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Ike's Matchups

X0dus

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I'm perplexed as to how Dedede counters Ike. All of Ike's aerial's have disjointed hitboxes that reach nearly as far, sometimes father than DDD's; ground spacing in neutral, I'd imagine, must be tricky, but Ike has QD mix-ups. What's more, Ike can combo Dedede given his size and falling speed. Dedede can gimp, but does that really polarise the MU so severely?
DDD can sit in shield and be fine. DDD has the largest(?) non-tether grab in the game. On ground, you will just get grabbed, Nair doesn't go far enough and is only safe if it is fresh. Otherwise, its a shield grab. If you fair him and don't space it correctly, its a shield grab and if you use the tip of the sword, it doesn't do enough shield stun. So he can wavedash in and grab you. Trust me, I have tried both, I play Heysuess a lot. The only time I can get something started and not get punish is a nair -> grab when he isn't by the edge and on a fresh/near fresh hit. If you try to run away, he can throw waddle-dees and do's and waddle dash, so he can easily force you to appoarch. And DDD's fair goes further than all of Ike's aerial moves and comes out faster than fair and nair. QD is worthless besides tech chasing because he can just throw a waddle-dee/doo/Guardo or f-tilt you and stop your non-sense. DDD combo's the **** out of Ike, harder than Ike combo's him. If Ike gets grabbed or thrown off stage, it should be the stock unless you get lucky or you are good at teching. The only really safe way of recovering is to Aether and sweetspot too low for him to hit you but high enough to grab the ledge but he can go behind you and bair or fair you (So you have to tech it). He has enough range to safely gimp Aether and Quickdraw with moves that are fast enough to do it on reaction. On the flip side, its very hard for Ike to combo DDD into a kill move or to kill him that doesn't involve a read because of things like his numbers jumps, waddle-dash, and how his up-B works.

Basically, he outranges you, is faster than you in a lot of cases, combo's you harder, has an easier time killing you, can stop your shenanigans, can kill you off of 1 grab, and can safely stop you. Heysuess has told his story about how he has 4 stocked and bodied Metroid many times at Evo (I think it was a $50 money match too). He had to use Charizard because Ike wasn't working. And Metroid can vouch that it is really bad for Ike.
 
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MLGF

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I play a DDD a lot, I'm trying to pick up a secondary for it.

It sucks, Ike can't edgeguard the *******.
 
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metroid1117

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I'm perplexed as to how Dedede counters Ike. All of Ike's aerial's have disjointed hitboxes that reach nearly as far, sometimes father than DDD's; ground spacing in neutral, I'd imagine, must be tricky, but Ike has QD mix-ups. What's more, Ike can combo Dedede given his size and falling speed. Dedede can gimp, but does that really polarise the MU so severely?
I play against Ripple, who is easily the best DDD in the Midwest and a definite contender for the best DDD player (up there along with Heysuess and BigD). Ripple has some impressive results like top 8 at LTC2 and 4th (out of 216) at Smash N' Splash.

DDD has less aerial mobility, but his aerials either come out quick (BAir), stick out for a long time (NAir/DAir), or have range that rivals Ike's attacks (FAir, DAir, and UAir). He also has a much larger grab range, which makes approaching from the air difficult because it's easy for him to shield grab most things except a tipped FAir. DDD's throw game is also pretty good, since he has a DI mix-up between FThrow (which can set up for edgeguards if you DI away) or DThrow (which chain grabs if you DI in). DThrow can also tech chase, which is pretty dangerous when coupled with DSmash, which covers a huge range.

As for the neutral game, DDD is hard to approach because FTilt and Waddle Toss can snuff out most grounded approaches and Ike's aerials are susceptible to being shield grabbed. To make matters worse, DDD's weight allows him to easily crouch cancel most attacks up to a high percent, so trying to get in by poking with QD attack or jab typically doesn't work if the opponent is simply holding down. Crossing up his shield is also risky, since his BAir OoS is also pretty fast (BAir comes out on frame 6 and his jumpsquat is 6 frames, so it's on-par with Ike's BAir OoS). DDD's Swallow can work as a command grab if you try to shield grab a falling aerial, and getting spat out puts Ike in an awkward spot up and in front of DDD. In this position, DDD can either FAir you if you opt not to jump or chase after you with UAirs/FAirs if you opt to jump; it's difficult to get around him in this position, especially if he spits you out offstage (DDD's FAir hits on frame 13 while Ike's FAir hits on frame 17, by the way). Both characters can edgeguard out of each other's up+Bs pretty well, except DDD's weight, three aerial jumps, and Waddle Dash make it so that he often doesn't have to use his up+B with proper DI.

I severely dislike this match-up and don't know if it's just me getting outplayed by Ripple, if the match-up itself is skewed in DDD's favor, or a combination of both, but I hate playing against DDD lol.

Basically, he outranges you, is faster than you in a lot of cases, combo's you harder, has an easier time killing you, can stop your shenanigans, can kill you off of 1 grab, and can safely stop you. Heysuess has told his story about how he has 4 stocked and bodied Metroid many times at Evo (I think it was a $50 money match too). He had to use Charizard because Ike wasn't working. And Metroid can vouch that it is really bad for Ike.
I don't think I got 4-stocked by Heysuess per say, but it was pretty bad. It definitely wasn't a $50 MM though, I'm pretty sure we did two $1 MMs and I only went Ike for one game after getting wrekt lol.
 
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Moy

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MOY#56
I play against Ripple, who is easily the best DDD in the Midwest and a definite contender for the best DDD player (up there along with Heysuess and BigD). Ripple has some impressive results like top 8 at LTC2 and 4th (out of 216) at Smash N' Splash.
Don't forget top 8 at BH4.

Too bad Wizzy was having none of it.
 

AstraEDM

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Hey, zero suit player here, I got knocked into losers by a pretty mediocre ike at my last tournament cause I couldn't find any ways to kill or edgeguard him. Any ideas on where to help that/general thoughts on the Ike/ZSS matchup?
 

MLGF

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Ledge drop bair should work pretty well considering how Ike has no armor on up b anymore.

Trust me, it's not nearly as intimidating to gimp aether as it seems.
 
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X0dus

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Hey, zero suit player here, I got knocked into losers by a pretty mediocre ike at my last tournament cause I couldn't find any ways to kill or edgeguard him. Any ideas on where to help that/general thoughts on the Ike/ZSS matchup?
F-smash covers Aether and QD if they don't sweetspot. Its large, covers a lot of space, and is very safe.
 

EmptySky00

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Just out of curiosity, about where would you say the Yoshi Matchup lies? My friend mains Ike and absolutely molested a Yoshi player and I found it hilarious since I don't particularly like Yoshi. It wasn't tip top level play, but I was wondering what you guys think of the matchup.
 

X0dus

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Just out of curiosity, about where would you say the Yoshi Matchup lies? My friend mains Ike and absolutely molested a Yoshi player and I found it hilarious since I don't particularly like Yoshi. It wasn't tip top level play, but I was wondering what you guys think of the matchup.
I saw Ally play a Yoshi at Shuffle 7 iirc and I think there is a Yoshi in Michigan that plays against Lordy (I think it was the same Yoshi too). It doesn't look like a terrible match-up, but it looks weird and takes some getting use too.
 
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EmptySky00

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I found that the thing about playing against Yoshi is that you don't want to engage in fisticuffs with him as much as possible because his moves always win and he can just armor you. But Ike can probably bypass all that and go straight to grab conversions or just use the MF Ragnell to beat out his moves, which a lot of characters don't have the luxury of doing. My general strategy with every character I play against Yoshi is to stay out of positions where I have to challenge his moves as much as possible then put him in a position where he can't challenge mine and keep him there until I can secure a kill. With that in mind, Ike doesn't really have a neutral so he can't just beat him with my usual strategy of passive aggressive evasion, but once he wins neutral he's really good at keeping people in those bad positions then just making them explode because of it. I'm not sure if his weight and armor would impede Ike's conversions though. It might. Does Fair actually knock him out of armor? Because that was the most hilarious thing. The Ike just got him offstage and Fair'd then watched explosions followed by him falling to his death. It was good ****. Not sure if that happened because he tried to use an aerial or something. It might have been the strong hit of Fair.

tl;dr: I don't like Yoshi.
 
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X0dus

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Yoshi has really good combos and gimps on us. Probably +1 Ike because Ike stuff.
"[Insert character] has really good combo's and gimps us. Ike probably still wins because Ike." I like to think that is most of Ike's match-ups.
 

Cox Box

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So I went all Ike at a tournament yesterday, and I won 4 sets before getting knocked out (a personal best since I'm still only a few months into the tournament scene). But I got straight up bopped by a Kirby that knocked me out of losers, and I still have no idea what I was supposed to do in that matchup. Any advice on how to play Ike vs Kirby?
 

Narelex

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Moy

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MOY#56
I've been thinking of making Ike my secondary for some MU's I have trouble with but what are your guys's thoughts on

:samus2:Samus (Does his Nair go through her missiles?)
:ivysaur:Ivy

We have a detailed MU analysis thread running for MK over on our subboard and I would love to see you guys contribute if you have the time.
http://smashboards.com/threads/know-my-power-a-meta-knight-match-up-thread.409829/#post-19631155
Ike does well against Samus. Nair does go through missiles - you can actually just jab them and continue moving if you want. Grab her a lot - putting her in the air with fthrow and bthrow is mad good to just juggle and keep her above you. You'll get bodied if you try to approach with nairs and get cc dsmashed.

Ivy's got a lot of disjoint to content with Ike's - respect her range. His nair and bair come out as fast as her bair (frame 7), but her fair (frame 14) is faster than his fair (frame 17). However, I think fair outranges all her aerials. Basically, nair and bair are good to beat her fair and nair, but if she's walling out with bair, spacing fairs is key. Ftilt can stuff jab and dtilt if you know they're coming, but is slower than both (frame 11). All his aerials can go through Razor Leaf, which is a good way to close space if they try to projectile camp you. My friend who mains Ivy is really defensive, so I have to deal with this a lot.

You edgeguard both chars the same, really. Wait for them to tether, grab ledge, and ledgehop bair them as they're rising from the forced jump. Ivy can use her tether twice before touching ground, so it's just a matter of rinsing and repeating for her.
 

Narelex

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Ike does well against Samus. Nair does go through missiles - you can actually just jab them and continue moving if you want. Grab her a lot - putting her in the air with fthrow and bthrow is mad good to just juggle and keep her above you. You'll get bodied if you try to approach with nairs and get cc dsmashed.

Ivy's got a lot of disjoint to content with Ike's - respect her range. His nair and bair come out as fast as her bair (frame 7), but her fair (frame 14) is faster than his fair (frame 17). However, I think fair outranges all her aerials. Basically, nair and bair are good to beat her fair and nair, but if she's walling out with bair, spacing fairs is key. Ftilt can stuff jab and dtilt if you know they're coming, but is slower than both (frame 11). All his aerials can go through Razor Leaf, which is a good way to close space if they try to projectile camp you. My friend who mains Ivy is really defensive, so I have to deal with this a lot.

You edgeguard both chars the same, really. Wait for them to tether, grab ledge, and ledgehop bair them as they're rising from the forced jump. Ivy can use her tether twice before touching ground, so it's just a matter of rinsing and repeating for her.
Good to hear as Samus is one of MK's harder MU's this patch

Ivy I know how to deal with her in general but wasn't sure how Ike stacked up. Super helpful thanks a lot will probably make him my secondary for sure at this rate.
 
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Moy

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MOY#56
Good to hear as Samus is MK's worst MU this patch

Ivy I know how to deal with her in general but wasn't sure how Ike stacked up. Super helpful thanks a lot will probably make him my secondary for sure at this rate.
No problem. My main training partner plays Samus so I've got a lot of experience with it. The Ivy frame data should be correct - I was pulling from an older source. The Ivy boards don't have a frame data thread stickied.
 

Narelex

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No problem. My main training partner plays Samus so I've got a lot of experience with it. The Ivy frame data should be correct - I was pulling from an older source. The Ivy boards don't have a frame data thread stickied.
I literally was looking for the post of her Frame data and I saw none was there and that's always super disappointing. frame data is one of my favourite ways for figuring out secondaries/Mu's

How does Ike do vs :zelda:? Me and a friend were talking in opposite directions over it.

Ike seems like he can do well against her but Dins seems annoying when recovering. But that's from my very little experience as Ike so I'd rather hear it from someone who actually plays the character
 
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X0dus

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So I went all Ike at a tournament yesterday, and I won 4 sets before getting knocked out (a personal best since I'm still only a few months into the tournament scene). But I got straight up bopped by a Kirby that knocked me out of losers, and I still have no idea what I was supposed to do in that matchup. Any advice on how to play Ike vs Kirby?
Kirby is awful at approaching, so space at nairs and jabs and be really defensive. Just standing there and nair is actually really effective. And when edge guarding, eruption or let go, jump, dair is also really good.
 

X0dus

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How does Ike do vs :zelda:? Me and a friend were talking in opposite directions over it.

Ike seems like he can do well against her but Dins seems annoying when recovering. But that's from my very little experience as Ike so I'd rather hear it from someone who actually plays the character
Ike beats Zelda, because she is big, you convert a lot off of grabs, you combo the **** out of her, if you know how to DI her attacks and throws, it can be difficult for her to kill you. With well spaced attacks, its hard for her to really do anything against you. When she is recovering, if she goes high or is close enough to the ledge, you can just go off stage and hit her because of how slow her up-b is. Zelda doesn't do well against swords in general and Ike is good at dealing with weird Zelda jank. Also, I recommend taking her to medium stages like Smashville and not small or big stages.
 

Narelex

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Ike beats Zelda, because she is big, you convert a lot off of grabs, you combo the **** out of her, if you know how to DI her attacks and throws, it can be difficult for her to kill you. With well spaced attacks, its hard for her to really do anything against you. When she is recovering, if she goes high or is close enough to the ledge, you can just go off stage and hit her because of how slow her up-b is. Zelda doesn't do well against swords in general and Ike is good at dealing with weird Zelda jank. Also, I recommend taking her to medium stages like Smashville and not small or big stages.
Those were exactly my thoughts. We have another guy who plays Ike that has issues with the MU I was arguing basically your points exactly against the Zelda player, who felt that Zelda beat Ike which I did not find to be true at all. I just argued that the other Ike has issues in the MU personally and it was fairly easy due to Ike's giant hitboxes, strong throws and powerful KO options.

I had been dabbling in Ike for awhile so I have all the basic quickdraw tech down. Any drills I should do that are useful as Ike like maybe for walljumping or anything else thats useful? He also seems to have a decent perfect waveland.

Thanks for the input as usual you guys rock.
 
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NWRL

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What should my general gameplan be against Sonic? What stages should I be avoiding and trying to go for?
 

X0dus

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What should my general gameplan be against Sonic? What stages should I be avoiding and trying to go for?
Be really defensive with nair and jabs, constantly out space him, if he doesn't sweetspot, use Eruption, f-smash, or f-tilt. Don't get knocked off stage because they got rid of the armor on Aether so he can just spring and kill you. I think Sonic is a fast faller, so if you do grab him, you get a lot off of them at low and mid percents. I try to go to medium size stages since he can chock you out on small stages and on big ones, you can give him too much freedom.
 
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Commander

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How do I fight ZSS? My biggest problem is probably just being bad, but I want to know if there s anything specific I should be doing. How should I di I her attacks? That would be the most immediate help.
 
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Cox Box

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So is there a general consensus on what Ike's best and worst matchups are? I think working on a comprehensive list like the Meta Knight board is doing for MK would be worth doing, but I don't know enough to really contribute.

Also, I have no idea how to deal with Snake as Ike. Any advice on how to not get rekt by Snake?
 

lordhelmet

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Gotta be really patient against Snake. Don't hit his shield when he's got nades. Lots of grabs basically. Get him offstage and ledgedrop -> bair over and over.

Gotta be good at SDI to get out of his janky jab combos also.
 

lordhelmet

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How do I fight ZSS? My biggest problem is probably just being bad, but I want to know if there s anything specific I should be doing. How should I di I her attacks? That would be the most immediate help.
DI down and away. Mash out of down smash stun. Get her offstage and punish her tether. Not sure about 3.6, but it's pretty easy to get out of her fair if you DI up on the first hit.
 
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Sylarius

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So is there a general consensus on what Ike's best and worst matchups are? I think working on a comprehensive list like the Meta Knight board is doing for MK would be worth doing, but I don't know enough to really contribute.

Also, I have no idea how to deal with Snake as Ike. Any advice on how to not get rekt by Snake?
Worst: Kirby, Fox, Falco, Wolf, Dedede, Marth, Jiggs (?), Falcon (?)

Not sure about best.
 

lordhelmet

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Add 3.5 Sheik to that lol

On paper Ike destroys the chody characters (Mario, Luigi, Sonic, Ness, Yoshi). Accidentally hit cancel. Dammit. Best are probably Mario, Luigi, DK, Ganon, Ness. Sonic, Pika, Wario are all good but they are better at getting in imo.
 
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Commander

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Worst: Kirby, Fox, Falco, Wolf, Dedede, Marth, Jiggs (?), Falcon (?)

Not sure about best.
Spacies certainly don't belong in the worst match ups sections. I think the stage matters a lot, but I don't think fighting spacies as Ike is different from fighting spacies as Marth, and thus they shouldn't be considered such a threat to Ike.
 

X0dus

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Worst: Kirby, Fox, Falco, Wolf, Dedede, Marth, Jiggs (?), Falcon (?)

Not sure about best.
Kirby might not be one of the worst, but I need to learn more about the match-up. Fox is like 55/45 in Fox's favor (In my opinion), Falco might be 60/40 with powershielding but much worse without it, Marth isn't that bad (I would say 55/45 to 60/40 in Marth's favor, at worse) but I think Wolf, DDD, and Falcon are undoubtedly his worst. I know nothing about Jigglypuff though.
 

Sylarius

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Spacies certainly don't belong in the worst match ups sections. I think the stage matters a lot, but I don't think fighting spacies as Ike is different from fighting spacies as Marth, and thus they shouldn't be considered such a threat to Ike.
I think every spacie beats Ike at 60-40 or worse. Marth has a faster dash dance and faster and better attacks in neutral than Ike (dtilt, fair, grab). Spacies can run circles around Ike pretty well. Personally I think it's 65-35 for wolf though I know Hoboz disagrees.


Add 3.5 Sheik to that lol

On paper Ike destroys the chody characters (Mario, Luigi, Sonic, Ness, Yoshi). Accidentally hit cancel. Dammit. Best are probably Mario, Luigi, DK, Ganon, Ness. Sonic, Pika, Wario are all good but they are better at getting in imo.
Nd yeah agree with this lol. Might add zelda and g&w to that.
 

Commander

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I mostly fight Falcos, but I do see the other spacies when I go to tourneys. I can't say that I have ever had a significant defeat to a spacie with equivalent skill to me. When I lose to spacies, 9/10 times it is because the person I am fighting is more experienced in general, and I have never felt they won, because they were a spacie. I usually just try to out space them and wait for them to get impatient and attack me. I don't often try to go in on them before that occurs. It is easy to get a few good hits on them and knock them off stage for easy edgeguards.
 

Jolteon

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Be very careful grabbing Snake, he can crouch Ike's grab, and his CC is also pretty good against most of your moveset so it's an option you have to respect a lot.

Fair/nair is great until you get things started if you time them late in your jump and space well enough, if you get him above you go nuts with nair/uair/utilt (mostly nair), when he's off stage fair him tons until he dies, or ledge hop outer hit nair/bair when he goes for the sweetspot.

Always space around his grenades when he shields, is in the air or recovering.
 
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