Wavedashing and movement are super important as Snake. He doesn't have a long dashdance or quick wavedash, but microspacing things using what movement options he does have becomes critical. Moving around platforms especially is really important, since a lot of snake's options revolve around juggling, but his slow and strong moves force him to find ways of circumventing the difficult juggles, i.e. platforms.
Other tech that I think is essential overall and is useful regardless of character:
- Advanced Specials Movements (Turnarounds, B-Reverses, Wavebounces)
This stuff is amazing for avoiding pressure, repositioning yourself, and mixing up your opponent. Short Hop b-reverse grenade rolled down sets up some unique stage control and puts lots of pressure onto your opponent relatively safely. A b-reverse grenade can throw off your opponent's juggle attempts and make them either rush to cover your new trajectory (and eat a trade) or let you down.Turnaround grenades from the ledge also give some needed coverage and reduce Snake's landing lag to 1 frame (!!!). Turnarounds and B-reverses both set up good Cypher cancelled aerials as well. There's lots of stuff to apply here so it's tricky to make a concise post about it. A turnaround input would be to hit the stick in a given horizontal direction before inputting the special; a B-reverse is a shift in momentum done by hitting a horizontal direction immediately after the special input; wavebounce is merely the combination of these two thinsg.
- shield drop
Shield drops are absolutely fantastic alright? Snake has an insane amount of options out of a shield drop including AGTing grenades, any aerial (even forward air in some limited situations), Cypher (which then cancels into anything else!), c4, a grenade pull, tranq, empty landing... Hopefully you get the point. It also is handy for quickly and quietly controlling a platform by full hopping and pulling a grenade at the apex of your jump, and then immediately shield dropping through the platform. It's incredibly fast and any aerial option is _at least_ 4 frames faster by virtue of circumventing the jumpsquat frames.
- AGT and item counterplay in general
Snake's grenades are really versatile almost solely because they're items, which means you can glide toss and aerial glide toss with them. Glide toss isn't nearly as useful, but AGT in conjunction with the multiple ways of throwing a grenade (i.e. upward lob, downward roll, etc.) and many, many situations to use them is absolutely huge. This helps as well against other item-focused characters like Peach, Diddy, and ROB as well since you can then gain some control over a vital aspect of their gameplay.
- Pivots/Run cancels/other dash-to-stand options
Pivots allow you access to the normal standing movepool (i.e. tilts) while dashing, which is super importnat for a lot of reasons. Pivot jab, grab, f-tilt, and shield tend to be my favorites. Run cancels, meanwhile, allow you to return to your dash animation (i.e. go back to dashdancing) after you've entered the run state, allowing you a whole host of mixups and an extension on the range of your dashdance.
- Reverse Aerial Rush and its many applications
The obvious advantage here is that you can run and back air someone and not be limited by the game engine, but another crazy thing for Snake is that you can orient yourself properly before a waveland or jump to do whatever it is you need to do. I love dash away into a RAR waveland up tilt or f-tilt. It covers a lot of space, baits an approach, and gives you solid follow-ups. explore those a bit.
Snake-specific tech
- Cypher cancel aerials
Work on getting stuff like Cypher into all five aerials as well as c4 very consistent. Practice on a CPU or a person to ensure that your timing is unaffected by hitstun. Be mindful of how you land with your aerials and explore which hitboxes are the best for what aerials (like how first hit nair will work better for certain occasions than second hit nair).
- Chaingrabs
Learning the chaingrabs snake has available is huge. Most of the cast gets hit for it for at least a few repetitions, whereas fastfallers get absolutely demolished by it. This includes knowing when to JC grab, pivot grab, and boost (pivot) grab, all of which are pretty low-fi tech; they're just applied to a more complicated system.
DACUS
you've already mostly covered this one.
Aerial interrupts
Performing an up air while passing through a platform at a certain height (with Snake's knees level to the platform while jumping) will allow an immediate empty landing on the platform, saving dozens of frames over wavelanding. This can be combined with Cypher to be even faster, as well.
C4 Stuff
C4 isn't just for KOing someone! It's fantastic for demanding space on a certain region of the stage, and can combo into a lot of Snake's other moves with the help of platforms.
