Eden's Roy: Hidden Threat

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Every few days or so, I like to go on YouTube, search for "smash 4 roy," and filter by upload date so that I can find the most recent uploads and continue to have resources to study from.

Recently, a player named Eden has shown powerful use of Roy, and they demonstrated a lot of great fundamental use of Roy's tools. I'll link their sets below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr5BWZQKQhM (Roy vs. DJ Jack's Ryu)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGT33Lyp_bY (Roy vs. Leo's Little Mac)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLWMjx1fqvM (Roy vs. Shawdy's Link)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdDgm6bZeYo (Roy vs. Shadels's DK)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-A4PwYZsto (Roy vs. Purple Guy's Zelda)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6EsV3gwjuQ (Roy vs. Coffee's Greninja)

They got pretty far into bracket, and I'm pretty impressed by their play. From movement and technical options, to poking and prodding to condition an opponent, to good recovery mixups, to overall powerful character and matchup knowledge, I definitely feel that a lot can be learned and implemented from this gameplay for us Roy players.

 

[Fledge]

Neat, these are some good matches! I think those were OoS jump-canceled Blazers in the last half of the Little Mac match, haven't seen many Roy's use that option (I only just started incorporating it into my play, don't have it committed to muscle memory yet). I really like the subtle ways Eden incorporates falling up-airs throughout his matches, like his reverse-face aerial approaches using up-airs backside. His fast pressuring approaches, extended dash dances and overall movement kinda reminds me of StaticManny (I think he changed his name to All Might now?) and Neo.

One thing I didn't notice in Eden's matches, and realized I haven't seen very often in Roy matches, are kara smashes (or S-Smashes, or Dash Smashes, or whatever people call it ). In high pressuring situations I sometimes like to run right alongside into and past tech rolls, confusing opponents sense of positioning, sometimes baiting getup attacks, and then kara smashing immediately from behind. It can also make for a good punish on nearby whiffed attacks with lag, or as a retreat turnaround punish to an opponent's whiffed aerial with landing lag, or just as a general mixup to apply shield pressure. It can get readable/punishable after awhile, but it feels really satisfying to land it.