Character Competitive Impressions

[Budget Player Cadet_]

So I won last night's biweekly; I played Ganon in all but one game. Seems like he loses pretty badly to Shulk. Still awesome. Any good custom ganon vids around I should be watching?

 

[the king of murder]

Does Ganon even have any advantagous MUs? It seems like every charcter board besides the Marth boards believe their character have an easy advantage against Ganon whenever he is discussed. Makes me question if he really is a "mid" tier.

So I won last night's biweekly; I played Ganon in all but one game. Seems like he loses pretty badly to Shulk. Still awesome. Any good custom ganon vids around I should be watching?

I believe Vex used custom dorf and got pretty far. I believe some vids are uploaded on the CLASH tournament youtube channel though I haven't seen them myself yet.

 

[PUK]

Ganon MU are weird. Basically if you take two average players, ganon could have a positive MU, but the better your players are, the more ganon will struggle.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Character boards are not reliable sources when it comes to matchup information.

 

[adom4]

So I won last night's biweekly; I played Ganon in all but one game. Seems like he loses pretty badly to Shulk. Still awesome. Any good custom ganon vids around I should be watching?

I think Ganondorf & Shulk go even, Shulk has enough punishable moves & most of his attacks are slower than Dorf.

 

[Thinkaman]

@Ansou got to see my Ganon (customs, obviously) in action, so he can vouch for what some of us have known for half a year: Ganon is a really scary guy, and definitely some sort of mid-tier.

 

[Anomilus]

I guess it's hard to separate what Ganon's capable of against the other character from what the opposing player is capable of against the Ganon player.

I've heard people try to break down Ganon as "Just wait out an action from Ganon and act appropriately. Don't just go in, don't try and style on him." It does kind of work against some players as you can keep a safe enough distance to react against a Dash, Wizkick, or Flame Choke (or customs) and punish appropriately, and if Ganon tries to close the distance further most characters can outmaneuver or out-space him.

...Of course that's sort of the conundrum Ganon creates. Either run or counter. And good Ganon players should be doing just that: making their opponents nervous enough to try something not necessarily safe at the moment. Back in Brawl Ganon had a much harder time doing that and just didn't get enough reward relative to the rest of the cast when he succeeded. This time he's capable of stealing entire stocks on a good day.

With Ganon MU's, I suppose such questions arise such as "Who can milk the most out of punishing Ganon", or "Who is best at deterring or disrupting Ganon's onslaught if he does get in." There's also simpler things such as having good edgeguard abilities versus Ganon's bad recovery, but then again Ganon's Flame Choke can completely flip those situations around.

Once such questions are sought and answer, determining his MU's based on the characters themselves should become a bit easier.

 

[Luco]

Character boards are not reliable sources when it comes to matchup information.

This is an interesting point that I've heard you make before.

I agree; but I like it when character boards discuss MUs with the other character board in question for that particular MU. I find the bias tends to... Even out, so to speak. Also there are some fantastic users that frequent the character boards and tend to give really good input in the discussions they partake in.

 

[Shaya]

Character boards are not reliable sources when it comes to matchup information.

No where is really reliable sources on match up information.
Except the Marth boards, always.

I really have a hard time remembering back to this same time period of Brawl where I guess I had a good idea of all the match ups I came across in tournament (because I would study hard and ask EL for divine help)... but I guess this wasn't as peachy elsewhere. Once a character has multiple representatives across multiple regions that's when the flow of ideas start to get really going. Right now, so many players either bounce between characters or are already keeping to the strongest characters in the cast, with a cast of mid 30s to over 50 it's pretty hard for anyone to actually get exposure to a fair portion of the characters in this game...

 

[Cassio]

I saw Umebura 15. It was basically Sheik central, but I wouldnt quite say dominating. Choco did very well but lost a few key situations that turned matches against his favor.

+In some MU's sheik's "needle you to approach, then swat you away when you approach + combo and/or keep needling" seemed very effective. I saw this basically deconstruct Earth's Pit, but it was hard to tell if it was his poor strategy, the MU, Sheik OPness, or what combo of these it mightve been.

The needles certainly made it hard for Pit to establish a mid-range position he seemed to want and he just couldnt go toe to toe with sheik close range. She basically eliminated mid-range from his arsenal which also might be her "weakest" neutral position.

Faster characters seemed better at keeping sheik on tilt (falcon and ZSS from what I saw), meaning less able to set up her optimal positions where she seemed significantly stronger by comparison to other position (though still strong). Hard to make conclusions from a small sample.

+Sheik frequently doesnt kill opponents till super high percent. Its definitely noticeably worse for her then other characters, 150-200% stocks werent uncommon and it occasionally led to upsets. At a certain point sheik seemed to just wait it out until they could kill with ftilt or fair.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nietono went a few characters (Fox, Luigi, Olimar, Diddy, Sheik). I saw him almost lost to a GW as diddy, lol.

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I was making mental note of times when opponents attempted cross up rolls on sheik. Most of them seemed to happen under duress/out of habit, but opponents for the most part got away unscathed or at worse with a retreating fair that led to nothing else. While I understand strategy evolves, I believe sheik has potential issues with cross up rolls (depending on the roll, options out of roll, and other attributes).

Ive mentioned this in regards to pikachu before.

Spoiler

Near the beginning of Wii U a wifi tournament occured and Mr. R nearly lost to a fairly novice pikachu player and stated "he didnt know how to beat roll to uptilt". Though I considered it a wifi thing, I investigated which was where I discovered pikachus outstanding roll earlier in the year.

In Brawl I also played with several strong MK's who made pretty consistent use of aggressive forward rolls, so Ive done research.

5-12 / 23 Metaknight (Brawl)
4-16 / 26 Pikachu, Fox, Toon Link
4-19 / 27 Lucario (Brawl)
4-17 / 27 Diddy Kong, Sheik, ZSS, Pit, Dark Pit, MK (sm4sh), Duck Hunt, Falcon, Sonic

4-19 / 30 Standard Sm4sh Roll
4-19 / 31 Standard Brawl Roll


I think it benefits faster characters who can rush in to use it as a mix-up
I think Pikachu and Fox with their reverse uptilts that hit from the ground and shrink their frame have the best option out of roll
Good jabs (Fox, ZSS, Falcon) and tilts (mostly dtilts) seem pretty useful, the sort of move that can frame trap (or pseudo frame trap).
Good grabs (and strong punishes from grabs) are also very useful

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Keep in mind that Umebura 15 wasn't that stcked - by japanese standards that is. There was no Ranai, no Komorikiri, no Octo, no Gakuto ... people who have beaten just about every Sheik in the region and no Edge either. That's nowhere near as stacked as KSB and Umebura 14.

Once a character has multiple representatives across multiple regions that's when the flow of ideas start to get really going. Right now, so many players either bounce between characters or are already keeping to the strongest characters in the cast, with a cast of mid 30s to over 50 it's pretty hard for anyone to actually get exposure to a fair portion of the characters in this game...

Right, that's a huge reason why I'm reactivating the result based matchup chart. It's well on the way.

 

[Blobface]

So I won last night's biweekly; I played Ganon in all but one game. Seems like he loses pretty badly to Shulk. Still awesome. Any good custom ganon vids around I should be watching?

Ehhhh I wouldn't be too sure. Most of the Ganon's think Shulk is an even, but volatile matchup. When Shulk switches to smash mode both characters are going to be dying super early.

I'd look at DunnoBro's matches from the previous Xanadu to see Ganon's customs in action. Also, there's a tourney called Black Wolf that Vermanubis goes to, and I believe they're using customs now, so keep an eye on that.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

volatile matchup

That's Ganondorf's matchups across the board if you ask me.

 

[Blobface]

Does Ganon even have any advantagous MUs? It seems like every charcter board besides the Marth boards believe their character have an easy advantage against Ganon whenever he is discussed. Makes me question if he really is a "mid" tier.

That's Ganondorf's matchups across the board if you ask me.

Yeah pretty much. Anything less than a 7:3 advantage against Ganondorf is pointless because he gets so much reward that none of your advantages matter if you get hit. The only characters (customs off) that I think Ganondorf has a significant disadvantage against are Sheik, Rosalina, ZSS (maybe), and Villager. Pikachu can be rough too, but if he misses edgeguarding you at early %'s, well, he's going to have a fun time. All the four characters mentioned skew Ganondorf's risk:reward in a way that's really hard to deal with.

As for matchups that Ganondorf does well in, he does well in basically any matchup where he significantly outranges people (D-tilt for life) or has an even easier time killing than usual. Off the top of my head, Kirby, Wario, Little Mac, Jigglypuff, G&W, and (maybe) Meta Knight. There's probably more, but I'm already pushing my knowledge by putting Meta Knight (who I have very little experience against, but seems to have things Ganondorf does well against) there.

Quite a few people give Ganondorf bad matchups because they assume he just can't do certain things. He can't approach (Dash Attack, Wizkick, Flame Choke, SH Nair, and empty jump to a grab all work as bad, but functional approaches), he can't land (Nair, Wizkick, plain old Airdodge, and even Fair work for this), he can't recover (his recovery is bad, but unless he's in a position where he's forced to use it, he can just Uair to beat almost every edgeguard attempt). It's pretty easy to glaze over other things (like D-tilt outranging everything and Ganon having the best Dash Attack in the game) when you think a character just can't do critical aspects of the game

 

[A2ZOMG]

Does Ganon even have any advantagous MUs? It seems like every charcter board besides the Marth boards believe their character have an easy advantage against Ganon whenever he is discussed. Makes me question if he really is a "mid" tier.



I believe Vex used custom dorf and got pretty far. I believe some vids are uploaded on the CLASH tournament youtube channel though I haven't seen them myself yet.

Ganon has explicitly favorable matchups against the following characters:



Most of his matchups are honestly about evenish, the main blatantly unfavorable matchups are like:

 

[Ulevo]

Yeah pretty much. Anything less than a 7:3 advantage against Ganondorf is pointless because he gets so much reward that none of your advantages matter if you get hit. The only characters (customs off) that I think Ganondorf has a significant disadvantage against are Sheik, Rosalina, ZSS (maybe), and Villager. Pikachu can be rough too, but if he misses edgeguarding you at early %'s, well, he's going to have a fun time. All the four characters mentioned skew Ganondorf's risk:reward in a way that's really hard to deal with.

As for matchups that Ganondorf does well in, he does well in basically any matchup where he significantly outranges people (D-tilt for life) or has an even easier time killing than usual. Off the top of my head, Kirby, Wario, Little Mac, Jigglypuff, G&W, and (maybe) Meta Knight. There's probably more, but I'm already pushing my knowledge by putting Meta Knight (who I have very little experience against, but seems to have things Ganondorf does well against) there.

Quite a few people give Ganondorf bad matchups because they assume he just can't do certain things. He can't approach (Dash Attack, Wizkick, Flame Choke, SH Nair, and empty jump to a grab all work as bad, but functional approaches), he can't land (Nair, Wizkick, plain old Airdodge, and even Fair work for this), he can't recover (his recovery is bad, but unless he's in a position where he's forced to use it, he can just Uair to beat almost every edgeguard attempt). It's pretty easy to glaze over other things (like D-tilt outranging everything and Ganon having the best Dash Attack in the game) when you think a character just can't do critical aspects of the game

Ganondorf seems like a character that, at first glance, would get walked on by Meta Knight, but I am not fully convinced it's that terrible. I think it is largely stage dependent. I also think poor match up experience and unfamiliarity plays a big role. If you give Ganondorf too much respect he winds up throwing out moves until he hits you, and in that case Meta Knight dies. If you don't respect him enough, he'll eventually hit you in neutral in an instance where you wouldn't have expected, and the same result occurs. If Meta Knight plays properly, Ganondorf struggles.

Personally I don't think a competent Ganondorf would lose to a competent Meta Knight any more than 4:6, but that's my initial impression. We need to go over the match up, but I think it has not really come up yet because most of us don't play the customs meta and Ganondorf is hardly played outside of customs.

Ganon has explicitly favorable matchups against the following characters:

Customs on, or off?

 

[Spinosaurus]

What can Ganon do to a campy Wario?

 

[Nu~]

Ganon has explicitly favorable matchups against the following characters:



Most of his matchups are honestly about evenish, the main blatantly unfavorable matchups are like:

Isn't in "blatantly unfavorable"?

You can just look at the hydrant to knock it over, but how does he fare against the on stage trampoline and Pac-Man's SH retreating fair/fruit approaches?

 

[LiteralGrill]

This has been on my mind for a while and I've seen things like this mentioned here and there so I figured I'd try to put these thoughts into words in a more concise way.

I have a feeling that over time with the game having such strong defensive options, that the fastest characters, and the characters that can cover the most space will become the strongest over time as they are most effective at punishing these options. Also I feel like not having these things is what is going to make the split between real tournament viability in the metagame and not. The only exception I can think of are people who can rack up so much damage on hits via combos or moves they can make up for these deficiencies once they make a hit or kill fast, but I think those would be on the low end of the spectrum of tournament viable.

BTW My definition of Tournament viable is being able to win as a solo main consistently at high level tournaments or at least do so in VERY competent hands. Basically the S and A tier of the Melee tier list kind of deal. I'm assuming vanilla Smash 4 with Miis at full potential here. In no particular order

Spoiler

Speed: (ESPECIALLY Mini)

Space Covered:

Damage Output/Kill Potential:

(They are also fastish, too, which is nice alongside their combos)

Worth Noting:
(cover space but have their options stuffed in certain matchups)
(for specific stages/matchups)
(not really super fast but VERY mobile)
(seems to be very technical and have some intense combo possibilities, but feel like she'd be walled out at times)

Characters That I Felt Weird Leaving Out But Can't Pinpoint Why:

/

Whether you agree with the characters I placed around or not, what do you think of the concept where speed, space covered, and/or damage output/kill potential will be what wall characters out of viability? I get these are the kind of things that make top tiers top tiers in the first place, but I think in this game it's going to be more important than usual.

(P.S. I think speed itself is going to be the biggest wall of them all, followed by space covered, and then the damage output/kill potential)

 

[Smog Frog]

can someone explain how is a good mu for but isnt? both combo for days and have short range, easily beat by dtilt/ftilt. is s combo ability really that much better to the point where its disadvantageous for ?

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Yeah pretty much. Anything less than a 7:3 advantage against Ganondorf is pointless because he gets so much reward that none of your advantages matter if you get hit. The only characters (customs off) that I think Ganondorf has a significant disadvantage against are Sheik, Rosalina, ZSS (maybe), and Villager. Pikachu can be rough too, but if he misses edgeguarding you at early %'s, well, he's going to have a fun time. All the four characters mentioned skew Ganondorf's risk:reward in a way that's really hard to deal with.

As for matchups that Ganondorf does well in, he does well in basically any matchup where he significantly outranges people (D-tilt for life) or has an even easier time killing than usual. Off the top of my head, Kirby, Wario, Little Mac, Jigglypuff, G&W, and (maybe) Meta Knight. There's probably more, but I'm already pushing my knowledge by putting Meta Knight (who I have very little experience against, but seems to have things Ganondorf does well against) there.

Quite a few people give Ganondorf bad matchups because they assume he just can't do certain things. He can't approach (Dash Attack, Wizkick, Flame Choke, SH Nair, and empty jump to a grab all work as bad, but functional approaches), he can't land (Nair, Wizkick, plain old Airdodge, and even Fair work for this), he can't recover (his recovery is bad, but unless he's in a position where he's forced to use it, he can just Uair to beat almost every edgeguard attempt). It's pretty easy to glaze over other things (like D-tilt outranging everything and Ganon having the best Dash Attack in the game) when you think a character just can't do critical aspects of the game

I'm probably biased because most of my experience so far is online with all that entails (please can I get a job soon so I can have disposable income to attend local events please) but it seems to me that dealing with Ganondorf is easier if you play reactively and let him be the one to commit to stuff. Also, you know, Rosalina.

How does Robin fare against Ganondorf though? He (she) is just as slow but has some pretty good projectiles and damage, limited use as they may be.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Using Mac's Down-B on Ness's PKT2 -will- hit him and KO at, like, 20% offstage. When Ness hits it, he slows down enough to get caught by the hitbox instead of blowing past it. Granted, Mac is totally dead afterward, and Marth does the same thing but recovers afterward, but as bad as the matchup seems onstage, I'd say that's still quite good to know.

 

[Teshie U]

I've played Ganon vs Shulk and imo the matchup is extremely risky for ganondorf with customs on. He gains just about nothing from customs on this matchup. Shulk is never close enough to get hit by Up B and he can slice you out of dropkick recoveries just fine.

Power vision however is complete bull**** when ALL of your moves kill. A rogue power vision can kill ganon at 0% just for spacing with things other than jab or uair. Meanwhile super armor backslash and hyper jump mode can make him even more tricky at a disadvantage.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

People wondering about Ganondorf deals with spacing against characters like Pac-Man and Wario: Ganondorf has pokes that are comparable to your own in terms of speed, but with way more damage and knockback. U-Air and B-Air will hurt you a lot more than your aerial of choice. I know there are definitely other things to consider, but Ganondorf generally wins that war against characters who aren't that fast and don't do much damage on spacing hits.

 

[Radical Larry]

How do people feel about Dark Pit vs Ganondorf?

 

[A2ZOMG]

can someone explain how is a good mu for but isnt? both combo for days and have short range, easily beat by dtilt/ftilt. is s combo ability really that much better to the point where its disadvantageous for ?

Luigi has a fireball, Waaay superior damage, and a KO confirm. Mario has none of those things.

 

[Luco]

Using Mac's Down-B on Ness's PKT2 -will- hit him and KO at, like, 20% offstage. When Ness hits it, he slows down enough to get caught by the hitbox instead of blowing past it. Granted, Mac is totally dead afterward, and Marth does the same thing but recovers afterward, but as bad as the matchup seems onstage, I'd say that's still quite good to know.

Are you entirely sure this is the case? You will definitely cut out PKT2 in half but we have invincibility frames that I know for certain Marth can't beat with his counter, and thus I'm sceptical atm of Mac. If this is towards the latter half of the move then I understand though.

Funnily enough, we were just discussing something about the MU before. PSI Vacuum seems like it might be the best way to edge-guard you, it sucks in side/upB without getting hit by them for some reason, covers a large area and doesn't activate counter. I'm testing it and I'd like to try it out on Mac mains in the future.

 

[warionumbah2]

These guys acting like Gdorf hard counters MK.

 

[Teshie U]

In Brawl, Luigi was one of ganondorf's most manageable matchups due to shield push vs traction and edgeguarding.

What has changed? When you ftilt luigi's shield, he slides back so hard, he starts moonwalking when he shield drops? His recovery is pretty much free to ganondorf's nair/uair

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Are you entirely sure this is the case? You will definitely cut out PKT2 in half but we have invincibility frames that I know for certain Marth can't beat with his counter, and thus I'm sceptical atm of Mac. If this is towards the latter half of the move then I understand though.

I seem to beat it pretty cleanly in all the times I've used it. Marth's Counter comes out faster upon activation, but I'm pretty sure Ness can be hit by both with good timing.

Actually, with some number-crunching, here's a good sign: I believe PKT2's invincibility frames last until the end of the sweetspot (Frames 1-10). Mac's Counter actually takes 17 frames to come out (compared to Marth's 5), but the hitbox is enormous and it slows down the opponent being Countered by Mac to 1/2 speed upon activation, giving it an effective activation speed of 9 (well, technically 8.5, but, effectively 9) frames against Ness.

Given that Little Mac would have to be touching Ness upon PKT2 activation for it to hit on Frame 1 (which would be dumb and unsafe to begin with), this pretty much guarantees that the invincibility will not help Ness avoid the hit. Marth would have to back up a bit to prevent that from happening, but Mac does not.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

What has changed?

Luigi is actually good now, that's what changed!

Yoshi also totally murders Ganon, it's pretty sad to watch.

 

[Luco]

I seem to beat it pretty cleanly in all the times I've used it. Marth's Counter comes out faster upon activation, but I'm pretty sure Ness can be hit by both with good timing.

Actually, with some number-crunching, here's a good sign: I believe PKT2's invincibility frames last until the end of the sweetspot (Frames 1-10). Mac's Counter actually takes 17 frames to come out (compared to Marth's 5), but the hitbox is enormous and it slows down the opponent being Countered by Mac to 1/2 speed upon activation, giving it an effective activation speed of 9 (well, technically 8.5, but, effectively 9) frames against Ness.

Given that Little Mac would have to be touching Ness upon PKT2 activation for it to hit on Frame 1 (which would be dumb and unsafe to begin with), this pretty much guarantees that the invincibility will not help Ness avoid the hit. Marth would have to back up a bit to prevent that from happening, but Mac does not.

Hmmm, intriguing. I'll look into it if I get the chance.

 

[meleebrawler]

Luigi is actually good now, that's what changed!

Yoshi also totally murders Ganon, it's pretty sad to watch.

Just because Yoshi can outrun Ganon and throw eggs all day doesn't mean he gets murdered, it just means
he has to play really patiently and not foolhardly rushing into eggs to get Yoshi.

Ganon can challenge Yoshi in the air pretty well, both from the air himself and on the ground with judicious use of
usmash and with customs, dark fists.

 

[bc1910]

Ganon has explicitly favorable matchups against the following characters:



Most of his matchups are honestly about evenish, the main blatantly unfavorable matchups are like:

I'm not saying I disagree but why do you think Greninja is a blatantly unfavourable MU for Ganon?

 

[Project Quarantine]

What can Ganon do to a campy Wario?

Nothing, I assume. In customs, there is wizard dropkick, for a slightly better approach, but Wario also gets speed bike as a trade-off. It seems ganon has to throw out a risky read option to outplay Wario's neutral.

@ TheReflexWonder do you know about this matchup?

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Just because Yoshi can outrun Ganon and throw eggs all day doesn't mean he gets murdered, it just means he has to play really patiently and not foolhardly rushing into eggs to get Yoshi.

Have you ever actually played the matchup though? There's so much more to it than egg toss. Just one successful fair by Yoshi can link into strings that deal like half a stock's worth of percent. Fair -> jab 1 -> dtilt -> dash attack is a thing and it puts Ganon in a position where Yoshi can easily frame tap him with Egg Toss into just about everything. It's a mix of Yoshi's disgusting damage output from an advantaged position and Ganon being particularly bad when put in a disadvantaged position that makes this matchup so bad. There's hardly a character in this game that has as much room for error against Ganondorf as Yoshi does.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Nothing, I assume. In customs, there is wizard dropkick, for a slightly better approach, but Wario also gets speed bike as a trade-off. It seems ganon has to throw out a risky read option to outplay Wario's neutral.

@ TheReflexWonder do you know about this matchup?

I play both characters but I don't think I've ever played the matchup. I'm a little ***** and hate the feeling of losing trades, so I'd probably give Ganondorf more respect than I should. I'm not saying that Ganondorf's spacing tools don't deserve respect, but with Wario excelling at counterpokes and taking advantage of small mistakes, Wario likely does well for himself whenever Ganondorf does more than U-Air and B-Air, which Ganondorf will likely have to do if he actually wants to get in, since Wario wants that Waft. Ganondorf has to respect the Bike due to regenerating hitboxes and Wario's relative safety with Bike ditching. Getting off the ledge sounds like hell for Ganondorf, too.

Ganondorf wins the poking battle, but so does Luigi against Wario (significantly, too), and I'm still pretty sure Wario wins that matchup. Relatively strong pressure in advantageous situations, relatively easy Wafts, relatively easy to avoid combat, relatively easy to get back to neutral whenever you want. Ganondorf can lay the smackdown with good reads and outplaying Wario, but with Wario's flexibility in movement and the advantages I've listed, it's probably ultimately in Wario's favor and will likely only get better for Wario over time. Wario's allowed to make so many more mistakes than Ganondorf if played well.

 

[A2ZOMG]

What can Ganon do to a campy Wario?

CORRECTION: what can Wario do to a campy Ganon? Ganon wins neutral with Nair and Dtilt just fine. Nair will even beat the bike.

How do people feel about Dark Pit vs Ganondorf?

Ganon goes even vs the Pits. Spacing heavy matchup. Ganon is heavy enough to survive Fthrow for a while. Both Ganon and Pit need to make reads for KOs either in footsies or offstage.

Isn't in "blatantly unfavorable"?

You can just look at the hydrant to knock it over, but how does he fare against the on stage trampoline and Pac-Man's SH retreating fair/fruit approaches?

It's really boring but Ganon kills so much earlier on random hits that I don't think it's bad. Because Ganon easily kills the Hydrant, he doesn't get walled out that easily. He's forced to guess past the Trampoline, but Pac Man risks a lot more going for air to air in this matchup than in many others.

Customs on, or off?

Customs off afaik. 55:45 Ganon. It's a guessing game in neutral that favors Ganon. Metaknight also needs fairly specific setups to be scary while Ganon just lands 6 hits and kills.

In Brawl, Luigi was one of ganondorf's most manageable matchups due to shield push vs traction and edgeguarding.

What has changed? When you ftilt luigi's shield, he slides back so hard, he starts moonwalking when he shield drops? His recovery is pretty much free to ganondorf's nair/uair

Luigi in this game has a broken fireball and combo game. That is the big change.

Might reply to more later once I get home.

 

[Ulevo]

Customs off afaik. 55:45 Ganon. It's a guessing game in neutral that favors Ganon. Metaknight also needs fairly specific setups to be scary while Ganon just lands 6 hits and kills.

I fail to see the advantage. Ganondorf's normals are all above 10 frames excluding jab at 8. Meta Knight is too small to be hit by auto cancelled back air consistently, and all of his aerials incur significant landing lag. In close quarters, Ganondorf loses, and Ganondorf has limited options dealing with Meta Knight's defensive play, particularly when he's in the lead. It's hardly a guessing game when you cannot commit to half of the actions available without being open to a combo.

 

[Spinosaurus]

CORRECTION: what can Wario do to a campy Ganon? Ganon wins neutral with Nair and Dtilt just fine. Nair will even beat the bike.

Thank that Ganon for letting him charge waft for free?