How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Metagame

[Monjula]

One thing I do have to say though, for Ike in general...

It's funny how all characters use mind games, and how little they rely on them. And how much Ike relies on them, but no one seems to understand that he's using them.

Ike is a true embodiment of Fire Emblem.

 

[Bouse]

Well, the reasoning with Ike being reliant on mind-gaming is nothing short of the fact that he's a slow character with limited grab range. He is very much the "Melee Ganondorf" of Brawl. He's slow, has relatively powerful moves, is fun to play, and has average to poor recovery. What people need to realize is like Ganondorf in Melee, he's limited in his abilities to rack up damage effectively. HOWEVER his abilities that DO rack up damage build it up relatively quick. On top of that he can kill quite easily with tilts and aerials. I however do have a suggestion for setting up your controls for Ike.

X=Shield
C-stick=A

If you're like me and HATE randomly smashing instead of tilting with Ike, A-sticking remedies that problem and also helps when it comes to performing aerials.
Setting Shield to X helps with two things:
1. It takes it off a pressure button like L or R.
2. Shield-grabbing is done simply by using the pressure on both sides of your thumb.

I also found setting Z to shield, X to grab as useful but for me I play as Link a lot so it messed up my aerial game with him.

Regardless, re-ordering your control and getting rid of the L+R triggers can speed up your game a little bit. For Ike, every second counts.

 

[Tenki]

Up to now the meta game for this move is to stay the heck away from the edge till Ike decides to pull himself back up on it. How do you safely kill the Edge Aether?

Certain characters can jump behind Ike (that is, off-stage) and extend or use a prolonged hit-box attack to knock Ike under the level (well, if it's possible) on his way up, for a stage spike, or to knock him slightly away from the edge to make space for edgehogging.

For example, I play Sonic, and if I see an Ike start to spam Edge-Aether, I may jump slightly off the edge and drop a spring, which drops very, very slowly, and when Ike tries to use Aether, he will start moving upwards, hit the spring and get hit under the ledge.

If the Ike player is trying to use the tip of the attack for maximum damage (aka, space it so the tip of the attack/where the sword is floating is near the edge, people can easily hit him out of it as he's spinning and taking hold of his sword again.

Upon reading up a few posts, this was already addressed.

Enjoy.

 

[Kalm]

I forgot about that spring. It's a nasty move when used correctly.

 

[Bouse]

If you're smart about it you can spike an unsuspecting player from 0%, just can't rely on doing it more than once.

 

[mikeb2010]

Greatness. Finally there is a thread posted in the Ike Boards that makes the community not sound hopeless. We need more gamers like this.

 

[Monjula]

Well, the reasoning with Ike being reliant on mind-gaming is nothing short of the fact that he's a slow character with limited grab range. He is very much the "Melee Ganondorf" of Brawl. He's slow, has relatively powerful moves, is fun to play, and has average to poor recovery. What people need to realize is like Ganondorf in Melee, he's limited in his abilities to rack up damage effectively. HOWEVER his abilities that DO rack up damage build it up relatively quick. On top of that he can kill quite easily with tilts and aerials. I however do have a suggestion for setting up your controls for Ike.

X=Shield
C-stick=A

If you're like me and HATE randomly smashing instead of tilting with Ike, A-sticking remedies that problem and also helps when it comes to performing aerials.
Setting Shield to X helps with two things:
1. It takes it off a pressure button like L or R.
2. Shield-grabbing is done simply by using the pressure on both sides of your thumb.

I also found setting Z to shield, X to grab as useful but for me I play as Link a lot so it messed up my aerial game with him.

Regardless, re-ordering your control and getting rid of the L+R triggers can speed up your game a little bit. For Ike, every second counts.

I played around a bit with this, and I have to say it's more useful for me--I've always had troubles with tilts. Something I have to warn people about though is that if you do, it basically turns your A-stick into an all-purpose Aerial stick. that being the case your diagonals will be Neutrals, so be careful if you use it in air.

 

[Bouse]

Well accidentally using a neutral air isn't necessarily a bad thing. How can your opponent expect you to use an attack if you don't know you're going to use it yourself?