Ike's amazing strength is the best thing going for him. He can KO at lower % than any other character. He has a lot of moves to KO with. However, you also must kill at lower %, because his moves are harder to hit with and they don't combo. If you allow your opponent to live for too long, it only gets easier for them to survive because your weak attacks will hit them too far to follow up with anything so they'll just have to focus on those KO moves.
Ike has great range, which is the second best thing going for him. He can out-range most characters on most of his moves and his fair is the move with the best range in the game. Abusing this range is important to Ike, as you won't get punished if you're further away.
Ike is very heavy, which means he lives longer then most other characters. However, he is also easier to combo because of this. Powershielding is pretty important for Ike. Spotdodging and counter should be used rather often as well. Not getting hit is more important than with other characters.
Ike is very slow, making him easier to get punished for mistakes. If you miss an attack, it's way worse than when an opponent misses an attack. The jab and nair are pretty much the only exceptions to this rule.
Ike has no projectile, so he has to do everything with his sword. It's not as bad as people think, though. He shouldn't have any trouble just because the opponent does have a projectile. It's fairly safe to get in close with Ike. As long as you abuse the size of his sword.
) and his B-air is so great. people told me ike is like Roy in melee, very underused and a weak form of Marth. But he's just great, and im thinking of making him a secondary 
