Does anyone win the sheik matchup?

[Spurgislikeabos]

It seems to me that sheik wins every matchup. Is there anyone that beats her?

 

[ARGHETH]

This should probably go on the Character Competitive Impressions thread or the Shiek boards.
Anyways, the short answer is no. The long answer is that there are characters that people think go even with Shiek, but not many people claim their characters outright beat her, even by 55-45.

 

[AnchorTea]

With proper stage control and good reflexes, yes.

 

[Tenretsujin10]

People will always complain about this. Just player better than your opponent, Sheik is amazing and all but people act like they can't "outplay" her.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

People will always complain about this. Just player better than your opponent, Sheik is amazing and all but people act like they can't "outplay" her.

Unless she has perfect 50:50 spreads, I would think that a lack of losing matchups indicates that she could stand to be toned down.

 

[Eggggggggggbert]

People will always complain about this. Just player better than your opponent, Sheik is amazing and all but people act like they can't "outplay" her.

The concept of matchups supports the idea of each person is equally competent. Its to see whether characters can stand against each other supported by objective reasoning, then the players' skill can be calculated into that afterwards. For example, there can be a good donkey kong player, but they may lose to shiek who is slightly worse just because shiek is that much objectively better. Of course some people are so good in general, they could beat the majority of high tiers with a low tier.

You can beat anyone with any character if you're that much better but there is truth behind shiek just being a very good character with a lot of options in all situations, a lot more options than most characters.

 

[TobiasXK]

People will always complain about this. Just player better than your opponent, Sheik is amazing and all but people act like they can't "outplay" her.

this attitude is good to have as a competitor, honestly, but it doesn't invalidate complaints of imbalance. obviously if the skill gap between you and your opponent is big enough you'll win any matchup, but people are concerned with the situations where they're just as good as their opponent but will still lose a majority due to characters. and i mean that's a thing that you can't really do much about since it'll never be perfectly balanced. but ideally, there's some attempt on the development side to limit that effect.

 

[Ghostbone]

Unless she has perfect 50:50 spreads, I would think that a lack of losing matchups indicates that she could stand to be toned down.

We don't know if she has losing matchups because we haven't had that long to play against her, and the community is babied by patches so people aren't working as hard to overcome the top tiers.

Iirc, results say Sonic wins the matchup, while Mario and Mii brawler are also contenders for going even or better. (and ZSS goes very close to even)

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I don't think it's that uncommon for the best character in a game to lack negative matchups. As long as even matchups exist it's not gonna be a problem. Right now Diddy Kong, Sonic and Fox are among the characters that are being talked about due to favorable results agains Sheik. There are plenty of unexplored characters left as well.

 

[TheHypnotoad]

We don't know if she has losing matchups because we haven't had that long to play against her, and the community is babied by patches so people aren't working as hard to overcome the top tiers.

Iirc, results say Sonic wins the matchup, while Mario and Mii brawler are also contenders for going even or better. (and ZSS goes very close to even)

Nairo has said that Sheik definitely wins the ZSS matchup.

 

[Ghostbone]

Nairo has said that Sheik definitely wins the ZSS matchup.

Does Nairo lose to any Sheiks besides Zero?
Not saying he's wrong, but I'm not sure what the evidence behind that is.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Does Nairo lose to any Sheiks besides Zero?
Not saying he's wrong, but I'm not sure what the evidence behind that is.

Apart from Zero beating Nairo there's also Rain who has a winning record against Choco.

 

[TheHypnotoad]

Does Nairo lose to any Sheiks besides Zero?
Not saying he's wrong, but I'm not sure what the evidence behind that is.

Nairo is arguably the second best player in the U.S., he could beat most players regardless of the matchup. I trust his opinion on ZSS's matchups considering he's the best ZSS player in the world as well.

 

[Purin a.k.a. José]

Anyone can win to Sheik if the player is good enough!!!

 

[Kaladin]

Anyone can win to Sheik if the player is good enough!!!

You're so right. I bet Nairo's Robin MIGHT be able to take a game off my 6 y/o sister's Sheik if he's on his game.

Kappa

 

[webbedspace]

@DunnoBro insists that Giant Gunman Duck Hunt beats Sheik soundly (bye bye needles), but unfortunately everyone wants to ban it for some reason.

 

[ArikadoSD]

Meta Knight, Pikachu, Kirby, Lucario, and more arguably Rosalina and Jigglypuff (although admittedly Jiggs is more theory than it is actual experience against it) all have a slight advantage in 55:45 against Sheik imo. At the very worst they go even. Lucario might even go far in having an advantage against Sheik.

There are a lot of characters that can hold their own against Sheik and I can provide examples, proof, and am willing to argue about it, it's just that people decide to look at the plenty of matchups that she dominates at instead of the ones that she can be shut down in, but I honestly think that's normal considering she's literally the best character and for a reason.

I will get called biased and I don't mind that but that's what I believe is the truth.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Meta Knight, Pikachu, Kirby, Lucario, and more arguably Rosalina and Jigglypuff (although admittedly Jiggs is more theory than it is actual experience against it) all have a slight advantage in 55:45 against Sheik imo. At the very worst they go even. Lucario might even go far in having an advantage against Sheik.

There are a lot of characters that can hold their own against Sheik and I can provide examples, proof, and willing to argue about it, it's just that people decide to look at the plenty of matchups that she dominates at instead of the ones that she can be shut down in, but I honestly think that's normal considering she's literally the best character and for a reason.

I will get called biased and I don't mind that but that's what I believe is the truth.

Rosalina doesn't beat sheik

 

[Purin a.k.a. José]

You're so right. I bet Nairo's Robin MIGHT be able to take a game off my 6 y/o sister's Sheik if he's on his game.

Kappa

どうもありがとうございます！
Seriously, Sheik may be a tad broken powerful, but I think her weaknesses can be figured out if the opponent is ZeRo smart enough. It's not like her attacks aren't easy to overcome; her F-Air, a living pattern among Sheik players, is starting to become a little unfair! obvious. Not like the attack is bad; but we can be smart enough and defeat her!
Did I sound rude? It wasn't my intention, surely ^_^

 

[Dr. Bread]

Customs rosalina can probably beat sheik. luma can eat needles so that is one huge advantage in the matchup as well.

Luigi is pretty much good against sheik until he's off-stage as fas as i know.

the problem with sheik is partially in her versatility. you can beat her aggressive play by trading hits with her, as the weak 4% damage from f-air isn't going to go very far, but can your character then deal with needle camping too? If you can do both of these things, then your character has a decent shot at beating a sheik.

edit: if they have a bad recovery, they are liable to get rekt regardless of these things, if sheik wins neutral then she is almost guaranteed to get you off-stage, and sheik is one of the characters that can safely edge-gaurd off stage.0

 

[Joeyd123]

Customs rosalina can probably beat sheik. luma can eat needles so that is one huge advantage in the matchup as well.

Luigi is pretty much good against sheik until he's off-stage as fas as i know.

the problem with sheik is partially in her versatility. you can beat her aggressive play by trading hits with her, as the weak 4% damage from f-air isn't going to go very far, but can your character then deal with needle camping too? If you can do both of these things, then your character has a decent shot at beating a sheik.

edit: if they have a bad recovery, they are liable to get rekt regardless of these things, if sheik wins neutral then she is almost guaranteed to get you off-stage, and sheik is one of the characters that can safely edge-gaurd off stage.0

Luigi doesn't beat Sheik m8. My two mains are Luigi and Sheik. And Luigi can easily be needle camped by Sheik due to his lack of mobility and the range of his fireball. Not to mention how easily he can be gimped.

 

[kenniky]

Sheik goes even with Sheik. :^)

In all seriousness though, the only other character I can see being close to even with Sheik is Lucario.

 

[Raijinken]

The best matchup against Sheik is Sheik. You get an epic 50/50 that way if you're just that good.

 

[Dr. Bread]

sheik dittos is hell. i haven't seen one since apex but they're probably even slower now that back-air doesn't kill.

word on the street is that mario can fight sheik, i would expect it to be sheik's favor but... yknow its not a strictly one-sided matchup. or so they say i dont play mario and i dont know any sheik mains so im not speaking from personal experience.

anyone looked at lucas versus sheik?

 

[WondrousMoose]

sheik dittos is hell. i haven't seen one since apex but they're probably even slower now that back-air doesn't kill.

word on the street is that mario can fight sheik, i would expect it to be sheik's favor but... yknow its not a strictly one-sided matchup. or so they say i dont play mario and i dont know any sheik mains so im not speaking from personal experience.

anyone looked at lucas versus sheik?

Sheik ditto slow? I've definitely never felt that way. In my opinion, it's one of the more exciting matchups in the game.

 

[ArikadoSD]

Sheik dittos can either go really slow with both Sheiks camping and being unable to kill, or really fast. it's weird.

 

[Illuminose]

Lucario is the only character that truly wins the Sheik matchup I think. It's just by design, if you can't get consistent kills (which is a bit hard for Sheik) then Lucario can kill you stupidly early. This is balanced by the fact that Sheik takes a dump on Lucario's neutral and pretty much autowins if you can close out the first stock within a reasonable amount of time. I think it's a bit of a disadvantage, probably 45:55 because of aura cheese but it's very doable. Maybe 40:60 depending on your perspective as Lucario has more intrinsic tools to deal with Sheik than most characters.

Sheik does have a bunch of matchups that are either even or 55:45, which means super doable. I don't really agree with Arikado (as I've said), but I think he brings up some legitimate points. For one you can do the ditto, which doesn't really count as an option if you don't want to play Sheik, but it's there. Meta Knight, Pikachu, and Kirby have pretty roughly even matchups overall. Mario probably as well. Other characters like Fox, Diddy Kong, Rosalina, Yoshi can definitely do it. I think Sheik slightly wins those matchups, but they're no worse than 55:45 for those characters if not potentially even (doubt that though). Customs Pikachu probably slightly beats Sheik (45:55) and Brawler does pretty good as well. Customs Rosalina is even. There's plenty of character options to contend with Sheik.

 

[Dr. Bread]

Lucario is the only character that truly wins the Sheik matchup I think. It's just by design, if you can't get consistent kills (which is a bit hard for Sheik) then Lucario can kill you stupidly early. This is balanced by the fact that Sheik takes a dump on Lucario's neutral and pretty much autowins if you can close out the first stock within a reasonable amount of time. I think it's a bit of a disadvantage, probably 45:55 because of aura cheese but it's very doable. Maybe 40:60 depending on your perspective as Lucario has more intrinsic tools to deal with Sheik than most characters.

Sheik does have a bunch of matchups that are either even or 55:45, which means super doable. I don't really agree with Arikado (as I've said), but I think he brings up some legitimate points. For one you can do the ditto, which doesn't really count as an option if you don't want to play Sheik, but it's there. Meta Knight, Pikachu, and Kirby have pretty roughly even matchups overall. Mario probably as well. Other characters like Fox, Diddy Kong, Rosalina, Yoshi can definitely do it. I think Sheik slightly wins those matchups, but they're no worse than 55:45 for those characters if not potentially even (doubt that though). Customs Pikachu probably slightly beats Sheik (45:55) and Brawler does pretty good as well. Customs Rosalina is even. There's plenty of character options to contend with Sheik.

not sure about what you say for lucario
its actually surprisingly easy to hit lucario out of extremespeed since... its ironically got a lot of startup for a move that in pokemon has +2 priority. but yeah you can pretty much hit lucario out of this recovery every time... like the timing window isn't huge but... yknow its not small either and its got no hitbox so like yeah you dont want to give lucario aura and sheik will basically never gimp lucario... i'd have to look at it but i have a feeling that this matchup isn't entirely that good for lucario... might be a person-to-person basis.

 

[BlastHappyNinja]

Believe it or not, Mario does pretty decently against Sheik. Given their similar frame data (if I recall, they're tied for second best only behind Luigi, but feel free to correct me on that if I'm wrong) one of Mario's only weaknesses against her seems to be his range. I constantly play against a PR rushdown Mario and I guess I should consider myself lucky that I get to do that but holy crud Mario's kit. His UpB can get him out of a lot of combos and he also has a frame 3 Nair. It's quick to shut down some of Sheik's combos. Again, similar frame data allows him to do that. Give or take my opinion as you will, I'm not really a well-known player, I just play against a somewhat known PR Mario, lol.

 

[stancosmos]

Does Nairo lose to any Sheiks besides Zero?
Not saying he's wrong, but I'm not sure what the evidence behind that is.

ZSS doesn't really have an answer to needle camping, also Sheik can duck under ZSS's gun and a lot of her normals. Beyond that, just better frame data.

 

[Dr. Bread]

ZSS may not have an answer to needle-camping but at the same time... her strengths dont seem to lie in trying to out-camp, so a sheik wont need to use needles to force an approach, which in case anyone has forgotten, is... kinda the main reason for needles.

I dont exactly know the matchup by experience, but i would reason that the main weakness is that very little of sheik's moveset has enough lag to be punished by zss's slow tether-grab. If zss had a normal grab, it would be a much easier matchup.

 

[Danimal197]

Most match-ups for sheik come down to whether or not you can overcome the sheik's spacing. People focus too much on beating characters and not enough on beating players.

Many are saying that this is irrelevant to the issue of whether or not she should be nerfed, but I disagree. If her strengths were so polarizing as to provide players with a low amount of practice and skill to consistently beat or go even with players much more practiced and skilled, it would obviously indicate her imbalance was game breaking. In reality,this simply isn't the case. The better question might be, are consistent balance patches actually a good thing for a competitive community's long-term health? Starcraft I and Melee both had/have very healthy long term competitive communities despite many many years without any change to the game itself. The metagame for this game is still so young.


Edit: Luigi is terrible against sheik. He literally has 0 good options against her.

 

[Tenretsujin10]

Welp, yeah....

 

[Conet]

Lucario wins.

 

[Man of shame]

Sakurai wins the match up

 

[Project Crysis]

Lucario wins.

That's kind of false due to sheik's movement and neutral game it makes it kind of hard for lucario to get in let alone land a kill move, but I think he stands a chance more than other characters

 

[Dr. Bread]

That's kind of false due to sheik's movement and neutral game it makes it kind of hard for lucario to get in let alone land a kill move, but I think he stands a chance more than other characters

doesn't sheik have a pretty easy time landing bouncing fish on a lucario using extremespeed? like its fast obviously but there's a pretty long pause before he uses it... not sure how much potential there is for recovery mixups on lucario

 

[Paxadin]

I've seen people mention on the Kirby board pretty consistently that Kirby has either 50:50 or a slight advantage against Sheik.
Kirby can duck to evade needles and a couple of attacks, and trade pretty well.
We'd need a person from the Kirby boards better at explaining to do it for me.

 

[ArikadoSD]

@ Dr. Bread @ Project Crysis you guys are extremely underrating Lucario and sleeping on him. It's not easy to challenge Lucario's recovery, that 'long pause' is actually probably less than a second and extremely hard to react to, and by the time you do he would often already have initiated Extreme Speed and if he landed on stage then he would go unpunished because you tried to punish its startup.

Also Lucario does have a bad neutral.. but he also has the ability to kill Sheik with as simple as bair/side b/fully charged aura sphere. One read or one mistake/punish is all it takes for Lucario to take a stock. Sheik either times out or gets lucky to land a kill setup near the ledge at ~100% or she loses, especially if the Lucario player is clever and bans stages like FD.

 

[Dr. Bread]

@ Dr. Bread @ Project Crysis you guys are extremely underrating Lucario and sleeping on him. It's not easy to challenge Lucario's recovery, that 'long pause' is actually probably less than a second and extremely hard to react to, and by the time you do he would often already have initiated Extreme Speed and if he landed on stage then he would go unpunished because you tried to punish its startup.

Also Lucario does have a bad neutral.. but he also has the ability to kill Sheik with as simple as bair/side b/fully charged aura sphere. One read or one mistake/punish is all it takes for Lucario to take a stock. Sheik either times out or gets lucky to land a kill setup near the ledge at ~100% or she loses, especially if the Lucario player is clever and bans stages like FD.

it is slightly less than a second but thats not exactly hard to react to, a second is a very long time in fighting game terms, smash being no exception.

unless there's potential for mixing up lucario's recovery, i'd say you could land b-fish pretty much every time as long as the player knows to go for it. Its not the easiest recovery to counter, but it should be pretty reliable, if only because there's no hitbox on that move until the very end.