Ice Climbers in 2023 (And Beyond)

DeLux · May 31, 2023

So I found myself in a weird place where my nostalgia has brought me back to Brawl. I don't really play ICs that much anymore, but I still play them and lab them to keep them ready in case I need them. If any of the old guard sees this, I think about our time a decadge ago fondly. I'll probably post in this thread every week or month or so if I think of new stuff or maybe I'll link to old posts that I find of information I am trying to bring back. "By heaven's grace I was born in the Iron Age to restore the Age of Gold," or something like that.

Still chasing it, a decade later! If you ever want to play on netplay, hit me up here or on discord! Message me or write on my wall or however this forum works now if you want my discord, or leave a post on this thread.

DeLux · Jul 23, 2023

I think we have really limited our ice shot chaser thinking for way too long. A couple of things that seem to be the case-

- If your opponent hits Popo and Nana at the same time with a move, they experience standard shield hitlag as if they were hitting only one climber
(EG: Marth Fair is -4 on shield). Grab being 6 frames is not shield grabbable.
- If your opponent hit Popo's shield first and experiences shield hit lag (5 frames in the case of Marth Fair) and then the next frame hits Nanas shield, your opponent experiences a second round of shield hit lag (for an addtional 5 frames in hte case of Marth Fair) and thus makes their landing frame advantage 4 frames worse (EG Marth Fair is now -9 on shield). Grab being 6 frames, the move is now shield grabbable.

*edit note: It is possible to set it up such that Nana's shield will make contact with your opponent's hitbox while they are still in hitlag. If this is the case, they will swith over to experiencing the shield hitlag from Nana. So if Marth is in shield hit lag for 5 frames, you can create a variable 5 frames of addtional frame advantage by controlling when Nana sync slides back into syncing up with Popo. If you have them hit shield on frame 1 of hitlag, you'll have less advantage than hitting frame 5 of hit lag. I haven't done testing on what happens if the shield hitlag from the first his is longer than the second hit. I have some ideas on how to test this, but haven't figured out specifically how to set this up (ie tipper fair on popo shield, nontipper fair on nana shield). I could only find situations where Nana's shield hit lag was equal to or exceeded Popos.

This alone is a huge discovery and evidence that even slightly desynced climber in terms of spacing (EG: simply doing a 2 dash dance) can allow for punishes previously not thought possible if the move is oriented in a way that causes two seperate hits.

Here is the fun stuff now about ice shot chaser:

If your opponent hits ice shot, they will experience the hit lag of hitting the move (I was getting 12 frames for a tipper Marth Fair n frame testing, 6 frames for Marth non-tipper fair)
If your opponent hits ice shot first and then popo shield, you'll go through normal hitlag (IE: Marth Fair is -4 on shield)

If your opponent hits Popo's shield first, he will go through normal shield hit lag, but if he hits the ice shot chaser after hit lag is complete, he will go through another round of hit lag netting you even larger frame advantage. All things being the same, this would be -10 on shield for a non-tipper on ice shot fair, -16 on an ice shot that is tipper faired). At -16, a move begins shield drop to dash grabbable if the inputs are buffered.
It is also possible to have a move hit Popo's shield, and then have your opponent get hit by ice shot end during the move end lag. Ice shot has variable hit stun timing from 8 to 13 frames depending on the staleness and percent your opponent is at. So at high percents, this could make Marth Fair -17 on shield. Keep in mind this percent is a range, as you could hypothetically hit the opponent during the early frames of their landing lag, sometimes shortening the cooldown on moves if they had used a really laggy aerial (such as the case when cool down is longer than 13 frames of landing lag on an aerial). You can control for this by how far out in front of your ice shot popo runs.

Both of these last two options are only possible is Popo runs IN FRONT of the ice shot. This is a deviation of usually running behind the ice shot. My suspicion is that running behind the ice shot was done for a few reasons: 1. it was easier to do execute because of how ice shot shoots slightly in front of the climber and 2. ice shot in front helps prevent your opponent grounded dash grabbing you to counter your approach which could lead to a bunch of nasty Nana killers for many characters and 3. ice shot eats most rojectiles that similarly stuffs approaches

But if your opponent is in the air, the threat of grab is much less of a problem for obvoius reasons. Further, Ice shot is shorter than Popo's shield, so the likelihood is high if you tilt your shield up and they don't do a perfect low aerial that your opponent is going to be initiating the scenario where they hit Popo's shield first and then either hits the ice shot before landing, or get hit by the ice shot after landing. Those scenarios make things on shield that were thought to previously be unpunishable, very punishable.

I don't know how much this will change the metagame, as I believe ICs that played desynced grab setups like myself, Big D, Hylian, Vinnie and to a lesser extent Kakera and 9B probably did a lot of this intuitively. But now that we know that this is the case, it could start to be applied more consciously.

Further research would be needed to look into which moves character use that could really use help in being able to punish. Off the top of my head, it feels like a counter to moves that were tough like Marth Fair, Wolf Bair, ZSS Bair. Not sure who else I'd have to look into, but I might try working this into my game over some tmie.

Also kind of weird, I discovered it is possible to both hit ice shot and be hit by ice shot at the same time lol. You go through ice shot hit lag and then immediately get hit by the move, which is pretty funny :D

Edit: for some spelling
Edit 2: before anyone says this is broken, it is countered by simply not mindlessly attacking a grab setup, which is standard practice for most MUs lol

DeLux · Jul 25, 2023

As far as I can tell, you should not be able to have an ice shot follow popo on shield and have MK dtilt popo's shield, experience hitlag, and go into cool down while hitting the MK with ice shot. You need at least one more frame from what I can see, usually you need two or three based on shield. Kind of lame!

However, it's possible to create enough hitlag that you can shield drop dash grab if you get the last frame of hitlag for dtilt to connect or the next frame where the second frame of the dtilt hitbox is out on ice shot or the secondary ice climber shield. I guess if you factor in spot dodge as the fastest option, that's a 3 frame window to work with for ice shot if you buffer the shield drop dash grab frame perfectly.

DeLux · Jul 27, 2023

DeLux said:
I think we have really limited our ice shot chaser thinking for way too long. A couple of things that seem to be the case-

- If your opponent hits Popo and Nana at the same time with a move, they experience standard shield hitlag as if they were hitting only one climber
(EG: Marth Fair is -4 on shield). Grab being 6 frames is not shield grabbable.
- If your opponent hit Popo's shield first and experiences shield hit lag (5 frames in the case of Marth Fair) and then the next frame hits Nanas shield, your opponent experiences a second round of shield hit lag (for an addtional 5 frames in hte case of Marth Fair) and thus makes their landing frame advantage 4 frames worse (EG Marth Fair is now -9 on shield). Grab being 6 frames, the move is now shield grabbable.

*edit note: It is possible to set it up such that Nana's shield will make contact with your opponent's hitbox while they are still in hitlag. If this is the case, they will swith over to experiencing the shield hitlag from Nana. So if Marth is in shield hit lag for 5 frames, you can create a variable 5 frames of addtional frame advantage by controlling when Nana sync slides back into syncing up with Popo. If you have them hit shield on frame 1 of hitlag, you'll have less advantage than hitting frame 5 of hit lag. I haven't done testing on what happens if the shield hitlag from the first his is longer than the second hit. I have some ideas on how to test this, but haven't figured out specifically how to set this up (ie tipper fair on popo shield, nontipper fair on nana shield). I could only find situations where Nana's shield hit lag was equal to or exceeded Popos.

This alone is a huge discovery and evidence that even slightly desynced climber in terms of spacing (EG: simply doing a 2 dash dance) can allow for punishes previously not thought possible if the move is oriented in a way that causes two seperate hits.

Here is the fun stuff now about ice shot chaser:

If your opponent hits ice shot, they will experience the hit lag of hitting the move (I was getting 12 frames for a tipper Marth Fair n frame testing, 6 frames for Marth non-tipper fair)

If your opponent hits ice shot first and then popo shield, you'll go through normal hitlag (IE: Marth Fair is -4 on shield)

If your opponent hits Popo's shield first, he will go through normal shield hit lag, but if he hits the ice shot chaser after hit lag is complete, he will go through another round of hit lag netting you even larger frame advantage. All things being the same, this would be -10 on shield for a non-tipper on ice shot fair, -16 on an ice shot that is tipper faired). At -16, a move begins shield drop to dash grabbable if the inputs are buffered.

It is also possible to have a move hit Popo's shield, and then have your opponent get hit by ice shot end during the move end lag. Ice shot has variable hit stun timing from 8 to 13 frames depending on the staleness and percent your opponent is at. So at high percents, this could make Marth Fair -17 on shield. Keep in mind this percent is a range, as you could hypothetically hit the opponent during the early frames of their landing lag, sometimes shortening the cooldown on moves if they had used a really laggy aerial (such as the case when cool down is longer than 13 frames of landing lag on an aerial). You can control for this by how far out in front of your ice shot popo runs.

Both of these last two options are only possible is Popo runs IN FRONT of the ice shot. This is a deviation of usually running behind the ice shot. My suspicion is that running behind the ice shot was done for a few reasons: 1. it was easier to do execute because of how ice shot shoots slightly in front of the climber and 2. ice shot in front helps prevent your opponent grounded dash grabbing you to counter your approach which could lead to a bunch of nasty Nana killers for many characters and 3. ice shot eats most rojectiles that similarly stuffs approaches

But if your opponent is in the air, the threat of grab is much less of a problem for obvoius reasons. Further, Ice shot is shorter than Popo's shield, so the likelihood is high if you tilt your shield up and they don't do a perfect low aerial that your opponent is going to be initiating the scenario where they hit Popo's shield first and then either hits the ice shot before landing, or get hit by the ice shot after landing. Those scenarios make things on shield that were thought to previously be unpunishable, very punishable.

I don't know how much this will change the metagame, as I believe ICs that played desynced grab setups like myself, Big D, Hylian, Vinnie and to a lesser extent Kakera and 9B probably did a lot of this intuitively. But now that we know that this is the case, it could start to be applied more consciously.

Further research would be needed to look into which moves character use that could really use help in being able to punish. Off the top of my head, it feels like a counter to moves that were tough like Marth Fair, Wolf Bair, ZSS Bair. Not sure who else I'd have to look into, but I might try working this into my game over some tmie.

Also kind of weird, I discovered it is possible to both hit ice shot and be hit by ice shot at the same time lol. You go through ice shot hit lag and then immediately get hit by the move, which is pretty funny :D

Edit: for some spelling
Edit 2: before anyone says this is broken, it is countered by simply not mindlessly attacking a grab setup, which is standard practice for most MUs lol

I was doing some looking into this more and I may have forgotten to account for stale moves in some situations, as fresh bonus and/or stale moves could change hitlag/shield hitlag. However the principle behind how the hitlag can impact frame advantage is still the same, but the amounts of specific lag/hitlag/advantage will vary depending on staleness.

Hoenn · Aug 16, 2023

Reading a bit of this made me so happy lol just like old times lux

DeLux · Aug 16, 2023

Hoenn said:
Reading a bit of this made me so happy lol just like old times lux

Now you know the Marth Killer too

DeLux · Aug 16, 2023

So 3 out of the top 8 players at SSC used ICs including the winner 686m, Hoenn in third, and myself running up the rear tied for 7th. Funnily enough, 686m and I losing outside of the top 16 in winners bracket to SNAKE caused us to have to face off where loser came in 7th.

There has been an increased push to ban ICs on the Brawl discord. Trying to argue it out, but I'm not sure if we're going to weather this storm.

DeLux · Aug 22, 2023

DeLux said:
Also kind of weird, I discovered it is possible to both hit ice shot and be hit by ice shot at the same time lol. You go through ice shot hit lag and then immediately get hit by the move, which is pretty funny :D

So I've been doing some labbing on the MK vs. ICs MU. Especially on Battlefield, the meta sort of shifted around 2012 to be about MKs using the aerial shuttle loop cancels as a way to combat ICs. This is because worst case scenario, the MK might eat an Uair if the ICs get a fairly quick read on the coming shuttle loop, but even that's not a for sure as it requires precise timing and a really high jump commitment on the ICs part. If it goes unpunished, it dwindles down the ICs shield, leaving them vulnerable tornado. And if the shuttle loop hits, it send the climbers at a really awkard low angle that leaves them in prime edge guarding position.

Well I was doing some data searching, and I noticed something on the following page:

MK aerial shuttle loop startup and MK aerial shuttle loop hitbox

If you notice the last frames on the aerial shuttle loop start up, there is sort of a dipping swoop. The hitbox doesn't come out until MK is now starting to go back on the way up. Because of this dip, it makes the move susceptible to doing what I indicated in the quote tweet. The move will often hit an ice shot during he dip during the frame of or before the first aerial hitbox comes out. As such, if you use an ice shot chaser with the ice shot practically in your main climbers shield, you've created a really nasty grab setup where the MK will clank with your shield with aerial shuttle loop and go into hitlag. If during the hitlag they also are hit by ice shot, they fall to the ground in front of you from the hit stun for a grab.

It isn't perfect; it's possible for MK to perfectly space shuttle loop such that it hits the main climber but doesn't get hit by ice shot, but it's a narrow window. The standard plan had always been to punish the shuttle loop with Uair, but it is a tight window to punish. I've been hit more times than I can count by an ISJR mach tornado trying to punish MK on the top platform with Uair. Another downside, setting up also leaves you vulnerable to mach tornado since the ice shot is a 60 frame commitment with about 40ish frames of cooldown after ice shot is active. However it would create that ambiguous situations that many MKs don't know how to deal with where they are nadoing one climber while the other is shielding, which is one of the main ways I've been getting grabs on MKs at the higher levels.

I don't know if this brings Battlefield back into play, but try it if you are out of answers against an MK that is mindlessly shuttle loop cancelling.

DeLux · Aug 22, 2023

DeLux said:
So I've been doing some labbing on the MK vs. ICs MU. Especially on Battlefield, the meta sort of shifted around 2012 to be about MKs using the aerial shuttle loop cancels as a way to combat ICs. This is because worst case scenario, the MK might eat an Uair if the ICs get a fairly quick read on the coming shuttle loop, but even that's not a for sure as it requires precise timing and a really high jump commitment on the ICs part. If it goes unpunished, it dwindles down the ICs shield, leaving them vulnerable tornado. And if the shuttle loop hits, it send the climbers at a really awkard low angle that leaves them in prime edge guarding position.

Well I was doing some data searching, and I noticed something on the following page:

MK aerial shuttle loop startup and MK aerial shuttle loop hitbox

If you notice the last frames on the aerial shuttle loop start up, there is sort of a dipping swoop. The hitbox doesn't come out until MK is now starting to go back on the way up. Because of this dip, it makes the move susceptible to doing what I indicated in the quote tweet. The move will often hit an ice shot during he dip during the frame of or before the first aerial hitbox comes out. As such, if you use an ice shot chaser with the ice shot practically in your main climbers shield, you've created a really nasty grab setup where the MK will clank with your shield with aerial shuttle loop and go into hitlag. If during the hitlag they also are hit by ice shot, they fall to the ground in front of you from the hit stun for a grab.

It isn't perfect; it's possible for MK to perfectly space shuttle loop such that it hits the main climber but doesn't get hit by ice shot, but it's a narrow window. The standard plan had always been to punish the shuttle loop with Uair, but it is a tight window to punish. I've been hit more times than I can count by an ISJR mach tornado trying to punish MK on the top platform with Uair. Another downside, setting up also leaves you vulnerable to mach tornado since the ice shot is a 60 frame commitment with about 40ish frames of cooldown after ice shot is active. However it would create that ambiguous situations that many MKs don't know how to deal with where they are nadoing one climber while the other is shielding, which is one of the main ways I've been getting grabs on MKs at the higher levels.

I don't know if this brings Battlefield back into play, but try it if you are out of answers against an MK that is mindlessly shuttle loop cancelling.

Also, you can try things like putting an ice shot on the battlefield platform as well! Just dont accidentally put your secondary climber on top of the platform or you have created a bad situation!

DeLux · Sep 11, 2023

One of the funny things that people like to claim without much evidence is that the recent trend of modding tournaments to remove random tripping on dash is a nerf to ice climbers. Trying to steelman their position, the logic is: "If the ICs trip, the person might have an opportunity to approach. But if the the opponent trips, ICs can't grab them out of trip which leads to a stock. As such, removing the tripping removes the disproportionate reward ICs potentially get for punish a random trip."

This doesn't take into account a few things that ICs receive buffs in:
1. There are two ICs, so the chances that one of the two ICs is likely higher by virtue of there being two characters.
2. ICs in most high level MUs revolve their entire gameplan around dashing - whether it's to punish for grab opportunities, play neutral since they move slow, or even to set up most desyncs.
3. The most obvious grab counterplay is jump, meaning ICs are on the ground running around more than their opponents.
4. ICs are no longer forced to learn the tripless/mashless throws if they wanted to avoid the built in random failure rate of nontripless CGs. The spacing on the tripless CGs are generally harder to execute for spacing reasons.

All of these in the standard meta means that we have modded out frequent opportunities to open them up and combat the CG being an issue.

But perhaps more importantly, it gives them the following option select:

until you get to a safe percent based on mashing rate (like 110-150) cg your opponent so you end up on a side of the stage with Nana facing toward center stage while holding your opponent
input froll with popo/pummel with nana by hitting SHIELD + CSTICK FORWARD
this sets up an option select so one of two things will happen

--If your opponent ground grab breaks, you simply grab your opponent out of grab break and either dthrow or bthrow to Nana to reset
--If your opponent air breaks, you walk forward with Popo and grab them out of the air release

Then you hold your opponent until nana runs to you so that you can Bthrow to reset
repeat until your opponent gives up because the amount of mashing it would take to repeatedly grab break from this setup is going to literally exhaust their hands and allows you to legally run the clock on most standard rules as long as you don't exceed 300%

This used to be suboptimal because Nana had a chance to trip when running to chase after popo when you get the desired air release grab break regrab and it was almost always better to just take stock. But with tripping being off the table and bthrow being as easy as executing a smash attack, there really isn't much reason not to go for this on certain characters and stage combinations.

I know it works for MK on FD/SV which is massive. I'll do some more testing on other chars and stage combinations to round this out in the near future.

These are unintended consequences of removing random dash tripping from the game which for coherency reasons I'm generally against. I anticipate though that people will continue to make more rules to mess with the game like they have historically rather than just accepting the ramifiations of their decisions.

DeLux · Dec 16, 2023

Imagine this scenario, and I know you have experienced it because every IC main has-

Your opponent is good at the MU and camps the sides of the stage to avoid the grab like a player camps the sides to avoid major damage from a Diddy banana lock. This works because it limits the room you have to convert a grab via Sopo Dthrow CG to P Bthrow or the standard P Dthrow > N Dthrow > P Bthrow (or heck even the mashless P Dthrow > N B Throw if the spacing is even tighter) so they are able to mash out. So you LOSE the grab.

Before this, the counter play was just to wait or accept that your grab could be mashed from 0 - X% (20 - 60% depending on how good their mashing is in my experience).

Now you can just do this:

If you grab with Popo, just do a P Fthrow and N Buffer Standing Grab: (here is an example of that sort of hand off, but not on the ledge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp6F9mmrGkw). then you can have Nana Bthrow and regrab. It isn't easy to time perfectly, but if done right it's also mashless. I haven't been able to narrow down which characters the spacing doesn't work on or if it stops working at higher percents (I suspect it doesn't work in some cases), but it works on MK so that was good enough for me to make this post.

I want to test no if this also means that it is fastest to do this technique when trying to convert a grab from a seperated situation. It might be but I'll update when I can figure it out!

DeLux · Dec 23, 2023

Not anything particularly new, but I made a video version covering most of this thread: https://smashboards.com/threads/desync-theory-tentatively-complete.302248/

You can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZG9MKktWAg

DeLux · Jan 8, 2024

Ok, not to toot my own horn, but I think I might have the most famous super gimmick grab setup off the ledge when I played OCEAN the set before he beat M2K. In that set, i got him with the Belay > P S Ledge Getup > N Ledge Getup Attack > P Grab. i posted about a few that i would commonly use

Squall Desynch from Ledge.

I always find the most random **** when I practice lmao. When you grab the ledge with belay you can desynch but popo will act first not nana. If you grab the edge with squall you can squall desynch somehow and nana acts first from the ledge. This leaves a lot of good options getting back up...

smashboards.com

I have found some really wild stuff that I might have posted somewhere but I can't find the full slate of belay mixups, but you can do the following:

Belay > Popo Ledge Release (no FF) > Nana Standard Getup > Popo DJ Option > N Grab > P follow up

You can also use the delay in belay to allow you to do things like do all that while holding shield to have nana buffer a shield on standard getup before grabbing. Or a smash attack option select, a whole bunch of crazy stuff. Going to start working this into my game since it skews risk reward on ledge from a horrible position to a horrible position that a mistake might get you a stock

DeLux · Jan 16, 2024

FYSA, if you are in that stalemate position where you opponent has whiff tech landed on the platform where they lay there for you to make a move becuase they are ungrabble:

SND > Popo Jab/Dtilt > Nana Dash Attack (from the jab or dtilt) Cancel Grab

DeLux · Jan 21, 2024

A while back, I labeled LD5 SHAD as being the same thing as the following:
Short Hop > FF > Buffer Popo Dash on Landing > Desynced > Nana Option
Short Hop > FF > Buffer Popo Shield and Drop during Popo Landing Lag > Desynced > Nana Option

A few thoughts on this:

The timing on this seems much less lenient than SHAD (which is tight on its own). I could be wrong though. Maybe at some point I'll get to frame testing.

I believe this desync also explains why if you try to do a LD1 out of SH FF, sometimes Nana will do the special in the wrong direction. Definitely warrants more study.

But to the real meat and potatoes of why I'm posting:

At first I wanted to write about how the SH FF version of LD5 was a strict upgrade over the SHAD version, as the air dodge timing on LD5 was pretty strict and left you floating in the air for the crest of your short hop and the entire of the fall plus the lag of the options coming out of the desync. With SH FF, you still have the option to cancel the desync attempt with a synced aerial attack/special, DJ, airdodge, so the commitment window is much smaller.

However, there are situations it would be appropriate to SHAD LD5 instead, Because Air Dodge gives you a buffer window in which you can input commands.

So for example, SHAD version is able to:

SH > Air Dodge > Buffered Popo SH/FH Aerial (nair or fair is most useful imo > desynced > Nana empty FH > Nana aerial blizzard/ice shot while sync pulled the direction Popo is drifting in the air > Grab setup on platforms

For the life of me, I'm not able to get the buffered aerial empty Nana jump option from SH FF version. I believe this is because SH FF has you available for input instead of being in an air dodge state where you can start buffering inputs without climber action, So for example if you want to shield drop to cover your popo action, you have to do it during the Popo landing lag, as if you do it too early you'll air dodge instead which seems to cancel the desync.

There are some interesting options from SH FF that I want to look into still, so the jury isn't fully out yet. But the SHAD setup seems to have more obvious utilitiy since it allows you to platform pressure in ways that people have not implemented yet.

DeLux · Jan 25, 2024

DeLux said:
A while back, I labeled LD5 SHAD as being the same thing as the following:
Short Hop > FF > Buffer Popo Dash on Landing > Desynced > Nana Option
Short Hop > FF > Buffer Popo Shield and Drop during Popo Landing Lag > Desynced > Nana Option

A few thoughts on this:

The timing on this seems much less lenient than SHAD (which is tight on its own). I could be wrong though. Maybe at some point I'll get to frame testing.

I believe this desync also explains why if you try to do a LD1 out of SH FF, sometimes Nana will do the special in the wrong direction. Definitely warrants more study.

But to the real meat and potatoes of why I'm posting:

At first I wanted to write about how the SH FF version of LD5 was a strict upgrade over the SHAD version, as the air dodge timing on LD5 was pretty strict and left you floating in the air for the crest of your short hop and the entire of the fall plus the lag of the options coming out of the desync. With SH FF, you still have the option to cancel the desync attempt with a synced aerial attack/special, DJ, airdodge, so the commitment window is much smaller.

However, there are situations it would be appropriate to SHAD LD5 instead, Because Air Dodge gives you a buffer window in which you can input commands.

So for example, SHAD version is able to:

SH > Air Dodge > Buffered Popo SH/FH Aerial (nair or fair is most useful imo > desynced > Nana empty FH > Nana aerial blizzard/ice shot while sync pulled the direction Popo is drifting in the air > Grab setup on platforms

For the life of me, I'm not able to get the buffered aerial empty Nana jump option from SH FF version. I believe this is because SH FF has you available for input instead of being in an air dodge state where you can start buffering inputs without climber action, So for example if you want to shield drop to cover your popo action, you have to do it during the Popo landing lag, as if you do it too early you'll air dodge instead which seems to cancel the desync.

There are some interesting options from SH FF that I want to look into still, so the jury isn't fully out yet. But the SHAD setup seems to have more obvious utilitiy since it allows you to platform pressure in ways that people have not implemented yet.

Small problem I figured out recently regarding this desync and consistency. There is a 3 frame window at the top of your jump at which point you can input airdodge or FF for this desync to work. HOWEVER, there is only a (1) SINGLE frame window at which you can input a popo action without nana following suit. I'll be thinking about ways around this to make it more lenient and useful. But at the moment the 1 frame window puts it at something that doesn't seem consistent enough to go for under pressure reliably Maybe a niche desperation or door slamming gimmick.

DeLux · Jan 28, 2024

Every IC that plays at the high level will know this situation I am about to describe because they will have lost grabs to mash outs over it:

You land a Popo Dash grab on your Meta Knight (or other light weigh char) opponent, Nana whiffs, but because of some desync stuff, intentional or not, Nana is a few climbers lengths behind you. You go to do your P Dthrow > N Dthrow CG start up in order to get into your loops, but you DROP the N Dthrow regrab because Nana doesn't seem to walk far enough during the P Dthrow to be in the right space to regrab. You try to fix this by in the future by slowing down in the next situation you get to make sure Nana can walk far enough forward, however doing this gives your opponent time to mash out. So you change you game plan to stop going for those rogue dash grabs altogether.

Well I did some frame checking testing on the lightest (and thus most frame intensive) character Jigglypuff, and figured out the way around it.

In order to explain this, allow me to make a few relvant contextual notes:

The longest you can go between grabbing and opponent and initiating a throw without risking a grab break is 18 frames (it might be 19 and they can grab break on 20, but somewhat ironically and embarassingly one of my original lab projects was analyzing the grab break formula, but I have forgotten if they can break on frame 19 or 20, so just to illustrate the point that this is possible we will assume 18 frames.
All of the ICs throw have various frame data

--Bthrow and Dthrow get slower as the character gets heavier, thus why I'm testing on the lightest character. Fthrow doesn't change timing no matter the weight.
---Dthrow has the first regrabbable frame on frame 27 and the FAF on Frame 34
---Bthrow has the first regrabbable frame on 13* (*being that by a quick on Bthrow regrab with Nana pivot grab, Nana actually grabs on frame 15 because you need to allow for 5 frames of Nana delay, 1 frame for dash, 1 frame for pivot, and 8 frames for pivot grab to come out. This gives jiggs a hyper specific 1 frame window to P Bthrow N Regrab CG from standstill, which is unqiue to her, but that isn't the point of all of this)
---Fthrow has the first regrabble frame on 26 and the FThrow FAF is 50

Ok now that we got these preliminaries out of the way, the sauce is youll need to Nana Dash Grab. The range you move in 8 frames of dash grab start up is was more than walk standing grab.

So the startup will look like this in simple notation, I'll go into a framing map after:

P Dash Grab > N Whiff Dash Grab > Wait 18 frames druing which Nana is getting sync pulled closer > P D/Fthrow > buffer N Dash Grab out of Whiffed Dash Grab cool down (or non buffer if time permits as the chars get heavier on dthrow)

Frame Map this looks like
Frame 0: P Dash Grab Connect
Frame 5: N Dash Grab Whiffs
Frame 18: P F Throw or Dthrow begins
Frame 37: N Dash Grab FAF, N Buffer Dash Grab
Frame 44: P Fthrow Regrabble First Frame, N Dash Grab First Frame**
Frame 45: P Dthrow Regrabbable First Frame, N Dash Grab Second Frame**

**Even at higher percents for both Dthrow and Fthrow, you have at least 2 frame to make these connect, so technically you don't even have to buffer it. At 0% I was showing 6 Frames to regrab on Dthrow, so the range is somewhere between 2-6 frames.

At this point you have Nana in front of you kind of far away holding the opponent, which traditionally has not been ideal (even if it might now be optimal) so you have a couple of options at this point.

Assuming you have the stage to work with:
Dthrow with Nana - Dash/Run forward with Popo to regrab > Tripless / Mashless P Fthrow/Dthrow, N Bthrow Transition or P Bthrow Transition
Fthrow with Nana - Dash/Run forward with Popo to regrab > Tripless / Mashless P Bthrow/Dthrow, N Bthrow Transition
If you have been thinking through the frame data, you probably realize that Dthrow seems to be the superior throw to use because you get better frame advantage on cool down even if you consider the need to shield buffer (which isn't the case with all characters). However some people really like to Fthrow because the timing is constant so you do you.

I would caution on N Fthrow though because it might prevent P Bthrow from being mashless on many characters. Here is the issue:
Frame 0: P Grab of N Fthrow
Frame 18: P must Bthrow
Frame 24: N Fthrow FAF > N Dash
Frame 25: N Pivot
Frame 26: N Pivot Grab Initiate
Frame 31: P Bthrow Regrabbable
Frame 32: P Bthrow Regrabbable
Frame 33: Pivot Grab Out, P Bthrow Regrabbable

As you can see, it seems like it is possible to get a mashless Fthrow if you are just about frame perfect. However if you are non-perfect toward the quick side, you will likely whiff the grab. If you are non-perfect toward the late side, you risk being mashed. All of this done through Nana Delay and it's a recipe for mistakes in my opinion. To be honest, I'm not even 100% sure if the pivot grab will work because you notice the difference in frames between Popo starting Bthrow and when you start the your Nana pivot grab? It could be in this situation that Nana just dash grabs and whiffs the grab because of misspacing.

Compare this to a N Dthrow > P Regrab to P Bthrow:
Frame 0: P Grab of N Dthrow
Frame 8 : N Dthrow > Shield Buffer
Frame 16: Shield Buffer Drop FAF
Frame 18: P must Bthrow;
Frame 23: N Pivot
Frame 24: N Pivot Grab Initiate
Frame 31: P Bthrow Regrabbable
Frame 32: P Bthrow Regrabbable
Frame 33: Pivot Grab Out, P Bthrow Regrabbable

As you can see, Nana is in a actionable state at the end of when Popo needs to Bthrow. Probably much cleaner action overall! One of beauty's of the Dthrow variable cooldown in that as the Dthrow cooldown exceeds 10 frames, you no longer need to shield buffer with Nana unless you regrab late. But based on the frame map, you likely have some room to spare.

On some level I feel like both are a little too frame tight to rely on, with dthrow being better than fthrow. Some of it is a moot point because of the tripless/mashless transitions since that seems to be an option regardless of which route you take. But there may be situations where you don't have the option to tripless/mashless transition (or you don't know how) which brings us back to the topic at hand, and back to that situation where Nana is holding the opponent but you don't have much space (as in Nana is at the edge). Especially if the edge prevented Nana from sliding too far forward from you, you can do the Popo Dash Dance Pivot Grab conversion and then just walking Dthrow until you get to mashless loops. I can go into these at some other time, but you can search forum for the tripless CG instructions and the dash dance pivot grab is just a N Bthrow > P Dash Back > Dash Forward > P Pivot Grab.

Depending on the spacing, you could also do a straight tripless N Bthrow turnaround or even the P Dash Back Pivot Grab "Vinnie" Transition. I try to stay away from those if I can as they are both pretty strict in terms of spacing to work. But if you are good at those, then by all means go for it.

DeLux · Jan 28, 2024

DeLux said:
Every IC that plays at the high level will know this situation I am about to describe because they will have lost grabs to mash outs over it:

You land a Popo Dash grab on your Meta Knight opponent, Nana whiffs, but because of some desync stuff, intentional or not, Nana is a few climbers length behind you. You go to do your P Dthrow > N Dthrow CG start up in order to get into your loops, but you DROP the N Dthrow regrab because Nana doesn't seem to walk far enough during the P Dthrow to be in the right space to regrab. You try to fix this by in the future by slowing down in the next situation you get to make sure Nana can walk far enough forward, however doing this gives your opponent to mash out. So you change you game plan to stop going for those rogue dash grabs.

Well I did some frame checking testing on the lightest (and thus most frame intensive) character Jigglypuff, and figured out the way around it.

In order to explain this, allow me to make a few relvant contextual notes:

The longest you can go between grabbing and opponent and initiating a throw is 18 frames (it might be 19 and they can grab break on 20, but somewhat ironically and embarassingly one of my original lab projects was analyzing the grab break formula, but I have forgotten if they can break on frame 19 or 20, so just to illustrate the point that this is possible we will assume 18 frames.

All of the ICs throw have various frame data

--Bthrow and Dthrow get slower as the character gets heavier. Fthrow doesn't change timing no matter the weight.
---Dthrow has the first regrabbable frame on frame 27 and the FAF on Frame 34
---Bthrow has the first regrabbable frame on 13* (*being that by a quick on Bthrow regrab with Nana pivot grab, Nana actually grabs on frame 15 because you need to allow for 5 frames of Nana delay, 1 frame for dash, 1 frame for pivot, and 8 frames for pivot grab to come out. This gives jiggs a hyper specific 1 frame window to P Bthrow N Regrab CG from standstill, which is unqiue to her, but that isn't the point of all of this)
---Fthrow has the first regrabble frame on 26 and the FThrow FAF is 50

Ok now that we got these preliminaries out of the way, the sauce is youll need to Nana Dash Grab. The range you move in 8 frames of dash grab start up is was more than walk standing grab.

So the startup will look like this in simple notation, I'll go into a framing map after:

P Dash Grab > N Whiff Dash Grab > Wait 18 frames druing which Nana is getting sync pulled closer > P D/Fthrow > buffer N Dash Grab out of Whiffed Dash Grab cool down

Frame Map this looks like
Frame 0: P Dash Grab Connect
Frame 5: N Dash Grab Whiffs
Frame 18: P F Throw or Dthrow begins
Frame 37: N Dash Grab FAF, N Buffer Dash Grab
Frame 44: P Fthrow Regrabble First Frame, N Dash Grab First Frame**
Frame 45: P Dthrow Regrabbable First Frame, N Dash Grab Second Frame**

**Even at higher percents for both Dthrow and Fthrow, you have at least 2 frame to make these connect, so technically you don't even have to buffer it. At 0% I was showing 6 Frames to regrab on Dthrow, so the range is somewhere between 2-6 frames.

At this point you have Nana in front of you kind of far away holding the opponent, which traditionally has not been ideal (even if it might now be optimal) so you have a couple of options at this point.

Assuming you have the stage to work with:
Dthrow with Nana - Dash/Run forward with Popo to regrab > Tripless / Mashless P Fthrow/Dthrow, N Bthrow Transition or P Bthrow Transition
Fthrow with Nana - Dash/Run forward with Popo to regrab > Tripless / Mashless P Bthrow/Dthrow, N Bthrow Transition
If you have been thinking through the frame data, you probably realize that Dthrow seems to be the superior throw to use because you get better frame advantage on cool down even if you consider the need to shield buffer (which isn't the case with all characters). However some people really like to Fthrow because the timing is constant so you do you.

I would caution on N Fthrow though because it might prevent P Bthrow from being mashless on many characters. Here is the issue:
Frame 0: P Grab of N Fthrow
Frame 18: P must Bthrow
Frame 24: N Fthrow FAF > N Dash
Frame 25: N Pivot
Frame 26: N Pivot Grab Initiate
Frame 31: P Bthrow Regrabbable
Frame 32: P Bthrow Regrabbable
Frame 33: Pivot Grab Out, P Bthrow Regrabbable

As you can see, it seems like it is possible to get a mashless Fthrow if you are just about frame perfect. However if you are non-perfect toward the quick side, you will likely whiff the grab. If you are non-perfect toward the late side, you risk being mashed. All of this done through Nana Delay and it's a recipe for mistakes in my opinion. To be honest, I'm not even 100% sure if the pivot grab will work because you notice the difference in frames between Popo starting Bthrow and when you start the your Nana pivot grab? It could be in this situation that Nana just dash grabs and whiffs the grab because of misspacing.

Compare this to a N Dthrow > P Regrab to P Bthrow:
Frame 0: P Grab of N Dthrow
Frame 8 : N Dthrow > Shield Buffer
Frame 16: Shield Buffer Drop FAF
Frame 18: P must Bthrow;
Frame 23: N Pivot
Frame 24: N Pivot Grab Initiate
Frame 31: P Bthrow Regrabbable
Frame 32: P Bthrow Regrabbable
Frame 33: Pivot Grab Out, P Bthrow Regrabbable

As you can see, Nana is in a actionable state at the end of when Popo needs to Bthrow. Probably much cleaner action overall! One of beauty's of the Dthrow variable cooldown in that as the Dthrow cooldown exceeds 10 frames, you no longer need to shield buffer with Nana unless you regrab late. But based on the frame map, you likely have some room to spare.

On some level I feel like both are a little too frame tight to rely on, with dthrow being better than fthrow. Some of it is a moot point because of the tripless/mashless transitions since that seems to be an option regardless of which route you take. But there may be situations where you don't have the option to tripless/mashless transition (or you don't know how) which brings us back to the topic at hand, and back to that situation where Nana is holding the opponent but you don't have much space (as in Nana is at the edge). Especially if the edge prevented Nana from sliding too far forward from you, you can do the Popo Dash Dance Pivot Grab conversion and then just walking Dthrow until you get to mashless loops.

Depending on the spacing, you could also do a straight tripless N Bthrow turnaround or even the P Dash Back Pivot Grab "Vinnie" Transition. I try to stay away from those if I can as they are both pretty strict in terms of spacing to work. But if you are good at those, then by all means go for it.

Special side note: all of this is now optimal because of the no tripping code people have been using takes out the chance of tripping in all of the dashes in each route. Another straight cause and effect of the vicious cycle of the community "trying to improve the game by banning something to make the game more 'competitieve'" only to buff ice climbers, and then everyone complains about ice climbers being better. The meme continues

DeLux · Feb 4, 2024

You can straight up chain grab through Toon Link bombs if you time the explosion with the first 8 frames of your throw - the frames with invincibility on the thrower. You just need to shield/spot dodge with the other climber and regrab. From a frame data standpoint, that is only possible via dthrow CG.

This does not work through Snake grenade. it does too much damage.

MaizE · May 11, 2024

hey lux miss you

kylo · May 11, 2024

interesting tech man

DeLux · Jun 11, 2024

I have been experimenting on how to keep pressure on opponents while pressuing them with aerials, so naturally that lead me to start wokring on landing lag desync. It's always been a pretty attractive option becuase it's a desync with a 1 frame start up time if you don't consider the time jumping into the air as part of the startup, however it had always been limited because popo generally acts first unless you did a LD/Buffer desync.

After doing some thinking, I wonder if doing the standard landing lag desync will have some advantages to LDs, one of which is the fact that you can use a shield flash with popo during nana's dash in order to follow up with a nana option. So now you can do things like SHAD (without the specific timing to get the differing landing lag LD deesync that I wrote about previously in this thread), land, come out with popo standing and nana dashing, flash shield with popo, and have nana do a ground options (ice shot, blizzard, solo squall) especially. You can also spot dodge or roll with popo as instead of shield flash as well.

Not sure how much of an upgrade this is, but I think it has some real MU altering potential that merits additional testing.

DeLux · Jul 2, 2024

I was doing some frame counting on youtube videos on trying to combat the low shuttle loop cancel option since it really seems like a point of critical importance to combat as it seems like a losing trade for us (IE, low shuttle loop will sometimes get punished by aerial with ICs, while reward for MK is a good edge guard situation for taking stock or killing nana).

Doing my frame counting, I have noticed that it takes Metaknight about 30 frames to touch ground on the low shuttle loop cancel, followed by 2 frames of landing lag after they are free from hit lag, and add one frame for spot dodge startup, so first frame to invulnerability is 34. Then take into consideration that there is a 3 frame shield stun/ shield hitlag differential, you can FH, DJ platform cancel on SMASHVILLE on Frame 21 aka frame 18 of your jump (factoring shield stun, jump squat, FH, DJ and platform cancel with analog stick) platform cancel dash grab, out on frame 10, giving you a 3 frame window to be able to grab the low shuttle loop on shield cancel into a grab guaranteed. To be honest, the window could actually be bigger because of cstick auto dash grab platform cancel as well as the extra shield hit lag trick I mentioned earlier in the thread,

point being that smashville is back in play vs the low shuttle loop if you have the stones and execution to go for platform cancel dash grab on low shuttle loop cancel.

I want to test, but this might also put in play on other stages. I am less optimistic on lylat because the platforms are smaller so the interaction doesn't work as well since you have no place to platform cancel to. Yoshi's i am also not sure since it might take too long to platform cancel because of the tilting/height of the platform. However, it working on smashville is extremely helpful.

DeLux · Jul 7, 2024

I noticed recently that my solo dthrow CGs have become really bad as of late, because the optimal solo dthrow cg on dash grab is either frame perfect or you buffer the dash grab. I had been brainstorming a way to quality control my inputs in practice and I came to the following realization:

If you have synced climbers and grab with popo and let Nanas whiff grab cool down finish, if you do a popo dthrow and then input a dash grab, sometimes you end up where Nana ends up grabbing instead of Popo. If this hapens you genearlly know you buffered a CG in the first 4 frames on the Dthrow buffer window, because the Nana delay would be elapsing as the remaining buffer frames elapse, and her grab animation would be starting at least one frame before your buffered dash grab. I woudln't necessarily say you need to practice the motion such that Nana is grabbing persay since that means your making it liekly you'll miss the buffer window early, but its a good place to start to get a feel for if you're late or early before moving into actual reps. Being able to do the buffered version is match up changing against like... Marth and Snake off the top of my head.

DeLux · Aug 13, 2024

Just got back from Supernova 2024, the new name for Super Smash Con. ICs had strong representation at the top of bracket again, but virtually none throughout the rest as far as I know.

686M, last year's champion a virtually solo ICs, ended up taking the tournament splititng between ICs and MK. His ICs are still GOATed, using ICs in Winners Finals and Grand Finals to win it, but MK in WQF and WSF. Very interestingly 6's ICs got it done vs. Toon Link in Grand Finals when his Mk had some struggles despite the text book MU differences.

Speaking of that WSF set, yours truly piloted MK/ICs/Mario to 4th place in the tourney. I ended up using MK is the early rounds and a game in LSF on Rainbow Cruise, but picked up my key wins with ICs in WQF vs Mikeray 4 (lifetime 2-1 in sets vs. his Snake) and LQF vs. Fino (lifetime in my favor probably, hard to tell how many times he played. He took a set off me partially playing ICs wth his Olimar earlier in the year, so it was defintely a rebound set.) I ultimately fell in WSF to 686M's MK, Game 1 was semi-tight because 6 had a wild IC-Cide, Game 2 I got blasted on BF, and Game 3 I choked a CG on Lylat that would have forced game 4. Dropped the last set vs. Player-1 (2-2 on the year with him) mostly on the grounds that I could not land a CG to save my life on the stream setup. Just wasn't my day unfortunately. Side note - I accidentally had a medication mishap where I accidentally double dosed so that I almost DQed out of the tournament in the middle of Top 16, but decided just to stick it out since I had made it that far. 4th is cool but I can't help but wonder what might have been had I been 100% there. Could have gone worse, but I'm betting it could have gone a little better. Content but hard pill to swallow coming that far and going out like that.

Had some weird stuff happen in the Snake matchup that I wasn't anticipating, but I want to frame check it before I write up anything conclusive. Haven't had hobble fail that many times in bracket before.

I did quite a bit of study early this year and mapped out a few scenarios I had been struggling to handle a few weeks before the tournament to try to work out some counterplay. Happy to say that the study paid off!

I still have a backlog of posts on stuff that I have been working on, but the labbing has been paying off. I am a tossup right now between giving it a go with this character one more year or if it's time to dial in on something new. It'll probably be a mix of both, but I'll still make an effort to document what I find in case some soul decides to take up the dual hammers in the future.

DeLux · Aug 13, 2024

Diagnosing missed hobbles