Floating to the Top v3.6: The Ganondorf Match Up Thread

[Bazkip]

MU depends on the stagelist. MK has the mobility, range, and priority to engage in the DD camping that fundamentally beats Ganon's toolkit, so Ganon should at the minimum be -1 against him. If the stagelist allows MK to avoid all the small stages (i.e. FoD, GHZ, Warioland, Castle Stage), I could see Ganon being -2.

If we only have a hope of a chance on small stages that means we're never winning any sets unless we massively outplay our opponent because otherwise we're only taking games on our CPs. That isn't the making of a -1 maybe -2, that's at least -2 if not worse (and I strongly believe it is worse).

 

[Spralwers]

If we only have a hope of a chance on small stages that means we're never winning any sets unless we massively outplay our opponent because otherwise we're only taking games on our CPs. That isn't the making of a -1 maybe -2, that's at least -2 if not worse (and I strongly believe it is worse).

I think the MU could go either way on a small stage, that's why I put -1 optimistically. I don't think Metaknight's DD is necessarily any more threatening than Fox's or Marth's, and his grab range isn't that good, so CC can actually be pretty effective. But my perspective of MK comes from playing against him as Marth so I'm open to the possibility I'm overestimating how good Ganon is in the MU.

 

[Taytertot]

MK is much faster and less commital with aerials and a multihit fair that i believe is faster then marth's which would be great at interrupting what ganon does in the air. While it is a small factor, MK size makes him more difficult to deal with then marth for ganon because ac nair and bair are out of the question in neutral against MK unless MK is always in the air in neutral which he shouldnt be. All of this takes away from ganon's ability to just poke in neutral like he can against marth. Against MK hes got ftilt and dtilt on the ground which im unsure if they can be punished on block from MK. ganon also has possibly tipper fair and late nair being safe on block but idk if MK can out range either of those in the air so ganon might be safe setting up for and throwing out well spaced fair and late nair.

 

[Narelex]

MU depends on the stagelist. MK has the mobility, range, and priority to engage in the DD camping that fundamentally beats Ganon's toolkit, so Ganon should at the minimum be -1 against him. If the stagelist allows MK to avoid all the small stages (i.e. FoD, GHZ, Warioland, Castle Stage), I could see Ganon being -2.

+1 and +2 can mean different numbers is a +1 for you a 55/45 or a 60/40?

 

[Spralwers]

+1 and +2 can mean different numbers is a +1 for you a 55/45 or a 60/40?

60/40.

 

[Narelex]

60/40.

Currently I have MK vs Ganon on the list at 65/35 but I do agree it varies from stage to stage.

 

[Spralwers]

Currently I have MK vs Ganon on the list at 65/35 but I do agree it varies from stage to stage.

60/40 is an optimistic estimate, I wouldn't argue against 65/35.

 

[Spralwers]

Played Ganon on stream vs our resident top player Darc and our resident Luigi Kwills last night. MU thoughts regarding those:

Pit: Pit has good ground and aerial movement, but his hitboxes aren't threatening, so don't give Pit's DD the same respect you would Fox's, Marth's, nor Metaknight's. Pit should never approach with SH nair, but if he does, CC it and punish with jab or grab. You can also shield and roll OoS to reset to neutral. Don't respect arrows in neutral too much either, they do little damage, barely have hitstun, and too much endlag from Pit to effectively follow up. Take control of the stage slowly but surely, spacing aerials, tilts, and jabs to keep Pit out. Once you corner Pit you can space attacks on his shield pretty freely.

Edgeguarding is a little tricky. Pit can fire arrows here to mess up your attempts, so watch for that. If Pit is recovering far above the ledge, use uair as the safe, reactionary option. Fairs are good for hard reads. When Pit is recovering more level to the stage, ftilts and bairs do serious work, fairs again are good for hard reads. When Pit is recovering from below, grab ledge and refresh invincibility, punishing his landing lag if he lands.

I think Ganon wins this but slightly. Having good ground movement against Ganon is always a worthy advantage, but without the hitboxes to back up the movement, there's not much Pit can really do to stop a Ganon that's slowly taking stage. As always, against movement heavy characters, avoid large stages. Mediums (like battlefield and smashville) are definitely fine.

Luigi: There's a specific range you want to maintain in neutral. Imagine Luigi doing a jab asap out of an almost horizontal wavedash. If you can't, go into the lab and do it. You want to be right outside this range. This allows you to punish anything Luigi does on reaction. Like most (if not all actually) MUs where your opponent does lots of movement, you're going to move with the intent of screwing up their spacing. Dashes for quick micro spacing, wavedashes for burst movement. Pivoting is a great option too.

Jabs are very good here. Luigi can't punish a whiffed jab (unless you throw one way too early while he WD's into you), he can't outreach a jab, and he can't power through a jab. Jab combos into dash attack at low percents, and knocks him a good deal up into the air, a horrible position for him, starting at mid percents. So be sure to mix in plenty of jabs with your usual wall of hitboxes + ground game. Be careful about throwing aerial hitboxes, because Luigi does have the means to punish your lag.

CC is also very good here. It's a great idea to throw some crouches into your neutral. Luigi can't reliably beat CC with dsmash until mid-high percents. His grab reach is so short that if you maintain the range I was describing above, you can easily keep Luigi out of his grab range. CC any of his attacks and then jab for the ez punish.

Fireball is tricky though. Chances are when Luigi uses a fireball, it's far away so you can't just wizkick through and punish his end lag. And because it's not active for that long, caping it won't actually hit him unless he approaches directly with it. It has decent hitstun, so you need to respect it. Clank it asap to make sure he doesn't get frame advantage on you, but if you need to, forfeit stage control with a retreating aerial or wait for it to die out so he doesn't get to combo with it, because Luigi's punishes on Ganon are brutal. There's a lot of counter play for fireballs so do some experimentation + theorycrafting on your own too.

Edgeguarding is mostly straight forward. If Luigi gets knocked far enough away, he will have to side B. As long as you're not overextending too far/too below the stage, stuff it with a bair (float comes in handy here). Bair has decent active frames and Luigi's side B has atrocious priority, so it's easy to use. If he doesn't need to side B to get back, and is recovering from above/below, apply the usual strategies. Do watch for Luigi's down B as a way to prop himself up, hitting him out of this if you can will also be effective at closing the edgeguard.

Pretty even MU I think, the ground game is equally tough for both characters to play in practice and one stray hit from either can lead into some crazy punishes. I think the MU is neutral on medium stages like smashville and battlefield, slight Ganon favor on smaller stages like GHZ, and slight favor in Luigi on bigger stages like dreamland.

 

[Spralwers]

So I counterpicked our resident Peach with Ganon game 3 at Smashing Grounds and ended up losing because whenever she would try to side B me as I landed from the air, I would throw out a bair in an attempt to beat it and the bair would flat out lose. I thought I was just spacing poorly.

Just went into debug mode and Peach's side b not only has disjoint, it's got the purple hitbox, so it literally will beat anything that isn't disjointed. So if Peach comes flying at you with the side b, don't challenge it :x You can beat it if you manage to hit her above the hip but I wouldn't count on that and I wouldn't risk it considering how powerful the move is in this game.

 

[Bazkip]

So I counterpicked our resident Peach with Ganon game 3 at Smashing Grounds and ended up losing because whenever she would try to side B me as I landed from the air, I would throw out a bair in an attempt to beat it and the bair would flat out lose. I thought I was just spacing poorly.

Just went into debug mode and Peach's side b not only has disjoint, it's got the purple hitbox, so it literally will beat anything that isn't disjointed. So if Peach comes flying at you with the side b, don't challenge it :x You can beat it if you manage to hit her above the hip but I wouldn't count on that and I wouldn't risk it considering how powerful the move is in this game.

The purple hitbox on that is just an activation hitbox, with the actual attack hitbox coming out of the next frame (I believe) when the first connects. Completely possible to beat out with normal attacks, just requires good timing (she can be jabbed out of it, for instance). You were probably getting hit before your bair hitboxes were active.

But we don't have to bother with any of that. Flame Choke beats it clean

Edit: Or just punish the endlag cause it's got a ton

 

[Spralwers]

Oh that's good to know. So I was too slow then

 

[Jazzy Jamboree]

Alright, as we all know ganon has a fair amount of bad matchups. Since this thread seems to be focused into little tidbits this might be a good chance to talk about some of the characters that are problematic for him. Some of these I can offer a few tips for but others I just have no clue what to do. So if you disagree that any of these are bad/require good MU knowledge feel free to call me a jabroni (it's okay, I'm a jabroni). I never really played melee so sorry if any of this is redundant/widely known already.

Clearly the biggest thing in this MU and really most of Falco's MUs is his control of the neutral. Here perfect shielding becomes extremely important. The better your PS ability, the less awful this matchup seems to become. Caping is okay at long range, but can be punished by shffls if you try it too close. Generally I've found it's best to stay grounded when falco is as well, but like I said I never played melee so I don't know nothin. If you get caught in shield your best option is usually wd back oos because jump oos is very punishable due to falco's fast options and ganon has that trex grab which make shield grabbing not very effective. If you're going to try to shieldgrab anyway, make sure you use shield DI to get that extra distance. Ganon has solid edgeguard and punish options against falco so make sure to take any momentum you have as far as it can go (safely of course). Grabbing ledge and punishing phantasm's landing lag with uair or fair is a good place to start. Tipman spikes and bairs can be good but they are risky because of phantasm's meteor hitbox. A couple of quick asides, Ganon has great uthrow and eventually dthrow chaingrabs on falco so make sure you're using wd grab, boost grab and (boosted) pivot grabs to their full extent. Utilt is a great flamechoke follow up at earlier percents.

Good dthrow chaingrab on MK. Make sure to mix up your techs if you get down thrown. MK's side b is punishable with bair. I'm at a loss for the rest of this MU.

All I know about this MU is that item control is very important and if Diddy is off stage, make sure he does not come back. Something useful I wasn't aware of until a couple months ago was that once you have an item you can press Z in the air to laglessly drop it. This means you can take the banana and z-drop > aerial in neutral.

Falcon has far superior speed which gives him way better neutral against ganon and that is a huge bummer for the g-man. All I can say for this one is ganon has super easy ledgeguards against CF with uair dair and bair so make sure to abuse that to its full extent once you get him offstage.

???

???

???

???

???

 

[Spralwers]

I would not consider Ivy a bad MU actually. Pretty even overall. You stay a little outside your ftilt range, so that when Ivy razor leafs, you can easily run up shield or clank the move, and you've still got some time to plan your next action before he recovers from endlag. Edit: Oh yeah, if you're close enough to Ivy, you can cape razor leaf without worry of Ivy recovering from endlag and successfully punishing you.

Once you get by razor leaf you can actually approach Ivy. Just don't approach Ivy aerially if he has the time to throw out a bair. Staying grounded is key because shield and CC beat Ivy up close. Pressure him with your big hitboxes, especially as you corner him. Ivy has a tether grab so if Ivy shieldgrabs you out of your pressure, that's your fault.

Ivy can sometimes approach via nair (like following a razor leaf). If you're not in a position to stuff it with instant uair, shield it and roll away immediately. If Ivy times it and spaces it well, you can't punish it OoS. Just a theory, but maybe if you sidestep towards the end of the move, such that the end of your sidestep covers the last hit of Ivy's nair, you can throw out a jab or something and punish.

Edgeguarding when Ivy needs to tether is straight forward. Grab ledge. If Ivy doesn't razor leaf to cover himself, that's a free chance to float in his way and fair/uair/bair depending on how you're facing him before he gets to tether. If he does throw the razor leaf, let go of ledge, drift towards Ivy but fall below the razor leaf, and double jump tipman. Should be able to use up B with or without float depending on how deep you go to make it back. If you're too nervous to go out there because of whatever circumstances, make sure you're comfortable with refreshing invincibility because you can use it to keep yourself safe from razor leaf. React to Ivy's tether jump. If he goes onto the stage, aerial side b from the ledge. If he drifts away, double jump tipman works.

If Ivy does grab the ledge, keep in mind he's got a decent invincible ledge dash.

When being edgeguarded, the only thing really to look out for that you can beat is his fast falling uair. If you see Ivy jumping off the ledge, and you're close to the ledge horizontally but below it, watch for this. Stuff it with uair, whether you need to double jump or not depending on the circumstances. Best case scenario, you hit him, stage spike him, he dies, and you get back. At worst, you die, but you put him in a bad enough position (by hitting him) that by the time you respawn, you get some very free stage control.

 

[Bazkip]

When being edgeguarded, the only thing really to look out for that you can beat is his fast falling uair. If you see Ivy jumping off the ledge, and you're close to the ledge horizontally but below it, watch for this. Stuff it with uair, whether you need to double jump or not depending on the circumstances. Best case scenario, you hit him, stage spike him, he dies, and you get back. At worst, you die, but you put him in a bad enough position (by hitting him) that by the time you respawn, you get some very free stage control.

I don't see how this is pertinent, why would they ever uair to edgeguard us? They'll just bair or maybe dair if they want to build charge and that'll be it for us.

 

[Taytertot]

I don't see how this is pertinent, why would they ever uair to edgeguard us? They'll just bair or maybe dair if they want to build charge and that'll be it for us.

ivy's uair has a body hitbox as he shoots down that semispikes. it would definitely kill ganon considering his recovery. its really good against roy's recovery too if ivy catches him before he upBs as well as many other characters who have mainly vertical recovery moves.

 

[Bazkip]

ivy's uair has a body hitbox as he shoots down that semispikes. it would definitely kill ganon considering his recovery. its really good against roy's recovery too if ivy catches him before he upBs as well as many other characters who have mainly vertical recovery moves.

I know. I'm asking what's the point of using that for edgeguarding when Ivy can just bair or dair.

Also it's not a semi-spike, it's a meteor.

 

[Taytertot]

I know. I'm asking what's the point of using that for edgeguarding when Ivy can just bair or dair.

Also it's not a semi-spike, it's a meteor.

ah ok well the timing for catching ganon before he sweetspots the ledge by using bair or dair would be much tighter then knocking him offstage and then hitting him with uair for a quick kill since ganon has to sweetspot in order to recover semi-safely which sets up the uair meteor pretty ideally. if ganon trys to recover high then thats an easy bair gimp for ivy so the fear of getting bair gimped from the ganon player will most likely make him go for a low recovery. id say that uair vs bair/dair would be a good mixup edgeguard on ivys part and ivy can easily react to what ganon is doing to get either gimp.

Edit: i guess ivy could go for a drop zone bair/dair but it would take longer which would give ganon more time to react and he could potentially get the upb grab on ivy before ivy throws it out whereas ivy's uair would be difficult for ganon to react to below ledge.

 

[Spralwers]

Yeah Steel Kangaroo did it to me the last time I played his Ivy in bracket as Ganon. I was able to avoid the bairs by recovering vertically from below, and he'd get me with the fast falling uair before my up B came out.

 

[HiroProtagonist]

This is a huge mess of a bunch of disjointed ideas I want to talk about. The bottom two paragraphs are the ones I'm most interested in hearing discussio on.

Can confirm that Ivy will upair you to edgeguard. It's brutal. If, however, you are able to force the reel in-> ledgejump, I believe that upair covers all possible options. If they drift onstage, they get hit by the front hitbox and fly across stage, either resetting neutral with some extra percent tacked on, resetting the edgeguard situation on the other ledge, or straight up killing them. If they fade back, they get Tipmanned. Regrab ledge as fast as possible so that if they do manage to retether you can just force the ledgehop again. I'm pretty sure if they tether, reel in, get tipmanned, and then tether again, they can't tether anymore without touching the ground, so you have more leeway in your reaction time- just wait on ledge and react to DI.

Almost all of the advice JazzyJambo gave vs falco seemed pretty solid. I would really not recommend trying to shieldgrab any mildly competent Falco though... Its extremely likely you're just going to get shined out of it and he will **** you up out of that. Don't get too comfortable sitting in shield or he'll start mixing in lasergrabs and shinegrabs. Ganon is honestly ****ed in this matchup unless you can like 100% PS lasers and even then this is a struggle. We're lucky that Ganon has the tools to get around AC Bair and reverse uptilt camping but we really can't deal with his pressure.

Talking to people with extensive experience in Ganon vs Diddy (June's Diddy in fact, the best to ever do it), they advised against going out of your way to grab bananas. If you do get one, however, just drop it right behind you and camp in front of it. Diddy won't be able to pull another one and you're basically forcing him to approach. A grab from you should be death in this matchup. His recovery is wonky to edgeguard, I can't really give great advice here.

Not sure if this is still true, but you used to be able to completely outspace Falcon's nair with your own nair, and it was reactable. Against ****ty Falcons I just stand at the edge of their SHFFL range and beat their aerials out until they get frustrated enough to let me get a grab or set up a techchase/chaingrab with fair or stomp.

**** SHEIK. But not really. Not as bad as people think. Both of you have amazing punishes on each other, but Sheik ****s up our recovery. We destroy hers too tho- grab ledge and then punish her up-b lag with waveland chaingrab to finisher, stomp to bair, whatever the **** you want, its braindead easy. Learn how to DI Sheik's throws and tilts and this suddenly becomes so much more bearable. I've asked Sheiks for advice on this one, and they basically said that you have to just completely outspace Sheik with aerials. Yours are slower but hit harder. Don't get flustered, be wary of sitting in shield. One grab can completely turn this matchup around. Also, I found some secret tech for this matchup, but I'm waiting until I get a recording setup to share

I'm increasingly feeling like Ganon completely ****s Ness. I've had amazing success vs. Ness by playing patiently on platforms and simply outspacing his stubby arms with fair. PK Fire is crazy telegraphed and if you practice the SDI/Buffered option they often aren't in a position to capitalize. I've even gotten grabs off that situation when they whiff their grab. I must admit I don't think I've played a Ness that uses fire intelligently (are there any?) so I might just be off there. I admit that Ness has goofy magnet momentum shenanigans, and when I played Reslived a couple weeks back I was completely taken aback. That said, I was able to bring both games down to last stock simply based off of the strength of my edgeguards. I honestly think that Ganon can probably kill Ness everytime he has to up-b barring some crazy edgecancel ****. Ness' DJ is so slow its pretty easy to hit him out of it, I find, and then his up-b is easy to outspace with some practice. I like to stand next to ledge and cover ledge attempts with bair/fair/dair depending on the angle they choose. If they go for stage, you can pretty much always just run up and fair them and reset the edgeguard. Even if they make it back they'll take a **** ton of damage. Definitely use float to go offstage and challenge the up-b, and note that Ness mains are atrocious at meteor cancelling the stomp, making them incredibly susceptible to it when recovering from below stage (Can Ness even meteor cancel with that janky Up-B? Wtf?). Fun Story- eliminated a long time nemesis out of bracket last week by floating offstage to cover a high up-b, and then simply dropping out of the float and landing on the initial electric projectile when he went low.

I've been playing a **** ton of Falco vs Peach in Melee lately, and part of this has been learning the utility of PLATFORM CAMPING- something I think is amazingly underutilized in PM. What matchups do you guys think this could be useful in for Ganon? So far I've had great success camping top plat vs. Luigi (knocked out a player considered much better than me, he almost threw controller , Bowser, Ness, and to a limited extent Sheik, but I haven't tried camping people too hardcore yet. I do think this could be amazing though with Ganon's excellent platform movement, his hover, his dair, and maybe even implementing shielddrop fairs or upairs? I would really really like to hear some input on the usefulness of plat camping for Ganon- I'm going to be playing a ****load of friendlies this weekend and will try to camp and report results.

 

[CORY]

If you do get one, however, just drop it right behind you and camp in front of it. Diddy won't be able to pull another one and you're basically forcing him to approach. A grab from you should be death in this matchup. His recovery is wonky to edgeguard, I can't really give great advice here.

whoa... that's actually really smart... i'll have to keep this in mind if i play a diddy...

Not sure if this is still true, but you used to be able to completely outspace Falcon's nair with your own nair, and it was reactable. Against ****ty Falcons I just stand at the edge of their SHFFL range and beat their aerials out until they get frustrated enough to let me get a grab or set up a techchase/chaingrab with fair or stomp.

i think our nair still outranges his, but we have **** for hitbox duration on it now, so you'll probably end up just getting hit out of it : /

 

[Bazkip]

Edgeguarding Diddy isn't terribly complicated. If he's far, hold the ledge and punish his landing on stage. If he's close, just hit him. If he sideB's, punish the ending.

I'm somewhat skeptical of that advice to space out Sheik with as aerials. I asked KirbyKaze about the matchup a while back and he told me to stay grounded. I don't know who the Sheiks you talked to were, but I'm extremely doubtful that they would have more knowledge or experience than KK, so I'm going to stick to his advice.

 

[Spralwers]

I'll chime in with more details later regarding other MUs and esp the platform camping (that's something that's crossed my mind while labbing recently). Want to jump in on the Sheik MU real quick. Spacing aerials vs Sheik (which Ganon has to do in melee) is at least 99% of the reason why Ganon gets bopped. Being airborne vs Sheik is generally not a good idea. The reason Ganon attempts to outspace Sheik with aerials is because that's all he has, but it comes at a huge price. His aerials lack the speed to reliably protect himself from Sheik.

Ganon does much better in PM due to his seriously buffed grounded normals. Sheik can't punish a well spaced ftilt on her shield. Dash attack is a legitimate threat, especially because you can zero to death off it and it comes out too quickly to react to. Side B and dacus become powerful mix up options when you inevitably pin Sheik towards the ledge. Oh and by staying grounded, you also have access to CC. CC gives you access to CC jab, which you can then chain into dash attack or side b for a disgusting combo. Once you have the ground game, then you mix in the spaced aerials. The 5 frame jumpsquat I think is a really nice quality of life improvement here too, since Ganon gets decent burst mobility off max length wavedashes.

Hoooooowever, Sheik has a low crouch and she can crawl. I think it was Aids who reminded me about this on a reddit discussion regarding the MU. I hypothesized from the get-go that a Sheik who properly abuses crawl more than makes up for the buff in Ganon's ground game. But since most of the Sheik players are melee players, it won't really occur to them to use the maneuver. So over time I forgot about it. Now though, I have a hard time envisioning how the neutral plays out. I can still hit with dash attack, I can still hit with ftilt (right? I'll have to check), and I can still hit with late fairs that are safe on shield (which you should be doing anyway).

 

[CORY]

I can still hit with ftilt (right? I'll have to check),

You should be able to, at least down angled. I know down angled catches Kirby, it just takes a specific spacing.

e B and dacus become powerful mix up options when you inevitably pin Sheik towards the ledge.

: o I like this. I'll have to think more on this setup, gives me more incentive to practice dacus...

 

[HiroProtagonist]

Can you

I'll chime in with more details later regarding other MUs and esp the platform camping (that's something that's crossed my mind while labbing recently). Want to jump in on the Sheik MU real quick. Spacing aerials vs Sheik (which Ganon has to do in melee) is at least 99% of the reason why Ganon gets bopped. Being airborne vs Sheik is generally not a good idea. The reason Ganon attempts to outspace Sheik with aerials is because that's all he has, but it comes at a huge price. His aerials lack the speed to reliably protect himself from Sheik.

Ganon does much better in PM due to his seriously buffed grounded normals. Sheik can't punish a well spaced ftilt on her shield. Dash attack is a legitimate threat, especially because you can zero to death off it and it comes out too quickly to react to. Side B and dacus become powerful mix up options when you inevitably pin Sheik towards the ledge. Oh and by staying grounded, you also have access to CC. CC gives you access to CC jab, which you can then chain into dash attack or side b for a disgusting combo. Once you have the ground game, then you mix in the spaced aerials. The 5 frame jumpsquat I think is a really nice quality of life improvement here too, since Ganon gets decent burst mobility off max length wavedashes.

Hoooooowever, Sheik has a low crouch and she can crawl. I think it was Aids who reminded me about this on a reddit discussion regarding the MU. I hypothesized from the get-go that a Sheik who properly abuses crawl more than makes up for the buff in Ganon's ground game. But since most of the Sheik players are melee players, it won't really occur to them to use the maneuver. So over time I forgot about it. Now though, I have a hard time envisioning how the neutral plays out. I can still hit with dash attack, I can still hit with ftilt (right? I'll have to check), and I can still hit with late fairs that are safe on shield (which you should be doing anyway).

Can you elaborate on what Ganon gets off dash attack vs. Sheik?

 

[Doctor Aids]

Can you


Can you elaborate on what Ganon gets off dash attack vs. Sheik?

Pretty sure that weak dash attack hits can be combo'd into grab which will start the chaingrab. Strong hit might combo into grab at really low percents, unsure about that one. At most percents though the strong hit will combo into most aerials. So you can start a juggle, at that point it's really easy to get Sheik offstage, force her to recover and that's the stock.

Also regarding punishing tethers, is uair really the best option? I recently played my friend who got a lot better at Ivy and he gave me a ton of trouble. Most of the time I would edgeguard his tether then uair. He knew that if he faded back he would die so he always just got knocked back on stage and only took like ~13%. I'm going to lab some stuff out, I've experimented with it before,I think that ledgehop float to dair might be a good option, but I think the window for it is sorta strict. Flame choke from ledge might also better than uair if they try to go to the stage. Also if they fade back I think we can hit reverse fair which kills quite a bit earlier than uair. I think uair is only the optimal punish if they fade back or if they are at a high enough percentage to cause another edgeguard/kill. If anyone else has any other ways of punishing tether I'd like to hear it.

 

[Bazkip]

Also if they fade back I think we can hit reverse fair

Yeah I think this might be the best option, should cover both fade back and landing on stage, and of course it hits them hard.

 

[Taytertot]

if you watch the angle diddy upBs at and how long hes been charging it you can figure out the trajectory pretty quick it just takes some practice. often grab ledge and then uair/bair depending on the situation will cover diddys recovery.

 

[Spralwers]

Gaiz

How good is Ganon vs Squirtle

It's cool that I got 2nd seed at We Tech Those, but Jewchainz (seeded 3rd) is gonna body me and make me look fraudulent.

Could go Marth but I've played the MU before and Marthritis can be a real pain in this MU, and I have to have a plan B in case I'm not sharp enough that day to work around it.

I imagine it's a similar MU to the "fast but stubby" characters like Sonic and Pika. Shielding isn't good but CC is, and the extra time that is needed for Squirtle to compensate for his small hitboxes is just the additional time needed to react with something that either keeps Ganon safe or turns the tables in Ganon's favor.

And obviously CP to small stages is top tier b/c Squirtle relies 100% on movement

 

[Doctor Aids]

Gaiz

How good is Ganon vs Squirtle

It's cool that I got 2nd seed at We Tech Those, but Jewchainz (seeded 3rd) is gonna body me and make me look fraudulent.

Could go Marth but I've played the MU before and Marthritis can be a real pain in this MU, and I have to have a plan B in case I'm not sharp enough that day to work around it.

I imagine it's a similar MU to the "fast but stubby" characters like Sonic and Pika. Shielding isn't good but CC is, and the extra time that is needed for Squirtle to compensate for his small hitboxes is just the additional time needed to react with something that either keeps Ganon safe or turns the tables in Ganon's favor.

And obviously CP to small stages is top tier b/c Squirtle relies 100% on movement

Marth wins this MU pretty decisively I think but if Marthritis is seriously that scary and you feel more confident going Ganon then here are some tips.

Sideb can grab him while he's low but normal grab can't. This is pretty obvious but it's important in this MU, I think you might be able to grab him out his sideb with yours as well but not positive about that. A pivot grab can also grab him if he's crouching IIRC but the spacing on that is pretty tight. If you somehow do get a grab we chaingrab him for a while.

In this MU you want to catch squirtle's movement options with pretty much anything you can, so abuse your range and don't give him room. downb is pretty great if you see him start to sideb and so is dair. Make sure to use your tilts as well but do this only to combat moves that don't have armor or at higher percents because I think he can armor through at low percents.

As far as edgeguarding goes I think that dair might be optimal, it's hard to hit squirtle out of his upb from the side but from above it's pretty easy.

Squirtle is gonna cross up your shield a ton, try to find a way to counter this option although I'm not sure what I would do in this situation.

I don't know much about the MU other than not trying to grab too often cuz you'll miss and other stuff but I tried to share whatever information I have. I'd imagine this MU isn't too fun for Ganon and would seriously recommend going Marth, but if you're more comfortable with Ganon then go for it.

EDIT: also don't CP him to PS2 and you'll probably want to ban it and FD if you're playing Ganon

 

[CORY]

Yeah, you can fc him out of withdraw, but if he's good he shouldn't be doing withdraw too often in situations where you can catch him.

I don't think he can armor through tilts, but I haven't played against squirtle since 3.5, so I'm not super familiar with anything new on his end.

When I have to deal with squirtle, I try to focus more on dtilt and down ftilt, since he can duck jab, grab, and straight ftilt. Don't go airborne as much, like doctor said, so you can space with grounded pokes and cc stuff.

Keep aware of bubble, since it breaks cc.

If you get that first hit, you can usually do a number on squirtle, and standard "force stage control, limit options, punish" start tends to work pretty well, once you do get that hit.

For stages, just don't pick anything big, stage wise. Blastzones aren't the issue, it's keeping him cornered that is.

 

[Bazkip]

Played properly I don't think the Squirtle is winnable on anything but small stages
Though all Squirt mains are bad so maybe it's doable lol

I'd say stick to Marth asides from the small stage CP.

 

[Spralwers]

Thanks for advice, good for me to know ahead of time how much Ganon struggles in the neutral. Looks like there's a lot of squirtle specific stuff ganon doesn't have good answers for. Would much rather deal with Marthritis, and I can make the call based on how I see his playstyle if the Ganon to small stage CP would work.

 

[Squints~.~]

I'm also working on my MUs for we tech those, it looks like I got a lot of projectile characters but I also believe there's a metaknight among the pool. He's really the only one I just don't have any experience against, should I be prioritizing tilts to avoid his stubby reach? I find him hard to edgeguard as well, any pointers would be appreciated.

 

[Bazkip]

avoid his stubby reach

Stubby? Dude's got a sword that's almost as big as Ike's.
Good luck have fun.

CC abuse is probably our only real answer to MK, since we can CC a bunch of his stuff to high percents.
And of course we can CG him into oblivion, but how to get that grab in the first place...
It's a rough MU for sure.

Here's a set between Kage and Holy. Kage loses this, but he kept it super close.

 

[Squints~.~]

Thanks Baz! I was more thinking of stubby arms* his reach is scary. If he had real people-sized arms.... yikes

 

[Taytertot]

MK is kinda my go to for doubles so maybe theres something i can shed light on. a factor that may play an important role in the ganon MK MU is that all of MK's moveset except getup attack and dash attack are transcendent. that means that MK can never clank, he always trades. in the ganon MK MU that is probably a bad thing for MK since any trade is almost certainly in ganon's favor. not to say that it cant still cause problems for ganon like MK being able to tack on damage with ftilt from a safe distance even if you throw out a jab.

watch out for MK's grab because dthrow forces tumble so if you dont DI well then MK gets an ftilt which can lead into fair or nair. if you DI well then its a tech chase situation and MK has an awesome ground speed for that.

in all likelihood youre going to have to deal with a lot of nairs since its a great option for MK in most situations.

i do think that ganon has more reach in the air then MK does, as most of MK's aerials are closer to his body so ganon's fair should be able to space out MK slightly. ganon's uair will definitely out reach anything MK has to hit below himself which is pretty much just nair and dair.

if you can get some practice in understanding MK's recovery options and how to punish them that would probably help you out a lot because ganon has enough reach from the ledge to catch a lot of them if you know the timings really well. if MK downBs to the ledge then theres probably nothing you can do but all the others are punishable if you get a hitbox out fast enough. heres a set where lunchables stuffs a some of MK's recoveries namely upB in the second game (though he is playing roy for the second game it may give you an idea of the timing you need).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiYfa9p-***&list=PLFXOgPi6_N5TrWdCEpyKjJ3SKmcQLXSKL&index=17

 

[Squints~.~]

Thanks Taytertot, I had no idea about his transcendence.. that's really useful to know and clears up a lot of confusion I had. Also that YT link isn't working for me (validation error?), not sure if this is on my end or not. Also, this might be a dumb question, but is there anything you can do out of a tumble? Does it create a period of time in which you can't act out of it and then releases or do you solely have to depend on DI and tech-ing?

 

[CORY]

i think the censor caught it on some random generation that spelled out ass. look right before the "&list" bit. just copy the link, paste it to your browser and delete-fill in that spot, it should work.

as for the transcendence, i feel it's actually a bit worse for us than that. probably ends up just balancing out, but not being able to clank out (so, just muscle through) faster character's attacks on strong reads hurts quite a bit, imo. like, "ok, that guy's gonna try to space me with ftilt, he's been doing it all game from this range. i'll just preemptively wizkick and it'll beat him because he'll just react to my position changing" kind of stuff. or trying to space out with ftilt because it'll at the very least clank with other characters' spacing tools.

on the other hand, as you said, if you get inside his range and throw out hitboxes and they end up trading, it'll almost always be in your favor, but his hitboxes are disjointed, while yours (mostly) aren't, which means situations like that are less likely to occur than they theoretically should, so you're a bit more likely to just mis-space slightly and get your leg knicked by his sword without touching him.

 

[Bazkip]

Squints~.~ Out of tumble you can double jump, attack, or "wiggle out" (hit a direction on the control stick) to enter normal falling.

 

[Bazkip]

Hungry Headcrab I know it's DDD but I'm almost certain you would've been better off banning FD and letting Big D take your to Delfino. Actually being able to do anything on the stage is more important than preventing DDD from living forever, and he can still live a long time on FD due to it's wide blastzones.