Dealing with Ganoncide and Ganon in general

[c4ll me co4ch]

I feel like, on paper, Jiggly wins this matchup easily.

In practice, however, it feels like I'm walking through a minefield. In neutral, it's so nerve-wracking as it feels like an fsmash kills from 0% and any whiff may be a stock on my end. Yea he's slow so it feels like it shouldn't be a problem, but hitting him does mean I have to get in his happy zone.

In the air, which is supposed to be our specialty, it feels like going offstage is almost never worth it if stocks are tied/we're behind, as ganoncide is a win for him (we kill easily so it puts even more pressure on us to play perfectly), so we basically have to let him back on the stage, meaning we give him even more chances to tack on damage/get that one hit he needs.

So yea, maybe the matchup is much more in favor of ganon than I acknowledge? But otherwise it feels like maybe there's something conceptually i'm missing.

 

[TheDankbanker]

I play against local a Ganondorf quite a bit, so these are words from someone who has only faced one play style.

In my experience, for most characters (especially with hard hitters like Ganondorf) Jigglypuff must play defensively as she gets zoned out easily. Jiggly is a very antagonizing character because of her agility in the air. If you hover have hang out just outside of Ganondorf's immediate range, sometimes you can get them to commit to a powerful move with ton of endlag (In Ganondorf's case, about half of his ground-based moves). If this happens you have to take advantage and punish accordingly.

As for the Ganoncide, there are two methods that you can do. Firstly, don't approach from the side, either run off the stage without jumping to attack from below him for jump and engage from above. If you are feeling really lucky you can try to get him to use his flame choke only to fast fall below the grab range or use one of your many jumps to get just above it. Secondly, neutral air. If my memory serves my right, Jigglypuff's n-air will out prioritize both Ganon's Up-b and side-b. Ganondorf's recovery may have been improved in this game, but he is far from having a good one. It doesn't take much to gimp his recovery and put him out of range of the ledge, most of the times the n-air will do the trick, and if it doesn't just rinse and repeat.

If someone can confirm the n-air priority for me, I would appreciate it.

 

[Burruni]

I play against local a Ganondorf quite a bit, so these are words from someone who has only faced one play style.

In my experience, for most characters (especially with hard hitters like Ganondorf) Jigglypuff must play defensively as she gets zoned out easily. Jiggly is a very antagonizing character because of her agility in the air. If you hover have hang out just outside of Ganondorf's immediate range, sometimes you can get them to commit to a powerful move with ton of endlag (In Ganondorf's case, about half of his ground-based moves). If this happens you have to take advantage and punish accordingly.

As for the Ganoncide, there are two methods that you can do. Firstly, don't approach from the side, either run off the stage without jumping to attack from below him for jump and engage from above. If you are feeling really lucky you can try to get him to use his flame choke only to fast fall below the grab range or use one of your many jumps to get just above it. Secondly, neutral air. If my memory serves my right, Jigglypuff's n-air will out prioritize both Ganon's Up-b and side-b. Ganondorf's recovery may have been improved in this game, but he is far from having a good one. It doesn't take much to gimp his recovery and put him out of range of the ledge, most of the times the n-air will do the trick, and if it doesn't just rinse and repeat.

If someone can confirm the n-air priority for me, I would appreciate it.

N-Air beats out Up+B in between the two major hits of it at the beginning and end but not DURING those two. For Side+B, I'm pretty sure it beats out all of our aerials directly but can be knocked out of by getting him with D+Air from above. Just come out of it away from the stage to avoid the subsequent Up+B.

Generally, Ganon is a matter of being evasive and getting chains off of his heavy weight when he whiffs a long endlag move. If they dare go for a warlock punch, you can beat it out with just running up to grab. In general, Ganon's one of the easiest Rest targets but watch out for the super armor he has on Warlock Punch because it WILL eat Rest and it WILL kill you in return.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Ganon main here. Vs Jiggs is even. Jiggs wants to edgeguard Ganon with N-air/D-air and can do so easily if Ganon wastes his midair jump at a bad time. However Ganondorf's risk/reward in neutral is generally superior when he can cover most of Jigglypuff's options with N-air and D-tilt. It is in Jigglypuff's best interest to try to force Ganon to guess whether she will attack from the ground or the air, and focus on getting him offstage.

Most of Ganon's matchups are about even in this game, frankly.

 

[drakeirving]

In the air, which is supposed to be our specialty, it feels like going offstage is almost never worth it if stocks are tied/we're behind, as ganoncide is a win for him (we kill easily so it puts even more pressure on us to play perfectly), so we basically have to let him back on the stage, meaning we give him even more chances to tack on damage/get that one hit he needs.

Airdodging exists? You don't want to try and fair string because sure, then you'll get wrecked by a Ganoncide, but this basically shouldn't happen. If you're putting yourself in an offstage scenario where you're in front of him and couldn't react to a potential sideB attempt you're doing it wrong. This is literally the only thing Ganondorf can do at a range and any player (that isn't underestimating you) isn't going to go for it because if they fail they're dead. Just wait outside of close range and falling nair or dair when they're forced to recover from below.

run off the stage without jumping to attack from below him

Slow down there; even though we're Jiggs, his dair still exists.

he can cover most of Jigglypuff's options with N-air and D-tilt.

Dtilt is awesome but I'm pretty certain you're greatly overestimating nair's usefulness at batting away Jigglypuff.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Dtilt is awesome but I'm pretty certain you're greatly overestimating nair's usefulness at batting away Jigglypuff.

N-air doesn't have much landing lag. Frame 7, lingers, and has massive range. Trades with Pound, and often beats Jiggs other aerials head on. Dunno why you're underestimating Ganon's N-air.

 

[drakeirving]

I agree it does come out fast, and the hitboxes are nice, but that isn't the issue, I think. It's more that Jiggs shouldn't be trying to challenge it or anything of the sort and should respect that space. It really doesn't matter if you can't punish it easily (which to be clear is entirely due to the long hitbox, 22 frames is enough for Jiggs to punish well) since that isn't a move to go throw yourself at in most cases. Especially since most nair use seems to be high enough to autocancel anyways. Ganondorf has significantly less horizontal aerial momentum, so at best it's used on your side to keep distance (in the neutral, at least), and that's fine. But with proper spacing (and reading) Jiggs can still get close to a nair and punish its endlag and/or next jump, just because our aerial momentum is that much better. Being right underneath an airborne Ganondorf is a good opening too. I'm just saying that "covering all most of our options" is a stretch when we shouldn't be trying to straight-up aggro to begin with.

Can you point me towards some Gungnir vids or something that demonstrate its use effectively? I've seen it work well against some players, but generally I don't end up being satisfied because we're both punish-heavy characters and a lot of play ends up being dominated by punishing a player that lets themselves get punished a lot, which doesn't really help much.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Most of the Japanese Ganons I've seen for some odd reason don't like to N-air much even though it's such an easy response to several of Jiggs' air AND ground options. Frankly, I don't understand their decisions for this specific matchup. Gungnir from what little I've observed has perfect reactions for U-air out of shield, but even he for some strange reason uses N-air very little in this matchup last I checked.

Generally speaking the way I see the matchup, Jigglypuff spends a lot of time trying to retreat bait if there is stage space or get in with Dash attack/Dash grab which conveniently enough usually get her under most of Ganon's high hitting aerials. Most of them EXCEPT N-air, which is why it's such a good option in this matchup. While N-air is primarily a good anti-air, ground baiting is much weaker against Ganon's N-air than most of other Ganon's aerials, which generally speaking means Jiggs has to guess and take a risk to break Ganon's zoning. Also, there's more than one way for Ganon to space N-air reactively. He can either do a rising SH/FH N-air, SHFF N-air, FHAD -> N-air, and FH U-air -> N-air, all of which cover different options, but unlike spacing most of other Ganon's aerials, don't leave him extremely vulnerable to Jiggs ground punishes for the most part. While Ganon isn't in a position to be sent offstage, this gives him a lot of stage control in this matchup when mixed in with empty movements given Jiggs has almost no fail-safe way to contest N-air like she does with any of Ganon's other moves, aside from just trying to get him to whiff it.

The main reason the matchup isn't clearly in Ganon's favor is mostly because Jigglypuff has a strong edgeguard game on him, so with customs like WDK and Dark Fists, the matchup then swings fairly heavily in Ganon's favor when she loses most of her viable gimp game on him. Neutral is in Ganon's favor when the general hitbox exchanges put the risk/reward in Ganon's favor.

 

[CHOVI]

I don't find Ganon too troublesome. I mean, he's strong, but still among the easiest to gimp characters (just hit him out of side B with nair when he tries to Ganoncide). I guess the key's to play defensively (like in most matchups, but maybe a little more)

 

[drakeirving]

Generally speaking the way I see the matchup, Jigglypuff spends a lot of time trying to retreat bait if there is stage space or get in with Dash attack/Dash grab which conveniently enough usually get her under most of Ganon's high hitting aerials. Most of them EXCEPT N-air, which is why it's such a good option in this matchup. While N-air is primarily a good anti-air, ground baiting is much weaker against Ganon's N-air than most of other Ganon's aerials, which generally speaking means Jiggs has to guess and take a risk to break Ganon's zoning. Also, there's more than one way for Ganon to space N-air reactively. He can either do a rising SH/FH N-air, SHFF N-air, FHAD -> N-air, and FH U-air -> N-air, all of which cover different options, but unlike spacing most of other Ganon's aerials, don't leave him extremely vulnerable to Jiggs ground punishes for the most part. While Ganon isn't in a position to be sent offstage, this gives him a lot of stage control in this matchup when mixed in with empty movements given Jiggs has almost no fail-safe way to contest N-air like she does with any of Ganon's other moves, aside from just trying to get him to whiff it.

I pretty much agree with this, although in my opinion Jigglypuff has a good mixup for this in running up and shield (given good spacing). Ganon himself has to have good mixups in order to catch the possibility of using shield if he's choosing to swat away with aerials, since when close most of Ganon's moves aren't tight enough to prevent us popping out with a nair or shield grab (or Rest), especially if we can get in there when you decide to go for a laggier option like a falling nair. Yeah, I definitely realize that Ganon's nair with how long it lasts is good for using at any point in the jump, which makes it a very good tool, but we can't pretend that an opponent can be shut out just by having decent coverage options (not that I'm saying you think like this).

I haven't been able to fight many really decent Ganons, unfortunately -- it's really something FG has where there seems to be tons of them, but not many good ones (even if you end up losing). Nearly all of the decent ones can be identified by the use of backwards uair; it's pretty silly.

 

[TheDankbanker]

Time to eat my words.

Jigglypuff's nair will knock ganondorf out of his up-b, still not exactly sure about his flame choke though. I can say that jigglypuff's side-b will however (whether this is a viable option offstage is beyond me, I'm not exactly the greatest Jigglypuff of all time forever).

Slow down there; even though we're Jiggs, his dair still exists.

Thank you for reminding me of this Drake. As I said, I've only played against one Ganondorf so this may be an isolated instance. In my matches with my friend, he never uses ganondorf's dair while he is recovering from getting hit off stage. I haven't played enough Ganondorf to know if there is enough time to use a dair deep offstage and still have enough distance to recover. But just disregard the fact that I said getting below him is a good technique.

If I can say one of the most uncontroversial things ever, I would repeat the fact that Jigglypuff still out speeds Ganondorf in the air, both horizontally and vertically. Combine that with the advantage that we have against a recovering character, and the advantage of ganondorf's recovery being subpar, Jigglypuff has quite the potential to polish off a stock. Trying to bait him into a flame choke that he can't connect with still is a option. Either that or force him to recover low with his up-b and nair him to death.