Ike vs. Link Advice

[X0dus]

What should I do as an Ike player.

 

[Thor]

What should I do as an Ike player.

Probably better for the Ike forums [they're likely more versed in doing Ike vs Link than we are, who are probably better at doing Link vs Ike]. General tips:

- If you can catch bombs, this will help a ton.

- Powershielding boomerang and the occasional arrows is very nice as well. If you can't powershield them, shielding and quickly wavedashing out of shield will keep you mobile and more able to avoid some of his stuff.

- Just charging quickdraw to get to the ledge after you've been sent high is a really dumb idea - Link has arrows and with good aim can snipe you and that should almost always be a stock. Either release the quickdraw early [go high] or try to bait an arrow release and recover low.

- If you can't sweetspot aether, learn - Link's spin attack [almost certainly, though I can't say I've done a ton of testing] has more range than Ike's sword, so a well-timed up+b will destroy your recovery [or just an arrow]. If you can sweetspot, be wary of Link z-dropping [or throwing downward] bombs on your face [that is, be ready to tech].

- If you see Link pulling a bomb in quickdraw distance and can react quick enough, that would strike me as the ideal time to go for quickdraw into grab or aerial. A good Link should basically never let that happen, but it's a good time to do quickdraw. His boomerang may be coming back while he does this - if so, Link is likely trying to use it to cover himself - as long as the rang won't hit you out of quickdraw immediately, you could quickdraw aerial or quickdraw grab and throw right away [for avoiding the rang, dthrow may work, bthrow should work (Link's behind you), and uthrow should work if Link goes upward quick enough. I don't think fthrow will work].

- I don't know if you can chaingrab Link, but I would guess yes with fthrow (as I've seen other Ike CG shenanigans) - you should see about finding a CG [quickdraw-based or not] and practice it, preferably with another player (Link can mash nair, which is frame 4, so if you're not pretty close to perfect you can be hit out of it].

- I'm pretty sure forward air and down air are perfect for edgeguarding Link because of their huge range. Be wary of bombs and the rang [rang has low endlag and bombs can be glide-tossed to give him a momentum boost], but hitting him away with that big sword after he's used a jump should almost always be a stock.

- For tether, either fair him or dair him as he's attaching the stage, OR just grab ledge and wait for reel-in. Link has basically 3 options here - reel in and hold away to fall back offstage [where he can up+B again, but is not able to act until he's about ledge height again (so if you let go of ledge, he grabs it)], reel in normally and land close the ledge, or reel in and hold away so he lands a little farther away from the ledge. I THINK nair should cover every one of these options if well-timed, but if you read the first option, I think you get a free dair (he can SDI that, but that reaction takes a fair bit of skill). You can also probably get uair to cover most of the options, but I'm not too familiar with Ike's uair from the ledge. Waveland usmash may be fast enough to hit a Link who tethers onstage, and I'd guess waveland utilt is fast enough to hit him, but I don't know the frame data on usmash and utilt or quick Ike's ledgedash is.

Hope this helped some. And again, you may want to try the Ike boards instead of the Link ones.