Piklopedia - The Olimar Matchup Thread (1st ed. complete, open discussion)

[Blue Banana]

Old thread

*cue theme music*

Hi! Welcome to the Olimar matchup thread. Here people can discuss specific matchups that will be focused on for a certain period of time.

There will generally be two or three matchups that will be focused on for at most a week, although discussion may move on to another set of matchups earlier than expected if they don't generate a lot of talk. Those that do will be revisited in a later period of time.

Posts on MUs with regards to customs are fine, though general discussion should be primarily focused on the "default" metagame.

Things that would be beneficial for discussion include:

• How the matchup plays
• Opponent's moves the Olimar player would need to watch out for
• Moves that Olimar has that would help greatly in the matchup
• What stages should the Olimar player (counter)pick/strike
• Some sort of indication of how difficult the matchup is (i.e., 60-40, even, -1, etc.)

The last point is the least important, but I do want to get down the overall difficulty of the matchup by noting how everyone feels about it.

Matchup difficulty will be classified by one of three descriptions: Even, Disadvantage, or Advantage. Some matchups may have the words Heavy or Slight to specify how severe the (dis)advantage is.

A couple of rules should be kept in mind:

• Please be respectful to all users in this thread. I'm fairly sure that some matchups can create some heated discussion, and that's fine. However, any sort of insult towards a user is discouraged since it'd probably break the flow of the discussion.
• Please don't make very short posts. You don't have to type large bodies of text, but I don't want really short, 1-or-2-sentence posts like "It's an even matchup". There isn't much info to glean out from one or two sentences.

That's it!

I may or may not post a link to a song that is at least tangentially related to the current matchup discussion, though it may not be obvious at first. (Discussion prompts with no songs will be explicitly stated.)

Current Matchup Discussion: Open Discussion

Spoiler: 1st Edition - Archived Discussion (10/27/15 - 4/3/2016)

Difficulty|Characters
Heavy Disadvantage | - /
Disadvantage | / (? / ?)
Slight Disadvantage | / (??)
Even | ( ) / (??)
Slight Advantage | (??)
Advantage | (??)
Heavy Advantage |
???|

Characters that are split between two ratings are separated from other characters with the same rating (for example, Corrin is split apart from Mario, Yoshi, and Wario because they have a disadvantage/slight disadvantage rating). Characters with tentative ratings are put into a separate sub-group (? between the parentheses and question marks ?).


Discussion 1 - Fast People
(heavy disadvantage/disadvantage)
(even?)

Discussion 2 - Space Fighters
(slight disadvantage)
(disadvantage)

Discussion 3 - plumbers
(disadvantage)
(even)

Discussion 4 - dp
(disadvantage)
(even)

Discussion 5 - Fruits and Vegetables
(disadvantage?)
(even?)

Discussion 6 - Pokémon
(even)
(slight advantage)
(even/slight advantage)

Discussion 7 - The Color Blue
(even/slight advantage)
(disadvantage?)
(disadvantage?/slight disadvantage?)

Discussion 8 - Forest Interlude
(even/slight advantage)
(even/slight advantage)

Discussion 9 - Brawlers
(even)
(slight disadvantage/even)
(disadvantage)

Discussion 10 - Robot Rock
(even)
(even)

Discussion 11 - Just Some Average, Everyday Kids
(heavy advantage)
(even)

Discussion 12 - Bingo Battle
(ditto)

Discussion 13 - Tools, Contraptions, and Everything Between
(even)
(even)

Discussion 14 - Brawlers II
(even/slight advantage)
(slight advantage)

Discussion 15 - The Showdown
(even)
(slight disadvantage/even)
(slight advantage)

Discussion 16 - Space Fighters II: The Buster Arrives
(slight disadvantage?)
(advantage)
(even)

Discussion 17 - Magic, Books, and Heavenly Powers
(even?)
(even?)
(heavy advantage)

Discussion 18 - The Retro-Future
(even/slight advantage)
(advantage)
(even)

Discussion 19 - En Garde!
(slight disadvantage?)
/ (advantage?)
(advantage?)

Discussion 20 - Health and Exercise
(even)
(slight advantage?)
(even?)

Discussion 21 - Ro(t)und
(even)
(advantage)
(advantage?)

Discussion 22 - Twelve Dollars
(disadvantage/slight disadvantage)
(slight disadvantage)

Discussion 23 - The Fighters' Templates
(???)
(???)
(slight advantage)

 

[Blue Banana]

Discussion 1 - Fast People

Sheik Frame Data
ZSS Frame data

Spoiler: Old Quotes (Sheik)

Uh. I think this has been discussed before but Powershielding vs sheik is one of the best things to do and then punish (Upsmash oos?, nair oos,fsmash/downsmash oos), but even doing so isn't easy and you gotta alternate between spot dodges, maybe a few rolls, etc also for the annyoing fair try to DI away from it or at least not in a predictable fashion and maybe saving your jump to jump away from Sheik if shes put u up in the air if u havent already used it ,people may suggest whistle but the timing is so strict that I personally don't find it that reliable. Like most matchups pivot fsmashes/grabs are key to this matchup (in addition to your comment about yellows and purples) ,respecting her aerial game but at the same time adding in random fair's, bair's and also mixing up recovery back to the stage, you especially gotta keep in mind that they can edge guard with 2 common options with bouncing fish and a bair to the stage both of which will most likely have u lose a stock. Also spacing yourself and keeping her out is a good thing to try to maintain even tho its difficult..the best options sheik has when u space yourself is dash attk/dash grab/bouncing fish/needles.. I personally camp with pikmin and shield if a sheik decides to camp with needles its just free dmg for us until they decide to approach...Sheik is one of our worst matchup's on paper as already stated. Having a good mental state of mind calmly reacting and predicting to sheik is what I feel like we must do agains't her more in comparison to much of the cast...but again easier said than done. Just my two cents.

So I've come to the conclusion after talking with numerous Sheik players that Olimar loses the matchup normally. Once he gets 2 purples though I'd say it becomes a 50-50. Purples allow you to always have something to keep Sheik out when you're moving around or want to approach.

You have to power shield the attacks and disrupt her approach with purples. Her frame data is superior so you have to punish her attacks on you. Use your Pikmin to increase the lag on her moves, and practice the one frame punish on the ledge recoveries with yellow dsmash.

In addition to Myran, Its also worth mentioning sheik's fall speed and weight. Blue up-throw kills reliably at 120% with decent rage. Her fall speed allows high damage combos with d-throw to f-smash guaranteed at %'s around 20 and under. A thing I like to do against sheik is dtilt lock her due to her fall speed. It works from about 20~ to 35~% and can normally follow up with a strong uair or even grab/dsmash if they waste their jump. Knowing sheik's limited kill options is key to winning the matchup as anyone. Sheik doesn't have kill throws so shielding on the ground will restrict her to aerial chases. Her forward air comes out a couple frames before our whistle super armor so it makes it tough to use that move against her in the air although it can be strong against the bouncing fish. Until the sheik misinputs with something like a dash attack, I'm only looking for blue pivot grabs to kill.
I'm looking to post on the boards more often

have a grab on Sheik at 0%?

With anything other than blue...

Down Throw->Down Tilt->Jab->Jab->Re-Grab-> Down Throw-> Forward Air

Thank you RB for telling me

That combo is heavenly! I do dthrow into fast fall fair jab jab regrab d throw fair but this works better incase I miss the fast fall!

Spoiler: Old Quotes (ZSS)

If you throw it (Fspecial), yes.


I think we haven't. Is a kind of tricky because is fast but no that much. A lot of reads and know how she hits will help.
Here's my experience about Zero Suit Samus ZZS.
The jumping ZSS:

This one is annoying but I haven't seen many of them. It's good to know, but don't worry to much anyway.
The best thing is try to position at the middle of the Flip Jump (Dspecial) and try to Uair the movement near the 90°. Be carefull doing that because if you repeat that several times, your enemy will try to land his kick in that degree.
Most of the time they will land with a Plasma Whip or a Gun Shot. Shield, dodge or jump the Plasma and act asap. If it's a Gun Shot, get ready because the next move is a Dash Attack, Smash or a Grab. If you succeeded at jumping, land with a Nair and then Utilt is a good choice.
It's get tricky when they start jumping all over the stage, but consider the 3th jump and shield your approach when she's landing. It's highly probably she will kick near the floor landing or whenever caught you jumping too.​

Gun shot - Grab - Any other thing:

If you shield the gun shot you will get grabbed anyway, so if you are on a good distance I will recommend rolling forward and then punish that high ending lag of grab.
If you get grabbed, try to move forward in the air and dodging the obviously air attack that is coming. If you success, fast falling and run to punish the landing of ZSS. If she's a good one, might try a Dair to fast fall and do some damage, careful with that because has 2 hits. Even though is a risky move because of the landing lag that suffer too.
I think the best thing is try to always have 2 pikmins for a Dsmash and a good positioning may give you the advantage, also don't forget to latch some Pikmin too.
Another good advice is to get up from the floor backwards so you don't easier her job approaching you.​

Some advanced players can-should correct me .

Play keepaway and don't get stunned. Stuff Paralyzer shots with side B or Fsmash, and watch how you play defensively so you don't get caught by Dsmash (such as rolling too much). Purple side B and Fsmash also helps with dealing with grabs; since it takes a bit to reel in the caught opponent, the two projectiles will interrupt the grab and knock her away from you.

Otherwise, play safe and punish what you can. She's quick, so expect her to give you barely any leeway in terms of spacing and punish opportunities. Some of her attacks--dash attack, dash grab, and side B--cover a lot of space, so don't get too carried away with projectiles and focus on what the ZSS player is planning to do.

Discussion will be open until next Saturday, Nov. 7.

 

[koken]

Awesome initiative Blue Banana , just a little advice it would be add the end date, like next weekend is 7th or 8th.

So let's start with this wonderful idea.

This are my thoughts regarding to:

Sheik

My personal nightmare: it's a mystery yet for me how can be played successfully. It would depend a lot of the mind game and the ability to read your opponent.
None of our aerials beats any of hers, but I'm very sure that Olimar's Nair nullify some Sheik's aerials. Don't ever think on trading hits, it won't occur (except of the Nair thing).
Abusing the pivot (smash or grab) is a mandatory here, also having a purple one is extremely beneficial too. Specially when they start to approach with fair.
She's "lagless" so forget about punishing something like that, except for a failed bouncing fish but the window is pretty short in my opinion.
The edge guard of Sheik is magnificent (damn!) so you have to mix up a lot of your recovery.
If you are offstage, recognize the typical move or behave your opponent will do trying to connect a bouncing fish. The window of reaction for this is very short, so it's very difficult to avoid it.
Of course you have to use side B often too, Dtilt is a good move but Utilt and Ftilt are a difficult to connect.
Whistling is a good way to land when they dash attack you, the frames are very strict but you can do it.
If you are very confident, there is a chance you can do a Dair at the ledge when she's recovering, just need to be precise and keep the safe distance of the vanish's explosion.
Needles are a pain in the &#$, crouching will not help but a walking back pikmin can receive them.
Be wary when Sheik charges needles, because is a sign. If both are on the stage at far distance, they tend to do it because we are not being annoying to her, so keep an eye on that because is a clear sign.

Keys: side B, pivot, mind game, reading, whistle, don't stay in the air.
​

Zero Suit Samus

It should be played slowly and reactive. Starting with the idea of both characters having similar grab range, except that ZSS grab will always appear instead of us that will depend on a Pikmin and their sync.
Her dash grab and dash attack has tons of lag, so you have to keep in mind that. The usual ZSS combo is very tricky but our reduced size help us very often in my opinion.
The best approach is the typical approach of throwing a Pikmin and react to the opponent decision.
I believe, in somehow, it's a little more difficult to ZSS to connect the down B, because of Olimar's size. But with that being said it's very dangerous to get confident about that.
Nevertheless if they fail to connect that, don't hesitate to punish with the best option you have at the time, please don't let go that opportunity.
Extra careful with that short hop Nair, it will destroy Olimar if its connected after a failed Fsmash and you will be juggled in the air.
Never forget to side B often too, it's our primary tool.
Fsmash destroys ZSS's side B to Grab combo, cool tip. This force to ZSS to approach with another option.
The usual rule is to keep calm and react to enemy's decision.

Keys: smash, side B, distance, neutral game, react.
​

It's this the way it should be treated this thread? Did I wrong?

 

[Blue Banana]

koken Yes, this is the type of response that I'm looking for, thank you. I do want to point out a few things though:

If you are very confident, there is a chanceyou can do a Dair at the ledge when she'srecovering, just need to be precise andkeep the safe distance of the vanish's explosion.

It's really difficult to exploit the ledge invulnerability on Shiek because when she reappears, the puff of smoke has a hitbox. That means it's very likely that Dair would clank with the smoke (and also hit you in the process.

Starting with the idea of both characters having similar grab range, except that ZSS grab will always appear instead of us that will depend on a Pikmin and their sync.

Samus's grab comes out later than Olimar's, but her grab range is larger. However, Olimar has purple side B and Fsmash that can interrupt her grab because they come out a little faster than it.

 

[koken]

koken Yes, this is the type of response that I'm looking for, thank you. I do want to point out a few things though:

It's really difficult to exploit the ledge invulnerability on Shiek because when she reappears, the puff of smoke has a hitbox. That means it's very likely that Dair would clank with the smoke (and also hit you in the process.

Samus's grab comes out later than Olimar's, but her grab range is larger. However, Olimar has purple side B and Fsmash that can interrupt her grab because they come out a little faster than it.

Cool then :D.

You are right about the vanish, I get confused and put wrong information. Thank you for that.

About ZSS grab, I think you get me wrong.
Her grab will always occur when the command is executed, I mean always when meets the condition to do it (distance of your enemy, not invulnerable, not being hit, etc).
But our grab may not even succeed thanks to the pikmin AI and desync. You can do the input and the grab will be seen, would be a "whiff" or something like that is how some call it. However If there is a Pikmin but doesn't meet the condition of the game to come out, to properly commit the grab, the animation will occur but the grab will never exist.
That was what I wanted to point out.

 

[-The Gucci Fairy-]

"Once he gets 2 purples though I'd say it becomes a 50-50. Purples allow you to always have something to keep Sheik out when you're moving around or want to approach."-Myran (from the old matchup thread)

"In addition to Myran, Its also worth mentioning sheik's fall speed and weight. Blue up-throw kills reliably at 120% with decent rage. Her fall speed allows high damage combos with d-throw to f-smash guaranteed at %'s around 20 and under. A thing I like to do against sheik is dtilt lock her due to her fall speed. It works from about 20~ to 35~% and can normally follow up with a strong uair or even grab/dsmash if they waste their jump. Knowing sheik's limited kill options is key to winning the matchup as anyone. Sheik doesn't have kill throws so shielding on the ground will restrict her to aerial chases. Her forward air comes out a couple frames before our whistle super armor so it makes it tough to use that move against her in the air although it can be strong against the bouncing fish. Until the sheik misinputs with something like a dash attack, I'm only looking for blue pivot grabs to kill. " -Angbad (old matchup thread)

Since noone else has mentioned that in this new thread yet^

Also being patient and smart when dealing with the ledge is key vs many sheiks especially if they choose to shield next to the ledge in anticipation for your next option. Considering Olimar's ledge options aren't realy the best...

 

[-The Gucci Fairy-]

when vs zss always be mobile and shield alot (not predictably) she cant do **** about it her grab is ****ty, (*and u can also bait out the grab by sheilding a bit) and when she gets in the air with a down B respect it dont go attk it/ also be smart vs her paralyzer as she can easily kill u at higher percents /your pikmin can hit through her paralyzer her, punish her for it. Also keeping at least 1 purple is important then camp with side B and mixup. (my mindset vs her personally)

Zero suit can sneak in jabs after a failed arial approach before you can pivot grab,good news is that if she finishes her jab she's vulnerable. A smart ZZS will crouch cancel into repetitive jab 1s (random info),

Zero suit seems to approach with the following options- dash attack/grab/paralyzer mix up to grab/nair/ run past you pivot grab/down B flying crap/fair/dsmash

Zss will try to bait you with sh jumps to force you to overcommit and get a grab on you

"I think I've finally understood something very important about up b. It is a DI/VI mixup. If you up b without any input (aka neutral up b) the opponent is able to DI/VI backward and out of it. (If they DI/VI toward you or don't DI/VI at all they'll get hit.) If you up b and hold toward an opponent they can DI/VI toward you and slip out behind you. They will also slip out behind you if they don't DI/VI at all. (But if they DI/VI backward they'll get hit). And if you hold back after pressing up b you can catch an opponent trying to get out behind you, but depending on the character they'll fall out before last hit without having to DI/VI period. (This means that a sheik would slip out but someone big like bowser wouldn't unless they DI/VI away). (Up B boost kick)" -taken somewhere cant remember where its from x.x

 

[Angbad]

hmm

well sheik is definitely one of our worst mus.

6/4 sheik favor is honestly generous. Probably closer to 7/3.

You just have to be consistently playing better the entire match to beat an evenly skilled sheik.

Well for the game plan or at least my personal one.

Start the match off with a down smash. Down smash blocks the quick one needle start some sheiks do and gets us to the blue pikmin.
Throw the blue off stage.
Pluck a white.
Now some would prefer getting to a purple asap, but since sheik kills so many pikmin I kind of just wait for the purple to filter itself.


At the start of the match, sheik should be camping you and if she's not, they don't know the mu.

You're going to eat needles.

I slowly approach with jumping side b's, just to exert some pressure. When they get a pikmin on them they will likely short hop retreating nair. This is your opportunity to run closer to them to stop their camping game.

After this you'll be in a position where she's going to start throwing moves at you, you HAVE to get your damage in with pivots or very hard reads.

I could literally write so much about certain situations. If you ever want to ask me just go for it.

All in all it's a really hard mu. Purples and Whites are what make this mu possible tbh. Purples can punish stuff sheik usually isn't punished for and whites make getting grabs a hell of a lot easier.


Here's a recent set of me vs K9 where it was all oli vs sheik
http://www.twitch.tv/fadgames/v/21962733?t=87m30s

i've beaten k9, VoiD and Vinnie. Karna in a money match. idk i beat sheiks usually other than k9 lol.

http://www.twitch.tv/2ggaming/v/22967634?t=160m0s

 

[Blue Banana]

koken Sorry, I misunderstood your original post. I thought you were saying that her grab comes out faster than Olimar's grab at first, but now I understand what you said.

-The Gucci Fairy- I was actually thinking of grabbing quotes from the old thread relating to the current MUs and putting them in the prompt, so that relevant info from that thread can still be used. I'll try to edit them in later.

 

[Myran]

Not really gonna get into a heated discussion about these MU's atm since I'm busy, but I wouldn't throw away a blue at the start. It allows for more damage off throws, and is more useful than red imo. Just my quick two cents, carry on.

 

[Angbad]

Not really gonna get into a heated discussion about these MU's atm since I'm busy, but I wouldn't throw away a blue at the start. It allows for more damage off throws, and is more useful than red imo. Just my quick two cents, carry on.

that just makes no sense. Blues make down throw down tilt impossible. They have absolutely no value. You get less damage off throws due to not being able to do the dumb follow ups we have on sheik. White Red Yellow is great to have at the start. Blue brings absolutely nothing to the table. Red and Yellow allow for more damage off grabs and white allows for pressure/ easier grabs.

I lose game 1 with wario but here's games 2-5 vs k9 with olimar

http://www.twitch.tv/2ggaming/v/22967634?t=160m0s

 

[Planty]

Not really gonna get into a heated discussion about these MU's atm since I'm busy, but I wouldn't throw away a blue at the start. It allows for more damage off throws, and is more useful than red imo. Just my quick two cents, carry on.

Why do you prefer blues over reds? Is it a matchup thing? I always found reds to be absolutely amazing, only outclassed by purples because of the inferior side-b. Reds just do more damage, kill earlier, and have stronger aerials than blues. All I use blues for is kill throws, really.

 

[The Green Lanyard]

Sheik's dtilt trades with her fair in Olimar's favor (Sheik takes 6 damage, Olimar takes 5). Also trades with her nair. Dash-attack also trades with them. So that could be useful for dealing with short-hop approaches.

Sheik's bair and dair you can't trade with since they're disjointed.

Does anyone know if grounded pikmin tosses block needles? Or if up-air blocks bouncing fish?

 

[Myran]

I prefer, blue dthrow into up smash, usually with a purple. I already have my red and yellow thrown in by the time Sheik gets to me. They're usually killed allowing me to cycle to white and purple. I don't really care for reds. I'd rather have purples for harder hits, and the extra power they haven't isn't that important most of the time. I really only care for them as a nice way to get dthrow upair at higher percents for a kill.

 

[Blue Banana]

I added in a couple of quotes regarding the ZSS MU from the old thread in the discussion prompt. Nothing on Shiek. Also added in Sheik quotes after realizing I spelled "Sheik" wrong.

Considering the discussion is dying down and there was a good deal of information for the Sheik and ZSS matchups, I think it's time to move on to another set (unless it starts up again). I'll leave the discussion open until later tonight.

 

[Blue Banana]

The discussion for the Sheik and Zero Suit Samus matchups is now closed. Thanks for all the responses.

------------------------

Discussion 2 - Space Fighters



Fox Frame Data
Captain Falcon Frame Data

Spoiler: Old Quotes (Fox)

For me the Best thing to keep in mind agains't fox is to space myself at a distance thats the max range of olimar's fsmash and that usually punishes his silly side B. Spacing in general is key in most matchups but in this one more so, and as far as lasers stopping pikmin short hopping side b will always do! but mix that up.. Also when he starts getting into your space as myran said dtilt is wonderful and try to bait his reflector then punish (usually if he figured out that all ur smashes reflect back he will be using reflector often or if he doesnt have an answer to pikmin spam) with a free grab or other options (fsmash,fair ,dtilt,etc) and like every reflector character using fsmash at low percents isnt too much risk but once your percent gets past 90 I'd be sparing with smashes in general..

The MU it's quite difficult but not that hard. I may believe you just need more experience, because Fox has "limited" options against us.
I always fight at least against 2 fox every tourney I attend and I have never lost the set, I may lose 1 game or something like that.
Let me explain this a little bit more.

• Fox's laser can be nullified by just crouching... that's all, even tho he doesn't stop, you can "advance" with Dtilt XD.
• It's true, he can short hop all the match waiting for your approach.. so my answer to that is: why approach? Just throw pikmin and wait for him to shake them off. That's where you act and punish.
• Keeps jumping? Try to run and Usmash or Uair under him.
• He keeps jumping? Try something weird like short hop + dodge + bair. You can run under his jump and do a pivot grab, that helps a lot.
• Seriously he's still jumping? Pivot smash or Fsmash a lot. At some point he will start to reflect instead of jump.
• Every Fox player tries to Usmash you as soon as possible. Well, they have to run to you and our grab is AMAZINGLY huge. So don't bother if the reflect exist, just grab and enjoy. Pivot Grab is more safe.
• Fox is a "light" character and a fast faller. Abuse of that in your favor and be annoying when he tries to recover. If he use side b to grab the ledge, you can punish with fair at "perfect" timing. If you can do a Bair ... you are my idol, because that would cause a stage rebound.
• Fox players doesn't expect at all a ledge trump, so use it as a set up to Dair when he regrab or wait for him to stand at the platform because they will try to side b to the stage.

At least these are the things I do and works for me. Isn't the bible of how to fight against Fox but you can build your strategy from what works for me .

#koken
I think you gave some good advice, I agree with most of it

these are some I agree less with

If I'm not mistaken, crouching will still let fox blaster hit you, it's at the moments when you dtilt (when olimar worm's), where the blaster won't. So you can dtilt to approach (slowly), but some lasers will still hit you (blaster is weak, but still, every % matters ).


I personally think usmash shouldnt be used to approach or whiff. because fox has good nair, he can clash with the usmash and it wont hit him, unless he spaced he incorrectly ofcourse, then he will get hit, but the usmash has lagg and can be punished if the nair stops usmash and he lands almost lagless

All in all, good advice, so thank you

A good substitute for purple upsmash is red dthrow into purple upair at 80-90%. Will still kill and there's no risk.

Here is the proof of how to approach to Fox with crouch and walk.
As you can see in the end, the game was finished by a short hop to backwards + dodge + bair

Spoiler: Old Quotes (Captain Falcon)

For Captain Falcon, I like to mess with his recovery. If he's going high, just fair him over and over and then fly back to the stage. If he's trying to recover low with an almost vertical recovery to the ledge, just run off, hold down, and dair spike him. No matter how much damage he gets on Olimar, you're only a gimp away from taking the stock.

For defense, just get out of the air as soon as possible. As Myran says, purples are great for getting Captain Crunch off of you for a second.

Dabuz posted this breakdown of some Olimar matchups in the other forum. Thought it was worth sharing.

http://smashboards.com/threads/character-competitive-impressions.367669/page-814#post-19567632

I think this is a pretty hard MU for Olimar. In my opinion you just have to play much better than your opponent. Force him to approach from the air and punish his landings.

I find it a very, very hard MU. I'm always trying to improve this MU and it's quite difficult.
I do believe it has more of mind game that the actual skill level.

As an advantage for us is that you can spam your Smashes without fear of reflect. If he jumps over you, you have to position yourself very well in order to punish his landings.
For his F-B and D-B you have to shield, dodge or run to a good position in order to keep increasing his damage, even when I know this last thing is very hard to achieve.

One of the best thing to do, I think, is to push him away from the platform and try to mess up his recovery.
I have seen that they don't use U-B when they are far from the platform, so you can try to hit their coming back while he's still far away. Be careful on this anyway, it's a double edge sword, because if you can't make it they tend to use Dair and that's a very strong hit with spike.
Finally try to keep his distance with your beloved Purple Pikmin and don't hesitate on grabbing him with a Blue Pikmin over 150%, most of the time is a kill with Uthrow.
By the way, I have seen a few C.Falcon players tend to do Dsmash when you grab them on or near the edges. If you pummel constantly and they grab release, they suicide because of the Dsmash, so you may want try that too xD (I don't believe this really can happen in a competitive match).

Hope to see more advices from advanced players, because I'm not. Be wise on taking my advices and try to make it work for you ^^.

I'm putting some work into Alph and I agree Falcon is a tricky one. He's good in the air, so you shouldn't approach him in the air. On the ground you should wait for Falcon to approach as he has to in order to wrack up damage. It's useful to throw red pikmins at him as Falcon has some fire-based moves.
Next: If Falcon approaches, he probably goes for either the dash grab or the dash attack. However there is also a chance of throwing out a SH nair. So there are actually 3 things you should definitely expect. There is also a chance of him faking out his approach with dash + back roll and then he may go for an attack or grab. So keep that in mind too. If he does fake out his approach you can throw at least one pikmin at him.

Keep your distance and don't mess with Falcon in the air. If he gets you in the air, look out for getting back on stage as fast as possible. Otherwise he will probably show you his great up-air, bair and maybe even land his knee. In order to get the kill, you have some options. You could try to gimp him when he tries to recover. You could go for the grab-upthrow kill with blue pikmins. Or you use purple pikmin to stop his approach and get an occasion for landing a smash attack. Also at some point, I don't know the exact percentage, you can even kill with the side-tilt which is a more unexpected killoption.

Only advice I can give you from playing this match up is, if you're going for a recovery, never fly straight up, stay as far away from the edge as you can while you're flying up, (if possible, fly under the map in example battlefield) and then close in on the lip only at the very end, otherwise you're spike bait for Cap.

I play this matchup basically every tourney as Michigan is the national Falcon state, lol. We have one PR level Falcon, a few HM worthy ones, and tons of other misc Falcons and players holding him as secondaries.
At first it was a challenging matchup but I feel like it's very simple once you figure it out.

You have no reason to ever approach Falcon. In fact, he'll usually approach you regardless of what you do, but that's beside the point. What you need to do is pressure him with pikmin toss to chip in some damage and get him to approach you. Just make sure you manage what you throw so you don't find yourself lacking pikmin when he gets close. Falcon's approach options are limited, and we vastly outrange him. Some common approaches include: Dash attack, dash grab, bair, shield. Dash attack and bair can be shielded and then punished (jab/grab), dash grab loses to a simple attack (fsmash/jab), and shield loses to, well, grab. You can also pivot grab any of his running approaches. Obviously in a real match it's not as simple as that, but my point is that his approaches are limited in easy to beat out with our range.
If the falcon likes to side b, having a pikmin latched onto him will trigger the attack and give you a free window.

Once you get the falcon offstage, it gets even easier. If he's forced to up b to the ledge, his recovery is super easy to gimp while keeping stage control. Every character has a very small window (one frame or something) as they're grabbing ledge where they're vulnerable to attack. The two moves for hitting this window are dtilt and dsmash. Dtilt can lead into another attack (fair, though not always guaranteed) and hit him offstage once more, racking on bonus damage, while dsmash can kill at higher percents.
If he does manage to reach the ledge, if you space yourself far enough away but where your fsmash can still reach the ledge, there isn't much he can do. Fsmash is really good at punishing most getups, and at that distance, a roll-getup will net you a dsmash.

The hardest part of this matchup is when you're offstage or trying to get back from the ledge yourself (IMO olimar's weakest point right there). You just have to know how the Falcon likes to tackle his offstage gimping game and play around it by mixing up your recovery's direction, airdodging, or throwing out an attack yourself. Never be afraid to go underneath to the other side of the stage, either.

In summary: Space him out with smashes, grabs, and pikmin tosses. Practice gimping his recovery, and always look out for gimps of his own.

Discussion for these matchups will be open until Saturday, November 7.

 

[Flawlessh]

In my region out of the top 8 players we have, 3 of them are fox mains, so i have a slight idea of the matchup (we are not top players by any means since my region is kind of free btw, but we are all above average)

Anyways for fox when we are in kill percents, what i noticed is most of them fiend for the nair/dair to upsmash. what i did to counter this was just hold shield, ill let them nair/dair my shield, i never rolled or spot dodged, since those would just be punished.

Fox's love to side b straight to the ledge when recovering, and our d-tilt hits well below and forward from where we are and pops people up, this is really good to punish his recovery and possibly with a b-air followup for the kill.

Fox is just as light as us, so killing with an upthrow is extremely easy. BUT all of Fox's kills will most likely be off the top, picking a stage with a low ceiling isn't recommended. Also, fox's worst stage by far (that i heard commentators and players talk about at tournaments) is lylat cruise. And most of the fox mains i play in my region will either ban it afraid ill pick it, or ban FD afraid ill run and camp (even though FD is fox's best stage, their just rather have olimar not go there as its oli's best aswell.)

be careful for spamming pivot f-smash, one well timed shine will make us die at pretty much 40%, spam pivot grab if you must as comboing a fast faller like fox is extremely easy.

Foxes upsmash has intangibility on his foot from frame 1-9, this is horrible for us when trying to land, running to the edge or doing mix up's with our up-b then fast fall nair are all good options (landing with nair can follow up into an upsmash, as foxes nair is frame 4, and shine reflects on frame 6) and they most likely will not be able to use nair quick enough as they were going for an upsmash

Yesterday there was a Japanese character crew battle and the first one they did was Olimar vs Fox (vid is one hour long with lots of useless filler as it was an online crew battle) i recommend watching it here, http://www.twitch.tv/shi_gaming/v/23310495
Japanese playstyle is very different then US, they tend to be more passive and that suits olimar quite well, so its a good idea to watch it.

TL;DR

• Hold shield when you are at kill percents, DONT ROLL OR SPOTDODGE, fox's will spam nair and u can punish
• D-tilt beats there side-b, use it to stop there recovery.
• Fox is light, use up-throw to kill often
• counterpick to lylat cruise they hate that stage.
• One shine can kill us if we f-smash it, try to spam pivot grab instead for huge combo's since hes a fast faller
• Mix-up landing options, fox's upsmash is scary.
• Watch the Japanese crew battle of olimar vs fox here: http://www.twitch.tv/shi_gaming/v/23310495

 

[koken]

I'd swear already post my opinion about this o_o... I think it has alot of information but I'm lazy to start all over again -_-..

It is 100% proven that Fox's lasers doesn't hit us while crouching. Falco's lasers does.
You can punish Fox's side B with any aerial if your timing is right.

You can gimp easily a captain falcon with a purple side B.
All your pikmins nullify captain's side B and down B (on platform).

 

[Blue Banana]

I'd swear already post my opinion about this o_o... I think it has alot of information but I'm lazy to start all over again

I searched through the whole forum, and I found a thread that has a lot of MU impressions on Captain Falcon. I limited the initial search results to only the old matchup thread.

When I have the time, I'm going to add in additional quotes not from the old matchup thread pertaining to the current MUs and the first two MUs. I'll keep this in mind for future discussions.

 

[Volk3]

I already posted somethings on fox. I agree with koken that it's a hassle to repeat them.

My thought on captain falcon are:
mu not really in our favour. In my opinion, olimar has trouble against fast characters. but its not unwinnable.

Use side b often, white pikmin and purple are best. white for dmg and purple to stop him from approaching. I like to use fsmash to outspace characters (not spam but when I do use it, I use it to safely poke). I found that against captain falcon, its a bit riskier, becuz of his grab. even at max range, if he shielded or pshielded, he can grab right after. (not all characters can do that). So try not to use fsmash too much to poke in neutral.

Stay grounded and use jab en dtitl to put out hitboxes in neutral, they dont have much lagg and it can potentially stop a falcon who keeps approaching with dash atk or dash grab.
pikmin can stop his side b from reaching you, even when latched on him (have had it happen but not consistently). when his side b hits ur pikmin, thats a free punish. grab or smash atk and if you have enough time, first throw a pikmin to latch and then grab or smash.
Pikmin does not stop down b from moving, if it hits ur pikmin, he'll still move forward, unless u've thrown a purple, that will stop him. Best to just shield that. Punish same way as side b.

falcon like to jump, use pivot grab and or short hop fair against that.

His fall speed also makes him easier to combo, even at mid percent.

So:
in neutral, side b often, jab and dtilt to stop his approach, stay grounded, dont use laggy moves too pften (fsmash, upsmash, dash grab, dash atk), well spaced fairs to poke.

 

[Blue Banana]

Not a lot of responses for this week, though with the amount of old quotes that I found for Fox and Falcon, this isn't much of a worry, I think.

The discussion will be closed on Friday to move on to the next set of matchups. I'll edit in the quotes from the Falcon thread I linked in the discussion prompt before then.

 

[koken]

Correct the crouching thing about Fox, because it will stay there forever wrong if isn't edited, while the fact is another.

 

[Blue Banana]

Are you talking about the thing where crouching doesn't stop lasers from hitting Olimar but Dtilt does? It's already covered in the old quotes section in the prompt.

 

[Blue Banana]

Matchup discussion for Fox and Captain Falcon is now closed. Thanks to all those who posted!

Added in the quotes from the Falcon help thread to the Discussion 2 prompt as well as a couple of Sheik quotes to the Discussion 1 prompt regarding certain combos.

Also added a bit more stuff to the OP, specifically what would be beneficial to MU discussion (stages) and rating MUs. Stages are the main suggestion I thought of to lump the purpose of this thread into here. MU ratings just because. I used words instead of a number system to hopefully make the difficulty of each matchup clearer. With that said, based on the posts in this thread:

is a disadvantageous matchup, possibly heavily disadvantageous.
is tentatively an even matchup. There aren't any clear descriptors for how difficult the matchup is according to the posts.
is a slightly disadvantageous matchup.
is a disadvantageous matchup.

If there's anything you want to say regarding the ratings, go ahead. For now, the discussion should now mainly be focused on...

------------------------

Discussion 3 - plumbers


Mario Frame Data
Luigi Frame Data

Spoiler: Old Quotes (Mario)

How often does the Mario player use the cape? Does he use it when you're about to do a Fsmash? Mix up your actions (purple side B, grab, shield, etc.) when he's closing on on you to keep yourself unpredictable, or try to condition him into using the cape too often to catch him on a mistake.

Pivot grab a lot, throw out some early smashes to get them into caping then punish with side-b's, jabs, aerials, and dtilt. Grabs will be your main killing method though. Gotta respect like everything they do.

@ F Freezie KO

Im pretty sure our dtilt clanks if not beats mario's sourspot nair, dair and fireball. And if he approaching, what I do for every character in the cast, if they are airborne is i pivot fsmash, wait till there close to you or about to land, and pivot out of there range of grab, tilt, nair, or whatever. and if you space correctly, even if he capes your pivot smash, the pikmin will still be out of range of hitting yourself. And if there approaching from the ground, just pivot grab and if you whiff, then spam jab / dtilt.

I also saw yesterday at CEO, whenever myran whiffed an fsmash and then the opponent rushed in to punish, he just dtilt'd, as its fast, and has good priority over other attacks.

He can't outcamp us, he also can't approach to reliably. Pivot grab destroys most of his approaches. Fireball can help cover it, but you gotta fight around that as well. Sheik is definitely worse.

Something little and I think known by many, but still worth mentioning: landing nair into uptilt does not work on chars like Luigi, mario or yoshi, because their nair comes out on frame 3, beating or at least trading with olimars uptilt.

I main mario
55:45 olimar whole poking throw and run thing won't work cause of caoe. He has nair and up b to break out down throw combos. He can combo olimar decently. And he's better at killing. However olimar outranges mario with pikmin.
I know I explained the basics but that's all I know it's not like vs where I main both and play players on both sides.

A great example would be Ally's mario who destroys olimar. Your frame data is amazing and your everything normally beats our everything (pikmin attacks are projectile priority and lose all the time) and a cape with the chance to kill us hella early if we smash attk with a purple (spamming smash attacks in normal non reflector matchups which is olimar's normal game is unsafe to begin with the cape in the first place). Yes, Olimar may have "okay" landing tools (Up B,whistle/saving jumps,B reversing mixups), but that is made quite difficult with mario's speed as well as invincible, spammable upsmash and fast aerials to even land to begin with. 60/40 Mario's favor is a more reasonable ratio imo.

Yeah, nair beats out all smash attacks. The range on Mario's upsmash and dsmash are killer for Olimar also because of how hard they are to punish. The only thing that really outranges Mario is fsmash, but our sweetspot is up close. And if we try to do an up close fsmash, cape can OHKO us.

@-The Gucci Fairy- , did you say Olimar has many landing tools? That I disagree with.

Spoiler: Old Quotes (Luigi)

Be prepared to shield a lot, also when you have a Pikmin on him it takes his side-b/down-b recovery. Other than that just respect his options.

Alright so for the Luigi MU you wanna keep in mind a few of things. First off his fireballs are safe on standard shielding. Second his throws are where he will do most of his work. Lastly his traction is bad so if you hit his shield he will slide away.

With that said Luigi players are usually gonna try and space you out with fireballs until they can get a grab follow up. Power shielding works well with these, and stopping them with Pikmin works even better in some cases. Fsmash is a great tool for going through fireballs, and can catch Luigi players off guard if they run in after the fireball looks like it will hit. Just keep camping him out with your superior projectiles, and punish when he tries to run in.

Now about his throws. We all know that Luigi capitlizes huge off a throw. That means you need to constantly keep him away or on the defensive to make it so he can't be going for them. Pivot fsmashes and grabs are great tools to keep space in between you, and purple side-b is a solid tool to get him away whenever you can't use a smash or aerial. Don't be afraid to catch him with your jab and dtilt. They are your fastest low commitment tools that will at most clank with him. When he does grab you just try to mix up your DI so he won't always be ready for certain follow ups.

Luigi players will try to catch you off guard with their fireballs, and mix ups in the up close game. Just be ready for what they have, and try to keep your space. Whistle is a solid way to land after being popped up from a Luigi juggle, it can let you land for free and even give you punishes. I highly recommend more Olimar players work this into their landing tools. You can even use the whistle on the ground if you read an attack.

If you guys have any specific questions feel free to ask. I'm more than happy to discuss this MU with you guys.

Here's my anti Luigi guide and the one tip that changed my entire perception on the Luigi match up:

F-smash not only hits his fireballs, but the pikmin continue on to hit Luigi as well. And that goes for any color pikmin.

Luigis love to throw fireballs and then run up to grab. So whenever they try this, fsmash the fireball. The pikmin gets a slight pause in air when it hits the fireball, but it's not a clank. Hitting the fireball does not nullify the pikmin hitbox, meaning Luigi cannot ever run up to you after shooting a fireball. If they try to run up after the fsmash is over, just fsmash again! Gotta love Olimar.

Keep in mind that all Luigi wants to do is grab. That's his whole game. So fsmashes and pivot fsmash (as @ -The Gucci Fairy- said) are your best weapons. If Luigi thinks he's going to be clever and just sit back and spam fireball, then throw a red pikmin at him. Not only do they cleanly go through fireballs, they also start eating the fireballs when stuck to Luigi. He'll probably try to throw out a few more fireballs before realizing there's a pikmin stuck to him, so you can run up and grab him. You can also try throwing a yellow at him since they arc nicely over the straight line that his fireballs travel.

More Luigi tips:

- Because you will have effectively shut out his options for running at you and because his aerial mobility is trash, he may start approaching from the air with a falling tornado. Everything clanks with tornado, so respect it. Just run away and fsmash, grab, or pivot option his end lag.

- When Luigi is trying to recover, throw a pikmin directly at his side-b. Pretty sure pikmin do *not* stop the down-b tornado, but they absolutely stuff the side-b.

- Luigi will often aim to side-b directly under the ledge. This is for two reasons - either he can directly up-b to snap to the ledge or he can tornado to rise up. When Luigi side-b's directly under the ledge, run off, hold down, and dair spike him. There's enough lag on the end of his side-b missile to make him never side-b under the stage again, which forces him to recover high.

- Luigi is very vulnerable during recovery. Once you've conditioned him to recover high, swat at him with fairs. Be careful for an active tornado, but both tornado and missile have end lag that make them vulnerable.

- When you dthrow -> fair Luigi, he will instinctively try to nair out of the combo. After the fair, you can fade back in the air just enough so that Luigi's nair will miss you, then fade back in to hit him with another fair over his nair kick. Only works when Luigis are so conditioned to just spam nair to get out of any combo, but you'd be surprised how much it does work. Basically you dthrow -> short hop and hold forward to fair -> hit Luigi -> immediately hold back in air to move Olimar's hurtbox out of range of the nair -> Luigi nairs -> hold forward to move back into range in the air -> fair his nair or his landing.

Something little and I think known by many, but still worth mentioning: landing nair into uptilt does not work on chars like Luigi, mario or yoshi, because their nair comes out on frame 3, beating or at least trading with olimars uptilt.

I haven't played the matchup in 1.1.2 enough yet, but I'd imagine the scope of the matchup hasn't changed: Don't let him close in on you. He may not have a simple combo that easily closes out stocks anymore, but his attacks are still fast, his dash grab needs to be respected, and he is still good at churning combos off of Dthrow.

EDIT: I'd say that this post by Myran a few months back is still applicable on treating the matchup.

Discussion will be open until Saturday, November 14.

 

[koken]

The fox thing has to be with "hitting you while crouching", while the truth is they don't hit you while crouching. That's all .

 

[Freezie KO]

Can I get some Wario tips? This match up seems completely impossible. Wario's mobility stats are so far above Olimar's garbage mobility that Wario can just stay in the air pretty much the entire match. Fair wrecks pikmin in a single hit. Wario's entire repetitive game can have him jump in the air, move forward and threaten with fair, and fall back (a la Jigglypuff) and be completely safe enough to do that again. It goes without saying that Olimar's aerials will lose to everything Wario does also.

After a few bite mix-ups, he can easily take the % lead and win via time. Give him space and he can just fly around in the air with his bike, forcing you to block occasionally, and Olimar can't ever touch him. Only the dumbest Warios are going to ride their bike into you and allow for an fsmash, and Olimar has no tools to deal with the ones that stay completely airborne. He just can't ever catch their landing with his runspeed.

The optimal strategy seems to be to camp him, but it doesn't matter unless you play the match perfectly. One mistake, especially with waft, and he'll get some sort of punish and take equalize all the chip damage you did. With approaching and retreating fairs, each pikmin is only good for a couple %. And honestly, even if you camp perfectly and try to use pivot fsmash to keep away, he'll still punish the one time your pikmin desync'ed unintentionally and waft you for a whole stock.

The chip damage is pitiful, and you can't really do the classic move where you react to Wario getting stuck with a pikmin. He'll kill the pikmin with an aerial in a single hit and be able to basically fly away from you if you even attempt to approach. And as soon as he sets something up with a bite or a bike throw, all the damage you did with pikmin is equalized.

He's also way heavier than Olimar, so you have to be doing 3 times the % damage just to keep up. And he can also time us out when he gets ahead because his mobility is that much better, especially with bike shenanigans. I can't see a way to win this match. Please help.

 

[Blue Banana]

Just so that the discussion won't end with no responses (not that that's bad, since there's a lot of info gathered already from the old quotes), I'm going to give my thoughts on the Mario matchup.

Mario will cover his approach with fireballs. Fireballs can be (power)shielded or stuffed with side B depending on your position; Fsmash is risky due to cape. As far as approach options go:
- He might use cape because of side B or in anticipation of a Fsmash. Grab him if you can, especially if he's using it a lot. Because cape doesn't inflict hitstun on you, you won't get knocked out of your grab animation and can do modified throw combos w/ Bthrow instead of Dthrow.
- He'll do short hop Bair or Dair, Dair usually leading into a grab. Move back from him or pivot grab/attack.
- He'll just run up and grab you, generally if you shield a lot. Roll away or jump away from him; it's fairly hard to punish him on a whiff.
- If you're at KO percents, he may fish for a KO with running Usmash. This is also a common option when he's ledgeguarding you. Your crouching profile is small enough to avoid Usmash, making Dtilt a good option to avoid it and pop him up in the air.

Basically, Mario has the speed and tools to constantly get in your face, but he has to keep doing it to keep it in his favor. Pivot grab him when you can, and fight him in close quarters long enough to either run away or start up a Dthrow combo (from jab).

If you pop him up from Dtilt or Dthrow, you can generally expect a Nair from him starting from low-mid percents. Powershield it; back away if you shielded it normally.

If you're aiming for a KO from blue Uthrow, look for ~150%, lowers as you build up rage.

Be careful with his Dsmash, especially if you roll a lot.

If you get grabbed, you can escape some Utilt/Uair strings with whistle. Be careful with Uair because he can still hit you quickly enough with Bair.

If you get knocked offstage, watch out if he tries to cape you while you recover since it reverses your controls.

Overall, it's a fairly hard matchup because he has the traits and tools to constantly run you down and the combos to end your stock quicker than you can do. Once you get the percent/stock lead, you definitely need to play carefully so that you don't lose it.


The next discussion prompt will be put up later. I'm sorry that I didn't do this earlier; I knew that there was no activity for the past few days, but I didn't have time to put up the next one.

 

[Blue Banana]

Discussion for the plumbers' matchups is now closed. Based on the quotes in the discussion prompt:

is a disadvantageous matchup. There are a lot of posts from the old matchup thread on Mario that clearly show that he's difficult to play against for most people.
is an even matchup. Olimar has enough tools to keep Luigi from closing in on him constantly due to his traction, ways to play around fireballs, and exploitable recovery. Being able to create damaging combos and having a respectable dash grab still makes him a threat even if Olimar keeps him away for some time in the match.

------------------------

Discussion 4 - dp


Ryu Frame Data
Yoshi Frame Data

Spoiler: Old Quotes (Yoshi)

Yoshi can be a little annoying if you aren't to sure how to handle some stuff. Being able to dodge his eggs is pretty important since he can snipe you with them whenever you try to throw Pikmin. Also respect his nair, it has a lot of priority and is active for while. If he is constantly hitting your shield you could try a nair out of shield to catch him. When he dash attacks just try and shield it, then turn around and fsmash. (Power shielding makes this much easier) You just have to be ready to really respect his moves since they will usually win. Play smart and have power shields on point for optimal punishes. Also you can usmash out of shield if he bairs you.

Well there are characters where I feel like my chances are better with two purples. Yoshi i.e. is so annoying but at least with two purples you can stop his approaches and force him to space with his eggs. However in this matchup you still should have someone to catch Yoshi with pivot grabs after he misses with an aerial. So yeah, perhaps two purples isn't the best option. Still I feel like sometimes two purples can be good for keep away.

No quotes for Ryu.

Discussion will end on Saturday, November 21.

(no hidden music links this time)

 

[The Wall]

An olimar with top notch spacing can give Yoshi a hard time. Your whistle not having the same armor capabilities as it did in Brawl hurts you getting back down to the stage. An Olimar in the air with 2 or less pikmin is no threat to a Yoshi and we will most likely juggle you until you're forced to air dodge to the ground or to a ledge.

Pivot grabs and side b are your friend, especially throwing purples to break eggs if you have a good enough reaction time. If a pikmin sticks to yoshi, we won't take much from it due to Nair / Up air being able to drop them immediately. This is one of those matchups I think it favors you to hold purples and whites over trying to go for Red for smash or Blue for grabs (unless you can somehow get yoshi to 160~ without killing him). That's my 2 cents, if you have any more questions I'll be glad to answer some.

I believe this to be a 60-40 in Yoshi's favor. Bad stages for yoshi really depends on the Yoshi's play style. I'm the kind of person who does not prefer platforms, I prefer flat stages. To counter pick me would be to take me to Town and City or Battlefield if they are not banned. You would never want to take me to Halberd or Delfino unless you trust yourself to land up smashes 100% of the time. Not to mention those stages allow Yoshi to shark with down airs which is huge on shield pressure.

Dodge eggs, shield falling nair's and up airs, be prepared to spot dodge the egg lay and you should be able to perform pretty well.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

An Olimar in the air with 2 or less pikmin is no threat to a Yoshi

2 or less? Why?

 

[The Wall]

Chances are if he has 2 or less he's not going to throw them unless he's far off to the blast zone and wants maximum recovery from his Up b. If he's coming down from a direct vertical attack, only having 2 leaves him with very minimal options. Some will fall and throw 1 then try to fair or dair with another, or perhaps just spam dair on the way down, it all depends. If they have all 3, even throwing one and landing allows him to be able to perform any move, including down smash which uses 2 pikmin. Having 2 in the air means he can't throw one and expect that to remain the same, so he starts limiting his own options.

 

[Cat8752]

]

I believe this to be a 60-40 in Yoshi's favor. Bad stages for yoshi really depends on the Yoshi's play style. I'm the kind of person who does not prefer platforms, I prefer flat stages. To counter pick me would be to take me to Town and City or Battlefield if they are not banned. You would never want to take me to Halberd or Delfino unless you trust yourself to land up smashes 100% of the time. Not to mention those stages allow Yoshi to shark with down airs which is huge on shield pressure.

I cannot stress this enough, Yoshi will do fine on almost any stage, so choice comes down to player vs player. I would generally recommend you try to go Battlefield > Dreamland when possible since we can't kill you as early on battlefield, and I've personally found landing with Yoshi much more comfortable on Dreamland. I think choosing stages without low ceilings is generally preferable but like The Wall said some Yoshi's are more comfortable on flat stages. Duck Hunt will probably be great for you guys, and unless you have some character-specific problem with Lylat perhaps take us there and shark under the platforms.

 

[Myran]

Go FD and outcamp Yoshi until you get 3 purples. Isn't much he can do if you power shield eggs and keep running.

 

[koken]

Yoshi excels into juggle us. Mainly because of his mobility, speed and aerials attacks which all of them has priority over ours.
If a Yoshi juggle us, we are almost doomed if we don't react or do some tricky moves to escape. Whistle? Very very hard to accomplish because Nair last longer (13 frames?) than immunity DownB (6 frames).

This fight is almost a hit and run all the time and try to latch a pikmin or two, till we get 1 or 2 purples.
If you get pushed out of the stage, the only way of coming back is to dodge every single aerial Yoshi will throw at you in your path, like if wasn't hard enough for us to get back, we also have to dodge perfectly his aerials.
That is, in his way to gimp us: a Fair. In his way back to the platform: a Bair. Two terrific movements will either spike/meteor you down to blastzone or spikes you against the platform, almost for sure a good bye to the stock if your are not alert.

They tend to bait you to get close in order to Fair or Nair your approach. If you are near him, surely will jab x 2 (kick in this case) to a safe Usmash which, by the way have A LOT OF RANGE. I have been killed with the ending part of the animation where is the most weak one (at the back of Yoshi). Several Yoshi waits for your landing with that along with side attacks and grabs.

If that's not enough, Down B will crush your shield or send you up, to the endless juggle situation all over again and luckily if you are able to come back to the platform. Do I forget something? Oh right.. his Dair will also break your shield.

His Uair has more range and priority than our Dair (wow... that's new... every other character has it ¬¬) and he will try to keep you in the air with a egg toss, so he can land and restart his carnage juggling with us.

A highly risky move but highly rewarded is to Uair his momentum in the air. I'm not quite sure but I believe our Uair has more range than his Dair.

Fishing for a blue Uthrow is a dangerous zone to play with.

For me is definitely like 65-35 or 60-30 Yoshi's favor.

Fundamentals against Yoshi: Latch, run, distance to smash, pivot anything, don't stay in the air and don't stay too much on shield and extra careful with his eggs.

 

[koken]

Ryu has his good moves but I think is a little bit slow, which benefits us heavily.
It's like every move Ryu will do, alert you by a sound or a little window where you can predict the next move.

But that's not an entire weakness, because his attacks has long duration in the air. It's very easy to latch a pikmin or two against him.
Nevertheless his combo ability is quite terrorific so you should avoid the close combat in my opinion.

Sometimes when they catch your pivot smash, they intentionally will get closer to you with a focus attack. Some good Ryu's player will use that move to bait something out. The bread and butter of Ryu is to combo into a Shoryuken (Up B) cause do massive damage.
The key on this is jab jab the focus attack, Utilt or Nair because any 2 hitting move will cancel the focus attack.

They tend to choose stages with platforms because they will be able to spam more Shoryuken (Up B) landing on them to cancel the landing animation.

His approach options are some kind of slow but powerful, any neglected and careless move he throw could be punish with a grab combo. Be very precise if your fishing for an Usmash, 'cause his punish will hurt you heavily.

Respect his Aerials and his break shield move, does massive damage to shield. Abuse any neglected Tatsumaki (Side B) and take advantage of Hadouken (Neutral B). Attention to Tatsumaki (Side B) is a multi hit move.

Last but not least, you can Dtilt at lower % like 4 or 5 times. If he's recovering to the stage with a Tatsumaki (Side B) you can try a Dair for a Spike.

For me is like 60-40 or 55-45 Olimar's favor.

Fundamentals against Ryu: latch and wait, avoid close combat, abuse his mistakes or clumsy approaches. Beware of his aerials and use a purple to put pressure.

 

[Blue Banana]

Whistle? Very very hard to accomplish because Uair has 2 hits and Nair last longer than immunity.

I don't think Uair hits twice. Are you confusing it with Fox's Uair?

The thread has some good discussion on the Yoshi MU, but I do want to see more posts on Ryu. There's only one post talking about him and not a lot of informational posts in the sub-forum, so more opinions/thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[koken]

You're right, my ideas were mixed up when I wrote that Yoshi's Uair hits twice. My bad, sorry for that.

Actually I can talk little bit further about Ryu but I don't feel 100% secure of my knowledge of the MU.

 

[Myran]

I'll write up my thoughts on Ryu probably tomorrow if that's fine. I'm pretty busy today so I don't have a lot of time to write it all out.

 

[Blue Banana]

You're right, my ideas were mixed up when I wrote that Yoshi's Uair hits twice. My bad, sorry for that.

Actually I can talk little bit further about Ryu but I don't feel 100% secure of my knowledge of the MU.

That's fine. I usually invite other character sub-forums to the discussion of the week, so they can elaborate on what the Olimar player can actually do in the matchup if they want to.

I'll write up my thoughts on Ryu probably tomorrow if that's fine. I'm pretty busy today so I don't have a lot of time to write it all out.

That's alright. Discussion is still open for a few more days.

 

[Blue Banana]

My thoughts are based on practice with a good Yoshi player in my university club, so it may not correctly reflect how the matchup should play. He's consistent enough to make 2nd place in the last few locals he participated in.

In neutral, Yoshi will try to pelt you with endless eggs. This tends to occur more when you and Yoshi have a significant distance between each other. Purples get stopped by them because they produce a explosion-like hitbox once it hits something or it explodes on its own, so it's best to powershield them. If Yoshi's not going in until you get closer, you probably should move to center stage for better stage control.

Yoshi has a variety of methods of approaching you:
- The most common method is the dash attack. It covers a large amount of distance that some players may need to get used to first. Difficult to punish out of shield but is vulnerable to pivot grabs.
- B-reversed Egg Lay will probably used if he's pressuring you enough to stay in shield for his approaches. Whiffed Egg Lay is hard to punish because he can quickly cover himself with jab. You can knock him off his grab with purple side B and Fsmash, but it's difficult to do so.
- Dash grab is used also for punishing shielding a lot, but it leaves him very open to a punish. It's not used as Egg Lay because of this but still a thing to be aware of. Easier to knock him out with Pikmin projectiles than Egg Lay.
- Running Usmash to fish for KOs/rolling habits.
- Yoshi Bomb for KOs as well as punishing shielding habits. It's also used as a burst option to punish unsafe approaches from you (like spotdodging
your dash grab). It's easy to punish a whiff, just be careful about the star projectiles after he slams down on the ground.

When he knocks you offstage, he'll either pepper you with eggs to bait you into airdodging into a Uair, juggle you with Uair, or dunk you with Fair if you drift towards the ledge. Bair could be used to for offstage KOs off the side blast zones. You have to be careful with what defensive options you pick to minimize the damage you take/reduce the chances of a KO.

Nair will often be used as a defensive option when he's popped up into air by Dtilt or Dthrow. If you hit him with Dtilt, you may be just far enough away such that you can grab him and he whiffs his Nair, producing a free Dthrow combo.

I don't think there's a reliable stage pick for this matchup. Battlefield can help ease off the danger of Yoshi Bomb, but it could promote platform camping by the Yoshi player if he gets the stock lead. Flat stages may be good, but Town and City has the same risk of platform camping like BF does. I wouldn't try Dream Land because Whispy limits Olimar's movement, which is bad considering Yoshi's air movement and dash attack.

Overall, it's a hard matchup; I think it's disadvantageous for Olimar. Like The Wall said, spacing has got to be precise to get the optimal punishes in this MU.