Character Match-up Discussion (Reformatted) - Updated 3/23/08

[lonelytraveler8]

Tru= had a great idea for his stage discussion, so I'm creating a similar thread for character match-ups. Rather than list a single stage, though, I'm going to list a few characters to discuss initially. Try to stay on topic so gathering information is most efficient. We might be able to compile these results into a sticky that will be a great reference thread.

IMPORTANT EDIT: Instead of discussing only specific characters, I'm going to list everyone and update each as information is contributed. This way, the community can see for itself what has been discussed and what has not.

Mario

Donkey Kong

Link

Samus

Zero Suit Samus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4bykSlJniI

Kirby

Fox

Pikachu

Marth​

Marth has excellent speed and beautiful air game. He's not as fast as Meta Knight, but his range is still a large problem for Meta Knight. Be patient and try to make Marth miss, and then use Meta Knight's superior speed to punish. It is very important to space properly so that if you miss, you have a chance of getting away unscathed.

Be careful of Marth's Counter attack. Because Meta Knight must attack many times to build up the damage, your opponent may make good use of the Counter ability which will spell doom for you if you don't quickly learn to anticipate it.

As soon as you get Marth off stage, be prepared to start edge guarding. Don't be afraid to follow him off stage, but be careful of his attacks. Marth's fair and his first hit on the over-B are near lagless and he won't be afraid to use them, so make use of Meta Knight's dair and approach from above or use Shuttle Loop for a quick finisher. If he gets close to the edge, be very careful of Marth's up-B as it is very powerful and is extremely fast. If he catches you with it near the stage, you are likely to be stage spiked.

Game and Watch

Luigi

Diddy

Zelda

Shiek
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQcq4i8yswM

Pit​

Pit has many of the same strengths as Meta Knight: multiple jumps, the ability to glide and quick attacks. He also has one major advantage: He has a very spammable projectile...probably the best in the game. He also has the ability to kill earlier than Meta Knight. However, he does have his issues.

Most of Pit's finishers kill off the side of the stage (useful info if you are picking a counter stage), and only his utilt/usmash are capable of off the ceiling KOs most of the time. Because Meta Knight's horizontal recovery is the best in the game, this means you should be able to last awhile.

Pit's air game is good, but his range is far inferior to Meta Knight's on all but his uair and he is not nearly as fast. He also has a very gimpable recovery because once he is hit out of his up-B's black wings, he can't use it again before touching the ground.

Key to winning? Take the fight to the air (avoid coming in from above, though) and then take it off stage for the possibility of some early KOs.

Oh yeah, and Mach Tornado blows right through Pit's arrows, unless it is fully charged.

Meta Knight

Falco
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTS8YHQnfAY

Squirtle

Ivysaur

Charizard

Ike

Snake
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CQWtggGQsA

Peach

Yoshi

Ganondorf

Ice Climbers

King Dedede
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whebkZhrCEg

Wolf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acOUiRYoNjA

Lucario

Ness

Sonic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBkPF1H9I3s

Bowser

Wario

Toon Link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwU2K3uy_V0

R.O.B.

Olimar

Captain Falcon

Jigglypuff

Lucas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3B3X5hB_s4​

Lucas is excellent at keeping distance when he needs it. The primary goal here, is to attempt to stay as close in as possible to prevent this and keep the pressure on him.

Lucas' usmash is one of the most powerful in the game and can KO Meta Knight as early as 70%, so be wary of this attack while in the heat of battle.

 

[Deleted member]

are you also going to disscuss different matchups on diff. stages and such?
just wondering =D

 

[AK42_METAKNIGHT]

Lucas: you need to get on him as fast as possible and never let up with the attack (do this for almost everyone) but especially with lucas because if you don't he can keep spacing and eat away with his projectiles and since metaknight has no projectiles, he will end up eating death. so get in and stay on him.

Marth: a pretty good matchup, marth is probably one of the best characters overall, because he can threaten almost every character with his speed, and more importantly range. i would suggest just be patient and work on your timing. make marth miss and then go for the attack don't just throw yourself wrecklessly at him, because he has better range and can bat you away. get marth off the ledge as fast as possible and take him on off stage. yes marth is one of the best off stage characters in the game, but metaknight is better and can easily spoil a marth recovery with proper chasing and pressure off stage.

Pit: My best friend mains pit and we have played hundreds of matches me:MK and himit and so far pit is the only character i have had problems with everyone else i think can be handle soundly if done properly. Pit on the other hand has all the strengths of MK (jumps/sick recovery/fast attacks) and more that MK doesn't have (stong finishers/projectiles) Pit can really be a tough fight if the other player knows how to use him. the only thing as of yet that i can suggest is to take the battle to the air, (where its likely headed) and take it off stage. i believe that MK has slightly better off-stage aerial capabilities. pressure him a lot and make sure not to waste all 5 jumps during the fight and save a few to get back as well as ur 2nd glide otherwise unleash it all against him and hope you can spoil his recovery.

 

[lonelytraveler8]

are you also going to disscuss different matchups on diff. stages and such?
just wondering =D

No need to discuss specific levels, but specific situations where MK has an advantage or vice versa could be pretty good.

 

[Deleted member]

Lucas: you need to get on him as fast as possible and never let up with the attack (do this for almost everyone) but especially with lucas because if you don't he can keep spacing and eat away with his projectiles and since metaknight has no projectiles, he will end up eating death. so get in and stay on him.

so what about dealing with things like lucases up-smashes then?

 

[Ice9]

Ive been having a slight problem with Luigi and his Up-B... When I freefall after Mach Tornado (which this rarely happens) Luigi up-B's me after his fastfall and well Im KOed at 60%, How can I avoid this? And Im not gonna stop using MT, Its an easy 18% that im not gonna give up.

 

[Deleted member]

Ive been having a slight problem with Luigi and his Up-B... When I freefall after Mach Tornado (which this rarely happens) Luigi up-B's me after his fastfall and well Im KOed at 60%, How can I avoid this? And Im not gonna stop using MT, Its an easy 18% that im not gonna give up.

=0
ice this isnt a character q&a and were only disscussing the top four in the first post my friend ^.^;

but to be nice ill ansewr this once hahaha

just try to keep your tornado grounded in this situation.its not a absolute must to always raise it if you put yourself at risk.

EDIT:lol @ my post count hahahaha

 

[Ice9]

LOL haha mybad, Thanks! Hey When you gonna get a WII so i can make you smell it?

 

[Deleted member]

LOL haha mybad, Thanks! Hey When you gonna get a WII so i can make you smell it?

haha idk but yea, any input on those four??

 

[Ice9]

Well since Justin(ECHOS) mains Marth now, Ive had alot of practice fighting him.

1)Counters: He is gonna counter you, all the time, try to play mind games with him (GASP). What I found works is going into him, say Dodgerolling or such, then sidestepping as he counters, and then proceed with one of the deadly three. Its pretty standard stuff but effective.
P.S. He can counter Mach Tornado.

2) Air Battles: You are gonna win. Fair and Bair beat Marth's Fair about 80% of the time, and what I like to use is edgeguard, wait for Marth to float back to the stage, then, if he doesn't counter, proceed with a Bair, Rinse and Repeat, then if the going gets funky or you just wanna look pretty, just Dimensional Cape when he gets close and edgeguard or wait for him to be cute and Up-B you out of the edge then just 5-Jump back up and Dair him which seems to be MK's closest thing to a spike... Makes Marth fell pretty stupid.

3) Combat: 75% of the time, Marth is gonna make you smell this in close combat. Going Toe to Toe with him really isnt going to work. Id suggest Mach T. or Short hopping Fair. They are, once again, standard moves to use, but very effective, and you might wanna get some ear plugs for all the QQ thats gonna come from MT. Believe me, Young Links HATE MT!

 

[Deleted member]

yea marths f-air beats out metas wich can be pretty annoying for those who only like to use f-air hahaha!

 

[lonelytraveler8]

Ha, one of you says MK's fair wins and the other said Marth wins. Can anyone get footage of a fight against a good Marth?

 

[Orpheus]

Marth and Meta knight is a pretty fair game.
Depends really how you use the characters, right?

 

[Ice9]

Well Marth's counter is not very effective in the air against MK, So Fair isn't your best option. Dair and Uair are your best against Marth, because it's hard for him to counter.

 

[Deleted member]

haha ill get some footage as soon as possible but ive played alot of marths in tournies and f-air always won against mine but ill get some footage for you soon :D

 

[lonelytraveler8]

Alright, I updated the OP with a new format and added info that has been provided so far. I cleaned up the contributions to make it look/sound good and added a bit of my own info. I played Pit as a main before I moved to Meta Knight, so I had some decent things to add to him.

Keep the info coming and feel free to challenge anything that has been officially added to the OP.

*Bump*

Edit: Also, feel free to point out any grammatical errors I may have made. I want this to look as clean as possible.

Edit 2: I decided to start providing 1v1 videos of character match ups as they become available. I provided the ones that I have and I'm going to do a bit of digging on the other threads where people posted their own videos. I put a video up for Falco and Wolf, but there is not match up info for them. I'll add some from my own experience later.

 

[GofG]

As a Lucas player, I'll let you guys know that it is the general consensus on the Lucas boards that Metaknight is lucas's hardest matchup. MK simply outranges all of our quick attacks, and none of our slow attacks will ever hit him because of his speed.

 

[Ice9]

A quick thing about Ike. Ike is prolly MK's Easiest match up. We can do whatever we want because his attacks are so slow, ours can go unpunishable. The only this we need worry about is basically him hitting us, which will most likely be rare, but when he does hit us, Its GG. Ive been KOed at 55% from an Ike Fsmash. No lie.

 

[lonelytraveler8]

As a Lucas player, I'll let you guys know that it is the general consensus on the Lucas boards that Metaknight is lucas's hardest matchup. MK simply outranges all of our quick attacks, and none of our slow attacks will ever hit him because of his speed.

Once MK gets in close, I have to agree. A good MK will usually demolish a good Lucas. But it can be extremely difficult for Meta Knight to approach Lucas.

 

[Deleted member]

ahhh so many names!
could you color code them for me?im having a hard time reading each section =0
bold red maybe?
hahaha thnx

 

[lonelytraveler8]

Yeah, I'm still working on the formatting. I'm thinking about alphabetizing them soon, but not at the moment. What exactly did you want bolded?

Edit: I just changed the format. Let me know what you think. And you should have contributed some info Tru=

 

[Deleted member]

that looks good and what about contributing?i havent been doing that in almost every thread here including this one lol?

also if a person is talking about one char. in specific,they should use the title option and put the character name in it.if they dont know how all they have to do is use tyhe "go advanced" option.

but anyways ive been playing a good snake and i have found that matchup to be pretty irritating due to the fact he has so many different kinds of projectiles and his physical attacks make it hard to get in close for long.

what my friend(zl.TyranT)would do is spam nades and such and then put mines under or around himself so i had pretty much no options =0

it works scarily well against meta =0

 

[lonelytraveler8]

Falco

I was playing against my friend's Falco today. I've been sick lately, so I don't think I was playing top notch, but I definitely didn't suck. He's gotten better and is starting to figure out how to fight my Meta. Here's a couple more things I learned about fighting Falco.

His dair will outprioritize your uair or nair, for that matter. So if he's above you, don't try and follow him straight up. I got pulverized by this a lot before I finally decided that my uair just wasn't going to work.

Falco's all around good priority means that he may stop some of your best attacks when you least expect, which will really throw you off. He stopped my Shuttle Loop a couple times and I just couldn't react in time.


There are definitely things that do work, though. His illusion attack (over-B) will get him sucked right into a Tornado. So punish him with that if he's using it to get back on the stage a lot or if he gets predictable with it.

SH fairs still work wonders on Falco. He just can't stop the fair (or the bair). However, SH attacks as an approach are basically useless because of his lasers. The glide attack works quite well and the worst that will happen is that you'll miss or your attacks will clang. I've never been outprioritized...and the range on the glide attack is such that he can't hit you first unless you time it poorly.

It's easy to get predictable with glide attacks and he may just start rolling out of the way, so flying low while approaching over his lasers and attack with a dair is an excellent strategy. If you get him before he puts his gun away great. If he rolls away, it's easy to react. If he tries to hit you, then you've got the advantage most of the time.

Approaching past those lasers is really hard to do without getting predictable. These are the only things I've found that work consistently at the moment.

 

[xS A M U R A Ix]

Alright vs. Snake, patience is key. If you try to rush him when he's set up, you'll probably end up losing that fight. Approach slowly, throw grenades back at him and avoid mines and nikita missiles. You can hit claymores to make them go away, I imagine just a d.tilt from max range would take care of them. Once you're inside, get him in the air and you win. Metaknight destroys snake in the air, and if you stay on his front side, he doesn't really have any good aerial options. If he's got his back to you, look out for bair, which you can still beat, but it'll hurt if you mess up and get hit by it.

When you're at high percentages, never approach snake from above. u.tilt, mortars, and uair all will beat you out and will probably kill you. u.tilt can kill metaknight at 80% on some levels, so you have to be careful. Snake also has a lot of disjointed hit boxes on th ground. You'll clash with his neutral A, f.tilt, and dash attack quite a bit, so be prepared to retaliate quickly if you clash. You are faster than him, so keep that in mind and try to pressure him once you've gotten rid of his setup. Remember not to attack him when he has grenades in his hand unless from a safe distance, and just remember to pressure pressure pressure when he's in the air. His running attack is punishable in some circumstances, so if he crosses you over, just turn around and throw, or down smash. Mach Tornado and Drill rush both go through Nikitas too, btw.

Most importantly in this fight though, play safe since snake can kill you so easy.

 

[Orpheus]

Ah~ I see.
Any word on Link? My brother is crazy on that character and murders me in 1v1.

 

[lonelytraveler8]

I haven't played link much and don't know him that well, but I'll give what I do know.

Other than the fact that he's slow and his arrow (not fully charged) and boomerang are deflected by the Mach tornado, I don't know of any advantages MK has. I'll test the fight out a bit and see what I can find.