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Guide A Link Between Duels : SSB4 Zelda Matchup Thread: [Upd2] Diddy Kong

Uncertain Title

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Flare travels much faster than fire and always hits at maximum power, though the explosion
is smaller and it only goes straight (which is totally fine since Sheik does not spend much time in the air).
Not saying it will be used a lot on an aggressive Sheik, but taking piercing means that Sheik HAS to be on the
offensive lest she risk flare bombardment. This is good for Zelda, since it means she doesn't have to approach herself.

It's like Ivysaur's Bullet Seed: you probably won't use it much nor will it be likely to land unless
your opponent keeps putting themselves in the wrong position, but the mere fact that it's there discourages
certain options since it really hurts when it lands. Sheik can't sit still when taking piercing against flare.
Gotcha. I kept thinking you were going to spam like Brawl my bad :p
is this a re-ignition of discussion? or should we just move on to the next matchup? there have been quite a few post recently...
All up to you. I'm good on my end, I think I've covered all I can think of. Anybody have anything they want to add or ask?
 

JigglyZelda003

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last minute replies can fall in but for now we're going to be moving on to Ganon. I feel Ganon is evenish as a whole because this is another matchup all dependant on reads. Ganon kills us in 5 hits but as long as he doesn't make those 5 good reads were winning. Anybody willing to go invite the ganons and not fear getting captured lol?
 

Zylach

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I actually feel like the Ganon MU is in our favor. Yeah, he kills us earlier than we kill him but we have a better combo game than Ganon does which all starts when we grab him or punish one of his many laggy moves. Dthrow-->nair-->Lkick is a lot easier to land at low percents on Ganon because he's heavy, has poor aerial mobility, and has a huge hurtbox. That alone gets us over 30% on him. We outrange him and have the disjoints necessary to stay safe while spacing which he doesn't. Furthermore, this is a MU where we are actually more mobile than our adversary! But, that's not all: Ganon is one of the easiest characters to gimp in the game. Get him offstage and there's a good chance he'll be dead right there and then. Meanwhile, he has a very difficult time gimping us as we only have a frame of vulnerability when we snap to the ledge. That's the entire time we should ever be vulnerable while recovering since we technically don't even exist while doing it.

Things we should be worried about: We will die ridiculously early if Ganon gets a good read on us. Beware of ledge trumps as well because Ganon is rewarded heavily for trumping-->bair. Also beware of flame choke as its his most dangerous mobility move. Warlock kick is easy to just shield and punish as is his dash attack but flame choke is a command grab that'll go through shield and probably rack up a good deal of damage provided we don't tech it (The fact that this is tech-able now makes this MU even easier imo). Also beware of following up on attacks/throws at mid-high percents as Ganon can and will warlock kick if he's up in the air and suspects that you'll be following up with an aerial. It will kill us very early.

Yes, customs Ganon is better than default Ganon but I've faced customs Ganon and it's not much more difficult than default especially because we get flare and strike as well which vastly help our spacing game in this MU in particular. Squall is also fun for gimping Ganon though not a better pick than default wind.

:4zelda:60:40:4ganondorf:
 

Uncertain Title

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Yeah I feel like this MU is in Zelda's favor. Zelda can keep good spacing due to her range and Ganon's slow movement. Her Nayru's trumps his Side B, which all the Ganon's I face use to combo into his DTilt(which can kill at high percentage) or another Side B if they get the read.(had a friend who was really good at reads. Grabbed me eight times with his Side B )
However, Zelda cannot be overly aggresive; whiffing and getting hit by Ganon is about the same as getting hit by a Semi. There's been quite a few times where I've under-estimated the super armor duration on his Warlock Punch...not fun :teeth:
Despite the danger with Ganon's power behind his hits, I still feel that Zelda does well against Ganon. I'd agree with Zylach. 60:40 in Zelda's favor.
 
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Seki_

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Okay, sat down with a friend of mine who has a pretty solid Ganondorf and played some matches with him. After doing so I think this is in Ganon's favor. First thing to note, he will always be in control of the stage. He has several lasting hitboxes and fantastic mobility, and while warlock kick and flame choke are punishable we have to be extremely quick. I fact if he uses kick close enough to us there's actually nothing that punishes him. Another thing I learned very quickly is that being in the air against Ganon is total suicide, due to his monstrously strong and large aerials. This eliminates several of our zoning options (sh dair, fair, and bair) as well as much of our gimping potential aside from the always pitiful Din's Fire. More things to note are that Zelda's good rage is useless when Ganon is not only so heavy but by the time we get in a position to use one of our strong kill moves we should already be dead. Flame Choke is a command grab so that beats our dash attack and dash grab. You have to be extremely careful what moves you use. One misplaced move and you're going to take at least 30%, if not die.

That all said, Zelda has her options. While Ganon is a very heavy character, we can use that to our own advantage. I found that Ganon will get hit by down throw > nair >nair twice in the same stock, due to his weight and size. After that, down throw> upair works fantastically to get him above us, at which point we finally have a chance of doing some work to him by either catching his fall with an upair or by catching his landing with a grab or downtilt follow up. Stage choice is very important, and I feel like this is one of the MUs where Zelda can actually use platforms to her advantage. Notably I found the shifting of Skyloft and Delfino to give us much needed room to breathe, and the low ceiling of Town and City to open up those oh-so-wonderful Mid% televators.

Overall I think Zelda has to play extremely smartly in this matchup. Usually Ganon is all about the hard reads, but between our laggy moves and air game that gets beaten by him, he can use some of his reliable options and do quite well.

:4ganondorf:60:40:4zelda:
 

Zylach

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Okay, sat down with a friend of mine who has a pretty solid Ganondorf and played some matches with him. After doing so I think this is in Ganon's favor. First thing to note, he will always be in control of the stage. He has several lasting hitboxes and fantastic mobility, and while warlock kick and flame choke are punishable we have to be extremely quick. I fact if he uses kick close enough to us there's actually nothing that punishes him. Another thing I learned very quickly is that being in the air against Ganon is total suicide, due to his monstrously strong and large aerials. This eliminates several of our zoning options (sh dair, fair, and bair) as well as much of our gimping potential aside from the always pitiful Din's Fire. More things to note are that Zelda's good rage is useless when Ganon is not only so heavy but by the time we get in a position to use one of our strong kill moves we should already be dead. Flame Choke is a command grab so that beats our dash attack and dash grab. You have to be extremely careful what moves you use. One misplaced move and you're going to take at least 30%, if not die.

That all said, Zelda has her options. While Ganon is a very heavy character, we can use that to our own advantage. I found that Ganon will get hit by down throw > nair >nair twice in the same stock, due to his weight and size. After that, down throw> upair works fantastically to get him above us, at which point we finally have a chance of doing some work to him by either catching his fall with an upair or by catching his landing with a grab or downtilt follow up. Stage choice is very important, and I feel like this is one of the MUs where Zelda can actually use platforms to her advantage. Notably I found the shifting of Skyloft and Delfino to give us much needed room to breathe, and the low ceiling of Town and City to open up those oh-so-wonderful Mid% televators.

Overall I think Zelda has to play extremely smartly in this matchup. Usually Ganon is all about the hard reads, but between our laggy moves and air game that gets beaten by him, he can use some of his reliable options and do quite well.

:4ganondorf:60:40:4zelda:
I agree that Zelda has to be on the ground during most of this MU as Ganon's aerial game is good, notably his uair and his nair which have decent range (though no disjoints like our nair). Beyond those, his aerial game doesn't threaten us much. If he's above us, all we have to worry about is wizkick to be honest because ganon's dair won't save him while we're trying to string aerials together against him. My questions are, though, spacing with fair/bair? We have so much endlag on these moves that spacing with them is not a good idea in the first place. Our only decent aerial spacing tool is nair with dair as a mixup imo since it has to be sweetspotted to do anything. Moreover, our dash attack should beat flame choke since attacks beat grabs. Besides, as stated earlier, Nayru's beats flame choke anyway. Dash attack isn't a great option in this MU since it's not a very safe approaching tool (It's not really used as any other tool except maybe a followup to dtilt or as a land trap). Also, Ganon should not be using wizkick really close to us in the first place unless he uses it as a land trap in which case we're probably getting hit by it in the first place (Since it's a travelling hitbox, an airdodge won't save you unless it's timed absolutely perfectly). My final question is, what lasting hitboxes does Ganon have? The only one that lasts for any kind of long period of time is probably fmsash which really isn't that long. Technically Wizkick counts as well since it's a travelling hitbox though you only have to shield it once and then you're safe. I think his dair and fair might count though Ganon's rarely use these moves besides dair offstage, never onstage. To my knowledge, Ganon has no multihit moves.
 

Uncertain Title

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Also, Ganon should not be using wizkick really close to us in the first place unless he uses it as a land trap in which case we're probably getting hit by it in the first place (Since it's a travelling hitbox, an airdodge won't save you unless it's timed absolutely perfectly)
.

Like you said, he won't be using wizkick a whole lot. However, Nayru's won't be able to beat it if he does use it, so you have to be careful about throwing it out; use it too much and you'll get baited and punished(and he won't have to wait for Nayru's to be done to punish with it, either.)
 

BJN39

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I'll get the Ganons, I don't fear capture. #Farore'sWindIsBroke why don't she use it in mainstream LoZ games? :troll: She could just escape, or something right? At least SOMETIMES.

While we now have 2 projectiles and DAir and things, he can move faster overall while retaining his KB stats and better hit-boxes. Good and bad changes from Brawl pre much. Doesn't seem worse or better overall to me atm.
 

the king of murder

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I saw this thread by accident lmao I say this MU is even. Not a fan of long explanations so I will keep myself short.

Ganon gets huge reward out of his hits(we can have some silly strings especially at low percent) which means Zelda has to respect our range and power especially Dash Attack which forces you to shield(it can be a combo starter) and can be baited and Side-B and our aerials are quick and powerful and the fact that Zelda doesn't have anything safe to threaten Ganon with except well spaced aerial shield pokes. Zelda is light so she will die early. Good Ganon's will never use side-b for approaching btw.

Ganon on the other hand has to respect Zeldas's disjoints, her decent reward out of grab at lower percent and the fact that she just cannot be gimped makes it certanly frustrating. She certanly outranges Ganon which means she wins the spacing war.

It's basiacally who outreads who. Also quick note we don't need hard reads to get our hits in. Soft reads already suffice because we get huge amount of reward out of a single hit.

Furthermore, this is a MU where we are actually more mobile than our adversary! But, that's not all: Ganon is one of the easiest characters to gimp in the game. Get him offstage and there's a good chance he'll be dead right there and then. Meanwhile, he has a very difficult time gimping us as we only have a frame of vulnerability when we snap to the ledge. That's the entire time we should ever be vulnerable while recovering since we technically don't even exist while doing it.
Hmm interesting. What tools do you have to gimp us? Everyone seems to believe Ganon can be easily gimped, and to be honest with good DI I have never ever been gimped by a Zelda. You have Dair but we can have U-air which is very quick(frame 6). We can even bait you to Dair and force a ledge trump where we can Bair you which kills at ridiculous percent. Dins Fire? Easy to see coming. Walk off Fair might be legit if we don't see it coming but you have to be precise.

I agree that we won't be gimping Zelda anytime soon except ledge trumps. I am not sure, can Zelda ledge trump Bair too?

On the side-b teching, you can only tech it if you haven't shielded before. We can predict the tech too btw and act accordingly.

Btw keep in mind that if you mess up your edgeguard against us=dead Zelda. Ledge Trumps and Ganoncide people.

No experience on customs, might be in Zeldas favor but keep in mind that you cannot poke our shield freely or you will risk dying at like 60% from Dark Fist and WDK helps our recovery.
 
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A2ZOMG

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I think it's dead 50/50. Zelda's D-air can trade favorably with Ganon's recovery offstage or beat his UpB consistently. Ganon and Zelda mostly play the same game in this matchup. Wait for the other to make a mistake, and capitalize hard. Ganon has better aerials, Zelda has a better dashgrab. That's really most of what matters.

Customs on, the matchup is Ganon's favor due to Dark Fists and WDK improving Ganon's recovery.
 

BJN39

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I am not sure, can Zelda ledge trump Bair too?
Zelda can ledge trump BAir some characters, but I don't actually know for sure on whether Ganon is one of them, but I'd bet so. IDK how quick Ganon has to be to land his, but Zelda though, has to be on point to land a ledge trump BAir in most cases.
 
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meleebrawler

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What makes Zelda good at gimping isn't just dair, but the fact that she can go ridiculously deep
to hit him, and Ganon doesn't have the luxury of feinting back to avoid this. Obviously Wizard's
Dropkick fixes this issue and Dark Fists makes it more risky to hit him out of that.

However, while Dark Fists may be better than default in almost every way, it's not nearly
as game-changing against Zelda than against other characters. One of it's best uses
competitively is breaking juggles with it's armour, but Zelda is more of a bait juggler
and so is relatively unlikely to fall for it, as well as getting a big punish if she does bait it.
As for it's use as an OOS option, Farore's is comparable in that regard.

There are some downsides to Dropkick as well. It's weaker in general, as well as starting up slower
on the ground making it less reliable as an approach or punish tool. It might bypass a Phantom
but that's about it. More critically, it makes him less risky to juggle since it just isn't as threatening
as default. He can try to move away with it, but it definitely won't kill. He's only left with the more precise
Dark Fists if he takes that.
 
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S.F.L.R_9

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Zelda can ledge trump BAir some characters, but I don't actually know for sure on whether Ganon is one of them, but I'd bet so. IDK how quick Ganon has to be to land his, but Zelda though, has to be on point to land a ledge trump BAir in most cases.
I just tested it and yes, Ganon certainly is one of the victims of our ledge trump sweetspot bair :^)
 
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the king of murder

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I just tested it and yes, Ganon certainly is one of the victims of our ledge trump sweetspot bair :^)
That means Zelda ***** Ganon offstage if she is precise, fair enough. Doesn't suprise me because just about everything works on Ganon arrgh from chaingrabs to slingshots to fishing rods:mad: and of course some taunts.

I still think it's 50/50 for either considering how early we kill on stage and we can ledge trump bair too.
 
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Gay Ginger

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I think this match-up is more or less even.

I'd like to believe Zelda has a 60:40 advantage but I just can't see it.

Ganondorf has such a high damage output on moderate-quick moves, like his d-tilt and f-tilt. Both can KO at decent percents, and his f-tilt in particular is so strong for its speed (it's faster than our f-tilt) with good range and little lag.

We have a much better combo game, but Ganon can easily close the gap within a couple hits, and he can tech chase us to build damage. He's also much better in the air than we are. To make things a little frustrating: our f-smash fails against him more often than against other characters (for me at least) and that's particularly bad because when he can pump out damage so quickly, losing a chance to inflict 17% can mean losing the lead. F-smash is also our best way of out-ranging him and if it fails, that makes it more difficult to space effectively.

We can both KO each other incredibly early if we make mistakes or get hard reads, though I think Ganondorf does better in this department. Our weight works against us and making a mistake can lead to dying to an f-smash super early (if we attempt a SH LK and hit with the sourspot, he can get a free f-smash so we have to be really careful). Our KO moves are faster, but I think his are safer, particularly on shield.

Off-stage we definitely have the advantage but we have to be careful. If we're slightly off, he can grab us with his up-B and we could get stage spiked (similar to against Captain Falcon). If he dodges our d-air he can also stage spike with his b-air -- I've personally had this happen and lost a stock early. A reverse u-air can also send us too far away to recover safely if we've used one of our jumps if we're at higher percents. We also have to be cautious of ganoncides since he will win that trade. But if we're careful, a well-placed d-air will end him quickly; at higher percents, even a sourspot d-air will do the trick since his recovery is so poor.

Though ideally we will gimp him before he gets rage, Ganon is even scarier with rage than we are. His tilts become very quick KO moves, and his aerials also will hit extremely hard. I don't even want to think about his f-smash if we mess up or he gets a good read on us.

Overall this MU becomes a battle of punishing and reads. Ganon punishes harder and can pump out damage faster but we out-range him and have the better combo game. We both have to be careful when we're off-stage (not so much recovering for us but when we go off for the gimp) but we have the edge, while Ganon benefits more from rage. Whoever reads the opponent better will generally be scoring earlier KOs and taking the match.

:4zelda:50:50:4ganondorf:
 

the king of murder

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Yeah good summarization. Though you shouldn't worry about Ganon's up-b stage spiking, you can tech it and potentially follow up with like anything.
 
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Uncertain Title

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Out of curiosity, if it got to one stock for both of you, and Ganon Flame Choked you when offstage, would the game give the win to him?(Because I know Bowser can't win using his side B like this anymore if it would get rid of his last stock)
 

Gay Ginger

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Out of curiosity, if it got to one stock for both of you, and Ganon Flame Choked you when offstage, would the game give the win to him?(Because I know Bowser can't win using his side B like this anymore if it would get rid of his last stock)
Yes, Ganon would get the win, which is why it's critical that we be extra careful when attempting to edge guard him if we're both on the last stock.
 

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I totally forgot to write that, but most of the reason contesting Ganon offstage is suicide is Ganonciding. So if we're down a stock, we literally just have to let him come back to the stage until we get a hard enough read to kill him. And with how heavy Ganon is we have to sit in our shield and wait for a Farore's Wind opportunity. And uh, sitting in shield vs Ganon is just asking for something bad to go wrong very quickly. It's one of Ganon's few true strengths, that unless you have a falling projectile or a safe option (i.e bouncing fish) you cannot edge guard him.
 

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Ganondorf kidnaps Zelda immediately when the match begins 100:00 Ganon's favor

In all seriousness, while I don't have much experience with the matchup, I see this matchup as even. There's no way it's worse than a 55:45 either way, customs or not. Ganon can't space out Zelda near as well as other characters, her disadvantage state is a bit better than most, and while Zelda isn't amazingly adept at killing, she's better than a lot of the cast at killing Ganon (side note; Zelda's tech rolls are ridiculous I mean why even is a princess so good at rolling when she's wearing a dress). With that said, she's fairly light and will die very early against Ganon, her actual aerials (except U-air) can't compare to Ganon's, and she's a bit on the slow side.

However, while Ganon with customs is always better than without, Ganon doesn't get anything that specifically helps against Zelda, so I wouldn't say customs change the matchup.

Overall, neither of these characters have anything over the other that they don't have against any other character. They don't have anything that the other character hates to deal with. 50:50

The usual rules for fighting the Ganon Cannon apply: be cautious, avoid predictability, and keep him out as best you can.
 
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Fernosaur

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Hmm interesting. What tools do you have to gimp us? Everyone seems to believe Ganon can be easily gimped, and to be honest with good DI I have never ever been gimped by a Zelda.
Most Zeldas don't really use it because it's a somewhat obscure part of her meta thanks to Dair being one of the game's best meteors, but her nair off-stage can actually be a pretty great gimping tool if used right. If Zelda is moving away from the stage, the last hit will send characters away with enough knockback to put them really far away to recover (in Ganon's case). Another very important thing about nair is that it's a multithit move and it's somewhat disjointed, so it can catch you even if you airdodge, and the last hit (which is the most important) is surprisingly big too.
 

Zylach

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I saw this thread by accident lmao I say this MU is even. Not a fan of long explanations so I will keep myself short.

Ganon gets huge reward out of his hits(we can have some silly strings especially at low percent) which means Zelda has to respect our range and power especially Dash Attack which forces you to shield(it can be a combo starter) and can be baited and Side-B and our aerials are quick and powerful and the fact that Zelda doesn't have anything safe to threaten Ganon with except well spaced aerial shield pokes. Zelda is light so she will die early. Good Ganon's will never use side-b for approaching btw.

Ganon on the other hand has to respect Zeldas's disjoints, her decent reward out of grab at lower percent and the fact that she just cannot be gimped makes it certanly frustrating. She certanly outranges Ganon which means she wins the spacing war.

It's basiacally who outreads who. Also quick note we don't need hard reads to get our hits in. Soft reads already suffice because we get huge amount of reward out of a single hit.



Hmm interesting. What tools do you have to gimp us? Everyone seems to believe Ganon can be easily gimped, and to be honest with good DI I have never ever been gimped by a Zelda. You have Dair but we can have U-air which is very quick(frame 6). We can even bait you to Dair and force a ledge trump where we can Bair you which kills at ridiculous percent. Dins Fire? Easy to see coming. Walk off Fair might be legit if we don't see it coming but you have to be precise.

I agree that we won't be gimping Zelda anytime soon except ledge trumps. I am not sure, can Zelda ledge trump Bair too?

On the side-b teching, you can only tech it if you haven't shielded before. We can predict the tech too btw and act accordingly.

Btw keep in mind that if you mess up your edgeguard against us=dead Zelda. Ledge Trumps and Ganoncide people.

No experience on customs, might be in Zeldas favor but keep in mind that you cannot poke our shield freely or you will risk dying at like 60% from Dark Fist and WDK helps our recovery.
Basically, Zelda can go balls deep offstage for kills and Ganon doesn't want to be challenged far off the stage since his horizontal recovery is pretty bad. Even if she has to force Ganon to use an attack or airdodge in order to avoid our attack, we've already killed him because those two options will put him too low to recover effectively. Since Ganon has a hard time recovering low from such a low point (when he's not directly under the stage that is), a nair offstage can often put him too far out for him to recover which is multihit so it should generally cover airdodges even when the airdodge should be enough to end Ganon's stock anyway. Also, even a sourspotted dair on Ganon can put him too low to recover. There are two dangers in doing this: one is that ganoncide is a thing and, if Ganon can end both of our stocks when he's going to lose his anyway, he will do it. Second is that Ganon's up-B does a great job at catching would-be gimpers effectively giving him another free up-B while getting the opponent off of his face while he gets back on stage. Despite these two difficulties, I still feel that Zelda can effectively gimp Ganon.
 

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I'll go on and say this: Zelda has a good zoning game against Ganon, being able to attack with quick moves that have combo potential, but the damage from one of Ganondorf's attacks is basically two or three of Zelda's (disregarding sweetspot bair/fair). Zelda also has a great offstage game, and Ganon has a bad recovery.

However, Ganondorf has a decent juggling game as well. In addition, his up air beats Zelda's down air, which mitigates some off-stage risks as well as some on-stage combo starters. Zelda's Nayru's Love also seems to neuter Ganondorf's Flame Choke, though it's still one of the best moves in Ganon's arsenal, since he has the ability to reset the situation as well as deliver some solid hits through reads.

I can't really tell whether no customs is 50-50, or 45-55 in either favor. The matchup can be quite aggravating.

WDK is a fairly good move to mitigate Ganon's lack of horizontal reach, but default Wizkick is a powerful move all by itself, and is a powerful kill option. Similarly, Dark Fists is probably the best recovery move, as the super armor can cut through Zelda's down air or even work as a Out of Shield option and kill.

Sword neutral B usage is only to use in a niche situation, but does has its usages in handling stage control. The super armor can be quite punishing.

With customs, I feel Ganon has an advantage around 6-4 (55-45 at worst)
 

meleebrawler

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I'll go on and say this: Zelda has a good zoning game against Ganon, being able to attack with quick moves that have combo potential, but the damage from one of Ganondorf's attacks is basically two or three of Zelda's (disregarding sweetspot bair/fair). Zelda also has a great offstage game, and Ganon has a bad recovery.

However, Ganondorf has a decent juggling game as well. In addition, his up air beats Zelda's down air, which mitigates some off-stage risks as well as some on-stage combo starters. Zelda's Nayru's Love also seems to neuter Ganondorf's Flame Choke, though it's still one of the best moves in Ganon's arsenal, since he has the ability to reset the situation as well as deliver some solid hits through reads.

I can't really tell whether no customs is 50-50, or 45-55 in either favor. The matchup can be quite aggravating.

WDK is a fairly good move to mitigate Ganon's lack of horizontal reach, but default Wizkick is a powerful move all by itself, and is a powerful kill option. Similarly, Dark Fists is probably the best recovery move, as the super armor can cut through Zelda's down air or even work as a Out of Shield option and kill.

Sword neutral B usage is only to use in a niche situation, but does has its usages in handling stage control. The super armor can be quite punishing.

With customs, I feel Ganon has an advantage around 6-4 (55-45 at worst)
It's true that Zelda can't really contest a juggling Ganon, but if she gets even a bit of breathing room she can teleport away,
which he can't really punish unless he really anticipates that you'll use it and where you'll go since he's very slow.

Dark Fists having armour doesn't mean a thing when recovering if Zelda attacks Ganon before he can
even get close enough to the stage, unless he also has Wizard's Dropkick, but then he becomes easier to juggle
and react to in neutral (slower to start on the ground and weaker, so expect more Flame Chokes).
 

adom4

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Just want to add that Zelda has an amazing tech roll, Dorf has a very hard time punishing after a choke if Zelda techs because she goes so far.
 

Meru.

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Just want to add that Zelda has an amazing tech roll, Dorf has a very hard time punishing after a choke if Zelda techs because she goes so far.
I just wanted to say this. I'm surprised nobody had mentioned this yet. I suck at technig his choke but when I do tech, I'm pretty much freed.

Anyway I agree with 50:50 because of everything GingerGaymer said. I like how Lightning Kicks become a somewhat OoS tool because Ganon is fat and has plently of lag.
 

JigglyZelda003

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oos bair is always a thing unless its somewhat short characters like Kirby or lagless people like sheik. And I'm glad I'm not the only one seeing Ganon pop out of Fsmash...
 

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When Zelda loses some momentum, it ALL goes. She requires momentum (hit after hit and controlling the stage) to do anything worth while. All she has to do is keep him off the stage to stop him from ever stealing her momentum.

Ganondorf is about hitting once or twice, and then being satisfied. If he has control of the stage, Zelda is just 2-5 hits away from being KO'd and kidnapped. Zelda can't really harass Ganondorf with her projectiles because 1) the end lag 2) they lock her down in place 3) shielding is a thing.

In the end it is very read dependent. It's 50:50 since it all matters on who is currently controlling the stage. Zelda has more options to control the stage, sure, but they all have end lag. Ganondorf just needs to get a Flame Choke on you, predict the tech, and smash your face in. He can also stuff any of our approaches unless we successfully trick him while approaching.
 

S.F.L.R_9

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I've also noticed Ganondorf fall out of fsmash more often than most characters. Earlier today I was playing a Ganon on FG and he fell out of my fsmash three times
 
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For this matchup, I will say it's 50:50. Having practiced this matchup heavily, I believe it's all dependent on momentum. If Ganon is able to close the gap, he can rack up serious damage and potentially KO; Side-B tech chase is especially dangerous. It's very dangerous to approach him offstage as well, because if you come at him horizontally that's a Ganoncide, vertically that could be Up-B, F-air, U-air, N-air, even Down-B and Down-air if you end up on him or below. Zelda's aerial game is basically gone, because of high end lag on all aerials (the lowest being 21 frames, I believe).

The only way a Zelda can approach Ganon is to not approach. In order to be successful with Zelda, heavy spacing is required. That means use jab's disjoints and knockback to punish bad approaches, string Up-tilts at EARLY percents to rack up damage (DO NOT try to string at higher percents, because this will mean a D-air with the strongest meteor in the game and transcendent priority is coming straight to your head), Down-tilt at mid percents to lightning kick, Naryu's love to punish roll approaches, Elevator Oos is also very effective. Din's fire should only be used when Ganon is offstage since it's so risky in the neutral. Another quick "combo" mix up you can use at higher percents, jab to Farore's wind. (Only works if they don't tech.)

If Ganon has you offstage be very careful about predictable recoveries, try to recover where Ganon can't; it's less likely he'll kill himself to get an unconfirmed edge guard on you, unless he's up on stocks. Utilize love jumps when you can, in order to mix up recoveries and to possibly stage an offense on him. Recovering with Farore's onstage is extremely risky because of the lovely endlag. Also remember, Ganon is only very slightly slower than Zelda, so don't think you can run circles around him all day.

Overall, it's all about stage control and spacing. You HAVE to respect the damage he can dish out, but you CANNOT be afraid to attack and punish. Make him respect your damage output by landing combo after combo, punish after punish. Never yield to his approaches, keep your distance, stand your ground. Giving him stage control gives him the match.

This is my very first post, so I'm sorry if it's a jumbled mess of words and stuff. :^)
 

BJN39

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ganon discussion can continue for today and we'll free discuss from tomorrow till next week in honor of Mewtwo
Oh yeah, the score for Sheik was 35:65. I don't believe I got it to you yet.

Also, at this point I think the Ganon MU will end up as 5:5. Just about everyone voted for that number lol.
 
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