The Clutches of Darkness: Maximizing Ganondorf's Grab Game (WIP)

I'll be the first to admit it - Ganondorf's grab game is by no means the best. He has short grab range, both standing and dash, and his throws don't have an abundance of followups. However, his grab game is far from useless, and actually gives you several options. In this guide we'll look at each throw, its uses, and any followups or combos you can get from it.

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Forward Throw
Damage: 13%

Followups: None

Recommended Use: Breathing room/Throwing opponents offstage

Summary: F throw is the most damaging of Ganondorf's throws, and it also has the most distance on it. It's good for getting an opponent offstage or giving yourself breathing room, and gives us access to our amazing offstage game. I recommend following up with a nair after forward throwing an opponent offstage, but any aerial is good, and you may want to switch up which ones you use depending on how your opponent likes to recover.
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Back Throw
Damage: 10%

Followups: None

Recommended Use: Throwing opponents offstage

Summary:
Same story as forward throw. Good for throwing opponents offstage and gimping. Trajectory is slight higher than uair, so certain aerials like fair will be able to be hit more easily. Again, use F and B throw to complement your offstage game.

A setup I like to use against aggressive opponents is to back throw my opponent offstage, wait for their second jump back onstage, and bair them. They typically will jump towards you in mid air, and, since you're already facing backwards, bair is the perfect move to hit them with.
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Up Throw
Damage: 7%

Followups: None

Recommended Use: Setting up landing traps/Dealing with Shield Shulk

Summary:
Up Throw is an odd one. It sends opponents up quite far, and has too little hitstun for us to even think about following up. However, that doesn't prevent it from having its uses. Characters that have trouble with being juggled are put in a bad position by this throw, as we can wait for their airdodge or laggy aerial and punish. Characters like Marth and Lucina come to mind. Marth has an even worse time getting down from juggles than in brawl bc of the increased lag on his aerials. We can up throw him, wait for his response, and punish accordingly. The safety and longevity of this is increased by platforms, so Battlefield and Town and City definitely help with this throw's usefulness.

Another use for it is as a move refresher/damage racker against Shulk when he's using his Shield Monado Art. Credit for this goes to @A2ZOMG. Shulk's weight and fall speed are greatly increased, and that, combined with his already terrible options for getting down, and you've got yourself some free damage and refreshed moves. Just keep grabbing him, up throwing him, reacting to his response, and repeating. Each throw does seven damage, so it's not something to sneeze at. While this may be a very specific use, I do believe it is up throw's most effective one. This one is probably our least useful throw, but it still has its purposes.
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Down Throw
Damage: 7%

Followups: Dash Attack, Up Air, Wizard's Foot, Wizard's Drop Kick

Recommended Use: Combos/Offstage Kill Setups

Summary:
By far our best throw, Down throw several followups, some of which are true combos. I'm going to break down these followups, and which ones work on which characters. For the true combos, I'm going to give the percents at which they are true, for those who want to know.

**Note that you can still hit these beyond or before the true combo percents in most cases. The game just won't read it as a true combo. All the 'true combo' distinction is is a guarantee that the combo will hit**
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Dash Attack (WIP, still testing)
Works on: Fast Fallers
and the like. Will have a comprehensive list later.


True? No

Summary: A solid followup, as it pops your opponent up at a great angle, and can lead to other followups, such as an uair. You can also bait certain things with it, like an airdodge, and punish.
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Up Air (WIP, still testing)
Works on:

True? No

Summary:
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Wizard's Foot
Works on: The entire roster, except and. Kirby can be hit, but he can DI out quite easily, and Jigglypuff can't be hit at all.

True? Yes

Summary:
This works on the whole roster from 0% except the two mentioned earlier. As with all combos, the floatier the character, the sooner and the more easily they will be able to escape. Also, be careful about fast fallers, as some can fast fall at extremely low percents and catch you in the ending animation of Wizard's Foot.

True Combo Percents:

: 0% only (not too useful anyway bc of that pesky luma )

: 0% Only

: 0-23%

: 0-20%

: 0-31%

: 0-27%

: 0-25%

: 0-25%

: 0-20%

: 0-35%

: 0-34%

: 0-9%

: 0-20%

: 0-40%

: 0-14%

: 0-25%

: 0-25%

: 0-25%

: 0-42%

: 0-23%
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Wizard's Drop Kick

Works on: The entire roster. Yes, even floaties. The angle of WDK is perfect for comboing out of down throw.

True? Yes (on more than half the roster :D)

Summary:
As I said before, WDK's angle is perfect for comboing out of d throw, and also the low ending lag of it allows for us to punish our opponent's response afterward. (Note that some fast fallers may not be hit by WDK out of D throw at super low percents. It works on them later.) We could not ask for a more perfect move to combo out of d throw in my opinion. It also true combos on a lot of the cast, and at mid/early high percents. This is yet another reason to pray customs are tournament legal, bc WDK greatly increases the prowess of our throw game.

True Combo Percents:
: 36-49%

: 26-41%

: 45-53%

: 18-41%

: 38-71%

:10-42%

: 43-66%

: 59-71%

: 27-46%

: 26-64%

: 35-47%

: 47-50%

: 21-63%

: 28-69%

: 30-39%

: 27-68%

: 46-71%

: 28-64%

: 17-40%

: 72-85%

: 18-65%

: 18-64%

: 24-63%

: 23-65%

: 18-57%

: 45-70

: 3-27%

: 29-59%

: 31-70%

: 54-57%

: 27-44%

: 45-72%

: 19-49%

: 19-39%

: 36-49%

: 28-68

: 27-67

: 37-56%

: 28-62%

: 45-83%

: 35-56%
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As you can see, Down throw has plenty of followups. However, there's another use it has besides comboing. Take a look at this:

(This is Gungnir, a phenomenal Japanese Ganondorf.)

Here Ganondorf uses down throw to throw the opponent off, waits for the airdodge, and then uses down air to take the stock. The opponent is put in a very bad position by down throw, as you can see. Because Ganondorf can immediately follow up with any aerial, they're put in a position where they either airdodge, and risk getting read, or get hit by an aerial. This is called the 50/50 setup. In order to use it effectively, you have to guess what they're going to do. If you guess they won't airdodge, get down there and throw out an aerial. If you guess they're going to airdodge, do what Gungnir did in the video. Wait, and dair them once their airdodge is gone.

Also, if they DI inward at higher percents, Forward air is a combo. A death combo. Just throwing that out there.
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Hope this helped! I'm still adding stuff, so check back later for new info.
If you like this guide, please don't forget to rate it, and give me any feedback you may have. However, I will not accept feedback about certain things being missing, as I am aware of that (I put it in the guide itself for crying out loud!).