Is Young Link Underrated?

[1MachGO]

Despite bearing some strong flaws, I always felt that Young Link was highly underrated. What do you think?

 

[StickandFluid]

as a young link main my opinion on this is kind of split, in one sense he is but in another he totally isn't. He has potential but that said potential is very hard to get a complete grasp on, he's got really good speed, his projectile game can overwhelm anyone, and he has a decent wavedash and OOS options. BUT he is kind of light, he has little to no actual combo game, his recovery trick is in ONE version of the game, AND he has pretty awful kill power, with only two of his moves (dsmash and dair) being actual kill moves as apposed to "they are at 200 percent and my nair killed them" so thats my opinion on the matter, I mean if he wasn't put to the side so much and played as a secondary and had some major focus on him he could be so amazing and thats why I main him, but none of that matters when you have people like Armada who give the character a bad name lol

 

[CyberZixx]

How does Armada give the character a bad name? His sets with Y.link are probably the most relevant the character has ever been in a tournament setting. Do you mean because of how disliked those sets are?

 

[StickandFluid]

How does Armada give the character a bad name? His sets with Y.link are probably the most relevant the character has ever been in a tournament setting. Do you mean because of how disliked those sets are?

that and the fact I just didn't like how he timed out the clock, no disrespect to him at all it's amazing that he learned YL just for the counter pick. But because of that YL is seen as JUST a staler while people like Axe are doing things with YL that really are amazing and viable, as I said no hate to armada it's just how people felt about the way he played. I've ran out the clock with YL before and I just feel bad and usually the person i played just hates on my character, so honestly it's just because of the sets not armada.

 

[Armada]

Well if people are so stubborn or stupid to think that one player playing a char in ONE MU have to mean everything for the char than it is their problem.

I think some Ylink players knew or had the feeling that Ylink could work vs Puff but basically NO ONE thought so because they had not seen it before. My point is that way to many in this community make up their minds way to easily and ignore severall important aspects to even be close to understand the case at all.

Solution: Don't care what those people say and play your game

 

[Laijin]

Well if people are so stubborn or stupid to think that one player playing a char in ONE MU have to mean everything for the char than it is their problem.

I think some Ylink players knew or had the feeling that Ylink could work vs Puff but basically NO ONE thought so because they had not seen it before. My point is that way to many in this community make up their minds way to easily and ignore severall important aspects to even be close to understand the case at all.

Solution: Don't care what those people say and play your game

Although what you say is sorta correct,all of us YL players knew that YL absolutely wrecked puff. I used to go YL all the time against Hbox when I lived in his region several years ago.
The difference us YL mains were never good enough to get anywhere well in tournament so people would start taking notice. We still have to fight a ton of spacies and stuff lol.

 

[Armada]

Yeah and I did mention that the Ylink players may have known. Im absolutely sure some of you guys already knew but the point was that the community overall had no idea even if many Ylink players did know

 

[Laijin]

Hey Armada, since I have your attention..
I've been hearing about some stream videos of you playing Young Link and beating a bunch of random fox players. Would you happen to have any idea of what I'm talking about maybe?

If not, I'd really love to hear what you think of the match up. I mean obviously its bad, but if you could share a bit of your opinion/knowledge on it I would appreciate it.

Things like how you approach and how you like to edge guard(the main two things)

 

[Armada]

I think most of those games has been played just on a random TV with no stream =/

The MU is pretty bad but I will tell a few things I go for.

Edgeguard: I use Ylink a bit like I would use Sheik. To cover the illusion I just run of the stage and jump back to the stage with a nair.
And for Upp-bs I go out In a aggresive way (kinda like Mk punish Fox upp-b with Sheik). Projectiles is very good to cover the ledge from a far distance since you don't have the time to cover the edge in any other way (kinda like Sheik jump with needles to protect the ledge from an illusion towards the edge).

In the neutral game I think Y link need to play kinda close even if it's a losing MU. Fox that handle the MU know that camping is not really working for Ylink since the bombs is getting back towards Ylink if the lasers hit it. I kinda try to be close so Fox can't react with shine/lasers on the bombs.

When I have him close I just try to out space him. Having him above me is very good and uair beat all of Fox moves if he comes from above. If you catch him with one you can just react and combo him further.

A bit busy atm but can maybe update with more stuff later.

 

[Laijin]

ooo. The more thoughts from you the better Continue on if you want

 

[Dubforce]

Looks like he didn't continue...

=(

 

[Laijin]

He's going to later(Hopefully).
I reminded him about this thread on fb lol.

 

[Deleted member]

I will say Young Link is underrated.
Mewtwo and Roy are HEAVILY wanted back, people often talk about how much they hate Pichu, and Dr. Mario is sometimes talked about I guess. But I NEVER hear anyone talk about Young Link.

 

[Kidney Thief]

I think it's because young Link is incredibly technical, and people would rather use Fox, Falco or Captain Falcon at that point. So young Link remains untapped like Yoshi and Pikachu with very few top players

 

[Avro-Arrow]

I think most of those games has been played just on a random TV with no stream =/

The MU is pretty bad but I will tell a few things I go for.

Edgeguard: I use Ylink a bit like I would use Sheik. To cover the illusion I just run of the stage and jump back to the stage with a nair.
And for Upp-bs I go out In a aggresive way (kinda like Mk punish Fox upp-b with Sheik). Projectiles is very good to cover the ledge from a far distance since you don't have the time to cover the edge in any other way (kinda like Sheik jump with needles to protect the ledge from an illusion towards the edge).

In the neutral game I think Y link need to play kinda close even if it's a losing MU. Fox that handle the MU know that camping is not really working for Ylink since the bombs is getting back towards Ylink if the lasers hit it. I kinda try to be close so Fox can't react with shine/lasers on the bombs.

When I have him close I just try to out space him. Having him above me is very good and uair beat all of Fox moves if he comes from above. If you catch him with one you can just react and combo him further.

A bit busy atm but can maybe update with more stuff later.

This was so helpful, even if it's just a little bit. Especially the advice on edgeguards. I suppose dsmash could work for edgeguards maybe? Camping him sucks for sure though, the lasers stop the bombs completely, and I feel like he can punish us on projectile start-up lag too.

 

[MudkipUniverse]

YL is very underrated. I think Young link should be 14 on the tier list, or at least in The next tier.

The character is very untapped, and Can avoid wobbles, even. YL has good matchups on a bunch of the high tiers, too.

 

[EddyBearr]

I think he's only slightly under-rated, but not by much.

 

[Jimmology]

I think Young Link is underrated but not by a huge margin. In terms of the tier list though I think he should be in the bottom of the A group as opposed to the top of B.

 

[EddyBearr]

I think Young Link is underrated but not by a huge margin. In terms of the tier list though I think he should be in the bottom of the A group as opposed to the top of B.

My tier list actually puts him 1 number lower, but effectively a tier higher

Viable tier: Samus (9), Luigi (10), Doc (11)
Niche Tier: Pika (12), Mario (13), Ganon (14), Yoshi (15), Young Link (16)
Low tier: Link (17), Zelda (18), DK (19).


So, I'd argue that he's under-rated in the sense that he's misunderstood; People understand him as being in the same tier as DK, when, while his numerical placement is basically right, he's better associated with those slightly above him. Unfortunately, to associate him with Samus is just over-rating him.

 

[Rosy]

Young Link is very underated. Check out my trials video and you'll see why.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-zI5EIpAn4

 

[Stormfury12]

I believe him to be underrated. I think he's just overall one of the most difficult characters to master and use. He has huge potential but not enough people play him seriously enough imo.

 

[Rosy]

Hey Armada, since I have your attention..
I've been hearing about some stream videos of you playing Young Link and beating a bunch of random fox players. Would you happen to have any idea of what I'm talking about maybe?

If not, I'd really love to hear what you think of the match up. I mean obviously its bad, but if you could share a bit of your opinion/knowledge on it I would appreciate it.

Things like how you approach and how you like to edge guard(the main two things)

So I have been using YL verse both falco and fox lately and I can give some decent advice on how to edge guard.

I agree with Armada in the sense that you do have the think like a sheik in some situations like when you are grabbing the ledge and a spacie is under you, you can nair them into the stage and a large majority of the time, they will not tech the stage and be stage spiked.

F tilt is my best friend for edge guarding spacies who try to sweet spot. If you use 20xx you will notice that there are several frames during YLs f tilt that cover the entire ledge as well as YL's upper body which make it 100% safe if spaced correctly.

D smash is also a given. When you expect them to come from under you, a D smash is your best bet and again, if spaced ocrrectly it works everytime.

The only problem with all of these options is that they can all be teched if done properly.

This is why I have resorted to wall jump nairs. This works incredibely well vs fox because of his long recovery. This is the most effective way to kill a fox because:
1. You have invincible frames. Even if you get hit by fox, you will receive 0 damage.
2. There is now way for them to tech it forcing them to fly the opposite direction

So remember to think like a sheik in the sense that you have a large amount of options and once they are off stage, they should never be able to get back.

Hope this helps

 

[Rosy]

For Laijin and the rest of you guys, I made an updated video on Young Link tech.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY8hb93QMdE

Enjoy.

 

[Laijin]

The part where you edge guard the fox with the wall jump. Its cool idea, but in the video the invincibility frames didn't really matter and you could have just jumped out there and n-air'ed him at that point.

Overall though. Cool video man! Thanks for making it

 

[Rosy]

The part where you edge guard the fox with the wall jump. Its cool idea, but in the video the invincibility frames didn't really matter and you could have just jumped out there and n-air'ed him at that point.

I realized that. I made the video on the whim and kind of just wanted to give the idea of the possibility. Obviously I would have liked to have incorporated the invicibility. Im glad you liked the video though.

 

[Avro-Arrow]

I realized that. I made the video on the whim and kind of just wanted to give the idea of the possibility. Obviously I would have liked to have incorporated the invicibility. Im glad you liked the video though.

Earned a subscriber . I love seeing new tech! Learning it is however another story...

Especially without a copy of melee atm.

To determine whether or not YL is underrated or not, we need to assess his matchups and weight them, all keeping in mind realistic predictions of his potential (which seems to remain untapped, as he is very technically demanding).

 

[Rosy]

@L

Although what you say is sorta correct,all of us YL players knew that YL absolutely wrecked puff. I used to go YL all the time against Hbox when I lived in his region several years ago.
The difference us YL mains were never good enough to get anywhere well in tournament so people would start taking notice. We still have to fight a ton of spacies and stuff lol.

Laijin, I have been meaning to ask, since most of the videos I see on youtube are of you I want to know, what do you think YLs ideal matchups are? I honestly think spacies and captain falcons are not as bad as sheiks and marths.

I've seen videos of you wreck luigis and other mid tiers. What is you stretegy against the the tiers below fox, falco, falcon, sheik, and marth?

 

[dahuterschuter]

There are people who don't like the Armada/Hbox YL/Puff wars? Those forty minute sets are my favourite tourneyvids to watch outside of aMSa styling.

 

[Diabolical PIe]

@L


Laijin, I have been meaning to ask, since most of the videos I see on youtube are of you I want to know, what do you think YLs ideal matchups are? I honestly think spacies and captain falcons are not as bad as sheiks and marths.

I've seen videos of you wreck luigis and other mid tiers. What is you stretegy against the the tiers below fox, falco, falcon, sheik, and marth?

Strategies vary character by character- just because you're fighting mid-tiers doesn't mean you can fight a Ganon the same way you would a Yoshi. The fun thing about playing against characters lower on the tier list is that it gives you more room for trial and error, and allows you to experiment a little more with personal style rather than getting destroyed for any little mistake you make. Overall, though, I don't think there's any true central "strategy" for a character to apply to half the cast.

 

[Laijin]

@L


Laijin, I have been meaning to ask, since most of the videos I see on youtube are of you I want to know, what do you think YLs ideal matchups are? I honestly think spacies and captain falcons are not as bad as sheiks and marths.

I've seen videos of you wreck luigis and other mid tiers. What is you stretegy against the the tiers below fox, falco, falcon, sheik, and marth?

dude thats a really broad question lol.
Short answer, I just camp them and use my movement to put them in bad positions and put me in favorable ones. I control their movement with my projectiles. Little nuances for each match up though.

 

[Rosy]

dude thats a really broad question lol.
Short answer, I just camp them and use my movement to put them in bad positions and put me in favorable ones. I control their movement with my projectiles. Little nuances for each match up though.

Alright, then I guess I would say what is your stance on these matchups:
luigi
mario/doc
icies
link
ganon

these are characters I never get to play against and would like to hear some kind of strategy against them.

 

[MagicScrumpy]

I play a lot against a Luigi main and a Ganon main, and another often plays Dr. Mario, so I'll go over them. These are just based on my experience, so your opinions may and likely will vary.

I only have time to write up one right now; I'll do the others when I get home.

Luigi
Luigi is a pain, but Young Link has the kit to deal with his weird Luigi stuff. It's kind of hard for Luigi to get in because he's hilariously susceptible to Young Link's projectile game, but if he gets in, you have a decent chance of losing your stock because he is very good at continuing combos and the early hit frames and high priority of his moves makes your combo breakers (nair, bair, uair) a whole lot less useful. If you do end up surviving, you have probably taken a whole lot of damage and are at a positional disadvantage.

But Young Link has the tools to deal with Luigi. Camping projectiles and use of relatively low-commitment projectile --> aerial "combos"––especially when coupled together-–– are very effective against Luigi. The trick is to place and space your projectiles so that Luigi , who relies a lot on wavedashing and wavelanding all over the place, doesn't have as much free room as he would want. Since his movement options are very good, this can be fairly difficult. My favorite projectile to use to keep Luigi out is the boomerang; it's incredibly versatile because of Young Link's ability to angle them and the easy followups (nair, dair, uair). Bombs can be effective to stuff obnoxious wavedash --> dsmash approaches and rogue fairs/nairs.

Young Link, for the most part, has a bad combo game, and Luigi's mobility options and ridiculous floatiness aggravates that. In this matchup, there's no way you are going to get meaningful combos on Luigi. The best thing to do is just camp with projectiles and follow up with an aerial if you're sure it will hit (because, if you mess up, he can really hurt you). Since Luigi is very light, killing him off the top with bomb --> dair is a very good option because it kills at a fairly low percent.

Another selling point for Young Link in this matchup is his edgeguarding ability coupled with Luigi's terrible recovery. If Luigi gets off the stage, it should be very easy to prevent him from getting back onto the stage with ftilt, dsmash, and nair (bomb --> nair and bomb --> dair being especiaily effective). Honestly, the only thing that should save him is the misfire, and that's punishable by simply walking over to where he landed and hitting him with either a dsmash or a bomb --> dair. He may try to sweetspot the ledge with his up B, but you can beat that with nair or bomb --> aerial.

Basically, both characters are really, really good at killing each other. I would say the matchup is fairly even. But it's a very frustrating matchup for both parties.

 

[Rosy]

I play a lot against a Luigi main and a Ganon main, and another often plays Dr. Mario, so I'll go over them. These are just based on my experience, so your opinions may and likely will vary.

I only have time to write up one right now; I'll do the others when I get home.
Luigi
Luigi is a pain, but Young Link has the kit to deal with his weird Luigi stuff. It's kind of hard for Luigi to get in because he's hilariously susceptible to Young Link's projectile game, but if he gets in, you have a decent chance of losing your stock because he is very good at continuing combos and the early hit frames and high priority of his moves makes your combo breakers (nair, bair, uair) a whole lot less useful. If you do end up surviving, you have probably taken a whole lot of damage and are at a positional disadvantage.

But Young Link has the tools to deal with Luigi. Camping projectiles and use of relatively low-commitment projectile --> aerial "combos"––especially when coupled together-–– are very effective against Luigi. The trick is to place and space your projectiles so that Luigi , who relies a lot on wavedashing and wavelanding all over the place, doesn't have as much free room as he would want. Since his movement options are very good, this can be fairly difficult. My favorite projectile to use to keep Luigi out is the boomerang; it's incredibly versatile because of Young Link's ability to angle them and the easy followups (nair, dair, uair). Bombs can be effective to stuff obnoxious wavedash --> dsmash approaches and rogue fairs/nairs.

Young Link, for the most part, has a bad combo game, and Luigi's mobility options and ridiculous floatiness aggravates that. In this matchup, there's no way you are going to get meaningful combos on Luigi. The best thing to do is just camp with projectiles and follow up with an aerial if you're sure it will hit (because, if you mess up, he can really hurt you). Since Luigi is very light, killing him off the top with bomb --> dair is a very good option because it kills at a fairly low percent.

Another selling point for Young Link in this matchup is his edgeguarding ability coupled with Luigi's terrible recovery. If Luigi gets off the stage, it should be very easy to prevent him from getting back onto the stage with ftilt, dsmash, and nair (bomb --> nair and bomb --> dair being especiaily effective). Honestly, the only thing that should save him is the misfire, and that's punishable by simply walking over to where he landed and hitting him with either a dsmash or a bomb --> dair. He may try to sweetspot the ledge with his up B, but you can beat that with nair or bomb --> aerial.

Basically, both characters are really, really good at killing each other. I would say the matchup is fairly even. But it's a very frustrating matchup for both parties.

How useful would it be to use your invincibility from the ledge to nair luigi during his recovery?

 

[MagicScrumpy]

Assuming you can hit him without losing your invincibility, it would be fantastic because it would completely stuff his recovery. The only issue with this option is that he can always just DI upwards, and that might give him a little bit of a lift. Assuming you're in a position where you can even get that nair out, you would probably be able to follow up on it easily.

Besides, if he DIs up, you always have the bomb --> aerial option. Nairing Luigi with ledge invincibility is a good option.

 

[MagicScrumpy]

Ganon
Ganon is kind of annoying because you basically die if he touches you. The good news is that Young Link almost horrendously outmaneuvers Ganon. This is good because it helps you to avoid being hit and it helps you do what Young Link does best: camping.

Camping is very effective against Ganon because he is relatively slow and big. Spamming Ganon with projectiles makes it harder for him to get to you and also reduces his movement options, which are already limited in the first place.

With all that being said, Ganon can still get to you because of the deceptive range on his aerials. Shielding isn't always all that effective because of Young Link's poor shield and Ganon's ability to absolutely demolish shields. The Ganon I play against will often shield stab me with his uair if he catches me sleeping on a platform. It's a good thing for us that Ganon, like Young Link, doesn't have a good combo game. Unfortunately, unlike YL, he can kill most of the cast in just a few good hits. Young Link dies at fairly early percentages, and Ganon can do a lot of damage in a short frame of time.

Ganon's ftilt will stuff your aerial approaches, so you always need to hit confirm with a projectile and then go in with a safe aerial that you don't have to commit too much to. Basically, you want to be really campy in the neutral game. There's really not that much that Ganon can do about that; unlike characters like Marth or Fox, Ganon doesn't really have any tools to deal with being camped. Since he's also an absolute behemoth, it's really easy to confirm hits on him. From there, dairs and nairs work wonders.

A selling point for YL in this matchup is his spectacular edge guarding game coupled with Ganon's garbage-tier recovery. Nair and dsmash absolutely demolish Ganon off stage. Boomerangs and bombs can also be used to disrupt with some degree of success. In short, if Ganon makes his way off stage, you can almost always kill him.

Ganon is also a proficient edge guarder. Young Link, however, has a better recovery kit with more options. If you're off stage, you're in danger. Mix up your up Bs and your hookshots. Ganon hits really hard, and a good bair or uair will send you flying.

Ganon is kind of heavy, but he's also fairly floaty, so bomb --> dair is pretty good.

The problem with Ganon being heavy is that he is harder to kill. You basically want to slowly rack up his percent with camping until he's at high percent; then you get to bomb --> nair/dair him.

I feel like there was more I wanted to touch upon, but I forgot what I was going to add. Basically, Ganon is a killing machine, so keep him away. Edge guard him when you can, and as always, dsmash is godly.

 

[Rosy]

I have found that d smash works wonders as edge guards. It covers so much ground and is almost completely safe. Even from spot dodges on the ground they are my go to. I feel like one difficulty with young link is characters that have big sheilds, and kill fast make the matchup extremely annoying. In any case thanks for the advice and I love your videos. You have any videos of you playing that I could look at? I want to see your style when you play.

 

[MagicScrumpy]

I have found that d smash works wonders as edge guards. It covers so much ground and is almost completely safe. Even from spot dodges on the ground they are my go to. I feel like one difficulty with young link is characters that have big sheilds, and kill fast make the matchup extremely annoying.

One of my favorite edge guard tactics is to throw a bomb at the opponent near the ledge and catch them with a dsmash on their way down. It works on almost everybody with wonderful success.

Characters with big shields aren't too much of a big deal if you are really careful about confirming your hits. It's definitely more of a challenge, but their big shields don't affect your camping all that much. Characters that kill fast are really scary though.

In any case thanks for the advice and I love your videos.

ty :>

You have any videos of you playing that I could look at? I want to see your style when you play.

I'm actually probably going to record some friendlies today or tomorrow, so there will be those when I upload them. I play a really campy and somewhat methodological Young Link with a love for wavelanding all over.

 

[MagicScrumpy]

My Ganon friend wasn't in the building today :<

I only got some matches against a terrible Falco.

 

[Rosy]

What about any older matches? It doesnt necessarily have to be a ganon player. But terrible players I dont want to see you bop.

 

[MagicScrumpy]

I don't have any older matches. I'll get a recording of me playing against the Ganon as soon as possible.