ICs teammate: how should I play with them?

[ShinerCCC]

Greetings from a Ganon main.

At a recent low-key tourney I went to (12 attendees total, 4 teams) I teamed with my friend who came with me. He's only been playing since October and he's already quite good with Fox and the ICs. Although I love teaming with Fox we decided he should go ICs in teams for a greater element of surprise since he knows how to Wobble with pretty good consistency (can't do handoffs yet though). We played fairly well even though we had never teamed before (usually I team with a Falco) and I had never teamed with an ICs before, or even played against them much, so I'm not really sure about how they play. I just know Ganon wrecks them with ease because of his reach and power making for easy separation, I can't remember the last time I've lost to an ICs.

Here are some pros and cons I noticed about teaming with ICs.
Pros:
- Great to have around, if you can cover them. First thing we did in teams was play a Jiggs/Falco team and in 10 seconds the Jigglypuff got Wobbled to death, to which the Jiggs player cried "omg help, I haven't been Wobbled since 2007". But this requires Nana and lots of time/coverage (more on this later)
- decent recovery, you can usually count on leaving them alone (well, everyone has good recovery compared to Ganon >_>)
- knows how to get grabs for team combos, and Ganon likes free hits...but isn't Wobbling even better?

Cons:
- I hit Nana a lot. It's like teaming with a Marth or Samus, Ganon needs to give them lots of room so you can avoid hitting each other. Team combos weren't too awkward for us though, in the rock transform of Pokemon Stadium we did ICs utilt -> thunder stomp -> ICs utilt =D
- Ganon isn't so good at providing coverage. If someone on the other team is in a Wobble, Ganon has to work hard to stop the other guy from getting over there for aid. If Popo gets shinespiked then Ganon is pretty much powerless to save him, or even get a revenge KO on the offending Fox.
- um, what does a lone Popo do other than wavedash around and downsmash? This can be a good tactic but it's very much the same flavour as what Ganon does (jump around and go for aerials, or empty hop to jab/ftilt/grab)
- I think ICs benefit more from a fast character who can cause the enemy to fall down for quick wavedash->downsmash kills when they miss a tech. So I think they benefit more from a Fox, Falcon or Marth than a Ganondorf.

I'm planning on teaming with my Falco main bud for the next tourney but I want to know more about how to team with ICs so I can get better at doubles in general.

Sorry, there's no footage of us from the tourney.

Any advice for me, ICs boarders?

 

[Smasher89]

Pick Onett=win

Too bad that gets banned too often though since it's probably their strongest stage in teams.
One general thing is to help Nana when they are separated so she can get to Popo.

If I understand correcly you play Ganon. Then teamcombos must be really among the most damaging in the game!

 

[choknater]

IMO ic's have to be campy in teams just so that they can stay synched and together. they team well with any character that can kinda carry the team and get kills/control space, cuz ic's are a very good survival/support character if played right.

as ganon just try your best to control space and get those kills. ic's ganon team would have trouble with fox, but what team doesn't? be good at the fox matchup in teams and you got this

 

[Wobbles]

I won an AZ teams tournament with an okay Fox player by pretty much instructing him to stay high and send people downward. He stuck mostly to platforms and poking with shines, while I just tried to control space on the ground.

End result: I almost never killed him with a d-smash at 40 percent, he almost never got gimped, since he focused on being in the middle of the stage, and he was able to punish hits on me with drill-shine-finish from above.

This was a guy I'd never teamed with and who probably could never make it out of pools at a major or regional (no offense to him, he just lacks experience).

So if possible, stay high and avoid random ground moves since it's pretty likely your IC teammate will slide right into you. I'm not sure how well that works with Ganon, but it seems to be the best method for avoiding interference with your IC teammate. The bright side is you both can be pretty tenacious stock tanks, so depending on your opponent you can switch up which player wants to be the aggressor.

 

[*P*L*U*R*]

Oh my god. Rob, you are so smart. I never thought of that.

 

[choknater]

hm yeah that's really interesting hahah!

 

[DoH]

You never tell me strategies like that

 

[PokemonMasterIRL]

Dooohhh! You never tell me strategies like that

Fixed for you.

 

[ShinerCCC]

Haha Wobbles that's brilliant.

I forgot to mention a lolzy team combo we did in friendlies after the tournament...we got the enemy team down to their last stock, 2v1, my teammate got a wobble infinite grab started and I stood behind him doing a Ganon utilt. The opponent did a ragequit XD

Ganon doesn't camp platforms well IMO because his dair is really slow, and his other moves don't hit below him too well. He likes being under platforms so he can uair or high ftilt people, or maybe even fair if they leave themselves open. But if ICs had a launching Raptor Boost style move that could have great potential. If my Falco teammate starts lasering that can cause people to jump into Ganon moves so if the ICs threw out some projectiles that could be good too.

That "punish with drill-shine-finish" thing sounds brilliant. I wish Ganon had that kind of agility sometimes, it can be hard to play a "guardian" role because his huge reach may tipper your teammate too =P. Actually, Ganon can platform drop a lot of attacks, it just wouldn't be nearly as fast or scary as a Fox drill.

I'm going to go to a Smashfest with both my ICs player (Alex20) and Falco (TerrorBird), if a 4th person shows up for teams I'll try out these tactics! (I also want to try out this one trick with Falco...you guys know the Lawnmower? Falco + Marth, Marth spams fsmash and Falco lasers him to cancel it? I want to try the same thing with Ganon downB and call it the Zamboni, we'll see if it works)

 

[PokemonMasterIRL]

Lol at the Zamboni rofl.

 

[Smasher89]

It's got a really slow startup though(down-b) and "should" allways get shieldgrab based on reaction. In teams though there's alot more happening at the same time so it can work(I kno I get hit by it sometimes for brutal KO's XD)