[MU] Mr. Game & Watch

[Linkmario00]

So, I have a lot of trouble when I face a decent G&W player. In fact,when I throw him an arrow or the boomerang, I just can't hit him because of his size, and I don't feel confident to use bombs against him because of his DownB. I can't approach him with the sword because of his NeutralB, and when that move hits me G&W just grab and Dthrow me and connect an aerial to increase my damage. I try also to hit him with Zair to land an attack right after, but I hit G&W rarely with that because he's too small.
Any tips for me?

 

[Elessar]

I don't have much decent experience with G&W so I can't offer much, but I will suggest you start soft throwing the bombs. Don't be afraid to use them, specially with soft throw. If he moves in to bucket the blast, you can punish him. Also, the bomb iirc goes through his neutral B, and he won't be able to do the bucket before he gets hit. Also, when you spam, specially your bombs, just do it when he has committed to another move so he can't bring out his bucket, or try to condition him into bringing out the bucket and punish accordingly.

Sadly, that's all I can contribute.

 

[Linkmario00]

I don't have much decent experience with G&W so I can't offer much, but I will suggest you start soft throwing the bombs. Don't be afraid to use them, specially with soft throw. If he moves in to bucket the blast, you can punish him. Also, the bomb iirc goes through his neutral B, and he won't be able to do the bucket before he gets hit. Also, when you spam, specially your bombs, just do it when he has committed to another move so he can't bring out his bucket, or try to condition him into bringing out the bucket and punish accordingly.

Sadly, that's all I can contribute.

Yeah, that's already very useful, thank you. Today I tried to stop his NeutralB with the shield and actually I can get some damage in this way, but I continue to have a difficult time vs G&W

 

[Koby_T]

I have a little experience in this match-up. As far as projectiles, as mentioned before, you definitely want to soft-throw your bombs more often than not. You should also attempt to pull a bomb but then throw the boomerang as a mix-up. Quite often, our opponents assume Link's next move after pulling a bomb is to throw it. In my experience this should bait out the bucket only to be punished by boomerang.

Quite often G&W feels invincible in the air, and he should! His aerials have ridiculous priority. I like to bait out the dair and fair. Dair is easily baited by empty SH and punished by pivot ftilt. G&W is also very confident using fair to out-prioritize any of our anti-airs. With this in mind, Link can anticipate and punish with pivot ftilt here as well.

 

[Linkmario00]

I have a little experience in this match-up. As far as projectiles, as mentioned before, you definitely want to soft-throw your bombs more often than not. You should also attempt to pull a bomb but then throw the boomerang as a mix-up. Quite often, our opponents assume Link's next move after pulling a bomb is to throw it. In my experience this should bait out the bucket only to be punished by boomerang.

Quite often G&W feels invincible in the air, and he should! His aerials have ridiculous priority. I like to bait out the dair and fair. Dair is easily baited by empty SH and punished by pivot ftilt. G&W is also very confident using fair to out-prioritize any of our anti-airs. With this in mind, Link can anticipate and punish with pivot ftilt here as well.

Actually, when G&W SH to Fair it's one on the only few time when I can hit him with Zair, so normally i do that and try to connect a boomerang to reading his jump/attack/airdodge after that to punish him, but I rarely can follow up with boomerang, so I guess your option is better if I can dodge his Fair during pivot. I'll try it tomorrow, thanks.

 

[Zelkam]

Reviving this thread in hopes of sparking further discussion. This is one of the match-ups that I recently discovered I have a lot of trouble with. The fact that his aerials have arguably more disjoint and priority than ours really threw me for a loop. I hadn't thought about what Koby_T had mentioned, I'll certainly be giving that a try next time.

 

[Malas]

If he's approaching with aerials you can use either pivot ftilts or retreating Zairs. They both work great.

Don't let bucket stop you from using bombs as you normally would. A lot of people here mentioned using bombs to bait him into pulling the bucket out so you can punish. I find Bombslide UpThrow works GREAT for that purpose. Especially if he's already bucketed one or two bombs, he'll be desperate for one more.

Also, try to avoid being above G&W. His UpB has invincibility and his Uair can prolong our fall.

 

[Koby_T]

Quick note from a friendly I played today: G&W's bucket has a disjoint on it where it can catch our bomb's explosion. I'd estimate it at about a character length from edge of bucket to the edge of the explosion animation.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Link does well against G&W until you get comboed and edgeguarded. That being said he has to approach past arrows and Zair (I try to time these to hit his feet, Zair works great just outside G&W Dash attack range) . He dies to Uthrow at like 120 or something early. Jab2 -> Usmash is pretty easy to land on him. It is not hard to beat his UpB with Dair offstage unless he opts for a higher recovery.

Respect his DA which has massive range, don't contest his Usmash, he can technically duck under grab I think but you can pressure him with Jab instead.

Pivot Ftilt a LOT in this matchup. He has to guess to get past it. Vs G&W generally speaking goes more towards your favor the safer you space things given it doesn't take a lot to actually KO him.