"Ask Not for Whom the Bell Tolls..." Game and Watch Matchup + Discussion

[Black Bean]

Guys im having trouble vs luigi. whenever i want to go in i get caught up between his fireballs and if not that when i jump over them nairs and fairs await me any help?

Make sure you bucket his fireballs when you can. His projectile is one of the ones that gives max damage to bucket. If you hit a full bucket, gg stock.

 

[DarkStarStorm]

Make sure you bucket his fireballs when you can. His projectile is one of the ones that gives max damage to bucket. If you hit a full bucket, gg stock.

Good to know. I've found that if you can start a juggle on him then feint away before he nairs you can punish that nair with a side-b.

 

[jtm94]

Just saw Dakpo's set against Ivysaur.
Does anyone else have any MU info for this? I really would like to figure out that MU more because it seems very difficult and I would like to be able to beat The Lake's Ivy if Pittsburgh starts hosting PM again.

It seems very rewarding to go in against her recovery, but if they play it correctly she gets back fairly safe. I have no idea for what to do in neutral... just hope to get them on a platform and hit them a lot..

 

[Black Bean]

Just saw Dakpo's set against Ivysaur.
Does anyone else have any MU info for this? I really would like to figure out that MU more because it seems very difficult and I would like to be able to beat The Lake's Ivy if Pittsburgh starts hosting PM again.

It seems very rewarding to go in against her recovery, but if they play it correctly she gets back fairly safe. I have no idea for what to do in neutral... just hope to get them on a platform and hit them a lot..

I have a lot of trouble with Ivy too. Eager to see replies. My guess would be that you'd have to play neutral very defensive and punish hard. Shffl fair is your friend if you're trying to approach. I'm pretty sure Ivy's grab outranges dtilt.

Ivysaur is one of the MUs I avoid playing if I can. I much prefer ganon than gdubs.

 

[jtm94]

Ganon sounds rough too.

I use a LOT more bair than most GnW's because it walls out a lot of things and has good range and little landing lag. It feels like a good out against projectile heavy characters.

I do know that Gatling Combo works on Ivy for a while and can be landed at KO % but I've had it miss at the same %.

I was thinking about double jump out of UpB and I honestly don't think it's that threatening to be an issue. After watching Dakpo Artimus sets UpB into them and double jump gives us a large portion of our follow ups.

 

[DarkStarStorm]

Ganon sounds rough too.

I use a LOT more bair than most GnW's because it walls out a lot of things and has good range and little landing lag. It feels like a good out against projectile heavy characters.

I do know that Gatling Combo works on Ivy for a while and can be landed at KO % but I've had it miss at the same %.

I was thinking about double jump out of UpB and I honestly don't think it's that threatening to be an issue. After watching Dakpo Artimus sets UpB into them and double jump gives us a large portion of our follow ups.

Speaking of Ganon, as Sheilda Ganon is my hardest MU: I picked up G&W and Ganon melted like butter.

 

[jtm94]

I always just told myself I was bad and that's why I had difficulty with Gannon. The MU does feel very different as GnW and I can completely disrespect him.

 

[Dakpo]

Ivy is brrooookkkeeennn

 

[jtm94]

Ivy is brrooookkkeeennn

I was hoping for game breaking insight v.v

 

[Dakpo]

3.5 is about to come out, the match-up will change. Ill make my advice then

 

[jtm94]

3.5 is about to come out, the match-up will change. Ill make my advice then

You are a man of many words....
I will be here until then

 

[shapular]

Anybody have advice on the Sheik matchup? I usually win it, but it seems harder than it should be. I guess the neutral game gets me more than anything.

By the way, just so you guys know, I do take my own advice when I say not to play G&W in certain matchups. I played against a good Roy in tourney on Saturday and got 2-stocked. Then I switched to Link, SD'ed one of my stocks at 35%, and still took him to high percent last stock. So if I ever say to use a different character, I'm actually serious. A couple months ago I switched to Link against a Fox and won that match too, and that was when I had only been using Link for a week in Melee and hadn't touched him in PM until that day.

 

[Yung Mei]

im serious when i say that too, and GNW/Fox is potentially even IMO

 

[shapular]

im serious when i say that too, and GNW/Fox is potentially even IMO

I think it's even on some stages, but I think he has the advantage in general. Just don't ever let him take you to PS2 because you will die at 60%.

 

[Yung Mei]

ps2 is my **** tho, i almost 3 stocked silent wolf's fox on PS1, but he came back and ****ed me up l0l

if theres one thing fox has on us, its definitely his speed, but other than that, i stick to even

 

[jtm94]

Sheik is pretty difficult, if I can get up to play my homies then I will get some GnW sets in against Umbreon to try and think of something. The best thing going in the MU is that our combos work decent on her because she has very low aerial mobility meaning she can't stray too far to the left or right to get out of combos. I would also wager things like gatling combo work on her at KO percents as well. Her recovery isn't as good as ours get her off stage and throw out moves.

Strong Bad has said he uses GnW as his new anti-fox. GnW gets knocked down by shine so he can't be waveshined like DK. Pretty much every move converts into more stuff or is a launcher to force a tech scenario. Pretty sure dtilt goes into nair at KO percents as does upthrow. Upthrow chain grabs for a while. We should edgeguard him easy.

My recent GnW quarrels are with Olimar because that character is dumb in his own way and Marth. Both feel sort of difficult for similar reasons.

 

[DarkStarStorm]

Sheik is pretty difficult, if I can get up to play my homies then I will get some GnW sets in against Umbreon to try and think of something. The best thing going in the MU is that our combos work decent on her because she has very low aerial mobility meaning she can't stray too far to the left or right to get out of combos. I would also wager things like gatling combo work on her at KO percents as well. Her recovery isn't as good as ours get her off stage and throw out moves.

Strong Bad has said he uses GnW as his new anti-fox. GnW gets knocked down by shine so he can't be waveshined like DK. Pretty much every move converts into more stuff or is a launcher to force a tech scenario. Pretty sure dtilt goes into nair at KO percents as does upthrow. Upthrow chain grabs for a while. We should edgeguard him easy.

My recent GnW quarrels are with Olimar because that character is dumb in his own way and Marth. Both feel sort of difficult for similar reasons.

I thought up-throw isn't used because any form of DI helps them?

 

[jtm94]

Up throw against fastfallers? Not entirely sure what you are asking about.
Fastfallers can only DI upthrow so far. IMO you should only miss follow ups on it if you have poor reaction speed because it's pretty easy for me to react to. If you KNOW how they will DI you can just throw the opposite way of their DI and they will go straight up in the air. For example you upthrow them twice and they are like.... man I need to get out of this.. so they DI to the closest platform. You can take advantage of this by throwing them away from the platform and now they are using bad DI. It is because of this that I would argue GnW has one of the best CGs on fastfallers because all they had is DI before.

 

[DarkStarStorm]

Up throw against fastfallers? Not entirely sure what you are asking about.
Fastfallers can only DI upthrow so far. IMO you should only miss follow ups on it if you have poor reaction speed because it's pretty easy for me to react to. If you KNOW how they will DI you can just throw the opposite way of their DI and they will go straight up in the air. For example you upthrow them twice and they are like.... man I need to get out of this.. so they DI to the closest platform. You can take advantage of this by throwing them away from the platform and now they are using bad DI. It is because of this that I would argue GnW has one of the best CGs on fastfallers because all they had is DI before.

Here's the post where I heard that. It's on page 11:

G&W has a mixup between forward and back throw where the opponent is forced to guess on their DI. If you make them guess wrong they will go straight up and the follow ups will be free. If they guess right then they will get sent far away and follow ups will be difficult (but it is possible at some percents with good DI reaction). Up-throw doesn't play into the mixup because it always sends them high and their DI will help no matter what, so Up-throw is actually a pretty weak option.

Could you confirm or deny this jtm94?

 

[jtm94]

I will confirm that in certain situations.

So here's how it is... Upthrow allows you to get follow-ups on MOST characters at lower % with no DI. With good DI you lose follow-ups on some characters and those who still get hit start to escape it at sooner %. It is to my understanding and partial experience that if you use fthrow or bthrow and they DI poorly you get follow-ups for much longer and much easier on what may seem like more characters than uthrow works on with no DI. I honestly think the differences are slight, but I do not use fthrow or bthrow enough to say for sure, this is only MY understanding of it.

Against fastfallers the throw really doesn't matter so uthrow is the easiest until you see them striving to DI towards something(offstage, a platform, etc) and then you hit them with different throws so they can't get there. Also on uthrow the DI can only send them so far to either side whereas as it was said if they do end up DIing correctly for fthrow or bthrow they will go considerably further away. If you are confident in your ability to read DI then I would suggest using fthrow and bthrow instead of uthrow, but it is risk vs reward imo.

I will try to implement it today if I can get someone to play, but until I am comfortable I will stick to uthrow/dthrow.

 

[Metmetm3t]

I didn't go over fast fallers and low % in that post.

At low percents (0-15-ish depending on character weight) up throw is good because max DI won't save them from up tilt or short hop up air. I would always Up throw then because if they Max DI a forward/back throw you don't have a lot of time to react.

Against fast fallers G&W has a few chain throws. I wish I knew more about the exact percents they work from for each character, but I don't. What I do know is that at zero they all hit the ground before you can get the re-grab, and most of them don't last long. When chain throwing up throw and forward throw both work, but slightly differently. Up throw works just like a normal chain throw you have to read their DI whether they are going to be in front or behind you. With forward throw they will always go forward, but their DI determines how far forward. The reason back throw doesn't work is because the throw's release point. All of G&W's throws release from behind him so with forward throw they actually have to travel across G&W, which is enough distance to allow him to catch up.

 

[DarkStarStorm]

I will confirm that in certain situations.

So here's how it is... Upthrow allows you to get follow-ups on MOST characters at lower % with no DI. With good DI you lose follow-ups on some characters and those who still get hit start to escape it at sooner %. It is to my understanding and partial experience that if you use fthrow or bthrow and they DI poorly you get follow-ups for much longer and much easier on what may seem like more characters than uthrow works on with no DI. I honestly think the differences are slight, but I do not use fthrow or bthrow enough to say for sure, this is only MY understanding of it.

Against fastfallers the throw really doesn't matter so uthrow is the easiest until you see them striving to DI towards something(offstage, a platform, etc) and then you hit them with different throws so they can't get there. Also on uthrow the DI can only send them so far to either side whereas as it was said if they do end up DIing correctly for fthrow or bthrow they will go considerably further away. If you are confident in your ability to read DI then I would suggest using fthrow and bthrow instead of uthrow, but it is risk vs reward imo.

I will try to implement it today if I can get someone to play, but until I am comfortable I will stick to uthrow/dthrow.

Okay...Does the up-throw combo work on Roy? He is a fast-faller...
On thing I have found is that at semi-high percents if they DI f-throw or b-throw to go offstage one can actually get a kill with that by chasing them with side-b. They don't get out of hitstun soon enough to avoid it.

I didn't go over fast fallers and low % in that post.

At low percents (0-15-ish depending on character weight) up throw is good because max DI won't save them from up tilt or short hop up air. I would always Up throw then because if they Max DI a forward/back throw you don't have a lot of time to react.

Against fast fallers G&W has a few chain throws. I wish I knew more about the exact percents they work from for each character, but I don't. What I do know is that at zero they all hit the ground before you can get the re-grab, and most of them don't last long. When chain throwing up throw and forward throw both work, but slightly differently. Up throw works just like a normal chain throw you have to read their DI whether they are going to be in front or behind you. With forward throw they will always go forward, but their DI determines how far forward. The reason back throw doesn't work is because the throw's release point. All of G&W's throws release from behind him so with forward throw they actually have to travel across G&W, which is enough distance to allow him to catch up.

Thanks, this is one of the best descriptions of his spacie grab game I've ever seen! What about D-throw followups? I've seen Nintendude get the grab off a teched D-throw, is it just very specific about how good their tech-roll is? Or is there something more to it?

 

[Metmetm3t]

Thanks, this is one of the best descriptions of his spacie grab game I've ever seen! What about D-throw followups? I've seen Nintendude get the grab off a teched D-throw, is it just very specific about how good their tech-roll is? Or is there something more to it?

Spacies in particular don't have bad tech rolls, but every tech chase can lead into a regrab and theres no one with a tech roll so good it can't be chased down. There are a few characters with arguably bad tech rolls that can be chased down easier than others. Pikachu, Samus, and G&W all come to mind. Although, in PM, G&W's techs are all identical until fairly late in the animation, which helps alot.

 

[jtm94]

Olimar has a meh tech, Squirtle and Toon Link have some of the worst techs I've seen in any smash game. Downthrow works on them for days. Just read the direction and follow and grab, JC grab may be faster/easier yes? If they just lay there I usually jab reset into dtilt then depending on DI either uair or fair and try to land another fair to get them off stage. Downthrow is stupid on platforms. You can dthrow and then cover most all options except getup attack with Dsmash.

I've been getting a lot of work out of fair lately. I found that I told myself it was so bad I just stopped using it as much. It is pretty good, but still slow imo. I haven't faced too many people, but I have found that bair to nair works on a lot of characters, and bair to fair works on even more. Even if it doesn't work guaranteed via hitstun, it still puts them disadvantaged above you or next to you for you to bait and punish.

And yes uthrow into whatever works on Roy. You can land SideB as well, but I usually go for nair since it covers the most area. Be careful of platforms they can tech on, and landing nair so that it sends them accross the stage instead of into the blast zone.

 

[jtm94]

Dakpo had some incredibly convincing sets against Luck and Infinity at the recent Infinity and Beyond. He continues to thoroughly impress me. I wish I could recover as smooth as he does and as consistently.

This weekend I did get to play Umbreon. GnW can do some neat things against Sheik while on stage and if you can get her far enough away you can toss out attacks that just end her stock because she can't come back horizontally. The MU is still incredibly hard though. While he is much better than me her edgeguarding against GnW is far more consistent than GnW can edgeguard her imo. Her combos also lead into a much stronger stage presence as she can often end with fair leaving you off stage and helpless. The proximity to the stage required in order to grab edge with UpB is easy to cut off with the aerial needle angle, and even if you are under the needle angle ledge hog bair or even just raw bair beat GnW UpB. Recovering high does work from time to time, but is readable and punishable with no safe way down. Sheik's fair also sends quite low making it difficult to maintain height while recovering. Also Sheik's uair beats out dair straight up, the meteor hitbox may be bigger? I couldn't get it though. I'm convinced that optimal Sheik should never struggle against GnW since she wins the neutral game and she should never let him recover. The best thing we have in the MU is her lack of aerial mobility and the fact that we can throw her above us and do dirty things to her. The KEY to winning the MU from what I experienced is being able to exploit that and do significant damage off of an aerial juggle and then dump her off stage to end with good positioning. If you let her get to high % landing a KO becomes quite a chore, it is imperative to seal the deal as early as possible.

I still absolutely despise the Peach MU but I like that against Peach and Marth bair leads into fair. Peach's recovery makes it less potent against her, but against Marth it enables us to get him offstage rather easily.

P.S. Sorry about possible bad or repetitive grammar. This was more of a brain dump than a well-worded essay. Wanted to get it off my mind while it was fresh.

 

[WillieDangerously]

I also have issues with Ivysaur. His aerials seem to get me before mine get him (that is nair, fair, and he counters my often dair approach with his seed bomb).
Another issue I have is against regular Samus. I fought one that ran and spammed missiles at me. What is the best approach for that? As far as neutral game goes, Samus does have a bit of range on her ariels, as well as being a relatively heavy character, so I have issues with her too.
Ganon I can see being problematic, but I haven't fought a Ganon that was very good. Most ones I've seen like to go for the sideB plunges or just DACUSs, which I end up working around. I could see issues arising with Ganon mains though.

 

[jtm94]

Ivysaur is very difficult in my opinion. Dakpo says he will post thoughts once 3.5 is out so I too am waiting on that.

Samus I played against Umbreon's and he doesn't main her, but it's difficult. You can't shield grab her fair which is rather displeasing to me, but luckily she can't abuse GnW's bad combo weight as bad as the rest of the cast can. I think bair will eat missiles, but you have to be extremely careful. In a way it's kind of like the Falco MU but with less shield pressure. Just use shield and respect missiles. We can sort of punish her recovery. I think it's a slightly problematic MU since she's hard to KO, combo, and bucket doesn't solve the projectile issues.

Ganon can KO us almost as fast as Zelda can, but the downside is we combo him to death and it isn't even hard. Just uair into aerials and edgeguard him correctly. Grab ledge when he will barely reach it, chair him if he tries to go on stage. He is very easy to edgeguard and it makes the MU much easier.

 

[WillieDangerously]

Also I've found G&W's weakest matchups have carried over from Melee- he is practically terrible against swordsmen in general (Fire Emblem cast, Link. Never fought a Toon Link player). Spacing is integral to both you and your opponents' neutral games in this case. your best approach option is usually dtilt or occasional shorthop bacon. If Marth uses his Fsmash or neutral B, if you are fast
enough then you can try hopping over him and dair his backside as his sword reaches the front side of his swing.

By the way, just so you guys know, I do take my own advice when I say not to play G&W in certain matchups... So if I ever say to use a different character, I'm actually serious.

This seems like your best bet on some matchups tbh.

 

[shapular]

Also I've found G&W's weakest matchups have carried over from Melee- he is practically terrible against swordsmen in general (Fire Emblem cast, Link. Never fought a Toon Link player). Spacing is integral to both you and your opponents' neutral games in this case. your best approach option is usually dtilt or occasional shorthop bacon. If Marth uses his Fsmash or neutral B, if you are fast
enough then you can try hopping over him and dair his backside as his sword reaches the front side of his swing.

This seems like your best bet on some matchups tbh.

Toon Link doesn't seem that bad. Meta Knight is bad, but it seems like we do well on flat stages (particularly FD, not sure about GHZ), but I haven't tested that theory since two months ago. G&W has the same problem as Brawl imo. He does well against the low tiers, a lot of the mid tiers, and some of the top tiers, but loses hard to most of the popular characters, which makes him worse than he should be. If you look at the 5 most popular characters in the PM rankings, he sucks against four of them (Fox, Marth, Link, MK).

 

[jtm94]

He has a solid punish game on Fox and MK because fastfallers. Link has a bad combo weight and is susceptible to CCing, and Marth isn't that good in this game so you honestly don't run into them often. The saving grave of GnW vs Marth is bair to fair. It feels like it's a true combo and always converts on him. His recovery is super linear so edgeguarding him shouldn't be difficult.

MK is definitely hard though. He's tough because the speed his aerials come out is like 5 times faster than ours.

 

[MrWatchandLearn]

I found in the MK MU keeping him above you with U-Throw and U-Airs helps a lot and spacing him out with S-Hop neutral B helps keep the pressure off of you. I find trouble against ROB its difficult for me to initiate or approach since he has his laser and top to space and his aerial side b to quickly escape and run, any tips to help?

 

[jtm94]

ROB is pretty big so I'd say bacon can mess with his boost maneuvering. He's heavy and I think he is easy to combo. The problem is the boosting does give him fastish ways of escape. The boost honestly isn't incredibly fast, think of it in terms of run speed and dash dancing. If he was moving at that speed on the ground it would seem less threatening, you can wall out stuff with chair, dtilt, fsmash, jab. Jab is an AMAZING disruptor and it leads to so much.

 

[MrLul]

Game & Watch can crouch under Ike's standing grab, so if Ike wants to grab out of side b just d tilt.

 

[jtm94]

Alright I just wanna confirm some stuff. So I was messing around with uair, and I was thinking the conversion was more free than it is. I'm having a hard time converting uair > aerial. I can get the low% string and do stupid stuff like upthrow > SHFFL uair > uair > UpB > dair > bair > fair. What I want to know is if uair converts into a KO move on non fastfallers/semis? Playing against MArth and Sonic I was having an extremely hard time following up uair with nair or even fair sometimes to sink a KO pretty sure I imagined it being used that way.

For KO finishers after UpB, % is definitely a factor, but not as much as I originally thought. It seems what part of UpB you hit is what determines the most. If you hit the base they fly higher good for fastfallers and heavies, middle for midweights and normies, top for high% and floaties. The best thing about the top is that they cannot DI as severely since it doesn't send them as far. I struggle to get UpB > finisher down. I've adopted my play to revolved around bair since bair converts into fair/stuff against most characters at most percents even higher %s.

Gonna get some more of my play recorded soon. I'm not amazing by any means, but my play is far more optimized compared to even a month ago. Been watching every set by Dakpo, replaying Bidoof combos, and grinding punish game against CPUs.

 

[Dakpo]

replaying Bidoof combos

Could you show me some of these combos. Im pretty interested

 

[Black Bean]

Could you show me some of these combos. Im pretty interested

have you ever seen the salty highlights series on youtube? half of it is bidooof, who mains GnW and ganon. he's pretty beautiful.

 

[jtm94]

Could you show me some of these combos. Im pretty interested

Most of it is swag, but even if situational a lot of his Salty Highlights stuff is usable.
Check out the huge playlist on Youtube if you haven't seen it.

 

[Dakpo]

So after reviewing a lot of my videos, It has become apparent that my early percent grab combos are terrible. WHY DIDN"T ANYONE TELL ME MY COMBO GAME SUCKED! Uhg, lol

What do you guys suggest doing after up throw at low percents? Because if opponents can switch up the DI, then Up throw to Up air DOES NOT WORK.

Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX7ybQgH9Vw#t=499
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX7ybQgH9Vw#t=354

 

[Metmetm3t]

I think fair in that first example would have been a solid choice. Lunchables clearly knows that the G&W's mobility is to low to chase DI behind on the Uair. but fair would have made his DI do nothing. I don't think there's any other option to follow up that throw before he escapes hitstun, so that's what you've got unless you want to bait out whatever he does out of hitstun. Unfortunately, against Toon Link that's a dangerous game.

 

[jtm94]

Bair, and if bair doesn't work bair harder. I love bair.

2nd scenario bair didn't connect well. Possibly to SDI? I feel as though you didn't act with UpB as fast as you could because you could have hit him where he was.