Edgeguarding spacies

[BrTarolg]

One thing that has come into my mind recently is how people go about edgeguarding/gimping spacies

I realise there are tons of situations but in a lot of cases it should be quite flowchart no?

The interesting thing is i've seen a lot of different sheiks take different approaches with varying amounts of success/failure

Some sheiks will needle obsessively from the stage to get their opponent below the stage and then follow with a ??? follow up, and some sheiks are very "yolo" and will jump out and try to cover illusions/fire with dj nairs and well spaced bairs/slaps

Ive seen all sorts of stuff from the most common setup which is b-throw off the ledge where people do the drift down bairs to grabbing the ledge to needle spamming etc.etc.

However it seems there is no real "one way" of doing it and i'm very unsure as to what is good. Alot of the time i feel like i'm just throwing out/guessing and doing "one of" the common edgeguards and it may or may not work

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A few things that i've seen to really work a lot

vs falco - if you ever hit him with needle, falling onto his face with a nair and then trading works nearly 100% of the time

from b-throw - it seems very common for spacies to try a high firefox/bird from this setup if their DJ can't get them the ledge so i usually just hard read/yolo and go for the close slap. Vs falco you can djnair to cover some illusions and sometimes knock him out of his starting animation so that works too.
However i'm really not sure if trying to space bair's is ever good here

when sending them off stage high - generally this is where i find the "bair drift" works best but it's kind of hard to setup (RNC or otherwise). You can kind of follow their trajectory down and just put your legs in their way and if they angle high you usually have time to punish

vs people that like to shine stall their vertical momentum - needles work REALLY well here. SH needle almost always gets them because most spacies do it low

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A few things that catch me out a lot

commonly i get caught out by spacies that will firefox/bird just above paralell (away from paralell needle) and i havn't done the hard read yolo. They seem to have a good mixup going for high/ledge/stage here and im not sure what to do. I've had some limited success with double jump needle to knock them out first but usually they will just start up another one except just below the stage (but not close enough to jump out and fair safely)

I also have a lot of issues with spacies that mix up illusion heights all the time. I have no idea when it's safe to jump out and when it's not, and especially at low%s my punish game is not ideal even if i get a free hit on them in the middle of the stage i feel like they have improved their position

I never have an idea when it is good to grab the ledge or how to use it. I'm told that grab ledge bair is good vs very low recoveries. Obviously it's good vs sweetspot illusions and those tht try to mixup their firefox's to go for ledge/stage. I'm not really sure when it's appropriate (other than when their only option is to goto for the ledge)

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any advice appreciated. I wish there was a more comprehensive guide haha. Spacies edgeguarding seems to vary SO much between sheik videos and players i'm kind of confused as to whom to follow. Seems like there is a ton of variation based on their mixups and %'s and how much time you have to react etc and i feel like my punish game is suffering a lot from not getting gimps i should otherwise

 

[BrTarolg]

Id also like to note that yoshi's story edgeguarding spacies is a whole different ballgame because of the platforms and probably my worst edgeguarding level (you can't even do yolo jump downs because of the close bottom to the level)

 

[hectohertz]

@ KirbyKaze i've always wondered if you had a flowchart that covered (most of) spacies recovery options

 

[KirbyKaze]

If they recover high, either rush them with bair / fair / nair or protect the diagonal down sweetspot with something (air needles, stand where you could intercept it with run off fair or f-tilt, etc). If to counter this they shoot to the top of the stage instead, try to hit them out of their free fall / punish their landing. As a side note, this is another reason why basic reaction tech chase / tech reading is important cuz it opens grab as a viable punish (spaceys often block after landing from up-B free fall cuz everything else can be outranged or doesn't provide immediate protection the way shield does).

Against illusions you just intercept them by sticking an aerial or tilt in their way. Having your back to the edge is good cuz you open up edge hogging sweetspots from your SH. Using types of jumps to align yourself with the FFer is good cuz you just nair or bair if they side-B above the level into you and otherwise you hog them if they dip too low. You can also aerial or air needle to hit sweetspots with good timing.

A fun way to think about up-B vs side-B is that side-B is like his non-tech or tech stand options after d-throw. There's more tricks with it and in many positions / situations he's got a way to be create a lot of options if that option isn't protected (which often requires preset countermeasures). Up-B is like a tech roll -- it is safer in the long term if he does them in generally good moments to up-B but also gives you more time to address it. Cover & counter illusions because they are more dangerous (especially if he can edge cancel off a side platform -- cover that pathway as part of your defending the sweetspot fairly regularly). FD aside, if he illusions in numerous positions on the 5 stages he often recovers for free. Covering both the shorten and edge cancel is therefore essential. The up-B still allows you to work with a small reaction time if you flub on a guessed illusion and cover either low or high. As you condition him off illusions, you then open up more aggressive counters to up-B when they begin to switch to up-B to adapt to your anti-illusion strats.

Oh a fun little strat I've been toying with lately... Okay so at this point you know Fox is not illusioning cuz that window passed and he didn't phantasm inTo your waiting hitbox and die. He's up-Bing above the stage by a bit & you can't reach him with an aerial. Okay so, to begin we are gonna charge needles. Then we are gonna cancel the needles RIGHT before their up-B goes off and they start moving to wherever. Here's why: spaceys usually don't recover to the edge in this situation in fear of the standing needles you've been signalling for. So you've checked that off. So with that gone they can either go at you (if they're just over the standing needle height) or they recover into the upper reaches of the level. If you cancel the needles quickly and immediately f-tilt, if swing into you they're dead if you did it right. And if you miss you still might have a chance to hit them for recovering high on some levels sometimes. Even if you guess wrong and don't f-tilt when they propel themselves at you, you can still block ASAP and shield grab the up-B if they land in front of you / u-smash OOS if they get behind you. Grab isn't as good as f-tilt on jumpless FFer but it maintains control so worse fates exist. And you get the grab assuming YOU misread them anyway.

On low recoveries shoot air needles (best option cuz it denies them the chance to tech), then grab the edge if you're close enough / have the time to do so and soft bair x9001 or until they're dead. At super low damage (sub 37) fair won't cause them to tech. At sub 30ish, neither will strong nair. So those can be used too. Nair can be used to hit them away from the edge with a strong hit in positions where soft bair is inconvenient or risks enabling them to create a wall-hug recovery situation where killing them may become long and drawn out -- by hitting them away with a solid hit you can sometimes prevent this. Strong nair is also useful for when careful positioning is needed to hit them back off due to their ability to recover in a manner that places them close to your body that bypasses bair. Reverse fair can work in these positions too, but nair is easier to land due to its larger hitbox and long duration.

A fun gimmick I used to do is ledgehop invuln dair to cover squeezes & sweetspots cuz the tech timing is weird and it often pops spaceys up for ****. But you have to fade away from the edge for it to work cuz of the hitbox's awkward placement on the attack (this allows dair to cover more angles by making it outpriotize up-Bs using hitbox drag to add "disjointedness" to the move). Dair is not really a good plan these days cuz people are better on-hit & often even DI dair offstage when it hits cuz of how the move telegraphs itself. But it can be cute so I decided to mention it.

Once you have them trapped & stuck recovering into your soft big attacks & moves that push them away from the edge, you should know how to finish them. Quite simply, be good at double aerials. Drop off edge bair > DJ strong bair and that sort of thing. I cannot emphasize enough the difference between being good at this vs not being good at this. By knowing how to link bair to bair or any sort of double aerial gives you a ton of kill power vs low recoveries cuz you just kill them once it hits -- if you aren't good at it or flub it, you're forced to protect the edge until the spacey gives up or does something dumb. It's a huge deal. Just remember to abort if they go too low (often you can edge hog them after this).

In the event air needles don't work (FOD YS), simply edge hogging isn't a bad way to deal with ultra pro squeezes btw. Edge hog right before their up-B goes off. If their angle will put them above the stage, ledgehop a combo aerial or reverse aerial to put them back offstage (or just hit them across with like nair at 140%+ [fair is easier to ground tech]). If they aren't coming up fast enough to go above the stage then just hog them. Very easy and makes the situation simplified by denying techs, making most angles irrelevant, and using solid hits to set things up (Fox and Falco HATE it when a situation by design has eliminated the benefit they get from their huge playbooks & detail games).

On Battlefield vs a low recovery, just hit them with fair as they go over the edge and combo off it in some way. Fair > fair > fair is the classic, but fair > d-smash or fair > run off nair > DJ fair are also effective. If they drop low after the first fair, grabbing the edge into generic bair edgeguards is also very reliable.

 

[hectohertz]

If they recover high, either rush them with bair / fair / nair or protect the diagonal down sweetspot with something (air needles, stand where you could intercept it with run off fair or f-tilt, etc). If to counter this they shoot to the top of the stage instead, try to hit them out of their free fall / punish their landing. As a side note, this is another reason why basic reaction tech chase / tech reading is important cuz it opens grab as a viable punish (spaceys often block after landing from up-B free fall cuz everything else can be outranged or doesn't provide immediate protection the way shield does).

Against illusions you just intercept them by sticking an aerial or tilt in their way. Having your back to the edge is good cuz you open up edge hogging sweetspots from your SH. Using types of jumps to align yourself with the FFer is good cuz you just nair or bair if they side-B above the level into you and otherwise you hog them if they dip too low. You can also aerial or air needle to hit sweetspots with good timing.

A fun way to think about up-B vs side-B is that side-B is like his non-tech or tech stand options after d-throw. There's more tricks with it and in many positions / situations he's got a way to be create a lot of options if that option isn't protected (which often requires preset countermeasures). Up-B is like a tech roll -- it is safer in the long term if he does them in generally good moments to up-B but also gives you more time to address it. Cover & counter illusions because they are more dangerous (especially if he can edge cancel off a side platform -- cover that pathway as part of your defending the sweetspot fairly regularly). FD aside, if he illusions in numerous positions on the 5 stages he often recovers for free. Covering both the shorten and edge cancel is therefore essential. The up-B still allows you to work with a small reaction time if you flub on a guessed illusion and cover either low or high. As you condition him off illusions, you then open up more aggressive counters to up-B when they begin to switch to up-B to adapt to your anti-illusion strats.

Oh a fun little strat I've been toying with lately... Okay so at this point you know Fox is not illusioning cuz that window passed and he didn't phantasm inTo your waiting hitbox and die. He's up-Bing above the stage by a bit & you can't reach him with an aerial. Okay so, to begin we are gonna charge needles. Then we are gonna cancel the needles RIGHT before their up-B goes off and they start moving to wherever. Here's why: spaceys usually don't recover to the edge in this situation in fear of the standing needles you've been signalling for. So you've checked that off. So with that gone they can either go at you (if they're just over the standing needle height) or they recover into the upper reaches of the level. If you cancel the needles quickly and immediately f-tilt, if swing into you they're dead if you did it right. And if you miss you still might have a chance to hit them for recovering high on some levels sometimes. Even if you guess wrong and don't f-tilt when they propel themselves at you, you can still block ASAP and shield grab the up-B if they land in front of you / u-smash OOS if they get behind you. Grab isn't as good as f-tilt on jumpless FFer but it maintains control so worse fates exist. And you get the grab assuming YOU misread them anyway.

On low recoveries shoot air needles (best option cuz it denies them the chance to tech), then grab the edge if you're close enough / have the time to do so and soft bair x9001 or until they're dead. At super low damage (sub 37) fair won't cause them to tech. At sub 30ish, neither will strong nair. So those can be used too. Nair can be used to hit them away from the edge with a strong hit in positions where soft bair is inconvenient or risks enabling them to create a wall-hug recovery situation where killing them may become long and drawn out -- by hitting them away with a solid hit you can sometimes prevent this. Strong nair is also useful for when careful positioning is needed to hit them back off due to their ability to recover in a manner that places them close to your body that bypasses bair. Reverse fair can work in these positions too, but nair is easier to land due to its larger hitbox and long duration.

A fun gimmick I used to do is ledgehop invuln dair to cover squeezes & sweetspots cuz the tech timing is weird and it often pops spaceys up for ****. But you have to fade away from the edge for it to work cuz of the hitbox's awkward placement on the attack (this allows dair to cover more angles by making it outpriotize up-Bs using hitbox drag to add "disjointedness" to the move). Dair is not really a good plan these days cuz people are better on-hit & often even DI dair offstage when it hits cuz of how the move telegraphs itself. But it can be cute so I decided to mention it.

Once you have them trapped & stuck recovering into your soft big attacks & moves that push them away from the edge, you should know how to finish them. Quite simply, be good at double aerials. Drop off edge bair > DJ strong bair and that sort of thing. I cannot emphasize enough the difference between being good at this vs not being good at this. By knowing how to link bair to bair or any sort of double aerial gives you a ton of kill power vs low recoveries cuz you just kill them once it hits -- if you aren't good at it or flub it, you're forced to protect the edge until the spacey gives up or does something dumb. It's a huge deal. Just remember to abort if they go too low (often you can edge hog them after this).

In the event air needles don't work (FOD YS), simply edge hogging isn't a bad way to deal with ultra pro squeezes btw. Edge hog right before their up-B goes off. If their angle will put them above the stage, ledgehop a combo aerial or reverse aerial to put them back offstage (or just hit them across with like nair at 140%+ [fair is easier to ground tech]). If they aren't coming up fast enough to go above the stage then just hog them. Very easy and makes the situation simplified by denying techs, making most angles irrelevant, and using solid hits to set things up (Fox and Falco HATE it when a situation by design has eliminated the benefit they get from their huge playbooks & detail games).

On Battlefield vs a low recovery, just hit them with fair as they go over the edge and combo off it in some way. Fair > fair > fair is the classic, but fair > d-smash or fair > run off nair > DJ fair are also effective. If they drop low after the first fair, grabbing the edge into generic bair edgeguards is also very reliable.

holy **** KK delivers <3 <3 <3

ima memorize this whole post

 

[BrTarolg]

TYVM kk

So as a follow up question - if we KNOW whether they will choose to illusion or firefox beforehand, it seems not too difficult to come up with edgeguards that cover a majority of their options (and in some cases, trick them otherwise)

However, it seems that there is still a bit of guesswork involved here. When high, spacies have both the option to illusion OR firefox, and it would seem that to cover an illusion would require a certain amount of commited jumping (offstage to cover the sweetspot and onstage to cover higher recoveries)

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One thing i feel that as i've gotten better at the ga,e i've more and more used needles and less and less jumping off (without having needled first) - this is mainly because needles autocancel (giving a very low commitment) but can cover pretty much all sweetspot and just above sweetspot options. Very high recoveries which can't be hit by needles are extremely suspect in the first place as they will suffer a significant portion of landing lag by your opponent, and needles will still give you some room to punish here

Once hit with needles, one can then always assume a low recovery (with up+B) which is very simple to punish

 

[IceyBeef]

Needles, spacing fairs boom

 

[Drephen]

downsmash next to the ledge more

 

[JobahFett]

needles and backair

DONE