a wall if turnips if he wants to burn more jumps. Then juggle/ Z grab them to w/e the player wants. You have a few hit boxes covering the air and you can cover the ground. At worst he swings but don't get a hit. Then the neutral game starts again.
Already addressed.
Meta lacks versitale approaches. He can't just go in brute force and get a hit. He gets rewarded when the opponent leaves themselves open. He can't force alot of things in a safe matter. Outside of cross up dash attacks on shield, most of his moves are not safe. When I see Peach get put down by meta it's usually cause they did something within his range that was not safe. So meta's ground speed can just take advantage of wiffed moves. Peach players usually don't have alot of patients and usually wanna be in the air alot to typical Peach stuff. I explained this in my metagame vid about her. But if Peach gives lil to no openings, Meta can not just do what he wants for free. He will get put down for it.
So what are you going to do? Pull out unsafe Turnips in my dash attack range, and wiff punish the whole game? You're telling me that the reason's Peach lose is because they play aggressive and commit to unsafe actions, but what do you against a Meta Knight that plays patiently? You cannot spend the whole game turtling when you literally die to two combos. You are going to eventually make a mistake, the difference is that Meta Knight can afford to make them and you have very few tools to pressure the enemy Meta Knight into making errors.
I even spoke to Sam about this and he said he was losing his patients and boring, and went in with common Peach stuff. Thats a player problem, not a character problem. You know the character you play and what they are about. If you refuse to do what you wanna do to get the win, you can say match up is such and such when you refuse to do what you have to. Which is be hella patient. This is the same reason Dabuz is the only Rosalina that hits top 8 at big events. The others don't really wanna wait alot and play optimal. That's why they don't join Dabuz in top 8. If you dont wanna do what you have to do, don't play the character, simple as that.
Samsora played the match up poorly, but that does not mean the match up is not atrocious. Anectdotal claims really.
I respect that you think Peach's meta is not particularly strong, but you misunderstand the strengths and goals of Meta Knight in this match up while overestimating Peach's ability to handle it.
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