CF vs snake- what a bad match up

[E.M.]

I know it's quite obvious to some, but I didn't know it was this bad.

I got a cousin who is pretty good, but he never uses snake. He uses mario, toon link, and sometimes even meta knight. I always use CF and have a pretty good win percentage against him after playing hundreds of matches with him.

Today another cousin of mine came over and we played smash. He's only played a little before and primarily uses Snake. I chose Cf and we played 5 stock on battle field.

WTF, I only won by one stock! We played more and the results were the same! One stocking, two stocking here and there. I can't approach snake, it's almost impossible. All the moves I use clank or get out prioritized. I had to resort to baiting attacks so I can punish and I had a hard time keeping him in the air (no combos in brawl) so he would land and then after dashing to him, he would sheild grab, start all over again. He pretty much spammed Ftilt and followed with nikita, but that was avoidable. When he used the missile, that's when I had the best chances for a successful attack.

But you see, when I pick the space animals, I RAVAGE with them and I'm not even good with them like I am with CF. I used all 3 against his snake and 5-stocked the crap out of him. But with CF, man I was losing bad in comparison.

I'm gonna watch some snake vs CF videos, see what I'm doing wrong.

 

[Azgner]

The problem is that cap falcon has no reliable ways to aproach snake. grenade counter holds him back pretty much, and a lot of his moves get over prioritized. You will have to be creative and never aproach in the same way. aerials are your best bet here, i think. try to make him make mistakes and punish him. and take advantage of every second snake is on the cypher/air. but snake is a really bad matchup for CF

 

[AmigoOne]

Short hop dair? Nair maybe?

 

[E.M.]

"Short hop dair? Nair maybe"

I find SH Dair to be too risky against snake. Nair's I was using ALOT but what was difficult was catching him with both kicks. He started predicting my aerial approaches and catching them with Utilt's.

 

[Xeze]

maybe if you try to grab snake, then forward throw, side B followed either by an Up B or the knee (but remember the knee is hard to sweetspot). it's a simple combo, but it can be effective. but as many people said, snake is a really bad, however not the worst, match-up for CF, IMO.

 

[Majora_younglink]

Its one of his bad match ups. Its never gonna be easy. Best advice is play creatively and punish.

MK is worse in my opinion though.

 

[DoB04]

In all cases, Captain Falcon is always supposed to be played defensively, which means you should barely aproach. If Snake can make you run towards him to attack, then he's already winning. Learn to deal with his grenades and just camp for a while, taunt if you need to and grab his attention, the next thing he'll most likely do is try to dash attack/dac you, so thats when you gotta be alert to punish him.
Also, the best time to use autocanceled nairs is when he has a relatively high amount of damage (around 80-100%) so you can combo into the knee straight after it, i like to use it after a spot dodge, just jump towards him and do it, use a lot of aerials to bait him, but never actually aproach him with them, wall of pain is great for mindgames here, and when you get him off stage, follow him with up airs/fairs and even up b if you have to.
hope this helps! ^.^

 

[SmashBrother2008]

In all cases, Captain Falcon is always supposed to be played defensively, which means you should barely aproach. If Snake can make you run towards him to attack, then he's already winning. Learn to deal with his grenades and just camp for a while, taunt if you need to and grab his attention, the next thing he'll most likely do is try to dash attack/dac you, so thats when you gotta be alert to punish him.
Also, the best time to use autocanceled nairs is when he has a relatively high amount of damage (around 80-100%) so you can combo into the knee straight after it, i like to use it after a spot dodge, just jump towards him and do it, use a lot of aerials to bait him, but never actually aproach him with them, wall of pain is great for mindgames here, and when you get him off stage, follow him with up airs/fairs and even up b if you have to.
hope this helps! ^.^

Two thumbs up. ^^

 

[i.E.]

In all cases, Captain Falcon is always supposed to be played defensively, which means you should barely aproach. If Snake can make you run towards him to attack, then he's already winning. Learn to deal with his grenades and just camp for a while, taunt if you need to and grab his attention, the next thing he'll most likely do is try to dash attack/dac you, so thats when you gotta be alert to punish him.
Also, the best time to use autocanceled nairs is when he has a relatively high amount of damage (around 80-100%) so you can combo into the knee straight after it, i like to use it after a spot dodge, just jump towards him and do it, use a lot of aerials to bait him, but never actually aproach him with them, wall of pain is great for mindgames here, and when you get him off stage, follow him with up airs/fairs and even up b if you have to.
hope this helps! ^.^

The only problem with this is that Falcon can't camp against snake. I mean, you can try, but Falcon can't outcamp one of the best campers (maybe the best) in the entire game. Grenades aren't the only issue here. The Nakita, Mortar slide, C4, and Remote explosive are also things you constantly have to worry about.

Snake isn't THAT big a deal anymore if you spam projectiles, but falcon doesn't have that : /.

Still, I think there are worse matchups for Falcon than snake.

 

[Wogrim]

The only problem with this is that Falcon can't camp against snake. I mean, you can try, but Falcon can't outcamp one of the best campers (maybe the best) in the entire game. Grenades aren't the only issue here. The Nakita, Mortar slide, C4, and Remote explosive are also things you constantly have to worry about.

Snake isn't THAT big a deal anymore if you spam projectiles, but falcon doesn't have that : /.

Still, I think there are worse matchups for Falcon than snake.

For Snake, if you're better with his grenades than he is then he can't really camp you per say, although you should read up on grenade stripping if you don't know about it because if your opponent is good at it you should just avoid the grenades. Mortarslide is shielded pretty easily, and that means he's approaching you, which is what you want, and if he approaches you with FTilt he's pretty slow and obvious. C4 and Remote explosives make approaches a bit more difficult, but he can't explode the C4 if he's using another move and the proximity mine limits his movement just as much as it does yours. The Nakita is easily avoidable since it is really slow while turning, so the only problems with it are when he edgegaurds with it and when he drops it.

I prefer to try to bait FTilts and Mortarslides since his grenade counter is what makes it most difficult to approach.

 

[DoB04]

The nikita is only a problem if you try to aproach him, he can use it to mindgame you and drop it around him so that it protects his lag, so camping is pretty much the counter to it. Grenades are easy to avoid once you learn that shielding them isn't the only option (ive seen people shield a non cooked grenade till it exploded, causing their shield to diminish and still get hit, lol) if the grenade is not cooked, don't be afraid of taking it, it doesn't really do too much damage so only shield when its about to explode or if its cooked.
The only thing you should worry about is the c4, just keep an eye on it, if the snake player can memorize where he placed it, you can as well, so memorize where it is and try to mind game him into detonating it or simply fight around it, with falcon's running speed, you can simply run over them and the snake player will either detonate it too late or not do anything at all.
The mines as Wogrim said limits him as much as it limits you, snakes tend to plant it whenever you're offstage so that they can control your landing and intercept you with an aerial (usually nair) so be careful, whenever you have the chance, try to disable them by rolling over them, but leave them active if you get snake outta the field so that you can manipulate him as well
Mortar slide is pretty dangerous and really hard to punish, my suggestion would be to shield it and continue camping, he'll soon notice that it's not really working all that much and he'll probably try something else like a normal dash attack, which is when you should strike.
With that said, you should be able to stand up to snake, just be careful when fighting close to him because his tilts and his fsmash are deadly, also try to keep him in the air with upairs and nairs, snake's aerials dont autocancel so he can't fight in the air decently.

 

[Hax]

hate to be the bearer of bad news but falcon vs snake is pretty much even

 

[DoB04]

hate to be the bearer of bad news but falcon vs snake is pretty much even

since when is that bad news? lol

 

[Hax]

i dunno. i just really wanted to say that lmao

 

[A2ZOMG]

Snake isn't Falcon's worst matchup really.

You can actually hit Snake with N-airs because he's tall. That's a major plus for Falcon, helping tremendously for approaching. Just be careful not to hit any grenades along the way. Also, Falcon Kick >>> Mortar Slide. Grenades, C4, and Nikita are not hard to avoid at all because Falcon has good enough mobility to weave around that stuff.

If you get Snake off the stage with a F-throw, it's not hard at all to follow up with an attack that will get Snake further away. He's very unlikely to be able to safely attack you back when put in that position. If he's forced to Cypher from a bad position, you can also easily finish him off with a Knee.

Now vs someone like MK or Olimar, that's one hell of a bad matchup. Falcon has ****loads of trouble dealing with small targets with good priority.

 

[talkingbeatles]

Also guys... (has anyone brought this up?)
Snake is one big knee magnet.

 

[Zanoske]

Also guys... (has anyone brought this up?)
Snake is one big knee magnet.

I've seen Snake getting knee'd in the face in the Knee of justice guide. That was the best knee I've ever seen.

 

[SmashGod17]

Also guys... (has anyone brought this up?)
Snake is one big knee magnet.

YESH! I agree!

 

[SmashBrother2008]

YESH! I agree!

And me two! Snake's attack lag is just crying to be kneed!

 

[epic of DE]

As strange as it sounds I don't have a great deal of trouble fighting snake as while his moves do have great strength, reach (we all learned that the hard way), and priority many of them are very sluggish and snake has rather pitiful air game when compared to falcon. Either knocking him into the air or putting him on a platform is key to winning as trying to get him straight on or from above is foolhardy.

So I'm not the only one that knees snakes to oblivion! The moment he pulls out his cypher its like he's saying to me "cmon right in ribs, I want to hear some cracked bones right now"

heh...its even better when the snake tries to airdodge out of the cypher as a way to avoid it and its so easy to read.

 

[Doyoudigworms]

I use Snake, and one of my best buds mains Falcon, and he successfully gimps me at low percentages w/ D-Air from my Cypher recovery. Doesn't mean this is his only alternative, but it tends to have some success.

I suggest trying a more defensive approach, lots of spot dodging and smart spacing. Hope this helps.