Angel Lands -- Pit's Counterpicks and Bans

[MysteriousSilver]

Allright, listen up you baby eggplants! It's about time you sprouts learned a little something about Gee-Oh-Gra-Phee. Back in the day, you only had to worry about the Underworld, Overworld, and Skyworld! Well, guess what! Now you have up to Twenty-two stages you'll have to go to battle on! You'll need to learn the ins and outs, and if you're defeated in battle, it's always wise to retreat to higher ground! But what kind of land is the best choice? Well...

In an effort to both raise activity on the Pit boards and discuss something we haven't really talked about yet, I'd like to gather the Pit community together to talk about counterpicks. There's a lot of general knowledge out there about this sort of thing, but we haven't had any concentrated discussion on the subject.

Counterpicks are a powerful tool in the game of Smash, and wonderful for turning things over in your favor. I see two major problems with the way a lot of players on my level (admittedly not exactly meta-game advancing) choose their counterpicks--they either simply choose the neutral they like the most personally, or they choose a stage that they have been told allows their character to excel without knowing why, or how to make it work for them. For this reason, I'd like to make this thread not only a discussion of what to choose, but why, and how to abuse your advantage.

On the other side of the same coin, we'll discuss what to ban when we win, and what to watch out for when we are taken to an unfriendly stage.

Click on the icon to view each character's stage discussion thread. Some are more complete than others. I went with the first one I found in any board. Feel free to correct me if there's a more recent one available.


Board can't seem to agree, two most popular ideas for counterpicks seem to be FD (Plenty of room to Pew) and Halberd (MK dies off the top easy). Bans were barely discussed.































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Official Stage List

Counterpicking Made Easy

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Counterpicking made easy has this to say about us:

Best: Norfair, Lylat Cruise, Final Destination
Worst: Pokemon Stadium 1

I'd like to start discussion from the top of the tier list down... so Metaknight's up!

 

[MysteriousSilver]

Metaknight

Counterpicking made easy says:

Best: Luigi's Mansion, Rainbow Cruise, Delfino Plaza
Worst: Yoshi's Island (Melee), Green Greens, Final Destination

What they say:

They seem to like Delfino? Not much discussion.

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My personal opinion (to be taken with a grain of salt):

Being able to fly under a stage has very little use in this matchup since Metaknight can use the same option, and can even chase you under and gimp you. Platforms are going to help him more than you, and you want a big stage to move around on and camp. FD would be my personal pick for this one, though I'd imagine it'd get banned fast. Pictochat give you plenty of space similar to FD, though most of the transformations interfere with your camping. Considering that the stage is sitting right on the bottom blast zone, you'll almost always be recovering high, which leaves you vulnerable, however.

I like smashville for this, too. Same sort of advantages, just less space and that platform.

As for a ban, I'm not really sure. I'd have to guess RC, just because it's a well known good stage for MK, and hard to camp on.

EDIT: Thinking it over, if Mansion is legal, I'd ban the hell out of that. It's great for him and awful for us. He can force us to approach any time he has a lead simply by waiting on the other side of a pillar.

 

[N.A.G.A.C.E]

well for MK u will be at a disadvantage no matter were you take him. The trick here is to not take him to his own best stages such as RC, delfino, maybe brinstar. So i would say take him to ether your own favorite stage or to a neutral were ether u can spam well like FD, or maybe lylat b/c the moving edges can mess people up a bit. I say don't take him to Battle field platforms help him to much there, maybe Smashville. CP wise i am not sure like i said before he will have the adv no matter were u take him so if there is a large stage which will help u spam or maybe if u like castle siege u can take him there and try it out maybe picto if its legal were u are its up to what u like. In the end MK has to many good stages and no real bad ones (at least none that are tourney leagal) so good luck and be happy its only a 40-60 atm

 

[FrznSaber]

How about Japes? It's pretty lengthy so I would assume that arrow camping would be somewhat effective.

 

[MysteriousSilver]

How about Japes? It's pretty lengthy so I would assume that arrow camping would be somewhat effective.

While I usually think that Japes is great for us, between metaknight's superior gimping ability (hope you like swimming) and ledge game, I think that he'd have enough there to fight us on near-even ground.

I don't have the experience to back this claim up, though.

 

[Afropony]

Mysterious is right about Japes, neither Pit or MK really kill upwards so there's no real advantage there. MK can also do some crazy things on the edges with his special attacks that give him heaps of invincibility but still good ways to attack.

Pictochat IMO would be a pretty good couterpick against MK seeing as though FD is going to be banned. because the sides are so short you don't reall need to worry about getting gimped when using upb because if you DI well then you should be able to move onto the stage anyway. Obviuously however 1 low %Dair from MK could kill Pit easily, sadly pit doesn't really have a move like that except for Fair. Uair is really good when you're on the edge if they're close to you because it can kill suprisingly early if the move is fresh.

I'm not a fan of Green Greens but if you decide to Cp with it then I suggest camping them in the middle not allowing them to come near you. obviously you can shoot the bomb squares which is fun to do especially if your opponent is stupid enough to be close to them. The apples are really good for Pit because he has the ability to reflect them. Remember that it is extremely easy to be killed on this stage so if you're on the sides against a MK be careful of a Dsmash and try to get away back into the middle of the stage.

I've never reall played Yoshi's (melee) because its banned in my area but I expect chaingrabs or Fthrow>Fsmash would be good on the sides.

If ever I was playing a MK I would ban Luigi's traight away or change characters. You don't have much of a chance on this stage but remember that when you are on the bottom part underneath the platforms you can DI into them at really high percents and survive until like 400%. This usually gets your opponent relly frustrated which allows yopu to get back into the game. Careful of getting trapped by MK's tornado on the bottom platform, you can lose 50-60% easily from that.

RC is an interesting stage, if you have lots of experience on it then you wouldn't think about banning it. I'm not very experienced on this stage but I know you can get some cheap percent by using rapid jab or AR against the walls, usually you can get about 25% with AR! I'm assumoing MK could do some really crazy things on this stage, his Uthrow could kill really quickly on the "climb" if they know when to use it. Be careful of the Dtilt traps MK can get people into, it's not as good as GaWs or Marths but it's still really annoying.

Delfino PLaza is a good stage for both MK and Pit, you can both shark eachother and there are times where you can get eachother against the wall and get a good 30-40%. There are a few times where you can run them off the stage with a couple of Fthrows but after that they should be able to escape.

 

[Coffee™]

I'd say just take MK to a neutral, Lylat or Halberd. He dies at dumb percents on Halberd lol. Usmash kills him at like 110.

 

[Afropony]

Usually if I'm not sure about what to CP because they have multiple chars to choose from I choose Lylat because it's good for Pit and I'm so familiar with it.

 

[Nikenick]

Ban Castle Siege against Snake, it made me lose on a tourney >_<

 

[Coffee™]

Siege isn't too bad vs Snake but it is probably one of the better stages to ban vs Snake. I'm considering taking MKs to Brinstar. Gonna play around with it a bit more.

 

[MysteriousSilver]

The only concern I'd have with Brinstar is that they have pretty much every advantage that we do. They can shark almost as well, they certainly like the platforms, and they can hide behind breakable parts of the stage to avoid arrow spam.

Even if we camp the right side of the stage over the breakable part, it's not as useful as it could be with other characters. Metaknight likes being in the air, and has the range to cut over the bump anyways...

I *do* like Brinstar, though, for Pit. I used to hate it until I discovered that bottom-right corner.

 

[Kool Aid]

take mk to halberd

 

[Katana_koden]

his bad stages seem to be halbard, pokemon stadium 1 and final destination.

 

[Gadiel_VaStar]

his bad stages seem to be halbard, pokemon stadium 1 and final destination.

Lol, Koolaid who is our best Pit just said that Halberd is where he takes MK. Maybe we should listen to him. I agree w/ the PKS1...its hard to kill on this stage besides gimps & bairs by the ledge.

 

[MysteriousSilver]

So... why Halberd? Just 'cause MK dies off the top easy?

Explain please, if you would.

We should probably move on to Snake soon, but we haven't really reached a consensus on MK.

 

[Afropony]

Halberd is pretty ig when you're on the ship so I guess that helps with arrows. We can but shark underneath the the stage when it's moving. I can't think of any other reasons why it would be good for Pit, but I've never liked the stage anyway.

 

[King of Spam]

halberd is good,but japes is better!you can play REALLY gay here.I made a blog about it on allisbrawl,on how I beat tyrant(3rd best mk in the world) one round.He won the set,but japes helped me get that win 2nd round hugely.Japes Is good for mk.*warning* if you hate spammer johns,expect them at japes,if you know how to play japes.But you honestly shouldn't care,play for yourself.

 

[Katana_koden]

Halberd has small blast zones. Given great technical play since they both can do about the same on it, pit wins by his weight.

 

[HyL!]

yeah, i'm going to agree on halbred being a good cp against meta

 

[Coffee™]

Idk about Halberd tbh. Theoretically it's good but if MK decides to really play gay on that stage then it's still well enough in his favor for it not to even be considered a worthwhile counterpick.

 

['Kicks']

If Mk plays gay on any stage it is hard for us. I do agree with halberd though.

My cp's for MK have always been Halrberd, FD and pokemon stadium one or two. Two mostly because it is a good pit stage and i play well on it.

I do not think taking him to smashville or brinstar is a good idea at all though. These are both pretty strong stages for metaknight.


Just as a suggestion to increase activity in this thread would we be able to discuss pit's best and worst stages first before we go into counterpicking against the roster?

 

[MysteriousSilver]

Just as a suggestion to increase activity in this thread would we be able to discuss pit's best and worst stages first before we go into counterpicking against the roster?

There's already a stage discussion, though it's very old. Don't think it would be a bad idea to talk about it again, though.

At any rate, though there seems to be a lot of divergence on the issue of MK (FD and Halberd seem to be the most common answers... wasn't much talk about bans), I think it's probably time to switch over to Snake to keep discussion going.

Snake likes stages with low ceilings, and (in this matchup) anywhere he can stay relatively close to us. He hates the air, and while he loves to camp, we can make him hurt for it.

The most obvious choice for a CP would be Rainbow Cruise. The stage wrecks Snake's stage control games, and forces him into the air when he'd rather not. We're a lot more mobile than Snake is, and we can use this stage heavily to our advantage.

The problem is, 90% of the time, it'll be banned. Snake's know this stage is bad for them, which leaves us at a loss for a CP.

After speaking shortly with Joker at a tournament last month, I'd suggest any stage with a high ceiling and a lot of distance to camp, like FD or Japes. I've had a bad experience at Japes, but I honestly think it was my own inexperience. Either stage, it's easy to stay away, and that Utilt won't kill you for a while later than usual. FD makes it a bit easier to keep him pinned down with arrows, since on Japes he can pull grenade stripping tricks and other such shenanigans to get you off your platform if you're not keeping the pressure on him and shooting his nades out of the air. Japes, however, forces him to jump at you if you manage to force him into an approach, and he's vulnerable in the air. So, I'd pick one or the other depending on how well I though I could out-camp him.

As for bans? Anything with a low ceiling. Brinstar is bad, Halberd is bad... I haven't won against Snake enough to know where he'd like to take me, though.

EDIT:

Almost forgot, Counterpicking made easy says:

Best: Norfair, Halberd, Smashville
Worst: Jungle Japes

So, Japes is probably pretty good.

 

[FailProofFrank]

(Sup guys, I just recently really got into using Pit a good bit and have been looking into getting to know his character a lot more)

The only real disadvantage I can see with taking Snake to Japes is the darkness the level has. Not saying we can lose ourselves or Snake, but as with fighting any Snake, you MUST be wary of his explosives on Japes. They blend in super well and are really easy to lose if you don't keep an extreme eye out for them.

 

[Andro]

i dont think that japes would work i assum while arrowing you would fall in the water and get hit by the fish

 

[Katana_koden]

Japes should be good, though snake doesn't give us alot of space, but that goes for him too. This stage is more aerial than it looks, which we have an advantage over. His kill moves which are mainly vertical is also a negative for him. Japes has a high vertical boundary. I say vertical because his tilts are over used as his main attack that hits us. Especially f tilt which if DI'd correctly, can survive to 170 ish or so.

The stage positioning as we can keep an advantage on higher ground and if he tried to steal the higher platforms, Its our advantage because we want him higher up.

We don't get gimped easily and maybe evenly for him, get easily gets punished for his.

 

[MysteriousSilver]

i dont think that japes would work i assum while arrowing you would fall in the water and get hit by the fish

On an eight minute timer, Claptrap hits the right side every time the seconds on the clock end in seven, and the left when it ends in five. Burn this into your memory and never get the Clap again.

EDIT: How does everyone feel about moving on from here? I know we haven't discussed Snake very much yet, but it'd be nice to get the ball rolling.

 

[Tetsion]

Don't use battle field against MK for sure. Any small stage is a bad stage for pit, battle field imo is one of the worst possible starter stages for him. Normally it would be YI but if you get (just in case) hit you can be lucky enough to be saved. That and the stage is bigger than BF. BF, MK can rule that stage it's almost impossible to avoid his tornado and there's no room for arrows. Or in case you wanted to arrow loop (it can catch ppl off guard) those platforms are in the way. Not a good stage for pit at all imho. Especially against MK

Take him Final D or Lylat cruise. Lylat has more room, and MK has more room for mistakes because of the tilting stage. Even if he get's it right.

Take him Final D or Halberd as other ppl have said.