This is tailored specifically to Ganon’s options, but info here can be useful for anyone.
General Info
Special tethers (Ivy/ZSS) can use their tether twice before landing, the Z-Tethers (Link/TL/Samus/Lucas) can only use them once per airtime. If the ledge if occupied while a character reels in, the are forced into a laggy jump. The forced tether hop is 50 frames long (max) and is driftable and fastfallable. Landing on stage will not take the full 50 frames but they will still be airborne for 29-40 frames with a fast fall depending on character. Landing lag for the forced tether hop is 30 frames. It can be edge-cancelled. Characters can wait a maximum of approximately 90 frames before being forced to reel in. This means that if you’ve been waiting on ledge for around a second and you’re under 100%, you can initiate a standard getup (which takes around 30 frames) and still guarantee a forced tether hop.
Options
Before/As they Tether
The most effective way to deal with the tether is prevent them from doing it in the first place. Dropping down with uair or bair is effective for this. This is however also the riskiest option, as it opens up the possibility of them getting past you and beating you to the ledge, or getting hit by any of their other recovery options. Something in particular to watch out for (with the Z-Tethers) is airdoging through you and then tethering. Make sure you have invincibility when they get near to the stage. Ivysaur has the least options out of all the tether characters, so this is more likely to work against her than the others.
Coverage
Ganon is capable of taking actions to completely cover all drift options of the forced tether hop. The most obvious is to use ledgehop uair, and while this does work it is not particularly effective as the opponent can drift onto stage and just get hit back onto the stage. However, if the opponents happens to be at extremely high percent, this can still be a good option as it’s simple to do and will knock them far offstage or kill them on the other side.
A better option is to use ledgehop bair. This will cover all drift back options and, in case they drift in and land on stage, still give you time to punish them. There is enough time to jab, grab, ftilt, dtilt and even utilt (assuming the popup hit properly leads to the strong hit). Generally, grab will be the best option, with bair or uair usually being the dthrow follow up (if they DI the dthrow into stage, make sure to dash forwards first to ensure hitting them back offstage). Note that this method can possibly result in reverse weak hit of bair on slight fade in, which can be a weak punish, though it can potentially still lead into further follow ups.
React
As described earlier, the whole sequence of the forced tether hop is extremely laggy, there is ample time to wait and react to the opponents drift. This opens up more options, such as Smash attacks. Up-angled fsmash will be the most potent kill option. On drift back, ledgehop bair is still the best course of action. On drift in, jump or ledgedash onto the stage and you’ll be able to hit them with almost any attack. Remember that your main goal should be either to kill them, start a big combo, or get them back offstage to repeat the process.
*IMPORTANT* Note about Grab
The forced tether hop landing animation has most of the characters ducking down, and unfortunately for brief periods many of these go low enough to low-profile our grab. Lucas, Toon Link and ZSS can duck it. In addition, it can miss Link and Samus if you're not right on top of them. Ivysaur lands upright, so this is not a concern against her. This only lasts for a short period and there’s plenty of time to grab them, so you just need to make certain that you don’t grab at the incorrect time.
Other Characters
Figuring this all out wasn’t difficult. I did it predominantly on my own with the help of a couple of friends to lab things out. If the optimal punishes for your character have yet to be determined, you simply need to think about what potential options may exist and test it out. Perhaps talk about it with others on Discord. Not every character is going to have coverage options to strongly punish any attempt by the opponent to evade, but nearly everyone should have the ability to react and get a good punish.
Closing Notes
Thanks for reading, I hope this was informative and useful.
Thanks to Sartron for his amazing frame data threads on Smashboards.
Shoutouts to the Ganon Discord for being the dankest wizards.
If you like, you could follow me on Twitter.
General Info
Special tethers (Ivy/ZSS) can use their tether twice before landing, the Z-Tethers (Link/TL/Samus/Lucas) can only use them once per airtime. If the ledge if occupied while a character reels in, the are forced into a laggy jump. The forced tether hop is 50 frames long (max) and is driftable and fastfallable. Landing on stage will not take the full 50 frames but they will still be airborne for 29-40 frames with a fast fall depending on character. Landing lag for the forced tether hop is 30 frames. It can be edge-cancelled. Characters can wait a maximum of approximately 90 frames before being forced to reel in. This means that if you’ve been waiting on ledge for around a second and you’re under 100%, you can initiate a standard getup (which takes around 30 frames) and still guarantee a forced tether hop.
Options
Before/As they Tether
The most effective way to deal with the tether is prevent them from doing it in the first place. Dropping down with uair or bair is effective for this. This is however also the riskiest option, as it opens up the possibility of them getting past you and beating you to the ledge, or getting hit by any of their other recovery options. Something in particular to watch out for (with the Z-Tethers) is airdoging through you and then tethering. Make sure you have invincibility when they get near to the stage. Ivysaur has the least options out of all the tether characters, so this is more likely to work against her than the others.
Coverage
Ganon is capable of taking actions to completely cover all drift options of the forced tether hop. The most obvious is to use ledgehop uair, and while this does work it is not particularly effective as the opponent can drift onto stage and just get hit back onto the stage. However, if the opponents happens to be at extremely high percent, this can still be a good option as it’s simple to do and will knock them far offstage or kill them on the other side.
A better option is to use ledgehop bair. This will cover all drift back options and, in case they drift in and land on stage, still give you time to punish them. There is enough time to jab, grab, ftilt, dtilt and even utilt (assuming the popup hit properly leads to the strong hit). Generally, grab will be the best option, with bair or uair usually being the dthrow follow up (if they DI the dthrow into stage, make sure to dash forwards first to ensure hitting them back offstage). Note that this method can possibly result in reverse weak hit of bair on slight fade in, which can be a weak punish, though it can potentially still lead into further follow ups.
React
As described earlier, the whole sequence of the forced tether hop is extremely laggy, there is ample time to wait and react to the opponents drift. This opens up more options, such as Smash attacks. Up-angled fsmash will be the most potent kill option. On drift back, ledgehop bair is still the best course of action. On drift in, jump or ledgedash onto the stage and you’ll be able to hit them with almost any attack. Remember that your main goal should be either to kill them, start a big combo, or get them back offstage to repeat the process.
*IMPORTANT* Note about Grab
The forced tether hop landing animation has most of the characters ducking down, and unfortunately for brief periods many of these go low enough to low-profile our grab. Lucas, Toon Link and ZSS can duck it. In addition, it can miss Link and Samus if you're not right on top of them. Ivysaur lands upright, so this is not a concern against her. This only lasts for a short period and there’s plenty of time to grab them, so you just need to make certain that you don’t grab at the incorrect time.
Other Characters
Figuring this all out wasn’t difficult. I did it predominantly on my own with the help of a couple of friends to lab things out. If the optimal punishes for your character have yet to be determined, you simply need to think about what potential options may exist and test it out. Perhaps talk about it with others on Discord. Not every character is going to have coverage options to strongly punish any attempt by the opponent to evade, but nearly everyone should have the ability to react and get a good punish.
Closing Notes
Thanks for reading, I hope this was informative and useful.
Thanks to Sartron for his amazing frame data threads on Smashboards.
Shoutouts to the Ganon Discord for being the dankest wizards.
If you like, you could follow me on Twitter.
