[Guide] Trapping the Prey: Snake 3.5 Matchup thread

[LupinX]

This thread is a discussion to Snake's matchups to all 41 characters in the current 3.5 (3.6 when it comes out).
This includes:
1. Snake's neutral vs _____
2. Snake's punishes vs _____
3. What stages to go vs ______
4. What stages to ban vs ______

Even those who have experience against Snake, feel free to add input on your characters here. It is very much appreciated. We will start off with the common match-ups.

vs

Okay, so I play a lot of Foxes and a fair amount of other spacies and I do relatively well so here we go:
Fox: Snake does really well against Fox if you know what you're doing. Fox's main strength tends to be his horizontal combo ability as well as his fast ground and air speed, so the emphasis should be on limiting that strength and forcing him to come in. his can be attained trough productive and safe use of mines, c4, grenades, and mortars. Keep exploding all over the place and STAY GROUNDED. Fox has so many great aerial combos and many ways to stop Snake from coming down easily, and because of Snake's terrible aerial mobility, Fox can get multiple up air strings together and cause massive damage. So keep the Fox out the best you can and encourage him to approach.
When Fox approaches, you have a few options to punish this. You can shield grenade if the Fox really enjoys pressuring your shield, which thereby discourages his shield pressure, you can also Cypher OOS if their shine pressure is predictable (any high aerial can be punished by it) and that will then lead into fair at higher percents (so a techchase) or nair into grab at lower percents or even a free C4 stick into regrab if they're bad; you can predict his approach choice (Foxes tend to like spacing their aerials) and wavedash back and punish with a grab or a tilt, or you can force him to keep chasing you, all he while utilizing your traps and mines to limit his movement and punish him if he slips up. Your goal in all of this is to get a frame advantage on Fox so that you can start launching him.
This is where Snake's strengths start to really come into play, as Snake is able to zero-to-death spacies more easily than any other character in the game through a variety of means. Naturally, he has the chaingrab which works on Fox from 30% up to around 80%, and from there Snake is freely able to stick a C4, up air juggle into back air, or even weak up air into fair spike. The chaingrab can also be mixed up into u-tilts (which you can regrab out of at lower percents), weak u-airs, and techchases where you can get hard punishes on tech reads. It's combo city on spacies for Snake, and you really only need one or two openings to get things going. Just be wary that lower percents will probably require tech reads (jabs and f-tilts help a lot here). Snake can also techchase Fox via downthrow, but it's relatively tight timing and demands attention and practice to be successful at it, but it's a great follow-up if the Fox DIs onto a platform.
Speaking of which, platforms are your friends more often than not. Snake has a lot of good options for covering platforms through his mines and c4s which can limit DI to some extent, or be used for great finishers. Snake can also simply WD onto the platforms and start a down throw DI trap since the tech rolls are far longer than the platforms are and Snake can cover every tech option with a standing grab or a turn grab. the only thing to watch for would be getup attacks and quick stands (studying these animations to learn the variations does loads to help). If the Fox does go to the platforms, you can rack up damage with down throw techchases until he's at a KO percent (either through a top platform u-tilt or a back air off stage depending on DI)—both of which are way easier to get thanks to the platforms' height and the general freedom to do whatever you want to a Fox out of down throw.
Should the back air fail, though, there are a few things to consider as well while edgeguarding. Depending on percent, you should be freely able to cover every on stage recovery with C4 and mine and KO the Fox, which means he has to try sweetspotting the ledge. Now Snake's back air has loads of active hitbox frames, and ledge invincibility is really a wonderful thing as well. Snake can also ledge drop rising back air from ledge and regrab it with relative ease. Make good use of that. Another curious thing, if they aren't at KO percent, is that Cypher outright beats illusions. Every single time I've cyphered and a Fox or Falco has side-b'd into me, they've gotten hit and I've been safe. It might still be a ledge invincibility thing, but nonetheless abuse that as well. Cypher hitboxes combo into every single aerial so if you're really good, I'm sure you could reverse Cypher from ledge into fair spike for a super swag KO. If not, back air is just as good and probably a bit safer as well. Snake really needs to grab ledge vs. Spacies, though. His tilts just don't cover enough space and he's too slow to properly react to high firefoxes.
To reverse the situation, I've found as well that Fox has some trouble to Shine spike Snake if the Snake can time the Cypher well. A lot of the time, I've had a Fox try to shinespike me just as I start my Cypher, and the two hits trade and our hitstun is relatively the same, so when I Cypher again, they get caught and suddenly I'm edgeguarding them instead of them edgeguarding me! It's something I need to look into more, but it's a situation that arises in a lot of my games vs. Fox, so it's worth noting as well. Besides that, be good about sweetspotting the ledge and also spacing your Cypher just far enough away that Fox's higher hitboxes still don't hit you. The ledgegrab box on Cypher Release is actually pretty far: take a look at it and realize how close you don't need to be. Don't be too afraid to recover high as well if you notice they choose to back air a lot—grenade trades with it and you'll get back if you're smart about how you come down.
The problems really start arising when the Fox catches on to how dangerous it is to approach Snake and they decide to sit back and camp you. In these situations, I've found that I need to feign an approach and figure out how they plan on stuffing that approach. Then I figure out how to stuff that reaction and punish it as if they'd approached me with it. Controlling the space under platforms becomes more important in this scenario as that is the prime spot for spacies to laser camp. Staying grounded also loses some of its value in these situations, so if you really want the win, I'd say platform camp the fox by controlling the platforms well and always covering your landings. Use wavebounce grenades and C4s to avoid up airs and back airs and punish them as hard as possible when they whiff something.
Stages I'd Counterpick:
Aggro-Fox: Dreamland, Battlefield, Norfair, Lylat Cruise, Distant Planet, Pokemon Stadium 2
Camp-Fox: Fountain of Dreams, Battlefield, Smashville, Green Hill Zone, Yoshi's Island
At the most campy level, the matchup is probably 50:50, but as soon as the Fox starts to overcommit, the matchup shifts in Snake's favor.

Professor Pro vs Leffen- BEAST 5 Winner's Semis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE0OwFaFojs
Professor Pro vs Armada BEAST 5 Losers Finals Game 2 & 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjdPZgqCtv8

vs

This matchup is a dangerous matchup for Snake because a) Lasers vs ground mobility b) Shine puts you in a very very bad position aka the air c) Snake's ridiculously easy combo weight. Because of this, most Falcos will try to approach Snake... that's where you strike them. Let's start of with
1) Fighting the bird: Snake's safe option is staying on the ground but it gets interrupted by Falco's lasers because it nullifies Snake's mines, grenades, tranqs, even his dashdances and leads into combos on Snake on which you want to avoid as much as possible. how to avoid these pesky lasers? Your ridiculously low duck... meaning their lasers won't touch you at all...meaning they WILL approach you. What Falco will most likely do is laser then try to Dair you. while ducking you can powershield them into a grab into chain grab (from 40%) or cypher oos (<40%) to nair to grab to chain grab. Or if they are mid-range, you can powershield their laser into DACUS---> sticky or fair if close to the edge. You can also d-tilt --> grab at about 50%. If you are on a platform stages, you MUST bring him on the platform because that's what you WANT him to be for the jump stick or the d-throw tech chase shenanigans. Lay mines on ground and grenades/C4 on platforms in case he tries to stuff you in more ways than one. Final Destination is actually a good stage for Snake because there are more combo opportunities and lasers aren't a constant threat to Snake (super low crouch ftw). It platformless stage won't hinder your combos and

2) Chasing the bird: Like what @ cisyphus mentioned, Snake's combo game against spacies is very good and can often more than not, lead to a stock. The famous saying "Falco spawns at death percent" applies in this situation. A grab, cypher oos, even edgeguard/gimping will lead to a stock. You can u-throw chain grab Falco from 40-80% then to a stick. you can DACUS---> f-air spike them. You can tech chase tranq him to grab (and yes you can grab him out of his sleep animation unlike the other two ). And of course d-throw platform-chasing works as well, and most probably the easiest way to rack up damage considering it does a whopping 14% (logic anybody? lol)

3) Biting the bird: Let's talk about Snake's most used finisher in the game... the C4. As much as we love that finish, it is quite "weak" in a sense of a finisher to large stages, aka Dreamland, FD. I would use the C4 more on stages that have a low ceiling because Falco (and friends...and wolf) are fast fallers, killing them off top is very difficult and requires a pretty high %(which is easily attained by comboing). In PS2, a stage where the ceiling is low, Falco has to be above 120% near the ceiling for the sticky to kill...slightly lower if you're on a platform, if 70%, you can u-throw-->u-air--> C4 kill-off. In a big stage aka Dreamland, FD, YI brawl, it takes time to finish him off. Usually a tranq--> f-air will finish them off/create an edge guard opportunity at 80%.
Speaking of edge guarding, Falco has a short firebird(slow startup) and phantasm. So it is easier to telegraph because of the recovery options. Don't be afraid to f-air on their firebird, because they won't be able to make it anyway. As for the phantasm, if they aim for the ledge, you can either wavedash ff to ledge or f-tilt combo him outta here assuming you hit him with the second hit.

Stages I counterpick: Pokémon Stadium 2, Fountain of Dreams, Final Destination, Smashville, Battlefield
Stage I ban: Greenhill Zone, Warioware, YI melee, YI brawl

Professor Pro vs Mango BEAST 5 Winners Finals https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YjN1uOqPCA
Professor Pro vs Mango BEAST 5 Grand Finals https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4i0VqtIXXM

vs (or falco 2)

Play Wolf almost exactly the same as Falco, just with the knowledge that his recovery is more dangerous to edgeguard because of the side-b sweetspot. a lot of his combos are exactly the same, and if you notice the Wolf doesn't double shine to beat CC, you can CC his shines all day and punish with cypher into nair grab. Be wary of dash attack spacing, SD his NAirs, and DI his DAirs. Those are Wolf's most major approach options/combo starters. Besides that, he combos like any other spacie except you get to take everything to a higher percent. The only thing to change is stage select. Smaller stages with higher ceilings are much better because, like Fox, he has an upward kill (side-B) and you would be surprised on how often it hits Snake.

Stages I counterpick: FoD, Battlefield, Greenhill zone, Norfair
Stages to avoid: YI melee, Pokemon Stadium 2, Warioware

vs

Snake vs. Marth:
This matchup sucks. Pick Sheik.

Kidding. This is probably Snake's worst matchup, though. He has trouble getting any sort of combo string on Marth, meanwhile Marth combos the piss out of him. A lot of Snake's usual tactics can be handled recklessly by Marth and still be safe. For example: Shielding a grenade against Marth on a Platform is completely unsafe, as Marth can use Utilt's disjoint to detonate the grenade safely, and probably have you in shield stun long enough to punish. Snake's recovery is completely defunct because of Marth's down air: when Snake is hit out of up B, he lets go of Cypher, giving it a hitbox; this hitbox hits Marth out of the long endlag of down air, allowing a safe recovery from practically anywhere off stage. Marth's grab also outranges Snake's, and Marth generally has better movement and is slippery enough on the ground to easily detonate mines if he knows how.

Getting a C4 on Marth is absolutely essential, in my mind. His floatiness is the only real weakness that Snake is able to exploit. U-tilt into C4 will KO Marth at 70-90% depending on the stage (and there's lots of cute setups for u-tilt). A u-throw also works at around 10% more. Marth generally has trouble coming down, so juggling Marth and getting him about you is really useful. F-tilt can stuff grabs, u-tilt can stuff aerials. Snake's crouch CAN go under Marth's grab if he's spacing out your tilts, but if the Marth is getting super close with grabs, the innermost hitbox will graze Snake's head and Marth gets the grab for it. Learn the hitboxes Marth has and how to DI out of them.

On Marth's throws specifically:
U-throw: you can jump out of the u-tilt at lower percents.
F-throw: DI down and away AND buffer roll away. Marths love to use the landing lag you get from this (since you don't get put in tumble) to regrab you, but you can roll or spotdodge and catch them for it.
B-throw: DI down and away and hit the tech and roll away from Marth. He's looking to tipper the tech in place/missed tech or grab the roll in.
D-throw: Same thing as B-throw essentially. remember that this throw sends you BEHIND marth, so DI Behind to get away.
A lot of these grabs have exact opposite escape DI, so Marth can mix the throws up on you and it's really nasty. Pay attention to which throws he is doing and when he's doing them and try to stay ahead of the mixups.

Pay attention to how the Marth tries to edgeguard. Some stand on the stage and some grab ledge. Either way approach ledge cautiously and never be predictable. It tends to be better to go high vs. Marth just because of how relevant his hitboxes are to stuffing Cypher. back air, forward smash, down air, f-tilt, d-tilt, and maybe even counter are all extremely good options against Snake. BND claims that you can react to Marth's down air tries by dropping early and using a C4 to get back that way. If you don't have a C4 planted, that's worth trying but feels unorthodox to me. If you have one planted, I'd say burn it while Marth is still on stage. it puts him in a bad spot regardless, be it teching or in shieldstun. Having a stock is better than having an easy kill setup.

As for combos, I find that using the weak hitboxes of aerials works really well vs. midweight floaties like Marth. Think of how spacies get strung by up airs really easily, and it's the same kind of idea. You can also get soft back air to strong back air and really trick someone up. Cypher also provides very interesting opportunities given its rather long hitstun. I have to investigate a lot of this more, as the strategy I've tended to favor vs. Marth is to wall him out with grenades and mines until I get a chance to go in.

Edgeguarding Marth should be relatively easy: mines force him to try to sweetspot the ledge, so just plant a mine and grab ledge. Even if you don't KO marth with the mine (likely, given his floatiness), you still get the damage and a positional advantage. This is one matchup where you really can be pretty braindead in your edgeguard and still get it.
Professor Pro vs Armada BEAST 5 Losers Finals Game 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjdPZgqCtv8
Leon vs Charby 47FOS WSF https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smr_gxWMInY
GF https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT5qNNgUjYk

vs

This character is a really hard to deal with if you don't know the matchup. If you do know, you will be all over her like peanut butter and jelly. Zelda's specials (B) can counter most of Snake's neutral game.
Farore's Wind and Din's Fire > Mines
Transform > C4 (it drops)
Nayru's Love > grenade toss/ tranqs/ mortar (u-smash)
From the looks of it, Zelda has the advantage over Snake which means it's a hard matchup for him... It's actually is opposite. How do you deal with a character that slaps away your projectiles like silly putty? Let me tell you

One way to deal with Zelda is to get up and personal with her.... meaning be aggressive.... aggressively smart. Keeping distance puts you in a disadvantage which Zelda WANTS you to do. She has Nayru to protect her from harm and she has an easier time throwing out Dins. What if you jump over Dins? Snake's aerial mobility is very poor, he has a 5 frame jump squat, meaning he is super slow in the air, meaning if Zelda baits your jump, you will be combo'd and take ALOT of unnecessary %. Go close and pressure her using jab, cypher, crouch, dtilt, f-tilt. Wavedance to weave out of her moves and to bait other moves because they have endlag. Crouching helps to whiff grabs, spark jab, f-smash, but be careful, her d-smash is the fastest d-smash in the game, it will be hard to react, so wd or crawl back. F-tilt is one of the best moves to use against Zelda because at low % (40-57 %) it can lead to another grab. 60% going airbourne should lead to a sticky and 80% should lead to an u-tilt (can be detonated into a kill if stuck prior)

ALWAYS stay on the ground and apply pressure mid-close range. Her aerials will always beat yours (learned that the hard way), you are also combo food to her, and don't use projectiles yet. If she is the type of Zelda that loves to teleport (up-b) here's some fun facts. There are two types of transform, regular teleport and telecancelling. Regular teleport will take longer, meaning you can f-air spike her, u-air her, u-smash her. It also goes full distance(a pretty large distance) and it has a hitbox which sends you in weird directions. You can run towards her initial startup to avoid getting hit and punish with tranq--> DACUS or C4. Her telecancelling reduces the startup (still vulnerable), "spin" animation is a bit faster and she can control when she will appear within the distance and she can act out of it. The drawback to this is no hitbox, meaning it can be easily punished by grabs, stickies, cypher if you can predict where she will land....otherwise shield, and when she appears near you, grab her, cypher, or d-air. Nayru has 2 variations, ground and aerial. Her aerial has a smaller hitbox and is vulnerable to b-air. Her ground version is bigger. To deal with nayru, you only need to shield it to which you can grab her. If hit, DI away down and tech away (she's pretty slow). Careful though, she can land cancel her aerial--> ground so keep this in mind when challenging nayru. D-throw is probably you favourite throw against her because it racks up damage fast and it's easier to chase/DACUS her.

Where does this all lead to? Getting her above you. Just like you, she has poor aerial mobility, both horizontal and vertical wise. This is the time where you pull out the projectiles. u-smash her but angle it forward and backward (forward is more safer) because she may nayru to "reflect" it, which you will respond with another u-smash, u-air or f-air if a little closer. Plant mines in conjuction with u-smash maybe DACUS. To this she will most likely respond with up-b. Punish her with the appropriate things said above. Edgeguarding her is only simple if she uses her default Farore which can lead to a f-air or b-air. You can also grab ledge as option as well but Zelda will most likely Dins the ledge to prevent you from hogging her.

Let's talk about transform. She will use that to get the C4 off her, most likely at low %. But at higher %, she may only transform if you are recovering to stage, which I think is a free recovery. When you see her turn (different times of transform to different consoles) immediately detonate it. This will put her in a bad position (above you) and you are free to punish and play hackey sack with her before she hits ground. But if you manage to sticky--> grab--> u-throw--> detonate, it kills at a low %. in PS2, it kills at 85% and over, at FD it kills at 90s. u-throw to sticky only works till 50s, otherwise she can respond with nayru and knock you away.

Throws:
b-throw- DI away and tech away at low percent; DI up and towards at high %
d-throw- DI behind and tech away
u-throw- DI diagonally away; jump at low%
f-throw- DI down away and tech; missed DI at high % can lead to a f-air

You would most likely choose stages with low ceilings but more horizontal space (especially horizontal space). Platforms are a double-edged sword because she can n-air or b/f-air you. And short horizontal blastzones pose a threat to you. As in she can kill you at 70% from a b- throw in Warioware.
Stages I choose: Pokemon Stadium 2, Smashville, Battlefield (I love this stage lol), Norfair, Distant Planet.
Stages I avoid: Warioware, YI melee, Greenhill zone. (basically anywhere with short horizontal blastzones)

vs

I play a squirtle 2-3 times a week who is very close to beating our PR members down here in AZ when he can actually make tourneys.
Pros: Light and not too floaty (still some but better then most light matchups)
Cons: VERY annoyingly small (2 frame very strong d-tilt, hard to grab, if the squirtle knows how to use his movement options it can get rough), can get rid of mines with water gun, good aerial game (f-throw -> dropzone fair-> fair seems automatic with no DI and is very rough to come back from).

squirtle has bad matchups to disjointed hitbox characters (marth, link, etc) due to his t rex limbs but makes up for it in ground maneuverability. i generally try to play a cat and mouse sort of game with alot of grenade shield drops and just grenade shenanigans in general. you have to avoid being in the air against squirtle (like most characters). capitalizing off of a grenade knockup converts into alot of my combos. while crouching and in withdraw (side-b) all your grabs/tranq/jabs will miss. Squirtle dies at a low %, moreso 77% and over on the select stages.

I think Squirtle wins, and he wins hard if you don't play carefully. Squirtle's air and ground mobility combined with his small size and projectiles make mines basically a moot point for you. Good squirtles will be shellshifting and crouching and crawling all the time vs. Snake as well, which makes for a really hard matchup on the ground. All that said, Snake can't stay grounded vs. Squirtle. He has no real advantage except crouch cancels, which REALLY is the problem Squirtle has against any character. None of his moves have very high knockback outside of his Smashes, which tend to be telegraphed and counter-able. I could see CC crawl tilt or CC f-tilt being really good options against Squirtle, since they both pop him up at set knockback values and lead into grabs or C4s. I prefer to camp platforms and force Squirtle to jump, though. From there, you can set up traps that are more inconspicuous and difficult to avoid and abuse Squirtle's really short range. Naturally, you want a stage with platforms, especially against a character as light and floaty as Squirtle: platforms influence his KO%s far more than other characters because of those two factors. The other thing about Squirtle is that his tech rolls are TERRIBLE. You need to be able to tech chase Squirtle and the matchup quickly loses its advantage. Down throw especially is brutal for Squirtle because of how little damage he needs to take before getting KO'd and the sheer amount of time you have to react to his options (+15 frames easy). I imagine Squirtle as a ground-based Jigglypuff, free to move whenever and probably throwing out a safe hitbox at the same time. The difference is that Snake gets SO much off of grabs on Squirtle. The trick is just getting one: use nair and dair wisely and techchase at every opportunity. 60:40 Squirtle. Pick small stages to constrain his movement. Pick platforms to make him rely less on his movement.
-Cisyphus

Throws:
DI his forward throw away, and down throw up (down thrown is his kill throw). He never really throw me with up/back but I imagine just down or away.


Squirtle generally has poor options when directly above you but can outrun you horizontally (aerially) so platform techchases are your friend. my favorite maps v squirtle:
do go: generally neutral and blastzones give space to recover from squirltes gimp game, platforms give you lots of options.

no go: nowhere to go against squirtle and generally harder to recover from.

[dreamland] maybe: a little big but patience will play off v squirtle.

note on edgeguarding: squirtle up-b has a hitbox the size of bowser (feels like it). a mine near the edge will just get destroyed while a grenade/stage c4 just off the edge might work if he doesnt sweet spot. runoff bair can work out as well

just learn how not to get bubble cheesed and not get fooled by his smaller size.

vs

Lucario's ridiculous combo game vs Snake's ridiculous weight = a whole lotta pain. This matchup is actually not that bad for Snake because of one move: Grenades. These things will keep you and Lucario at bay because he NEEDS to touch you to get things started. How do you approach a Lucario? You don't! You force an approach from him. Approaching Lucario is what he wants you to do. Create obstacles that force Lucario to move, and when the time is right punish him for it. Let's talk about his aura in neutral. Without aura, his neutral game is pretty bad against Snake if you know how to play keep-away and forcing a commitment bait can grant you a punish. You can actually stick/tranq Lucario during his down-b, I believe near the end where he becomes vunerable but still in the animation and at the startup. And spot dodge is your best friend in this matchup(@ cisyphus can you confirm how fast Snake's spot dodge is?). Lucario's OHC system will only work if he hits you or your shield, granting him another move and gaining aura. If his attack misses, he has a noticeable endlag, the only move you gotta watch out for is his jab because it's a 3-hit combo. With aura however, it grants Lucario loads of options, more particularly double team cancel where he can cancel double team into a move ( can attack during invincibility as well) at the expense of an aura charge. He will DTC into an u-tilt to start a combo. Bait out an aura charge to keep things in your favour and as usual STAY GROUNDED.

Lucario's weight is a little more on the "floaty" side (I believe heavier than Mewtwo but lighter than Luigi) but with a little more weight so chaingrabs end pretty early, about mid 30%, on which you can stick him till about 78%. Due to his floatiness, it's easier to kill him in low ceiling (85% with detonation). You can u-throw to f-air till 70%. His recovery is really long, but has a good landlag on which you can waveland on stage to stick and grab. If he uses aura, his choice is most likely an air dodge, jump and immediately so for an on-stage b-air or d-air while you have invincibility, other wise, refresh yourself and waveland onstage safely.

Stay close to center stage as much as possible and don't get caught near the ledge at low %, it results in d-tilt to f-air---> force palm spike. Funny enough, Lucario won't edgeguard Snake from far, only near the edge on which he will either b-air or d-air to which you will DI up and towards the stage cypher to grenade hold. Another option is to wall tech his attack to b-reverse into stage. Always SDI his attacks, most likely diagonally up and away.

Stages I choose: Dreamland, Final Destination, Smashville, Distant Plant
Basically more room to move with higher chance at survival
Stages I ban: Warioware, YI melee, Greenhill
Small stages limits your movement and grants Lucario a hit on you

 

[LupinX]

vs

 

[cisyphus]

Okay, so I play a lot of Foxes and a fair amount of other spacies and I do relatively well so here we go:

Fox: Snake does really well against Fox if you know what you're doing. Fox's main strength tends to be his horizontal combo ability as well as his fast ground and air speed, so the emphasis should be on limiting that strength and forcing him to come in. his can be attained trough productive and safe use of mines, c4, grenades, and mortars. Keep exploding all over the place and STAY GROUNDED. Fox has so many great aerial combos and many ways to stop Snake from coming down easily, and because of Snake's terrible aerial mobility, Fox can get multiple up air strings together and cause massive damage. So keep the Fox out the best you can and encourage him to approach.

When Fox approaches, you have a few options to punish this. You can shield grenade if the Fox really enjoys pressuring your shield, which thereby discourages his shield pressure, you can also Cypher OOS if their shine pressure is predictable (any high aerial can be punished by it) and that will then lead into fair at higher percents (so a techchase) or nair into grab at lower percents or even a free C4 stick into regrab if they're bad; you can predict his approach choice (Foxes tend to like spacing their aerials) and wavedash back and punish with a grab or a tilt, or you can force him to keep chasing you, all he while utilizing your traps and mines to limit his movement and punish him if he slips up. Your goal in all of this is to get a frame advantage on Fox so that you can start launching him.

This is where Snake's strengths start to really come into play, as Snake is able to zero-to-death spacies more easily than any other character in the game through a variety of means. Naturally, he has the chaingrab which works on Fox from 30% up to around 80%, and from there Snake is freely able to stick a C4, up air juggle into back air, or even weak up air into fair spike. The chaingrab can also be mixed up into u-tilts (which you can regrab out of at lower percents), weak u-airs, and techchases where you can get hard punishes on tech reads. It's combo city on spacies for Snake, and you really only need one or two openings to get things going. Just be wary that lower percents will probably require tech reads (jabs and f-tilts help a lot here). Snake can also techchase Fox via downthrow, but it's relatively tight timing and demands attention and practice to be successful at it, but it's a great follow-up if the Fox DIs onto a platform.

Speaking of which, platforms are your friends more often than not. Snake has a lot of good options for covering platforms through his mines and c4s which can limit DI to some extent, or be used for great finishers. Snake can also simply WD onto the platforms and start a down throw DI trap since the tech rolls are far longer than the platforms are and Snake can cover every tech option with a standing grab or a turn grab. the only thing to watch for would be getup attacks and quick stands (studying these animations to learn the variations does loads to help). If the Fox does go to the platforms, you can rack up damage with down throw techchases until he's at a KO percent (either through a top platform u-tilt or a back air off stage depending on DI)—both of which are way easier to get thanks to the platforms' height and the general freedom to do whatever you want to a Fox out of down throw.

Should the back air fail, though, there are a few things to consider as well while edgeguarding. Depending on percent, you should be freely able to cover every on stage recovery with C4 and mine and KO the Fox, which means he has to try sweetspotting the ledge. Now Snake's back air has loads of active hitbox frames, and ledge invincibility is really a wonderful thing as well. Snake can also ledge drop rising back air from ledge and regrab it with relative ease. Make good use of that. Another curious thing, if they aren't at KO percent, is that Cypher outright beats illusions. Every single time I've cyphered and a Fox or Falco has side-b'd into me, they've gotten hit and I've been safe. It might still be a ledge invincibility thing, but nonetheless abuse that as well. Cypher hitboxes combo into every single aerial so if you're really good, I'm sure you could reverse Cypher from ledge into fair spike for a super swag KO. If not, back air is just as good and probably a bit safer as well. Snake really needs to grab ledge vs. Spacies, though. His tilts just don't cover enough space and he's too slow to properly react to high firefoxes.

To reverse the situation, I've found as well that Fox has some trouble to Shine spike Snake if the Snake can time the Cypher well. A lot of the time, I've had a Fox try to shinespike me just as I start my Cypher, and the two hits trade and our hitstun is relatively the same, so when I Cypher again, they get caught and suddenly I'm edgeguarding them instead of them edgeguarding me! It's something I need to look into more, but it's a situation that arises in a lot of my games vs. Fox, so it's worth noting as well. Besides that, be good about sweetspotting the ledge and also spacing your Cypher just far enough away that Fox's higher hitboxes still don't hit you. The ledgegrab box on Cypher Release is actually pretty far: take a look at it and realize how close you don't need to be. Don't be too afraid to recover high as well if you notice they choose to back air a lot—grenade trades with it and you'll get back if you're smart about how you come down.

The problems really start arising when the Fox catches on to how dangerous it is to approach Snake and they decide to sit back and camp you. In these situations, I've found that I need to feign an approach and figure out how they plan on stuffing that approach. Then I figure out how to stuff that reaction and punish it as if they'd approached me with it. Controlling the space under platforms becomes more important in this scenario as that is the prime spot for spacies to laser camp. Staying grounded also loses some of its value in these situations, so if you really want the win, I'd say platform camp the fox by controlling the platforms well and always covering your landings. Use wavebounce grenades and C4s to avoid up airs and back airs and punish them as hard as possible when they whiff something.

Stages I'd Counterpick:
Aggro-Fox: Dreamland, Battlefield, Norfair, Lylat Cruise, Distant Planet, Pokemon Stadium 2
Camp-Fox: Fountain of Dreams, Battlefield, Smashville, Green Hill Zone, Yoshi's Island

At the most campy level, the matchup is probably 50:50, but as soon as the Fox starts to overcommit, the matchup shifts in Snake's favor.

 

[LupinX]

vs

This matchup is a dangerous matchup for Snake because a) Lasers vs ground mobility b) Shine puts you in a very very bad position aka the air c) Snake's ridiculously easy combo weight. Because of this, most Falcos will try to approach Snake... that's where you strike them. Let's start of with
1) Fighting the bird: Snake's safe option is staying on the ground but it gets interrupted by Falco's lasers because it nullifies Snake's mines, grenades, tranqs, even his dashdances and leads into combos on Snake on which you want to avoid as much as possible. how to avoid these pesky lasers? Your ridiculously low duck... meaning their lasers won't touch you at all...meaning they WILL approach you. What Falco will most likely do is laser then try to Dair you. while ducking you can powershield them into a grab into chain grab (from 40%) or cypher oos (<40%) to nair to grab to chain grab. Or if they are mid-range, you can powershield their laser into DACUS---> sticky or fair if close to the edge. You can also d-tilt --> grab at about 50%. If you are on a platform stages, you MUST bring him on the platform because that's what you WANT him to be for the jump stick or the d-throw tech chase shenanigans. Lay mines on ground and grenades/C4 on platforms in case he tries to stuff you in more ways than one. Final Destination is actually a good stage for Snake because there are more combo opportunities and lasers aren't a constant threat to Snake (super low crouch ftw). It platformless stage won't hinder your combos and

2) Chasing the bird: Like what @ cisyphus mentioned, Snake's combo game against spacies is very good and can often more than not, lead to a stock. The famous saying "Falco spawns at death percent" applies in this situation. A grab, cypher oos, even edgeguard/gimping will lead to a stock. You can u-throw chain grab Falco from 40-80% then to a stick. you can DACUS---> f-air spike them. You can tech chase tranq him to grab (and yes you can grab him out of his sleep animation unlike the other two ). And of course d-throw platform-chasing works as well, and most probably the easiest way to rack up damage considering it does a whopping 14% (logic anybody? lol)

3) Biting the bird: Let's talk about Snake's most used finisher in the game... the C4. As much as we love that finish, it is quite "weak" in a sense of a finisher to large stages, aka Dreamland, FD. I would use the C4 more on stages that have a low ceiling because Falco (and friends...and wolf) are fast fallers, killing them off top is very difficult and requires a pretty high %(which is easily attained by comboing). In PS2, a stage where the ceiling is low, Falco has to be above 120% near the ceiling for the sticky to kill...slightly lower if you're on a platform, if 70%, you can u-throw-->u-air--> C4 kill-off. In a big stage aka Dreamland, FD, YI brawl, it takes time to finish him off. Usually a tranq--> f-air will finish them off/create an edge guard opportunity at 80%.
Speaking of edge guarding, Falco has a short firebird(slow startup) and phantasm. So it is easier to telegraph because of the recovery options. Don't be afraid to f-air on their firebird, because they won't be able to make it anyway. As for the phantasm, if they aim for the ledge, you can either wavedash ff to ledge or f-tilt combo him outta here assuming you hit him with the second hit.

Stages I counterpick: Pokémon Stadium 2, Fountain of Dreams, Final Destination, Smashville, Battlefield
Stage I ban: Greenhill Zone, Warioware, YI melee, YI brawl

 

[cisyphus]

I'd reconcile with the fact that you won't really be killing Falco with a raw C4 at any point unless you're desperately camping him. Falco should die to u-throw -> u-air -> C4 at relatively low percents (70-80%). The edgeguards are really good, but there's certainly viability in upward KOs, especially on lower ceiling stages. I don't much agree with the stage counterpicks either, since I tend to prefer longer stages with lower ceilings for the same reasons. Falco likes killing off the sides, so the more room you have to recover the better. Falcos are usually afraid to go super deep for edgeguards as well (with good reason) so that shouldn't be too big of an issue. They'll mostly grab ledge and invincible backair or stand on stage and f-smash, down smash, or dair the missed sweetspots. Falco also isn't terribly fast, and his laser camping isn't that strong against Snake, so I'm really hesitant with bringing him to small stages like Warioware and YI Melee.

For me:
Counterpick to: Battlefield, FoD, Final Destination, Pokemon Stadium 2, Smashville

I genuinely think Battlefield is Snake's best stage, so there's maybe some bias there. A lot of it also depends on your comfort with moving on platforms. I spent like 3 hours one session practicing that on Battlefield, so I know the Battlefield platforms incredibly well (which helps since most ledges are close to the same height).

 

[LupinX]

I like taking Falco in Warioware and YI melee because of the small spaces and blast zones (vertical ones specifically) because I have more opportunities to combo and I have been successful against him on those stages. And most of the Falcos I face always laser to nair, which gets me into a combo if I'm not careful. The small stages are good for gimping and easy edgeguards, plus I don't have much trouble recovering in these type of stages. The only drawback is he can combo you as well. I will try taking Falco to FD and PS2 the next time I face them to see if it's easier/harder. I'm guessing you like the room to move around and living longer than expected.

 

[LupinX]

vs

 

[cisyphus]

I dunno, Falco's fall speed is faster than Snake's, so he's more liable to teching on the omnipresent platforms (since he'll spend less time over the platforms). A lot of Snake's aerials get awkwardly interrupted by the platforms whereas Falco's basically never do. The short blastzones make edgeguarding Falco almost nonexistent (which is bad 'cause he's very easy to edgeguard). Crouch until they stop lasering and be good about timing your shield on their nair, f-tilt, d-tilt, or whatever followup they try. Pay attention to how they approach and do your best option for stuffing that. Might want to even practice powershielding lasers. Crawling might even be good to mix it up further. I dunno, Falco seems a lot easier than Fox most of the time.

I wold honestly play Wolf almost exactly the same as Falco, just with the knowledge that his recovery is more dangerous to edgeguard because of the side-b sweetspot. a lot of his combos are exactly the same, and if you notice the Wolf doesn't double shine to beat CC, you can CC his shines all day and punish with cypher into nair grab. Be wary of dash attack spacing, SD his NAirs, and DI his DAirs. Those are Wolf's most major approach options/combo starters. Besides that, he combos like any other spacie except you get to take everything to a higher percent.

 

[LupinX]

So = Got it

Are there different stages or they are similar to Falco?

 

[cisyphus]

So = Got it

Are there different stages or they are similar to Falco?

I actually might prefer the smaller stages vs. Wolf, especially those with higher ceilings since he has far more upward kill options than Falco. FOD, Battlefield, and Green Hill Zone come to mind. Norfair can't be bad, either.

 

[LupinX]

vs

 

[cisyphus]

Snake vs. Marth:
This matchup sucks. Pick Sheik.

Kidding. This is probably Snake's worst matchup, though. He has trouble getting any sort of combo string on Marth, meanwhile Marth combos the piss out of him. A lot of Snake's usual tactics can be handled recklessly by Marth and still be safe. For example: Shielding a grenade against Marth on a Platform is completely unsafe, as Marth can use Utilt's disjoint to detonate the grenade safely, and probably have you in shield stun long enough to punish. Snake's recovery is completely defunct because of Marth's down air: when Snake is hit out of up B, he lets go of Cypher, giving it a hitbox; this hitbox hits Marth out of the long endlag of down air, allowing a safe recovery from practically anywhere off stage. Marth's grab also outranges Snake's, and Marth generally has better movement and is slippery enough on the ground to easily detonate mines if he knows how.

Getting a C4 on Marth is absolutely essential, in my mind. His floatiness is the only real weakness that Snake is able to exploit. U-tilt into C4 will KO Marth at 70-90% depending on the stage (and there's lots of cute setups for u-tilt). A u-throw also works at around 10% more. Marth generally has trouble coming down, so juggling Marth and getting him about you is really useful. F-tilt can stuff grabs, u-tilt can stuff aerials. Snake's crouch CAN go under Marth's grab if he's spacing out your tilts, but if the Marth is getting super close with grabs, the innermost hitbox will graze Snake's head and Marth gets the grab for it. Learn the hitboxes Marth has and how to DI out of them.

On Marth's throws specifically:
U-throw: you can jump out of the u-tilt at lower percents.
F-throw: DI down and away AND buffer roll away. Marths love to use the landing lag you get from this (since you don't get put in tumble) to regrab you, but you can roll or spotdodge and catch them for it.
B-throw: DI down and away and hit the tech and roll away from Marth. He's looking to tipper the tech in place/missed tech or grab the roll in.
D-throw: Same thing as B-throw essentially. remember that this throw sends you BEHIND marth, so DI Behind to get away.
A lot of these grabs have exact opposite escape DI, so Marth can mix the throws up on you and it's really nasty. Pay attention to which throws he is doing and when he's doing them and try to stay ahead of the mixups.

Pay attention to how the Marth tries to edgeguard. Some stand on the stage and some grab ledge. Either way approach ledge cautiously and never be predictable. It tends to be better to go high vs. Marth just because of how relevant his hitboxes are to stuffing Cypher. back air, forward smash, down air, f-tilt, d-tilt, and maybe even counter are all extremely good options against Snake. BND claims that you can react to Marth's down air tries by dropping early and using a C4 to get back that way. If you don't have a C4 planted, that's worth trying but feels unorthodox to me. If you have one planted, I'd say burn it while Marth is still on stage. it puts him in a bad spot regardless, be it teching or in shieldstun. Having a stock is better than having an easy kill setup.

As for combos, I find that using the weak hitboxes of aerials works really well vs. midweight floaties like Marth. Think of how spacies get strung by up airs really easily, and it's the same kind of idea. You can also get soft back air to strong back air and really trick someone up. Cypher also provides very interesting opportunities given its rather long hitstun. I have to investigate a lot of this more, as the strategy I've tended to favor vs. Marth is to wall him out with grenades and mines until I get a chance to go in.

Edgeguarding Marth should be relatively easy: mines force him to try to sweetspot the ledge, so just plant a mine and grab ledge. Even if you don't KO marth with the mine (likely, given his floatiness), you still get the damage and a positional advantage. This is one matchup where you really can be pretty braindead in your edgeguard and still get it.

 

[LupinX]

I thought sheik would be snake's worse matchup, I guess I never played a good marth xD

And I find it that sheik punishes snake harder than marth

 

[cisyphus]

Sheik is way easier to edgeguard and combo, and her reach isn't quite as scary as Marth's. Sheik is another really tough one tho.

 

[LupinX]

vs (might as well considering they both transform lol)

 

[BND]

Hrrm; feels like the thread's moving a bit fast (never seen a matchup thread move one character a day). Admittedly, cisyphus is the only other person who contributed to the thread so far, so I guess that's some logic behind the speed.

In any case, currently getting wrecked by pre-finals, so I won't really be active until 2 weeks or so later. Will note that I find Marth much easier to combo than Sheik--much bigger and stable hurtbox (For example, lots of things whiff on a landing/reeling-from-hitstun Sheik, ftilt included IIRC, meaning that you can't really abuse landing lag and need to adjust combos sometimes), and similarly weird neither-fastfaller-nor-floaty fallspeed but leaning towards the floatier side, which feels easier to combo IMO. To each his own, I guess: I don't like up air juggles and tech chases with dthrows + platform abuse often which could potentially wreck Sheik and my chaingrabbing against fastfallers at non-trivial percents (I.E. fox at 50%) is sort of rusted, so that may be a factor in the differing opinion.

As for edgeguards, I think the difference between difficulty in edgeguarding Marth and Sheik is minimal (unless there's somehow a way to guarantee a kill if you throw Sheik off at 0% or something. I get the feeling you potentially could vs. Marth + bad DI on the throw but still need to examine theorycrafting properly since not every input is going to be frame perfect). Not sure if it still works on people in 2015 (I.E. did people learn to sweetspot the ledge?), but the Marth Killer thing, which didn't work in Brawl because of magnet hands, functions properly now. In both cases you punish with a ledgehopped aerial if they land on the stage: I'd imagine that ledgehop down air -> ftilt puts them back offstage at sufficiently high percents.

 

[LupinX]

vs

This character is a really hard to deal with if you don't know the matchup. If you do know, you will be all over her like peanut butter and jelly. Zelda's specials (B) can counter most of Snake's neutral game.
Farore's Wind and Din's Fire > Mines
Transform > C4 (it drops)
Nayru's Love > grenade toss/ tranqs/ mortar (u-smash)
From the looks of it, Zelda has the advantage over Snake which means it's a hard matchup for him... It's actually is opposite. How do you deal with a character that slaps away your projectiles like silly putty? Let me tell you

One way to deal with Zelda is to get up and personal with her.... meaning be aggressive.... aggressively smart. Keeping distance puts you in a disadvantage which Zelda WANTS you to do. She has Nayru to protect her from harm and she has an easier time throwing out Dins. What if you jump over Dins? Snake's aerial mobility is very poor, he has a 5 frame jump squat, meaning he is super slow in the air, meaning if Zelda baits your jump, you will be combo'd and take ALOT of unnecessary %. Go close and pressure her using jab, cypher, crouch, dtilt, f-tilt. Wavedance to weave out of her moves and to bait other moves because they have endlag. Crouching helps to whiff grabs, spark jab, f-smash, but be careful, her d-smash is the fastest d-smash in the game, it will be hard to react, so wd or crawl back. F-tilt is one of the best moves to use against Zelda because at low % (40-57 %) it can lead to another grab. 60% going airbourne should lead to a sticky and 80% should lead to an u-tilt (can be detonated into a kill if stuck prior)

ALWAYS stay on the ground and apply pressure mid-close range. Her aerials will always beat yours (learned that the hard way), you are also combo food to her, and don't use projectiles yet. If she is the type of Zelda that loves to teleport (up-b) here's some fun facts. There are two types of transform, regular teleport and telecancelling. Regular teleport will take longer, meaning you can f-air spike her, u-air her, u-smash her. It also goes full distance(a pretty large distance) and it has a hitbox which sends you in weird directions. You can run towards her initial startup to avoid getting hit and punish with tranq--> DACUS or C4. Her telecancelling reduces the startup (still vulnerable), "spin" animation is a bit faster and she can control when she will appear within the distance and she can act out of it. The drawback to this is no hitbox, meaning it can be easily punished by grabs, stickies, cypher if you can predict where she will land....otherwise shield, and when she appears near you, grab her, cypher, or d-air. Nayru has 2 variations, ground and aerial. Her aerial has a smaller hitbox and is vulnerable to b-air. Her ground version is bigger. To deal with nayru, you only need to shield it to which you can grab her. If hit, DI away down and tech away (she's pretty slow). Careful though, she can land cancel her aerial--> ground so keep this in mind when challenging nayru. D-throw is probably you favourite throw against her because it racks up damage fast and it's easier to chase/DACUS her.

Where does this all lead to? Getting her above you. Just like you, she has poor aerial mobility, both horizontal and vertical wise. This is the time where you pull out the projectiles. u-smash her but angle it forward and backward (forward is more safer) because she may nayru to "reflect" it, which you will respond with another u-smash, u-air or f-air if a little closer. Plant mines in conjuction with u-smash maybe DACUS. To this she will most likely respond with up-b. Punish her with the appropriate things said above. Edgeguarding her is only simple if she uses her default Farore which can lead to a f-air or b-air. You can also grab ledge as option as well but Zelda will most likely Dins the ledge to prevent you from hogging her.

Let's talk about transform. She will use that to get the C4 off her, most likely at low %. But at higher %, she may only transform if you are recovering to stage, which I think is a free recovery. When you see her turn (different times of transform to different consoles) immediately detonate it. This will put her in a bad position (above you) and you are free to punish and play hackey sack with her before she hits ground. But if you manage to sticky--> grab--> u-throw--> detonate, it kills at a low %. in PS2, it kills at 85% and over, at FD it kills at 90s. u-throw to sticky only works till 50s, otherwise she can respond with nayru and knock you away.

Throws:
b-throw- DI away and tech away at low percent; DI up and towards at high %
d-throw- DI behind and tech away
u-throw- DI diagonally away; jump at low%
f-throw- DI down away and tech; missed DI at high % can lead to a f-air

You would most likely choose stages with low ceilings but more horizontal space (especially horizontal space). Platforms are a double-edged sword because she can n-air or b/f-air you. And short horizontal blastzones pose a threat to you. As in she can kill you at 70% from a b- throw in Warioware.
Stages I choose: Pokemon Stadium 2, Smashville, Battlefield (I love this stage lol), Norfair, Distant Planet.
Stages I avoid: Warioware, YI melee, Greenhill zone. (basically anywhere with short horizontal blastzones)

 

[LupinX]

Ya, we're only getting at the matchups that we are familiar with. Cisyphus is on fire here with the matchup thread with much better information lol. 41 (viable) characters is alot to cover, which is kinda why this thread is going at speed. It will probably slow down once we go to a character that we aren't familiar with for example, ice climbers lol

 

[yink059]

vs
I play a squirtle 2-3 times a week who is very close to beating our PR members down here in AZ when he can actually make tourneys.
Pros: Light and not too floaty (still some but better then most light matchups)
Cons: VERY annoyingly small (2 frame very strong d-tilt, hard to grab, if the squirtle knows how to use his movement options it can get rough), can get rid of mines with water gun, good aerial game (f-throw -> dropzone fair-> fair seems automatic with no DI and is very rough to come back from).

squirtle has bad matchups to disjointed hitbox characters (marth, link, etc) due to his t rex limbs but makes up for it in ground maneuverability. i generally try to play a cat and mouse sort of game with alot of grenade shield drops and just grenade shenanigans in general. you have to avoid being in the air against squirtle (like most characters). capitalizing off of a grenade knockup converts into alot of my combos. while crouching and in withdraw (side-b) all your grabs/tranq/jabs will miss.

squirtle generally has poor options when directly above you but can outrun you horizontally (aerially) so platform techchases are your friend. my favorite maps v squirtle:
do go: generally neutral and blastzones give space to recover from squirltes gimp game, platforms give you lots of options.

no go: nowhere to go against squirtle and generally harder to recover from.

[dreamland] maybe: a little big but patience will play off v squirtle.

note on edgeguarding: squirtle up-b has a hitbox the size of bowser (feels like it). a mine near the edge will just get destroyed while a grenade/stage c4 just off the edge might work if he doesnt sweet spot. runoff bair can work out as well

just learn how not to get bubble cheesed and not get fooled by his smaller size.

this isnt me (some not so good sheik) but heres a quick demo if you havent seen much squirtle in action (note hes gotten alot better since this video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55fwYXq2--Q

i missed a few points but i can elaborate if you have questions

 

[LupinX]

Thank you for putting in the Squirtle matchup much appreciated

What general % would you kill Squirtle with a u-throw--> C4?

How would you DI Squirtle's throws?

I never faced a Squirtle before but can he pressure Snake?If so how can you deal with it?

 

[yink059]

Thank you for putting in the Squirtle matchup much appreciated

What general % would you kill Squirtle with a u-throw--> C4?

How would you DI Squirtle's throws?

I never faced a Squirtle before but can he pressure Snake?If so how can you deal with it?

A little below average, 90-100%

DI his forward throw away, and down throw up (down thrown is his kill throw). He never really throw me with up/back but I imagine just down or away.

For pressure think of like sheik (down smash/tilts) just faster and with Luigi slippery-ness and no sheik grab combos. Grenade pulls and wd/up b oos are your best options

 

[cisyphus]

Squirtle dies to u-throw C4 at 77% on Battlefield. NOT high percent at all. That Squirtle matchup is also pretty thin overall. Michigan is the land of Squirtle: Dirtboy is PR—habitually beating Ripple, ZHime, and others on netplay as well; Samn is another really strong Squirtle, as are Benji, Frost, and Jawsome. All that said, I play the matchup a ton and have more experience than most Snakes at it.

I think Squirtle wins, and he wins hard if you don't play carefully. Squirtle's air and ground mobility combined with his small size and projectiles make mines basically a moot point for you. Good squirtles will be shellshifting and crouching and crawling all the time vs. Snake as well, which makes for a really hard matchup on the ground. All that said, Snake can't stay grounded vs. Squirtle. He has no real advantage except crouch cancels, which REALLY is the problem Squirtle has against any character. None of his moves have very high knockback outside of his Smashes, which tend to be telegraphed and counter-able. I could see CC crawl tilt or CC f-tilt being really good options against Squirtle, since they both pop him up at set knockback values and lead into grabs or C4s. I prefer to camp platforms and force Squirtle to jump, though. From there, you can set up traps that are more inconspicuous and difficult to avoid and abuse Squirtle's really short range. Naturally, you want a stage with platforms, especially against a character as light and floaty as Squirtle: platforms influence his KO%s far more than other characters because of those two factors. The other thing about Squirtle is that his tech rolls are TERRIBLE. You need to be able to tech chase Squirtle and the matchup quickly loses its advantage. Down throw especially is brutal for Squirtle because of how little damage he needs to take before getting KO'd and the sheer amount of time you have to react to his options (+15 frames easy). I imagine Squirtle as a ground-based Jigglypuff, free to move whenever and probably throwing out a safe hitbox at the same time. The difference is that Snake gets SO much off of grabs on Squirtle. The trick is just getting one: use nair and dair wisely and techchase at every opportunity. 60:40 Squirtle. Pick small stages to constrain his movement. Pick platforms to make him rely less on his movement.

 

[yink059]

Squirtle dies to u-throw C4 at 77% on Battlefield. NOT high percent at all. That Squirtle matchup is also pretty thin overall. Michigan is the land of Squirtle: Dirtboy is PR—habitually beating Ripple, ZHime, and others on netplay as well; Samn is another really strong Squirtle, as are Benji, Frost, and Jawsome. All that said, I play the matchup a ton and have more experience than most Snakes at it.

I think Squirtle wins, and he wins hard if you don't play carefully. Squirtle's air and ground mobility combined with his small size and projectiles make mines basically a moot point for you. Good squirtles will be shellshifting and crouching and crawling all the time vs. Snake as well, which makes for a really hard matchup on the ground. All that said, Snake can't stay grounded vs. Squirtle. He has no real advantage except crouch cancels, which REALLY is the problem Squirtle has against any character. None of his moves have very high knockback outside of his Smashes, which tend to be telegraphed and counter-able. I could see CC crawl tilt or CC f-tilt being really good options against Squirtle, since they both pop him up at set knockback values and lead into grabs or C4s. I prefer to camp platforms and force Squirtle to jump, though. From there, you can set up traps that are more inconspicuous and difficult to avoid and abuse Squirtle's really short range. Naturally, you want a stage with platforms, especially against a character as light and floaty as Squirtle: platforms influence his KO%s far more than other characters because of those two factors. The other thing about Squirtle is that his tech rolls are TERRIBLE. You need to be able to tech chase Squirtle and the matchup quickly loses its advantage. Down throw especially is brutal for Squirtle because of how little damage he needs to take before getting KO'd and the sheer amount of time you have to react to his options (+15 frames easy). I imagine Squirtle as a ground-based Jigglypuff, free to move whenever and probably throwing out a safe hitbox at the same time. The difference is that Snake gets SO much off of grabs on Squirtle. The trick is just getting one: use nair and dair wisely and techchase at every opportunity. 60:40 Squirtle. Pick small stages to constrain his movement. Pick platforms to make him rely less on his movement.

I play dirtboy on netplay sometimes :O

Lol I don't have the capacity/extensive experience to write novels on these kinds of threads, sorry :|

 

[cisyphus]

I don't aim to be dismissive of your post, so don't misinterpret it as that. It's just rather general and doesn't speak to playing against Squirtle specifically. A lot of what you say is true, however.

 

[LupinX]

vs

 

[LupinX]

vs

Lucario's ridiculous combo game vs Snake's ridiculous weight = a whole lotta pain. This matchup is actually not that bad for Snake because of one move: Grenades. These things will keep you and Lucario at bay because he NEEDS to touch you to get things started. How do you approach a Lucario? You don't! You force an approach from him. Approaching Lucario is what he wants you to do. Create obstacles that force Lucario to move, and when the time is right punish him for it. Let's talk about his aura in neutral. Without aura, his neutral game is pretty bad against Snake if you know how to play keep-away and forcing a commitment bait can grant you a punish. You can actually stick/tranq Lucario during his down-b, I believe near the end where he becomes vunerable but still in the animation and at the startup. And spot dodge is your best friend in this matchup(@ cisyphus can you confirm how fast Snake's spot dodge is?). Lucario's OHC system will only work if he hits you or your shield, granting him another move and gaining aura. If his attack misses, he has a noticeable endlag, the only move you gotta watch out for is his jab because it's a 3-hit combo. With aura however, it grants Lucario loads of options, more particularly double team cancel where he can cancel double team into a move ( can attack during invincibility as well) at the expense of an aura charge. He will DTC into an u-tilt to start a combo. Bait out an aura charge to keep things in your favour and as usual STAY GROUNDED.

Lucario's weight is a little more on the "floaty" side (I believe heavier than Mewtwo but lighter than Luigi) but with a little more weight so chaingrabs end pretty early, about mid 30%, on which you can stick him till about 78%. Due to his floatiness, it's easier to kill him in low ceiling (85% with detonation). You can u-throw to f-air till 70%. His recovery is really long, but has a good landlag on which you can waveland on stage to stick and grab. If he uses aura, his choice is most likely an air dodge, jump and immediately so for an on-stage b-air or d-air while you have invincibility, other wise, refresh yourself and waveland onstage safely.

Stay close to center stage as much as possible and don't get caught near the ledge at low %, it results in d-tilt to f-air---> force palm spike. Funny enough, Lucario won't edgeguard Snake from far, only near the edge on which he will either b-air or d-air to which you will DI up and towards the stage cypher to grenade hold. Another option is to wall tech his attack to b-reverse into stage. Always SDI his attacks, most likely diagonally up and away.

Stages I choose: Dreamland, Final Destination, Smashville, Distant Plant
Basically more room to move with higher chance at survival
Stages I ban: Warioware, YI melee, Greenhill
Small stages limits your movement and grants Lucario a hit on you

 

[cisyphus]

Spotdodge gives invincibility on frame 2 and lasts until frame 19 where he is vulnerable and inactionable until frame 28.
1: Vulnerable, inactionable
2-18: invincible, inactionable
19-27: Vulnerable, inactionable
28: first available frame

DT cancel isn't actually Lucario's best option: canceling into Aura Sphere (and then cancelling the charge) is way faster. DT just lets you play more defensively.

 

[Revolution6 aka alterego]

snake vs DK?

 

[cisyphus]

I played Freze a whole lot this winter and got some good wins off of him eventually. That's really when I started to learn to be more patient with Snake. I also play Benji a whole bunch (Michigan PR player that dabbles in DK some). DK is in a situation where he can be camped out really easily. All he really has is his grabs, meanwhile his hurtbox is enormous, making all of your multi-hit moves (nair, dair, jab, f-tilt...) really tough to SDI, C4 is really easy to land, and he's combo food as well due to his combination of weight and fall speed. Snake can get by really by just being patient and staying a step ahead of the DK. Keep a grenade on you pretty frequently and be happy to trade with most of DK's stuff. His grab setups take a really long time as well so fight for 4th port to gain the knockback reduction from that. use wavebounces and the like the mix up the followups. When the DK goes for cargo throw combos, try to DI behind the DK—they're able to mix up the DI by pivoting a bunch, but eventually they'll commit to something and you can react to it. The fair is guaranteed if you DI away and its knockback is far stronger than the back air, and the back air is also harder to get the sweetspot on iirc. The rest is just tight gameplay. Be safe in the neutral and avoid punishes. Mix up your recoveries and read his reactions.

B&Bs are really just Cypher Nair into chaingrab C4, then you get lots of stuff off of your launchers until a pretty high percent. Dash attack links into u-tilt or regrabs, grabs give you up air strings which can lead to cute AI platform u-tilts into KOs at surprisingly low percentages. You can also play the camp game and pull lots of grenades, just be sure to switch between cooking them and tossing them. Brush up on AGT tech so that you can put both the explosions and yourself in the right places. AGT airdodge up throw down is really great for an Ally-oop kinda combo (Grenade/C4 into U-air usually, though back air's a good option too) and DK's vertical air mobility isn't that great. DK takes forever to kill off the top though, so study the KO%s and know when you get the kills and when you don't. Sticking a good DK at high percents is very difficult. I'd gravitate toward smaller stages due to DK's massive hurtboxes: mines ruin his day very often. His aerials all beat Cypher pretty handily, so be very careful while recovering: they'll normally not dair too deep off stage, so try to get that max distance sweetspot (refer to debug mode to see just how big the reach is!).

 

[LupinX]

What stages would be optimal to ban vs DK?

 

[yink059]

personally i would avoid low platform stages (yoshis, ww) just because dk's sharking game is so strong. snakes poor aerial mobility will make it tough for him to get down on stages like FD as well.

 

[Arrow (Kyle)]

vs (might as well considering they both transform lol)

I play with Zhime frequently (usually at least once a week) so I've had to deal with this MU a lot. Before I say anything though I do want to note that I play a Snake a lot less aggressive than most people and focus more on "passive aggression" as I like to call it.
Transform is really annoying since it removes your C4 due to there being no character on the screen for the stick to be on. (Sheik/Zelda actually leave and their hitboxes and etc don't exist for a moment and then the other one appears).
I actually like to play this match up really slow and more on the campy side. I usually aim for a large stage (PS2, DL, Norfair and DP) and play a strong keep away game. AGT grenades to take away approach options. When they throw out a Dins from across the stage I like using a SH AGT Forward toss because your nade will get there before dins will get to you. It's a free 16% and a reset to neutral.
On DL specifically I like to platform camp on the top platforms and have a Mine on one of the lower ones. AGT nades down to supply pressure from up there. the only real option they have at this point is to throw a dins at you or the mine. If they throw the dins a the mine you can drop through the platform fast fall and get a stick, though I personally don't like Sticking Zelda until near death % due to transform. Fallinh Uair is my next favorite option and at low %'s it will lead into a grab. Mostly just AGT nades while up there, SH to the left/right and throw them down or drop through the platform and AGT up toss down then Waveland onto the platform. Zelda can punish this with a Uair so when you jump if you see them jumping as well to go for a Uair, I like to Z drop the nade and DJ away then reset to neutral.
Overall I just like playing it very safe and patiently. Nades imo are one of Snake's most underused tools and I try to maximize the usage for things such as pressure from across the stage, small punishes to avoid trades you'd otherwise lose (z dropping them as a prime example from before) movement option in the air and for surviving + recovering. And in this match up specifically I think they help a lot.
Telecanceling is annoying but I like to deal with it again with grenades. Always keeping my distance, usually near the edge of the stage but not all the way at it, I'll AGT a nade to where I think they're gonna telecancel to, delaying it so that it will blow up when it gets there. If I think they're gonna try to telecancel in front of/behind me, I'll shield and let the nade blow them up or even AGT up Toss down and get a Fair or Bair off that at mid % based on DI and an Uair at low/mid % with bad DI. when they get there, which can lead into a Uair or UpB OOS follow up. At mid-to-high % I like to threaten Tekecancels with Tranqs. If you land a tranq at 60%, that Zelda should be dead from a stick,Dthrow tech chase regrab, Uthrow. Might need a pummel or two, obviously need to compensate for higher/lower blastzones.

As for dealing with the transformation to Sheik, It gets a lot harder. I personally still have a lot of issues with this MU but one thing that makes it a lot easier is the use of Mines for edge guarding. I like to place a mine about a full roll's distance, maybe a bit more not great on measuring the distance without a visual, from the edge and hold ledge while edge guarding shiek. To punish the landing lag is a ledge drop DJ tranq. You can stick them, throw them into that Mine and there goes a stock. You'll usually have time to charge the mine a bit so if they're gonna teleport into it that also will take a stock starting at around 110%.
I play a bit more aggressively in neutral, but I also spend a lot more time on platforms, I prefer the platforms closer to the ground against Sheik, however.

I play a lot more campy than the majority of you do I feel like lol.

Can anyone break down vs for me? I've struggled with it a ton and can't seem to figure it out. I generally win in neutral and am able to counter their Dash Dancing with AGT nades placed smartly. I play a bit more aggressively than usual in this match up and utilize Boost grabs a lot. Dthrow tech chases are a breeze with boost grabs, you can cover Tech away with it on reaction and can turn around JC grab tech behind. Reach to GA with shield grab. I lose pretty much all the trades though. And too often are they converted into knees that kill a lot earlier than anything of mine does. I personally have a really hard time edge guarding Falcon (It's probably my weakest part of my game atm, and I feel like that is my issue more than Falcon is tbh lol). Pretty much he's living to 200% and I'm dying at 70% RIP.

 

[cisyphus]

Some really good ideas on the Zelda matchup! We play more or less the same way but you've developed some more sophisticated punishes that I'll definitely be implementing! As for a tranq punish, have you considered replacing grab with u-tilt? U-tilt sets up KOs ~10% earlier than Up Throw and doesn't force you to do a tech read on down throw. You can also try f-tilt to combo into the u-tilt or the grab, but that's susceptible to ASDI down.

Can you really react to Falcon's tech away? That's a 12 frame reaction window which is kind of amazing. Falcon is terrifying at times because he literally can kill you at any point whereas you only get edgeguards on him. The punish is the most important part of any fastfaller matchup for Snake since he combos them soooo hard. Whatever you're doing in neutral apparently is working, so I'll just elaborate on the punishes a bit more:
Getting a C4 immediately is really helpful, and once you get a grab you need to make sure you're tacking on ~80%, because that's completely possible with chaingrabs and smart platform movement. There's lots of different ways to get them, so just be creative. If you're getting bad trades, the Falcon is being smart with their aerial use, so stop trying to force trades! Falcon definitely shouldn't be living to 200% in the matchup unless you're just not getting C4s on him. Having a C4 makes edgeguarding fantastic as it sets up back airs or fair spikes or even stage spikes in some situations. Otherwise, you can u-throw platform techchase him until he's on the top platform or DI's off stage so you can bair or uair into C4, or you can down throw him to stupid percents if you're really as good at reaction as you say. Platforms limit his roll options immensely and you can always reposition the grabs with the D-Pad.

You can also throw out invincible back airs and regrab ledge with some lenience, so definitely consider that as well. A cute setup for higher percents is to place a mine on the lip of the stage and wavedash to ledge. Then when the Falcon gets close enough to get hit by the explosion, do a ledge jump back air (a jump input on the ledge, not a ledgehop). I forget whether the back air knockback overwrites or combines with the mine knockback, but Falcon goes flying either way. You might also be able to do an up air? The problem there is the narrower and more brief hitbox, which could miss certain DIs (I always just back air). If Falcon's lower percent though, really just grab ledge. PM falcons love to go for Raptor Boost to ledge so just be mindful of your invincibility and you'll be fine. Melee Falcons will usually just UpB and try to fade back to ledge. Their landing lag is long enough that you can punish with ledgehop C4 or tranq and get a free punish. Cover the platform with mines if that's an option, too. Pay attention to which option your Falcon tends to favor and be ready to cover them (but don't try to read it either—Falcon's recovery is slow!!)

 

[LupinX]

Thanks for the Zelda matchup, much appreciated. Ya, for the past 2 weeks, I've been working more on grenades and how under rated they are, well in fact, they can be used in almost any situation. I'm trying to implement more recoil special or aerial grenade into wavedash oos. It's just I'm very bad at camping other characters, which is why I approach/ force approaches on my opponents by cutting off their movement with traps.
As for the Falcon matchup, I feel that D-throw tech chase rinse, wash, and repeat is mandatory when building % on Falcon due to his easily react-able techs. And yes, edgeguards need to equal a stock. DACUS to C4 works at 0% and chaingrabs are up to 85% (i think). Mines/C4 on platforms are useful as well since in my experience, Falcon's dash dancing beats Snake's anyday.

 

[yink059]

excuse my language but **** this character.

 

[LupinX]

So peach matchup is really annoying for Snake. Her turnips (gawsh I dislike those a lot) shuts down all your mines and forces you to approach. It also forces you to approach her, making your life harder than it already is. Her combo game against Snake is ridiculous and ends at roughly 110%, so DI everything properly. I suggest putting mines on platform stages because she loves staying in the air and also at higher %s from a f/b-throw. You can stick her I believe 35-40%(?) off u-throw and kill her early at 80% in PS2 (I reference my kill %s off PS2) maybe until 95%because she's so light. U-smash is your best friend when dealing with her, especially when she mis-spaces her aerials. Learn how to grab turnips off throws for example, AGT because it helps.
In my opinion, playing in smaller stages benefits Snake because she can't camp you out, and her pressure game ain't that great (unless you got caught in d-smash which depletes your shield soooo fast lol). Oh and watch out for that unexpected Toad, it actually puts you in a bad position when it works, but if you bait it out, it works wonders in your favour

 

[cisyphus]

platform camp and trade. She dies to your moves at 90 and you die to hers at like 130. Stay in position to punish turnip pulls with tranq and keep u-tilt ready as it stuffs most FC aerial heights. I nearly beat Hanky Panky at Shuffle VII using this general plan, and if it weren't the first match I played of the day, I'd have won for sure. Peach has very little against a campy Snake.

 

[yink059]

So peach matchup is really annoying for Snake. Her turnips (gawsh I dislike those a lot) shuts down all your mines and forces you to approach. It also forces you to approach her, making your life harder than it already is. Her combo game against Snake is ridiculous and ends at roughly 110%, so DI everything properly. I suggest putting mines on platform stages because she loves staying in the air and also at higher %s from a f/b-throw. You can stick her I believe 35-40%(?) off u-throw and kill her early at 80% in PS2 (I reference my kill %s off PS2) maybe until 95%because she's so light. U-smash is your best friend when dealing with her, especially when she mis-spaces her aerials. Learn how to grab turnips off throws for example, AGT because it helps.
In my opinion, playing in smaller stages benefits Snake because she can't camp you out, and her pressure game ain't that great (unless you got caught in d-smash which depletes your shield soooo fast lol). Oh and watch out for that unexpected Toad, it actually puts you in a bad position when it works, but if you bait it out, it works wonders in your favour

ya i just usually dont enjoy playing lame af but you basically have to... it was alot of nickel and dime trades and dacus really worked well for the float anti-air. i took him to ghz game two but he beat me on BF games 1 & 3.

 

[CrimsonSun]

Any advice playing against kirby? I try to grab, he crouches, and if it's any attack except dair he'll just cc. What's the best way to punish dash attack, stone, and final cuter (side variation). And how do I edgeguard effectively (scared that I'll get swallowsided)? Any guaranteed way to rack up damage? I feel like I'm respecting kirby's options too much.

 

[cisyphus]

Camp him with platforms and use c4, mines, and grenades. If my match vs. Tetraflora's Kirby got recorded, I'd link that, but that sadly is not the case :\

F-tilt punishes CCs really well because it forces a no tech and kirby's tech rolls are awful lol.