EVERYONE ELSE IS TOO SLOW-- Sonic Match-up Thread 01/18/15 GAME AND WATCH! WATCH HIM GAME! And stuff

[Phoenix_Dark]

Removed or not viewable due to privacy settings. GG.

 

[infomon]

Oh! lol maybe it's on my end. me=rekt by facebook?

I get this: "
Video Unavailable
This video has either been removed from Facebook or is not visible due to privacy settings."

Which probably means that *my* privacy settings are blocking facebook from smashboards.

Which..... makes sense to me

Edit: nvm if @ Phoenix_Dark gets that too, then at least I'm not alone! yay! not alone!

 

[Camalange]

oof

Sorry guys! It's a silly video that I didn't find worth putting on YouTube.
Try it now? Before the post was set to be visible to "Just Friends" and now it's "Public" to anyone on or off Facebook.

 

[MeekSpeedy]

im a fan of the camera angles and special effects

 

[Camalange]

im a fan of the camera angles and special effects

Glad it works now.

And yes as you can see the production value in this is very high I was given quite the budget for this project.

 

[-Se7en-]

Discussing Greninja? I'll add some input and general ideas.

I can say that you absolutely do not want to get grabbed by Greninja because it usually combos into Uair and leads to some extreme juggling. Do NOT Dair to the ground, just pick a smart option such as move towards the edge or offstage as you are getting juggled.

If you are far away Greninja will happily throw water shurikens, pay attention to the shuriken and the sounds Greninja makes because that can tell the difference between a little shuriken and a charged one. We have the speed to punish a fully charged one from the middle of the stage.

I feel down throw is important because Greninja is on the ground or put into a bad spot and it's rather uncomfortable for Greninja because he can't hurl shurikens or grab you.

I don't think you should even attempt to juggle Greninja because his Dair is so good if he is high in the air. If you do try stay to the sides and under, just watch out for a fast fall fair or bair.

We do have spin dash though which almost always combos into something and Greninja knows it so don't be predictable.

Usmash is his primary kill move so try and bait him into being hasty and punish it hard.

It feels even or slightly in Greninja's favor and I know this post makes it seem impossible but you do have to understand what Greninja can do.

 

[Gregory2590]

Might I suggest Kirby as the next matchup discussion? I ran into this Kirby in FG that pretty much got away with camping me since he outranges and outprioritizes me, but that's just an excuse.

 

[ROOOOY!]

Guess it's because the metas a baby but not much discussion is being generated. It might still be a bit early, though I don't know how other boards are progressing with theirs. I couldn't contribute to this because nobody plays Greninja post nerf seemingly.

 

[Ixisnaugus]

Before I add to the Greninja discussion, assuming we're still discussing that matchup, can I ask if we have any archived or documented writeups or quotes on previous matchup discussions? I haven't seen any in this thread, and it looks like discussion isn't concluded or logged anywhere for reference. If we don't have an archive of writeups, quotes or points of reference for this stuff can I suggest we add one to the OP? This way those looking to understand particular matchups can find what they want at the front, without having to dig deep into the thread for help, or post asking for help if another matchup is being discussed.

Now as far as Greninja is concerned, I feel this is one of a handful of matchups we should strive to be prepared for, going forward. Fortunately in my local scene we have a competent player who mains Greninja, so I can play this matchup locally and develop it.

I feel we have some breathing space in neutral, compared to some alternate matchups, though we must be wary of Water Shuriken at max distances. No sense running into projectiles for no reason, right? We can scout how the opponent plans to continue playing neutral without committing too much with dash-shield, walking, empty hopping and shield cancelling Spin Dash or bluffing Spin Charge.
Mixing up our approach is important to consistently get into Greninja; we can approach while remaining grounded just fine, so long as we're wary of the projectile, and Greninja's various other scouting tactics and pokes, such as DTilt. Walking is just as important as dashing to preserve consistent spacing and not overcommit. Fortunately, our own spaced pokes are a consistent match against Greninja's, so we can play the poke game as long as we remain aware of our spaced attacks against his. Our FTilt, DTilt and FSmash are all usable options, depending on the unique quirks of each situation. FSmash in particular is a strong punish against whiffed tilts, and even Greninja's own whiffed FSmash. SD/SC baits and spaced auto-cancelled Fair can also punish whiffed attacks and careless short hops if we anticipate correctly.

Greninja falls quite fast, so traditional juggling isn't easy, although I don't believe his air speed is particularly great, so we can at least cover his landing on the ground without too much trouble, as long as we're prepared for potential landing mixup. Patience is important, as Greninja's strongest attacks can end our stocks quite early, including USmash and FSmash. Even Fair and Uair can prove fatal if we don't play the air correctly. Don't overcommit and mixup your descent game as to avoid being on the defending end of a juggle situation.
Greninja's UThrow is pretty decent, particularly at lower percents where it sets up a potential juggle scenario. Our Jab is excellent, and very important for stuffing grab/dash-grab attempts, just use it sensibly and in moderation, as having our jab baited out can result in being punish hard by something like an FSmash or DTilt.
We can cover Greninja's options returning to the stage with good reading and spacing; FTilt and Fair cover some generic ledge options, such as neutral getup, or jumping from the ledge. Getting a grab to punish a ledge recovery is also great, as DThrow and BThrow can reset the situation, or even KO in the case of the latter. We can really give Greninja a hard time on the ledge if we're patient and pick up on ledge habits quickly.
This does go both ways, though. I can't stress mixing up your ledge options enough, as Greninja can reasonably cover a lot of them. SH-Nair beats our getup-roll from the ledge, and Fair punishes jumping from the ledge. Be very careful with rolling from the ledge in particular, as Nair links into other moves, meaning the punish is potentially quite hard. Neutral getup loses to any well timed attack like FSmash, and most attacks Greninja can throw out will beat SD/SC, so don't rely on them too much.

I'll add more to this when I'm more confident about certain values in the future. Here's a casual set of games I've played of this matchup. It's a very early set of games from when the game just launched for the Wii U here in the UK, but it should highlight what I speak of.

 

[Sonic Orochi]

Might I suggest Kirby as the next matchup discussion? I ran into this Kirby in FG that pretty much got away with camping me since he outranges and outprioritizes me, but that's just an excuse.

All I can think of right now is that we can't really grab Kirby when it's at the peak of its "out of down B" animation. If you notice that your opponent keeps cancelling it as soon as it hits the ground, either go for a SH aerial, SDH into a combo or HA, but never try to grab him or you'll definitely get hit.

 

[Gregory2590]

All I can think of right now is that we can't really grab Kirby when it's at the peak of its "out of down B" animation. If you notice that your opponent keeps cancelling it as soon as it hits the ground, either go for a SH aerial, SDH into a combo or HA, but never try to grab him or you'll definitely get hit.

It's not even the stone that gets me, it's his aerials that gives my approach options the middle finger due to range and priority. The stone is just an added thorn on the side, really.

 

[Reksho]

When I'm being juggled in the air as Sonic, one thing I like to do is up B and then Dair my way down. It's pretty unpredictable as Greninja will try to juggle you and you'll just dash your way down. You also won't have the landing lag of Dair because of your height. Sometimes you will even hit Greninja with your spring. Just be careful to dash your way down in a path where Greninja is a bit away from you to prevent punishing. Sonic's Dair also seems to have low priority as I always receive damage when I collide with another attack.

 

[stewyian]

Just wanted to share some insight on the diddy MU. I have been playing Zinoto alot (probably the best diddy atm), and am starting to realize dash dancing is an amazing option vs diddy especially. If you dash dance smart enough you can bait out options like fair and side b, if diddy side b's toward you throwing out pivot f tilt beats side b, SC and SD stops you if you run onto a banana , you do not get tripped, you can use this to trick diddy's who are unaware of this by SD/SC onto a bannana in front of a diddy (since they like to leave bannanas in front of them) and go into another option since your SC stops and you can act quickly after hitting the banana. SC overall is risky against diddy, his uair beats it and obviously most of his other options beat it, i would suggest using SC/SD cautiously, also make sure if u SD/SC his shield to do an option where he can't uair you immediately after, like spring out or double jump away safely, we don't wanna give diddy any free uairs. DIddy's fair will either beat or trade with our fair, so running short hop fair isnt a great option either, since 1 hit of fair does like 1 damage and diddy's fair does like 10 or something. Be careful about using dair out os up b since ZInoto started punishing me on the way down, mix up by just landing, go to the ledge or cross up with a nair when landing. Gimps are what can make or break this MU imo, if you can force a diddy into an up b situation, it is very easy to gimp diddy. Most diddys will be aware of this, and will probably try to side b and jump to the stage, I was conecting bairs on his side b very frequently, and when he was forced to up b, i connected many bairs on him on the way up, and drop down nair works I believe on his up b (I may be wrong on this), I also think dairing off the stage (from a safe height) is a good tool against recovering diddys. In conclusion, this MU is very tough, diddys moves beat most of ours, and like most of sonics MUS, i feel we need to bait alot, be sure to respect diddy's options, they are all very quick and safe.

 

[ROOOOY!]

Pivot ftilt is ****ing beautiful in any MU.

 

[Locuan]

Hey Sonic fans! The discussion period for the Sonic match-up has begun over at the Lucina boards. If possible come help us out!

 

[Camalange]

Hey Sonic fans! The discussion period for the Sonic match-up has begun over at the Lucina boards. If possible come help us out!

Once I have some more down time, I will gladly join in on the discussion.

 

[RedrappeR]

FINALS just ended. I'm gonna archive, sorry again. It'll be done first thing tomorrow. I made a note in my calendar thing.

 

[RedrappeR]

Thread Updated. Sorry for the wait. Had finals at School. Will update again on Sunday, but till then, Diddy Matchup into new year.

 

[kataridragon]

Let me start out by saying diddy kong is probably the most difficult matchup.

I have had good luck with baiting monkey flips and proper spacing.

Rush down when Diddy uses banana to catch him during the animation.

Don't get grabbed and if you get thrown use dodge and not up-b.

His ftilt is vulnerable to fsmashes if you can catch the dirty ape spacing with it

Air to air isn't that bad.

I have hard time approaching a diddy with a banana in his hand.

In closing I hate diddy kong, banana peels are dumb and his throw to up air is the most broken set up in the game. If his throw knock back was changed slightly or his up air was nerfed this would rebalance him.

I'm thinking about learning diddy kong for the matchup as well as a counterpick.

Anybody know how to DI his death throw to prevent.....DEATH?

 

[Reksho]

Diddy's down throw isn't as reliable on higher percentages. He has to work a lot harder to reach you and by the time he's close to you, you can already avoid it by jumping/up+B/dodging/even D-airing if you're feeling it. As for his death throw (backthrow I assume), keep in mind that Diddy is as vulnerable as you for this. Sonic has an amazing backthrow too, probably even better than Diddy's.

Diddy is all about his banana and throws for our matchup. When he doesn't have a banana in hand, it's already much safer to approach him. If he's trying to get a banana, you can - as you said - rush him and sometimes even steal his banana. His air game is better than Sonic's I would say as his attacks come out faster and harder. But that doesn't mean you're totally helpless as you can do amazing stuff with Sonic's spins and use that speed to transition that to air attacks.

 

[kataridragon]

By death throw i mean down throw > up air. Even at higher percents its still relatively reliable. Im basically terrified at +80% to even be close to him. I was reading some other Diddy Kong threads and some guy was talking about how you can DI to at least prevent the up air. You will still take a hit from a forward air or a back air but at least you wont get KO'd.

I also read that one of Diddys worst assets (and by worst I mean average) is his air mobility is not that great. I think maybe keeping him airborne and above Sonic may be key to a win in this matchup. This is just speculation.

 

[Camalange]

You DI away from where Diddy is facing, correct? That's what I've been doing. Or is it better to DI away from where he's facing?

Also, I don't think Diddy's bananas are that big of a deal anymore. It's his neutral game that became way more terrifying (his normals were already good in Brawl and they only made them better with the exception of dash attack which is still pretty good). My only problem with the single peel he gets is that we can't spindash over it anymore. Items are even easier to catch in this game I've noticed, plus bananas disappear on hit so you can't keep tripping on them. Brawl was stupid with bananas. Two peels that lasted so long that you could trip indefinitely back and forth on.

I also think Diddy is easier than Sheik for us. The only thing I'm afraid of against Diddy is Dthrow>Uair. Everything else is super manageable.

 

[Yunior597]

Hello, im having a 100$ Money Match Sonic (me) vs Sheik.... so any tips or advice would be appreciated or how to play the matchup correctly.

 

[Funkermonster]

Just a quick Question: How do you guys go against Little Mac? This is a matchup I find a little troublesome since I don't really have a projectile, and I find it rather difficult going up against his Ftilts and KO Punch.

 

[Camalange]

I think I've only ever 2-stocked Little Mac.

 

[Reksho]

Just a quick Question: How do you guys go against Little Mac? This is a matchup I find a little troublesome since I don't really have a projectile, and I find it rather difficult going up against his Ftilts and KO Punch.

I main both Sonic and Mac so here are some thoughts: most Mac's are spam players. They will jab and tilt the heck out of you and with Sonic this is even worse because of his low priority moves. However, Mac is trash in the air as is common knowledge. What you want to do is approach him from the air, get an attack in and quickly move away, ideally when he whiffed an attack. Just watch out for his up-smash because it has a surprisingly good range. Mix-up your approaches a bit by double jumping in opposite directions, spindashing into a jump or homing attacks.

You can also condition Mac to shield or jab when he hears you start spinning your side/down B attack and then cancel it. This is true for every matchup but especially for Mac as getting grabbed is extremely bad for him. You do want to look out for his jabs though because it will cancel your spins. Try not to rely too much on it for damage in this matchup and use it more as a mindgame tool. This is also one of the matchups where you can reliably get many homing attacks in because of his jab locks or whiffed attacks. Mac will almost never follow you in the air. So the only options he has when you attack him is either attacking back or shielding. His shield will deplete quickly if you use your spindashes and his attacks can easily be avoided by simply jumping where you're superior. Many Mac's rely on smashes and are not too shy to use them frequently. Though Mac's smashes are pretty quick, they are punishable with Sonic's speed and grab. You can then just throw him up or away from the stage to juggle/gimp him.

Whatever you do, do not use attacks with long cooldown (dash attack / Dair from low distance) as you WILL get punished for it because of Mac's speed and power. Also do not trade punches with him to try get the KO. He has super armor and good Macs know how to abuse this. If you're fishing for the KO, approach from the air to start launching him or get a grab.

 

[Rickerdy-doo-da-day]

Not about Diddy so apologies for that but does anyone have any tips for fighting Jigglypuff? I'm struggling to get around her aerial shenanigans, not to mention KO'ing her. I've tried using angled-up F Tilts but that only seems to get me so far.

 

[Camalange]

Not about Diddy so apologies for that but does anyone have any tips for fighting Jigglypuff? I'm struggling to get around her aerial shenanigans, not to mention KO'ing her. I've tried using angled-up F Tilts but that only seems to get me so far.

Jiggs is weird. I played one recently and I feel like she has a hard time hitting Sonic because he just runs around and he has a hard time hitting Puff because she just floats around. Sonic wants her on the ground... Puff wants him in the air... It's like, whoever is more patient and gets that one hit wins.

Although, I think Sonic probably still has an easier time simply because she dies so early, and the only way she'll really kill Sonic is if she lands a bair or walls you out. Bair is probably our best bet to catch her in the air and kill her, or maybe even Uair strings since that'll kill stupid early too. I only played the MU once and barely won in tourney so I don't have as much experience there as I'd like.

I think both characters just have to play campy as ****.

 

[Reksho]

So I went into training mode to practice the spinshot. I can now do it about 50% of the time so I obviously can't rely on it quite yet in real games. However, I feel that nailing it all the time is pretty much impossible as the timing seems so strict to me. Also, if you do it wrong you'll pay a price for that if you're off-stage. If you do it too early, you'll just go a bit up vertically and lose your precious double jump. Whenever you do it too late, you just roll sideways and jump normally (which is the better of the two failed options as it lets you approach the stage more).

Do you guys think the spinshot can be a reliable comeback off-stage? Or is it too much of a guess and better to use it only as a mix-up on-stage?

 

[Gregory2590]

What controller are you using? I can do guaranteed(aerial) spinshots on the Gamecube one.

 

[Camalange]

Agreed. With GC, it'll become muscle memory and is most definitely a technique that should be utilized and can be done consistently with practice.

Spinshot is also a good mix-up in recovery, as it gives Sonic the fastest and greatest horizontal distance. Just remember he's completely vulnerable during it as it has no hitbox. It's just a janky double jump.

 

[Reksho]

I use the Wii U Pro controller. Could that really be the reason? I do feel that it becomes more consistent with practising.

 

[Camalange]

I use the Wii U Pro controller. Could that really be the reason? I do feel that it becomes more consistent with practising.

Well, anything with a second stick will be better than trying to perform spinshot on, let's say, the 3DS...

I always stand by GC being the most optimal, but I'm sure you can get used to the Pro.

 

[Reksho]

Well, anything with a second stick will be better than trying to perform spinshot on, let's say, the 3DS...

I always stand by GC being the most optimal, but I'm sure you can get used to the Pro.

Haha, I play Smash for over 10 years and have never used the second stick. I use the A button for the spinshot as I just never got used to using two sticks. I tried using the stick in training mode but my rate of succes is even lower with that than with buttons.

 

[Yunior597]

which is the worst matchup for sonic?

 

[RedrappeR]

Post Updated. We're on Lil Mac. Since we've already been discussing him.

 

[Gregory2590]

get him in the air and/or off the edge

spring gimp

okay, who's the next character?

 

[Camalange]

Bthrow destroys Little Mac.

I sort of did a breakdown in another thread, but it basically comes down to not letting Mac do what he wants. If you stay grounded and try to use your normals a lot against him you're going to have a bad time.

Just grab him and upthrow then pursue, or use bthrow if you're in the position. Bair edgeguard, spring gimp, and you have a dead Mac.

 

[kataridragon]

I almost never lose to mac. Once in a blue moon one will sneak a good KO punch.

Play online. Guaranteed little mac MU practice.

Anybody have any Wario tips? I have a hard tim with this MU. I feel out prioritized by a Wario wall and bike screws spins.

 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I can tell you as a Mac main that you don't want to rely on aggresive ground options. Pivot ftilt, dash attacks, spin dashes, I punish all of these with a super armor smash attack. Down smash can be particularly effective. And since he's always at "dying percent", he's very open to taking these trades in damage (since moves will send him farther, but higher). The one thing that always beats out super armor is a grab. Unless you're confident in some fake out maneuver or mind game, I recommend only grabs when grounded in neutral. Mac is fairly light, so if you let him live long, remember that vertical kills are very much an option, especially if you can chase him upward using Uair. Finally, get a feel for how high and how far Mac can recover after being launched. If you don't have to edgeguard, then don't take a chance at helping him get back because of his counter. Just like in Melee, if all you had to do was grab the ledge, then just do that.

Above all else, dedicated Mac mains are masters of fundamentals. They keep center stage, they space, and they use every option available to them. Win or lose, a match against Mac will end sooner than any other matchup. You need to keep him guessing and change your strategy faster than you might be used to.