BBR Weekly Character Discussion #7: Ice Climbers

[Mew2King]

i feel like ICs arent smart enough outside muscle memory of the chain grab

this may sound random and weird, but a random jump + forward B can beat mks dair camping if you know how the mk is going to do it. Also, if you know mK is going to dair camp, just run UNDER him to where he is GOING TO BE, instead of aiming At him like a ******* like evERY ICS PLAYER DOES. mk can camp ics hard if mk gets the lead, but ics can camp mk hard if ics get the lead using intelligent use of blizzard walls. the way the character is designed they have a lot of potential. i think meep and lain play very predictible and only rely on grab combos and uairs the entire match instead of trying to actually think, and if someone really smart played them they would be ridiculous (like mango smart, or chuuuuuu too bad he won't =\ but the one time he did use ICs in tourney he beat meep in dittos and he said he doesn't even use them he just played it like it was melee lol). After playing mango this weekend in melee in both tourney and friendlies i see how far behind the brawl metagame is than the melee metagame, but maybe that's just because mango is a lot smarter than any brawl player. He convinced me that you just have to be smart and that there is an answer to everything. Going back to brawl, 99% of the community feels so easy now, but then again, that might also be because the game is 6 years younger and most of the super talented players haven't stepped up yet. People play so obvious, but right now i am talking about ics so when i say obvious i am talking about the ics players that ive played all play super obvious to me.

 

[FrozenHobo]

as much as i hate to bring this up, i don't think this was supposed to me in the IC sub forum...

 

[DMG]

It is.

It is.

 

[B0NK]

as much as i hate to bring this up, i don't think this was supposed to me in the IC sub forum...

Just take a look at other character boards like snake and diddy, they recently been releasing character discussions.

 

[FrozenHobo]

oh well, in that case....

i hold the same opinion as most of the BBR in that ICs have a lot of potential, but must rely on a very gimmicky strategy to pose a realistic threat. thats not to say that they don't have the tools to be considered top tier material, but when pitted against other characters in the tier, the threat of two characters simply becomes another obstacle for the opponent, not necessarily a game-changing aspect (though you'd have to be crazy to say that having 2 characters in one is not game changing in of itself). A large part of their game, as with every character, is spacing. however, this is amplified by having to keep track of the spacing of two characters. this creates a larger chance for any mistakes by the IC player to be capitalized on. The main hindrance of the character as many have said is that it comes down to the thought process of the player. They have the tools to deal with pretty much every character, its simply that at this current time other players are realizing these things and learning how to read/bait/counter them. Technically, ICs could be the best character in the game (cover every option, both defensively and offensively), but with the current level of players/developed metagame, they are probably low-mid in the top tier. if, as M2K said, someone were to step it up (looking at you swordgard >_>) then it would not be hard to see them as being closer to diddy/snake on the current list.

 

[B0NK]

I think it's not necessarily that IC's only have gimmicks, it's that almost all players are relying on them. I agree with what swordgard and M2K said about there not being an IC's main yet with enough "player" skill.

Meep recently as shown by his recent results and accomplishments that IC's are the epitome of bait and punish playstyle. By putting the opponent in these uncomfortable situations and baiting a reaction, IC's have the ultimate punishing technique in there CG. At the moment there hasn't been a player that showed they have enough "player" skill to translate into very high placings.

Just imagining if Chu still used climbers would be a scary threat, he is ridiculously good at getting inside and baiting specific moves (defensive and offensive), and capitalizes on these situations with his main, kirby. But just like others have said in this thread, he doesn't want to learn this character and new tools, not that he is not capable of it. He picks up quickly on techniques and it's really astonishing how quickly, but many players in the area have offered to teach him the techniques but he just doesn't want to *shrugs* =/

So once our current IC's players step up even more than they have (swordgard and meep I see have the most potential at the moment), then we can truly see them be the possible number 3 on the tier list behind MK and Snake (mainly because those two characters I believe have better match-ups and less stage problems), but until then the 5th that there at now is where they should stay.

 

[Smoom77]

I basically agree with everything that SG said. I'm not writing a big post.

 

[Teh Future]

sigh

10char

 

[meepxzero]

IC are good, but there only good if they play perfect with cgs and tripping doesnt effect their cgs. After playing new characters i have realized how predictable i play my ics, but thats gonna change especially with a lotta new stuff to counter what ***** these characters namely snakes nade camping and mks tornadoing.

 

[toobusytocare]

cool stuff meep

also, no love for lain anyone?

 

[GimR]

Icies are good but have a huge learning curve.

Icies easily beat Falco 60:40(or even 70:30)

1. Falco has no horizontal momentum so if a Falco is coming down from the air the Ice Climbers should grab him every time.
   
2. Falco's jab grab game is useless because he'll be hit if he grabs one of the ice climbers
   
3. Falco's side-B recovery gets beat by blizzard no matter what so even if he tries to auto-sweet spot the ledge he'll get hit by blizzard which will force him to up-B which is easily gimpable.
   
4. Sopo can D-throw Falco to the edge and then D-tilt him. After that Popo can short hop Blizzard. If Falco does double jump illusion then he'll get hit by the blizzard and forced to up-B. Sopo can then stage spike him, or grab the ledge depending on where Falco ends up.
   
5. Icies can u-tilt his Forward B and then grab him.
   
6. Falco's chain grab is useless on them
   
7. Icies can basically force Falco to the edge and bait a side-B and then grab him.

Icies beat Diddy 55:45

1. If you slowly walk backwards. Nana will get hit by a thrown banana and Popo won't
   
2. If only one of you gets hit by a banana and Diddy runs in to capitalize you can just hit him with the other climber.
   
3. The Ice Climber's insta-throw window is much higher then a normal character's insta-throw because of the delay between Nana and Popo. So if you think Diddy is gonna throw a banana and barely miss time the insta-throw, Nana will insta throw the banana.
   
4. If you hit diddy with a banana you should grab him which means hitting Diddy with a banana should lead to his death
   
5. If Diddy uses side B to recover you should gimp him no matter what. If he does side-B above the edge then d-tilt him and follow his recovery for the kill.
   
6. If he does side B below the ledge to try and grab it then just grab the ledge. Since he is forced to up-B you can just bungie jump him for the easy gimp.
   
7. If Nana gets hit by a banana just start mashing side B. Watch what happens. lol

Icies are even with Snake 50:50

1. Because Snake can't safely jump away you can basically run in and shield. If he F-tilts, you can power shield to grab. The only thing he can really do is roll, spot dodge or reverse grab. If you read him correctly you have a stock
   
2. You can blow up his grounded grenades with ice blocks
   
3. If he's grenade camping you can just start insta-throwing his grenades back at him. This will force him to start timing his grenades to blow up right when they get to you. When he starts doing this you can just run in on him and shield right when his grenade is about to blow up in his own hand. This puts him in a really bad position since he'll likely be next to the ledge. He'll either roll spot dodge, shield the grenade, or get blown up by the grenade. These are all good things for you.
   
4. If Snakes in the air there is no reason he doesn't recieve 50% plus damage

The main problem is that Ice Climbers in their current Metagame get ***** by MK.

The main reason being the tornado. The Ice Climber's shield is so bad that if the put their shield up a split second before MK tornados, a full tornado will shield poke them no matter what. Its a pretty bad match up. Hopefully some tactic will be discovered that will help us out.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

I think Ice Climbers are one of the simplest characters in the game, much like, say, Dedede.

Sure, you have to learn the various desynchs and have to get used to different chaingrab speeds, but regardless of how much you know about the character, you'll just do the same few things over and over and over again. U-Air, B-Air, Down-B, pivot grab.

The trouble is that the current Ice Climbers players haven't maximized potential as far as getting grabs and keeping safe. They have a lot of potential in that, but people aren't moving around in place enough.

That being said, while they're not complicated, their fundamentals being as good as they are allow them to do really well, generally speaking. ICs players just need to step their game up and think a little more about what they could do.

That being said, people need to find the holes in the Ice Climbers' walls. Stop being so **** afraid. SCARED MONEY DON'T MAKE NONE

 

[meepxzero]

Icies are good but have a huge learning curve.

Icies easily beat Falco 60:40(or even 70:30)

1. Falco has no horizontal momentum so if a Falco is coming down from the air the Ice Climbers should grab him every time.
   
2. Falco's jab grab game is useless because he'll be hit if he grabs one of the ice climbers
   
3. Falco's side-B recovery gets beat by blizzard no matter what so even if he tries to auto-sweet spot the ledge he'll get hit by blizzard which will force him to up-B which is easily gimpable.
   
4. Sopo can D-throw Falco to the edge and then D-tilt him. After that Popo can short hop Blizzard. If Falco does double jump illusion then he'll get hit by the blizzard and forced to up-B. Sopo can then stage spike him, or grab the ledge depending on where Falco ends up.
   
5. Icies can u-tilt his Forward B and then grab him.
   
6. Falco's chain grab is useless on them
   
7. Icies can basically force Falco to the edge and bait a side-B and then grab him.

Icies beat Diddy 55:45

1. If you slowly walk backwards. Nana will get hit by a thrown banana and Popo won't
   
2. If only one of you gets hit by a banana and Diddy runs in to capitalize you can just hit him with the other climber.
   
3. The Ice Climber's insta-throw window is much higher then a normal character's insta-throw because of the delay between Nana and Popo. So if you think Diddy is gonna throw a banana and barely miss time the insta-throw, Nana will insta throw the banana.
   
4. If you hit diddy with a banana you should grab him which means hitting Diddy with a banana should lead to his death
   
5. If Diddy uses side B to recover you should gimp him no matter what. If he does side-B above the edge then d-tilt him and follow his recovery for the kill.
   
6. If he does side B below the ledge to try and grab it then just grab the ledge. Since he is forced to up-B you can just bungie jump him for the easy gimp.
   
7. If Nana gets hit by a banana just start mashing side B. Watch what happens. lol

Icies are even with Snake 50:50

1. Because Snake can't safely jump away you can basically run in and shield. If he F-tilts, you can power shield to grab. The only thing he can really do is roll, spot dodge or reverse grab. If you read him correctly you have a stock
   
2. You can blow up his grounded grenades with ice blocks
   
3. If he's grenade camping you can just start insta-throwing his grenades back at him. This will force him to start timing his grenades to blow up right when they get to you. When he starts doing this you can just run in on him and shield right when his grenade is about to blow up in his own hand. This puts him in a really bad position since he'll likely be next to the ledge. He'll either roll spot dodge, shield the grenade, or get blown up by the grenade. These are all good things for you.
   
4. If Snakes in the air there is no reason he doesn't recieve 50% plus damage

The main problem is that Ice Climbers in their current Metagame get ***** by MK.

The main reason being the tornado. The Ice Climber's shield is so bad that if the put their shield up a split second before MK tornados, a full tornado will shield poke them no matter what. Its a pretty bad match up. Hopefully some tactic will be discovered that will help us out.

good read I actually learned a couple new things from this. I agree we only lose to mk because of tornado. Reflex makes a good point ics are the same as DDD. The gimmick desynchs we have dont ever work in high level play unless ur playing a character who relies heavily on ground game, but usually the ground game characters have stronger gimmicks than we do. Ics have no true wall there is always ways around it, people just dont take the risk finding out how to approach their walls and get ***** by it as it slow approaches.

 

[toobusytocare]

ICs dont beat diddy

its pretty even imo, diddy gimps nana way easier than you think
but you can also get a lot of free grabs


"Icies can u-tilt his Forward B and then grab him."
I've tried this way too many times, it stops the illusion but he can always seem to buffer another phantasm before i get a chance to grab

 

[meepxzero]

Ics beat diddy. No one does the match up right except for ninjalink, kakera, and myself. Theres just too many traps diddy falls prey too if ics have a naner.

 

[toobusytocare]

I know the matchup pretty well i think , i mean i do play felix like 4 times a week <_<;

 

[Smoom77]

Eh. If Gnes would play me more I could know it better.

 

[toobusytocare]

seriously though its like: "alright i pivot grabbed diddy, stock taken. Wait nana what are you doing?!" *gets spiked* -_-

 

[meepxzero]

more like take diddys banana he has a banana. He sits in shield so u can throw a banana on it. u throw banana on shield blizzard with nana and grab diddy in hitstun of blizzard.

Or gets hit by banana, ice block with nana. ice block makes diddy stand up for popo to grab. Any attempts at diddy going for a grab just jab him away.

Ics have the best usage for bananas. You can even do desnych blizzs with nana and inbeween them regrab the bananas u threw at diddy.

 

[toobusytocare]

yes until diddy gets you separated for one second which is all he needs to spike nana =(

 

[meepxzero]

if you play ics right they shouldnt ever seperate. Everytime diddy attempts a throw you should immediately jab him away. you should always be aware if diddy falls next to you hes gonna either side step or grab you so just spam jab and dont risk trying to grab him.

unless if you can pull off a hard read on him and not guess dont try to grab him.

 

[link2702]

i'm still waiting for the BBR to come up with a decent ruleset for the broken eskimos of hell, the current one of 300% damage is still to forgiving/good for them, ya'll can say all you want about "popo is the worst character in the game by himself if they get seperated" or "their grab range sucks" none of those excuses are honestly good enough to allow them basicly a free stock if they land a grab in, all it takes is one mistake on the oppenents part against the eskimos, just ONE mistake, (or also, cuz this is lolbrawl, bad LUCK CUZ OF TRIPPING) and boom, they just lost a stock, do people honestly think that is fair? if there was no tripping, and brawl had more hitstun to make real combos possible for everyone, it'd be a different story...

also the only true way to face them "effectively" is to basicly play as gay and insanely campy as possible, this game is ******** enough with how campy it is, and the IC only make things worse, cuz the closer you end up to them, the more likely you are to get grabbed and lose a stock from just that one grab, so naturally no one is gonna wanna even attempt to get near them.





but then again....the brawl community won't even admit that the masked bat is banworthy despite all the evidence thats been given proving it, so why am i not supprised they won't try to find/enforce a better ruleset for the eskimos with their broken cg.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

i'm still waiting for the BBR to come up with a decent ruleset for the broken eskimos of hell, the current one of 300% damage is still to forgiving/good for them, ya'll can say all you want about "popo is the worst character in the game by himself if they get seperated" or "their grab range sucks" none of those excuses are honestly good enough to allow them basicly a free stock if they land a grab in, all it takes is one mistake on the oppenents part against the eskimos, just ONE mistake, (or also, cuz this is lolbrawl, bad LUCK CUZ OF TRIPPING) and boom, they just lost a stock, do people honestly think that is fair? if there was no tripping, and brawl had more hitstun to make real combos possible for everyone, it'd be a different story...

also the only true way to face them "effectively" is to basicly play as gay and insanely campy as possible, this game is ******** enough with how campy it is, and the IC only make things worse, cuz the closer you end up to them, the more likely you are to get grabbed and lose a stock from just that one grab, so naturally no one is gonna wanna even attempt to get near them.

but then again....the brawl community won't even admit that the masked bat is banworthy despite all the evidence thats been given proving it, so why am i not supprised they won't try to find/enforce a better ruleset for the eskimos with their broken cg.

For many good characters, one mistake from the Ice Climbers and Nana is gone. Also, Ice Climbers have to deal with tripping twice as often, because there are two characters. Facing them effectively just means that you have to get through their walling ability, which is far from impossible (for not-Ganon, heh). Again, SCARED MONEY DON'T MAKE NONE

Brawl is a naturally campy game that doesn't need any major changes.

Stop being bad at the game, pick a character better suited to dealing with Ice Climbers, or stop playing.

 

[Smoom77]

Lol, this is brawl. Get over it.

Ics>Link if yo didn't know.

 

[link2702]

who said i mained link? XD

why on earth would he be my main.




IDC what ya say, the current ruleset for them is too good for em, no excuse you could come up with is gonna change the fact that their CG is still insanely broken as it is right now.

 

[toobusytocare]

yeah, having 3 stages that are impossible to win on with ICs makes them pretty **** good

 

[Smoom77]

I'm just stating facts, ya know?

Well go talk to M2K about them. He doesn't lose to ICs.

 

[link2702]

m2k mains metaknight, mk has no problem at all dealing with the IC.....e_e or anyone else really.


honestly like i said, there is no excuse you could tell me taht justifies giving them a free stock for punishing just one mistake with a grab.

 

[Teh Future]

if you play ics right they shouldnt ever seperate. Everytime diddy attempts a throw you should immediately jab him away. you should always be aware if diddy falls next to you hes gonna either side step or grab you so just spam jab and dont risk trying to grab him.

unless if you can pull off a hard read on him and not guess dont try to grab him.

if you play any character right then you shouldn't ever receive damage mirite?

I will try jabbing out of diddys grab but for a lot of characters them grabbing us is completely legit, its very likely diddy can pummel and that will knock popo/nana away

not to mention if you are tripped then you can't jab out of it.

imo diddy is possibly our worst matchup

 

[Teh Future]

m2k mains metaknight, mk has no problem at all dealing with the IC.....e_e or anyone else really.


honestly like i said, there is no excuse you could tell me taht justifies giving them a free stock for punishing just one mistake with a grab.

LOL u sooooooooooOOOOoOOOooooo mad

 

[B0NK]

he da maddest

 

[link2702]

had a feeling this was the response i'd get...after all this is the ic mains board...of course they're gonna defend them like mad, much like the pit mains on their board defend him all the time, or how the link mains refuse to accept that he's never gonna be even remotly tourny viable.


but i still hold to what i said.

the current ruleset for them is too forgiving, and their cg is still too insanely broken/oped as it currently is.

 

[Teh Future]

 

[B0NK]

had a feeling this was the response i'd get...after all this is the ic mains board...of course they're gonna defend them like mad, much like the pit mains on their board defend him all the time, or how the link mains refuse to accept that he's never gonna be even remotly tourny viable.


but i still hold to what i said.

the current ruleset for them is too forgiving, and their cg is still too insanely broken/oped as it currently is.

Got a good laugh out of this bit.

The current BBR ruleset doesn't even have a LGL or Scrooging rules, and if your talking about the MLG ruleset then LOL.

Go cry to your TO about their ruleset, or to the ruleset discussion thread.

Win tourneys with IC's consistently with just CG's then come back and present your case, seriously, no IC's are winning nationals with their CG as of now, so why would anyone bother taking them away????

 

[Rubberbandman]

Future that pic was the best.

And on the subject of diddy, we do win the MU, you just haven't learned what you can do against him. (nor have I but...)

 

[Teh Future]

I think I'm quite decent at the matchup, that doesn't mean we don't loose.

diddy kong is just THAT good, while we rely on avoidable gimmicks

 

[l!nk_aut]

IC players should start punishing spotdodges.

I agree with Swordgard/M2K. Most IC players are playing very dumb and predictable (myself included). But if IC players are really thinking their way through their opponent and punish things.... yeah.

Oh and:

@hunger
Wario being better than IC? Hah! Is Wario doing anything in any region right now?

Europe. Glutonny just beat Ally. And Glutonny is ****** all his way through europe.

 

[toobusytocare]

i think Wario is better than ICs right now

i also think he's better than diddy but thats unrelated

 

[GimR]

Certain characters on the tier list aren't better then other characters just because they beat them. For example:

If ICies Beat Diddy that doesn't means Icies are better then Diddy. This is because Diddy can beat MK, Snake, Wario, etc. better then Icies can.

 

[toobusytocare]

i nver said wario was better because he beats ICs (although he does) but wario is just such a solid character but hes IMO the hardest character to use at top levels of play because you have to be stupid good to play him and he has to tricks to fall back on, like ICs have CGs, diddy has bananas, etc.