Data General Match-Up Discussion Thread (ask about matchups here!)

[axelalexzander]

Easily Zss or Fox. Zss because she can easily juggle confirm into a kill at earlier % than most other characters

This. Just commented about this on another thread. Dedede's weight means nothing against ZSS. I've tested it and on stages with a normal ceiling her Dthrow-->Up B kills Dedede at just below 90% every time. I hate hate hate that matchup, more even than Sonic because it's so frustrating as a heavy to die that early. If she grabs you at that % you're done. As far as I know you can't DI out of it.

Against a good opponent, ZSS and Sonic are the only two matchups where I will not play Dedede because it feels impossible.

 

[atomicblast360]

I'm pretty terrible at the Sonic MU, but I've gotten a bit better as I don't use Gordo nearly as much anymore (mainly only for edge guarding, if they are open, or returning to the stage) You just need to be extremely patient with him, still one of my worst MU's besides Fox and Luigi

 

[Girthquake]

Wait, are you saying that AS Luigi, you have problems with D3? 'Cause that's crazy. Luigi is fantastic and has a solid advantage over the King, in range, damage racking, safety, options, you name it. If you're getting destroyed there you need to go watch Boss play or something.

But even still, that's nowhere near our worst matchup. Easily, our worst is Sonic. All day. I get mad just thinking about it, and won't go into a huge breakdown. But the short is, Sonic can punish everything we do (and including Jab and Ftilt) while staying almost entirely unpunishable the whole match. It's miserable.

You might think Samus/Toon Link/Yoshi is bad too, but there's just no comparison. Projectiles aren't a big deal at higher-level play (just walk forward and powershield), and then the playing field gets better. Yoshi is the worst out of those three, but I've played some fantastic Yoshis and Sonics (Seagull's), and there's really no comparison. SAAANIC ugh

I agree that Sonic does the dumping on us, even after nerfing his helen keller back throw. Though I think Pika is the hardest counter to D3. You are literal combo food with his cookie cutter up tilt start ups and thundershock makes the gordo game very difficult. Not to mention Quick Attack and god forbid QAC lol

 

[Soul Train]

I agree that Sonic does the dumping on us, even after nerfing his helen keller back throw. Though I think Pika is the hardest counter to D3. You are literal combo food with his cookie cutter up tilt start ups and thundershock makes the gordo game very difficult. Not to mention Quick Attack and god forbid QAC lol

Sonic is worse. Pika is my secondary, and a cautious D3 is very scary for Pika. The rat takes a ridiculous amount of precision and patience to play; one mistake and D3 will punish you hard. It's definitely a matchup in favor of Pika, but Sonic is simply less punishable on his options.

 

[Jdawg26]

Honestly I don't find the Pika matchup to be particularly horrible, 60:40 at worst. He'll combo you for days but if you actually look at your % you're not taking a whole lot of damage. The hardest part about the matchup is knowing when to punish the quick attack without eating an utilt for trying (Hint: You rarely try to punish it).

Honestly it's probably much more safe to either just shield the QAC and reset the situation by moving out of utilt/punish range or to just attempt to hit Pika out of QA. Don't try to punish after he lands unless you're sure that Pika really messed up.

As for ZSS, I've found that you kind of just have to mash airdodge and pray that the invincibility frames last until I fall low enough that I don't die if she happens to up-b. I almost always aim for the ledge as a landing option as we can't really outmaneuver her and land on stage as her dash attack will put us in the same crappy position as before.

This game is hard.

 

[shrooby]

So I'm probably gonna continue the match up discussion tomorrow or the day after.
I think we'll just continue along normally for about three characters and then rerate Diddy.
So And then again.
Does that sound good to everyone?
Also instead of a whole week we'll spend ~five days (give or take depending on when I can get to my computer lol) per character.

 

[manueluno]

Gordo stops Pikachu's quick attack. When Pikachu is approaching I toss an uptilted one to cover this option, and I also try to be cautious of the rebound.

 

[Girthquake]

Great advice for the Pika match up thank you

 

[Jdawg26]

Gordo stops Pikachu's quick attack. When Pikachu is approaching I toss an uptilted one to cover this option, and I also try to be cautious of the rebound.

Fun fact: This'll only work for sure if Pikachu has hit you or someone else with a quick attack without un-staling it by using other moves. Quick attack does 2% per warp, so when it's fresh it'll trade with the gordo at best.

Oftentimes when I tried to gordo on reaction I would just get hit out of the throwing animation by the quick attack. My reaction time isn't exactly stellar though...

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Here's another little tidbit, since we're kinda on the topic of Gordos and whatnot:

It is very possible to cold-clock people during the initial animation where D3 whacks the Gordo with his hammer and it doesn't trade. Basically, you're hitting them with the hammer and the Gordo almost simultaneously. I wouldn't recommend doing this all the time, granted, but it's a gimmicky way to rack up damage/reset to a more advantageous position.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Jonarobin]

I'm a Greninja main, any tips for the Dedede matchup? I find myself getting read and hit by falling aerials really easily and often caught by jab/down-tilt, this might because of a lack of experience with the matchup, though.

 

[atomicblast360]

Hey, I'm looking for advice for the Luigi Match up, I struggle with it the most (besides Fox and Sonic) and I tend to find it hard to approach against him and I end up getting in grab combos a ton, I also don't use gordo's much at all unless he's off stage. Any advice?

 

[KingJames]

What are your guys thoughts on the olimar match up.

 

[manueluno]

The unicorn of the samsh match ups. I once read that you do not fight him, you embrace and nurture him so that he can reproduce and, maybe one day, fight his offspring to death.

In all seriouness, I don't know. I have wrecked the 2 I have fought in FG.

 

[KeithTheGeek]

This is mostly speculation on my part, because I can't say I've ever really played against an Olimar before but...

I imagine he could give Dedede some trouble. The Pikmin give him good disjoint on most of his attacks, meaning he doesn't have to directly confront our Gordos. I'm pretty sure they can also take the bullet for him, so to speak, though correct me if I'm wrong on that.

Other than that, I'm pretty sure his attacks outspeed ours, and he can generally control a fair amount of space. It'd be hard to call it one way or the other without proper experience though, I think we have a lot going for us that can stuff some of his attacks out. But I want to say that Olimar has the edge in this match.

 

[SalsaSavant]

Do thrown non-purple Pikmin reflect Gordos?
I'd think they would, but technically all but purples are considered "grabs" if I'm remembering correctly.

 

[KeithTheGeek]

Do thrown non-purple Pikmin reflect Gordos?
I'd think they would, but technically all but purples are considered "grabs" if I'm remembering correctly.

I don't know if they do count as grabs or not when thrown using his side special, but it likely doesn't matter regardless. The Pikmin still have a hurtbox when thrown, they could essentially absorb the hit from the Gordo and unless Olimar runs into the Gordo afterwards or attacks it after a Pikmin takes the hit, it's simply going to bounce off the ground once and disappear.

Olimar can also control space using his smashes as well. Maybe not as much as with his side b, but he can still, for example, retreat from Dedede and then do a pivot fsmash to fling a Pikmin into our face.

 

[Soul Train]

What are your guys thoughts on the olimar match up.

Most short characters pose a hard matchup for D3, but I love fighting Olimar. Why?

Gordo eats Pikmin. Olimars like to sit just out of reach and throw Pikmin at you, then punish your mistakes. D3 however can uniquely sit outside that range and spam Gordos. Any non-purple Pikmin will not reflect Gordo, die instantly, and let the Gordo hang as an active hitbox for a second.

This forces Olimar to approach you, which is not something Olimar is well-equipped to do. Just inside his max Pikin throw range, you have a ton of punish options that outrange everything he has - Ftilt, etc. I wouldn't recommend any air approaches - his disjointed Pikmin attacks stop a lot of what we can do. Inhale also is particularly bad in this matchup, as if we whiff we'll get 3 pikmin eating our face.

Play smart, don't rush him. Get good at powershielding Pikmin thrown at your face, feed the rest to Gordo. He'll die after ~5 mistakes, and his recovery is entirely wreckable.

 

[manueluno]

Also nair clears yourself of any pikmin attached to you.

Oh boy! Now I want to play the pikmin game so bad.

 

[SalsaSavant]

Okay, Falco.
The problem I'm having is with a campy Falco that is great at forcing me to take the offense....which is generally a very un-Dedede thing to do. He camps with his Blaster, and uses his reflector or a well timed tilt whenever I get close. I can't really use Gordos save in safe situations. And when he catches me, he combos well.

Basically, he forces me to play his game. How do I force him to play mine?

 

[axelalexzander]

Hey, I'm looking for advice for the Luigi Match up, I struggle with it the most (besides Fox and Sonic) and I tend to find it hard to approach against him and I end up getting in grab combos a ton, I also don't use gordo's much at all unless he's off stage. Any advice?

I'm also looking for advice against luigi. My problem is his fireballs force us to shield which leaves us wide open to getting grab combo'ed. Even powershielding I'm finding that I keep getting grabbed. And it outranges Ftilt so I'm having a rough time being spaced out, then punished anytime I shield.

 

[T4ylor]

How does one deal with characters that can use multiple projectiles? I can't seem to get around Villager's Lloids and Slingshot and whatever Duckhunt and Megaman have. Also Toon Link. I'm significantly better against characters considered to be worse match ups like ZSS and Sonic.

 

[axelalexzander]

How does one deal with characters that can use multiple projectiles? I can't seem to get around Villager's Lloids and Slingshot and whatever Duckhunt and Megaman have. Also Toon Link. I'm significantly better against characters considered to be worse match ups like ZSS and Sonic.

Mastering perfect shielding is the key.

 

[atomicblast360]

Okay so this is gonna be a pretty long one lol. One match up I'm really improving at is the custom DK match up. Without customs, DK is no problem for D3 in my opinion, but with customs, wind kong can be very hard to deal with. From my experience of fight and taking games off of DKWill, and Bobvance (top dk on smashladder) I think when fighting wind kong, it's best to be on the ground whenever he uses it, you can shield it if he's above you, and the ground variant is bad. Also the final frames of Wind kong don't have armor or invincibility frames, so know when to hit him out of it, and if he misses the auto cancel when landing you can punish the move with a dash attack, grab ext. If you're in the air during thing move it will pull you in and air dodging it isn't super reliable either. You don't want to be off stage for very long, get back to the stage as fast as possible, as he can edge guard you with bairs into up b. Though we can edge guard him very well with angled gordo's and how you would normally edge guard with D3. It's also worth mentioning some of his other really good customs, his custom fire down b has very good knockback and damage, if you manage to not get hit by this move, when he's doing ti you can go above him and punsih him with a dair, nair, or bair, just don't go anywhere near the front of it. As for the lighting punch and wind punch, both aren't that big of a threat imo. the wind one will push you far away, but you have multiple jumps and an amazing recovery, the lighting one does less knockback and D3 lives to high percents. I do recommend learning to fight custom DK, as in custom tournaments he's pretty common, or at least from my experience, and if you don't know what you're doing as D3, Custom DK will destroy you, similar to how my first game went fighting him.

Stages to ban in the MU in my opinion: Lylat, Battlefield, Delfino, Halberd, as Delfino and Halberd have low ceilings, and Lylat/Battlefield have platforms that help DK in this MU.
You wanna try to go to: FD, or Smashville, you want the stage to be as flat as possible, with not many platforms.

 

[Jiggy-Saw]

I've had the misfortune to be matched up constantly with Marios and Luigis so I actually have gotten decent with dealing with them. What I have personally found is that both your jab, down B, and tilts out space him 90% of the time. You can keep Mario at a fairly good distance from you most of the time. His fireball range isn't that long and while he can use them to knock back the Gordo. (What a surprise! Seriously a leaf could fall on these things and knock them back...) Just use them sparingly and not our of the gate. You typically can catch them off guard by doing and up-stick Gordo to keep the spacing between you two. Mario is hard, but it's a patients game when fighting him.

 

[ZeThundaRippa]

I don't know why, but I haven't had much trouble with high tier characters, though tiers are just a suggestion. This is how I see things when playing against them. (just saw how much I wrote .-., whoops)
-Rosalina I normally bait out Luma and start comboing, though if their a good one I'll treat them like an RPG boss, break the shield, attack, run away, repeat. Though I have had instances where I can infinite combo Luma.
-Sheiks can get carried away with forward airs and forget DeDeDe's command grab or fast fall speed. If they don't I'll use Nair to break free AFTER their second jump and edge guard them hard.
-Diddy (pre patch was just as easy, though some may have their reasons for having trouble), okay, Diddy is absolutely no threat, he can't kill DeDeDe easily, Monkey Flip is beat out by a short hop inhale or forward tilt, if they jump use back air (just pay attention to if it's a kick or grab) bananas are only good if they hit, shield and forward tilt if they run in afterwards. Obviously DeDeDe has an easy time gimping a Diddy without a second jump as well, and if a Diddy is edge guarding you with peanuts, just grab one and chuck it back. B-reversing is a common thing now, so just be aware of it.
-Yoshi is a broken character in my opinion, but the most common approach they use is down air, use DeDeDe's massive shield to block it (don't forget to shield shift, or you'll get poked) and punish accordingly. The eggs I have no answer for, can't break them because of their two hitboxes, and can't beat them with gordo cause, you know. A good Yoshi will predict a dodge, so be ready.
-I already saw Captain Falcon on this page.
-Mario needs to be observed, if they use cape as an approach, down smash, if they fireball, just shield and punish.
-Luigi, expect the grab or Utilt, spamming forward tilt works even though it's a little cheap. Fireballs again need to be shielded, however short hop and Nair are the best option to not get grabbed after the fireball (or just doge behind, but a good one predicts this).
-Megaman can't forward smash DeDeDe cause of inhale, and shielding metal blade gets it stuck on the ground.

The only character that I've never beaten as DeDeDe, is Duck Hunt. Can't shield everything cause it'll break, and because of how quick they come out perfect shielding is troublesome. Shield = getting grabbed. Harder time recovering. Can't grab if they have a disk or Wild Gunman out, and even then they'll dodge. I'm stumped on that matchup.

 

[Soul Train]

-Diddy is absolutely no threat,
-Yoshi is a broken character in my opinion,
-Megaman can't forward smash DeDeDe cause of inhale, and shielding metal blade gets it stuck on the ground.

The only character that I've never beaten as DeDeDe, is Duck Hunt.

Um.

No. Diddy is still easily top ten, and has a definite advantage over D3. Zero will probably win Evo this year and wreck with Diddy throughout.
No. Yoshi is great and a bad matchup, but nowhere near broken. Try the shield button, I hear it's fun.
No. Inhale leaves you helpless after you eat anything, and you only eat things shot at you from the perfect angle. A good/bad/even horrible Megaman will wreck that.

At least agreed on Duck Hunt. Another bad matchup for D3, but again shield/spacing/great defense is key here.

Honestly it sounds like you haven't played much besides For Glory. You should really try expanding a bit - I highly recommend going to local tourneys and such, it's a great way to improve and make friends. And if that's not convenient, try Anther's Ladder, a great online place to do the same thing.

 

[ZeThundaRippa]

-Never said Diddy wasn't top ten, just that DeDeDe has an easier time than others. Sure Diddy can rack up percent but that's only half the battle since his strong kill option was nerfed and he's left with fast but shieldable ones that those with a good eye can see coming. Zero will always win those tournaments, even if he picked random, because he is a smash god with a great personality, I like that he has a $500 bounty on his head, it brings a lot more competitors to those tournaments.
-Yoshi can throw out eggs that klink with most projectiles quicker than most other projectiles and in a great amount of directions, amazing air movement, above average sprint, almost no landing lag even on a short hop spike, down B itself breaks shields, and for For Glory there's the down air spam and sit at the edge, shield, and turn you into a falling egg. That's why I see him as broken. I'm trying to see why I'm apparently the only one who can't shield the eggs without being grabbed, probably just need to space more.
-Megaman has too much end lag after his forward smash to punish an inhaling DeDeDe that's properly spaced. Throwing a gordo can sometimes work if you catch it after it's reflected, but because of the speed I wouldn't recommend it.

I did join the Smashboards recently to try and find some tournies, but Maine isn't exactly a popular place for that stuff, and I'm still trying to get my Modem fixed before doing any online tournies or challenging Jtails again. Every now and then I have to go unplug and plug it back in again to reset it.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Ha. Ha.

I guarantee a good Megaman won't be throwing f-smashes out like that. As a matter of fact, he'll throw everything but that at you from D3's optimal range.

It's definitely his worst MU in the game thus far.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Jiggy-Saw]

I always found Rosalina to be one of my best match ups. Most of the tim you can bait them into tossing Luma across the board, which you can swiftly just get rid of. She is pretty easy to knock off stage once you close the distance between them.

Sonic and Link have always been my hardest match ups. Haven't had many Duck Hunts, hard to say. I just can never get a handle over a good Sonic player and Link's damn projectiles are pain to deal with.

 

[shrooby]

How's the Villy-Dedede MU with customs? :o

Bringing this here since we've gone onto Pikachu in the other thread.

I've never experienced it, but I'd imagine it's a pretty one-sided match up lol

 

[JimmyTheCaterpillar]

@ shrooby random question, but I'm curious as to how you decide which character we discuss each week. What exactly do you do?

And also, if I could make a request... . This MU is everywhere and it feels like I play it more and more. It's incredibly hard to adapt to IMO and I think we'd benefit from it.

 

[shrooby]

@ shrooby random question, but I'm curious as to how you decide which character we discuss each week. What exactly do you do?

And also, if I could make a request... . This MU is everywhere and it feels like I play it more and more. It's incredibly hard to adapt to IMO and I think we'd benefit from it.

Funny you should ask about Luigi, haha.
Look at the thread again.~
Well, the way I decided to go about it was to make an entire schedule before starting, then just going through it.
I just put together a loose list based on, in my mind, what I thought was sorta the most important match-ups to know. (Ex. We started with Diddy and Sheik.) This was months ago, I obviously don't have experience with every character and am not vastly knowledgeable about the meta, so it was very very loose.
But we're a community, and the match up discussion is meant more for the community, so of course, that schedule which only I put together at first isn't set in stone. I asked and am still asking for revision. (And it has been revised from what I originally had.) Things change, obviously some people will be more knowledgeable than I am, etc..
That schedule is in the OP of the stickied match-up thread. Unless a change is made, that's how you know when a character is gonna happen.

 

[atomicblast360]

As of right now, the 3 MU's I've been struggling with lately are Villager, Yoshi, and ROB, anybody have any advice for these MU's? To me they are a pain to play

 

[axelalexzander]

As of right now, the 3 MU's I've been struggling with lately are Villager, Yoshi, and ROB, anybody have any advice for these MU's? To me they are a pain to play

Getting really good at powershielding to deal with villager and ROB's projectile spam :D

 

[JimmyTheCaterpillar]

So what do the other Kings and Queens think of the new DLC so far? Their meta is in infancy but we should definitely prepare. My opinions below:

: I'm terrified. Literally **** myself.

: Don't know too much about this MU. I'm trying to comain Lucas rather than bash his face in. However, it can't be TOO much worse than Ness, I imagine. 60/40 - 55/50 Lucas?

: I honestly don't see Ryu as that bad. We outrange him almost completely and Gordo can go through his red Hadoken. Also it's super easy to gimp him. But I'm probably dead wrong. Betting on 50/50 or 55/45 Ryu's favor.

Obviously these aren't my full thoughts, but I just wanted to spark a bit of discussion.

 

[KeithTheGeek]

I'm inclined to agree that we beat Ryu. Don't really have much match-up experience vs Ryu, but I think we have the tools to effectively take care of him.

For Roy, I think we should play it like the Marth match-up and simply wall him out. Roy is definitely more dangerous, IMO, his attacks can kill pretty early and he has a lot of speed behind his sword. But really, we do out range Roy, we have a superior off stage game, and we can apply that Gordo pressure on him. I'll need to get more experience in this matchup.

Lucas...I'm not sure what to think, honestly. My buddy plays a fairly good Lucas that I pretty much clobbered last time I went up against it as Dedede. However, he admittedly has trouble with my Dedede as well.

My fears in this match-up stem from the fact he has many of the same tools that can make the Ness match-up a nightmare, along with a superior recovery to Ness'. At the same time, he doesn't quite have the same raw kill power and combo potential that Ness does. I think of the three Lucas is definitely the character to watch out for in terms of bad match-ups.

 

[JimmyTheCaterpillar]

What stages do we want to go to when against ? This is probably my most clueless MU. What stages do we like? Which ones do we not?

 

[Man of shame]

what your thoughts on MU I think we slight have slight advantage over him.

 

[Soul Train]

what your thoughts on MU I think we slight have slight advantage over him.

Ryu in a nutshell: Mr. Potential. He's got great tools, but he's too new still to be a threat. I could see this one say being slightly in his favor, but for now it's not an issue.