"Needle Kirby": The Kirby v. Sheik MU Thread

[SapphSabre777]

"Needle Kirby": The Kirby v. Sheik MU Thread
​

Welcome to the Kirby v. Sheik MU Thread! This thread is an open-discussion thread detailing the matchup between Kirby and Sheik. Sheik's reign as a "queen of Smash Bros." came in the same game where Kirby fell from his 64 grace; in Smash 4, the two have recovered since getting hit with nerfs in the past two games. What can the Ultimate Star Warrior do to halt the Mighty Sheikah and vice versa? Discuss!

 

[t!MmY]

I would think this would be titled "Ninja Kirby".

 

[Metallinatus]

I would think this would be titled "Ninja Kirby".

Nah, Ninja Kirby throws explosive shurikens, not needles....
Anyway, does Kirby has anything going for him other than being able to duck under stuff and being hard to make long string on him?

 

[SapphSabre777]

I would think this would be titled "Ninja Kirby".

I think that title would be more reserved for Greninja, if anything, considering the shurikens and such fit more than Sheik's Needles.

 

[ezm1100]

Honestly it's not a great match up for Kirby. Sheik is very fast and has projectiles. It's really hard for Kirby to approach and Grab Sheik. Kirby can duck under needles though so that's something.

 

[TimG57867]

Sheik is a problem for just about any character, but I feel Kirby is one of her most even matchups. You may hear about the crouching thing all the time but it really is an important tool. We all know that Kirby can duck the needles. But the crouch can also cause her grabs and certain aerials to glance over us too at times. Sheik is a speed demon with godly frame data, but I feel Kirby can hold his own here. Thanks to our crouch, Sheik can't get away with simply pummeling us with needles from a safe distance. Yes, she can still kinda camp us but not as hard as other characters. And if she approaches, she risks getting caught by our D-Tilt which can lead to a trip. Another nice perk is that since we have multiple jumps, we aren't sitting ducks off stage. We aren't un gimpable of course but we got better than a lot of other characters like say C. Falcon.

Aside from that obvious perk, our light weight actually helps us here as we aren't as easy to combo as most other characters. Sure we die sooner than most characters, but since Sheik can rack up damage and shut most of the cast down so hard with her F-Air and F-Tilt strings until they are in kill percent, I feel being able to float and DI away before she can get deadly follow-ups is a better asset against her. And because Sheik's a fast faller, we can juggle her with Up Tilt well and catch her by surprise with D-Air. And thanks to the buffs, copying Sheik is easier than ever as once get those Up Tilts, we can inhale her once she's in position and level the playing field on the projectile front. Also while our weights are similar, we have more kill power so while Sheik will hit us more often, we just need to get that one good shot to kill her. (Kind of like Kirby vs Donkey Kong). And if she kills us first, she'll often have too much rage to combo us hard, making it possible to even it up.

That said, we must not get ahead of ourselves. Sheik still rocks the following advantages:

• Her frame data is out of this world. Her mistakes are way harder to punish than vice versa.
• Her aerials generally beat ours head on. Especially that cursed fair. Kirby will want to stay low to ground. At most you should only short hop aerials or coming in with D-Air.
• Will she can't combo us well, she'll still be able to hit us a lot and one slip up from us means a death off the top from her Up Air.
• Gimping her is nigh-impossible because of Vanish. The best we can do is punish get up.
• While we can duck her needles, her incredible speed means that we'll often get clipped by them if we go on the offensive. We can only stay crouched for so long. It's a game of patience and timing.
• Bouncing Fish and Up Smash can kill us relatively well though the former becomes harder to hit as time goes on unless she makes read and our floats can make the latter a bit tricky for her.
• While Sheik has plenty of kill setups, we still lack any effective ones. Back Throw is situational, and it and Up Throw take a while to kill if we aren't near a ledge. D-Air to D-Smash doesn't work too well as she can shield or roll before the D-Smash comes out. A buff to Up Throw and D-Air/D-Smash would allieviate this issue.

I know many feel that we overrate our ability in this matchup, but feel like we really do have something going for us here. This matchup isn't easy, but if we play right, Kirby can do it. I feel Triple R demonstrates a lot of this well in a lot of his matches against Sinny and Chudat was actually able to catch that Sheik player (was Nexus the name?) off guard with a pocket Kirby. And if Sheik continues to get nerfed, it'll only get better.

PS: I am going to bed soon so if anyone responds I might not get to it quickly.

 

[Mazdamaxsti]

55:45 Sheik's favour. We are ammune to needles and we have an amazing combo advantage state against her, but she still demolishes us in neutral and edge-guards is easily.

 

[SapphSabre777]

This is an important post to everyone, so listen up!​

It should be noted, that these are open discussions, meaning that we are not asking or wanting match-up ratios! We want an analysis of what each character can do to each other to help with how this match-up goes. Please stick with discussing all of the possible things that each character can do to each other.

 

[Wintermelon43]

It's helpful to post ratios though.

Pros:
*Inhale ability
*Our throw combos, for some reason, work perefectly aganist Sheik (ESPICIALLY forward throw), which makes it easy to combo her back. And all combos are effective too, MAYBE, NOT SURE ON THIS NEXT FEW WORDS, espicially since it isn't that easy for Sheik to get out of combos.
*Our light weight makes it hard for Sheik to use muitiple forward airs at us at mid-high percents (At high percents it KOs)
*Forward Smash is extra good due to both the way Sheik's attacks work, and her fast falling speed.

Cons:
*Sheik's bounching fish can gimp you, but it's barely a problem.
*Sheik's huge amount of speed, and fast attacks, are a HUGE problem, and is why this matchup isn't in our favor.
*It's not that easy to down-air spike Sheik due to her speed and the way her recovery works.

Inhale:
Defitenly do it. Needle is one of Sheik's best moves, so it helps to use it back.

Customs:

Neutral Special:Jumping Inhale. Jumping Inhale makes it WAY easier to inhale her, and we need the inhale

Side Special:Un-Chargeable Hammer. Startup is EXTREMELY important in this matchup, due to Sheik's low start- wait, what Start-up?

Up Special:Always wave Cutter.(Up-Special-3), comboing is great for Sheik, a great finisher is very effective. and it makes it possible (but hard) to punish Sheik.

Down Special:Down Special is useless, do anything. Default even works due to high knockback.

Stage Picks:
Always do battle field. Sheik is worst at Battlefield than other stages. Lylat Cruise can be useful too, to annoy her recovery.

Additional Notes:
Sheik can easily punish us for whiffs, so be careful when you attack.

Also This: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oItSpkKI4_E (Kirby won the first round, second and third rounds were time-outs, MikeKirby may have won both of the timer was longer) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ck87fsfxkYI

Matchup Ratio:50:50

 

[SapphSabre777]

It's helpful to post ratios though.

That is not the purpose of an open discussion. One of the fatal flaws of the previous MU threads was that we asked for a very specific amount of credentials, severely limiting everybody from creating a relevant post in regards to a match-up.

An open discussion of these MUs is being aimed because it does not put a barrier to those who want to contribute to talking about it. Because of the prior criteria in "The True Arena", we were far off from what we wanted to talk about: what each character can do to each other, both common and obscure, what punishes what, and nitty-gritty details that can paint a picture as to how a match between these two goes. With open discussion, the barriers are gone or minimized so that people may discuss this MU in terms of what might happen, which is more important to players than placing a definitive (and often unreliable) number and calling it a day.

Please, to all who read this, follow this so that the Kirby community can follow the intended route when it comes to looking at Kirby's match-ups.

 

[Wintermelon43]

I mean, it's helpful to post ratios so you know what the general is, as long as you post a good amount of reasoning, and don't just add then all up on the OP

 

[SapphSabre777]

I mean, it's helpful to post ratios so you know what the general is, as long as you post a good amount of reasoning, and don't just add then all up on the OP

Doing that would cause confusion as to what is asked in these threads. We don't want ratios, we want a discussion between players about what each can do. We are not looking for ratios. We are specifically looking for discussion about the match-up, what each character can do. Ratios steer these threads away from their main purpose and how they should be functioning.

Please understand that is what is being asked for.

 

[Mo433]

Having played a ton of Sheiks I think that this is a really close MU. Out of all the top tiers, Kirby I actually have the easiest time with Shiek.

If used right, Kirby can become a deadly character in this MU. Like many others have stated, he can't get comboed at low percentage, which is pretty vital when playing Shiek. However, if we catch one up tilt at low percent, we can easily tack on at least 30%. Kirby's weight can prove to be a problem tho, since Shieks kill set-ups will kill way earlier than other characters.

Kirby's aerial game is isn't the best, but definetly has its uses at the right moment. With good timing, you can punish Shieks recovery with Dair at the ledge which isn't that hard considering it's a multi hit move. I only use Up air to extend combos out of up tilt, so personally I don't think it has much use in this MU. Fair can be used to poke on shields, but not much else.

Kirby gets even MORE dangerous when he gets her copy ability. When he absorbs Shiek, not only does he become a character who is dangerous to fight up close, but has one of the best projectiles in the game.


If Kirby was buffed to have a kill set-up/throw, I would say he beats Shiek, but until that happens, I'll say that the match can pretty much go either way, since there isn't a glaring flaw that makes Kirby lose to her.

 

[TimG57867]

Following up on what Wintermelon43 posted, here are some nice, relatively recent matches between Triple R and Sinnyboo242. I feel they really demonstrate how this matchup plays out in a competitive setting. Note that there are a lot of extra matches too. :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AvHzIFFAMc

 

[kirbyfan66]

This matchup does change a lot if Kirby can get Needles, because if he does, he can actually force Sheik players to approach. Of course, Kirby can be easily overwhelmed by this, but until higher %s Kirby at least has some decent combos/strings he can pull off. I think the biggest issue is that while Kirby struggles to KO, Shiek doesn't, to an extent. Granted Kirby can survive very long in some cases, but Shiek can edgeguard and has that 50/50 with the grab. Up Air/Vanish is scary!

oh god I bumped this hard, I'm sorry

 

[Aunt Jemima]

it's active discussion, you can bump it whenever.

Also, Kirby avoids Sheik's 50/50s by DIing away and jumping. It's just that D-Throw > U-Air can true combo with a stale D-Throw and kills us pretty easily with Rage.

 

[TimG57867]

Check this out:

It really is amazing how much better this matchup is for Kirby now that those blasted 50/50s are gone. I swear if we get frame data buffs we'll straight up WIN this matchup.

 

[brady_boy_26]

in my opionion it is -1 for kirby at best against a sheik who knows how to fight against kirby

 

[TimG57867]

Oh yeah, how could this thread be complete without K.I.D Goggles set?

Void vs. MikeKirby was also a close one (he practically won. Just goofed on the recovery):

Fun Fact: Mr. R beat MikeKirby at Glitch prior to Pound and Void has played against Markus's Kirby so there's no way they were unfamiliar with the matchup.

 

[brady_boy_26]

markus is much worse than mike in every way also there is a difference of play styles mike kirbys play style may counter voids and goggles play style may counter mr r's

 

[TimG57867]

markus is much worse than mike in every way also there is a difference of play styles mike kirbys play style may counter voids and goggles play style may counter mr r's

Not gonna argue at all with Markus but it at least assures VoiD is familiar with Kirby moveset.

But more importantly while play style can affect how the much plays out at the end of the day , between competent players, the characters' move sets and characteristics will often take hold. And frankly, there really isn't a whole lot ways to go about the Sheik matchup (this applies to most characters) I compared the Kirby gameplay in the VoiD and Mr. R matches and it really didn't seem drastically different. Add in that KID and Mike were literally inches from victory, Triple R was losing consistently to Sinny up until the patch (who Knows both the character AND player matchup), and the fact that these sets occurred weeks after the update and it becomes hard to say that it's still -1, much less at best, for Kirby. In my eyes both characters now have equally potent and objective strengths against each other now that Sheik has lost her efficient means of killing Kirby. And to top it all off MikeKirby himself now ranks it as even. The fact that Mike was losing consistently to Sheiks like Dill, Mr. R, and Anti in the months prior to the patch and now considers it even in my eyes is big. I feel there's just too much supporting the matchup being even now to still consider it a -1.