OK, I'm kinda bored and have nothing to do so I'm gonna post some stuff on the dreaded ivysaur matchup, one of DK's worst matchups according to many. I beat a really good ivysaur in tourney yesterday! I was so happy because it is such a hard matchup, I thought I would need a secondary to win it lol. That's why I'm going to share what I did to try to help other DK's who are struggling v.s. Ivy, and I can reflect on my set as well and maybe learn something myself. I will not write too formally, but it will contain all the facts u need. I just won't take the time to organize it perfectly because it would take awhile.
Anyway, it went to game 3 and all matches were close. I won game 1 on battlefield, lost game 2 on dream land, and won game 3 on skyloft (GREAT counterpick for DK in many matchups by the way). I will go through what I did right and what I did wrong, as well as throw in other things from past experience. So it will basically tell you what to do and what not to do.
Game 1 on battlefield, my overall strategy was to stay back and avoid razor leaf(ivy's side b) until I found an opening. I would run in and out until razor leaf wasn't in the way and I could get a safe approach or punish. Razor leaf isn't much of an issue on battlefield, because you can just jump onto the platform above you and move around that way, trying to bait ivysaur to make a move and then punish.
It's important to be proficient at combos in this matchup since ivysaur will likely outplay you in neutral game, so I will list what worked for me in this matchup combo-wise. I found it relatively easy to combo ivysaur. When I finally got a hit after the patient spacing, it usually resulted in a long string of hits. Down throw works well on ivy at low percents like 0-20 ish, to follow up with another grab, shffl nair, or dash attack depending on DI. (I got him a couple times with down throw around 0%, regrab, cargo back throw quickly to mess up DI, into shffl up air and follow ups after the up air). Don't forget cargo up throw/f throw/b throw to fair, can be done at low % on ivy and still send her far off stage to lead to edgeguarding, which I will talk about next. One thing that helped me a TON, that will now be one of my bread and butter killers on floaty/light characters after being so successful with it yesterday, is standing cargo up throw to full jump/double jump up air when they are above 100%. I killed him three times in our three matches that way, and dream land in game 2 was a great counterpick on his part because it did not work on that stage due to the high ceiling, I should have anticipated that. That combo is good even if it won't kill, just because it is so unbelievably easy and there aren't many other ways to follow up a grab on floaty characters at that %. Lastly, shffl nairs EASILY string into each other at low percents on Ivysaur. Everything listed here is at least 90% of what I did combo wise in that set, and it resulted in me winning.
Edgeguarding Ivysaur is tricky, she appears so vulnerable but there are actually very few options in most scenarios. I will start off by saying I got gimped twice trying to edgeguard Ivysaur by going off stage. So in other words, rather safe than sorry. If you feel any doubt in edgeguarding her offstage in a certain recovery situation, it's better to just do your edgeguarding on stage. They have to get back eventually, so just dash dance around the edge/empty hop etc to bait her coming back on stage while she's on the ledge (just watch out for ledgehop fair or razor leaf). I recommend NOT trying to punish her tether by falling of the edge, since both times I tried that I got gimped by her nair after the hit. She has surprising vertical range on her up b, so she can do an aerial and fall pretty low while still making it back. If Ivysair uses her jump early, they could be close enough AND high enough where there isn't much risk in attempting a back air or two off stage. If this fails, resort to above edgeguarding strategy and wait it out.
For some reason, this may have been due to the opponent's playstyle, but I got an absurd amount of forward air hits after reads in this set. The Ivysaur would retreat when I attempted approaching(which I found out by running toward him/dash dancing/ empty hops) so I got him a couple time with run up and short hop fair/DK punch, anticipating where he WILL be (the end of the stage) instead of where he is. Ivysaur is also very floaty, so I found it easy to read a jump or ledge hop(like the above edgeguarding strategy) with a short hop fair, because Ivy stays in the air for so long when she short hops you can surprise fair them before they land. This whole paragraphs mainly comes down to reads though, it may not be too Ivysaur specific, but it worked in this set. Fair kills so early on light characters which is why it helps to be able to land it, DK punch as well.
Last thing that's EXTREMELY important to know, instead of finding out the hard way, is recovering high will be the better option 95% of the time. I recovered high almost every time. The ONLY time I remember recovering low was in my last stock in game 2, when we both had very high percent and I thought he would predict me recovering high, since it is what I did EVERY other time, but he was smart and reacted instead of predicted. When I was in the middle of up b, he just ran to the edge and down smashed and it was over. I instantly learned my lesson to not recover low against Ivysaur unless for some reason they are not near the ledge after a trade or something. If you recover low, Ivysaur can literally back air you every time you get to the edge with ease, and repeat infinitely until you finally die. So just use your double jump rather early if you get sent far off stage, and use your up B at a time/position where you have multiple options and the opponent will often have to read you in order to hit you. Also, use the up B at a time/position where u don't think they can hit you with back air.
This matchup is somewhere between 70/30 and 60/40 in Ivysaurs favor, in my opinion. Before yesterday, I thought it was 70/30, but I think it could feel like a 60/40 matchup or better with a little Ivy experience. Matchup inexperience makes many characters seem broken in PM, hence the "link is overpowered" johns by many players who lose to him. lol
And that's about it
hope it helps, it even helped me by writing about it.
