Neutral Game

[MeloICS]

Hey everyone.
I'm Melo, I've been playing Ice Climbers for about 6 months and i'd say i'm decent at them.
I understand them, i can hand off, i know all the chain grabs, i can wobble, and all that jazz.
The problem is, my neutral game is absolute garbage.
As said by a very good fox main, i rely too much on "shield grabs and blizzard catches."
I also dash attack a lot to start combos.
What should i be doing in place of these things?
How can i control space better?

Thanks a lot! - Melo

 

[derdian]

Are you good at shorthopping with IC's? One of their best tools in neutrals is threatening space with safe short hop bairs/up airs. Dash attack is fine if you move around alot and bait them to throw something out and then punish with dash attack, it's pretty fast and a good combo starter. You mainly want to be defensive with your desynchs and spaced aerials/tricky movement, occasionally mixing it up with jab grab/jab dsmash approaches or up-airs if they are on platform.

The most important thing in my opinion is the fact that IC's are one if not the most match up dependent character in the game. Your neutral is going to be very different depending on what character you are playing against so I suggest you look deeply into the different matchups and how to play the neutral in each one.