Edge Guarding Procedures

[Mischief]

This threads purpose is to compile matchup specific edgeguard procedures and strategies for snake.

I wouldn't call snake a "great" edgeguarder, his arials have a ton of lag, he can't quickly get from one spot to another, and his offstage presence isn't exactly extraordinary. However, Snake can totally control the stage once your opponent is off it. Mines, C4, mortars, grenades all can cover a ton of options, so even if your enemy grabs ledge out of recovery there are very few safe places left on stage for them to go.

My current trouble I'm beginning to realize is how to deal with all of these options in specific matchups / edeguarding situations. Snake has so many options it seems hard to develop an optimized strategy. When is it smarter to say, drop a C4 past the ledge and detonate it as your opponent tries to grab it, as opposed to perhaps just grabbing ledge? When is it smart to try to cover a platform with a mortar as opposed to lobbing a grenade or perhaps laying a mine on it? When is it smart to wait on stage for your opponent versus say spacing backairs off stage to knock them away?

What specific strategies do you guys find useful for edgeguarding?

 

[Pr0fessor Flash]

It depends on what character if its a Space Animal I just put the C4 near the edge and I sometimes fake detonating it to make the player feel a little unconfortable or I use the down smash near the edge or I just go deep to fair them to death but they can meteor cancel it unlike 3.02.

 

[cisyphus]

I would say to do the following:
Set a c4 to cover the roll in
set a mine to cover standing getup
Position yourself to punish any other choice (usually on the ledge)

I'd have to test it in 3.5, but I'm pretty sure you can still regrab ledge after a ledge drop rising C4 detonation. Given the general recovery nerfs seen, this forces your opponent on stage and into whatever traps you've set, and if they somehow steal the ledge from you (or tether recovery over you) they'll still get punished hard for it. This also positions you to bair or dair them from the ledge. All of this is assuming that they're at a percent where the mine/C4 will KO, or you'll be able to combo off of the hit.

This setup is probably character dependent as well, so a common thing I've done as well—especially on platformed stages—is to cover the standing get-ups and missed sweetspots with the mine (placing it on the edge, essentially) and covering the platforms with a C4 while I wait at the tip of the roll length (the "safest" option in the opponent's mind) and punish with a fair/grab/bair/f-smash, etc).

You could theoretically combine these two methods into one as well: cover sweetspot with the mine, the roll in with C4, and the platform with your hitboxes. The problem here is the ability to act out of the ledge jump, as well as ledge drop double jump.

I don't see how mortars and grenades can really be used as anything but very situational edgeguard moves. DACUS to the edge of the stage is good for Marth, who likes to ride up stage walls to sweetspot: it'll pop him up where you can fair spike him (probably as a true combo). I suppose shielded grenades could work a little like Marth's counter does while edgeguarding spacies in Melee: if they have an active hitbox on their third jump that'll activate the grenade explosion, you can shield drop [wavedash grab] the grenade and set up for a combo that way too.

The idea with edgeguarding has always been to eliminate options from the opponent. You grab ledge vs. Sheik to force her into a laggy endlag animation that's easy to punish: she has no option but to do that (or airdodge in rare circumstances). Snake is the same way: if you can cover all of their options, you'll get the KO. Snake has the tools to do this, it's just a matter of execution. Some asides:

Wavedash all of your movements while doing this. Snake's wavedash is the perfect distance for setting up the above scenarios. Basically, after hitting them offstage:
1. Dash to the edge until you're about three wavedash lengths away
2. Stickywalk to turn yourself around
3. Quickly wavedash out of the stickywalk
4. C4 after the first wavedash
5a. Wavedash out of this, set mine
5b. gauge their distance: if you can charge the mine, CHARGE IT
6. Wavedash toward the ledge
7. If everything was executed well, you'll grab ledge just as your opponent is approaching it

Charging the mine is extremely effective because it makes the fear of it that much more present. Fully charged mines also KO ~35% earlier, so its scaling is massive.

The secondary method would look more like:
1. Dash to the edge until you're two wavedash lengths away
2. stickywalk, WD toward ledge
3. set mine, charging as needed
4. jump out of it, C4 the platform as you go
5. WD off the platform and grab ledge

The important thing here is to make sure that your C4 covers most of the platform (use debug mode to get this down pat) and to make sure the mine won't explode on you as you're falling to ledge (which is why you place it a WD length away). Refresh your invincibility and practice your aerials from ledge to get a good feel for what ways you can force your opponent into your mine. Also get acquainted with how to safely return to stage after all of this should your opponent avoid all of this. Know where to place mines so that you can roll through them (if they're covering the standing getup) or know how to detonate them safely with grenades or cypher, or just cypher over them and replace them.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

For Ike:

a) Put a C4 on the edge
b) Blow it up when he Aethers
c) Watch your opponent stomp his controller to pieces

There's also a couple of arrangements that Snake can use to really choke out Ike's recovery. DSmash on any platforms like Battlefield, PS2 or Smashville removes high recovery options. From there you can grab edge or face away preparing to bair and that'll cover most of Ike's QD options, especially now that QD attack had its range nerfed and hitting aerial QD attack still sends Ike into freefall. This only really leaves QD wall-jump off the edge as a mixup on non-walled stages, but that doesn't work when Ike is coming back from very far.

Basically coming back to the stage v/s Snake makes me cry more than trying to do so against Sheik so congratulations because I didn't think that was possible.

 

[cisyphus]

This isn't Lordy, is it? Thought his name was LordHelmet, and he plays Ike soooo. But yeah! That's all really useful information that should help to break Lordy's dominance of Michigan PM.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

This isn't Lordy, is it? Thought his name was LordHelmet, and he plays Ike soooo. But yeah! That's all really useful information that should help to break Lordy's dominance of Michigan PM.

I am so changing my name to Thane on here

 

[cisyphus]

Hahaha, might be a good idea. I would like to hear more on the Ike matchup sometime though. Lordy's been a brickwall that I can't break down whatsoever so far, even though it feels like Snake should have a relatively even matchup against Ike.