Q&A How to Wreck *****es with Ganon?- Linguini Q&A Thread

[Divinokage]

I played a session vs Loki today, I'm housing him for Dreamhack Montreal. He got a lot better since a year ago! I was trying to figure out how to counter Ganon's WD and usually with a faster character you can WD at the same time and he'll be behind in frame advantage. I mean when you are both close by which Ganon doesnt want generally unless he has the other in shield in the first place. He was also doing that CC first hit nair into shield grab vs Falcon however I found that if you space it perfectly with a fastfall the grab will whiff.

 

[PseudoTurtle]

-ACE- sounds good dude, I know you don't have a computer and twitch sux ass on mobile.

L Linguini that might be easier than you'd think, actually. I'll talk to vro about it and see if you can be the next special guest or something lol. Too bad nobody likes ganon in Chicago (or anywhere, for that matter) or it'd be a piece of cake. But it's honestly not too far fetched and I might be able to make it work.

edit: especially because we didn't play when I was in Florida. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were scared

edit #2: the vid is up already (dayum): here it is, me vs azzu

 

[-ACE-]

Too bad nobody likes ganon in Chicago

Even more reason to have Linguini go wreck face. If I was you I'd just be standing behind him talking troll **** LOL

"Oh what happened?"
"That's unfortunate"
"How's that double fair working out?"
"It's only Ganon dude"
"Ouch"
"This guy is just consistently lucky!"

In your set, I saw some questionable move choices when you had a good read on him, some mis-spaced approaches/aerials, some over committing, some questionable oos options, etc. I think you chased him too easily when he retreated vertically or to the top plat. If you look at how Jason plays the mu, compared to you, he kind of has this "what goes up must come down" attitude, and is good at getting Falco when he comes back down. I'll watch it and pay attention better next time, gf is nagging.

 

[RedmanSSBM]

spider_sense In your match vs Porkchops on Game 2, you could have easily ledge-hopped upaired Porkchops to his death when you had him off stage at the end of the game. He barely got back on when it looked like he wasn't going to make it. I always ledge-hop upair in this situation to make sure I cover Falco or Fox potentially barely making it back onto the stage. If you would have won that second game, I definitely think you could have taken the set.

Against Drunksloth, I'm seeing you go for dair or fair on ICs' Shield and trying to side-b right after as if to bait out a shield grab from them and immediately punish, but only like 2 of those attempts ever worked. I don't believe Drunksloth is the kind of ICs to try to shield grab you when you attack his shield. His WD out of shield into jab or dsmash is really fast, and I'm really surprised that DrunkSloth didn't WD OoS into double jab wobble setup on you cause that definitely could have worked.

 

[Linguini]

lmaooo do work PseudoTurtle lemme know if you have any success. I suppose I could start **** talking to make people salty...that always makes them want to play you more. I did wanna play when you were in fl it was just a bad week -_-

 

[PseudoTurtle]

Even more reason to have Linguini go wreck face. If I was you I'd just be standing behind him talking troll **** LOL

"Oh what happened?"
"That's unfortunate"
"How's that double fair working out?"
"It's only Ganon dude"
"Ouch"
"This guy is just consistently lucky!"

In your set, I saw some questionable move choices when you had a good read on him, some mis-spaced approaches/aerials, some over committing, some questionable oos options, etc. I think you chased him too easily when he retreated vertically or to the top plat. If you look at how Jason plays the mu, compared to you, he kind of has this "what goes up must come down" attitude, and is good at getting Falco when he comes back down. I'll watch it and pay attention better next time, gf is nagging.

LOOOOOOL I'd have so much fun doing that.

"Isn't ganon considered low tier now?"
"Must've been that frame 6 meteor cancel you got there."

Good advice though dude, you're absolutely right especially about the over committing when he retreated to top plat. I like to do that a lot with ganon vs other characters because it's a good wall, but falco's full hop is too quick and has too much height. Gotta kick that habit real quick. I know I'm still a little too slow out of shield after getting hit by laser, linguini does it frame perfect it seems and beats out laser --> nair / dair approaches with full hop up air. When I try it, I'm just a little too slow.

L Linguini gotchu I'll see what I can do. **** talk always good, especially in Chicago, we got our pride. I can add you to the Chicago land melee fb group too lmao. I'd be very curious to see what kels and dart would make of you. Dart and I play all the time and then me vs kels is... yea.

Even vro would probably put up a good fight, I'm sure. He's def a top 100 player even if MIOM has a hard on for socal. In the last year alone, he's taken sets off of:

n0ne
westballz
druggedfox
KJH
Kels
captain faceroll
one of the 20GX falcons (can't remember which)

And he and I play a good amount. I'll talk to him about Rubicon 13 (or whatever it is)

 

[tauKhan]

T tauKhan do you know percentages for Ganon against Fox nair regarding crouch vs ASDI down?

(moved the answer here to make sure others who might be interested will see it.)

Fresh fox strong nair spikes crouching ganon up to 9%, and never spikes non-crouching one. Ganon gets knocked down at 44% not crouching, 87% crouching.

Weak nair spikes ganon up to 31% if he crouches, and up to 10% if he doesn't.

 

[tm]

Question:

What do you guys think is optimal in this situation?

You're near the right side of FD, facing ledge (facing right), and close to ledge, but not so close that if a fastfaller (fox, falco, falcon) DI's a dthrow away he'll be able to ledge cancel (he'll still be on stage).

If you grab in this situation, and he DI's away, some good options are

A) regrab

B) turnaround AC bair to cover tech in place, so you can dash jc grab if he rolls behind (wizzy techchase)

C) dtilt before they tech (80-90% gives free aerial offstage, below that there are other follow-ups depending on DI)

D) dsmash (if you charge it they can react and roll to ledge to evade, but second hit leads nicely to uair offstage)

E) ftilt them offstage (90-110%)

F) uthrow instead (DI behind means regrab 55-85/90ish%, DI away creates possible edgeguard)

Of course it'll depend on percent. What do you guys like to do?

60%+ I'll try to CG every time. All the option coverage is pretty unreliable unless they do DI in front like you said, but what to do if they DI behind then? Not much besides dsmash or hail mary fair towards center stage to read the tech. Even then they can DI and live easily due to their positioning. I'll do everything I can to keep them off the ground.

By all means if he's recovering low, I say go for the dair. It's harder than you'd think to land if he's recovering horizontally. My vote is still cast for double reverse up air for a horizontal recovery and yea stomp for low. EZ. 60-40 ganon's favor at least IMO. Stage dependent.

More vids from the other day:

Me vs kels (falcon) - kels's falcon is actually one of his legit characters and he makes this matchup seem impossible for me lol. I do pretty well vs ORLY and don't generally lose to other Chicago falcons (sets here and there), but damn. I wanna hate kels because he's such a lame player, but he's too much fun of a person. Love that guy.

Me vs flashburn (fox) - This is where I started to play badly. I have problems with stamina it seems. I played horribly, missing technical stuff and easy follow ups. Still won, but should've been a double two stock at least IMO. REALLY dumb dropped edge guards and basic tech flubs.

Me vs wakenvape (peach) - I beat him in winners (four stock one game), and this is his first set over me, ~2 or so years counting. Solid player, and it was due to happen soon enough. I know exactly what happened. After game two, I was tired of playing defensively and just generally worn out. Vro shouted at me to play better during game three lol oops. Eh, playing peach wears me out.

Enjoy if you guys are bored. Not great play by me in general that day. But especially bad after the kels set (which could have been wayyyy better too)

youtube pls

I am SO CLOSE to breaking through and solidifying myself as a top Chicago player. I can bat sago, hot (the marth players), and then some of the other not-quite-top players relatively consistently, but I still can't take more than a set every once in a blue moon vs the Chicago elites. I'm basically the "good player barrier." You beat me consistently, you're good, you don't, you're bad. I can't wait until I'm considered one of the true top players. And as GANON, who nobody really respects here.

That feel

Spider_sense vs porkchops
https://youtu.be/45heW5e-lrg

Spider_sense vs drunksloth
https://youtu.be/fD_DUGQW6N8

Spider_sense vs Blea
https://youtu.be/wqpqTtx__Os

Spider_sense vs lad
https://youtu.be/t_zysDDGqU8

Big Poppa vs Blea
https://youtu.be/ZDm9juDC2kg

Big Poppa vs Prince abu
https://youtu.be/iJrOSEmEnWk

PseudoTurtle I'll look at your set when I can. YouTube is sooooo much better for me tho

yay youtube

-ACE- sounds good dude, I know you don't have a computer and twitch sux *** on mobile.

L Linguini that might be easier than you'd think, actually. I'll talk to vro about it and see if you can be the next special guest or something lol. Too bad nobody likes ganon in Chicago (or anywhere, for that matter) or it'd be a piece of cake. But it's honestly not too far fetched and I might be able to make it work.

edit: especially because we didn't play when I was in Florida. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were scared

edit #2: the vid is up already (dayum): here it is, me vs azzu

much better

(moved the answer here to make sure others who might be interested will see it.)

Fresh fox strong nair spikes crouching ganon up to 9%, and never spikes non-crouching one. Ganon gets knocked down at 44% not crouching, 87% crouching.

Weak nair spikes ganon up to 31% if he crouches, and up to 10% if he doesn't.

what do you mean 'spikes'?

 

[tauKhan]

what do you mean 'spikes'?

Has 0° launch angle due to being low knock back hit with sakurai angle, preventing ASDI down and leaving fox with frame advantage (most of the time) if you try to counter attack.

For example, ASDI down without crouching is much more effective than crouch + ASDI down vs fox weak nair until 32%. The same applies to many low kb hitboxes, mostly jabs and weak aerials. Just ASDI down also works until knock down as well, so ASDI down without crouch generally works more consistently than with crouch at low% .

 

[Renth]

I'm coming to the next CFL monthly. My first event in over half a year.

 

[-ACE-]

I'm coming to the next CFL monthly. My first event in over half a year.

I would like to play but I'm currently on the easternmost barrier island of NC lol. Easily 4 hours from nearest scene. I'm going to try to hit up either NC or some random region asap to rep the dorf

tm only you and I cg like that lol

 

[RedmanSSBM]

Has 0° launch angle due to being low knock back hit with sakurai angle, preventing ASDI down and leaving fox with frame advantage (most of the time) if you try to counter attack.

For example, ASDI down without crouching is much more effective than crouch + ASDI down vs fox weak nair until 32%. The same applies to many low kb hitboxes, mostly jabs and weak aerials. Just ASDI down also works until knock down as well, so ASDI down without crouch generally works more consistently than with crouch at low% .

Wait, so does this mean that if Fox does a full hop nair and hits with the last part of nair (the weak part I presume), that means if Ganon is standing and not crouching, he gets put into the air a little bit? Allowing for Fox to shine while Ganon is still in the air? Of course this is percent dependent, but now I feel like I'm not so crazy when I saw this before.

 

[tm]

Has 0° launch angle due to being low knock back hit with sakurai angle, preventing ASDI down and leaving fox with frame advantage (most of the time) if you try to counter attack.

For example, ASDI down without crouching is much more effective than crouch + ASDI down vs fox weak nair until 32%. The same applies to many low kb hitboxes, mostly jabs and weak aerials. Just ASDI down also works until knock down as well, so ASDI down without crouch generally works more consistently than with crouch at low% .

ohhhh geez. That's kind of a ***** actually

 

[F. Stein]

Does anyone have like an in depth, instructional video on RLD or other similar ledge techniques? I'm really struggling with it and I know that it'll help me start to get better if I can get this ^^

 

[-ACE-]

ohhhh geez. That's kind of a ***** actually

It's not so bad, it's good to know that crouch isn't necessary in a lot of situations. It kinda serves as a reminder that unless the nair is super late you have useable ASDI options at your disposal.

 

[-ACE-]

Does anyone have like an in depth, instructional video on RLD or other similar ledge techniques? I'm really struggling with it and I know that it'll help me start to get better if I can get this ^^

Damn, I don't think one exists. Most people that struggle with it simply lack the necessary speed. But you can train and become much faster. What happens when you attempt it? Short cell phone vid?

 

[spider_sense]

Damn, I don't think one exists. Most people that struggle with it simply lack the necessary speed. But you can train and become much faster. What happens when you attempt it? Short cell phone vid?

Didn't Joe make one awhile back? Speaking of which.@PseudoTurtle - I'll definitely critique your sets. Were they uploaded on youtube? It make my life easier, because using Twitch on my laptop is a pain.

 

[spider_sense]

Nvm, found it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tACrsGqDbcM

 

[-ACE-]

I'll definitely critique your sets.

https://youtu.be/AvVZCxLErpg

 

[PseudoTurtle]

Does anyone have like an in depth, instructional video on RLD or other similar ledge techniques? I'm really struggling with it and I know that it'll help me start to get better if I can get this ^^

I made this a long time ago. Unfortunately, it doesn't really demonstrate HOW to do it, just the uses it has. Keep in mind, I made this when I was a ****ty player, so pay no attention the the "usability" section. LOL empty RLD is definitely NOT low usability. It's exceedingly useful.

As far as technical input goes, it's what you think it is - let go of ledge, immediately double jump and DI toward the stage. Flick the control stick back as fast as possible and press R. It kinda sucks because there aren't really any visual cues or anything like that, you just gotta keep trying until you get it.

I'd recommend practicing on temple, seeing as there's that ledge in the middle of the stage. If you air dodge / mess up, you just fall down and don't die; it's faster practice.
spider_sense ................... nice

Yea idk, I still consider falco one of my better matchups, but there are just certain things I can't seem to wrap my head around. What I really need is a step-by-step breakdown aka "right there, you had an opportunity to do X" or "you should use THIS laser evasion technique instead because of X."

I'm in no rush, but iff you could critique it, I really would appreciate it. I'm sick of losing to azzu every other week LOL

edit: holy **** that video I made has over 1k views. Legit!

 

[Oldiz]

Also remember that airdodging at an upwards angle works just the same, and allows you to fall back to ledge when you mess up. No need for temple if you get the angle consistently.

 

[ForTheLulz]

It's relatively easy for me on battlefield and not on other stages because all my solo practice is on bf :'(

I should start practicing on other stages

 

[RedmanSSBM]

PseudoTurtle I'll critique your match vs Azzu and see what I find. Note that I'm only going to point out things that I think could be worked on or improved. I'm not going to note things you did well.

At 0:14, you get a stomp on his roll back, but you proceed to try to dash forward and dash back in to grab Falco when he's in stun from the dair. Instead of doing that, you can simply just hold in the direction that Falco is after you l-cancel dair and you can grab on your first turning frame, which will turn you around and is much faster. Takes a little practice to get your stick into position and time the grab, but it's worth it for situations like these.

At 0:19, I don't agree with you trying to attack Falco directly above him when he is on the ground. His utilt comes out too fast and is too big for you to directly challenge it (unless you're just a God at spacing). If you're going to try to attack Falco, I think you need to approach him more horizontally than vertically. Even when he is above you, dair is big enough to go through your upair, unless you are a god at spacing again. You very well could have taken a lot more damage here if Azzu were to have shined you at some point. In general, going above Falco at all is usually a bad idea.

At 0:49 when Falco is up-bing that close to the stage like that, and with you wavelanding off of the platform, that put you in a really good position to just bair/upair him to his death right then and there.

At 1:18 you got scared after getting jabbed and went into shield, proceeding then to try to shield grab him when h nairs your shield. In situations like these, I can see how you might not want to lose your stock and play more basic. Azzu has shown that he isn't the most attentive player, so I believe you could easily have waited for him to attack your shield and waited for a shine then grabbed, you just try to roll back towards center.

At 1:26 your accidental shielding here costed you 42% for no apparent reason. Even trying to DJ bair approach a Falco can be really risky, cause once he shines you and you have no DJ, you're his plaything for the next 60 or so %.

You lose the stock at 1:42 because you got stuck in shield a lot and you didn't move out of the way and try to resent things back to neutral when Falco stopped punishing you. You have to keep moving and trying to take stage position.

At 2:03, you gotta stop trying to challenge Falco on the way down like that. Sure, there are some situations where if you know that Falco is going to try to jump up to you that the dair will work, but those situations are usually hard reads, and trying to go for them whenever you're coming down is a bad idea. Instead I would have DJed backwards and tried to come down to the ground again near the ledge, potentially covering my landing with a late fair.

I'm noticing that you're rolling a lot more than wavedashing, and even at 2:32, you get shined for rolling inward. I think if you replaced more of your rolls with dashes and wavedashes, you'd be much more flexible with your movement.

At 2:46 there was essentially no point in you upairing there. He wasn't on the edge long enough for you to upair him when he didn't have invincibility, and he was jumping back on stage after being on ledge so the upair was gonna whiff either way. A DJ sweetspot would have been perfectly fine here, he pretty much gave you the ledge for free. Also no tech on the dsmash, I know it's hard on BF but it's very doable.

At 3:16 I'm seeing some very apparent signs of auto-pilot here. There was no reason to do a RLD DJ fair at this point because Azzu was trying to distance himself from you, knowing that you would keep trying to attack him in such situations. It looks to me like you're not being attentive enough of what Azzu is doing.

At 3:23 Azzu senses your hesitation and goes for the fsmash to kill you. He caught you being unconfident in your punish. If you were actually going hard you would have covered that tech in place like it was nothing.

At 3:49 when you both have your backs to each other like this it is a losing battle for you. His bair comes out in 4 frames and will beat your bair every time. I know instinct is telling you to attack here, but the fact that Ganon is so slow should let you know that a wavedash out of shield away from Falco is the safer bet.

At 4:05 he's been trying to ftilt you here multiple times to get you off stage but you keep trying to attack him, even with a RLD DJ fair. Again leading me to believe you are auto-piloting in some respect.

At 4:12 if you would have done one more ledge-stall and then ledge-hop upair, I think you would have gotten him for sure.

Gotta be punishing the ledge hop double laser more man. Every time a Falco does that he should theoretically be dead, or at least off stage.

At 4:27 I don't try to do down-bs at the edge like this unless I know my opponent is privy to attack me near the ledge and is rather aggressive. Falco is simply too far for WF to be effective here, as he can very easily react. He gives you so much space for you to go back to center stage and you throw that away.

I'm just seeing you try to approach Falco using the waveland off platforms too much in general. It should be used as a mix-up, not as a primary approach.

At 6:22 you do this really nice dash away when Falco tries to dair at you, but then you go for the overcomplicated counter by trying to waveland off the platform into a fair. Sure, it worked, but a more elegant and damaging solution would to have been pulling a Marth and just dash back in with a grab, as Azzu was shielding once he landed from the dair. He got scared of your potential retreating bair (which I also have not seen a lot of from you).

At 6:53 Falco is again up-bing really close to the stage to where it looked like you could have actually just ran off and upaired him, or at the very least, ran off DJ upair him.

At 7:04 you got shined pretty high but he didn't try to follow up immediately for some reason. I think a better option here was to go towards the right side of the stage and go towards that ledge and cover your descent with a fair.


TL;DR: You were auto-piloting for a majority of this set. A lot of shield grab attempts when Falco touched your shield, a lot of rolls, not a lot of wavedashing and movement, attacking when he wasn't even there, not being aware of kill opportunities, etc. I know auto-pilot when I see it and this is a classic case of it. If both the Ganon and the Falco are auto-piloting the Falco will win pretty much every time. Just try to be more aware and attentive of what is actually going on, and when you lose a stock, take a second to remember what happened. If you can't remember what mistake you made that got your stock lost, then you're auto-piloting.

 

[Krusteaz]

What do you guys think of up oos against Falcon's side b?

I know you can angle your shield and get a shield grab but it's hard to get every time. Up b oos beats out Falcon's side b because it has better range but I'm not sure it's the best option.

Is it a ****ty option and I could be doing something much better or do you think it has it's uses

 

[-ACE-]

What do you guys think of up oos against Falcon's side b?

I know you can angle your shield and get a shield grab but it's hard to get every time. Up b oos beats out Falcon's side b because it has better range but I'm not sure it's the best option.

Is it a ****ty option and I could be doing something much better or do you think it has it's uses

I mean if it'll put him offstage, sure. That's basically optimal. But shieldgrabbing it isn't really hard. Often you can do so without shield DI. And when you do need it, you only need shield ASDI to my knowledge, so there's no precise timing necessary. Flat out cc'ing it is much better than up-b at low%'s (low% for both characters).

 

[tm]

I mean if it'll put him offstage, sure. That's basically optimal. But shieldgrabbing it isn't really hard. Often you can do so without shield DI. And when you do need it, you only need shield ASDI to my knowledge, so there's no precise timing necessary. Flat out cc'ing it is much better than up-b at low%'s (low% for both characters).

It's kinda tough imo. It's a 2 or 3 frame window window with no shield DI (bigger if stale), big frame window if you shield SDI (not ASDI, because then falcon starts the uppercut from farther away, basically making up for the distance you gain from ASDI)
If you powershield you can't grab it

**** that move tbh

 

[-ACE-]

It's kinda tough imo. It's a 2 or 3 frame window window with no shield DI (bigger if stale), big frame window if you shield SDI (not ASDI, because then falcon starts the uppercut from farther away, basically making up for the distance you gain from ASDI)
If you powershield you can't grab it

**** that move tbh

Damn, I've literally never had a problem shieldgrabbing it lol.

 

[PseudoTurtle]

PseudoTurtle I'll critique your match vs Azzu and see what I find. Note that I'm only going to point out things that I think could be worked on or improved. I'm not going to note things you did well.

At 0:14, you get a stomp on his roll back, but you proceed to try to dash forward and dash back in to grab Falco when he's in stun from the dair. Instead of doing that, you can simply just hold in the direction that Falco is after you l-cancel dair and you can grab on your first turning frame, which will turn you around and is much faster. Takes a little practice to get your stick into position and time the grab, but it's worth it for situations like these.

Yea, you're right and this is good advice. I was going for the DD grab, which would have worked had I not missed my jump cancel. What you're saying requires less work and a smaller oppourtunity for mistakes.

At 0:19, I don't agree with you trying to attack Falco directly above him when he is on the ground. His utilt comes out too fast and is too big for you to directly challenge it (unless you're just a God at spacing). If you're going to try to attack Falco, I think you need to approach him more horizontally than vertically. Even when he is above you, dair is big enough to go through your upair, unless you are a god at spacing again. You very well could have taken a lot more damage here if Azzu were to have shined you at some point. In general, going above Falco at all is usually a bad idea.

Hmmm, I never considered that. Azzu isn't a very laser heavy falco, he likes to dash dance a lot and bait approaches, rather than stuff them with lasers. But that was a prime example, as -ACE- mentioned early, of me overcommitting. Good call on that one, Locke.

At 0:49 when Falco is up-bing that close to the stage like that, and with you wavelanding off of the platform, that put you in a really good position to just bair/upair him to his death right then and there.

This is actually something I noticed while rewatching the set and I was like WHY THE **** WOULD I NOT GO FOR THAT IT WAS A FREE UPAIR. Good eye there, I bet you were just as frustrated as me to see such an easy gimp opportunity go to wasste like that.

At 1:18 you got scared after getting jabbed and went into shield, proceeding then to try to shield grab him when h nairs your shield. In situations like these, I can see how you might not want to lose your stock and play more basic. Azzu has shown that he isn't the most attentive player, so I believe you could easily have waited for him to attack your shield and waited for a shine then grabbed, you just try to roll back towards center.

It was a bad shield grab attempt, to say the least. But I was knocked far enough away that I actually had frame advantage here, so it was a dumb shield in the first place. If I were to do this over, I probably would have just wavedashed back to the ledge or maybe full hop stomped.

That being said, in situations where shielding is my only option to not get hit, I like your theory on what I should be doing. Rolling in toward falco is pretty broken, too.

And azzu is a pretty attentive player lol, he's beaten everybody in Chicago (including kels), and even took a game off of SFAT at Rubicon.

At 1:26 your accidental shielding here costed you 42% for no apparent reason. Even trying to DJ bair approach a Falco can be really risky, cause once he shines you and you have no DJ, you're his plaything for the next 60 or so %.

Sigh... it was a missed waveland pivot jab. That was the intent anyway, and looking back, it would've worked. Yea, that was a bad one. I try to only double jump bair as a counter attack, like Jason does. DJ over nair / dair, come down with bair. You're right about the risks though.

You lose the stock at 1:42 because you got stuck in shield a lot and you didn't move out of the way and try to resent things back to neutral when Falco stopped punishing you. You have to keep moving and trying to take stage position.

I actually consider this the point where I lose the match, azzu had a nice little combo on me and I could't deal with the pressure. At around ~1:35, I had a rare mid-combo moment where I could have WD back and grabbed ledge. As far as the shielding part, what would you recommend? IMO that looked like pretty unbeatable pressure. I was trying to shield DI and see if I could sneak out a bair, but it was too solid, so I just rolled and got bopped.

At 2:03, you gotta stop trying to challenge Falco on the way down like that. Sure, there are some situations where if you know that Falco is going to try to jump up to you that the dair will work, but those situations are usually hard reads, and trying to go for them whenever you're coming down is a bad idea. Instead I would have DJed backwards and tried to come down to the ground again near the ledge, potentially covering my landing with a late fair.

Good call here. That dair was completely poorly spaced, too. Bad move choice overall. Let me throw this out here too - what if I DJ wavelanded back off of the plat to bait his dair and then fair'd him or tomahawk'd him? Not only am I out of his pressure, but I can turn it into my pressure. Viable, you think?

I'm noticing that you're rolling a lot more than wavedashing, and even at 2:32, you get shined for rolling inward. I think if you replaced more of your rolls with dashes and wavedashes, you'd be much more flexible with your movement.

I think you're right. I'm not wavedashing nearly enough. As -ACE- has mentioned, wavedash back is invaluable in this matchup. Azzu is super good at the ganon matchup AND the PseudoTurtle matchup (we played literally at least twice a week last summer, GFs at the amateur bracket, then we're seeded so closely, we eventually run into each other in quarters etc), so he knows I like to do that advanced evade tech of Tipman's when on the ledge.

Locke / anyone else, what do you think I should do here? Looking back at it, I probably should have just waveland --> jabbed, but I waveland a lot from ledge and wanted to mix it up.

At 2:46 there was essentially no point in you upairing there. He wasn't on the edge long enough for you to upair him when he didn't have invincibility, and he was jumping back on stage after being on ledge so the upair was gonna whiff either way. A DJ sweetspot would have been perfectly fine here, he pretty much gave you the ledge for free. Also no tech on the dsmash, I know it's hard on BF but it's very doable.

Huh, yea I guess you're right. My logic here was maybe he'll just hold ledge (like a lot of people do vs ganon) and then he'll downsmash, which is usually a free tech for me, even on battlefield. But hey, can't be 100% on it.

Your logic better than mine in this scenario though. I put myself in an unnecessarily risky position and overcommitted to the up air even when I could see him ledge hopping.

At 3:16 I'm seeing some very apparent signs of auto-pilot here. There was no reason to do a RLD DJ fair at this point because Azzu was trying to distance himself from you, knowing that you would keep trying to attack him in such situations. It looks to me like you're not being attentive enough of what Azzu is doing.

I actually wasn't autopiloting here, believe it or not. Azzu and I play each other all the time and when he turns around like this, it usually means he's going to try and wall out with bair. Wiz kick would work too (if he were to do that). To be honest, I think this was just a mixup and I got the wrong read is all. But it would be good to wait it out. Do the RLD and then see what he does and react etc. Fewer reads, more reactions.

At 3:23 Azzu senses your hesitation and goes for the fsmash to kill you. He caught you being unconfident in your punish. If you were actually going hard you would have covered that tech in place like it was nothing.

Hahahaha that was so bull****. He told me after that he actually tried to roll, which is what I was trying to bait out. So ****ing dumb. Fair enough though because I definitely should have been ready to catch that tech. I was being dumb and not aware of my percents. Jab most certainly causes knockdown at 67%, so that was still bad choice by me to not be ready.

It was just funny because I thought it was intentional (dart will do that to me all the time with fox, but intentionally because the result is the same as what you saw).

At 3:49 when you both have your backs to each other like this it is a losing battle for you. His bair comes out in 4 frames and will beat your bair every time. I know instinct is telling you to attack here, but the fact that Ganon is so slow should let you know that a wavedash out of shield away from Falco is the safer bet.

I was going for the bair because I thought he would keep up tilting. I had my shield DI away enough at this point where a bair would have connected. Unfortunately, he knew and went for a bair of his own, and rekt me. In my opinion, going for the bair wasn't necessarily a bad option, I just had the wrong read, but you're correct in saying wavedashing away is the safest option and probably the otimal one.

At 4:05 he's been trying to ftilt you here multiple times to get you off stage but you keep trying to attack him, even with a RLD DJ fair. Again leading me to believe you are auto-piloting in some respect.

Nah, no autopilot, I legitimately thought this one would work because of the way he stuffed me just before with laser ttilt. Laser to stuff any sort of waveland / ledge hop and ftilt to punish. My reasoning here was RLD to jump over the laser, and out prioritize ftilt with fair (WHY TF DOESN'T FAIR OUT PRIORITIZE THAT BULL****).

Looking back, the option I should have chosen is the pseudo dash, drop down bair. Reverse pressure completely.

Do you have any other suggestions to get back to stage safely vs falco? Lasers hinder me.

At 4:12 if you would have done one more ledge-stall and then ledge-hop upair, I think you would have gotten him for sure.

Ok, this is a problem that I really have - covering multiple options. Because, yes, what you're saying is true, that theoretically would have worked, but the reason I did the first one was to cover the illusion.

Should I just not grab the ledge at all? Stay on stage and react?

Gotta be punishing the ledge hop double laser more man. Every time a Falco does that he should theoretically be dead, or at least off stage.

You're right. I'm generally spaced too far from the ledge because I get scared of the dair. Where do I position myself to where I can jab in between lasers and also avoid / react to a ledge hop dair?

At 4:27 I don't try to do down-bs at the edge like this unless I know my opponent is privy to attack me near the ledge and is rather aggressive. Falco is simply too far for WF to be effective here, as he can very easily react. He gives you so much space for you to go back to center stage and you throw that away.

Yea, you're right. I should probably just eliminate it from my vs. falco arsenal. It's incredibly useful vs marth because of the pull back, but I can't really think of a situation where it's useful vs falcon. Maybe if they're just mindlessly shffling bairs?

I'm just seeing you try to approach Falco using the waveland off platforms too much in general. It should be used as a mix-up, not as a primary approach.

True, but to be fair, I landed quite a few hits this way as well. Though I did get punished. Your suggestion to use it as a mix-up is a good onel

Now, onto the mixup... how does one really approach falco? I really like linguini's method of attempting powershields and stufing approaches with full hop up air. Seems like the only way to really do it though is by waiting for falco to go high and hit him on his way down.

At 6:22 you do this really nice dash away when Falco tries to dair at you, but then you go for the overcomplicated counter by trying to waveland off the platform into a fair. Sure, it worked, but a more elegant and damaging solution would to have been pulling a Marth and just dash back in with a grab, as Azzu was shielding once he landed from the dair. He got scared of your potential retreating bair (which I also have not seen a lot of from you).

There were a lot of errors and bad decisions. I probably would have dashed back and grabbed, but I wasn't confident in my spacing and put up my shield. I had a few options:

wavedash oos and grab
empty jump waveland behind and grab
what I did

I actually wanted to empty jump waveland behind and grab, but I messed it up and full hopped it, so just kinda improvised. I'm kinda surprised it worked tbh because he could have up air'd oos and I'd have been screwed. We take those.

At 6:53 Falco is again up-bing really close to the stage to where it looked like you could have actually just ran off and upaired him, or at the very least, ran off DJ upair him.

Daaaaaaaamn it you're right that was so free! I suck at edge guarding. Thanks for pointing that out.

At 7:04 you got shined pretty high but he didn't try to follow up immediately for some reason. I think a better option here was to go towards the right side of the stage and go towards that ledge and cover your descent with a fair.

You're right, that would have been the better choice. He was just standing there waiting for me to mess up.

TL;DR: You were auto-piloting for a majority of this set. A lot of shield grab attempts when Falco touched your shield, a lot of rolls, not a lot of wavedashing and movement, attacking when he wasn't even there, not being aware of kill opportunities, etc. I know auto-pilot when I see it and this is a classic case of it. If both the Ganon and the Falco are auto-piloting the Falco will win pretty much every time. Just try to be more aware and attentive of what is actually going on, and when you lose a stock, take a second to remember what happened. If you can't remember what mistake you made that got your stock lost, then you're auto-piloting.

I would actually disagree that I was auto-piloting for the most part. There were certainly some instances, sure, but I was trying to think about the best option. Shield grabbing is an awful habit of mine. I try to shield DI but for some reason, linguini just does it better. Or maybe I should just wait until after the shine? I felt like my movement was ok (not great), but I did get stuck in my shield way too often.

Thanks so much for the write up dude, lots of good info here.

 

[-ACE-]

It's kinda tough imo. It's a 2 or 3 frame window window with no shield DI (bigger if stale), big frame window if you shield SDI (not ASDI, because then falcon starts the uppercut from farther away, basically making up for the distance you gain from ASDI)
If you powershield you can't grab it

**** that move tbh

I did some more thinking about this. Pretty sure when I try to shield ASDI this, it's right before shieldlag. So the shield isn't fully shifted forward yet, which helps with the timing window. But usually I just shield last second and grab. I guess I just know when to grab. I suggest learning it.

 

[RedmanSSBM]

At around ~1:35, I had a rare mid-combo moment where I could have WD back and grabbed ledge. As far as the shielding part, what would you recommend? IMO that looked like pretty unbeatable pressure. I was trying to shield DI and see if I could sneak out a bair, but it was too solid, so I just rolled and got bopped.

Falco doesn't have real shield pressure unlike Fox does. There are a lot of holes in between Falco's moves when he attacks your shield. Often shield grab is very doable if you time it right. You gotaa wait for an opening, which it is usually a rising aerial on your shield, or really any aerial. Even in those small lapses of Falco's pressure you can still perfect WD out of shield to get away from him. You can practice this in 20XX I believe.

what if I DJ wavelanded back off of the plat to bait his dair and then fair'd him or tomahawk'd him? Not only am I out of his pressure, but I can turn it into my pressure. Viable, you think?

I think you would be too far for that to work, or you would have to use frames just to get closer to him, and a good Falco will always shine out of shield you if you don't space it right. If you can condition them to shield in that situation, then yes go for it, otherwise they can react to it and punish you for it.

Locke / anyone else, what do you think I should do here? Looking back at it, I probably should have just waveland --> jabbed, but I waveland a lot from ledge and wanted to mix it up.

I definitely believe a waveland jab would have beaten his bair here.

(WHY TF DOESN'T FAIR OUT PRIORITIZE THAT BULL****).

Do you have any other suggestions to get back to stage safely vs falco? Lasers hinder me.

Fair didn't beat his ftilt because Falco's ftilt is a move that sticks out directly in front of him, while Ganon's fair starts at the top on frame 14 and takes several more frames to get to the bottom. Even if you were to time your fair to meet his ftilt, I'm pretty sure at best you would trade, because Falco's ftilt would still hit your chest.

Don't underestimate the power of NIL -> CC -> Jab, or NIL -> grab. You can do both while still intangible. Also you can do your pseudodash to the side platform, waveland off of it and do a retreating bair to help you take center stage. Also ledge-hop upair can knock them away if they get to close. You gotta make them keep their distance when you are on the ledge, that will allow you to get back on stage and start taking a better position.

Ok, this is a problem that I really have - covering multiple options. Because, yes, what you're saying is true, that theoretically would have worked, but the reason I did the first one was to cover the illusion.

Should I just not grab the ledge at all? Stay on stage and react?

Grabbing the ledge here is still fine because unless he edge-cancels with his side-b a lot (and I didn't see that at all from him this set), then usually you can still ledge-hop upair him when he lands from side-b, as it does have a decent amount of lag. A real good mixup he could do if he knows he is going to get upaired is go straight up and try to FF down back to the ledge. This is really easy to deny if you are prepared for it.

You're right. I'm generally spaced too far from the ledge because I get scared of the dair. Where do I position myself to where I can jab in between lasers and also avoid / react to a ledge hop dair?

There isn't really a sweet spot position for you to be in on the ground because Falco's dair goes far enough outward if he's fading in far enough to long outrange your jab if he were to instead ledge hop double laser. If you CC the dair however, you can sometimes pull off the jab before he lands anyway, because you reduced the hitstun on the dair you just took. In general though, if you want to beat both LH double laser and LH dair, you go above Falco with a full hop and bair him on the way down.

Yea, you're right. I should probably just eliminate it from my vs. falco arsenal. It's incredibly useful vs marth because of the pull back, but I can't really think of a situation where it's useful vs falcon. Maybe if they're just mindlessly shffling bairs?

Odd, I usually get screwed more down-bing against Marth than I do vs Falcon. I get a lot of Falcons with down-b when I see they are trying to run up grab me. I down-b at just the right time and it actually sends them off stage. Sick stuff.

In general it's not a good idea to use down-b against Falco in most situations because you still have a little bit of hurtbox sticking out in the front of the move, and if Falco has any constant move out at the time, it will just beat out down-b every time. Falco is rarely going to try to grab you at the edge, but if you can get a read that he will, down-b is super good for countering that. That's probably the only good situation I can think to use down-b at the ledge against Falco though. In general, try not to use it much at all.

Now, onto the mixup... how does one really approach falco? I really like linguini's method of attempting powershields and stufing approaches with full hop up air. Seems like the only way to really do it though is by waiting for falco to go high and hit him on his way down.

The best way that I figured out for myself is to shield his laser up close, and then perfect WD out of shield towards him and jab. You can go from a jab into a dash attack that will knock him down at as early as 14%, so that can be a really good combo to get in and open Falco up. Getting up close and jabbing in general is a good idea because his lasering takes so long to do that you actually have ample time to get a jab in before he shoots off another laser. Instant upair out of shield is still pretty good, but the WD toward and jab is pretty good as well. You can jab into dtilt, jab into grab, etc. You just gotta be wary if he CCs the jab or not. If it's spaced well enough, even a CC won't help him unless he fsmashes (and a lot of Falcos do this anyway so gg).

 

[F. Stein]

I'll get something recorded on my shoddy RLD so it can be diagnosed properly lol, don't know why I have scrub disease so bad. I just wind up doing NIL to shield or roll everytime. I'll try the upward angle air dodge to see if it helps with my speed.

Also... is there a magic percentage where Samus can't CC our jab into her dtilt? I'm thinking of throwing in grab instead of jab completely because I'm tired of dtilt damage lol

 

[-ACE-]

You're probably either not jumping soon enough or not hitting R soon enough

 

[PseudoTurtle]

I'll get something recorded on my shoddy RLD so it can be diagnosed properly lol, don't know why I have scrub disease so bad. I just wind up doing NIL to shield or roll everytime. I'll try the upward angle air dodge to see if it helps with my speed.

Also... is there a magic percentage where Samus can't CC our jab into her dtilt? I'm thinking of throwing in grab instead of jab completely because I'm tired of dtilt damage lol

If you're shielding, you're not pressing R quickly enough. The animation is deceptive and it looks like you'll SD, but you'll actually be fine.

Grab is always a good mixup on any character if they're crouch cancelling. You can also stomp etc. But if you jab and they are ccing, it's possible to react to it and jab again. Should push them out of dtilt / dsmash range.

 

[Bwmat]

Ugh, had a terrible tournament.

Played almost all Falcon/Ganon

Didn't make it out of pools (first time ever in like 9+ years of playing competitively, though only since we didn't start doing pools till later), even though I was seeded first. Lost first set I played to a Marth. He was second seed, good (especially recently), but I wasn't playing very good, and almost immediately (few stocks into first game) I start to get this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, just thinking 'oh god I'm not going to get out of pools', which was obviously a self fulfilling prophecy.

Wasn't playing great in doubles earlier either, but we got third so OK. Now I'm getting into a dark place emotionally, this **** haunts me.

Then I lose to some shiek and spacies, 0-2 in all three cases. It's basically set in stone that I'm not getting out of pools by now, 2-0 my next set with a fox, then in my final set I play this lameass puff, which I had just watched take a game almost to time, yolo'd Marth and lost, then came back 2-1 with the Ganon closely.

https://smash.gg/tournament/shinespiked-6/brackets/14447/52184/194634

So now I'm in amateur bracket, 2-0 everyone until grands where I get 3-0'd by a sheik, just playing like garbage, flubbing everything and all those sds. Semi's went OK, but for whatever reason the mindset I had mostly reconstructed throughout amateurs broke again. I literally start to physically feel bad from this

Ugh. Of course this is the one that's played off stream, rather than semifinals where I win.

http://www.twitch.tv/themiddlemedia/v/83452125?sr=a
1:23:35 I decide to use the "***** the ledge strategy when you're ahead" against this pretty good Falco. Every time I got punished, I'd say "... Still ahead" and retreat to ledge LOL

This is a great troll strategy, and I think that if I actually got my edge tech and punishes more consistent, it could actually be a good one.

1:26:13 The next game starts off with me powershielding a laser, giving Falco 2%, and retreating to ledge LMAO

2:48:40 If anyone wants to see my jank pocket Marth, I'm really spamming counter way too much

2:51:34 Amateurs semi finals against puff, more comfortable with Falcon in this matchup lately. Goes reasonably well, though I made many bad punishable mistakes, and had an SD or two.

 

[-ACE-]

That sucks Matt. Just play more lame in neutral dude. I can see you realize mindset is everything so don't get too discouraged... It'll help with everything including SD's. I thought my drunk ass drowned in pools for the first time ever at one tgl, but the bracket/pools organization was weird (and I forgot about a win I had) and I had already made it to bracket.

 

[X WaNtEd X]

Grim was it mr. boffo?

I was wrong. It was a player called kibbles from VA that was only in Chicago for the summer for an internship. His name is Colin and he posts a lot in Chicagoland Melee.

 

[tm]

Got 2nd at a local yesterday, losing to Duck's marth.

http://challonge.com/heartsum

Shaeden is super good (except vs sheik). He usually 4 stocks me, but I think once I started winning more exchanges he got in his own head and played a lot worse. That was a reverse 3-0. Yoyo is a good luigi player, we go back and forth a lot. Morsecode (samus) is also pretty good, he won the latest Michigan arcadian and got 5th at the canadian tournament Summit 2016.

LFs and GFs were recorded; will post when those are up.

EDIT:
vs Shaeden (Marth) LF
vs Duck (Marth) GF

 

[-ACE-]

Holy ****. Duck, Marth. Can't wait to watch that later.

 

[Divinokage]

I got 3 stocked by Vwins Marth at DH on Yoshi's... **** that character omg.. lol. Thinking the matchup is as bad as Fox these days.

 

[-ACE-]

I got 3 stocked by Vwins Marth at DH on Yoshi's... **** that character omg.. lol. Thinking the matchup is as bad as Fox these days.

Honestly I think marth is the second best character in the game. But nah man, sheik/fox are Ganon's worst and always will be.