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About Magnet-Hands, Edge-Guard

Jewdo

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Mar 16, 2008
Messages
203
Location
Heaven or Hell
To introduce the topic, something all of you probably already know:

One reason that edge-grab recovery is much easier now (and edge-guarding harder) is the new Magnet Hands mechanic. The recovering character is rendered invincible when he comes within a certain distance of the ledge, then is pulled directly into a ledge-hang, often regardless of which direction the character is facing at the time.

Now, on to the meat of the subject:

I was messing around with a simple stage I made in Stage Builder - a 6-block long, 3-block tall platform to serve as an analogy to Final Destination. I found a few things that the Brawl community will find useful if they don't know already. As a preface, I will say now that none of this pertains to the mechanics of Tether Recovery.

1) The Magnet Hands appear to trigger in a fixed range surrounding the ledge. All of the characters I tested with (Mario, Marth, Lucas, Wolf) were pulled invincibly into the ledge at approximately the same ranges horizontally and vertically relative to the corner. This distance is one half of a basic stage-builder block's width or height. To estimate the range in-game, imagine a quarter-circle "safe area" (the radius of which being 1/2 the width of a 1x1) surrounding every grab-enabled corner in the game.

2) This basically renders all would-be edge-guards that hit less than a half of a block's width away from the corner useless. The recoverer makes it to the ledge safely as he is magnetically, and invincibly, moved through the defender's attack that landed within the "safe area."

3) However, attacks that reach with a range FURTHER than a half-block, if timed right, hit the opponent. These include Zero-Suit Samus' down-tilt and Wolf's down-smash if the character is positioned on the grabbable corner they're trying to guard. Of course, all techniques need to be well-timed and have an appropriate level of priority to deflect the recovery technique used.

4) The aforementioned two techniques will knock recoverers away from the edge, but only if they approach HORIZONTALLY. To protect the bottom edge of the safe-range(the vertical axis), there exist other methods. One is to throw or drop items straight down along the wall of the platform, such as Peach's turnip, Snake's grenade (hold B, then shield to drop it, then pick it up with A) or C4, [Toon] Link's bombs, etc. This works nicely.

5) Another method of preventing access to the "safe area" is getting your hands dirty and jumping off the platform yourself. Do a spike, meteor, or other aerial with significant knockback (horizontal or downward) to ruin the recovery of your opponent, then jump into the safe-range yourself and hang on the ledge. Edge hogging is still a very nice way of preventing certain characters from grabbing the ledge, such as Lucario and others with non-aggressive Up-B moves *as well as tether recoveries*.

6) Although Magnet Hands normally trigger when the character moves into the "safe area," regardless of where they're facing, sometimes this does not happen. I suppose "Magnet HANDS" was the best term to describe the phenomenon, as the moves that don't auto-hang in the safe area tend to be those in which the character's hands are visibly occupied during the move. Examples include the beginning of Falco's double-jump, Peach's umbrella when she's facing backwards, Wario's Up-B, and DeDeDe's Up-B if it's not canceled by pressing Down near the ledge. More moves exist that share this property, but just know what to look for as a general rule.

Hope this helps, especially with your edge-guard games. Thoughts?
 

Crizthakidd

Smash Champion
Joined
Oct 1, 2007
Messages
2,619
Location
NJ
lol magnet hands? i think they just auto sweetspot the ledge. pretty dumbed down version. nice info tho i like how u made a final D stage lol
 

Talek

Smash Cadet
Joined
Mar 17, 2008
Messages
67
Location
Miami, FL
Nice research, should help a lot with understanding how auto sweetspoting the ledge works.
 
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