Akira213
Smash Cadet
- Joined
- Dec 5, 2014
- Messages
- 71
@Noa. see your PMs
@Pyr and @moofpi Just use C-stick for all of your aerials, it didn't take me long to get used to Ryu's inputs and not messing up, though I did Tatsu off stage a few times on the 3DS version (for obvious reasons)
Now, after having played Ryu in tournament and in a bunch of friendlies, these are my opinions on his matchups (disclaimer: I won't defend all of these matchup opinions because it's week 2 of Ryu and that would take too long, just wanted to give an overview based on my thoughts and experience so far):
Important matchups that I think Ryu wins:
These characters are all midweights who rely on high damage per hit and/or combo strings. Against lighter characters, they bank on outtrading then using Rage to get easy KOs (d-throw to Cyclone, up-smash, b-throw, and banana -> something, respectively). Against heavier characters, like Ganon or Ike, they rely on strong juggle/combo games instead. Ryu isn't a lightweight, so outtrading him doesn't work, especially since he outfootsies these characters and has more range on some key attacks (like f-air, b-air, and basically all of his grounded moves against theirs). Unlike heavies, though, Ryu isn't that susceptible to combos. His ability to reverse his direction in the air is bad, yes, but FADC, Tatsu, and his great n-air all give him options that other heavies don't have (I mean, just look at the frame data on his n-air. 4 frames of startup, 6 frames of landing lag; compare that to Sheik's f-air, which, while more applicable in neutral due to better range, has 10 frames just of landing lag).
Important matchups that I think Ryu loses:
Now you may look at this list and go, "man, that's all of the top tiers," and to be sure you're right, it is about half of them. Ryu's main weakness is his inability to catch evasive characters, and many of the top tiers are rather evasive. Ryu is a defensive powerhouse, but offensively he's not that great, what with bad hitlag on his attacks on shield, lack of disjoints on key moves, and low ground mobility (awful walk speed/average run speed). He has a hard time getting anything going on these characters because they don't have to fight him.
None of these MUs are terrible for him, though--outside of these characters playing as lame as possible and running away, Ryu actually does pretty well. Luma dies very easily to most of Ryu's attacks. If ZSS misses a tether grab she dies for it. Pikachu's aerials get shut down by true Shoryuken. Sheik gets owned in footsies. etc. They're probably all 45:55 matchups for Ryu, 40:60 at worst. So while he has bad matchups, they're not inherently non-competitive.
Three good characters escaped mention above:
I believe that Ryu probably goes even against both Fox and Falcon; they have better neutrals but due to being fastfallers get punished extremely hard for losing the neutral game. Ryu by comparison can get out of their frame traps sometimes with his options in disadvantage, and generally has a better recovery than either. Ultimately, Ryu may even win both MUs, but for now I think he's just even with them.
Against Sonic, the only way I see Sonic winning is if he gets an early lead (difficult with Ryu's high damage output) and then camps for the rest of the match. If Sonic spindashes into light jab he's eating a ton of percent and possibly dying. His initial dash is kind of bad and he's forced to commit to shield after it, usually, leaving him open to Ryu's great dashgrab. Most Sonics don't play lame enough for me to really understand this MU beyond a theoretical level, though, so I've left it out of my conclusions.
Now, a lot has been said about Ryu vs. disjoints, so here are my opinions on his sword-user matchups, since swords are the biggest disjoints in the game (though characters like Pikachu and ZSS do have some disjoints).
sword matchups that I think Ryu wins:
sword matchups that I think Ryu loses:
The characters in the win category just don't have enough safety against Ryu to avoid getting hit hard and put into disadvantaged states that are less than stellar. They mostly have good reward on Ryu, but if Ryu plays patiently, they end up losing, just because of their relative lack of safety on most moves (Link's tether, Lucina's shieldlag, Shulk and Ganon's frame data/close range issues, etc.).
Marth and Ike, though, can play patiently against Ryu and come out ahead in the neutral, while boasting similar reward to the characters in the list of Ryu's advantages. Marth is very safe after this patch, and Ike has a myriad of ranged options that are also relatively fast, like his jab2. These aren't heavy losses by any means, though, because these two swordsmen have really bad disadvantaged states that Ryu can still abuse (Shulk would be in the latter category if he had slightly better frame data, as an aside, since he can play reactionary as well).
So Ryu's problems with disjoints appear to be overstated, when you look at his matchup spread.
Overall, Ryu is a competitive pick since he does well against roughly half of the great characters and more than 3/4 of the average characters. Is he Top Tier? No, not likely. He does lose a few matchups against popular characters. But looking at him in concrete matchup terms instead of strengths and weaknesses does show him to be rather good.
I don't think I agree with Ryu losing to Marth. Marth is the one who is required to approach in that matchup and Ryu's hard jab is very good at stopping air approaches.
