Match-Up : Vs Little Mac

[~Rainbow Mika]

So.. i just got massacred by a mac, but not your typical FG "IM GOING TO DASH ATAK U AN GIB U SUM JABZ or SIDEB LOLZ IM DET", a GOOD Mac player, and those are fearsome IMO.
I'm going to post some notes if you encounter some of those macs:

1. At the start of the match, if he doesn't do the dash attack, then he will start spacing with rolls or waiting for you to attack, don't go for eggs since he can easily just shield them.
2. Those rapid punches... OH GOD I HATE THEM, easy rack-up damage and hard to escape, if you're caught in this, try your best to double jump outta them, note this only works if you're below 10%
3. Most people say "wait on the ledge, grab him and throw him away", well.. this is hard, Good Macs keeps himself on the center waiting, they just go if you make a mistake (like failing a grab or a pound), also, Yoshi's grab power is awful and his grab has high startup, so either you eat a ftilt or a smash.
4. Eggs... i try them, most the time fail, since mac is fast, he can dash attack you when you're on the throw animation, you need to have a good read if you want them to work.
5. Don't go too much for aerials, since mac has that ******** armor in his smashes, you will just fly away, best thing is to shield his smash and punish (watch your shield color)
6. If you're going for a follow up (like dash attack or uair) he will either counter it or air dodge, so calm down yourself and look first what he do before going agressive.
7. Full Agressiveness doens't work here, since mac can destroy you with his amazing ground game, so, is better to keep an eye on his current game style and go for punishes
8. Don't attack him if he fails a dash attack if you're on the ground, since he either rapid jabs or ftilt you, wait.
9. The best way to kill this guy is to use nair when he tries to recovery, since he's just bad in that area, but you first need to notice how far he was launched, and watch him go to his death without doing anything.
10. Launching him is kinda hard, his rolls are amazing, his smashes just eats yours and he's fast, dtilt works well and nair is risky, but it also works, dash attack looks like the best answer, but is really hard to hit him with this.
11. The most hard part here imo is trying to recover, Mac Dsmash kills you if you try to go for the ledge and if you try to take height, he charges his b-special and you're toast, the best thing you can do is try your best for gaining height and look out for him while you are on the air, Usmash will be your last thing you will see if you make a mistake (like trying egg throw near the ground or air-dodging).
12. About his K.O Punch, a smart player will try to kill you on the first stock and later try to use it (mac can make percent easy, so is not that hard to use it), so how to deal with it? most will go with bair, but no, don't try it, also dont spam rolls, yoshi's rolls are bad, so, you're dead if you start doing them, best thing i think, is to caught him off guard and go with nair or egg lay.

Finally, i can say, be careful, yep this make the match really boring or annoying (since will be just dodging or escaping), but this is the best thing you can do against him, since he is just better than you on the floor and can kill you very easy.
And don't rage, yeah he is kinda stupid with his attacks, but it will be more stupid to rage and just go full offense.
If someone has notes against the good macs, please post them, it would help a LOT (myself included).
Thanks

 

[RoZu]

I have a question, when you egg toss did you mean grounded-egg tosses? Or short hop egg tosses?

 

[~Rainbow Mika]

ground tosses.
SHEggs should work better.

 

[RoZu]

Yes i think that would work better too.
Also, when you start the battle, if he can shield the eggs that shouldn't be a problem, you're still generating a good pressure on him
When you approach Lil' Mac I would say dash attack is a powerful option, but how about dodge-canceled-nair? (With that i mean Short-hop+Air-Dodge into a Nair (cancelling the airdodge lag on grounding)

 

[Maple42]

Throwing eggs is a mistake while you're on the ground; Little Mac can easily make up the distance and punish the small amount of lag.
I find the custom move Egg Launch greatly beneficial; in a sense, you're not even playing the same game as them anymore. One correct placement of this move is a free gimp at any percentage due to his lack of vertical recovery. I find it akin to Melee's Space Animal Slayer technique in that it turns the entire match into spacing - the penalty of the Little Mac player to not realize this is a quick defeat.

Essentially, the rest is basic fundamentals. Bait for counters; you have complete control while he's in the air, so he'll feel pressured and use the move predictably. Watch for autopilots, such as a dash attack or side special when you're far away (and promptly shield and punish them).

 

[RoZu]

Now the million dollars question is how to get them in the air? Well i think a roll-predicted Dair can be the perfect punish for a little mac, specially because the fast rollers will try to reach your back by rolling, if you can predict that situation the game is yours... If they play with a defense boost you can pressure with SHeggs and b-reversals. Zone as much as you can

 

[~Rainbow Mika]

Trying Dair against mac works well specially when he's trying a smash, the main problem is landing it, obviously you don't need to be dair happy, but still a whiffed one leaves you awfully vunerable to his brute force .
Also, since mac has 2 usmashes (regular & up-angled fsmash) is somewhat dangerous to do it (sad since is Yoshi's best rack-up damage move).
And you're pointing my main problem against him, leaving him on the air, like i said, a good one will either go for dodges or counter (this one when you try to follow up). The only way to do it (at least with my experience) is grab>pummel>release>jab>dash attack at low percents (on high he can act out of stunt and attack you when you're going for dash).

And i would mention that egg lay works very well on the ledge, so is a good answer when you want to kill him (make sure he got some damage first) or your answer to make damage (when he tries to escape,he will do a upb or dodge, so you got it).

 

[RoZu]

And how about the aereal dodge approach? :O

 

[Sinister Slush]

Apparently if you're stuck in Little Mac's jab, you can Nair him. So just spam that move till it hits, better to hit little mac back for the damage he gave you over trying to very likely not get out of it and take the whole thing trying to DJ away.

 

[Woods]

Apparently if you're stuck in Little Mac's jab, you can Nair him. So just spam that move till it hits, better to hit little mac back for the damage he gave you over trying to very likely not get out of it and take the whole thing trying to DJ away.

How many times has that worked? I usually just try to double jump out of it.

 

[Sinister Slush]

There's not many Yoshi videos out there of tournament sets or serious online friendlies or whatever. Even Japanese, the supposed land where For Glory is filled with Yoshi's while NA EU etc. is filled with Little Mac's, all we get is Yoshidora over there in terms of tournament sets.

Upon running into a random thread, I found a Yoshi do relatively well at one of Dallas's early tournaments, Loser's finals was that Yoshi vs bwett's Lil mac and it was a solid 3-0 in Yoshi's favor. Anyways the odds of how it worked for him just nairing LM's jab was 4/5 times.

To add onto the discussion, there was a question How do we get Little mac in the air? I believe. It's simple enough for most people that played brawl competitively for at least 1 year. If somebody is all about heavy/super armor or even counter, then you just egglay and grab them lol.

Dsmash seems to be good against Little Mac when he's recovering for the ledge or even getup.

 

[Dsull]

That video not only shows some really great yoshi moves but also shows why i hate facing macs, even if i can beat them. One punch turn the tides so hard until the yoshi player could land a neutral b and get his combo going again.

 

[CelestialMarauder~]

Getting this out of the way first, I think we win, but when looking at both characters on paper I feel like little mac should win. Like in theory we can't land against him, we can't approach him, and his ground game destroys ours. In practice it doesn't work out like that because we have a lot of mixup potential in all of the areas we lose in, but little mac has a flow chart. A very bad flowchart.


How to get little mac in the air, Uptilt, dash attack, sh eggs, egglay and grab. Those are the ones least likely to get you hard punished, and will almost always be highly rewarding.

How to keep little mac in the air to juggle him, same options as above just add on upsmash upair grounded eggs and eggroll. Pretty much just pick the one you think will actually land a hit. Add in bair fair(non spike) and dsmash if you want to set up some kind of offstage gimp.

I dont think dair has much of a place in this matchup because of how low to the ground he dashes. Its the same reason i'd avoid it against sheik, except little mac punishes you a lot harder than sheik would for wiffing a dair.

Approach with eggs, grabs, dash attack egglays, spaced fairs, but im this matchup isn't so much about what you approach with, its just conditioning him into respecting that he can't punish all your approaches the same way. Like you have to make him know that he can't just shield everything because you have egglay and a pretty high range dash grab, he can't just spot dodge because of things like dash attack and bair, he can't just wait out your options and try to punish because of the versatility of eggs etc etc. Like he can stuff literally any of our approaches, but let him know that he can't auto pilot we have an answer to his options.

Someone said it but keep him offstage with nair and that is honestly a pretty good option. Other offstage options are eggs bair and fair. I don't usually just go for the nair because of my playstyle so idk if it actually works better but feel like it might. I wouldn't dair him unless he's trying to recover "low" (little mac can recover low, its just not that low and really risky. Imo it looks like a last resort thing that they would rather not have to do but know its there.) There's also benefit to just waiting onstage and trying to dsmash him or something but jumping at him is better. It makes him have to decide immediately and limits his options at the same time.


Last thing thing is about eggroll though, and I could be wrong. I dont think his counter is fast enough to hit us if we catch him landing. And counter is just laggy enough for us to just turn around and pop him up again. If thats true that makes it safer to use than dash attack on little mac while he's landing since counter is little macs best landing mixup.

 

[chipndip]

A good Lil Mac vs. an evenly skilled Yoshi is a total toss-up. Yoshi has ways to get Lil Mac off the ground very easily (as easy as a single f-tilt), but Lil Mac can punish Egg Throws, Yoshi Bombs, landing lag...just about anything Yoshi would want to do. To boot, Yoshi's roll is still slow as molasses, and jumping OoS isn't exactly safe either. You could dash away, but you could get hit by his dash attack. Lil Mac's options on the ground are fast, strong, and plentiful, so the best way to win it is to play reactionary until he's in the air, then go hyper-offense. I normally say "short hop and throw eggs", but this time, NO. If he dash attacks, jab him and see how much pressure you can get off it. If he smash attacks, block and counter that too. If he f-tilts...ok there isn't much countering, but block it. In this match-up, we gotta block. Block a lot. There should be millions of egg shell scraps on the floor by the time the match is done. Once you pop him in the air with something, then get extremely aggressive until he either falls or gets stabilized on the ground again. Then it's back to reactionary play.

 

[~Rainbow Mika]

I've been experimenting with grab release with Yoshi, after pummeling, mac is released very close to Yoshi, so i go for jabs, but i think a ground bomb also is useful, i tried it and it worked at least with another mac i fought.
I don't know if this really works, but i can't test it since i never come against Macs (as weird as it sounds).

 

[EdreesesPieces]

First thing I'm doing when Wii U is out is trying to see if I can smash DI out of his jabs to a nair punish.

 

[BoldFish]

Does anyone know if Dair beats little macs Up-B?

Don't see why it wouldn't, don't think it's armored or anything o:

Is his Up-B disjointed? If so, it might go through down air.

 

[Nikes]

Don't see why it wouldn't, don't think it's armored or anything o:

 

[superyoshi64]

yesterday i fought a little mac i crushed the guy. but im pretty sure he was a noob considering he had tried 5 other characters first and on only lost agensit the first character ( ness ) because i messed up edge egg tossing (that's what that's called right)

any ways i think i managed to chain grab him (unless that,s the lvl 9 npc i was screwing with a week ago) since little mac has no air i think a down throw and a up smash would work very well
well hope this helps in anyway

 

[Warlockkobra]

When i play against Mac, I short hop egg throw most of the time. I mix up the length of the throw. Sometimes i throw directly at him and sometimes i just throw slow ones between us to prevent him form just shield it and run at me. Its important to get him into the egg lay and from there combo him. As soon as you get him in the air and manage to read or space his movements it's getting really easy. Of course mac is really strong on stage but it's hard to punish Yoshi's landing due to all the variations he has.

 

[Tidycats29]

ive faced a few decent lil macs offline as of late
tbh most of yall have said what needs to be said

my 2 cents
egg lay is rly good
i rly never had a problem spamming eggs on them short hop ones are ur best friend
its not about always hitting is pressuring him with eggs
ive found pressuring him to egg lay when he approaches seems pretty easy even if he tries to fake u out and close egg to ur position makes him double think anyways or he will shield and u get the grab or egg lay

ground release pummel to 1 jab to yoshibomb usually breaks his shield since he releases so close to you u get the full yoshi bomb in from my experience give or take a few instances

 

[dahuterschuter]

Yeah, the first wave of Mac'ers has given way to the new age of people starting to more or less understand Mac is actually best played defensively, wanting you to approach and challenge their armor smashes. Best you can do is pester them with the unfortunately gimped egg toss and then do some grab goofery since they're so counter hungry they'll be slapping that out to every approach. And unfortunately you can't follow up grabs with anything for the same reason.

 

[Ssbm_Jag]

I labbed these for a friend. I don't play yoshi in this game. Just thought I'd share them with you all. These are the best ground OOS options Yoshi has against mac. I didn't test jump OOS nair or mac's other smashes, so just letting you all know. OOS nair would probably work where jab works, but if Mac buffers a d-tilt it might not hit. Little Mac's smashes have obscene amounts of shield pushback, be grateful for your tether grab I guess.

d-tilt near=drop shield and jab
d-tilt mid to max range=shield grab

f-tilt close range=grab or jab
f-tilt mid range=grab
max range=nothing you can do, little mac spaced too well.

F-smash close to mid range=shield grab (pushed too far for jab)
F-smash mid to max range=nothing

 

[Delta-cod]

I labbed these for a friend. I don't play yoshi in this game. Just thought I'd share them with you all. These are the best ground OOS options Yoshi has against mac. I didn't test jump OOS nair or mac's other smashes, so just letting you all know. OOS nair would probably work where jab works, but if Mac buffers a d-tilt it might not hit. Little Mac's smashes have obscene amounts of shield pushback, be grateful for your tether grab I guess.

d-tilt near=drop shield and jab
d-tilt mid to max range=shield grab

f-tilt close range=grab or jab
f-tilt mid range=grab
max range=nothing you can do, little mac spaced too well.

F-smash close to mid range=shield grab (pushed too far for jab)
F-smash mid to max range=nothing

Thank you for the info! This is great stuff to know.

 

[TheRedLemming]

Jabs into a Dashgrab is decent way to confirm a grab against Mac, if you pummel into grab release and mac goes for a shield instead of a jab punish, jab once and then do the bomb and you're likely to get a shield break on him (or any other character for that matter)

The best thing I've found to do against mac is do cat-mouse type games, if he has the KO punch and jabs you, land quickly, and jab back, he has to get the second jab to do it to us.
This video has what I mean.

Disregard the lack of tech ability and the massive amounts of rolling I did.

With most rapid jabs (Mac's included) if you SDI Up and Back, (or just up, not sure) you can Nair, if you spam it, you'll likely get two off instead of just one.

While we can "challenge" Mac on the ground, we obviously can't beat him.
The biggest tip I give myself when fighting him to think like him, and realize how to take advantage of what he can and can't do. Anything involving pop-ups, and capitalizing on what is DiRT or lack of PuRe.

If he whiff's anything there is pretty good chance of just going in. Knowing a little bit about his frame data can also help because if they're trying to charge a smash for whatever reason, you can get him out of it with certain attacks after some time, and I think for the most part this helps the MU against Mac.

 

[Delta-cod]

and capitalizing on what is DiRT or lack of PuRe

I tried but I couldn't figure it out -- what do these terms mean?

 

[TheRedLemming]

I tried but I couldn't figure it out -- what do these terms mean?

Fair.

Diminished Reaction Time: DiRT is how long it takes to react to something you didn't expect. When you think the opponent is going to act in one way and he acts in another, there is extra lag time in your mind while you re-adjust. In fact, sometimes you think "he's doing this, not that!" and you do your pre-planned response anyhow, or you adjust and mistime your new response.

Pure Reaction Time: (PuRe Time): This is how long it takes for you to react to something when your mind is clear. You wait for an action, you figure out what it is, and you respond. PuRe time for most people is pretty strong, surprisingly, provided you know how to respond to different situations (see tactics, below).

Amplified Reaction Time (ART): Your ART is how quickly you react to something that you expect. When you know something is going to happen, you have your course of action planned out ahead of time, and then what you expect happens. Your ART is much better than your PuRe Time, although just how much varies from person to person.

These are phrases and ideas that came from melee but of course have purpose here in Smash for Wii U/3DS

 

[Sinister Slush]

They're also phrases that're quite literally never used.
These're the first times I've seen those phrases and I've been lurking since 05.

 

[GSM_Dren]

I've also never heard of those phrases before but alas onto discussion. Can't believe I haven't added to this thread yet lol. Yoshi wins handily at +1 due to superior air mobility and having a decent ground game against mac. The important thing to note is to never play scared against LM. Super armor smashes are scary and along with his tilts and jabs quickly rack up percent if you carelessly play against him. His ground game is strong, but yoshi's can scrap with him in CQC and even better in the air.

Be wary of grounded egg toss because of his speed on the ground, I like to rely on SH ET my landing and bait out an action while double jumping away (really helpful against thirsty KO punches). Space him out with dtilt and jabs, and try to get him into the air whenever possible. His air game is laughable and he has a difficult time landing. If he likes to counter on his way down, anticipate it and then punish. Mix up your tempo as you want to control the pace of the match. Keep him on his toes and slow it down when you need to. His side-b recovery can get denied with fair or nair, and his up-b can be denied with dsmash/dtilt. Egg lay is definitely a move you should be covering your landings with. It stuffs approaches usually and gets you free damage. Use it to your advantage.

I only have two sets recorded against a little mac main here. I actually lost a set that wasn't recorded because of the stupid KO punch >_>.
Most recent set here! From 1:09:40 onwards is a highlight of what it means to keep the pressure on LM and covering his landings, also A+ finish lol.