Cloud bad Matchups?

[Revolution6 aka alterego]

Cloud have any perceived bad matchups? considering i bopped the best player in my region's main ()with then got bopped by due to him being a lagless disjointed character.

(I main , and play ,, as secondaries for those wondering my scenario)

 

[Rubiss]

Cloud is far from lagless but he does have tons of disjointed hitboxes (as all swordsmen do). He doesn't do too well against characters who excel at gimping. It's my understanding that he does not do too well against Greninja.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

His worst matchups are against characters that can actually get in and combo him like Fox and Pika (Sheik too but to a far lesser extent, shes mobile but Cloud is just as mobile and outspaces her easily), characters that can mess with his recovery and gimp him like Mario, Doc, Greninja, or Marth. He also doesn't do to well against characters that can effectively outspace him like Toon Link (Link too but he gets comboed to hell and back and is slow so it doesn't matter)

Mario is probably his absolute worst matchup, he combos him hard, has a great projectile, and ****s up his recovery pretty badly

 

[Garde Noir]

ah yes, everything your opponent does seems lagless when you start your attack 5 frames later than them.
(in case you're curious, no attack cloud has is earlier than frame 5 with the exception of frame 4 Jab, which is identical to Bowser Jrs. Jab. http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Cloud )
Cloud suffers to anyone who has any sort of gimping game. With nearly straight vertical recovery, just about any character with access to a semi-strong back-air puts him out of business.
Beyond that, he severely suffers to the high-tiers. With Zero-Suit's insane combo game, speed and recovery, I'd think it'd be our worst Match-up, closely followed by Pikachu, for the same reasons. Sonic is definitely a tricky match-up, Fox and Mario as well, for their speed and combo potential, though the latter are more easily succumbed to Cloud's stage control strategy.
The problem everyone has with Cloud is how different he plays than most Sword characters. Unlike Marth's guerilla warfare, Ike's "Ganon with a sword" tactic and Roy's semi-combo style, Cloud plays a lot more like Melee Marth, with a high-risk, high-reward spacing game that relies completely on stage control. Clouds win when it's hard for you to get center stage. That's why we do well against projectile, and defensive characters. Remember, center stage is as far from the Blast Zone as you can get. A character that keeps Cloud on the edge, or in hitstun is a character that beats Cloud.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Cloud's hardest MUs are like, Sheik and Diddy. Both of which are very manageable but can be pretty grueling.

Mario would be more threatening if he didn't lose the neutral game head-on and if we couldn't just DI up and airdodge into the ledge and cancel it with Up+B. FLUDD can't block low recovery at all. ZSS would be hard if her neutral wasn't as awkward as it is, Cloud has a very interesting combination of traits that make him do surprisingly okay vs. the character.

Sheik is hard because Sheik things, although doable. Diddy is hard because banana = stage control and that is really scary. That's the best way I can truncate it. If you want a relatively easier time, try A or B.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

Cloud's hardest MUs are like, Sheik and Diddy. Both of which are very manageable but can be pretty grueling.

Mario would be more threatening if he didn't lose the neutral game head-on and if we couldn't just DI up and airdodge into the ledge and cancel it with Up+B. FLUDD can't block low recovery at all. ZSS would be hard if her neutral wasn't as awkward as it is, Cloud has a very interesting combination of traits that make him do surprisingly okay vs. the character.

Sheik is hard because Sheik things, although doable. Diddy is hard because banana = stage control and that is really scary. That's the best way I can truncate it. If you want a relatively easier time, try A or B.

Diddy isn't really that bad unless you're playing on FD or Lylat, most other stages he isn't as much of a threat if you can use platforms and keep him away from his banana. A bit off topic but aren't Sheik and Clouds air, fall, gravity, dash, etc almost all around the same?

 

[Deleted member]

I think Kirby is a bad matchup for Cloud in my experiences online. It's not unbeatable and it is manageable, but you really need to be patient because this character is small. He can also easily combo Cloud, which is a big issue.

Little Mac has also proven trouble for me. While Cloud has a lot of range, Mac's ground combat, power, and fast attacks just exploit certain weaknesses involving Cloud's mobility. I also find it harder to get Mac off-stage and gimp him with Cloud compared to someone like Shulk.

His absolute worst matchup is R.O.B. With his projectiles, he will make sure that Cloud won't be able to go near him and I think he can combo Cloud. R.O.B.'s off-stage game is also devastating because he can easily gimp Cloud and recover without any problems.

 

[Volya]

His absolute worst matchup is R.O.B. With his projectiles, he will make sure that Cloud won't be able to go near him and I think he can combo Cloud. R.O.B.'s off-stage game is also devastating because he can easily gimp Cloud and recover without any problems.

I'm not really sure about this. Cloud can use his projectile to counter the gyro and rob is pretty easy to spike with Cloud's fair IMO
Mu isn't bad for rob but prolly not the worst of Cloud's

 

[NogGoggler]

From my experience in the pikaloud matchup pika beats him 60:40. Although it's decently tough for pika to get it, cloud gets combo'd to high hell. He gets hella juggled by uair, gets camped a little by tjolt (although he can fight back with blade beam), and doesn't handle QA at aaaaall. Also the edgeguards against cloud are ****ing unreal. Tjolt > cover airdodge with fair > instastock is basically a true combo against cloud.

Clouds saving grace is really his godly ftilt that ****s pika. Cloud should play a nearly entirely reactionary game while focusing on keeping out pika as long possible while not risking too much on punishes because his damage is already good and pika's punish game on him is ridiculous

 

[Tisbomb]

From my experience in the pikaloud matchup pika beats him 60:40. Although it's decently tough for pika to get it, cloud gets combo'd to high hell. He gets hella juggled by uair, gets camped a little by tjolt (although he can fight back with blade beam), and doesn't handle QA at aaaaall. Also the edgeguards against cloud are ****ing unreal. Tjolt > cover airdodge with fair > instastock is basically a true combo against cloud.

Clouds saving grace is really his godly ftilt that ****s pika. Cloud should play a nearly entirely reactionary game while focusing on keeping out pika as long possible while not risking too much on punishes because his damage is already good and pika's punish game on him is ridiculous

Correct me if i am wrong, but clouds nair would be great option against pikas QA. I feel like a FH dair would work great as well.

 

[KittyKyat]

Correct me if i am wrong, but clouds nair would be great option against pikas QA. I feel like a FH dair would work great as well.

Im sure Pika's QA is canceled by clouds nair. It requires a lot of timing on the Clouds part, but does give him a way to deal with it.

Also, Cloud can outcamp Pika with Limit if he plays the thundershock game. Lol

 

[NogGoggler]

Correct me if i am wrong, but clouds nair would be great option against pikas QA. I feel like a FH dair would work great as well.

Im sure Pika's QA is canceled by clouds nair. It requires a lot of timing on the Clouds part, but does give him a way to deal with it.

Also, Cloud can outcamp Pika with Limit if he plays the thundershock game. Lol

If you're fighting the most predictable, flowchart pikachu in the world then yeah lol. But if not ftilt works better. Much less start up and is a lot more accurate is swatting the cheese rat out of the air.

And limit camping doesn't work too well tbh because pikachu can just run behind tjolt and approach cloud ezpz while he's like that.

 

[SoapBar]

A bad matchup I would say is Captain Falcon. He is able to bait out moves with foxtroting and then come back in with a dash grab. Falcon can also freely dash atack or dash grab because (as I know of) Cloud doesn't have any good out of shield options except maybe U-Air/Nair. Again I'm not the most knowledgeable. However Falcon can also combo and juggle cloud and edge guard him. Falcon can pretty much hit Cloud with Dair/U-Tilt/runoff Bair because cloud has a hard time sweet spotting ledge (without limit break).

 

[TheGoodGuava]

A bad matchup I would say is Captain Falcon. He is able to bait out moves with foxtroting and then come back in with a dash grab. Falcon can also freely dash atack or dash grab because (as I know of) Cloud doesn't have any good out of shield options except maybe U-Air/Nair. Again I'm not the most knowledgeable. However Falcon can also combo and juggle cloud and edge guard him. Falcon can pretty much hit Cloud with Dair/U-Tilt/runoff Bair because cloud has a hard time sweet spotting ledge (without limit break).

Honestly Falcon loses the matchup 60:40. Cloud can juggle Falcon even harder because of his lack of landing options, can edgeguard him almost if not just as hard as falcon can edgeguard him, and combos Falcon to hell and back with things like utilt x3>nair>utilt>nair>dtilt>uair for 60% at the start of the match, then kill him at 70%. He also has a projectile and is able to efficiently camp Falcon. Oh, and I believe dtilt stage spikes on certain stages and because of its constant hitbox it eats everyone's 2 frame window after grabbing the ledge

People need to stop saying Cloud loses matchups purely because of his recovery. Unless its Pika, Mario, or Greninja (maybe ZSS with paralyzers) who all just **** Cloud over off stage, its not reasonable to say its a bad matchup just because of 1 flaw when he can easily avoid getting into a situation where a character can abuse that flaw

 

[KittyKyat]

Honestly Falcon loses the matchup 60:40. Cloud can juggle Falcon even harder because of his lack of landing options, can edgeguard him almost if not just as hard as falcon can edgeguard him, and combos Falcon to hell and back with things like utilt x3>nair>utilt>nair>dtilt>uair for 60% at the start of the match, then kill him at 70%. He also has a projectile and is able to efficiently camp Falcon. Oh, and I believe dtilt stage spikes on certain stages and because of its constant hitbox it eats everyone's 2 frame window after grabbing the ledge

People need to stop saying Cloud loses matchups purely because of his recovery. Unless its Pika, Mario, or Greninja (maybe ZSS with paralyzers) who all just **** Cloud over off stage, its not reasonable to say its a bad matchup just because of 1 flaw when he can easily avoid getting into a situation where a character can abuse that flaw

He has a lot of stregnths and decent aerial mobility if you don't look at recovery. I mean, look at Ike.

 

[Jenna Zant]

By the way, Pika can just qa through blade beam.

 

[MiloniVanili]

little mac is low key ridiculously hard for cloud to fight, you have to save your limit for up b or you die every time you are off stage. villager pikachu and ness also seem pretty tough for cloud. i personally wouldn't use him against any of them but i could be wrong/missing something

 

[FooltheFlames]

I feel like the Sheik match up is almost 50:50, Mario, Luigi, Falcon, all like 50:50. Pika and Diddy, that would be 40:60 for Cloud maybe, the MU is out of favor for Cloud with these two here.

But I think his worst match ups might be:
Villager
Mega-Man
Ness
Lucas
and surprisingly Toon Link

These type of characters have a way of gettin around his attacks, and Ness and Lucas can combo the heck out of him and kill/gimp him early too! Cloud has trouble dealing with these smaller characters that own many great projectile options AS LONG AS they have great stage/aerial mobility just like him. So characters like Robin, Rob, and vanilla Link still get thrashed- Cloud doesnt seem to have very many tough match ups at all really

 

[TheGoodGuava]

I think we need to cover every character individually instead of just spouting opinions.

I think that we've solidly gone over his Falcon matchup so I'll try and do a recap as accurately as possible.
-Falcon cannot effectively deal with Clouds nair or blade beam and therefore cannot get close enough to start a combo
-Both characters can effectively edge guard each other but Cloud still has an advantage here with his longer and sometimes faster aerials
-If you recovery to high and don't sweetspot the ledge, you will probably get uptilted
-if Falcon gets off stage, dropdown nair, dair, and falling bair will all **** over Falcons recovery
-Falcon is faster on the ground and will dominate you there, do not approach on the ground
-If a Falcon wiffs a move offstage, you can just suicide him DO NOT DO THIS IF YOU ARE A STOCK BELOW GOD DAMMIT
-Avoid getting grabbed, this should be easy as Cloud can keep falcon out extremely easily
-Dash attack is Falcons best option for getting in on you, avoid this using platforms or jumping
-Charge limit every chance you get, you can keep up with Falcon on the ground if you have it fully charged
-Falcon has almost no ways to get out of upair juggles, you can easily rack up 60 damage from just a few uptilts and upairs
-Climhazzard out of shield is an amazing option
-You get almost nothing off of grabs but they do reset the neutral, they're all good "get the **** off me" tools
-You CANNOT punish anything with less than 5 frames of end lag unless the Falcon is being careless. Run away, it is your best option
-If it has more than 6 frames of endlag, punish with uptilt combos for an easy 20+%
-You can easily 2 frame ANYONE with dtilt if you time it correctly, this can lead into a nair at lower percents, or any other aerial with an airdodge read
-If you have limit charge and can get Falcon offstage without his jump, he should NOT be making it back. LB blade beam will always 2 frame someone if you time it correctly which isn't very hard at all

If I missed anything, add on to this. Otherwise, can we please ****ing move on to a different character? I'm getting tired of Falcon's saying a matchup that is either even, or in our favor try to say otherwise. If you play the match right, you will win with Cloud

 

[PsychoPuff23]

have a good matchup against Cloud.
he has a better range and when Cloud can't reach you he is in bad position.
And Shulk have a lot of Disjointing Hitboxes and this make N air or f air very safe against Cloud

 

[KittyKyat]

have a good matchup against Cloud.
he has a better range and when Cloud can't reach you he is in bad position.
And Shulk have a lot of Disjointing Hitboxes and this make N air or f air very safe against Cloud

Cloud DESTROYS him in neutral. He has a projectile, MUCH better frame data, and Cloud has similar disjoints. Cloud can't play the spacing game as well in this matchup, but if he gets in on Shulk, he can't do anything other then take it due to our superior frame data. Speed and Jump are pretty scary arts, but I think they're quite bearable with sh-nair and playing safe.
Although, if Cloud gets offstage, Shulk with Jump/cheese Smash art will crush any hope of recovering.
Overall, I think this matchup is in Clouds advantage just because Cloud can combat Shulk's aerials quite easily with similar range while having superior frame data.

 

[Quarium]

I think Kirby is a bad matchup for Cloud in my experiences online. It's not unbeatable and it is manageable, but you really need to be patient because this character is small. He can also easily combo Cloud, which is a big issue.

Little Mac has also proven trouble for me. While Cloud has a lot of range, Mac's ground combat, power, and fast attacks just exploit certain weaknesses involving Cloud's mobility. I also find it harder to get Mac off-stage and gimp him with Cloud compared to someone like Shulk.

His absolute worst matchup is R.O.B. With his projectiles, he will make sure that Cloud won't be able to go near him and I think he can combo Cloud. R.O.B.'s off-stage game is also devastating because he can easily gimp Cloud and recover without any problems.

Kirby main here, we can gimp Cloud's recovery quite easilyvwith our amazing back air or dair spike him. But even if Cloud can get combo'd he still destroys Kirby in neutral as well as being able to kill him very early. You wanna put kirby in position for juggles, here the Kirby has few options due to terrible horizontal aerial mobility:

Try to land somewhat close to Cloud while risking getting destroyed by his aerials with crazy hitboxes

or

Get the hell outta there to be safe but give Cloud stage control(wich is what any Cloud wants and thrives with)

All in all, I believe this to be in Cloud's favor as long as he is careful and manages Limit and stage control with lots of care.

 

[GrayGray4468]

I think cloud's worst matchup is Mario

-We get the dthrow > utilt treatment, easy 30-40% depending what he follows up with
-VERY EASY TO GIMP
-F.L.U.U.D
-Fair, Dtilt
-Better frame data

I'm new, let me know if anything I said is wrong

 

[_Nives_]

From my 1 month experience , pikachu and fox give cloud a lots of trouble beside the recovery. both of them can deal with cloud speed and combo game. Pikachu avoid most of the falling upair and with our poor grab game, it's hard to punish. For me it's a worst MU than sheik

 

[GHNeko]

Cloud's worst match up is ZeRo.

 

[Haze~]

From this thread i learned that half the cast is clouds worst matchup.

 

[Dar4]

I don't think cloud has any matchups that are "bad". Mario is probably more like even because even though cloud can be gimped some with cape/flood, cloud can kill mario at 50, cloud can limit camp and force mario to approach, cloud juggles him and outranges him for days which makes it difficult for mario to get in.

I would echo what others are saying above. People need to stop exaggerating how bad cloud's recovery is and that some matchups are bad based only on that. It's not good but it's totally workable by utilizing limit and side B recovery mixups. I believe he has a wall jump also. And just because some characters like falcon and mario can get some early kills by gimping, cloud I would argue can more easily get early kills with limit down B and side B.

This character is looking broken TBH, especially in doubles. I don't think he has any losing matchups. Probably goes even with a few of the top tiers and beats everyone else.

His kill power is ridiculous beyond belief with limits and fsmash. His upair and nair are insane, dair stays out forever and his frame data is amazing compared to the size of his disjoint. His only weakness is his recovery and as mentioned before it's totally workable.

I think he's for sure a top 5 character. I don't see many (if any) losing matchups.

 

[xIvan321]

Mega Man should actually be very tricky for Cloud in my opinion whether you have match up experience on Mega Man or not. They can simply F-smash or dair your up-b because delaying it could sometimes be lethal. You can of course try to air dodge the forward smash, but sometimes you may not be able to do that in time. On stage, they can spam side b as much as they want while you charge limit, making it much slower to fully charge it. You can't really perfect shield Mega Man's side b meaning your shield actually drops catching you always in mid-charge. The more faster side b has touched the surface of shields, the faster it can be fired a second time eventually catching you either in mid shield drop or charge. It just does. Worst yet if the opponent Mega Man knows how to super glide toss forward and you get too cocky with charging on the ground, he'll bait you into a grab easily. (unless of course you are both reading each other)

Its definitely not a match up to sleep on since Cloud's gameplay revolves around baiting your opponents to come to you and then punishing them excellently for doing so. The one thing Cloud has good going on in this match up is his sword can sometimes out-prioritize pellets, crash bomber, and metal blade, however Cloud's approach is very lack luster and as it turns out Mega Man has a much better success rate to bait Cloud than Cloud baiting Mega Man. Unless Mega Man lacks skill on his part or doesn't understand the match up at all, they could easily get bodied by Cloud and looking at the match up from both perspectives, lots of Mega Man's tend to struggle at the moment since often lots of them end up getting way too carried away. I always do end up beating Mega Man as Cloud.

 

[Sonny Franceschi]

in the future i see bayonetta enter to this thread as one of his worst matchups... she have so many tools to f++k up cloud, i feel scary in terms on how manage the neutral with her, his bullets art make a lot of pressure and she don't need to worry about limit.

 

[SpicyMango]

in the future i see bayonetta enter to this thread as one of his worst matchups... she have so many tools to f++k up cloud

100% AGREE WITH THIS. Been playing nonstop and bayonetta forces cloud to play campy and while I dont have a problem with it. The problem I have with bayonetta so far is that
1) her counter is st00pid IMO
2) she gets rewarded even if she misses her attacks.
It's very hard reading where bayonetta will go and I feel like no matter what cloud must play defensively. It's just very aggravating going up again Bayo so far. BUT WE MUST ALSO LEARN.

 

[DarkDeity15]

I think we need to cover every character individually instead of just spouting opinions.

I think that we've solidly gone over his Falcon matchup so I'll try and do a recap as accurately as possible.
-Falcon cannot effectively deal with Clouds nair or blade beam and therefore cannot get close enough to start a combo
-Both characters can effectively edge guard each other but Cloud still has an advantage here with his longer and sometimes faster aerials
-If you recovery to high and don't sweetspot the ledge, you will probably get uptilted
-if Falcon gets off stage, dropdown nair, dair, and falling bair will all **** over Falcons recovery
-Falcon is faster on the ground and will dominate you there, do not approach on the ground
-If a Falcon wiffs a move offstage, you can just suicide him DO NOT DO THIS IF YOU ARE A STOCK BELOW GOD DAMMIT
-Avoid getting grabbed, this should be easy as Cloud can keep falcon out extremely easily
-Dash attack is Falcons best option for getting in on you, avoid this using platforms or jumping
-Charge limit every chance you get, you can keep up with Falcon on the ground if you have it fully charged
-Falcon has almost no ways to get out of upair juggles, you can easily rack up 60 damage from just a few uptilts and upairs
-Climhazzard out of shield is an amazing option
-You get almost nothing off of grabs but they do reset the neutral, they're all good "get the **** off me" tools
-You CANNOT punish anything with less than 5 frames of end lag unless the Falcon is being careless. Run away, it is your best option
-If it has more than 6 frames of endlag, punish with uptilt combos for an easy 20+%
-You can easily 2 frame ANYONE with dtilt if you time it correctly, this can lead into a nair at lower percents, or any other aerial with an airdodge read
-If you have limit charge and can get Falcon offstage without his jump, he should NOT be making it back. LB blade beam will always 2 frame someone if you time it correctly which isn't very hard at all

If I missed anything, add on to this. Otherwise, can we please ****ing move on to a different character? I'm getting tired of Falcon's saying a matchup that is either even, or in our favor try to say otherwise. If you play the match right, you will win with Cloud

This man gets it.

 

[Wolfblazez]

From this thread i learned that half the cast is clouds worst matchup.

Same.

 

[DarkDeity15]

Kirby main here, we can gimp Cloud's recovery quite easilyvwith our amazing back air or dair spike him. But even if Cloud can get combo'd he still destroys Kirby in neutral as well as being able to kill him very early. You wanna put kirby in position for juggles, here the Kirby has few options due to terrible horizontal aerial mobility:

Try to land somewhat close to Cloud while risking getting destroyed by his aerials with crazy hitboxes

or

Get the hell outta there to be safe but give Cloud stage control(wich is what any Cloud wants and thrives with)

All in all, I believe this to be in Cloud's favor as long as he is careful and manages Limit and stage control with lots of care.

As far as I know, Kirby struggles against disjointed characters a lot. Especially ones with good frame data, mobility and low lag which pretty much describes Cloud lol. He also loses pretty readily to Link, so yeah. This should actually be one of Kirby's worst MUs if anything, especially if gimping Cloud is all Kirby's really good at, because if you can't get him off stage (which isn't easy to do in the first place since you're getting bodied in neutral). You'd have to fish for grabs pretty hard as well which is predictable.

Lastly, I thought I'd mention that Link does pretty well in this MU. It's actually pretty even, so definitely not a terrible MU for Cloud or anything.

 

[Megamang]

I disagree that crash bomber can't always be shielded, that is easy. But a good megaman will either set up on you (leaf shield + metal blade in hand) or get into pellet range and start pelting you. Ftilt-ftilt-nair is a true combo if you get hit by an approaching megaman, which launches you pretty far even at low percents. Mega's throws send you far, his grab is great, the aforementioned pellet combo, metal blade setups into grab, bair is great A2A attack... all this goes to say that mega can get you offstage easily. He is also one of the best edgeguarders, especially against cloud's recovery.

That said, his weight works against him, allowing high damage combos from cloud and for finishing touch setups at marginaly higher percentages. Your mobility is above average, combined with the giant buster sword means you can often power through zoning.

I'd say you want to keep your limit charged for the mobility bonus, only using FT or Cross Slash if you know it will hit. Whenever your limit is charged, MM has to zone more respectfully because nothing trades well with LB Beam Blade.

Overall, I'd say the matchup is close to even, swinging either way depending on the stage. Battlefield is good for mega because the platforms are going to impede your approach against pellets. Additionally, the bigger the stage the better for Mega because mega is going to be dying at the blastzone, whereas most of cloud's deaths should be edgeguards. Mega and cloud are also about the same weight, so thats a wash there.

We also share the same d-tilt =D

 

[KenMeister]

I'm convinced Cloud barely loses any MUs, as most characters just straight up don't have the tools to force Cloud away from his usual game plan and give him free stage control for it without having to commit to something readily punishable. The only characters that win are ones that can maintain stage control better than Cloud (Rosa and Diddy) or give no ****s about limit break camping and can pressure him with ease (Pika and Fox).

 

[Glitchz]

ah yes, everything your opponent does seems lagless when you start your attack 5 frames later than them.
(in case you're curious, no attack cloud has is earlier than frame 5 with the exception of frame 4 Jab, which is identical to Bowser Jrs. Jab. http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Cloud )
Cloud suffers to anyone who has any sort of gimping game. With nearly straight vertical recovery, just about any character with access to a semi-strong back-air puts him out of business.
Beyond that, he severely suffers to the high-tiers. With Zero-Suit's insane combo game, speed and recovery, I'd think it'd be our worst Match-up, closely followed by Pikachu, for the same reasons. Sonic is definitely a tricky match-up, Fox and Mario as well, for their speed and combo potential, though the latter are more easily succumbed to Cloud's stage control strategy.
The problem everyone has with Cloud is how different he plays than most Sword characters. Unlike Marth's guerilla warfare, Ike's "Ganon with a sword" tactic and Roy's semi-combo style, Cloud plays a lot more like Melee Marth, with a high-risk, high-reward spacing game that relies completely on stage control. Clouds win when it's hard for you to get center stage. That's why we do well against projectile, and defensive characters. Remember, center stage is as far from the Blast Zone as you can get. A character that keeps Cloud on the edge, or in hitstun is a character that beats Cloud.

Ike is NOT Ganon with a sword! He's just too muscular

 

[(F^3) LOZO]

Personally I think is a bad matchup for . Mostly because he can get cloud off stage so easily while having no trouble getting back on himself. He can also drag cloud down with his back air which is trouble for cloud, and can avoid cloud's range because of his great aerial mobility. Also his down tilt can edgeguard cloud really well.

 

[Megamang]

In case anyone missed it, m2k's Cloud just lost to Scatt's Megaman. Commentators said that m2k said it was a bad MU for Cloud. Scatt certainly made it look that way. And as much as I love watching Scatt and think he is very talented, I think we can definitely say that m2k has more general smash skill, though probably a lack of high level Megaman MU experience.

 

[GHNeko]

Yeah its because M2K doesn't have the MU EXP lol

 

[Megamang]

Well, I'd say every character has the ability to contest Cloud's game with strong rolls and shields in this game. Megaman can also have a leaf shield over his shield, and has great OOS with metal blade in hand... And also forces the approach, even though you have limit. Thats right, a megaman playing the MU right wont throw himself at you unsafely when you are charging limit! Also, he will pressure you with constant lemons, crash bombers, leaf shields, and sawblades (at various speeds and angles).

Nair can come at any time from pellet zoning, has a great hitbox, and sends you at a horrific angle. While Cloud can usually recover quickly from this, it racks on damage and a good megaman will take a strong position on stage. Bair and dair are solid tools for gimping Cloud, if mega has the time.

I'd argue that he is better off than most characters that have to fight Cloud, with his giant sword. For example, most characters lose out on their juggle game vs Cloud due to his dair demanding respect, but mega doesn't have to respect him at all. He's tall, so landing uair is decent on shield, and otherwise it juggles just fine... more than fine really, it does crazy damage and will trade with most things once its out, as it is seperate from megaman at this point.


TLDR Swords dont usually interact with projectiles well.