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Sopo!

OddishGuy

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Apr 4, 2014
Messages
203
Location
Colorado Springs
With the tied for fastest and 2nd longest WD and powerful smashes, Sopo still has a ridiculous ground game and can punish hard. Grabs don't lead to infinites anymore but they are very powerful and can lead to some good combos/tech chases.

Two big things that change are that: your opponent can now freely grab you without worrying about Nana's punish, and blizzard becomes an incredibly unsafe move compared to what it is with full ICs.

You can no longer camp, and you can get camped much more effectively.

Air dodge is something to seriously consider for recovery as a mix-up, since squall hammer can be easily punished by most characters. A singleton ice-block can be good too. Just try to mix it up as much as possible, and as always, save that double jump.

In neutral you lack safe pressure, so be patient and wait for openings while maintaining positional pressure. You can get situations reversed on you pretty quickly, such as edgeguards, so be safe.
Some people just play Sopo to get enough damage to secure a wobble next stock, but I would advise against most trades, and rather play the stock to the fullest. Good Sopos can take clean stocks off of players because they have that as a mindset and don't over-commit for the sake of extra damage. One such example is to observe how players like Fly continue to go for jab-> confirm rather than going in for wavesmash reads all the time. That's not to say you don't have to get some reads, but don't just throw moves out hoping for some cheesy D-smashes.

EDIT: honestly, I'm kind of surprised there isn't another post like this on the boards.
EDIT2: http://smashboards.com/threads/the-...guide-to-non-grab-skillz-by-choknater.112413/ Check out Popo combos, there's some good stuff =)

EDIT3: I'd be a fraudulent ICs if I didn't mention Dash-dancing. Dash-dancing with both ICs desyncs Nana which can lead to some unfavorable results in neutral. But Sopo can DD freely, so make use of the movement option.
 
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DerfMidWest

Fresh ******
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SOFA#941
How do i use sopo? what are the most threatening things he can do to characters? what are his best moves? how do i make him threatening in some sense?
Sopo is still a very good character once you understand him.

The big thing is movement. I stress this with IC players in general, since most ICs will just kinda chill in one spot and wall and not move much in general, but sopo has even better (or rather, more reliable) movement options than synced ICs

He's still incredibly fast on the ground via wavedashes/wavelands, but as was mentioned, he has a dash dance.
And it's a really good dash dance.

DD to grab/pivot fsmash is really solid against most characters.

Shield drops/shai drops are also way more reliable, which opens up a whole lot since you don't have to worry about leaving nana stranded on a platform or accidentally dropping nana through while you get stuck. This is great because really all the ICs shield drop aerials are awesome in the right situations (fair is pretty bad usually, but it can be used on occasion)

solo-squall and solo-blizzard are way worse in neutral (like you should almost never use them... except in very specific scenarios) which makes dealing with aerial walls, specifically peach/sheik, a lot more difficult to deal with.
solo-squall does still work though, you just have to be very careful with your positioning because it can be punished since it has more endlag and less maneuverability.

combos work exactly the same as normal IC combos (minus desyncs and wobbling/handoffs).
You can still CG a lot of characters with dthrow until around 60% (off the top of my head: spacies, falcon, ganon sheik, pichu, pikachu. There are probably some I'm missing. Probably dk/bowser. maaaybe mewtwo? not sure).
And beyond that, dthrow is still an excellent tech chase option since ICs wavedash will cover so much distance.

You can also reliably dthrow->usmash on most mid-weight characters and cover floatier characters DI/DJ with wavedash usmash at mid percents.
On fast fallers dthrow->dsmash and dthrow->fsmash (at mid-high percent) work well.

bthrow is also very effective as a tech chase option. If you bthrow near the ledge, you can cover most tech options with your wd.

uthrow is a reasonably good combo move. At really low percent, on FFers you can uthrow->usmash or uthrow->dash attack depending on DI.
uthrow->uair works really well on most characters, even though you can't usually follow it up, it puts them in a bad position.

dthrow->nair is one of my favorites, since you can follow it up really well on most characters.

retreating land-cancelled iceblocks onto platforms are pretty nice. I don't iceblock very much other than that since it can be punishable.

sopo's recovery is atrocious, most of the time you'll just keep getting hit offstage until you either die or can reach somewhere (like a platform) where you aren't easily hit.

I can't think of what else is important right now, but feel free to ask more specific questions.
My best advice right now would be to watch a lot of Fly and Wobbles play, since they spend a lot of time wrecking with sopo.
Some other players like Trail and Chu also have really easy to emulate sopos.
 

OddishGuy

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Apr 4, 2014
Messages
203
Location
Colorado Springs
Sopo is still a very good character once you understand him.
You can still CG a lot of characters with dthrow until around 60% (off the top of my head: spacies, falcon, ganon sheik, pichu, pikachu. There are probably some I'm missing. Probably dk/bowser. maaaybe mewtwo? not sure).
And beyond that, dthrow is still an excellent tech chase option since ICs wavedash will cover so much distance.
I've been trying this and can't CG spacies/Falcon with up-throw or D-throw if they DI properly/full away. Can you help me out with this?

For D-throw:
I can confirm Ganon, Pikachu, Bowser, DK, Link, YL (these will be good if they allow Sopo in low tier tourneys again ever). Mewtwo didn't work, nor did Luigi.
Mario and Marth work up to about 10%, so 1-2 regrabs.

EDIT: (I wrote all this and then Smashboards went into maintenaince, so some stuff may be off)
0-60: Bowser, DK, Ganondorf, Link, Pichu, Pikachu, Roy, Sheik, YL
0-40: Yoshi
0-25: Ness
0-15: Doc, G&W, ICs, Mario, Marth, Zelda
No Regrab: JigglyPuff, Kirby, Luigi, Mewtwo, Peach (Possibly: CF, Falco, Fox)

Notes: Yoshi could sometimes land at low% but still be regrabbed; Ness could initiate DJ, but due to its properties he was still regrabbed, could probably airdodge after 15%; Pichu was weird; Kirby could be regrabbed to ~25% with bad DI, the three fast fallers can be regrabbed to high % with bad DI; I hate Peach; Zelda is weird

I'm a scrub and this is rough data, if there's a better compilation somehwere I'd like to see it!
 
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Fly_Amanita

Master of Caribou
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Aug 24, 2007
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Claremont, CA
You can dthrow CG Falcon up until something like 190%. It's very difficult to react to his DI, though. I generally do it as a guess. I'd rather tech-chase him for the most part.
 

DerfMidWest

Fresh ******
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SOFA#941
I prefer to tech chase or cg with dthrow->nair at low percent.
ICs can't CG with uthrow, sadly.
maybe at 0% on spacies...

but yeah, it can be really hard to react to the DI with dthrow cgs, which is why I only use them on certain characters where it's easier or as a mixup if I know my opponent is going to DI a certain way out of my throw.
 

CheetoKing69

Smash Rookie
Joined
Dec 19, 2014
Messages
17
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Your Twisted Imagination
thanks for the advice guys! ive been doing the down throw CG and thats basically all my sopo can do. people tend to think that sopo means it's just a free stock for them to take, so i wanted to find a way to punish overextending with him. other than his really good wavedash i was having trouble finding ways to live.
 

DerfMidWest

Fresh ******
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Mar 31, 2011
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Cleveland, OH
Slippi.gg
SOFA#941
Yeah learning his combo game can be a little difficult, and he can have somewhat of a killing problem since he has to rely mostly on onstage edgeguards and occasional misc smash attacks, but he's still pretty solid onstage.
He's basically mario, tbh.
 
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