Kirby huh.
IMO, this matchup is so bad for Kirby, I feel bad for him.
He lacks any reliable approach. D-tilt ruins anything he does in the air. B-air snuffs out anything on the ground. That simple.
Just camp him out and the KO will eventually come. Whether it's a D-air/F-air offstage or punishing one of his "approaches" with a Smash. Oh yeah, and if he recovers from below, just D-air him. It will always hit him, and he can't do a thing about it.
He does have a gay F-smash but that's really as gay as it gets for him in this matchup.
Don't forget, you can absorb Final Cutter and Chef from him.
At least 70/30 G&W.
I feel this is mostly a large understatement of Kirby's game, Game and Watch is a tough nut for Kirby to crack, but much like Kirby vs. Snake, its all about knowing the matchup and putting Game and Watch on his toes. Game and Watch has no valid approach vs. Kirby, and Kirby has a lot of options all around, and is a ******* to kill in the right hands.
First of all, Kirby can KO G+W at around 80-90% with a well-placed/timed f-smash, which isn't a matter of being hard to land if you know the matchup and can call the player. You can land it after any smash, in between d-tilts (just don't run into the D-tilt hitbox during the startup and have correct spacing), after turtle->spotdodge, or after avoiding a D-air with a roll, or after a D-tilt trip.
Second of all, Kirby can play range games with his D-tilt. It ties your D-tilt, comes out just as fast and has good range, does 6% and trips for about a 20% combo when combined with a grab, and has nifty followups, and is very good out of shield if Kirbah can mix up your spacing, and if you want to get super serious and start f-smashing, we have plenty of time to shield it. Its not so much that we win a standing/walking range game (we don't, you can sometimes hit our foot, and mostly do more damage), its that we can create a range game and win it with good reactions and predictions. For instance, Kirbah D-tilts twice into air, G+W walks up, d-smashes out of our range, we don't d-tilt and get a free f-smash. Or, Kirbah d-tilts, G+W calls it and goes for B-air, we shield on reaction and punish with a D-tilt, which is 100% safe, and we're still d-tilting.
From there the game just kind of changes. D-airs become more available to Kirby, and we can use spacing mixups and crossups if we're going to miss. G+W spotdodges more (again, D-airs and F-smashes become more available, along with things like grab, dash attack, F-air pressures). G+W goes for stuff that he might not've done before, like D-air, and we get more free hits (I really, really don't recommend this move against Kirby). So now its really a matter of G+W retaining composure and using the right move at the right time to keep Kirby and his dirty f-smash out after about 60%.
Kirby also has a few neat tricks; if you space your aerials so Kirby can't punish them, he can just up-B backwards and you'll whiff and get hit by the cutter for free %. He can also Kirbycide almost for free if he edgehogs you correctly.
The biggest problem that I personally have against G+W is the spacing/shield stun head games, and his grab game. You can land big percent against a good Kirby and go for kills off of his downthrow, and we'll eventually miss the tech, or get predictable on our rolls. Anyway, I really enjoy fighting against good Game and Watches, its a good test of my natural reactions and spacing, and my ability to harass a good character and control the fight.
And when I play, I find that I so rarely get outprioritized that I don't think its truly relevant to the matchup. I promise not to try to u-tilt you out of your D-air. As far as priorities go, our D-air beats f-smash and d-smash and we have enough jumps and good fastfall speed so we can fux with U-smash and U-tilt. The biggest thing is G+W's up-B vs. our D-air which is a major pain vs. our main setup, otherwise good Kirbies won't be running into your smashes or anything. Our D-tilt is much too fast to be beaten out with an f-smash or d-smash or an aerial, and ties/beats all your other ground stuff like dash attack and jab. If you f-smash preemptively its a free f-smash for us, and please try to spotdodge it because I'm chargin' mah laser.
I agree with 65-35 as a high level winrate for Game and Watch, just wanted to tell you guys what's up.
I make a lot of obvious mistakes (I use Stone way too much for some reason) and I might have won if I had jablocked against the wall at the end, but it's a decent match. Shows what happens when I get too aggressive, and then what happens when I'm more defensive.
