Ninja Clan Here We Stand! Sheik Match-Up Thread

[Tristan_win]

This thread was originally started by

@saviorslegacy

The Three Commandments of Sheik:
1. Once thy gets gets in, thy shall maximize the punish
2. No edge shalt be left unguarded
3. Bouncing Fish.

Hello everyone and welcome to the match up thread. Below you will find information on various match ups. If you are having trouble with a particular match up please feel free to post a comment asking for help.

Sheik vs. Bowser

I love Bowser but he can't be played almost for this matchup alone.

• None of his aerials are safe on shield. You can shield them then grab him.
• If you get a grab, you can d-throw u-air for a long time and typically keep him in the air as none of his aerials are safe on shield.
• If he's in the air, f-tilt combos into fair or u-air for a long, long time and is super easy to land as it comes out faster than his other aerials when he's in range.
• If he's on the ground, f-tilt is a great punish for any of his rolls as it combos as well as a grab but is safer if you whiff
• Don't use bouncing fish or grenade offensively, ever. It's not necessary and he can punish them.
• Absolutely everything he has is countered by "roll backwards" except for him dashing through your roll to grab you. His grabs don't do much to hurt you.
• If you grab the ledge, he can't do much to count a jump off the ledge -> double jump -> bouncing fish. If you need a safe opportunity, wait for him to jump and touch the ground.
• Virtually all his damage is going to be due to him either running up and grabbing you or by him using up+b or jab OoS.
• If you are in a panic situation and need to roll, roll away from him rather than towards him and roll TWICE. He can only punish with a grab or, in rare cases, a dash attack. Neither kill.

The matchup is entirely about limiting his options to kill. Don't give him options and you win out.

The biggest problem when approaching Bowser is his up B out of shield.
You nest option is to just needle and force him to approach and then punish him for it.

When gimping Bowser be careful when coming from above him. His up B will go through anything you have except for bouncing fish. You need to be level with him and go for a sweet spot bair or BF.

Juggling Bowser is fairly easy. His landing options are not the greatest.

Gimping has been a little difficult as Yoshi has super armor in his 2nd jump. Try not to be above Yoshi. Needles work really well against Yoshi. Eventually, the Yoshi will probably start the egg camping. I've been grabbed many times as a result of shielding away the eggs. Yoshi does not do too well against pressure, so that's the most important part of the matchup. Of course, I've only played a few on FG and my friend. Any more input would be quite valuable.

Link so far has been an easy MU for me, and I play a more than decent Link very often. He plays me more than anyone, and I'm the reason he quit playing Link last time and switched to Toon Link.

Bouncing Fish will get past anything except a boomerang properly angled upwards at the right time... and needles will cover that option nicely. Furthermore, once you start juggling Link, he's one of the more particularly easy to carry with fairs type of characters.

Here's his video about Link MU:
http://youtu.be/j1UuVMZBoZM

Samus' projectiles give way too many opportunities for Bouncing Fish, and even if they cancel their projectiles or the Bouncing Fish is timed wrongly and they shield or roll, it's pretty much usually a safe option, especially if they go for the former where you can just bounce back without much lag and virtually no chance of being punished. Samus's attacks are also kinda slow so those definitely help Sheik do her usual ftilt and fair shenanigans pretty easily. Additionally, the needles can be really annoying to Samus.

Sheik can crouch under Zero suit

Fsmash
Utilt(It has huge nerfs on its hit boxes)
Neutral B
Jab1
The beginning part of her grab.

So if you land in front of a Zero suit as you fair/nair their shield you should almost always use dtilt as it's very difficult for Zero suit to punish. I'm unsure if Zero Suit OoS up B can hit low enough to hit Sheik but if it can't then Zero suit has no fast offensive option when we are applying shield pressure. That's pretty big and can really help sway this match up in our favor.

So I played a rather good De3 on wifi and got a decent chunk of experience, here are some of my mental notes and reflections.

Usmash kill Sheik after 100%, the hit box hits infront (I think) and behind de3 and it doesn't seem to get weaker.
Uair kill Sheik after 130% even below the stage lip and is great at denying Sheik a gimp.
Dash attack can kill Sheik at 90% if your on the farthest corner of FD
De3 grabs need to be respected as he does have guaranteed combo's in the low percents and in the high percents if you DI poorly, which can kill you if he uses uair.
Dair is now a spike
His jab is rather impressive

If Sheik is able to grab De3 it almost guarantees a set up into fair, uair, or nair and in the low percents it's fairly possible to do things like fthrow into fair, fast fall, fair, follow them in the air, fair or even more. I could nearly constantly get de3 from like 0% to 30 or even 50% with 1-3 grabs. The problem is killing the fat ******* (Austin powers). I've found saving Bouncing fish to around 130% and only using it when he's near the ledge helps. This is one of the match ups I feel it's very easy to use Bouncing fish but you shouldn't unless you are in the low percents or in killing percents, this can't be stress enough as beyond 60% there's ton of combo's that can end with bouncing fish that honestly you shouldn't take.

De3 is extremely hard to gimp due to his up B now having super armor on the attack so if he recover low it's very difficult to gimp him but it's not impossible. I've found if you can guess when he's going to use his up B a dash of stage into bair when time correctly can work. The problem is getting the timing and if he has any jumps left he can delay his up B and he can do it at nearly any range. Worst yet if De3 predict your going to try to do this and he's near the ledge he can use uair to cover himself.

Pikachu! Yea!~

First things first our projectiles just go through each other. however, at maximum needle range, if you throw needles in reaction to thunder jolt, you can shield and they can't. So that's neat. Also, Pika can FJ jolt and have no landing lag, so I've seen many pikas try to approach with this. However, you can just shield it and grab them on their way down, especially if they do an aerial. Honestly shield by itself beats pika for us, imo. I've been able to nair OoS and punish aerials that go behind me, or just grab the ones in front of me.

Pika 's fair without the last hit is pretty much a free grab. Thunder also has some WEIRD spike property that's meant to send you down into pika and then hit horizontally but ive just been sent downward by it. It's also active very very early, I've heard rumors about frame 1 but I dunno. Nair's bad. punish it hard. Up air's a good combo, as is utilt. Some pika's are using Up-B to get around and it does a surprising amount of knockback and has relatively low landing lag so be aware of that. Downsmash is bigger than it looks, but it won't kill you until very high percentage. I'm usually dying to pika f-smash in the 120-30 range. Dair is also a potential kill move off stage or even on stage it's just pretty good in general.

Recoveries in this game are good in general but Pika's is v. good imo. i think though if you stand in the position where a grenade will be just off stage (and throw it to cover the ledge) you can recover from that fast enough to punish any on stage recovery as well.

Final note: the uair regrab is hard on pika at 0. you have to really delay the uair, but it'll still hit.

I think this match up is in our favor. I don't think Pika has great on stage options against us and can't really force us to do anything we don't want to.

Falcon doesn't have a lot of horizontal options in the air. His up-air covers a great deal of distance above him, and is good for traps + follows ups out of dash attack and throws. However, his only means of horizontal spacing in the air, nair, is pretty much Brawl nair (which is mediocre) as there are no aerial momentum jumps in the game. The only reason it was viable in Melee was because of the distance it covered. Otherwise, the move is limited.

Therefore, Sheik's fair combats this really well. Falcon is fat so at mid percents we can short hop fair fast fall repeatedly and deal on quite an amount of percentage. Falcon has a linear recovery so take advantage when fighting him off stage. Don't be afraid to go off and fair him. Teching is really easy off of Falcon dive. Bouncing fish the eff out of his second jump and get ready to read the high/low recovery.

Essentially, every match up boils down to how far you take your punishes. Sheik's damage output is actually below average but is completely covered by the fact that every follow-up she can do out of true combos are usually a 65-35 situation. You can always mix up your opponent's shields.

When you're at death percents, respect raptor boost. (Falcon's side+b) It's been buffed this game, as it can kill us really early. I don't really mind getting grabbed at high percents as that's usually the time where Falcons won't have their true d-throw > u-air set up, so I'm in no threat besides having the trouble of getting on stage. Falcons can scoop you while you're short hopping so be careful when you jump.

You can combo Ike very easily and in the air he has very little answers to your fair strings.

Be very aware of your spacing. You have to be perfect other wise you will eat a fair, bair or nair. If he jumps towards you and he spaces you correctly do not bother trying to beat him in the air. Your best option is to back roll back and punish with a dash attack when he lands. A grab is usually not fast enough to punish his landing lag.
When in the air bait out his air attacks and precede to juggle or combo.

When Ike is recovering low do not bother going off of the stage, he will just eat you with eather. Punish him reentering the stage. If he tries to plank with eather time a BF just right to punish him regrabbing the ledge.

Needles are the key. You can hit Sonic out of everything with a single needles. Charges are always better, but you won't have much time to do so. His Neutral B is actually easy to punish. If it hits your shield you can follow up with a fast aerial. Also, if you don't think that'll work, you can try to spot dodge it, causing sonic to suffer from so much lag.
In addition, Sonic's moves are pretty easy to Vektor out, so he shouldn't be able to get long strings. On the other hand, you should be able to do so. Sonic is pretty much combo fodder for Sheik once she gets in. Just string everything together you have.
Also, his recovery is very predictable. Bouncing Fish overpowers his neutral B (you want to spam the B button when doing so however...). Then, hes Up-B is almost vertically... get the timing down and you'll be able to edgeguard sonic so effectively that they can do nothing against it.
Sheiks running grab and reverse grab are extremely important. You can punish them for rolling. Don't forget that.

I've benefited from not being provoked by spin dash spam. Read and punish Sonic's follow ups. Here's his video about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlcN0yzAz2s&index=4&list=UUc8JKj5y6NVUd7RooLMvjdQ

1. Luma is way too good against Sheik. She absorbs needles and every time I landed a grab she was able to break it up before I used a PUMMEL, let alone a throw. Obviously as I get better at the match up I'll learn how to pick my grabs better, but MAN, in these early days, I feel like I can't even grab Rosalina.

2. Rosalina herself is INCREDIBLY strong, especially with Luma, but even without. Her aerials have a ton of range, and a lot of times it felt like she out ranged and out prioritizes Sheik's. All of her smash attacks are strong and fast. Sheik is in kill percent to all of them at 100-110%, and even LOWER if she has Luma to help her. I died at 79% on battlefield to a Rosy up smash (or forward smash, can't remember) with Luma helping her out.

3. Her grabs are really good, and lead to easy combos/kill moves. Especially on battlefield. Rosalina is a giant, and she can punish you on the bottom battlefield platforms SUPER hard. I died a lot because I got stuck on those platforms

tl;dr, I have no matchup advice against this character because I got REKT. I feel like the match up is in her favor at least 60-40. I could just be booty at the matchup, but I feel like on paper she is just a strong character and counters a lot of Sheik's best options.

]
ZeRo has a video discussing Rosa and Sheik ditto MUs.
http://youtu.be/nPBl2oWQjCk?list=UUc8JKj5y6NVUd7RooLMvjdQ

Dash Attack puts Luma into a tumble. You can follow up with a fair if he does not quite reach the pit.

The Greninja MU is one that definitely doesn't feel one-sided, but I would still give Sheik the edge. Feels like a 60-40 to me.

The key thing here is that needles out-range water shuriken.

I played against a Greninja that had developed a particular strategy of camping with quick shurikens and then using his quick dash in after a hit confirm to grab > uthrow > usmash > uair at low %s, and otherwise setup juggles following a throw. It was during our neutral game that I realized quickly that needles have a solid lead in range over the shurken, so his camping game is entirely shut down. He tried to approach with short hops and landing with a shuriken toss to avoid my needle spam, but simply timing the needle throw for his landing would cancel his attempt to even shoot it.

Shadow Sneak is entirely projected. Just learn to look for a shadow whenever you see the Greninja not throwing out any hitboxes at range (particularly the shurikens they like to spam).

Otherwise, their primary trick is to cancel dair and fair landing lag with shadow sneak - so if you try to punish their landing, unless you have a large/lingering hitbox they will effectively counter you. On the other hand, simply shielding this shadow sneak will result in plenty of frame advantage for us so it becomes a rock-paper-scissors scenario yet again.

Also, Greninjas love their juggles with uair and dair... and the fact that we can escape them pretty handily with Bouncing Fish gives us another edge. Combined with the fact that if things ever get hectic, we can always put some distance and play the ranged game with needles rather safely I say puts us at an advantage.

Also, I pity the Greninja that think's he's safe charging/shooting a shuriken when I ever DO step in it's range... because that also happens to put him into Bouncing Fish range.

(I also play Greninja the most after Sheik, so I suppose I know how to exploit his weaknesses more than most this early in the game)

Greninja has more range on normals, Sheik has greater speed and less endlag on them (as far as blanket statements go).

Main things versus Greninja is, his jump height is insane, so you never want to be above him... the juggles can be real. When under him, always be prepared for the dair and to react whether they do it or not, and if they do it, anticipate the shadow sneak lag cancel, or lack thereof.

As I said earlier though, if at any point you're in an unfavorable string of events, feel free to get out and reset to neutral. Sheik wins the neutral game due to a faster and longer range projectile that shuts out Greninja's shuriken game.

Ftilt chains don't seem to work that well on him, and in my experience he gets out of our full jab sequence more often than not.

In general, a ranged needle/nade camp game punishing bad approaches or spacing mixed with going in with grabs/DA works well to get things started.

Robin's game is all about keeping away and working off of Elfire setups. Sheik cuts right through all that bull****. Robin's Thunder spells and Elfire spells are predictable and easy to avoid or get past, and once you get in on Robin, her options are super limited.... she's way too slow to offensively interrupt Sheik's melee range onslaught.

Furthermore, at range needles yet again have a far superior camp game.

A really good example of the current metagame of Sheik vs Robin can be found in the recent Flase vs Nairo match:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQSWSuftc7U

Punish Elfires with short hop bouncing fish. You can read it.

That said I've had decent success just using needles to frustrate them into doing something unsafe. Then I use uair to keep them above me because lol little Mac in the air. After I get him into the 90ish range I start looking for ways to get him off stage But my general strategy has been to keep him above me until I was pretty sure I can kill him..

We can duck under and avoid getting hit by his jab1, straight fsmash, ftilt. We might also be able to avoid is grab at max range but more testing is needed.

Sheik actually does better than most vs Mac in my experience. I play both Sheik and Mac.

The thing is, if you try to go in and play the ground boxing game vs Mac, you're gonna get beat. Don't play his game. That's the mistake most make.

Stay near the edges of the stage, use needles aggressively. When he approaches you can take to the air or any platforms. Spaced aerials or empty short hops do well vs Mac.

His approaches, while fast and strong, are predictable. His grabs are useless, so you can love your shield, and do aerials out of them or jump out of the way.

As for kills. Get him off stage. That's why you stay near the edge. Get him in the air or off stage and look for patterns in how the player responds with counter. Of you bait a counter, or hit with anything, even needles, when he's off stage, you've pretty much ended his stock... usually regardless of what % he has.

Sheik has a solid keep away game now with needles + the new bouncing fish. Characters without such skills, who are forced to get up close and personal have trouble with Mac. Not Sheik.

I'd say Sheik is actually a counter to Mac.

The goal in this mu is to get grab. Why? you may ask. You want to dthrow him. this puts him in a perfect spot for Uair juggles or fair strings. He can't do **** about it if you even try to read air dodges because sheik is awesome.
Ftilt is also good aspecially on higher%

Mac will try to read you. He can't really go for combos or to many mixups because he only has ground options. This means you should always expect him to get upclose on the ground making NautralB great to cover his movement options and charges smashes. Don't spam them to much because mac can actually use sideB to get close to you really fast.
I felt that Macs grab is not that great, especially if you play Macs that don't really know smash fundamentals at all. This means that shield is pretty safe. Try not to roll or dodge to much however as They tend to read this.
Shield actually can't block the onehit KO punch but if Mac can't use it, your shield is pretty good. His moves do a lot of shield knockback so watch out for that if you punish. SideB is useable but you should do it if you read him dashing into you from far because he will get a free punish if you do it to late. DownB is gread but honestly not your best killing option as getting Mac far enough off-stage is better(Seriously this guy can't get back to the stage at all) You can just keep fairing sideB and upB has not range at all, so go for fairstrings off-stage if you can, just make sure you can get back).
last but not least. be carefull when landing. Mac is really good when it comes to punishing landing aka he gets momentum. He can punish well and he can punish hard. Air dodge sucks so he can get hits in pretty well (And he doesn't even has to jump at all). I like to use DownB to get away from him, off the stage or whatever. when you do choose to go off-stage keep in mind that you have to get back on stage anway but from the ledge, which is not to easy either.
If you have to land be carefull because I feel like Mac punishes that well.

Fun fact: if you proc Little Mac's counter with bouncing fish, you'll flip back without getting hit, and the distance he travels because of the counter almost perfectly sets him up for a second kick off the first bouncing fish. BF looks like a really safe option to poke him with due to that and the fact that you bounce off shields. His only counter to it is dodging, which is difficult due to BF's speed.

Against Little Mac, you have to be EXTREMELY confident in your offstage game. Once you throw Little Mac off, it should be done and done. Bait his counter/air dodges and read his high low mix ups. Once you take his jump, sit on stage and think about how you're going to take his next stock as he tries and fails to recover.

Additionally, although I do believe that needles do a fair job in combating DHD's camp game, you shouldn't necessarily even be relying on needles that much. DHD doesn't do well fighting Sheik up close once she gets in. All the DHDs I've played have either tried to fight me up close and have usually lost the boxing game 30-70 or tried to reset the situation and run away.

Once you get in on DHD, you have to respect his options. But Sheik always has the upper hand. Read his dodges, and body him hard: http://youtu.be/nLMh5LKdEMo

so as a zoner most Mm's will try and keep you at a set distance, think of it like you're fighting a marth who's good at spacing. They want you to stay off them but at a distance where they can follow up with sh u-airs (most damaging move they have), jabs, or roll punishes. The matchup is going to consist of you trying to get in with minimal damage taken, 0% if you're good or lucky. Taking him to battlefield would be wise as fd/omega stages benefit projectiles too much, the typical combos work regardless though and you should be spending all your energy trying to get in either way, Read those rolls and punish accordingly. Keep in mind his up+b can break grounded combos and some aerial ones as well so don't be surprised if he up+bs out of some meteor u-airs, just be prepared to punish. Remember to shield those side+bs and jab those buzzsaws, if for whatever reason they leafshield get them off stage asap as they can't up+b with leafshield on. To get past the usual wall of f-tilt, jab, buzzsaw, f-smash, and side+b you'll need to incorporate several of your options all the time. Effectively using dash+shield, BF, and your crouch movement will win this matchup. Never do an option that involves hitting shield as his u-tilt is an extremely effective OoS option and he can pivot it to ruin your day. Against buzzsaw you can jab to beat it or dash attack through his throw to hit him and get it. As a last added thought be careful about his grabs and be willing to spam yours, megaman can pull off a f-air out of a d-throw and it hurts, of course we can do the same but getting that grab first is not always easy.

MMs Moves of note
u-tilt kills at 90% or so fresh be very careful when you're in kill range as he can roll into this to punish quite easily.
u-air 16 or so damage when shorthopped can be chained into others if they read, never try and contest this.
d-air autocancels if they double jump and it meteors at an average strength
n-air main gimping tool, be prepared for runoff nairs recovering at ledge or above is your best choice most of the time.
fsmash main ledge guarding/ko tool (it hits ledge and will kill)
n-b does more damage if he picks it up luckily jab beats it and sh airdodge picks it up relatively easily

Things to note
BF goes over most of his default projectiles exceptions being leafblade and fully charged F-smash
grenade bounces on both buzzsaw and d-air, although unless you ledge cancel you'll probably be punished for this.
needle camping is average and you'll get better results with rushdown.
Raising storm is extremely useful and you'll find yourself using it a lot. (full hop rising needles allows you to jump or do an aeral before you land with zero lag)

once you have the metal blade hold onto it. Especially if you are up a stock. You can camp with needles much more effectively and while you hold onto the metal blade MM cannot pull out another one..

Special thanks to everyone who helped make this thread possible.
Images found here- http://www.ssbwiki.com/Super_Smash_Bros._4

 

[Jackson]

Cool, this thread will be good. I'd like to discuss Little Mac. For some reason he always gives me trouble no matter who I play.

 

[Anuran]

Sheik does will against fighters who want to make space. I have had a bit of trouble with cap'n falcon and lil mac so far. Might just be me being too offensive

 

[DtJ Jungle]

Cool, this thread will be good. I'd like to discuss Little Mac. For some reason he always gives me trouble no matter who I play.

I haven't played a good Little Mac yet. What about the match up gave you difficulty?

 

[Jackson]

I haven't played a good Little Mac yet. What about the match up gave you difficulty?

I just hate how his attacks have so much damage, knockback, and priority. I feel like once he gets in I cant do anything to stop his jab. It's frustrating.

 

[?.?]

My training partner mains Megaman/D3 so I can cover that, although I'm pretty sure the megaman MU is in our favor due to him being a crappy zoner and us a great rushdown. I'll start working on that writeup with preferred stages/situations and the such.

I just hate how his attacks have so much damage, knockback, and priority. I feel like once he gets in I cant do anything to stop his jab. It's frustrating.

Yeah I feel you, sometimes I really really freaking miss SDI, Little mac is so common in for glory right now you can go in there and get some pretty bad matchup knowledge easily and not know what to do against a good one.

 

[Jackson]

My training partner mains Megaman/D3 so I can cover that, although I'm pretty sure the megaman MU is in our favor due to him being a crappy zoner and us a great rushdown. I'll start working on that writeup with preferred stages/situations and the such.



Yeah I feel you, sometimes I really really freaking miss SDI, Little mac is so common in for glory right now you can go in there and get some pretty bad matchup knowledge easily and not know what to do against a good one.

Right? So many people play him.

 

[DtJ Jungle]

Little Mac benefits greatly from the For Glory system because he can control the whole stage. I imagine he's much less annoying on stages with platforms.

That said I've had decent success just using needles to frustrate them into doing something unsafe. Then I use uair to keep them above me because lol little Mac in the air. After I get him into the 90ish range I start looking for ways to get him off stage But my general strategy has been to keep him above me until I was pretty sure I can kill him

Haven't played any great ones though so I dunno.

 

[Tristan_win]

Cool, this thread will be good. I'd like to discuss Little Mac. For some reason he always gives me trouble no matter who I play.

Here's everything I know that's worth noting against little mac

We can duck under and avoid getting hit by his jab1, straight fsmash, ftilt. We might also be able to avoid is grab at max range but more testing is needed.

 

[Teran]

Needles and ledge grenades help, the beauty of the latter being Mac is really really reluctant to chase offstage for obvious reasons.

 

[vmoney48]

I have some trouble with lil mac but when i hear that KO sound. I stay back and throw needles.

 

[-dMT-]

Sheik actually does better than most vs Mac in my experience. I play both Sheik and Mac.

The thing is, if you try to go in and play the ground boxing game vs Mac, you're gonna get beat. Don't play his game. That's the mistake most make.

Stay near the edges of the stage, use needles aggressively. When he approaches you can take to the air or any platforms. Spaced aerials or empty short hops do well vs Mac.

His approaches, while fast and strong, are predictable. His grabs are useless, so you can love your shield, and do aerials out of them or jump out of the way.

As for kills. Get him off stage. That's why you stay near the edge. Get him in the air or off stage and look for patterns in how the player responds with counter. Of you bait a counter, or hit with anything, even needles, when he's off stage, you've pretty much ended his stock... usually regardless of what % he has.

Sheik has a solid keep away game now with needles + the new bouncing fish. Characters without such skills, who are forced to get up close and personal have trouble with Mac. Not Sheik.

I'd say Sheik is actually a counter to Mac.

 

[Lemonitis]

I feel like Rosalina completely counters Sheik in the matches I've been playing. Hard as all hell to get close, can't grab her when Luma's around, and even when that star is gone, Rosalina still have great range attacks. Starting to wonder why she isn't at the very top of the tier list.

 

[-dMT-]

I feel like Rosalina completely counters Sheik in the matches I've been playing. Hard as all hell to get close, can't grab her when Luma's around, and even when that star is gone, Rosalina still have great range attacks. Starting to wonder why she isn't at the very top of the tier list.

That's because there is no tier list to be on top of yet

Rosalina/Luma is a rough matchup... she seems to have a great set of dodge rolls, and good pressure with weird hitboxes and that Luma.

However, like any new eccentric character, people will get used to her over time.

 

[Teran]

Rosalina is sort of like the new Snake imo. Very different and with a startling amount of stage control that seems overwhelming, but as time passes I feel people will find their way around her.

 

[GOofyGV]

Cool, this thread will be good. I'd like to discuss Little Mac. For some reason he always gives me trouble no matter who I play.

I play against a pretty good mac player and I think I kind of know how to play that mu, so let me try to write down what I know.

The goal in this mu is to get grab. Why? you may ask. You want to dthrow him. this puts him in a perfect spot for Uair juggles or fair strings. He can't do **** about it if you even try to read air dodges because sheik is awesome.
Ftilt is also good aspecially on higher%

Mac will try to read you. He can't really go for combos or to many mixups because he only has ground options. This means you should always expect him to get upclose on the ground making NautralB great to cover his movement options and charges smashes. Don't spam them to much because mac can actually use sideB to get close to you really fast.
I felt that Macs grab is not that great, especially if you play Macs that don't really know smash fundamentals at all. This means that shield is pretty safe. Try not to roll or dodge to much however as They tend to read this.
Shield actually can't block the onehit KO punch but if Mac can't use it, your shield is pretty good. His moves do a lot of shield knockback so watch out for that if you punish. SideB is useable but you should do it if you read him dashing into you from far because he will get a free punish if you do it to late. DownB is gread but honestly not your best killing option as getting Mac far enough off-stage is better(Seriously this guy can't get back to the stage at all) You can just keep fairing sideB and upB has not range at all, so go for fairstrings off-stage if you can, just make sure you can get back).
last but not least. be carefull when landing. Mac is really good when it comes to punishing landing aka he gets momentum. He can punish well and he can punish hard. Air dodge sucks so he can get hits in pretty well (And he doesn't even has to jump at all). I like to use DownB to get away from him, off the stage or whatever. when you do choose to go off-stage keep in mind that you have to get back on stage anway but from the ledge, which is not to easy either.
If you have to land be carefull because I feel like Mac punishes that well.

I'm not sure if this really is the best write-up out there but I feel these are a few important points.
Hope it's helpfull in some way for you or other people

 

[Jackson]

I play against a pretty good mac player and I think I kind of know how to play that mu, so let me try to write down what I know.

The goal in this mu is to get grab. Why? you may ask. You want to dthrow him. this puts him in a perfect spot for Uair juggles or fair strings. He can't do **** about it if you even try to read air dodges because sheik is awesome.
Ftilt is also good aspecially on higher%

Mac will try to read you. He can't really go for combos or to many mixups because he only has ground options. This means you should always expect him to get upclose on the ground making NautralB great to cover his movement options and charges smashes. Don't spam them to much because mac can actually use sideB to get close to you really fast.
I felt that Macs grab is not that great, especially if you play Macs that don't really know smash fundamentals at all. This means that shield is pretty safe. Try not to roll or dodge to much however as They tend to read this.
Shield actually can't block the onehit KO punch but if Mac can't use it, your shield is pretty good. His moves do a lot of shield knockback so watch out for that if you punish. SideB is useable but you should do it if you read him dashing into you from far because he will get a free punish if you do it to late. DownB is gread but honestly not your best killing option as getting Mac far enough off-stage is better(Seriously this guy can't get back to the stage at all) You can just keep fairing sideB and upB has not range at all, so go for fairstrings off-stage if you can, just make sure you can get back).
last but not least. be carefull when landing. Mac is really good when it comes to punishing landing aka he gets momentum. He can punish well and he can punish hard. Air dodge sucks so he can get hits in pretty well (And he doesn't even has to jump at all). I like to use DownB to get away from him, off the stage or whatever. when you do choose to go off-stage keep in mind that you have to get back on stage anway but from the ledge, which is not to easy either.
If you have to land be carefull because I feel like Mac punishes that well.

I'm not sure if this really is the best write-up out there but I feel these are a few important points.
Hope it's helpfull in some way for you or other people

Nice analysis, thanks for the tips. It seems like everyone's saying needles control the matchup.

 

[-dMT-]

Needles and Shield. Never dodge roll. Stay near edges.

You're golden.

 

[_Tree]

Fun fact: if you proc Little Mac's counter with bouncing fish, you'll flip back without getting hit, and the distance he travels because of the counter almost perfectly sets him up for a second kick off the first bouncing fish. BF looks like a really safe option to poke him with due to that and the fact that you bounce off shields. His only counter to it is dodging, which is difficult due to BF's speed.

Honestly, I think we have the advantage in the match-up. We have two projectiles for zoning, an excellent air-game made almost perfectly for combos and follow-ups and some of the best gimping potential in the game (which is especially useful against Mac).

 

[GOofyGV]

Fun fact: if you proc Little Mac's counter with bouncing fish, you'll flip back without getting hit, and the distance he travels because of the counter almost perfectly sets him up for a second kick off the first bouncing fish. BF looks like a really safe option to poke him with due to that and the fact that you bounce off shields. His only counter to it is dodging, which is difficult due to BF's speed.

Honestly, I think we have the advantage in the match-up. We have two projectiles for zoning, an excellent air-game made almost perfectly for combos and follow-ups and some of the best gimping potential in the game (which is especially useful against Mac).

I like some of this info a lot, good stuff. I agree completely with you that mac should naver touch the stage again once sheik sets him up, meaning that we get grabs or Ftilt.

 

[?.?]

so wrote a small little thing up on megaman simply because that's the most knowledgeable matchup I have right now. And as always the game is new so take every bit of info with a grain of salt. If people appreciate it I'll cover my second best matchup which is D3.

Megaman MU

so as a zoner most Mm's will try and keep you at a set distance, think of it like you're fighting a marth who's good at spacing. They want you to stay off them but at a distance where they can follow up with sh u-airs (most damaging move they have), jabs, or roll punishes. The matchup is going to consist of you trying to get in with minimal damage taken, 0% if you're good or lucky. Taking him to battlefield would be wise as fd/omega stages benefit projectiles too much, the typical combos work regardless though and you should be spending all your energy trying to get in either way, Read those rolls and punish accordingly. Keep in mind his up+b can break grounded combos and some aerial ones as well so don't be surprised if he up+bs out of some meteor u-airs, just be prepared to punish. Remember to shield those side+bs and jab those buzzsaws, if for whatever reason they leafshield get them off stage asap as they can't up+b with leafshield on. To get past the usual wall of f-tilt, jab, buzzsaw, f-smash, and side+b you'll need to incorporate several of your options all the time. Effectively using dash+shield, BF, and your crouch movement will win this matchup. Never do an option that involves hitting shield as his u-tilt is an extremely effective OoS option and he can pivot it to ruin your day. Against buzzsaw you can jab to beat it or dash attack through his throw to hit him and get it. As a last added thought be careful about his grabs and be willing to spam yours, megaman can pull off a f-air out of a d-throw and it hurts, of course we can do the same but getting that grab first is not always easy.

MMs Moves of note
u-tilt kills at 90% or so fresh be very careful when you're in kill range as he can roll into this to punish quite easily.
u-air 16 or so damage when shorthopped can be chained into others if they read, never try and contest this.
d-air autocancels if they double jump and it meteors at an average strength
n-air main gimping tool, be prepared for runoff nairs recovering at ledge or above is your best choice most of the time.
fsmash main ledge guarding/ko tool (it hits ledge and will kill)
n-b does more damage if he picks it up luckily jab beats it and sh airdodge picks it up relatively easily

Things to note
BF goes over most of his default projectiles exceptions being leafblade and fully charged F-smash
grenade bounces on both buzzsaw and d-air, although unless you ledge cancel you'll probably be punished for this.
needle camping is average and you'll get better results with rushdown.
Raising storm is extremely useful and you'll find yourself using it a lot. (full hop rising needles allows you to jump or do an aeral before you land with zero lag)

 

[DtJ Jungle]

Alright alright alright alright

Pikachu! Yea!~

First things first our projectiles just go through each other. however, at maximum needle range, if you throw needles in reaction to thunder jolt, you can shield and they can't. So that's neat. Also, Pika can FJ jolt and have no landing lag, so I've seen many pikas try to approach with this. However, you can just shield it and grab them on their way down, especially if they do an aerial. Honestly shield by itself beats pika for us, imo. I've been able to nair OoS and punish aerials that go behind me, or just grab the ones in front of me.

Pika 's fair without the last hit is pretty much a free grab. Thunder also has some WEIRD spike property that's meant to send you down into pika and then hit horizontally but ive just been sent downward by it. It's also active very very early, I've heard rumors about frame 1 but I dunno. Nair's bad. punish it hard. Up air's a good combo, as is utilt. Some pika's are using Up-B to get around and it does a surprising amount of knockback and has relatively low landing lag so be aware of that. Downsmash is bigger than it looks, but it won't kill you until very high percentage. I'm usually dying to pika f-smash in the 120-30 range. Dair is also a potential kill move off stage or even on stage it's just pretty good in general.

Recoveries in this game are good in general but Pika's is v. good imo. i think though if you stand in the position where a grenade will be just off stage (and throw it to cover the ledge) you can recover from that fast enough to punish any on stage recovery as well.

Final note: the uair regrab is hard on pika at 0. you have to really delay the uair, but it'll still hit.

I think this match up is in our favor. I don't think Pika has great on stage options against us and can't really force us to do anything we don't want to.

 

[Lemonitis]

I'd just tilt the living hell out of a Capt.Falcon player. Followed-up with a Fair then more tilt. Don't remember how much damage I raked up. It was, however, a very, very satisfying amount. Basically, Falcon ain't **** toward Sheik.

 

[Overswarm]

Sheik vs. Bowser

I love Bowser but he can't be played almost for this matchup alone.

• None of his aerials are safe on shield. You can shield them then grab him.
• If you get a grab, you can d-throw u-air for a long time and typically keep him in the air as none of his aerials are safe on shield.
• If he's in the air, f-tilt combos into fair or u-air for a long, long time and is super easy to land as it comes out faster than his other aerials when he's in range.
• If he's on the ground, f-tilt is a great punish for any of his rolls as it combos as well as a grab but is safer if you whiff
• Don't use bouncing fish or grenade offensively, ever. It's not necessary and he can punish them.
• Absolutely everything he has is countered by "roll backwards" except for him dashing through your roll to grab you. His grabs don't do much to hurt you.
• If you grab the ledge, he can't do much to count a jump off the ledge -> double jump -> bouncing fish. If you need a safe opportunity, wait for him to jump and touch the ground.
• Virtually all his damage is going to be due to him either running up and grabbing you or by him using up+b or jab OoS.
• If you are in a panic situation and need to roll, roll away from him rather than towards him and roll TWICE. He can only punish with a grab or, in rare cases, a dash attack. Neither kill.

The matchup is entirely about limiting his options to kill. Don't give him options and you win out.

 

[Lemonitis]

Couldn't Bowser Nair out of a ftilt combo?

 

[Overswarm]

No. No he cannot.

 

[DKwill]

so wrote a small little thing up on megaman simply because that's the most knowledgeable matchup I have right now. And as always the game is new so take every bit of info with a grain of salt. If people appreciate it I'll cover my second best matchup which is D3.

Megaman MU

so as a zoner most Mm's will try and keep you at a set distance, think of it like you're fighting a marth who's good at spacing. They want you to stay off them but at a distance where they can follow up with sh u-airs (most damaging move they have), jabs, or roll punishes. The matchup is going to consist of you trying to get in with minimal damage taken, 0% if you're good or lucky. Taking him to battlefield would be wise as fd/omega stages benefit projectiles too much, the typical combos work regardless though and you should be spending all your energy trying to get in either way, Read those rolls and punish accordingly. Keep in mind his up+b can break grounded combos and some aerial ones as well so don't be surprised if he up+bs out of some meteor u-airs, just be prepared to punish. Remember to shield those side+bs and jab those buzzsaws, if for whatever reason they leafshield get them off stage asap as they can't up+b with leafshield on. To get past the usual wall of f-tilt, jab, buzzsaw, f-smash, and side+b you'll need to incorporate several of your options all the time. Effectively using dash+shield, BF, and your crouch movement will win this matchup. Never do an option that involves hitting shield as his u-tilt is an extremely effective OoS option and he can pivot it to ruin your day. Against buzzsaw you can jab to beat it or dash attack through his throw to hit him and get it. As a last added thought be careful about his grabs and be willing to spam yours, megaman can pull off a f-air out of a d-throw and it hurts, of course we can do the same but getting that grab first is not always easy.

MMs Moves of note
u-tilt kills at 90% or so fresh be very careful when you're in kill range as he can roll into this to punish quite easily.
u-air 16 or so damage when shorthopped can be chained into others if they read, never try and contest this.
d-air autocancels if they double jump and it meteors at an average strength
n-air main gimping tool, be prepared for runoff nairs recovering at ledge or above is your best choice most of the time.
fsmash main ledge guarding/ko tool (it hits ledge and will kill)
n-b does more damage if he picks it up luckily jab beats it and sh airdodge picks it up relatively easily

Things to note
BF goes over most of his default projectiles exceptions being leafblade and fully charged F-smash
grenade bounces on both buzzsaw and d-air, although unless you ledge cancel you'll probably be punished for this.
needle camping is average and you'll get better results with rushdown.
Raising storm is extremely useful and you'll find yourself using it a lot. (full hop rising needles allows you to jump or do an aeral before you land with zero lag)

This is very useful. A few things to add here:

Short hop n-air also picks up the metal blade while also offering a hitbox that can be spaced safely.

Secondly, once you have the metal blade? Hold onto it. Especially if you are up a stock. You can camp with needles much more effectively and while you hold onto the metal blade MM cannot pull out another one. You can also throw it back at him for a nice grab setup once you are content with your needle damage or when he starts to physically approach you.

 

[Spudboy]

Just popping in here to say that the Duck Hunt vs. Sheik matchup feels very much weighted towards Sheik. Her projectiles just shut down the can and the clay pigeon, and it can be really hard for Duck Hunt to get back down to the stage once in the air.
It just feels harder than most characters to me.

 

[Overswarm]

Someone should write down at what point d-throw no longer combos into u-air due to air dodge (and thus, combos into vanish if they do) and what % it kills. For yoshi it's around 100% when you can first d-throw to up+b, 120% when it kills.

 

[Tristan_win]

Someone should write down at what point d-throw no longer combos into u-air due to air dodge (and thus, combos into vanish if they do) and what % it kills. For yoshi it's around 100% when you can first d-throw to up+b, 120% when it kills.

K request received.

All testing was done in training mode against a level 9 yoshi set to 'stop' the attacks used were dthrow and then uair. Results were writing down when the 'combo' gauge register 6 showing all hits of the uair combo into dthrow.

Training mode results, I stop trying at 150%

Beyond 150% Sheik start sending yoshi too high for her to follow up....So yeah... Chances are your not going to combo someone with a dthrow into uair at 150% but technically it's possible.

edit: of course this isn't taking into account VS 1.05 freshness so it's most likely closer to 140% if not a bit lower.
edit2: Obviously VI effect this as well
Do you still want all the characters?

 

[DtJ Jungle]

I'm trying to gather my thoughts on Greninja but my memory is failing at this point. I feel like the match up is slightly in our favor but the other ninja has some bull**** that makes the matchup tough. I can't really recall what those things were other than being able to control shadow sneak and stupid water hitboxes really screwing around with recovery.

There's obv alot more to this match up but those were two of the things that really stand out in my mind at the moment. I think in general our moves are just better and his recover is pretty easy to scope out.

 

[-dMT-]

The Greninja MU is one that definitely doesn't feel one-sided, but I would still give Sheik the edge. Feels like a 60-40 to me.

The key thing here is that needles out-range water shuriken.

I played against a Greninja that had developed a particular strategy of camping with quick shurikens and then using his quick dash in after a hit confirm to grab > uthrow > usmash > uair at low %s, and otherwise setup juggles following a throw. It was during our neutral game that I realized quickly that needles have a solid lead in range over the shurken, so his camping game is entirely shut down. He tried to approach with short hops and landing with a shuriken toss to avoid my needle spam, but simply timing the needle throw for his landing would cancel his attempt to even shoot it.

Shadow Sneak is entirely projected. Just learn to look for a shadow whenever you see the Greninja not throwing out any hitboxes at range (particularly the shurikens they like to spam).

Otherwise, their primary trick is to cancel dair and fair landing lag with shadow sneak - so if you try to punish their landing, unless you have a large/lingering hitbox they will effectively counter you. On the other hand, simply shielding this shadow sneak will result in plenty of frame advantage for us so it becomes a rock-paper-scissors scenario yet again.

Also, Greninjas love their juggles with uair and dair... and the fact that we can escape them pretty handily with Bouncing Fish gives us another edge. Combined with the fact that if things ever get hectic, we can always put some distance and play the ranged game with needles rather safely I say puts us at an advantage.

Also, I pity the Greninja that think's he's safe charging/shooting a shuriken when I ever DO step in it's range... because that also happens to put him into Bouncing Fish range.

(I also play Greninja the most after Sheik, so I suppose I know how to exploit his weaknesses more than most this early in the game)

 

[DtJ Jungle]

Also, I pity the Greninja that think's he's safe charging/shooting a shuriken when I ever DO step in it's range... because that also happens to put him into Bouncing Fish range.

(I also play Greninja the most after Sheik, so I suppose I know how to exploit his weaknesses more than most this early in the game)

This is FANTASTIC

Thanks for all this additional info, one of my training partners mains Greninja but I haven't played him since day 2 so it's good to see more info than what i can give.

 

[SleuthMechanism]

So the greninja matchup kind of baffles me. It's kind of like i'm fighting a sheik with better range on all its normals.

 

[-dMT-]

So the greninja matchup kind of baffles me. It's kind of like i'm fighting a sheik with better range on all its normals.

Greninja has more range on normals, Sheik has greater speed and less endlag on them (as far as blanket statements go).

Main things versus Greninja is, his jump height is insane, so you never want to be above him... the juggles can be real. When under him, always be prepared for the dair and to react whether they do it or not, and if they do it, anticipate the shadow sneak lag cancel, or lack thereof.

As I said earlier though, if at any point you're in an unfavorable string of events, feel free to get out and reset to neutral. Sheik wins the neutral game due to a faster and longer range projectile that shuts out Greninja's shuriken game.

Ftilt chains don't seem to work that well on him, and in my experience he gets out of our full jab sequence more often than not.

In general, a ranged needle/nade camp game punishing bad approaches or spacing mixed with going in with grabs/DA works well to get things started.

 

[Jackson]

I agree with @ -dMT- , i think needles are the key to winning the matchup. Remember, you have no obligation to approach him unless you're down stocks. Let him be aggressive.

 

[-dMT-]

If there's any match-up we should be talking about, it's vs Rosalina.

 

[Jackson]

If there's any match-up we should be talking about, it's vs Rosalina.

It's definitely a struggle. Luma can zone us out and needles aren't all that great. I feel like we have to be really agressive and overwhelm Rosalina with fast aerials and tilts. Once that Luma dies, go OFF on Rosalina for that short respawn time.

 

[-dMT-]

It's definitely a struggle. Luma can zone us out and needles aren't all that great. I feel like we have to be really agressive and overwhelm Rosalina with fast aerials and tilts. Once that Luma dies, go OFF on Rosalina for that short respawn time.

I haven't played any particularly good Rosalina's yet, but recently I started messing with customs... and I found gravity grenade to be very helpful versus Rosalina, besides being a great custom already.

It seems to grab Luma even if Rosalina is shielding, effectively separating them in a way Rosalina doesn't want/expect... and once you manage to separate them, a whole slew of doors open up.

Right now, that's really my only contribution for now. I mean, if anything is gonna really determine where Sheik stands in tournament viability, it will be her MUs versus other top performers... so focusing on such characters seems prudent.

 

[Sailor Princess Twenty-Two.]

I've played the game for about a day, haven't played against anyone who is competent, but I'm pretty sure sheik is the best character in the game and beats all of the characters mentioned.