Ice Climbers Matchup Discussion REVAMPED - Week 1 Snaaaaaaaakeeeee

[KRDsonic]

Not to be rude, but please stop trying to argue about something when you don't know what you're talking about... I'll repeat it again, "Ice Blocks completely stop needles, and Ice Blocks are faster, which means a shield against needles as long as they need it."

 

[r3d d09]

I'm glad you said it, so i can still be the nice guy on the IC forum xD

 

[stoopdklutz]

I really don't like this match-up, it's like Zelda's moveset is anti-Ice Climber. She has a lot of ways of seperating the two, lots of multi-hitting attacks, and Din's fire, which is annoying because of the lag between Nana and Popo. Use blizzard because it outranges them, albeit barely.

40-60 me thinks.

 

[<π]

There is no point in discussing sheik honestly. I played a shiek main who has NO clue how to play Zelda and after 1 stock against my climber he switched to Zelda LOL.

No one is ever going to play sheik against IC's, even if it's their only character.

I would >.>
shiek isn't that bad against ICs... it is in their favor, but not by much. I'm gonna travel somewhere and beat a reputable IC main... jeeze

most sheiks don't understand the match up and most sheiks aren't good yet.
sheik has a strong aerial game that allows her to very safely poke at the climbers on the ground and gimp them very well of stage.
Pivot grab lets sheik split climbers very easily.
Ice blocks are always free hits, for sheik. OMG, yes, even desynced ones.
Any ICs wanna come down to gigs, ask for me.
till them I'm still trying to arrange a trip out of state.

I've lived with, as far as I'm concerned one of the best ICs in the region, if not the nation. but honestly moves with like 30 frame start ups shouldn't be an... unclimbable wall for sheik.

the biggest thing against sheik is that she can be solo chained to around 60? that give climbers a lot of time to meet back up for a death.

personally I don't see zelda as some IC counter. if you are playing smart there is no need to you to approach, blizzard and Ice blocks are good here in that they out speed dins at those medium ranges. it's hard for zelda to get inside of the climbers even if they are standing a few feet away. She still has no reliable approach or a way to force her opponent to come to her.

 

[Hylian]

I would >.>
shiek isn't that bad against ICs... it is in their favor, but not by much. I'm gonna travel somewhere and beat a reputable IC main... jeeze

most sheiks don't understand the match up and most sheiks aren't good yet.
sheik has a strong aerial game that allows her to very safely poke at the climbers on the ground and gimp them very well of stage.
Pivot grab lets sheik split climbers very easily.
Ice blocks are always free hits, for sheik. OMG, yes, even desynced ones.
Any ICs wanna come down to gigs, ask for me.
till them I'm still trying to arrange a trip out of state.

I've lived with, as far as I'm concerned one of the best ICs in the region, if not the nation. but honestly moves with like 30 frame start ups shouldn't be an... unclimbable wall for sheik.

the biggest thing against sheik is that she can be solo chained to around 60? that give climbers a lot of time to meet back up for a death.

personally I don't see zelda as some IC counter. if you are playing smart there is no need to you to approach, blizzard and Ice blocks are good here in that they out speed dins at those medium ranges. it's hard for zelda to get inside of the climbers even if they are standing a few feet away. She still has no reliable approach or a way to force her opponent to come to her.

I think you might be a little disconnected from the current smash scene outside of florida honestly.

 

[choknater]

i dont think sheik has enough range to not get grabbed. her speed only gets her so far, and needles are not gonna keep them at bay forever. like compared her camping game (which is what u need to do sometimes to not get grabbed) to say, rob's. pretty bad

u can play aggressive against ic's and if u guess right on their wakeups and air dodges and stuff, u can **** and gimp really well... but just like playing makoto in 3rd strike, u cant always guess right. sheik has some decent stuff like fairs, ftilt combos to separate, dsmash, and other stuff...

but ic's are not just grabs. it's probably really hard to deal with an ic's that actually approaches sheik and uses uairs, nairs, and other ground game stuff. and then when sheik makes a blunder, 0-death . i say 65:35 ic's favor. 100:0 sheik's favor on norfair

zelda is too slow for ic's, thats all i kno. i cant think of a ratio but zelda loses anyway

 

[Smasher89]

I play alot against Armada (even though it´s not as much as it is in melee :/ ), who won last european tournament he attended to.

As far as I can tell about this matchup, it´s very much about holding pressure up on shiek and predicting the dodge and get a grab.
One thing is to when she gets offstage, jump after her, but space so she won´t reach you, or the ledge with the chain, you and take the ledge, and she is forced to up-b onstage, which is quite some landing lag to punish.
Be aware though that the up-b has strange properties and if you get hit you either will fly up or get "mini meteored" and possibly hit with another move right after.
Uairs seems to be very good in terms of dealing damage, so keep predicting em in, im working on it and I believe since SoPo CG and some other stuff, ICs have advantage.

 

[choknater]

how do u do against armada? lucky guy haha hes such a good player

best sheik in the world IMO followed by neo and champ

 

[Smasher89]

the most recent set was like 4-3 to him (if I remember the most recent one), where I got the lead with 3-2 , not sure but i think the set in losers went 4-0 or 4-1, loosing when leading is not good for the mindset, hopefully there will be a tournament this weekend where it´ll go better. A good thing though is that his MK does not seem to work against my ICs/snake^^
In melee though I did the mistake of teaching him that fair/fair to dsmash is safe against IC, so I´m forced to switch char against him.

 

[choknater]

lol, peach in melee?

i cannot IMAGINE trying to fight armada's peach in melee with ic's

i get 3-stocked by pink shinobi

 

[<π]

none of sheiks aerials can be shield grabbed... (spare dair and uair) her ftilts can't be shield grabbed. Try it.

IC don't have any options that really stop sheik from dealing damage to them, stupid dsync tricks included...

I give the match up to ICs, generally they are going to be forcing the approach. but in any situation is isn't like Sheik has bad approach options.
The big disadvatages for sheik as the solo popo chain, and her inability to easily and safely split the climbers. Since those are obviously issues that can be worked around I don't understand why this match up is concidered so heavily in ICs favor. It is far from unwinnable for a sheik that understands the match up.

 

[Prawn]

IC don't have any options that really stop sheik from dealing damage to them, stupid dsync tricks included...

lol "stupid desync tricks" get grabs against all types of characters all the time.

The big disadvatages for sheik[......]her inability to easily and safely split the climbers.

That's bigger than a big advantage, thats a HUGE advantage. Unless you can air camp, splitting the climbers and killing Nana is the best way to defeat ICs.

I understand where you're coming from, I doubt its like 80/20, but its easily 65/35. Although I have 2 videos of me losing to a shiek online(can't CG or do **** with ICs online johns)

On another note, this discussion has made me ponder picking up Sheik as a secondary.

 

[KRDsonic]

I've lived with, as far as I'm concerned one of the best ICs in the region, if not the nation.

From the videos you showed me, that guy is definitely not one of the best Ice Climbers in the nation... He isn't bad, but he's definitely not as good as a lot of them (unless he somehow dramatically improved from back then. His IC weren't as good as mine back then either, and I've always been pretty average.)

Also, a quick question. What do you plan on hitting us with when we have desynced ice blocks? You can't exactly approach on the ground, and we can just have the other Ice Climber nair if you get too close. I'm curious about what Sheik does about it, it might help my sheik.

 

[<π]

bair, same move I use for everything. it out range nair, it's disjointed.

dsync is strong but it is not some ultimate approach. you can't approach with dsync Ice block. not safely. disjointed blizzard works well, but against characters like falco and sheik it is very easily shut down by our projectiles.

sheik can split climbers, every character can, she just doesn't do it a simply as say... pika. I separate with pivot grabs and sheild pokes, or by getting one climbers damage higher than the other. After that is done it is very easy for sheik to effectively combo nana to a gimp.

Sheik right now has this stigma of "easy to grab" that makes no sense she has some of the safest ground and aerial pokes in the game. IC have one of the worst grab ranges in the game.


What makes the match up so impossible for sheik?

 

[KRDsonic]

What makes the match up so impossible for sheik?

People have been saying 65:35, that's not an impossible matchup and no one said it is. It's just... better to spend 5 minutes learning Zelda's moves and switch to her against IC than it is to stay Sheik.

 

[momochuu]

lol, peach in melee?

i cannot IMAGINE trying to fight armada's peach in melee with ic's

Same. @_@; That must be...frustrating to say the least. Or maybe he was talking about Brawl Peach? I dunno.

What makes the match up so impossible for sheik?

Well, like you said, she can't seperate them. This is one of the biggest determining factors in how your character does versus the Ice Climbers. The matchup isn't impossible, but it's almost there. When your character gets chaingrabbed from 0-60 by a single Ice Climber, that's not exactly a good matchup for you. I have never even heard of an Ice Climbers player in Florida. Who is this?

 

[<π]

Zelda is way more complex than just that, lol. I think people are severely over rating zelda in this match up and underrating sheik.

65:35? Mmm... I could agree with something like that. I've been hearing 80:20 quite a bit. Tons of people say the match is impossible. Every sheik has ICs and pika listed as the hard counter for sheik. the match sheik can't win. That is silly. chain grabs aren't that scary.

But what was it again that made the match up so bad. what is it that completely shuts down sheiks options to the point where you wouldn't want to use her?

 

[FrozenHobo]

i only met one other climber player when i went down to Florida and he wasn't even as good as i was. sure, he could CG, but gameplay wise he wasn't anything special. its probably not the guy you're talking about, but he's the only Florida IC i've ever met.

 

[momochuu]

Zelda is way more complex than just that, lol. I think people are severely over rating zelda in this match up and underrating sheik.

I agree. I didn't think so many of you would find Zelda that hard. She's really not if you...just don't run into her stuff.

The other part of your post in answered in the post before yours.

 

[<π]

Same. @_@; That must be...frustrating to say the least. Or maybe he was talking about Brawl Peach? I dunno.



Well, like you said, she can't seperate them. This is one of the biggest determining factors in how your character does versus the Ice Climbers. The matchup isn't impossible, but it's almost there. When your character gets chaingrabbed from 0-60 by a single Ice Climber, that's not exactly a good matchup for you. I have never even heard of an Ice Climbers player in Florida. Who is this?

I play with X-Factor, there is also galuda who is a very popular well received climber in the area.

I hate the chain grab argument, chian grabs are not hard to avoid. not when you have such good spacing tools. falco doesn't have tools to seperate climbers, marth doesn't, link doesn't, but they have the tools to avoid getting grabbed while still applying pressure and building damage; that is the meat of the match up I think.

 

[FrozenHobo]

mmm the climber i met was named bino.


can i see a vid of these guys?

 

[<π]

youtube em, they should pop up.

 

[FrozenHobo]

well, i was think more specificly of your sheik vs them

edi: nvm, i found some.

i have to say, i'm not really impressed with..well, with either of you. that IC isn't that great and most of your kills were because he was playing badly.

 

[<π]

rats I'm exposed! I was watching those vids and we are horrible.

X just moved out, but next biig tourney I'll try and get some of me and galuda.

 

[Hylian]

I play with X-Factor, there is also galuda who is a very popular well received climber in the area.

I hate the chain grab argument, chian grabs are not hard to avoid. not when you have such good spacing tools. falco doesn't have tools to seperate climbers, marth doesn't, link doesn't, but they have the tools to avoid getting grabbed while still applying pressure and building damage; that is the meat of the match up I think.

Welll lets see...

1. Claiming you play with one of the top IC players in the nation to give your match-up claims justification doesn't work when no one knows who that IC player is because they don't place. How does he do against Afro/Seibrik? I've played every top player in Florida...None of them said anything about a good IC player there.

2. Marth definitely has the tools to separate climbers lol.

3. I think you're forgetting the fact that grabs have priority over attacks. Yes IC's standing grab range sucks, but they can grab many characters out of attacks. The reason Marth/MK can space on their shield is because they have disjointed hitboxes which can't be grabbed. Sheik doesn't have these and can be grabbed out of pretty much everything..

4. IC's can Pivot grab every one of sheiks aerials easily. Sure you're not just going to jump at us..but uh that's what makes the match-up hard...it's very hard to hit IC's with shiek without being grabbed. Falco has this same problem, except he has amazing movement tools and a BETTER projectile and STILL gets beaten pretty badly.

5. Hmm lets turn to results to see some sheik vs IC's!..Oh wait...The best sheik players don't even ATTEMPT the match-up because they know they would be putting themselves at severe disadvantage against any IC's worth his weight. Armada may use sheik vs some IC players in Europe, but when he plays Fly here at genesis what did he do? Switched characters. The reasons should be obvious.

6. IC's can approach sheik...several ways. Sheik doesn't want to be above them because well..IC's Uair beats everything she has. She can't approach their retreating nairs safely, what can she even do about desynched IB to follow-up? Squalling over needles is easy and leads to nasty uair combos.

Do I really need to go on? What SHOULD sheik be doing? She should be camping near the edge trying to force the IC's to do something stupid where she can get them off and edgeguard..because she's pretty good at that. That's pretty much it.

 

[-Mars-]

Fair is disjointed just so you know....

 

[Hylian]

Fair is disjointed just so you know....

Is it transcendent though?

 

[-Mars-]

Nope. But iirc Sheik can space a bair on DDD's shield and not be shield-grabbed so it is possible to be safe on block vs. the Ice Climbers. Extremely hard but it is possible.

 

[Hylian]

Nope. But iirc Sheik can space a bair on DDD's shield and not be shield-grabbed so it is possible to be safe on block vs. the Ice Climbers. Extremely hard but it is possible.

I didn't say on block...

 

[Gindler]

Nana loves to get needled, just thought I'd point that out since most people seem to have forgotten about that attack. Sure, running away and needling an entire match can get boring but hey if you gotta do it.

 

[choknater]

sheik is not gay enough to beat ic's
zelda is not fast enough to beat ic's :D

i think its 65:35 for both characters...
probably worse for sheik but im biased cuz i **** with sheik...

 

[Veggie123]

Some observations

It's a free grab for the ICs if Zelda whiffs usmash or dsmash. As fast as they are they both have loads of ending lag. Also for some reason, ICs can sometimes get out of usmash when hit aerially, so they can probably SDI out of it easier than other characters.

Fsmash is tougher to deal with since it has good range and low cool down lag...which makes it very safe and very spammable. A lot of ICs I've fought make the mistake of trying to punish a shielded fsmash (especially by grabbing) but it's generally not a good idea, though it might be plausible out of a spotdodge. A ton of Zelda's moves have ridiculous cooldown at the end, but she really only needs fsmash to cause some trouble.

You can have some fun if you manage to get her airborne, she really can't do anything to defend herself from underneath so she's good uair fodder. Although she has decent horizontal aerial speed so you might have to do some chasing.

I don't think ICs really have anything that will force Zelda to approach, so that's definitely a plus for her and Din's will probably be more of an annoyance for the ICs than other characters.

 

[choknater]

yup din's works cuz there are only a few frames during their rolls/spotdodges/air dodge where both climbers are invincible

though zelda has to be careful, cuz if she fires one and she's not far away enough, ic's can just run in and grab her = death

din's fire + fsmash = guide to playing the matchup with zelda :D

and sometimes nair/dsmash! but not really :D

still though... ic's camping game isnt bad either with the ice blocks and stuff.

 

[Smoom77]

Against Sheik, I DO see this great margin of difference. Just spam desynced ice blocks while approaching when far away to avoid needles. And when you're closer, desynced blizzards are amazing against her. She will be pressured and try to jump over you. Just try to use some uair.

Personally, I don't even wanna TALK about Zelda. I hate playing her, and I don't even have the desire to beat her.

But yes, I find ICs vs Sheik easy. 75:25 or 70:30.

 

[choknater]

lol but ic's have the advantage against zelda anyway... a big speed advantage..

just dont get fsmashed

 

[Kataefi]

Chok I disagree... I think zelda does okay against the ICs. I think it's a pretty even fight - Fsmash, Jab and Dtilt are unpunishable on their shield. Jab and dtilt are unpunishable on spotdodge, as is Fsmash if you're comfortable with charging. Nana has problems with the dtilt lock, and Din's/Ice Blocks trade, which favours din's.

She isn't approaching at all in this matchup, and Nana dies in the 70s, less so with Uair. It's just that Nana is the easiest character in the game to land any sort of power aerial on because she sort of drift or floats everytime she gets separated and put in the air - which is a perfect setup from any dash attack, usmash, ftilt, fsmash, din's.

Blizzards barely outrange her, but she can turnaround shield and Bair OoS those consistently.

There's just no reason for her to use moves that will make her punishable, like Dsmash, Nayru's and Usmash when she can poke safely at a distance and camp from afar. If she is using those moves then it's her player's fault for putting her at risk of grabbing.

I think this match can easily sway, I'd call it even. But I don't think this matchup happens at a high enough level for anything to be really be justified yet. Aside from Ryoko, DM, NL as far as tourney matches are concerned I wouldn't call anyone else a reeeeally good zelda player =p Lessthanthree

Spoiler

LOVE

I thought you only used sheik? >.<

 

[momochuu]

I must play some really bad Zeldas. <_<;

 

[choknater]

hm

kataefi i trust your opinion. the strategies u said sound good :D

YAY I CAN STAY A SHEIK MAIN AND NOT HAVE TO WORRY SO MUCH ABOUT ICS

ahhh eat my jab dtilt fsmash din spam

 

[Kataefi]

Lol kawaii... no one plays zelda in tourney >.>

and those that do have c-stick syndrome, myself included. I might as well duck-tape my thumb to the c-stick haha!

 

[Fly_Amanita]

If Zelda is fsmashing/dtilting a lot, you can squall hammer over either move. This is kind of risky, but it sends her upwards and nets the ICs a positional advantage.