No sympathy: Ike Video thread

[Thane of Blue Flames]

The Bowser game - what.

Him fighting M2K's Fox and beating it was tight though, as far as I remember. But yeah, he did not JC Grab as much (and I know he knows about it, since I saw him do it like once) but dang if his reads and reactions aren't solid. Not to sound condescending but considering he's a Brawl player I was pretty surprised.

 

[PyroTakun]

Being a Brawl player probably actually helped him a lot. Ike didn't really have any serious changes to his moves outside of quickdraw, and if he used Ike in Brawl and had to deal with a lot of bad matchups then PM Ike was probably a godsend for this guy. Brawl Ike definitely relied on reads and reactions, there wasn't any other way to play him really.

 

[metroid1117]

Ally has terrific player fundamentals (he is one of the best Brawl players, after all), but IMO he should learn how to actively apply things that weren't in Brawl like QD JC grabs and using QD to combo out of throws.

 

[Nguz95]

Hopefully he actually gets interested in PM. He said he enjoyed himself the most when he was playing PM. Maybe that means he's going to start moving away from Brawl...

 

[Raziek]

Hey guys! I kinda co-main Ike and Snake, so I have a couple Ike games for viewing/critique.

I'm aware that I need to use Quickdraw a lot more, but some advice on what situations are best to use it for would be much appreciated.

This one didn't go so well, I was way too aggressive in going off-stage and didn't get much payoff. Any advice for fighting Ivy?

 

[PyroTakun]

Hey guys! I kinda co-main Ike and Snake, so I have a couple Ike games for viewing/critique.

I'm aware that I need to use Quickdraw a lot more, but some advice on what situations are best to use it for would be much appreciated.

This one didn't go so well, I was way too aggressive in going off-stage and didn't get much payoff. Any advice for fighting Ivy?

I'm not too far into the 2nd video but I can already tell you need more QD in your life, especially since you play more aggressively. QD mainly helps keep the pressure on the opponent and close the distance. Watch some of the vids in the OP to check out the different stuff you can do with it.

 

[metroid1117]

Hey guys! I kinda co-main Ike and Snake, so I have a couple Ike games for viewing/critique.

I'm aware that I need to use Quickdraw a lot more, but some advice on what situations are best to use it for would be much appreciated.

This one didn't go so well, I was way too aggressive in going off-stage and didn't get much payoff. Any advice for fighting Ivy?

I wrote a post about your Ivysaur match, but my Internet at home died before I could submit it; once I get back from work, I'll give you a response.

EDIT: Yay for being at home.

I haven't watched the Lucas set, but I watched the Ivysaur set. As you said, your biggest problem was netting edgeguards; Ivysaur is a difficult character to edgeguard because Ike can't really go down that low, but if you want to be aggressive, you can try walkoff FAir when Ivysaur is recovering at this angle (granted, if you tried it at this instance you probably would've gotten hit by the FAir) or walkoff DAir when Ivysaur is coming from directly below the stage. Ivysaur is vulnerable during the reel-in animation of her up+B, so the lingering hitbox on DAir has a chance of catching her. However, screwing up both of these edgeguards will force you to recover onto the stage while Ivysaur is on the edge (presumably after a successful recovery), which will let her combo you when you land on the stage; I wouldn't recommend being aggressive, but those options are there if you're feeling confident. Otherwise, the safest method is to grab the edge before Ivysaur up+Bs; as of 3.0, tether characters can't act out of the "edge jump" animation they get put into when reeling into an occupied edge until they touch the ground, so you can force them to reel in and then punish that with edgehopped FAir (here’s an example of where this could’ve worked). Although this is pretty inefficient since it sends Ivysaur to the opposite side of the stage, I haven't really found a good way to edgeguard Ivysaur; if anyone else has suggestions, that would be much appreciated.

As for the neutral game, it seemed like you were using NAir a lot. Although NAir is great at setting up for juggles, it can be easily crouch-canceled at low %s (this NAir could've been punished if Lamb CC'd) and it's hard to true-combo floaties out of it with proper DI. Against Ivysaur, NAir gets beat out by BAir pretty often, since it’s both faster and longer-ranged; FAir is probably a better option here, since although it suffers the problem of being out-sped, it can compete with Ivysaur’s other aerials in terms of range and, with Ike’s good aerial speed, it has a lot of reach if you get a running start.

On a related note, because your neutral game was so centered on NAir, a lot of your combo game seemed to be based on juggles. Although Ivysaur doesn’t have stellar aerial mobility, she’s floaty, her FAir reaches pretty far below her, and UAir allows her to fall to the ground, making it difficult to keep her in bad positions. I’d recommend experimenting with Ike’s combo game off of grabs and QD attack; QD attack is an extremely good poking tool (run away -> B-reverse QD attack is a great way to punished whiffed approaches or aerials) and combo starter at mid %s (as with NAir, it gets CC’d pretty hard at low % though) and on floaties, Ike’s DThrow, BThrow, and FThrow all link into dash attack, QD JC grab, and QD -> aerial with no DI. The problem, though, is that if the opponent DIs correctly (down and away), these will only lead to tech chases. If you’d like more ideas of how you can apply QD into your game, I’d recommend giving this video a watch; it’s from Demo 2.0, so some things are different (like the distance and speed of QD travel), but pretty much everything is still applicable today.

On an unrelated note, I uploaded some sets from my last tournament (3.5 weeks ago lol); if anyone's interested, here are some games that got recorded. Any constructive criticism or advice would be appreciated.

WR2 - vs Rat (Wolf)
WQ - vs Dart (Marth)
WS - vs Oro (ZSS)
LQ - vs Strong Bad (DK)

$1MM - vs Ripple (D3)
$1MM - vs Rat (Wolf)
$1MM - vs Rat (Snake)
$1MM - vs Plasma (Lucas)
$1MM - vs HarryTheChin (Link)
$1MM - vs Spoon (G&W)
$1MM - vs 5-1 (Pit)
F - vs Lux (Samus)
F - vs Spoon (G&W)
F - vs Lazarond (Link)
F - vs JBrockPony (Sonic)
F - vs Lied (Marth)

Also, here's some footage of Strong Bad's impressive Ike.

F - vs Rat (Wolf)
$1MM - vs Rat (Wolf) [1]
$1MM - vs Rat (Wolf) [2]

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Seen 'em all already, lol.

On the topic of edge-guarding Ivysaur: Have you tried grabbing the ledge, waiting until she tethers and then using edgedrop nair to get her before or during reel-in?

 

[Raziek]

Thanks a bunch Metroid, I appreciate that.

 

[metroid1117]

Seen 'em all already, lol.

On the topic of edge-guarding Ivysaur: Have you tried grabbing the ledge, waiting until she tethers and then using edgedrop nair to get her before or during reel-in?

I haven't thought of that before. I don't know when's the next time I'll play against an Ivysaur (actually, I don't even know when's the next time I'll get to play against other people - work is busy >.>), but I'm not sure how that would turn out; her reel-in animation is super fast, so I doubt it'd be feasible (for me, at least) to react and punish it with edgehop NAir. It might stage spike her, but it seems like she'd be able to tech and then airdodge onto the stage.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

I can confirm it does stage spike on a lot of occasions. The people I play with lack the reaction time to walltech consistently, but we're not talking about me here. It also works more consistently on Samus and Zamus, who have slower reel-ins but Ivysaur isn't immune to it either.

 

[metroid1117]

Alright, I'll give that a shot next time then. I'm just scared that I'll mess up, have to Aether when she's on the edge, and then give her the chance for a free edgehop DAir combo when I'm forced to land on the stage .

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Lol, if it makes you feel better, it's largely similar in principle to using Link's sex kick to edgeguard tether recoveries. Just stricter with timing because Link's nair stays out for, what, a million frames?

 

[Commander]

I was not able to catch Apex. When can I expect to be able to see all the Ike videos?

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

I don't know, but you will get to see Ally being goddamn psychic.

 

[metroid1117]

I actually didn't see much of PM at all . Did Ally do QD tricks or was he relying on brilliant reading ability? Regardless, massive props to him for getting 7th, that bracket was STACKED.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Both!

I think we should hereby christen Ally the Mewtwoslayer, knocking out both Taj and KDJ - who played a nasty Mewtwo. Throw in Zhime and I think he's had enough of teleporting characters for a while. Ally still uses QD attack extensively - to the point where you could call it spam - but I realized that conditions his opponents into shielding and they tend not to see the JC grabs coming. Either way, his QD game has improved a ton and his reads are so solid he seems more psychic than the Mewtwos he bops. Taj and KDJ were both barely edged out and they were brilliant matches to watch. I think Taj at one point actually turned to a guy next to him and made a "what" face when Ally QD Up-smashed him on Battlefield, haha.

Zhime's Zelda was suffocating to watch. Stuffing all of Ike's options meant that Ally barely managed to edge out a victory their first game with a surprise side-smash and was choked out in their second match pretty handily.

Then Ally counterpicked Green Hill Zone, went into beast mode and damn near four-stocked Zhime. It was brutal.

So it was really sad to see that Ally choked in his match with Sethlon. He got severely outplayed on PS2 game 1, and counterpicked to GHZ on Game 2 - only to lose three stocks to missing QD wall-jumps and thus SD'ing. Sigh. Hopefully he isn't discouraged from P:M and/or Ike and continues playing, because he is a treat to watch. As it were, Roy v/s Ike was a hype top 8 match and the mucho Fire Emblem representation in the top was nice to see

On that note, you planning on going to Apex next year, Metroid? Ike ain't done winning tournaments yet :D

 

[Commander]

I wish I got to see that live. Sounds so epic especially with the up smash on Taj. It seems like no one is prepared for Ike. It is a nice advantage to have.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Welp, if'n you missed it: http://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/c...ations_to_the_winner_of_project_m_for/cesz7o0

Links to various P:M matches on Twitch, including Ally v/s Taj, Zhime and Sethlon. (Don't watch v/s Sethlon unless you wanna cringe a lot, though). Plus it has all the top 8 matches.

Also, the biggest issue with Ike (from an opponent's perspective) is that he just has so dang many options out of his Side B. Upsmash can charge a bit and catch spotdodges, grab can punish shielding, and Wavedash fakeouts can be used to force you to do something unfavorable like rolls, not to mention QD Attack, SH/FH aerials which can be Fair, Nair or turnaround bair ... No one's ever really prepared for Ike.

Hence his side-taunt.

 

[King of Hoboz]

To be honest, I found Ally's Ike to be clunky this tournament, I was surprised he managed to get so far off his reads, amazing though they may be. Ally losing to Sethlon showed exactly the limits of his un-technical play as Seth, even in the game 1, was just straight giving it to him. I was mentally screaming at times during Ally's sets for him to do Wavedashes out of Quickdraw, believing it'd make them do something stupid, but it wasn't happening.

 

[Commander]

I don't get why he wasn't using up tilts and up throws against Roy of all characters. It didn't help that he didn't react to Sethlon's crouch canceling. Had he just thrown in some grabs, just like 3 even, then he could have at least made the match much loser than it was.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

I TOLD YOU NOT TO WATCH THE SETHLON MATCH

LoL, I agree with the above, though. Ally over-relied on QD attack, Seth picked up on it, and crouch-cancelled him all day game 1. Which pretty much destroyed Ally's mindset.

And I did say Ally's QD game has *improved*, not that it's phenomenal. He definitely could have won match 1 on PS2 if he demonstrated a bit more versatility with regards to his QD cancels. Like, grabbing.

I think it goes to show how far Ike can get, at least, when you take into account how far a good read with Ike can get you, and that Ally wasn't playing Ike optimally some of these matches.

That Zhime third match tho, quite sick.

 

[metroid1117]

I TOLD YOU NOT TO WATCH THE SETHLON MATCH

LoL, I agree with the above, though. Ally over-relied on QD attack, Seth picked up on it, and crouch-cancelled him all day game 1. Which pretty much destroyed Ally's mindset.

To be fair, Ally is primarily a Brawl player and crouch-canceling isn't in Brawl.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

It's not? I thought Crouch Cancelling was from Brawl, not Melee.

 

[SpiderMad]

It's not? I thought Crouch Cancelling was from Brawl, not Melee.

lol, just hit stun canceling, which was taken out

 

[BlinkIV]

Videos of my Ike coming soon. Hopefully some entertaining matches. I'm thinking there will be matches of my Ike vs Sethlon, Oracle, Austin, and likely Dakpo if he's in the area.

 

[PyroTakun]

I need to get back on P:M and find people in my area.

 

[SpiderMad]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nYWNayYVLo

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Situationally useful for recovery/avoiding edgeguards I'd imagine.

 

[Commander]

I'm glad you made a more specific video about wavebouncing. I can't wait to work it into my play. I think it is going to lead to some really epic bait and punishes. I think Ike's metagame is going to be centered around mixups, conditioning, and mindgames and wavebouncing has a good potential to make it really powerful. Is wavebouncing P:M exclusive or is there some form of it in Brawl or Melee?

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Wavebouncing is a Brawl tech.

Mixups, conditioning and mindgames. Sounds a lot like Snake.

 

[Commander]

Yeah, but cooler with swords and black jack.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

In fact, forget the blackjack.

 

[SpiderMad]

It took forever to find this http://www.twitch.tv/kirkiusprime/b/368199526?t=0h20m59s
Vro did a QD to WD back fake out a few times. You could potentially try doing some sort of fakeout with a SH Wavebounce QD. When Metroid or whomever goes for that jump off QDWJ to Aerial to edgeguard people, you can make it more tricky looking with a B-reverse (along with WJ'ing in recovering, I'll have a weird snip-it from a replay of something like that)

 

[Commander]

It is a pretty hard technique to do. I can't seem to get it consistently. Not even normal reversals with QD. I can get the B reverse with Eruption though. Is there anything more to it than flipping the stick really quickly?

I think it will be a better fakeout than WD out of QD because your cause your opponent to miss and then you already have the attack ready, and since you're using Ike it should be easy to string it into something big and flashy.

 

[NameChange]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU-AEivwhhA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ij2KF9kbZ1Y

Two Ike combos I did

 

[metroid1117]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nYWNayYVLo

It's worth noting that B-reverse QD is really good on the ground; you cannot quickly turn around out of a run, but you can B-reverse QD in order to get around that instead of wavedashing. This lets you punish approaches while running away from the opponent, either B-reverse -> QD attack or B-reverse QD -> JC grab.

 

[deadjames]

Here's a match from a local I hosted/attended yesterday. I only went Ike in game 3 so it's not a whole set. http://www.twitch.tv/strong_badam/b/503716495 match starts at 1:40:05. Critique please, I suck and want to get better.

 

[King of Hoboz]

This is a match-up where applying good use of Dash Dancing and QD->Wavedash is really good baiting. You need to have your mobility maximized to keep up with Fox. QD Attack is the main opener I use in this match-up, since Foxes tend to get really eager when me and them start Dancing around, normally QD attack beating Nair.

This means a lot less rolling and less spot dodging. Maybe you were trying to wavedash (I know I roll a lot by accident when trying to wavedash when I haven't warmed up), but those are really bad mistakes unless you know rolling is your own out to some kind of pressure.

I'm guilty of not listening to my own advice on this, but don't try to d-throw them unless you're confident in your tech chasing. U-throw is your safest bet against Fox. Its a free 60%.

 

[deadjames]

Yeah I know most of that stuff. I was slightly under the weather so I really wasn't playing my best, my execution was really off that day. That dthrow was an accident so I just figured I'd try to follow up with a dash attack, the part at the end where I tried to jump out and fair was an accident too, it was supposed to be a platform drop>bair, and as you saw it lost me the match. Also the excessive spot-dodging was mostly due to MU inexperience, I never played Melee competitively so I don't really have a whole lot of Fox practice. I don't really know why I wasn't QD>WDing because I normally utilize it quite often I guess I'll just chalk that up to illness johns as well lol.