Countering Cloud

[puff..jigglypuff]

Do any of you Cloud players have any advice for fighting against him. I seem to struggle with this match up more than any other from what I've saw so far, regardless of who I use.
I know he has bad recovery off stage so I aim for that, but I find it difficult enough to just hit him never mind knocking him off.

 

[DankChum]

Cloud is actually the character I have the most trouble dealing with in this game, but after long practice against him, these are my biggest tips for fighting him.
When facing cloud, you have to know where his hitboxes lie around his character (his nair is smaller than it looks) and space yourself away from them. I personally think zoners are the best choice when facing cloud because then he can't charge his limit consistently, and you have enough room to react if he decides to play aggressively. Juggling is harsh, but if your character has a teleport tool (shiek/zelda/greninja) you can use that to ground yourself easier.
If your character has a projectile, you don't need to worry about playing neutral as much. When going for hits, try and wait for mistakes on cloud's end. A missed dash attack is a great opportunity for punishing. Make sure to know your characters combos and only use true combos, because he can easily jab/nair out of strings.
When he's off-stage, using projectiles is key. If you are too close, he can take you with him using his up-B. Because his air speed is lackluster, more often than not he will try to recover from below, so a well timed pacman hydrant or similar does the job perfectly.
Who's your main? I would suggest Greninja, Wolf, and Pit with this match up.

 

[DelugeFGC]

Cloud is actually the character I have the most trouble dealing with in this game, but after long practice against him, these are my biggest tips for fighting him.
When facing cloud, you have to know where his hitboxes lie around his character (his nair is smaller than it looks) and space yourself away from them. I personally think zoners are the best choice when facing cloud because then he can't charge his limit consistently, and you have enough room to react if he decides to play aggressively. Juggling is harsh, but if your character has a teleport tool (shiek/zelda/greninja) you can use that to ground yourself easier.
If your character has a projectile, you don't need to worry about playing neutral as much. When going for hits, try and wait for mistakes on cloud's end. A missed dash attack is a great opportunity for punishing. Make sure to know your characters combos and only use true combos, because he can easily jab/nair out of strings.
When he's off-stage, using projectiles is key. If you are too close, he can take you with him using his up-B. Because his air speed is lackluster, more often than not he will try to recover from below, so a well timed pacman hydrant or similar does the job perfectly.
Who's your main? I would suggest Greninja, Wolf, and Pit with this match up.

Cloud has great air mobility, especially with Limit, unsure what you're speaking about. He falls fast, but that's about it. With limit he's one of the fastest if not THE fastest character in the air, and limit dash is 4th fastest in the game. Cloud has phenomenal mobility.

@OP, Cloud is extremely good in this game, high high tier to low top tier for sure. A lot of people look at his nerfs through a Smash 4 scope and assume a lot, but Cloud is a force in Ult. With limit his recovery is one of the best in the game, and considering he has a wall jump as long as he has his midair jump recovering is seldom hard if you know your opponent's edge guarding habits. Try to go for reads, FAir has quite a lot of start up AND endlag if not SH cancelled, as do all of his Smash attacks except for USmash and a outside of NAir and Jab he doesn't have a ton of options for getting out of disadvantage except for clutch side B's. Cloud has amazing range even post-nerf, so trying to outspace him is null. He also has a projectile of his own and can charge limit, so camping him isn't recommended either. Your best bet is trying to go for punishes off of reads, or baiting out some of his moves with more startup and/or endlag to punish those. Cloud is probably the 2nd best swordie in the game imo, countering him well will take patience and knowing the matchup.

 

[DankChum]

Cloud has great air mobility, especially with Limit, unsure what you're speaking about.

I was speaking as someone who frequently plays ness, G&W, and samus. My comment came from personal experience using him, but based on your mains/secondaries, cloud probably does have a better air speed. You did articulate what I was getting to better: his fall speed means he mostly recovers vertically. If you get cloud off-screen horizontally its very rare to see him make it back onstage.

On topic, after watching Maister vs TastyJawn live, i've come to see cloud a little differently. Tasty was playing him in the usual braindead fashion of repeating fair until range allowed cross-slash for easy %, but Maister had obviously had extensive matchup knowledge beforehand. He allowed both moves to wittle his shield, and timed his shield counter into ftilt or dash attack. This is the best way I have seen someone handle cloud yet, and Tasty never learned from his mistake, resulting in getting 3 stocked easily. Another interesting thing to note is that Maister used chef to stall his fair.
Here's the link to watch for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7em_GBAK44 (1:14 to 3:50)

 

[DelugeFGC]

Cloud making it back from further horizontal distances is largely dependent on if he has his jump or not, Limit obviously plays a big role as well.. as does stage choice because he can potentially save himself with wall jumps.

 

[Firox]

I'm a Greninja main, so I'm probably a little bias, but I gotta say, the ninja frog has so many tools for dealing with Cloud that it's not even funny. One of Cloud's biggest weaknesses is how telegraphed some of his moves can be swinging around that huge sword. If you get the timing down, you can substitute punish his fair, bair and dair for a solid kill around 90-100%. Also, you can hard punish his blade beam with shadow sneak and the ability to spam or charge shuriken makes it really hard for him to camp. Once he's offstage, you can shuriken gimp him, hydro gimp him, Substitute gimp him, Shadow sneak style on him, or even hit him with dair since he almost always tries to come up vertically at the ledge. Greninja's speed and dash attack combos are great for racking up damage and punishing whiffed attacks. Just be sure never to contest Cloud from directly above or below. You won't win. Instead, try to mix up your jumps or falls so that you can hit him from the side.

 

[DelugeFGC]

I actually find the Greninja vs. Cloud MU to be heavily in Cloud's favor if the person playing Cloud is at all familiar with said MU and knows what to do.

Any Cloud that can attack cancel RAR for BAir's or quick turnaround NAir's out of tilt cancels and stuff isn't going to give you the notion anything he does is 'telegraphed'. The only move he has with startup like this is FAir, which also has a disjointed hitbox the size of a small nation and can have most of its endlag cancelled upon landing, it also has several dunk confirms out of DTilt at side stage at middle %'s on some characters.

When Greninja plays Cloud's game (the neutral game), he loses. When he tries to camp Cloud, he loses. When he puts Cloud in disadvantage, if they aren't true hitstun combos then NAir is gonna make him again, lose. There isn't much favoring the frog in this MU. It doesn't help that a lot of Greninja player's I've been against at locals have always gotten super predictable with their counters, leading to easy read punishes. Even so, the Frog has a hell of a time.

Cloud can easily shut down a lot of his follow ups and combos via good DI and just tossing out an aerial, usually NAir. Cloud is always at an advantage in neutral against the Frog as Cloud's main focus is being a neutral character with heavy follow up pressure in disadvantage via juggling, then has dangerous edge guarding potential (2 framing Greninja's recovery with DAir is quite easy if he goes low, and FAir, BAir and NAir can make middle recovery near impossible, UAir making high recovery outright impossible.. this isn't even accounting for IF Cloud comes offstage, which he absolutely can) to boot. Cloud has some of the best pressure in the game, and he isn't slow. With Limit, his dash is actually the 4th fastest in the game I believe, and his aerial mobility with and without Limit is VERY good. He has both speed AND range, making what Greninja does a lot harder to accomplish in this MU.

 

[Firox]

I actually find the Greninja vs. Cloud MU to be heavily in Cloud's favor if the person playing Cloud is at all familiar with said MU and knows what to do.

Any Cloud that can attack cancel RAR for BAir's or quick turnaround NAir's out of tilt cancels and stuff isn't going to give you the notion anything he does is 'telegraphed'. The only move he has with startup like this is FAir, which also has a disjointed hitbox the size of a small nation and can have most of its endlag cancelled upon landing, it also has several dunk confirms out of DTilt at side stage at middle %'s on some characters.

When Greninja plays Cloud's game (the neutral game), he loses. When he tries to camp Cloud, he loses. When he puts Cloud in disadvantage, if they aren't true hitstun combos then NAir is gonna make him again, lose. There isn't much favoring the frog in this MU. It doesn't help that a lot of Greninja player's I've been against at locals have always gotten super predictable with their counters, leading to easy read punishes. Even so, the Frog has a hell of a time.

I can see the theoretics here, but I would also argue the level of skill being utilized by both characters. I won't deny your points on Cloud's advantages seeing as how Cloud is also one of my secondaries (lol that Fair seriously is the size of a small nation) but I also get the vibe that you haven't played a lot of truly dangerous Greninja's. To assume that Gren automatically loses the neutral is totally subjective. Not only is Gren's bair faster than Cloud's, but so is his dash attack. And if Cloud tries to apply pressure from the air, Gren's pivot grab is also the size of a small nation. Seriously have you seen that thing? Totally unrealistic, but hey. Also, how does Gren auto-lose the camping game? Cloud's blade beam is mind-numbingly slow compared to shuriken. I literally use attacks to punch them out of the air instead of even bothering to shield. When I play Wolf, I can nair straight through them and hit Cloud anyway.

My point is, Cloud is definitely a beast...in the right hands. And maybe Greninja isn't exactly what you'd call a straight up counter pick, but neither is he completely outclassed by Cloud either. It largely comes down to the players and how they read each other but I'm just explaining the tactics that have worked for me.

 

[DelugeFGC]

I'm basing this off of my own experience at tournaments and off of tournament results from the highest level players out there.

So skill has already been factored in. The frog loses the MU. One of my most frequent training partners and my former duo's partner is a Greninja main, I'm very familiar with the MU in general. Outside of that, there's several things JUST on paper that don't favor Greninja here. I'll admit I'd be more willing to concede a little if the MU wasn't so heavily in Cloud's favor, it's not really close to 'even' with one edging out the other. At higher level play, Cloud wins the MU and has an advantage. Doesn't mean Cloud has a free win, OR that he will win, just means the Greninja player will have to work a little harder.

Greninja is still a very good high-tier and I'm not dissing him, he just has a harder time than usual against Cloud. I'd call the MU 70 / 30 Cloud / Greninja. If you REALLY want to counterpick for Cloud, go for Lucina or Wolf. Lucina in particular gives Cloud absolute hell because she has speed, sword range (albeit less, but she has a fair bit more speed to compensate) AND power. Lucina can also fearlessly chase Cloud offstage to edge guard him in ways other characters can't because of how well she can make it back when going low.

Lucina is EASILY his worst MU, I'd say it's another 70/30 case if not 75/25.

 

[Firox]

I'm basing this off of my own experience at tournaments and off of tournament results from the highest level players out there.

So skill has already been factored in. The frog loses the MU. One of my most frequent training partners and my former duo's partner is a Greninja main, I'm very familiar with the MU in general. Outside of that, there's several things JUST on paper that don't favor Greninja here. I'll admit I'd be more willing to concede a little if the MU wasn't so heavily in Cloud's favor, it's not really close to 'even' with one edging out the other. At higher level play, Cloud wins the MU and has an advantage. Doesn't mean Cloud has a free win, OR that he will win, just means the Greninja player will have to work a little harder.

Greninja is still a very good high-tier and I'm not dissing him, he just has a harder time than usual against Cloud. I'd call the MU 70 / 30 Cloud / Greninja. If you REALLY want to counterpick for Cloud, go for Lucina or Wolf. Lucina in particular gives Cloud absolute hell because she has speed, sword range (albeit less, but she has a fair bit more speed to compensate) AND power. Lucina can also fearlessly chase Cloud offstage to edge guard him in ways other characters can't because of how well she can make it back when going low.

Then who would you claim to be an advantageous pick against the almighty Cloud?

EDIT: Whoops didn't see that you added more to your comment.

 

[DelugeFGC]

I edited my post, Lucina gives him an absolute hell of a time and Wolf doesn't do him any favors either.

Lucina just ****s on Cloud, it's his only truly abysmal MU. She has the sword range to challenge him offstage assisted by a great recovery, she has the speed to beat out a fair bit of his moves, she has the power to kill him.. she can simply play a lot of Cloud's game better than him. I'm not saying Cloud has NOTHING over her, but in general Cloud comes out on the bottom of that MU.

 

[Firox]

I edited my post, Lucina gives him an absolute hell of a time and Wolf doesn't do him any favors either.

Lucina just ****s on Cloud, it's his only truly abysmal MU.

To be fair, doesn't Lucina **** on pretty much everyone?

 

[DelugeFGC]

To be fair, doesn't Lucina **** on pretty much everyone?

There's a few characters that aren't terrible against Lucina in high-tier and MOST of top-tier is alright enough if not slightly disadvantaged against her.. but Cloud is by far one of the least fortunate in this tier range when up against her. She just plays his game better in most instances.

Wolf gives him a hell of a time too, as can Ike if the Ike is patient and knows how to play the spacing game well. Young Link is irritating as well.

 

[Firox]

There's a few characters that aren't terrible against Lucina in high-tier and MOST of top-tier is alright enough if not slightly disadvantaged against her.. but Cloud is by far one of the least fortunate in this tier range when up against her. She just plays his game better in most instances.

Wolf gives him a hell of a time too, as can Ike if the Ike is patient and knows how to play the spacing game well. Young Link is irritating as well.

I gotta say, if there's one character I would absolutely HATE to go up against, its a really good Link/Young Link. That spam into combo game is downright brutal in the right hands.

 

[DelugeFGC]

Young Link is on another spectrum to Link, not quite as good overall as him but still deadly in his own right because he's small, fast and has like 57 different ways to combo you out of stray boomerang or arrow hits before hitstun wears off so it's all true. I don't know why, but I can't do consistently well against YL with Cloud to save my life, but I can with Falcon and Shulk where I do pretty well. Toon Link I never have problems with and I usually don't do too poorly against Adult Link, but man YL due to how he's more rushdown focused and his projectiles all work as disgusting setups.. I just hate fighting him with some characters, Cloud included. If YL had more kill power he'd be a top tier imo.