Meta Knight Match-up Discussion | Sheik [Re-Discussed]

[Jamurai]

Sheik Matchup Re-Discussion

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Summary:

• Meta Knight's hardest matchup because of her oppressive neutral combined with reliable killing power
• She takes away MK's strengths by being nigh impossible to juggle and edgeguard
• Extremely safe spacing moves as well as the best projectile in the game make her very difficult to approach, and can make it hard for us to play our usual mid-range game
• Pressure her by staying in mid-range and being very patient. Her moves are very safe and this makes baiting more important than ever, as well as taking punish opportunities whenever you can

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Neutral playstyle:

Although Sheik has a hefty advantage in neutral thanks to her amazing safety, quickness and projectile game, our reward is even better than hers which is what makes this matchup doable. Mixing up as much as possible is paramount to MK's success because if Sheik figures out your game plan, she has the tools to shut it down. One needs multiple approaches to this matchup to keep Sheik constantly thinking and guessing what you will do next.

Mix up airtime with SH, FH and instant double jump to avoid needles and make it harder for her to read your jump and hit you with Fair or Fish. Dtilt is very useful for keeping her out when she tries to approach and get a grab, it is frame 3 ie. very fast so use this to stay toe-to-toe with her crazy frame data and speed. Fsmash is also decent for keeping her out, but is mainly for sealing kills; if she jumps behind and tries to grab she will still get hit by Fsmash.

If she is spamming SH Fair, don’t approach unless it’s very patterned and you’re confident you can powershield one and punish. Usmash is very risky in this MU because a lot of Sheik’s moves make her go low to the ground, making Usmash whiff completely. Try to recognise situations where you’re likely to get grabbed or something and eject, if in doubt try to return to neutral and start again... patience is key in this matchup (even more so than others).

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Our advantage:

Uair combos are hard on her and she has narrow % range. This is unfortunate but we have to work with what we've got. DA > Tornado is a great way to tag on damage early and get her to near Uair combo kill %. If you get a grab at 0%, go for Dthrow > Nair for easy % and a possible followup. Or, do Bthrow > DA3 (tipper) > Uair, followed by Nair (which takes her to Uair combo kill %). FF Bair is also possible after the Uair but she can hit us out of it with Nair or airdodge, or tech the landing, so don't rely on it, no matter how tempting it is.

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(L)edgeguarding:

Nair is a useful 2-frame ledge snap punish on her Vanish. Tornado also works, you can catch her and get back onstage if you mash properly. Other than this, Sheik is not worth edgeguarding for the most part, maintain stage control and punish her ledge options instead; her offstage game is hard to challenge.

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Her advantage:

With regards to her Dthrow 50/50, from 90-100% always jump to avoid Vanish; we have six jumps and a teleport so we should never succumb to her Vanish by airdodging. From 120%+ airdodge the Uair. Dair is a solid option when Sheik tries to use Dthrow Uair at kill %s, it is frame 4 which can catch them off guard. This is not the case on T&C because it works earlier on that stage thanks to the lower ceiling.

Utilt > FH Needles > Fish works on us so beware of that when on the ledge from like 90%+. Mix up ledge options constantly, using everything including drop-down DCape back on stage (but excluding ledge roll because she can easily grab that on reaction). Being on the ledge is very scary against Sheik because she has quick and very effective coverage options, if you get predictable she will ensure you never get back onstage except via the respawn platform.

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Fresh DA > Uairs > Up-B kill % (FD, no staling):

19-23% 3 Uairs to Up-B (100% rage) (DA1)

27% 4 Uairs to Up-B (DA3)
29-31% 4 Uairs to Up-B (DA1)
32-37% 3 Uairs to Up-B (DA1)

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Stages:

BAN: Castle Siege, Smashville
PICK: FD, T&C, Battlefield
C/PICK: Duck Hunt, Delfino

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Top-level sets:

MK Leo vs Vinnie @ True Combo Grand Finals - November 2015

Ito vs Void @ SSS 35 Winners Semis - January 2016

 

[Amadeus9]

I would argue that greninja is as hard as sheik but otherwise +++

 

[Rango the Mercenary]

Sheik Matchup Re-Discussion

40:60 ​

Summary:

• Meta Knight's hardest matchup because of her oppressive neutral combined with reliable killing power
• She takes away MK's strengths by being nigh impossible to juggle and edgeguard
• Extremely safe spacing moves as well as the best projectile in the game make her very difficult to approach, and can make it hard for us to play our usual mid-range game
• Pressure her by staying in mid-range and being very patient. Her moves are very safe and this makes baiting more important than ever, as well as taking punish opportunities whenever you can

Neutral playstyle:

Although Sheik has a hefty advantage in neutral thanks to her amazing safety, quickness and projectile game, our reward is even better than hers which is what makes this matchup doable. Mix up airtime with SH, FH and instant double jump to avoid needles and make it harder for her to read your jump and hit you with Fair or Fish. Dtilt is very useful for keeping her out when she tries to approach and get a grab, it is frame 3 ie. very fast so use this to stay toe-to-toe with her crazy frame data and speed. Fsmash is also decent for keeping her out, but is mainly for sealing kills; if she jumps behind and tries to grab she will still get hit by Fsmash.

If she is spamming SH Fair, don’t approach unless it’s very patterned and you’re confident you can powershield one and punish. Usmash is very risky in this MU because a lot of Sheik’s moves make her go low to the ground, making Usmash whiff completely. Try to recognise situations where you’re likely to get grabbed or something and eject, if in doubt try to return to neutral and start again... patience is key in this matchup (even more so than others).

Our advantage:

Uair combos are hard on her and she has narrow % range. This is unfortunate but we have to work with what we've got. DA > Tornado is a great way to tag on damage early and get her to near Uair combo kill %. If you get a grab at 0%, go for Dthrow > Nair for easy % and a possible followup. Or, do Bthrow > DA3 (tipper) > Uair, followed by Nair (which takes her to Uair combo kill %). FF Bair is also possible after the Uair but she can hit us out of it with Nair or airdodge, or tech the landing, so don't rely on it, no matter how tempting it is.

(L)edgeguarding:

Nair is a useful 2-frame ledge snap punish on her Vanish. Tornado also works, you can catch her and get back onstage if you mash properly. Other than this, Sheik is not worth edgeguarding for the most part, maintain stage control and punish her ledge options instead; her offstage game is hard to challenge.

Her advantage:

With regards to her Dthrow 50/50, from 90-100% always jump to avoid Vanish; we have six jumps and a teleport so we should never succumb to her Vanish by airdodging. From 120%+ airdodge the Uair. Dair is a solid option when Sheik tries to use Dthrow Uair at kill %s, it is frame 4 which can catch them off guard. This is not the case on T&C because it works earlier on that stage thanks to the lower ceiling.

Utilt > FH Needles > Fish works on us so beware of that when on the ledge from like 90%+. Mix up ledge options constantly, using everything including drop-down DCape back on stage (but excluding ledge roll because she can easily grab that on reaction). Being on the ledge is very scary against Sheik because she has quick and very effective coverage options, if you get predictable she will ensure you never get back onstage except via the respawn platform.

Fresh DA > Uairs > Up-B kill % (FD, no staling):

19-23% 3 Uairs to Up-B (100% rage) (DA1)

27% 4 Uairs to Up-B (DA3)
29-31% 4 Uairs to Up-B (DA1)
32-37% 3 Uairs to Up-B (DA1)

Stages:

BAN: Castle Siege, Smashville
PICK: FD, T&C, Battlefield
C/PICK: Duck Hunt, Delfino

Top-level sets:

Coming soon

I find this interesting because the Ike guys agree that Sheik is not only our worst matchup as well, but it's also 60:40 in her favor - which means still winnable. That said, having been recommended to use MK to counter Sheik from someone else was definitely bad advice.

 

[Jamurai]

I find this interesting because the Ike guys agree that Sheik is not only our worst matchup as well, but it's also 60:40 in her favor - which means still winnable. That said, having been recommended to use MK to counter Sheik from someone else was definitely bad advice.

At top level I think this matchup is getting towards -2 (30:70) or worse. A practiced, top level Sheik can exploit MK's neutral really well and shut him down hard. Ito for example thinks the matchup is almost hopeless so he's considering other characters.

At lower levels, opportunities will naturally arise because of the Sheik player being less skillful and slightly less difficult to open up in neutral, so the matchup is about 40:60 there.

(This is all just my opinion.)

 

[ZTD | TECHnology]

I find this interesting because the Ike guys agree that Sheik is not only our worst matchup as well, but it's also 60:40 in her favor - which means still winnable. That said, having been recommended to use MK to counter Sheik from someone else was definitely bad advice.

Yeah we don't have the range or the mobility to easily close the cap. Catching the Sheik to begin with is an uphill battle. Landing substantial reward is even harder. I don't think it's 30-70 but it's bad. It's like if you don't land a Death Combo, goooooood luck; and Sheik is very good at just evading everything we want to land. Needles being transcendent makes me rage. So we can't just hover at mid/long range because we'll just eat needles.We can't get in her face because she has super fast tilts and a killer dash grab. We have...a Frame 3 Down Tilt. That's cool but all it does is stop us from getting grabbed sometimes and maybe trip if we're lucky. It's not reliable. All of our othher ground options in close range come out on like frame 7 or slower. Except Down Smash (Frame 4) but it doesn't really do anything and if you miss it...you get punished hard. Our air mobility is trash and our aerials don't do much here. We have no reliable way of stopping people with amazing Fairs from disrespecting our front in the air because our Fair is slower, doesn't set us up for much and it has mucho end lag.

Not to mention there are windows where Down Throw to Up Air is TRUE AND KILLS us. I actually think Ike does better in this MU and I've watched Ryuga literally get carried to the horizontal blastzone with Fairs. Sheik just dances all around us, disrespects our safe zones and just easily racks up damage on us. Sheik can just sit back, make us come to her and punish us stupidly hard for even minor mistakes because we're lightweight and fastfalling; aka combo fodder. It's hard. I hate it. I would never tell anyone to pick up MK for this MU lmao.

People were just riding the Leo train. During that time Mr.R/Vinnie just didn't play the MU correctly and people just blew it wayyyy out of proportion.

 

[warionumbah2]

Mr R and Vinnie knew the MU, they've played with Tyrant numerous of times and the win ratio is in their favor. Leo is in a completely different dimension to anyone else, against Vinnie game 1 he was downloading him, game 2 he got insane punishes that net him the game. When game 3 and 4 came along he already had Vinnies number. Notice how im saying Vinnie the player, im not talking about Sheik because there isn't counter play against her.

What Leo did to Mr R and Vinnie is outplay the player and maximize the very few openings a MK can have vs Sheik at top level. Skip to 4:25 and slow the video down and watch everything that occurred there, any other MK would've went for FH Uair and whiffed.

This MU will only get worse, but this combo is the only thing that keeps it from being near impossible or 80:20. Leo vs Mr R is so outdated there's no point in analyzing it.