Early Mewtwo Matchup Thread

[Alias Tex]

From his time looking like a top tier threat pre-launch to opinions now being split on the extent of Mewtwo’s prowess, Mewtwo is in an ambiguous position. Let’s clear that up with some match-up discussion!

Spoiler: A few matchup impressions

First, let’s talk swordies - specifically marth/lucina. Thanks to better disjoints they can beat out most of our attacks in neutral. Nair works very well due to Mewtwo’s height. Shadow ball is probably one of Mewtwo’s only advantages in neutral, but it just isn’t spammable enough to make things even all by itself. While the swordies don’t have the farthest-reaching recoveries, their up-B hit boxes make them too safe to edgeguard unless they are really far off-stage. The space that their swords take up applies a lot of pressure on small stages especially, and without a larger stage such as PS2 it can feel like there isn’t enough room to operate. These feel like losing matchups to me (especially on WiFi) but I would like to hear how you guys deal with them.

I’m somewhat optimistic about the Peach matchup. On the ground Mewtwo obviously wins with downtilt and such, but even in the air I think that we have the tools that we need to deal with floating aerials. Back air seems to have enough of a disjoint to challenge a high float, and we can restrict Peach’s floating space with Shadow Balls. Mewtwo’s recovery is probably more safe against Peach than vice versa (especially if you mix up your Teleport timings to avoid a turnip drop). I’m not sure if it is a winning matchup but for now it feels very doable.

From the few Zeldas I have fought, this matchup seems pretty tough. With both sides having Teleport there won’t be much edgeguarding, while in the neutral Zelda has a plethora of high-priority moves to beat out tail attacks. Her neutral B seems to beat out our tilts and nullify shadow ball. Perhaps WiFi compounds the issues, but it feels like a struggle to try to keep up with Zelda.

Any thoughts on:
Ness?
Palutena?
Yoshi?
Simon?
Inkling?
Wario?
Wolf?
Greninja?
Picachu?
Pichu?

 

[meleebrawler]

From his time looking like a top tier threat pre-launch to opinions now being split on the extent of Mewtwo’s prowess, Mewtwo is in an ambiguous position. Let’s clear that up with some match-up discussion!

Spoiler: A few matchup impressions

First, let’s talk swordies - specifically marth/lucina. Thanks to better disjoints they can beat out most of our attacks in neutral. Nair works very well due to Mewtwo’s height. Shadow ball is probably one of Mewtwo’s only advantages in neutral, but it just isn’t spammable enough to make things even all by itself. While the swordies don’t have the farthest-reaching recoveries, their up-B hit boxes make them too safe to edgeguard unless they are really far off-stage. The space that their swords take up applies a lot of pressure on small stages especially, and without a larger stage such as PS2 it can feel like there isn’t enough room to operate. These feel like losing matchups to me (especially on WiFi) but I would like to hear how you guys deal with them.

I’m somewhat optimistic about the Peach matchup. On the ground Mewtwo obviously wins with downtilt and such, but even in the air I think that we have the tools that we need to deal with floating aerials. Back air seems to have enough of a disjoint to challenge a high float, and we can restrict Peach’s floating space with Shadow Balls. Mewtwo’s recovers is probably more safe against Peach than vice versa (especially if you mix up your Teleport timings to avoid a turnip drop). I’m not sure if it is a winning matchup but for now it feels very doable.

From the few Zeldas I have fought, this matchup seems pretty tough. With both sides having Teleport there won’t be much edgeguarding, while in the neutral Zelda has a plethora of high-priority moves to beat out tail attacks. Her neutral B seems to beat out our tilts and nullify shadow ball. Perhaps WiFi compounds the issues, but it feels like a struggle to try to keep up with Zelda.

Any thoughts on:
Ness?
Palutena?
Yoshi?
Simon?
Inkling?
Wario?
Wolf?
Greninja?
Picachu?
Pichu?

What needs to be realized is that Mewtwo is both a super fast dasher and lowers his profile somewhat. If you see Lucina or another swordsman jumping (and they will, if they don't want to get hit by your shadow balls), you can slip under them to mess up their spacing and counterattack with an utilt or nair. And if they're spacing stuff fully on your shield, Confusion and Disable can have the range to punish them.

Zelda doesn't have great approaches. Try to bait her just outside of Nayru's range (and note their habits in how they use it so that you can punish. Usually after whiffing or having a move shielded), and always be ready for a Farore's outside of that.

That's the main thing to do when playing Mewtwo in most matchups: he's never been great at meeting foes head-on so he needs to outmaneuver or control them into doing what he wants instead. Sometimes that even means holding a charged shadow ball and not doing anything with it against those with tools to counter it, because it throws off their normal gameplan.

 

[Gileril]

I'm still not entirely able to disentangle characters I struggle with because of my own shortcomings and those I struggle with because of match-up. Also I largely skipped sm4sh, so I don't really have perspective on how Mewtwo has changed or what he classically did well against in that game. For reference, I'm currently sitting around 3.95 online with him.

I concur with the above poster's take on swordies. My baseline against them has some relatively simple tactics: quick step back into ftilt after they whiff || quick dash forward, claiming space under their shorthop, into utilt || jamming their hop with a quick fair. Like other characters that want to play a spacing game, they can get wrecked by disable on a pretty regular basis.

Zelda can be an easy match-up, or it can be a frustrating match-up. Going into it, remind yourself that a big part of the match will be staying vigilant for Zelda's up-b; if you properly dodge and shield almost all of these, you're probably going to win. Because of this, it's not really a match-up you can sleep on or autopilot. If you're being lazy, you're going to get up-b'd into oblivion, and it's going to feel pretty bad. You can also reflect her knight.

Inkling, remember to reflect their bombs.

The character's I struggle with (again, not sure which are just me) are:
Snake - hard for me to see a lot of his ordinance, and I don't know how it ever won't be the case.
Olimar - lots of his attacks look the same to me, does a ton of damage and kills early.
ZSS - Inexperienced fighting her and still not entirely sure how she works, very different from brawl version to me.
Electric rats - Not really sure, other than they just feel overtuned and win most exchanges. Seems like I only win out if I'm decisively better.
Occasionally a good camping/ledge grabbing Isabelle/Villager (frustrating) or a good Ken/Ryu (bad out of shield options).