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Social General Ice Climber Chat

DerfMidWest

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Yeah P:M straight kiiiiilled brawl here.
at the last major tournament I went to, Melee and P:M had big turnouts, but brawl had like 50 people.
 

Tomber

Smash Journeyman
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So, I feel like discussing the Sheik v Ice Climbers MU. The following is just some quick thoughts. Feel free to comment.


This is usually considered a rather bad match up for Sheik for the following two main reasons:

- Sheik struggles against ICs' CC game. Most of Sheik's attacks are easily CC'ed at low%. This is usually not that big of a deal against most characters because Sheik can use her grab to rank up % in order to "unlock" her other moves. However, this isn't really possible against ICs because grabbing ICs in gereral is rather risky; If you by accident grab Nana then Popo can punish your throw which can result in Sheik losing a stock because of...

- ICs' really strong grab punish game against Sheik. Sopo can down-throw CG Sheik to around 60 % without much trouble on every stage but FoD (because of randomly low platforms), and if the ICs players has both climbers then a grab should always result in a KO with wobbling no matter how the Sheik DIs the down-throw.

The MU from Sheik's point of view:

As a Sheik main playing this match up you should:

- Stop approaches. Because of her SH AC fair and ftilt, Sheik can stop ICs from wave dashing in can approaching in general. As a Sheik player in this MU you want to make the other player feel that he can't wave dash in to regain stage control or to approach. Sheik's tilts can be used to stop ICs from wave dashing in too if you hit them while they are in landing/sliding lag. Again just be aware of CCing. ICs can punish tilts with wobbling to rather high % with CC.

- Camp platforms. ICs in general has a hard time dealing with platform camping. However, with that said I think the platform-antiplatform game is in the climbers favor in the long run because they can punish harder than Sheik when they get an opening. I don't think Sheik can win the MU by platform-camping all the time, but it's a really good way for the Sheik to get some early % before trying to KO Nana. Bait the ICs to jump after you and punish with bair/fair; use SH needles to rank up %; drop through the platform to fair/bair to stop ICs from wave dashing under you. Dream Land 64 is a good stage for this strat, but it can work on most stages besides FD.

- Use lots of needles in neutral position. Sheik can't really approach ICs until ICs has reached a certain %. However, ICs can't really approach Sheik either without risking to get hit by a well spaced fair. For this reason the MU can be rather campy when both characters are at low % with both characters shoting stuff at each other. While ICs doesn't really care that much about Sheik's %, it's really important for Sheik to rank up % without getting grabbed/hit. Needles (grounded and in the air) are great for this because ICs likes to be alot on the ground. Just make sure that ICs can't punish you if the needles are shielded. Also, you really want to make sure you hit with your needles when they are fully charged. If you hit ICs with your FC needles at 0% it really makes the MU so much easier.

- Try to catch ICs in the shield. ICs can't really do much about SH AC fair once the climbers are put in their shield. Just keep on fairing and be ready to cover the roll or WD OoS with reasonable moves (e.g. down-smash if they roll near the edge, ftilt if they try to WD forward).

- Try to catch the ICs at the edge. One of the climbers biggest weaknesses is that they have a really hard time regaining stage when there isn't much space to move around on compared to the other high/top tier characters. Once near the edge many ICs players like to roll back to the very edge and do a blizzard (or ice block) desynch. While this is really risky it is often the best option. If the ICs manage to get the blizzard out then they can move forward and regain stage control; and if the Sheik gets hit by the blizzard then it can lead into grab and wobbling. If you cover the roll back as well as their other options (roll behind you, wave dash forward, jumping over you, wavelanding on a platform, and dash attack) then you should be good. It also takes quite some time for the first hit box of the blizzard to come out so you have enough time to run in and do a down smash once you see the roll back. In general, don't be afraid to down-smash ICs when they're shielding near a legde. While down-smash is a rather bad/risky move to use in neutral position it is a great move to push ICs off the edge. If spaced correctly the down-smash can be used to KO Nana because she will often jump into the last part of the hitbox once knocked off the stage.

- Beware of blizzard and ice shot desyncs. If you get hit on the ground by one of these projectiles it can lead into grab and wobbling if the ICs capitalizes on it. If you get hit anyway try to DI up and away to avoid the grab. Some ICs mains like to use a lot of desyns in neutral position against Sheik.

- Kill Nana. However, don't rush it. Rank up some % first. Without Nana ICs can't use desync tricks and can't punish as hard.


I'm probably going to write something about the MU from ICs' PoW at some point. What do you guys think about the MU?
 
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Nintendude

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I think it's easy if you have enough patience to not lose to camping. My favorite trick is to shield grab her out of d-throw, with either Popo or Nana.
 

See Biscuit

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I've seen chu and wobbles both pull off this magic move where they do their side+b and float really high up! and I can't figure it out. Does anyone happen to know how that happens?
 

Nintendude

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Synced forward-B just naturally goes really high. There's no magic involved. Oh, and you have to mash B, in case you didn't know that.
 
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Smasher89

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Do note that wavedashing after shiek and hit her when she DI away makes the % way over the really low % your example. If she di and jump, just wd +aerial, no jump and depending if she gets time to tech, wddsmash.

Not sure about what i think about the ic vs shiekmatchup more then its a advantage for ics, ics gain so much control when they get a grab its rediculus.

What is a good followup from a nana upsmash on a floatie at close to 0%, lets say its on the middle of dreamland no DI (or DI in). Im thinking trying to get a fair to sent the opponent to the ground is prob ideally but its so spacingspecific there might be better setup.ps for stuff like a techchase.
 

Engo

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the dog,the dog he's at it again!
Holy moly I can't deal with falcon. I mean I don't main IC's or anything so I don't know the mu that well but it's so hard that sometimes I don't even bother using them in friendlies vs good falcon players, I get demolished. Since I'm not that experienced with IC's I try to play it mostly with fundamentals because I don't know all the intricacies of the mu.

I try to stay at a distance where he can't shffl knee at me but it's so hard to constantly reposition my self once his positioning changes and the knee/stomps become an option again. The constant adjustments to stay out of the danger of getting hit by those moves while still staying close enough to interrupt their movement with a bair/dash attack/u tilt is incredibly tough.
 
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IndianapolisCentralGaming

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Many ics match-ups are in favor of who ever knows the match-up better.

Grab and stuff that leads to grab and do tiny changes in spacing there's no way to be out of the knee range but You can at points where it slows him down to adjust. Honestly i don't wd to much in this match-up just because if he reads one that's a long string of knees. Likly You're making the first move and it's to lagy
 

DerfMidWest

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Falcon is ezpz.
I use a lot of jabs and utilts.
utilt is amazing because if he overshoots his aerials, which every falcon does, you get a free grab.
then you just down throw reverse dair cg (or wobble if they know how to DI)
 

cemo

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There is a nice rock paper scissors with nairs beating stomps/knees since they come out slowly and uptilts beating his nairs. Fly seems to like to use squall, but I don't have a lot of falcons to practice that with so I can't give insight on it. don't get caught in your shield, that's really bad against falcon. but you can punish falcon really hard, and his tech roll is pretty easy to follow.

pretty volatile matchup
 

Tomber

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So, here is something I wrote to one of my fellow ICs mains about improving without having to playing against other people. I felt like posting it here.

"[...]Yeah, I know that feeling. The scene in Denmark where I'm from isn't really that big and I live quite far away from the other active smashers (and most of them dislike ICs too, haha), so I have to do much of my training alone, which kind of sucks. Luckily ICs is one of the few characters where you can actually gain a lot from practicing on your own.

Consistency is IMO one of the most important skills in smash. Being able to do what you what to do 100% of the time is so important. What makes a player such as Armada so great is that he's able be get away with his big combos pretty much every time without messing up. It doesn't really matter what you're practicing as long as it's something you think might be relevant in a real match. When I'm practicing on my own I usually focus on stuff like different kind of wave dashes (WD OoS, WD OoS after shield stun, short WDs, long WDs, WD into CC/desync/smash/grab/jab/SH-AC-uair), different types of desyncs, shield dropping, wave landing into stuff (platforms/ground), ledge-dashes, running SH-AC-uair, and wobbling set-ups. The main reason why I'm arguable the best ICs at wobbling today is because I've practiced it so much on my own. Being able to do something consistently boosts your confidence in real matches too, which is a big deal. A missed ledge-wave or wobbling set-up can make you feel horrible after the match. However, a successful 0% -> KO hand off is something that can make you win a game because of the momentum you gain afterwards (hand offs are something you can practice on your own as well).

However, you can't be successful without playing against other players too for a lot of reasons. In today's meta game match up knowledge is really important, and it's really hard to figure a match up out without playing it until you reach a certain lvl of game understanding, and even then really playing the MU can make a big difference. It's also really hard to gain a better understanding of mind games (baits and reads) if you can't get to play against actual people. When I try to get better I think a lot about the game in order to improve my understanding of the game ("Perhaps this could work out in this situation. What can my opponent do in order to stop me from doing this?" and stuff like that). I also watch a lot of matches on youtube trying to figure out why the players make the decisions they do. You can't just watch matches in order to improve. You have to focus on the right things, which can be really hard if your understanding of the game hasn't reached a certain lvl.

Being able to recognize patterns in the other player's play style is also super important, especially for ICs. The climbers are not really mobile enough to play reactively compered to characters like Fox/Falcon. Because of this ICs has to play more proactively in order to get openings which can work out thanks to the character's great punish game. One of the reasons why a player like Wobbles is so successful despite not playing a top tier is because he is really good at recognizing patterns and is able to place his hit-boxes in the right spot at the right time.

One last important skill for a smash player is his ability to control his emotions in the heat of the battle. Even though you might be a really smart player with excellent understanding of the game and your tech skill in flawless, you might still lose to a "worse" player in tournament if you get upset during the match and can't play as well as you are able to win on paper which is another reason why tournament experience is really important.

Smash is pretty much all about game-understanding and consistency IMO. Your game-understanding makes you do the right decisions, so if your game-understanding is great and you can do what you want to do 100% of the time in the tournament setting then you should win (unless you play a bad MU, but that's besides the point.)"
 
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Tuesday

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If the Falcon is quick to raptor boost (they often are, since it's commonly known as being very effective in this mu) you can tilt your shield forward and shield grab it. I've gotten a lot of good conversions off of it. Problem is you have to have a LOT of practice to do it reactively, since it's a very quick and subtle move. Too slow and you get kneed trying to grab. Too hard and you dodge roll, which often times catches you in the raptor boost anyway, resulting in knees.
 

IndianapolisCentralGaming

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Shouldn't be to hard, i normally shield sdi against shield pressure as falcon, zedla, sheik and other high traction chartcers. It wreaks standard fox/falco pressure so hard even if they are frame perfect once they whiff a shine not even another shine is fast enough to cover up their mistake.

It's with nana's shield delay and how extreme shield di affects them it's very hard to get a good angle. But vs gannon's side-b should i just wavedash backdr-synce, jump oos ice block or is it just taste.
 

Tuesday

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Shouldn't be to hard, i normally shield sdi against shield pressure as falcon, zedla, sheik and other high traction chartcers. It wreaks standard fox/falco pressure so hard even if they are frame perfect once they whiff a shine not even another shine is fast enough to cover up their mistake.

It's with nana's shield delay and how extreme shield di affects them it's very hard to get a good angle. But vs gannon's side-b should i just wavedash backdr-synce, jump oos ice block or is it just taste.
Ganon's side b is slow enough that you can just WD oos and grab him iirc. Someone can correct this if I'm wrong, but I believe that's why Ganon players never even try it on ICs. Too risky.
 

DerfMidWest

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yeah with falcon you just shield di in. It's second nature with practice.
Ganon is the same, you can wd OoS, but if you're too slow he can jab or buffer a roll.
 

IndianapolisCentralGaming

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Sounds good thanks.

I can de-synce nana so i can keep her looping down-b spam while keep a flexible dd going with popo dragging her where needed just because i honestly think doing down-b ice block is only good if the ice block stuffs out a jump start up in which case it would be easier/more rewarding to wait and up something or dash back grab if they don't get caught in the drag back and only hit nana.

It's what i do vs fox and most don't full jump shine when they should. And in that case i'd either pull below a platform before hand, upair or shield.

That said i think fox going to 3 platform stage not fod is a better cp vs ics than ps just because that starting de-synce with ice blocks has gotten be many free 0-death grabs.

But is this as much. Of a thing as i think it is? Like i'll set-up once i make fox stop bum rushing with shine.


Also my neck is really hurting from wobbling space animals, i need long hair to make head banging more nature
 
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Psycho_Bayleef

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Renth is a ganon. Which reminds me, why is Ganon listed as Icies worst matchup, besides Peach? I understand that his fair/dair will **** the icies up, but I feel like the disjointed hitboxes, high speed from WD, chaingrabs, and Blizzard should completely **** Ganon.
 

cemo

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blizzard works pretty well if you have the space for it. wd forward will get you hit by jabs and fairs so careful with that. nana will die in a couple hits. it's another one of those matchups where shielding is bad. if you lose stage control you will have a very hard time getting back to neutral whereas ganon's margin for error is usually bigger. edgeguarding ganon takes a long time and nana will probably get hit by his up-b if you aren't careful.

ganon can sdi out of the chainthrow but there/s a few mixups. you could do nair to push him to the edge for a handoff, or fair meteor into jab reset/tech chase. also wobbling at whatever percentage you're comfortable with.

i find the most trouble comes from ganon's jab which will stuff almost all ground approaches. if ganon is jumping a lot you can aim to interrupt them since his moves come out slow. approaching is hard without ice blocks/blizzards, and you will have a hard time setting those up if he's actively taking your space away.
 

DerfMidWest

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Tournament games from saturday:

1. Derf.MW vs 4% (sheik/fox)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX5f6YbAYl4

My movement was really good this set, except for a few hiccups. I'm happy with the way I played. I dropped quite a few grab combos though and I definitely should have been getting more out of my grabs.I lost control of nana several times and that screwed me up a bit. I went for down smash a lot when I could have easily gotten a grab. I also kept in my shield a lot more than I should have.
Punishing spotdodge was a huuuge problem for me in this set. Me and Dave were talking about it after, I just a really bad at punishing it and I think I need to wait more instead of instinctively trying to grab.
I messed up a few conversions into wobbles too. I really need to work on that.

2. Derf,MW vs Raymundo (peach)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZTbKswjef4

Game 1 he took me to FoD, and it took me until like last stock to remember how to play on that stage, so I'm not even going to talk about the first 3 stocks that much because that wasn't even a thing. I did a much better job of catching peach off those platforms last stock. I had a lot of trouble getting a grab so I mostly just tried my best to space smashes.
Game 2 on battlefield I just was not playing the way I wanted to. I wasn't moving as well as I could have and I did not use my blizzards or iceblocks nearly enough. I feel like they are really important in this matchup. I did a mediocre job of catching peach out of the air with uairs, bairs, and nairs. I used waaay to much dair. It isn't good against peach because she can sdi into nair or cc dsmash before I can do much. I tried to wd in against his float waaay too much and got faired every time. Couldn't get grabs and when I did I dropped them before I could pull anything useful off.
 

cemo

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i wd in to approach less, because i used to get hit out of it every time :p
vs peach you shouldn't try to force an engagement if she's in a strong float posiition. i used to do a lot of that, i like to call it "approaching from a bad position" and i'm still trying to pick it out of my game. :p the trick then is learning to recognize it as a bad position and not being hasty. if you try to approach there is like a 90% chance you lose to some dumb option like float fair. ( :icsmelee: ) so either reposition yourself or wait/set something up instead.

i like to go to yoshi's or pokemon stadium vs peach. personally i'm not a big fan of wavedash smashes since they won't hit a peach who's floating well, and it's a heavy commitment. but you do have to do it sometimes to keep them honest (especially if they get lazy with their floats) and it seemed to work well for you in game 1. i think in game 2 they adjusted to those and that's why you kept running into those fairs.

in your other game, get better at the sopo downthrow chain. you can do it on reaction vs sheik, but be wary of the percentages that she'll land on the platform. gotta punish those sheik downsmashes. if you converted on a few of the punish opportunities i think you could've won. vs fox i think you need more angled f-tilts, since they beat nairs so cleanly and you'll be able to follow up easier than an isolated d-smash. and careful about over committing on approaches and such and giving up stage control, there were lots of times where you tried to approach fox/sheik on the platform and they got free access to the middle of the stage.


i wish i had videos of me at the local i went to, but i got 3rd and won like 16 dollars and a gift certificate. it's a new experience for me. :p it was a charity thing and only one of our top players waerethere. i lost to a fox player twice, but i will get him next time.
 
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Tomber

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I agree with what Phen said.

Try to approach less; let your opponent come to you. You shouldn’t approach (WD in or dash attack) with ICs unless you have a read on your opponent’s movement. WD back is probably ICs’ best spacing tool. Just make sure you don’t get too far away from the center of the stage (because at the end of the stage you’ll have to approach from a bad position). In general try not to be too reckless with your moves. Only throw out hit boxes if you want to either cover some space where your opponent is likely to be, or want to bait/conditionate your opponent to do something you can punish.

Down throw dair chain doesn’t work against Sheik. Think more about when to shield grab and when not to against her too. Also, when you’re trying to finish a grab combo with a smash then make sure that Popo/Nana has finished his/her throw animation before hitting with the smash. Interrupting a throw with at smash results in around 7% where a throw -> smash combo is 20-25%. It’s a huge deal.

And maybe think more about which moves you use at specific % (e.g. nair is usually bad at 0%, dair is bad at high %).

Your movement has definitely become better. Now you just need to use it efficiently : p Keep it up.
 
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DerfMidWest

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with dthrow dairs against sheik I was trying to force dave to buffer rolls or spotdodges to escape.

With peach I just need to be way more patient. I like being in people's face and that doesn't really work with peach.
I really need to work on shield drop aerials because they are amazing against peach since she falls so slow.

Especially game 2, when he would double jump nair or uair when I was on the top platform, if I shield dropped out of stun I could have landed a nair, bair, or uair before he could do anything else and he would have lost his double jump.

I also just need to work on my conversions in to grab a lot more.
 
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