Balloon Blast Matchup Thread #5 - Snake

[Sails]

Matchup Ratio: -1​

Important Posts:​

Spoiler

Use Grabs and Side-B hump alot.. Uthrow when you grab, unless your at the ledge then throw him off and **** or pummel to GR while he's hanging over

Nades are really gay, dash attack and bananas blow up nades so be wary of running into autopilot cause you'll get rocked.. since he can either trade hits which dont phase snake since he lives to like 700 or just shield drop them while you dash attack his shield like an idiot.

Semi charged peanuts knock him out of cypher, its lulzy

After he's in the air, throw bananas up by him if you can.. not for the damage but just to limit his options so you can capitalize. since he'll prob wavebounce his nades/airdodge/laggy aerial/c4 to escape juggle traps

If he tries to c4 recovery footstool him or just Dair if you got the grapes At higher percents (130ish?) when he c4 recovers stay by the stage since he'll try and DI towards it to tech the edge and save himself from exploding into oblivion.

HAI!!!!!!

Alright, here we go. Everyone seems to be waiting for me I guess. I'll try to include as little theorycraft as possible and focus on each chrs options against each other and dispel a few of the myths about this matchup that everyone seems to have.

First diddy's side B. Yes it's amazing, but it's not unbeatable by any means. As a snake player, I've experimented and found has an extensive amount of options to beat this move ON reaction such as...
Jab, Uptilt, Pivot Grab, Standing grab, Crouching, and second hit of f-tilt(predicted well in advance). If you watch my matches with Razer/Ally, majority of times I use side B when their running towards me because this cuts down alot of the options that they can use against me. Using this move sparingly is the best tactic. It's a surprise element, not something to rely on this matchup

Next, "I cant beat snake camping, its too hard"
Honestly, If your losing to campy snake, you need to work on your inside game. The strength of snake in this matchup is not just his ability to force diddy to approach, its his ability to make traps just as good as our character(perhaps even better.) If snake is lobbing nades from across stage its a simple task to get mid-range and force him to make a decision. Consider Diddy is at his prime at mid-range, if snake continues to camp diddy can just wait for one nade pull, and punish the lack of options that snake has from having a nade/throwing it. Snake can't win this matchup just from camping, and neither can diddy. This leads us to........

"Dude, I can't win even though I'm camping for days."
First, This is not a matchup that can be won by "camping" in the general sense. You standing in once place isn't gonna intimidate snake, its just gonna make him laugh as he continues to blow up everything. We have to be aggressive, and know exactly when it's safe to go in. Me personally, I choose to go in majority of the time when he has nades, considering I know his exact options when he has one(throw, grab, spotdodge, etc.). Once you get him offstage or in the air, it's up to you after that. There's no specific gameplan I offer you. Just have to capitalize the best you as a player can. I've had Razer tell me that sometimes when he gets grabbed near the edge of the stage diddy feels like mk. Thats the feeling you need to go for.

*interesting fact about snake's uptilt-it hits from two naner lengths away.
It hurts my brothers.

"Momentum in the matchup"
I was talking to my roomie sync, and we realized that momentum is one of the worst problems diddy players have. Its probably a product of not knowing when it's safe to go in, and when its time to DIP. In this matchup, diddy needs to be seen as a hit-and-run type character(which he actually should be in almost all of his matchups). Snake is heavy, so we will ALWAYS have the combo advantage on him. So utilize that to your advantage. Get your combo in, then get your footing back and wait for the next opportunity. Don't rush anything.

Hmm, I think thats it for now. Sorry for not posting this when I said, I've had some life changing family issues come up so it's took me a while to settle down. If you guys have any suggestion on what I should write about, tell me and I'll do it.

Against any snake the first thing I do on stages where you don't spawn on platforms is immediately charge them with a side-b because 80% of the time they pull out a grenade and they usually get hit by it. Side-b is really effective in this MU if you can make the right predictions and figure the snake's playstyle out, especially how he uses grenades since monkey hump won't blow them up. It also acts as a grab if you can monkey hump them out of their cypher.

Grabs are also good to get on them whenever you can.

Fairs are also good if you can space and predict a nade pull since they don't detonate nades.

you can throw a naner OoS in the middle of snake's ftilt combo.

When snake is coming back from a high position it helps to throw bananas up toward him, sometimes it blows up his nades that he pulls and messes with his landing, predicting the airdodge when he lags with the 2nd of fsmash works really well as well. Even the banana pluck is great, if not better than throwing it since it gives an arc.

Pretty much every neutral stage is neutral in this MU except FD where Diddy gets the advantage and lylat where snake gets the advantage, everything else is player preference. Best CPs IMO are picto, rainbow, and fd. I usually ban halberd, but that's only because most people in general like to CP neutral stages, and although halberd isn't a neutral, it's more of a neutral than frigate so normally I get CPed back to a neutral instead of the banned halberd. If I know the snake to CP frigate then I'd ban that instead.

Usmash is also a great juggling move, I really like it in this MU actually.

Stages to Utilize Against Snake:

Neutrals - Smashville, Final Destination, Yoshi's Island
Counterpicks - Pictochat, Rainbow Cruise
Bans - Halberd, Lylat, Brinstar

For more intricate help with this Matchup, please be sure to read the thread, and feel free to ask any questions not answered in it.​

[Collapse="Original Post for Posterity"]

They call him Snake. Solid Snake.
Some say it's because he's tricky like a Snake...
Some say it's because his punishment game is Solid...
Others believe it's because of his adult magazine stash...
They're probably all right.
​

It is important that you read this! Every first post by a user in a Matchup Thread is encouraged to have at least a couple of sentences of information, alongside a ratio. Posts may not be considered for ratio and summary solidifying without these from the poster at some point in the thread, and keeping them towards the beginning helps keep discussion tidy. You have two weeks to share information that you feel is helpful in the Matchup, as well as debate with others. Compelling arguments are a must people, I expect any joking and trolls to be at a minimum.

Ideas for discussion...

-Both Characters Ground/Air Game Against Each Other-
-Moves To Avoid And How To Avoid Them-
-Diddy's Moves To Utilize In The Matchup-
-Personal Strategies To Help With The Matchup-
-Stage Discussion For Starters, Counterpicks, And Bans-​

Note: This Matchup has been discussed in the past. If you wish to pull content from previous discussions that are still relevant in the current Metagame, then feel free to do so. This includes posts that are both yours and not yours.[/Collapse]

 

[FelixTrix]

snakes **** me. it's probably 50-50 though because ADHD/Gnes do well

 

[False]

My philosophy on Diddy is to never let him breathe, to never let him have a decent chance to gather any momentum or gain stage control with bananas. I can probably say its 5-5.

 

[Boofy!]

Use Grabs and Side-B hump alot.. Uthrow when you grab, unless your at the ledge then throw him off and **** or pummel to GR while he's hanging over

Nades are really gay, dash attack and bananas blow up nades so be wary of running into autopilot cause you'll get rocked.. since he can either trade hits which dont phase snake since he lives to like 700 or just shield drop them while you dash attack his shield like an idiot.

Semi charged peanuts knock him out of cypher, its lulzy

After he's in the air, throw bananas up by him if you can.. not for the damage but just to limit his options so you can capitalize. since he'll prob wavebounce his nades/airdodge/laggy aerial/c4 to escape juggle traps

If he tries to c4 recovery footstool him or just Dair if you got the grapes At higher percents (130ish?) when he c4 recovers stay by the stage since he'll try and DI towards it to tech the edge and save himself from exploding into oblivion.

 

[Count]

snakes **** me. it's probably 50-50 though because ADHD/Gnes do well

This :/ whether or not I face snake tells how well I do at a tournament.

I will contribute with something of substance soon.

 

[ErikG]

Sails, <3

I find this to be a pretty even match up, it is also my most practiced and most played match up. On the Snake side of the MU, getting control of one banana severely limits what the diddy can do to Snake. I don't usually try to use bananas against diddy, I tend to pull a nade so the banana falls behind me and the grenade. Snake can live to 180ish fairly consistently in the match up unless Diddy gets a gimp. Also, Snake has a decent ability at harassing a recovering Diddy.

Diddy's ability to wrack up damage and Snake's large hurtbox makes getting a banana trip fairly easy. In the air, Diddy can give Snake trouble. The only worrisome aerials of Snake's are uair and bair which are somewhat easily baited. If you can get Snake in the position where he was to recover low, you can punish him heavily. Fair or Dair a cyphering Snake if he's low; If he recovers high, pull new bananas or set up landing traps.


Some things to know, Snake's bair beats Diddy's side-b.
A thrown banana shuts down Snake's Dacus.
Snake can use his Dacus to pick up items that are in front of him, so watch out for that one.

Edit: As Snake, I love to counterpick to Lylat, Frigate, or PS1. I'll usually ban Brinstar(I know a Diddy won't counterpick here usually, but I worry about pocket MK/G&W/whatever), Pictochat, or FD. Halberd is probably not the best CP for Snake in this MU because once it lands on the ship, Diddy has a long flat platform to do his thing on.

 

[Gnes]

Yayyy, my favorite matchup. I plan to have a detailed analysis for this matchup up by monday afternoon. I say this because I'll be done with half of my finals and will get a break around then.

Me and razer normally agree that its slightly in snake's favor.

 

[Luigi player]

Too lazy right now to write too much, but imo it's slightly in Diddys favour. ^^

 

[Robin1613]

tbe


to be edited

 

[Vega4]

This is one of my hardest match-up.
I'm waiting for the info

 

[Linkvader]

I think it's even, because it's a game of trading items. They toss nades, and we toss our nanners. It's a lot about whoever can use the most out of their items.

 

[tibs7]

defs in snakes favour.

detailed report sometime tomorrow :D

 

[Attila_]

even.

snake deals plenty of damage, kills early, and lives for ages. but at the same time, he gets juggled forever, can't hard camp, and can be punished for literally anything he does.

it balances out.

 

[Limeee]

>everyone says they'll do a writeup tomorrow
>tomorrow
>nothing
>mfw

 

[VonDarkmoon]

I love the details of everything, but we still haven't gotten to stages yet from anyone.

Personal fav stages: FD, SV
Personal Bans: Halberd, Lylat (i have snakes in this region that love lylat and it shows X.X)

 

[Vega4]

>everyone says they'll do a writeup tomorrow
>tomorrow
>nothing
>mfw

+1
It looks like tomorrow is not anymore what we used to know xD

 

[Boofy!]

Gnes where art thou?

 

[Timic83]

definitely in diddies favour

 

[Gnes]

HAI!!!!!!

Alright, here we go. Everyone seems to be waiting for me I guess. I'll try to include as little theorycraft as possible and focus on each chrs options against each other and dispel a few of the myths about this matchup that everyone seems to have.

First diddy's side B. Yes it's amazing, but it's not unbeatable by any means. As a snake player, I've experimented and found has an extensive amount of options to beat this move ON reaction such as...
Jab, Uptilt, Pivot Grab, Standing grab, Crouching, and second hit of f-tilt(predicted well in advance). If you watch my matches with Razer/Ally, majority of times I use side B when their running towards me because this cuts down alot of the options that they can use against me. Using this move sparingly is the best tactic. It's a surprise element, not something to rely on this matchup

Next, "I cant beat snake camping, its too hard"
Honestly, If your losing to campy snake, you need to work on your inside game. The strength of snake in this matchup is not just his ability to force diddy to approach, its his ability to make traps just as good as our character(perhaps even better.) If snake is lobbing nades from across stage its a simple task to get mid-range and force him to make a decision. Consider Diddy is at his prime at mid-range, if snake continues to camp diddy can just wait for one nade pull, and punish the lack of options that snake has from having a nade/throwing it. Snake can't win this matchup just from camping, and neither can diddy. This leads us to........

"Dude, I can't win even though I'm camping for days."
First, This is not a matchup that can be won by "camping" in the general sense. You standing in once place isn't gonna intimidate snake, its just gonna make him laugh as he continues to blow up everything. We have to be aggressive, and know exactly when it's safe to go in. Me personally, I choose to go in majority of the time when he has nades, considering I know his exact options when he has one(throw, grab, spotdodge, etc.). Once you get him offstage or in the air, it's up to you after that. There's no specific gameplan I offer you. Just have to capitalize the best you as a player can. I've had Razer tell me that sometimes when he gets grabbed near the edge of the stage diddy feels like mk. Thats the feeling you need to go for.

*interesting fact about snake's uptilt-it hits from two naner lengths away.
It hurts my brothers.

"Momentum in the matchup"
I was talking to my roomie sync, and we realized that momentum is one of the worst problems diddy players have. Its probably a product of not knowing when it's safe to go in, and when its time to DIP. In this matchup, diddy needs to be seen as a hit-and-run type character(which he actually should be in almost all of his matchups). Snake is heavy, so we will ALWAYS have the combo advantage on him. So utilize that to your advantage. Get your combo in, then get your footing back and wait for the next opportunity. Don't rush anything.

Hmm, I think thats it for now. Sorry for not posting this when I said, I've had some life changing family issues come up so it's took me a while to settle down. If you guys have any suggestion on what I should write about, tell me and I'll do it.

 

[Vega4]

Thanks Gnes for those advises.
I would ask you to put al link of some video of you or any other Diddy main, that you think that shows exactly the way you said that this match should be played.
I'm asking this because I wanna know exactly which moments are better to attack and when we should slow it down...

 

[Attila_]

i'd be interested to hear your comments on damage output and how this translates to kos...

obivously snake punishes hard with tilts, but at the same time, his punishment ends after that hit. the situation returns to normal, as snake has no follow ups or juggle options. diddy doesn't hit as hard, but can potentially do a hell of a lot of damage with juggling and disallowing snake from resetting his zone.

at the same time, snake lives a lot longer. that being said, he really shouldn't be recovering too well once he's hit off. and it's much easier to gimp snake than it is to gimp diddy.

after taking all that into consideration, i find most of the complants from diddy players kinda unwarrented.

snake lives forever, but he gets juggled and can't recover. diddy dies early, but suffers around 1/5 of a stock per decent punish.

in all these respects, i think the mu is pretty much even, with diddy having a solid advantage on fd/sv, and snake having a solid advantage on frigate/delphino.

thoughts?

 

[Gnes]

Thanks Gnes for those advises.
I would ask you to put al link of some video of you or any other Diddy main, that you think that shows exactly the way you said that this match should be played.
I'm asking this because I wanna know exactly which moments are better to attack and when we should slow it down...

Matchups are constantly adapting in-game, theres no specific way to play something at a time. Something that's completely applicable at one point might not be depending on something small. For that reason, there's no way to say at exactly ONE point you should be doing a certain thing.

Don't think to hard about it. The basics of momentum is when ur getting ***** slow it down/speed it up depending on the momentum of your opponent. If your getting ***** by a chr. thats playing super slow, speed up your tempo and vice-versa.

i'd be interested to hear your comments on damage output and how this translates to kos...

obivously snake punishes hard with tilts, but at the same time, his punishment ends after that hit. the situation returns to normal, as snake has no follow ups or juggle options. diddy doesn't hit as hard, but can potentially do a hell of a lot of damage with juggling and disallowing snake from resetting his zone.

at the same time, snake lives a lot longer. that being said, he really shouldn't be recovering too well once he's hit off. and it's much easier to gimp snake than it is to gimp diddy.

after taking all that into consideration, i find most of the complants from diddy players kinda unwarrented.

snake lives forever, but he gets juggled and can't recover. diddy dies early, but suffers around 1/5 of a stock per decent punish.

in all these respects, i think the mu is pretty much even, with diddy having a solid advantage on fd/sv, and snake having a solid advantage on frigate/delphino.

thoughts?

First, Snake shouldn't be worried about combos considering his high damage output. His primary focus is to bar diddy at a ledge and force bad options by limiting him. His main "combos" should really come out of grab reads and proper explosion usage. Snake has extensive options in keeping diddy in the air/on the ledge, as does diddy against snake
Both should live out their max potential 90% of the time.

Next, I agree its easier to "gimp" snake but only because it easier for snake to make a fatal flaw in recovering than diddy. The potential to gimp is the same because of their linear limited recovery's. As far as simply recovering goes, as long as snake recovers high its no problem. Razer/Ally always choose to recover high, and diddy doesn't have much options to trap them when they can b-stick/FF/etc. If diddy is recovering at stage lvl height, he'll be fine.

I don't know the complaints your talking, so I can't really comment on that. I will say that you should try to take a general view when thinking about matchups.

Lastly, I disagree with your thoughts about the matchup. I won't put a number on it because I've always hated matchup ratios, but I do think in the current metagame that snake has a very slight advantage. (especially after watching razer vs adhd, and adhd vs ally). I believe with your stage choice in a sense. Snake should be cp-ing places such as halberd, frigate, castle siege, brinstar(a often overlooked choice), while diddy should be cping Fd(most likely banned), picto, delfino(potential for infinites/spikes make this worse for snake), and neutrals after that.

 

[Count]

Thank you sir =)

One thing to add to what gnes said I guess is just the obvious, but simply PLAYING the matchup helps. For me, I feel like other characters, even meta knight have more universal strategies..snake seems to be more "what works for you" Obviously gnes' points are amazing and I'm going to take what he said to heart, but to me this matchup is all about playing it as much as possible.


also, I don't like playing snake on BF..anybody else share this thought?

 

[Attila_]

as snake in the mu, i've always had trouble recovering. typically i'll get hit up again before i can touch the ground, or before i can reset the situation. i may get some chip damage in occasionally, but for the most part, once i'm hit off, the stock is over. living forever doesn't make a difference if you're not doing any damage. and this is a pretty common view for snakes.

feel free to watch this to demonstrate this happening (and by all means, if i'm doing something wrong, i would love advice):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xbF6PeuyJ8

otherwise, i definitely do not feel that snake benefits from brinstar or halberd in this mu at all. the platform layout on brinstar makes chasing a snake that recovers high much easier, and makes it harder for snake to touch the stage. the middle section of the stage makes hit-and-running with snake unnecessarily difficult, and the fact that he can't cross without jumping (when the stage takes a hit or two) effectively isolates him on one section, while diddy is more than happy to approach with aerials. and as for halberd... fighting diddy under a platform is silly. dropping nanas on snake's shield from a sh is too good, trapping snake in his shield extremely effectively. snake can't throw bananas back at diddy if he's in the middle section as they go over his head; this stage reminds me of yi, which i've always considered good for diddy in this mu. i actually really hate those stages against diddy, while loving them in most other mus.

 

[Vega4]

Thank you sir =)

One thing to add to what gnes said I guess is just the obvious, but simply PLAYING the matchup helps. For me, I feel like other characters, even meta knight have more universal strategies..snake seems to be more "what works for you" Obviously gnes' points are amazing and I'm going to take what he said to heart, but to me this matchup is all about playing it as much as possible.


also, I don't like playing snake on BF..anybody else share this thought?

I also don't like BF on this match-up. I think that is because of all the plattforms that put you above Snake a lot of times (and also the plattform keep nanners away from the floor...), and is not very convenient to be above Snake...

Gnes, I know what you mean, by I still think that it would be great that we have a vid that you think that shows a great way of face this match...

 

[Boofy!]

I don't like BF for this MU either but it's where i wind up playing 9 times out of 10 after striking.

 

[VonDarkmoon]

while BF probably isn't the best choice of stage for this MU, but i've been playing on it so much against different snakes i'm pretty used to it by now. bananas on the platforms can make it really limited for snake to land without tripping and should they find a spot to land you can probably read/punish it pretty easily.

i definitely see this MU as a -1, if not even. even though we can juggle and combo snake along with easy gimps, it can still be a hell of a time just trying to kill him where as he kills us with a fresh Utilt at like...100ish (correct me if i'm wrong). His option limiters are a bit better than ours and he hits like a truck.

 

[Boofy!]

I really don't get killed by Utilt often..

 

[ErikG]

Battlefield is probably going to be game 1 in the FD/SV/BF/Lylat/YI system.
Diddy strikes: Lylat and YI
Snake strikes: FD and SV usually.

 

[Attila_]

why would diddy strike yi? i really hate that stage in this mu.

 

[Vega4]

why would diddy strike yi? i really hate that stage in this mu.

You are right. I like YI. And I don't like BF that much...

 

[Count]

Yeah, I've been going to YI lately, striking BF and Lylat. Its worked out better for me...i'm interested to hear other opinion on this though.

 

[Player-1]

Against any snake the first thing I do on stages where you don't spawn on platforms is immediately charge them with a side-b because 80% of the time they pull out a grenade and they usually get hit by it. Side-b is really effective in this MU if you can make the right predictions and figure the snake's playstyle out, especially how he uses grenades since monkey hump won't blow them up. It also acts as a grab if you can monkey hump them out of their cypher.

Grabs are also good to get on them whenever you can.

Fairs are also good if you can space and predict a nade pull since they don't detonate nades.

you can throw a naner OoS in the middle of snake's ftilt combo.

When snake is coming back from a high position it helps to throw bananas up toward him, sometimes it blows up his nades that he pulls and messes with his landing, predicting the airdodge when he lags with the 2nd of fsmash works really well as well. Even the banana pluck is great, if not better than throwing it since it gives an arc.

Pretty much every neutral stage is neutral in this MU except FD where Diddy gets the advantage and lylat where snake gets the advantage, everything else is player preference. Best CPs IMO are picto, rainbow, and fd. I usually ban halberd, but that's only because most people in general like to CP neutral stages, and although halberd isn't a neutral, it's more of a neutral than frigate so normally I get CPed back to a neutral instead of the banned halberd. If I know the snake to CP frigate then I'd ban that instead.

Usmash is also a great juggling move, I really like it in this MU actually.

 

[Attila_]

just for those you didn't know, you can bair oos in between snakes hits of ftilt on your shield. dunno about fair, but bair definitely works.

and yeah, yi is bad for snake here. he always throws nanas over diddy, snake loses most of his edgeguard threats, diddy gains recovery potential with the wall, grabs and jabs will often go over diddy, and fighting diddy under platforms is stupid. in summary, anyway.

 

[MdrnDayMercutio]

I'm so glad GNes says it's slightly in Snakes favour. I was getting sick of no one thinking it was in Snakes favour.

This is all I have to add cause I'm bad at this game.

 

[Turazrok]

ADHD vs UltimateRazer - WHOBO3

 

[ADHD]

It's 50-50 imo. I don't know if snake can win if diddy doesn't make humanly mistakes, but that can be said for metaknight against everyone..

 

[Attila_]

i remember a little while ago, you claimed snake was diddy's worst mu.

what made you change your mind?

 

[Player-1]

he says that about every MU he starts losing and then claims it's 5-5 a couple of months later.

 

[Robin1613]

Diddy goes even with damn there everyone i noticed.