Choosing a secondary for Young Link

[Benny P]

Hey all,

while i want to be a young link main through and through, i kind of want to pick up another character to break up the monotony, as well as help me out if things are problematic for vs high/top tiers.

Here's a few character's i've been thinking about (i'm PAL btw)

Sheik (heres some dumb footage from a netplay sesh i did with a friend, theres a lot of me doing sheik here (https://youtu.be/jpLc8LfziOQ) ) please be kind as our netplay is pretty wonky!

Samus, Marth (i played roy in pm and also casual days melee) and MAYBE puff, maybe.

I'd like any and all opinions possible. bye for now!

 

[MagicScrumpy]

If you're going to pick up a secondary character to cover Young Link's weaker matchups, you're going to end up maining that high-tier secondary character. For example, if you decide to secondary Sheik because she covers bad YL matchups, you'll find out very quickly that she's better than YL in every good character MU except Ice Climbers.

If you need other characters to cover matchups you don't want to play with Young Link, consider maining the better character and using Young Link for certain matchups instead.

 

[ChivalRuse]

Just think of how much better your Young Link will be if you don't split your focus between him and a secondary though :D

 

[Diabolical PIe]

Basically what Scrumpy said. Young Link does better in all the top tier match-ups than anyone below him on the tier-list (besides pichu/falcon, lmao) and any top tier above him has a better matchup spread overall, so there'll be no reason to whip out YL at all. That's not to say there aren't any benefits to picking up a top tier character (I've improved drastically from switching to Fox and my YL is so much better from it) but dual maining with YL is just not really a thing. I wanted to dual main them, but now I just use YL to beat Puff and ICies easily when I should just be learning the matchup with Fox instead. It's just limiting.

If you want to main YL, seriously, just stick with him.

 

[TriNewton]

While I agree with everyone else here, I've been thinking about how amazing Falco/YL would be.

In tournament, Falcos seem to have trouble against Samus, Peach, and Puff- particularly because those three characters get ****ed by Fox so they learn the spacie punish game as best as they can.

Young Link throws in the MU unfamiliarity wrench and honestly just does ok against them.

Also, Diabolical Pie, please never stop visiting these boards. Your perspective as a former YL main/ current Fox main is pretty unique to this community.

 

[Diabolical PIe]

Don't worry Tri Newton; I love YL too much to ever fully drop him or stop playing him, haha. I'll always lurk around here, and maybe one day I'll post my punish game flow charts or some neutral game stuff (god, stringing weak nairs together against puff is seriously hilarious).

As for YL Falco, I'd say he really only has a true edge compared to Peach and Puff. Falco Samus is even, maybe slightly in Falco's favor, in my opinion, and Falco Puff is very close to even. YL actually does significantly better in the Peach matchup. It's a pretty decent combination to cover matchups Falco doesn't LIKE to play, but it isn't like solo Falco is incapable of beating these characters at all, and by picking YL against these guys, you open yourself up to a Counter Pick war that will almost assuredly not be in your favor.

Once I was playing a good Puff in tournament. He 2-stocked my Fox, so I brought him to Poke Stadium with YL and JV 4 stocked him. He was tilted and furious, so in response, he switched to Falco, took me to FD, and laser camped me for 6 minutes straight. I lost the set to a Falco that I would have probably beaten with my Fox, but because I was uncomfortable with the Puff matchup, I chose not to try and learn it and adapt with my better character, which lowered my overall chances of victory.

Long story short: It's generally smarter to learn the matchup with a good character, even if it's weird and difficult, because you'll have more consistent results in the long run.

 

[Klemes]

Don't worry Tri Newton; I love YL too much to ever fully drop him or stop playing him, haha. I'll always lurk around here, and maybe one day I'll post my punish game flow charts or some neutral game stuff (god, stringing weak nairs together against puff is seriously hilarious).

As for YL Falco, I'd say he really only has a true edge compared to Peach and Puff. Falco Samus is even, maybe slightly in Falco's favor, in my opinion, and Falco Puff is very close to even. YL actually does significantly better in the Peach matchup. It's a pretty decent combination to cover matchups Falco doesn't LIKE to play, but it isn't like solo Falco is incapable of beating these characters at all, and by picking YL against these guys, you open yourself up to a Counter Pick war that will almost assuredly not be in your favor.

Once I was playing a good Puff in tournament. He 2-stocked my Fox, so I brought him to Poke Stadium with YL and JV 4 stocked him. He was tilted and furious, so in response, he switched to Falco, took me to FD, and laser camped me for 6 minutes straight. I lost the set to a Falco that I would have probably beaten with my Fox, but because I was uncomfortable with the Puff matchup, I chose not to try and learn it and adapt with my better character, which lowered my overall chances of victory.

Long story short: It's generally smarter to learn the matchup with a good character, even if it's weird and difficult, because you'll have more consistent results in the long run.

This Falco rage story is hilarious. Also, the Falco/YL thing might actually be very good, never thought about it.
To try and give advice to OP : don't feel restricted by any suggestion you're getting, do take your time and mess around with the characters you'd like to try out.
About the argument on wether you can dual main a high tier + mid tier, sure, you might end up spending way more efforts on the top tier one, but is the alternative any better ? Playing two mid tiers doesn't present any interest other than having fun and playing whoever you want. Imagine you're up against a shiek : she destroys every single character below ICs without even trying, it's actually ridiculous. Getting your YL destroyed to bust out your other mid tier that gets destroyed by her doing the exact same things without even having to consider the MU doesn't seem very fun to me.

I can't ever discourage anyone to pick up Falco, he's just so much fun and rewarding. If you enjoy playing the projectile game, there is so much the lasers can acomplish, and his punish game is by far the most interesting and varied imo. The one down side is you'll get beat up very bad in the beginning. The struggle is real, because he doesn't get huge rewards for doing simple things like shiek ftilt>fair, peach dsmash, fox usmash etc. He's probably the hardest to git gud with, but it's all worth it.

 

[F. Stein]

YL is my newest secondary experiment for my Ganon main, because he has a lot to learn about the game that is different from Ganon and he plays really fun against floaties.

 

[Benny P]

I'm gonna stick with YL for now. dont wanna spread myself too thin. Will enjoy other characters casually for now.

 

[Benny P]

Hey all. Just updating here- Still playing YL, getting better with him.

I play some top tier characters like falcon/falco in friendlies but as it stand YL is still my main.

It's like....theres tons of bad things, but its so much extra cool when you get something sick with young link, am i right?