Guide It's Super Effective! Ivysaur 3.6 Matchup Guide

WickedUMD · Dec 5, 2015

It's Super Effective! Ivysaur 3.6 Matchup Guide

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Now that Project M has reached it's final foreseeable iteration, I thought it might be a good time to revive our matchup guide. Mach's is a great start but we haven't updated it in a year and a half. Alot has changed over that time so let's do this!

I will continue to reformat, add information, update matchup difficulty, and more. Comment with suggestions, opinions, commentary you would like to add, etc. Let's get that meta going!

If you would like to contribute a write up, please follow this format:

Summary:
What's the gist of this match up?

Difficulty: (Ivy%:Opp%)
How hard is the matchup? Why?

Stages: Pick [Stage 1] and [Stage 2], Ban [Stage 1] and [Stage 2]
What are the best and worst stages? What features are beneficial/detrimental?

Feature 1. Explain.
Feature 2. Explain.
etc.

How to Win:
What things you should look for to succeed? How will we win neutral? Best punishes? Kill setups and moves? General strategies?

Strategy 1 (short and sweet sentence). Explain.
Strategy 2. Explain.
Etc.

What to Avoid:
What things you shouldn't do or fall into? How do you DI typical combos?

Strategy 1. Explain.
Strategy 2. Explain.
Etc.

Extras:
Cool things you might want to add that didn't fit above categories.

Super Effective x4

Bowser

Summary:
A very polarizing matchup, but if played correctly is heavily in Ivy's favor. Get Bowser in the air and combo him into oblivion.

Difficulty: (65:35)
It is difficult because of Bowser's armor and crouch cancelling, but when you work around those, Bowser has very few options to compete.

Stages:

How to Win:

Get Bowser in the air. Combo him to death from there.
Vinewhip to victory. Fatties are very easy to land vinewhip on due to the sweetspot's position in the z-axis. Combine that with Bowser's weight and it will be a very easy move to land at many percents.

What to Avoid:

A grounded Bowser. Crouch cancel will beat jab until almost 100% so approaching is a dangerous proposition. Razor leaf from a safe distance and watch out for armored dash attack.
Bowser dsmash near the ledge. The disjointed hitboxes, kill power, and armor combine for a deadly move in a position where we lack alternate options. Bait it out and punish.

Extras:

Dedede

Summary:
A very good matchup for Ivy because of our ability to heal off Waddles. Razor Leaf snuffs out DDD's approach and neutral game and vinewhip is a potent kill move. Just be cautious of the hammer.

Difficulty: (65:35)
One of our better MUs if only because of how well we counter DDDs strengths.

Stages:

How to Win:

Play the neutral game. DDD has very few options against RL, especially when thrown at forehead height. His ftilt has massive range on it and will eat RL so don't assume that approaching is safe. Dash attack will also armor through the leaf so make sure that you get a hit confirm before charging in.
Vinewhip his fat ass. Fatties have it hard due to the location of the sweetspot hitbox. Frequently you can catch them jumping from the ledge, especially on the tri-plat stages.
Rack up damage offstage. DDD does not die. Try to kill him off the top with a uair or seedbomb but if that doesn't work your next best bet is to rack up the damage. His recovery is very linear which means you will get multiple bairs off stage as DDD tries to recovery. Build up that damage here before going for the kill.

What to Avoid:

The hammer. That thing is huge and powerful and will outspace most of our attacks and get early kill.
DDD gimps. His bair has a massive hitbox that will knock us off our line for an easy kill. Be intelligent about your use of dair stalling and save the jump. If you can tether reel in, go for a dair meteor as DDD tries to recover.

Extras:

Dair every waddle you get your hands on. This will limit DDDs mobility in neutral and also give you tons of health and solarbeam charge.

Donkey Kong

Summary:

Difficulty: (65:35)

Stages:

How to Win:

What to Avoid:

Extras:

Ice Climbers

Summary:
The goal here is to split them up. Razor leaf should do a good job shield poking Nana to help you get separation.

Difficulty: (70:30)

Stages:

How to Win:

Razor Leaf. It's not even fair. IC's main neutral options are wavedash and icicles but RL will usually clip Nana since her shield is delayed a few frames and it also pushes the icicles back without clanking. Figure out Icicle timing and fast fall inbetween them to get Razor Leaf at ground level.

What to Avoid:

Approaching. Don't even bother. IC's have great movement and CCing, stay away space fairs and throw Razor Leafs.
Grabbing or getting grabbed. There's no good reason to grab when the ICs are together because the other will punish you. On the flipside if you are getting grabbed, you're not spacing well enough. Nana is able to kill off the top or the side if Popo lands the grab. DI accordingly based on stage position.

Extras:

If you kill Popo, beware of Nana who is programmed to attack still. Go for dairs or uairs on her to restore health and build charge.

Olimar

Summary:
A silly match full of PM jank and ridiculous edgeguards.

Difficulty: (70:30)
This may not be our best matchup as many once thought, but Ivy can do a number on loose Pikmin with synthesis and dair. The neutral is a mixed bag and is still evolving but the edgeguards always will comes easy for both characters.

Stages:

How to Win:

PM jank to victory. Synthesis will blow away any Pikmin not following Oli around. If they are attached to Ivy or roaming around, synthesis will send them flying. Dairing the Pikmin will also build charge and health if you can get the sweetspot. If you have solarbeam, synthesis can no longer be used to knock off Pikmin and good Oli's will use this opportunity to punish a risky nair. Do so from a safe distance.
Edgeguard. Oli notoriously has one of the worst recoveries in PM. No longer do we benefit negating his Pikmin but that doesn't severely hinder our edgeguard game. Bair will cover most of Oli's extremely linear rocket as will a dsmash at the ledge. As usual, refresh invincibility to force the high recovery and then ledgehop bair on to stage.
Bair walls. This will simply just outspace anything Oli has to offer (mostly fair and bair). Use that space to your advantage and rack up damage.

What to Avoid:

Getting juggled. Ivy struggles to get down in this matchup as she has poor options for hitboxes below her and Oli can put great hitboxes above him.
Getting edgeguarded. Olimar's fsmash send Pikmin flying at a brutal angle for Ivy, in the area that she needs to tether. Make sure to avoid this, especially if you've burned your double jump and find a safe way to get to ledge.
Grab range. Oli has one of the better grabs in PM so while spacing bair, fair, and dtilt are great options, beware the grab range and active duration of the grab box. However, Olimar is possibly the only character in the game that does not get grab armor.

Extras:
Olimar's strategy largely depends on the Pikmin in his lineup. Oli's Pikmin become considerably scarier as they blossom so if you can eliminate them to prevent this, that may help your cause. You can look at the little light on Oli's head to see what Pikmin is next in line.

White - These Pikmin do massive damage as they attach themselves to you. After a few seconds they will self distruct causing additional pain
Red - They just do decent damage and knockback on smashes
Blue - These will buff Oli's grabs and throws
Yellow - These signifcantly boost the speed of aerial attacks
Purple - These are the powerhouse Pikmin that do loads of knockback and damage on a singular hit

Super Effective x2

Charizard

Summary:
This is a fun, combo-heavy matchup

Difficulty: (60:40)

Stages: Pick Green Hill Zone and Smashville

High ceilings. Zard is gonna kill off the top with fair and uair>up b. The side b and fsmash both will kill off the sides but are much more telegraphed.
Platforms are scary. Charizard has many attacks with absolutely massive hitboxes that cover whole platforms. It's a pretty bad idea to be above Zard in the first place so best to avoid triplats

How to Win:

Zone. Approaching can sometimes be tough with Zard's large hitboxes. His dtilt is about the same range as ours, his ftilt and jab can snuff out approaches from diagonally above. Our best bet is Razor leaf camping a dtilt footies until we find an opening. At that point we can combo real hard. Seed bomb is great for controlling space above us.
Hit hard. Zard is so big and decently heavy that we should be getting massive combos off hit confirms. Fair>nair>utilt is super effective and can lead to even longer strings. Go ham! Dtilt to vine whip is an effective finisher.
Gimp. Bairs beat Zard's glide attack while on stage dsmash is very difficult to sweetspot and therefore easy to dsmash. You can also try retethering above the stage to avoid the hitboxes on up b. Zard is gonna live a long time against us if we can't kill him off the bottom.
Tech dthrow in place and jab. It's faster than Zard can react and punish.

What to Avoid:

Being above Zard. He has great vertical combos and finishers on Ivy plus fantasic anti-air options including usmash, utilt, and jab. He can high fast with fly and finish with uair to up b.
DI and tech. Duh. Zard has a very solid pillar combo game so when you get daired, tech that. DI uair to the sides
Throw combos. I see too many people DI bthrow in and get faired. There's no reason to DI that way and put yourself in a place to get hit by a kill move, DI behind until you know it is not a bthrow. For uthrow, it will kill at high percents and it sends you at a 45 degree. No DI is usually the best but slightly DI the angle and aim for the corner blastzone. Also do not get grabbed under a platform because uthrow will kill about 10% earlier.

Extras:

Game and Watch

Summary:
This matchup is all about spacing. G&W can beat us with CC if we try to go in so instead zone him with Razor Leaf, and space with fair, bair, and dtilt.

Difficulty: (60:40)
It's not too bad as G&W struggles with our neutral game. His punishes are great but on the whole we should win this.

Stages:

How to Win:

Zoning and spacing are your friends. Primarily SH fair while either fading back afterwards or WDing back. G&W has nothing to combat this besides measly bacon strips.
Take stage control. Our zoning and spacing tools work extremely well so the best way to secure this matchup is by taking space away from G&W.
Dtilt to uair/seedbomb. This is a fantastic option to get kills off the top. He is just heavy enough to stay in range.
Uair spike his up b. It should trade which is a winning one for Ivysaur.
Ledgehop bair. By refreshing invincibility you can both land on stage and put out a sweeping hitbox where G&W is forced to recover high. This is very effective at racking up percent and eventually getting a kill.

What to Avoid:

Letting G&W get in. He has great combos and punish game so do not overextend. Be patient and just apply constant pressure with our disjoints.
Watch out for crouch cancel. Dtilt is one of G&W most potent killing moves against us. A misspaced fair will almost certainly get punished by CC dtilt. Stay out of dtilt range.
The fall off nair. G&W can use this to cover our tether with its massive hitbox.

Extras:

Always be prepared to tech a potential dthrow. React to other throws accordingly, but this is the most important. Mix up your roll directions to avoid getting DACUSed.

Ganondorf

Summary:
Ganon is powerful, but if you can avoid his aerials, his neutral is not enough to really threaten Ivy. Watch out for those fairs and bairs though.

Difficulty: (60:40)
Getting gimps are very easy and disjoints and projectiles give Ganon trouble.

Stages:

Larger stages. Ganon is dominant on small stages due to his incredible kill power. He most frequently kills off the sides which is also where we are most likely to kill. Large side blast zones are the way to go.
Fewer platforms. Platforms are typically beneficial for Ivysaur, but in this matchup it is one of the few that benefit our opponent more. Ganon has very few movement options and his ability to cover entire platforms with sweeping uairs do much more damage than they are worth for us.

How to Win:

Control neutral. Ganon does not have many safe approach options. Razor Leaf should control space in this match more than almost any other. Spacing fairs is typically a safe option.
Punish hard. Ganon is heavy so your attacks will not knock him too far away. Nair has great combo ability and bair gimps should come easily.

What to Avoid:

Wizard's Kick. This move should give you nightmares. You think Razor Leaf is perfectly safe until Ganon throws out a WizKick, eats right though that poor piece of lettuce, and kicks you in the face for a kill. Always keep yourself in a position to shield after throwing out a leaf.
If you screw up enough to get grabbed by Ganon at kill percents, always DI the dthrow towards center stage and DI the followup upwards to increase your survivability.

Extras:

Ness

Summary:

Difficulty: (55:45)

Stages: Ban FD

How to Win:

SDI on point. Between fair and PK Fire, you should be ready to SDI Ness' multihits or you're going to be taking a hard punish.
Pay attention to DJC habits. Ness will often approach through double jump canceled aerials and specials.
Lock down on edgeguards. If the Ness comes too close to stage go out and close down their angles with a bair. Hit them before launching if possible as the hitboxes can trade through the bair. Do not overcommit to one option, it is best to reset the situation and rack up damage then to let them get back into neutral. Dsmash is another good option though be aware of platforms they can reach or drift to.

What to Avoid:

PK Fire. It does a number on Ivy since it will be activated by the leaf and Ivy's movement isn't super fast
Getting uaired. This is one of Ness's most potent kill options in the matchup. The real thing Ivy needs to avoid is the setups into it. DI dthrow away, avoid being daired while grounded, and be sure to tech aerial dairs, SDI away on fair, etc.
Losing in neutral. Both characters punish eachother very hard. The matchup is mostly in Ivy's advantage due to a slight edge in edgeguarding, but the majority of the game will be decided by whole lands the first hits in neutral.

Extras:

Peach

Summary:
This battle is likely to turn into a campy mess as Peach struggles to approach and gimp Ivy. Be prepared for alot of turnips coming your way and avoid them off stage.

Difficulty: (60:40)

Stages:

How to Win:

Punish her float. Peach plays like to float at a 45 degree angle above you because many characters do not have the means to hit there. Ivysaur is different because this sits right in sweetspot vinewhip area. Make them

What to Avoid:

The offstage turnip. Peach can't really gimp or punish tether characters so expect Peach to be throwing the kitchen sink at you offstage. Save the jump and dair stalls and don't be afraid to fade back to avoid an item.

Extras:

Sonic

Summary:

Difficulty: (55:45)

Stages:

How to Win:

Beat Sonic's negative disjoints. Most of Sonic's attacks will lose to ours. Using nair defensively is a great option. Using nair offensively is a good options. Using nair is good. Use nair.
Bair and dsmash. Sonic has a great up b, but it sends him directly upwards at which point he is pretty vulnerable. Keep hitting him off the ledge and build up that damage to the point when it should be an easy kill. Know the Sonic cannot throw out an attack and grab ledge at the same time so dsmashing Sonic's spring should always be safe with the proper timing.

What to Avoid:

Extras:

Yoshi

Summary:

Difficulty: (55:45)

Stages:

How to Win:

What to Avoid:

Extras:

Even Matchups

Ivy

Summary:
The ditto is kinda lame but still interesting.

Difficulty: (50:50)
Might be a bold estimation, but I'm sticking by it.

Stages:

Whatever you are most comfortable on.

How to Win:

Nair. Not only is it a great combo tool, but will eat Razor Leaf, beat most moves out of sheild, and break combos.

What to Avoid:

Utilt at low percents. Doesn't work due to Ivy's floatiness and will be punish with a nair.

Extras:

Ike

Summary:
Ike and Ivy is a very strange PM matchup. While Ivy is strong in neutral, Ike can put on decent sheild pressure and get kills off throws while living a long time.

Difficulty: (55:45)
Both characters put in work against each other but it balances out decently well. Spreads will be very stage dependent.

Stages: Pick Battlefield and Smashville, Ban FoD and WW

Tradeoffs everywhere. Ike and Ivy is a convoluted matchup, both characters kill well off the sides and the top and recover well also. Big stages, especially those with walls can allow Ike to live for quite a while but Ivy also survives past the standard fthrow>fair Ike kill moves.
Small is generally bad. Ike can cover alot of space with fsmash and fair so small stages are the most obvious to avoid. Try to stick with the neutral stages.

How to Win:

Use Razor Leaf to interrupt Ike's Quick Draw. This is his most threatening movement option and we can take away the meat of it by putting out a hitbox. This lets us win neutral and dictate the match. Ike does have decent disjoints however to cancel the leaf so don't become predictable. The moral here is don't put too much effort into approaching. Interactions will often be won by who baits out an attack first since Ike has a strong DD grab and slow aerials. Avoid overcommitting in the neutral game and get hit by Ike moves. Roll behind is even a decent option.
Edgeguarding. It is probably best for Ivy to go for a far offstage bair before Ike can really toy with his recovery options. If that's not possible Ike will have basically three options; side b on stage or ledge, walljump, and up b. Ivy bair does a decent job covering the first option. Ike will wall jump often far deeper than Ivy can go so if you can't catch them before they use it, you're better off just repecting it and finding another recovery punish on stage or by holding ledge. Up b is interesting in that they can put the sword hitbox decently far on stage and then go to ledge or on stage. If they go deep enough, retether and roll might be enough to get the kill. Otherwise a fair at the ledge might be the optimal punish. If they go on stage, punish like Sheik with a dair into something.

What to Avoid:

Beware of grabs. Ike has pretty poor out of shield options, but can punish hard if he lands a grab. Try to cross up his shield at every opportunity to avoid this. He will frequently jab>grab as well. If you get grabbed, DIing properly is important to taking the least damage. At low percents DI behind for the dthrow, while closer to kill percents you'll want to DI down and away from center stage an prepare for the followup fair or bair.
Getting fmashed at the ledge. Ike's will WD back and just throw this stuff out, don't fall for it cause it's an easy kill. Don't get baited into high commitment moves with limited options.
Being above Ike. His uair is both fast and powerful and his utilt serves as a solid anti-air option where his arm is invulnerable. Preserve your double jump and use dair and uair to find a way back to the ground
Any fancy tether tricks. Ike's bair is absolutely savage if you fade back and nair will hit us at a horrible angle. Eat the fair or dair on stage and DI properly to reset to neutral.

Extras:

Jigglypuff

Summary:

Difficulty: (55:45)

Stages:

How to Win:

What to Avoid:

The utilt. Easiest combo into rest ever and this will kill us very very early.

Extras:

You can punish a missed rest using the synthesis windbox to push Jiggs offstage.

Link

Summary:

Difficulty: ??

Stages:

How to Win:

What to Avoid:

Extras:

Lucas

Summary:
Lucas has an extremely similar neutral game to Ivy. He relies on dash dance PK Freeze and nair combos. Just watch out for that dair. It can combo into itself and into a usmash.

Difficulty: (45:55)

Stages:

How to Win:

What to Avoid:

Extras:

Luigi

Summary:
Luigi can be a pain for everyone's favorite leafy dinosaur. You will really need to understand this matchup in order to beat quality Luigis.

Difficulty: (45:55)

Stages:

How to Win:

Utilize disjoints. Luigi is a salt-inducing character due to his ability to escape or break combos. Ivy's fair offers plenty of space to keep away from his hitboxes so be sure to use all of it.
Know Luigi's recovery gave. Luigi can recover from almost anywhere but his aerial mobility is incredibly slow and predictable. Side b is very easy to punish with bair. It will likely not kill, but you should rack up as much damage offstage while you can. Use this time to heal and set up.

What to Avoid:

Luigi's dangerous neutral. He has many options against Razor Leaf such as down b or wavedash shield that give Ivy trouble. Furthermore once he gets in his crouch cancel game is a big threat. Wavedash>jab>up b is a potent kill move, especially on Ivy so be prepared in neutral. Dash attacking into shield can get you up b'd as well.

Extras:

Pit

Summary:

Difficulty: (45:55)

Stages:

How to Win:

What to Avoid:

Extras:

Roy

Summary:

Difficulty: (45:55)

Stages:

How to Win:

What to Avoid:

Extras:

Squirtle

Summary:
Squirtle is a slippery little **** who can easily get in and out on us due to armor and mobility.

Difficulty: (45:55)
Razor Leaf is not very effective (

) in this matchup due to withdraw's armor and bubble. It makes the neutral tough to win in addition to Squirtle's strong gimp game on Ivy and early kills off the top.

Stages: Battlefield, Yoshi's (Melee)

Small stages limit Squirt's movement. The key is limiting his movement. Also the close blast zones allow for early kills. Bair is good for killing Squirt off the sides and dtilt sets up kills off the top.
Avoid walled stages. Squirtle has alot of recovery mixups that he can use such as a wall cling.
Low ceilings are bad. Squirtle primarily kills off the top with usmash in this MU.
Platforms benefit Ivy more.

How to Win:

Dealing with withdrawl. If Squirt lands it on shield, be prepared to shield the followup aerial. Armor allows it to go through most of Ivy's attacks with few consistent exceptions. One of the better options is dair which can recover health and lead to followups. Simply jumping over is another strong option.
Play in close. Don't give Squirtle room to move around
Tech bubble beam.
Sweetspot dair on Squirtle's recovery. It is one of the few options that we can punish waterfall with.

What to Avoid:

Overusing Razor Leaf. Squirtle has alot of options to deal and punish RL. We need to play in close to limit his movement.
Watch out for wavedash grabs. Squirtle gets alot off of grabs for floaties. Dthrow is a strong kill but can be mixed up with fthrow into usmash. DI fthrow down and away to get the tech.

Extras:

Footstooling withdrawl puts Squirtle in a long endlag.
Squirtle's shellshift has 15 frames of endlag, but has a small hitbox which can combo into kill moves.
He can recover under stages like Smashville or Battlefield.

Toon Link

Summary:

Difficulty: (45:55)

Stages:

How to Win:

Refresh ledge invincibility. Toon Link has a great recovery but it is very punishable if Ivy does the right things. Bomb jumping will build damage itself but Tink is forced into two options once he nears the ledge. These options do not cover great distances, one being the up b and the other being a tether grab. Refreshing invincibility lets you bair while drifting on stage or dair the ensuing attack. If you read the tether it puts Tink into a vulnerable ledge situation where you can dair the slow reel or punish the auto hop.

What to Avoid:

Dthrow to usmash. On stages with low ceilings, this will kill many floaties.
Being item camped. Between arrows, bombs, and boomerangs, Tink can zone just as well or better than Ivy. Don't get hit because that usually is Tink's combo starter and it builds up damage. Approaching with a well spaced fair is optimal with Tink's short sword range.
Dair. This is a fantastic kill move off the top with a long hitbox duration. Avoid situations where raw fairs can be thrown out near leadges or with AGT bombs.

Extras:

Wario

Summary:
Wario is often compared to a more power Puff. His aerial mobility is insane and allows him to space his attacks like no one else. Luckily this falls into Ivy's wheelhouse, full of disjoints and projectiles. The key to this matchup is to zone him out.

Difficulty: (55:45)
We can do some things to Wario and he can do some things to us. We need to use our disjoints to their fullest potential to gain the slight advantage.

Stages: Pick FD and Smashville, Ban Battlefield and Wario Ware or Yoshi's Melee

Avoid platforms. This is one of those matchups where platforms are just more beneficial to Wario. He can pull so much crap with his shoulder bash with minimal endlag and also mix up his bite and fair. It's just a bad place to be.
Big stage are good for zoning. If we are doing a decent job controlling space, a big stage is a better place to do it. If Wario is managing our zoning well, choke him out on a smaller stage.

How to Win:

Zoning. Make use of Razor Leaf, dtilt, and SH fair to really control the area around Wario. He will almost always be in the air so pay attention to his jumping patterns and stay patient.
Use the correct throws. At ~50% dthrow will not have followups anymore. When this happens, start either throwing offstage or getting uthrows to build up charge. Uthrow combined with Wario's floatiness gives you time to synthesize and threaten space with seed bomb.
Ivy gimps. Uair spike will usually trade with up b. Bair will out range shoulder bash. You should be using ledgehop bair on to the stage alot after refreshing invincibility.

What to Avoid:

Bite. This move is really good and has a 50/50 mixup to go with it. Always try to DI away whichever direction he throws you or you will get faired and wafted. Either way, DI upwards after the throw. At low percents however, try do DI in to take the single uair and avoid the fair strings. Most importantly, just do not sit in shield in the first place. It's not really that good anyways. Also don't be on platforms.
Hitting a grounded Wario. This is why we should avoid going in at low-middle percents. Wario will CC the **** out of our attacks. Jab also has a decently high hitbox that can knock us out of the air if we get too close. Space yourself accordingly.
Don't get edgeguarded. Wario has alot of tools to do this including offstage waft, forced autohop waft, dropzone nair, bair, dair if we sit in tether, dair us if we go on stage, bite in to more disgusting things, and more. Moral of the story is don't let it happen. Clear the ledge with a Razor Leaf or a well-timed fair and tether from a safe distance and angle.

Extras:

Watch out for Wario's gigantic freaking get up attack.

Zelda

Summary:
This is a weird and unexplored matchup. Zelda has a great zoning tool in Dins but is very good at snuffing out approaches too. Ivy wins with disjoints but landing kills can be a challenge given how difficult it is to combo Zelda.

Difficulty: (45:55)
Zelda generally seems to win in neutral with telecancelling and Dins as well as in tight with get off me moves like Nyrus. She has potent kills with lightning kick and utilt so there is a possibility this matchup is much worse, but that remains to be seen.

Stages:

Short sides. If you fail to get the kill off the top around 80% Zelda will probably be living until 140% when you can eventually kill off the side. Better to keep them short to limit her recovery ability.

How to Win:

Spacing. Zelda has decent disjoints but they lock her in place. Full hop fair is a great pressure tool that can lead to uair kills with bad DI and dtilt can also lead to uair kills at 90%. Make sure your best spacing comes here but it is a challenge to kill her once she gets much higher. Floatiness means she can jump out of combos that kill off the top but her low aerial mobility makes her difficult to kill off the sides, coupled with her fantastic recovery.
Find ways to confirm kills. They are few and far between in this matchup. Last hit nair or uair spike into usmash will likely be the most reliable, but the approach is dangerous. If you can get an opening, tke advantage.
Tether to refresh invincibility then waveland and punish. Zelda's recovery is ridiculous long but very high commitment. If we show we have control of ledge they will go high or go on stage where we can punish.

What to Avoid:

Using Razor Leaf. This is one matchup where the leaf can do more harm than good. Nyrus reflects it creating two active hitboxes. Approach through Ivy's disjoints, do not rely on RL hit confirms.
Dins and telecancelling. These moves are brutal in neutral with the ability to shield grab, poke shield, and add damage. Find ways to not get hit by these. Dins hitbox gets neutralized if you hit it which makes approaching Zelda much easier.
Nyru's from the ledge. Zelda's love this crap, just respect her when she's on the ledge. Try to bait it out and punish the end lag.

Extras:

Zero Suit Samus

Summary:
A rare battle of tether characters. Alot of this game will come down to edgeguarding but neutral is very intricate

Difficulty: (45:55)
This matchup can be sometimes hard in neutral against a campy ZSS. We benefit from her lack of reliable kill moves.

Stages: Ban GHZ and PS2

Small stages seem preferable. Ivy has trouble in neutral mostly so small stages give our disjoints plenty of stage control. WW is a favorite of ZSS, but may be a good stage for Ivy. Subject to change.
Avoid walled stages. ZSS has way too many wall jump shenanigans and it is a huge boost to her already great recovery.

How to Win:

Winning neutral. It's not easy in this matchup laser and leaf will clank. We need to be within range to bair or nair through the laser. Use these aggressive options when you have stage control as they can be avoided through dash dance. Jab and ftilt clanks are ways to maintain position without giving up ground. ZSS's blaster is a confirm into her approach and combo game so make sure to avoid getting hit. Dtilt's range is not as effective in this match given ZSS side b and fsmash, but it is a potent combo into kills at a wide range of percents due to her weight.
Approach from above. It will be interesting to see if this holds up in the meta long term given a solid up b and utilt, but nairs and uairs from above seem to be effective approach options that set up into combos.
Get creative with edgeguards. ZSS is tough to kill with her extra jumps and offstage options but a ledgehop bair is good for covering the high approach while a falling nair or dair can be a crafty way to get the kill when tethered.

What to Avoid:

Getting comboed. Easier said than done but ZSS has a very good combo game with unreliable kills. If we DI correctly, it makes our survivability much greater. Most of her moves have followups but mixing up DI in to stay above as opposed to in front is optimal.
ZSS shenanigans. Her offstage game is very strong, especially when coupled with a wall jump. She has ways to get hitboxes out as we are holding ledge so don't get caught off guard.
Autohopping on stage. ZSS's most potent kill moves are bair and fair, both of which are pretty free in the lag if you land on stage. Against fair it is possible to SDI down and buffer roll. Against the bair, make sure you are DIing upwards when this happens.

Extras:

ZSS has two laser models: the fast/far one with little stun and the big/slow one with alot of stun. The longer charge creates more stun but the model only changes at max charge.

Not Very Effective x2

Kirby

Summary:

Difficulty: (40:60)

Stages:

Go small. Duh. Kirby can recover from nearly anywhere as long as he has jumps, so closer sides will make that less useful and make his gimps on Ivy less effective.

How to Win:

Take the easy kills. Dtilt to uair at ~70% or dthrow to vinewhip in the same range is going to be the most reliable kill options. Get them early before Kirbs can jump out of it and it gets much harder.
Get out of dthrow tech chases. After about 30% Ivy can nair or jump out of dthrow before hitting the ground.

What to Avoid:

Don't get inhaled. For the love of god, this might be the most broken mechanic in the game as Kirby gets a free solarbeam from inhale and has arguably better setups into it than Ivy. He can also taunt cancel to drop the hat in a heartbeat so he can get another. Don't get inhaled. If you do, then immediately uair body spike upon release and get a punish.
Getting gimped. Kirby, much like DDD has a strong gimp game against Ivy because he can go far offstage and catch us with a bair. In addition, they can force the auto hop and uair for a kill over 100%, so play the offstage game very carefully.

Extras:

Lucario

Summary:
Lucario's neutral is interesting in that he struggles to get in, but one stray hit on shield and your opponent's eyes will just light up.

Difficulty: (45:55)

Stages:

How to Win:

Control the neutral. Lucario has few options to actually approach. Use Razor Leaf to control space and watch out anytime that Lucario down b's, especially with an aura charge, because they can go invulnerable through the leaf if timed correctly and then cancel into an attack.

What to Avoid:

Getting hit. Sitting in shield is the least safe option here.

Extras:

Mario

Summary:

Difficulty: (40:60)

Stages: Ban FD

How to Win:

Juggle with sourspots. Mario is that weird weight where he doesn't really get comboed too bad, but he lack disjoints, especially below him. Uair and usmash have very large disjointed sourspots that can rack up damage and give good stage control.
Dtilt and fair. These are the two moves that do well against Mario and pop him up for juggles. Bair and nair work well for eating fireballs and adding damage but watch out for the CC.
Go deep for gimps. Mario has a pretty predictable recovery. Cape stalls him and down b gives him a little boost but both largely leave him in the same place. Bairs huge hitbox is perfect for that.

What to Avoid:

Mario's crouch cancel. It's too good. Stay at a safe distance.
Mario's fireballs. Mario can heavily outcamp Ivy so stay close. Nair is a solid option to eat fireball and approach. You can jab to clank fireballs and hope they eventually get bored of camping, but yeah those things suck. Watch out for CC if you use it to approach. Don't shield too much because Ivy is liable to get shield poked and Mario uses this opportunity to approach.
Be careful when clearing the ledge. Ivy's typically throw a leaf and then tether, but Mario has a solid bair which will go right through the leaf and likely gimps so play it from a safe distance.
Mario grab. At high percent, dthrow to fair is a completely free kill. At low and mid percents try to DI just very slightly behind him so that Ivy optimizes her distance and combo break with nair to avoid the chain grab.

Extras:

Meta Knight

Summary:

Difficulty: (40:60)

Stages:

How to Win:

What to Avoid:

Extras:

Mewtwo

Summary:

Difficulty: ??

Stages:

Go small, with high ceilings. We aren't going to gimp Mewtwo, but he sure as hell can do that to us. Primarily his kills will come from bair gimps or the super free uthrow.

How to Win:

Dthrow to vinewhip. Mewtwo is one of those floaties who just can't get away in the 80% area. He's floaty enough that this can kill very well. The tough part is landing the grab.

What to Avoid:

Teleport. This approach is crazy, but Ivy has the tools to deal with it. Using nair defensively is a safe way to call out this move. Bair is a decent way to space since Mewtwo's tail is not disjointed like Ivy's vines.

Extras:

Pikachu

Summary:

Difficulty: (40:60)

Stages:

How to Win:

What to Avoid:

Pikachu usmash. This is an easy combo into thunder and gets very early kills.

Extras:

R.O.B.

Summary:

Difficulty: (40:60)

Stages:

Ban the big stages. This goddamn robot does not die off the side til like 170%. Go small.

How to Win:

Get those gimps. Surprisingly we can gimp flying robots. His recovery is very linear so it's very predictable where ROB will be. Place a bair, ledgedash>dsmash, or dair to knock him back. You might have to do this twice.

What to Avoid:

The laser and top. These are two things that can interrupt our tether recovery. Also the fall off fair or nair covers our tether reel.
Always be wary of his air wavedash. Both the boosted nair and fair have great priority and we don't have many options. The endlag is low enough that shielding the attack and rolling might be best. Either hit him before the attack begins or run away

Extras:

If you want to get rid of the top, throw it upwards. It won't come back down for a while.

Samus

Summary:

Difficulty: (35:65)

Stages:

How to Win:

What to Avoid:

Extras:

Shiek

Summary:
Not the prettiest of matchups. Needles are a real pain in the ass for Ivy because tether requires us to recover so low. It will also snuff out Razor Leaf on stage.

Difficulty: (40:60)
This is going to be tough to win if the Sheik knows what they are doing. Make sure your spacing is on point and avoid gimps as best as possible.

Stages: Yoshi's Brawl, Green Hill Zone

Avoid platforms near the ledge. This gives Sheik recovery mixups for her typically predictable options. You should be dairing all on stage recoveries.

How to Win:

Win the spacing game. Bair, fair, and dtilt outrange most of Sheik's options. Dtilt to uair is a solid kill combo around 120%.
Edgeguard Sheik. Against Sheik the best way to cover options is to hold ledge and force her onto stage. By shooting a seed bomb straight up near the ledge and wavedashing to ledge, invincibility should be enough to hold ledge and seedbomb will either pop up (a bad place for Sheik) or stun for a good punish.

What to Avoid:

Getting killed off throws. Two things can happen from Sheiks throw mixups: first you can DI correctly and likely lose positioning but not get followed up which is usually optimal. Secondly you can DI wrong and get slapped our uaired. Figure out what the opponent likes to do but generally your best option will be to DI away from center stage to give yourself the most survivability.
Needles. Sheik can outcamp Ivy so avoid being 45 degrees below her or on the same horizontal level. Approaching with a high fair is optimal or being at dtilt range.

Extras:

Snake

Summary:

Difficulty: (40:60)

Stages:

High ceilings. You're gonna get killed off the top, like alot.

How to Win:

What to Avoid:

Getting stuck. Uthrow at almost any low percents will combo into a sticky as well as getting tranqed. Stickies allow for super early kills against us so be prepared to avoid any setups. When you inevitably get stickied, watch out for the grenade to C4 kills.

Extras:

Not Very Effective x4

Captain Falcon

Summary:
Falcon's speed in neutral absolutely obliterates Ivy's game. His ability to beat Razor Leaf makes the on stage game a challenge but if you can get him offstage, gimps should come extremely easily.

Difficulty: (35:65)
Ivy is a perfect weight for Falcon combos and she dies early from the knee. Ivy can get some quick kills offstage but they are hard to get against a smart Falcon.

Stages: Ban FD and GHZ

How to Win:

Combo hard. Falcon can be comboed by dash attack chains which accumulate damage and give you great stage position. Uairs can build up charge and health. Seed bomb can be used for juggles. Nair is great for breaking up Falcon combos and leading into your own. Dsmash is a fantastic finisher and can catch him when he misses sweetspoting recovery.
Gimp hard. Uair spikes are extremely potent in the matchup, just aim for the back to avoid the command grab box. Dair, fairs, and bairs offstage are great ways to keep Falcon from coming back.
Play smart out of shield. Knee is generally safe when followed by a jab so often times the best choice is to roll. Nair is your best attack OoS.

What to Avoid:

Throwing out Razor Leafs. Falcon can punish this better than anyone else. He can simply jump over it and knee or just nair right through it. Use it to gain stage control and when it is safe.
Getting in edgeguard sitautions. If Falcon is holding ledge and knows how to punish tethers, we are in trouble. Use Razor Leaf or fair to cover ledge as you recover. If Falcon is holding ledge when you tether, you can try to bait the ledge hop by drifting back, but more than likely you will be eating a knee. Accept it, do not try to ledge cancel the autohop because that's how you get reverse kneed to death. Go on stage and DI up and take it like a man. Only get fancy if you're at death percents anyways, otherwise die another day.

Extras:

Diddy Kong

Summary:
This can be a very challenging matchup for Ivy as Diddy has the ability to outcamp Ivy (a common theme in these tougher MUs) to go along with a strong combo game and great recovery. Ivy certainly has a few tricks up her sleeve as well.

Difficulty: (35:65)
This is difficult on numerous levels. First off is item play, which the Diddy will likely have far more experience with. Approaching is a challenge not only because peanut and banana, but the monkey's strong CC game. Punishes are a fun time though and gimps are very doable so progressing past the tough neutral is essential.

Stages: Pick FoD and Yoshi's Brawl, Ban FD

Platforms are a mixed bag. These both extend our combos and offer safety from horizontal spam, however it also offers aerial protection from seedbombs.
Stage size is a mixed bag too. Both characters can kill in any direction. If you are getting decent gimps, wider stages are beneficial for survivability, but it generally means a more campy playstyle. Kills off the top are possible for both characters around 110%. Stage selection largely revolves around the two playstyles.

How to Win:

Spacing. DIddy can absolutely brutalize Ivy up close. CCing jab can be done until about 70% but in addition to that is Diddy's fantastic shield to body ratio. Don't hope for any shield pokes and don't think jab is safe on sheild. Mix up between jab grabs and jab to wavedash back. Dtilt is a move that truly outspaces Diddy keeping Ivy safe from CCing. Full hop fair can do the same while keeping Ivy above the peanut and banana.
Seedbomb in neutral. This is the one place that Diddy can't control, especially from a projectile. Angled seedbomb forces Diddy to stop camping which can provide an opening. Pick up the banana, begin to approach, or get a grab off of their shield. Once again, bair and nair can eat through projectiles in neutral so use it wisely but CCing is a major threat at low and mid percents.
Uair to uair. Dtilt or fair can also lead into amazing strings if Diddy gets airborne. Diddy's weight allows us to alternate between sweetspot and sourspot uairs while mixing in dash attacks and nairs into combo strings. Punish hard, this is where Ivy's combo game shines.
Uair spikes. Diddy is one of those characters who are very susceptible to our uair gimps. He is fantastic at living long both off the sides and the top as well as recovering horizontally, but vertical gimps can give him issues whether it's an offstage fair>dair or a uair spike which will trade with the up b at worst. In addition to these gimps, it is also possible to RAR bair Diddy's side b if you can read it.
Practice your item game. Learn how to effectively use AGTs, picking up items with wavedash, z-dropping and catching. This is especially important for things like bombs, bananas, and the top which stay active for a decently long time. You can catch peanuts out of the air or steal away the banana. Know that when holding an item, you are limited to special moves only. Also know your item ability is probably less than the Diddy so sometimes it's better to throw the banana to a place where Diddy can't get it instead of throwing it back or offstage where he can get it back.

What to Avoid:

Diddy hiding behind the banana. Neutral is gonna be rough when Diddy hides under a platform with a banana on the ground while using the popgun. Use item tech safely or approach high where peanuts and banana aren't effective.
Missing techs. Off bananas, off dair, whatever. Be on point because Diddy can wreck you on missed tech through jab resets, grab, dsmash, or dash attacks. Mix up you tech options because this is an essential part of Diddy's game and important to preventing obvious reads.
Dthrow chain grabs at low percents. Actually DI forward and nair to break up the chain. At mid to high percents you need to avoid the fair conversion.
CC dsmash. Diddy can CC alot of our moves so watch out if my approach with a fair.

Extras:

Falco

Summary:
Arguably slightly easier than Fox but still extremely difficult to win neutral. Ivy has few options to avoid Falco's laser, but if you can get Falco offstage you typically get a dead bird.

Difficulty: (35:65)
The neutral on the whole is about as hard as Fox's. Lasers severely limit Ivy because of the slow jump and bad options out of shield. Off stage kills are much easier to come by though.

Stages:

Platforms are important. These are key to our movement in the matchup since Falco lasers basically kill everything else Ivy can do. Use the platforms to approach or throw a razor leaf from above.
Wide sides, but not too large stage area. Falco is not known for his ability to kill off the top. He is more of a threat killing off the sides or bottom with bair or dair.

How to Win:

Get Razor Leaf out. Movement is challenge in this matchup without using a platform. Ivy needs to time a fast fall razor leaf inbetween lasers since it will go through them. If it clips Falco, that's what you can approach and go ham on combos.
Get him offstage. Between the short length of firebird, long startup, and the lack of an active hitbox, Falco should be dead anytime he has to resort to this. Cover the illusion options with Razor, dtilt, bair, or nair and try to get him without a jump. Go for the sweetspot dair on firebird for charge and kills.
Uair strings. It's a great way to build up damage, heal, and get solarbeams. It's a kill option at very high percents and can also be used to spike offstage. Uthrow uair is a kill over 100%.

What to Avoid:

Being on the same horizontal as Falco. His lasers will completely ruin all movement. Powershield lasers, get on a platform, anything. Find a way to get a Razor Leaf out on ground level and pray it connects. If you can get that, you can go to town with combos, but until then it will be hard to come by an opening. Fair or razor leaf from above until you can land a hit confirm.
Getting pillared. Ivy is floaty enough to be able to airdodge or nair out of Falco pillars. Don't let him build up damage. Make sure you are DIing properly during pillars and teching when possible.

Extras:

Fox

Summary:
A brutal matchup if played correctly. Fox can shine Ivy into oblivion, uair combo, usmash kill, and laser camp. We need to get Fox offstage at all costs and end the stock when given the chance.

Difficulty: (30:70)
One of the hardest matchups out there. We are just too slow to be able to compete on stage.

Stages: Pick Battlefield and GHZ or FoD, Ban FD

Look for high ceilings. Fox will most frequently kill off the top with usmash or uair. We need to look for gimps so the most important thing for us is survivability.
Wide stage area is bad. Fox can outcamp us and we are not fast enough to punish. There is a tradeoff since wide blastzones usually come with wide stages, but we do not benefit from survivability off the sides as much as Fox benefits from camping.

How to Win:

Get Fox offstage. Ivy has very high gimp potential in this matchup but getting him offstage is the biggest challenge. If you can land a fair offstage, this will typically combo into another fair or a dair. If you miss, a nair can still catch the illusion. Another option is the onstage gimp where you throw out a Razor leaf to cover the on stage side b and dtilt the ledge. Dair is good to hit firefox offstage but beware of the active hitboxes during startup. When firefox is moving it may be better to dropdown nair than attempt to time a dair. Onstage, dsmash will cover anything not sweetspotted.
Uair combos. Health is extremely important in this matchup because of how quickly and easily we die. A short string of uairs can give us a full solarbeam charge and heal 20% which can change everything. Uair is also a solid kill option at high percents due to Fox's inability to get far enough away. Uthrow uair is a kill combo over 100%.
SDI uair. Seriously, if you are ever going to SDI anything, it needs to be first hit of Fox uair. You will do significantly better if you survive uthrow>uair percent.

What to Avoid:

Getting laser camped. Ivy is simply not fast enough to catch Fox. We need to play hyper aggressive for this reason. Catch Fox with a Razor Leaf, nair, or fair and go to town on the combos.
Nairplane. Fox is another character that can just eat right though Razor leaf and punish us for it. Use RL intelligently and from a decent distance. It is tough for us to deal with because of the low endlag but an upward angled ftilt is a good way to snuff this out if you can read it. Also retreating bairs can outspace Fox, just watch out for him CCing.
Fishing for grabs. Our grab is very challenging to land in this matchup due to Fox's fast options including nair and shine. While we get alot off of throws be smart when using it because missed grab is hugely punishable, especially by...
The raw Fox usmash. Wavedash back is a very good option when Fox is fishing for this. It puts you in a good place to land a grab and throw them offstage.

Extras:

Marth

Summary:
This is a very challenging matchup because of Marth's ability to outspace Ivy. His throws can lead into fsmash with improper DI, his nair and fair will eat Razor Leaf, and dtilt or ftilt are very quick options to snuff out our approaches.

Difficulty: (35:65)
One of Ivy's hardest matchups. It's worthy of a secondary. If you are brave enough to fight it, you must be on point.

Stages: Pick Dreamland or Battlefield, Ban FD and Yoshi's Melee

Bigger blastzones, the better. Marth has very early kill potential, particularly off the sides, but once we get to high percents he gets stuck in his famous "Marth zone". The concern with larger stages is it give Marth more room to dash dance.
Avoid low platforms, go for tri-plats. Marth can space his tipper much easier on stages with lower platforms or when platforms are moving. The high platforms are much safer from Marth's sword. If the stage does not have platforms, then use seed bomb (safely) to mess up Math's dash dance timing.

How to Win:

Get your gimps. The best option is get bairs off stage, but run-up dsmash is useful against a Marth who doesn't land his sweetspots. If Marth has good positioning on his recovery, refresh ledge invincibility and force an onstage recovery to punish with waveland grab, dair, or nair. Retethering above stage level is a useful trick as well.
Good spacing. More than any other matchup, spacing is critical against Marth. Getting too close can result in pain. An aerial Marth will typically land with a fair, make sure to stay just outside that range to bait the attack and punish accordingly. Same goes for Marth dash attacks.
Dtilt. This can combo into uair which kills early on a semi-floaty Marth. At higher percents, seedbomb may also reach.
Razor Leaf intelligently. Razor Leaf is great for controlling space, especially when Marth is facing away during dash dance. If Marth is facing forward, then he has many options including running shield into grab or an aerial. Pay attention to how they deal with the leaf, primarily if they go aerial or stay grounded and try to punish.
Use throws properly. Dthrow is most effective at low percents, while throwing for stage control is more effective as followups become less effective. Uthrow can be mixed in when the benefit of stage control is outweighed by need for solarbeam and health. Uthrow can also be followed up with seedbomb to force Marth to drift or jump in a certain direction.

What to Avoid:

DIing throws wrong. Until about 15%, Marth has a guaranteed fthrow regrab. Each throw does very little damage so the biggest goal here should be to survive the ensuing tippered fsmash. DI up and in to survive the tipper at the ledge. After about 25%, Marth will begin to use his mixup between fthrow and dthrow. Similar to the Sheik mixup, it is generally optimal to DI down and offstage for maximum survivability. If you land onstage, be prepared to tech and mix up the directions as Marth often will go for reads here. As a precaution, DI upwards to prepare for the fsmash at middle to high percents.
DIing fair incorectly. Always up and away to avoid followups, especially.
Being above Marth. Utilt and uair far outspace any approach we have from this position. Find a high platform or drift off stage where you can safely come down. Be sure to not let Marth eat your jump, they can land far more damage if you have fewer resources to get down
Over-reliance on Razor Leaf. Marth's dash dance and aerials allow him to easily maneuver around RL and punish the endlag. If you can land it, it may lead to good openings, but use it safely from a distance.
Side b to utilt kills. This is a deadly way for Marth to power through the Marth zone. If you get too close a single side b puts you in enough hitstun to combo into utilt which can kill Ivy off the top at higher percents.

Extras:

Wolf

Summary:
Wolf's recovery is not as linear and therefore hard to gimp and is slow lasers can come out much faster than Razor Leaf.

Difficulty: (35:65)
This is not an easy matchup on stage or off stage.

Stages:

High ceilings. Wolf will kill off the top with fair and usmash while his weight makes him near impossible to kill off the top. Just be prepared to avoid side b's and fsmashes.

How to Win:

Properly managing lasers. Wolf lasers are killer in neutral since they come out twice as fast as Razor Leafs. Ivy has options to deal with them which should be mixed up since none are truly safe. Nair is a good approach through a laser if you have stage control since they are limited in movement. Jab or ftilt clanks are a good way to neutralize them but beware the Wolf DACUS or dash attack. Shielding works but is vulnerable to grab.
Find ways to get kills. Wolf like the other spacies is total combo food. Uair strings are great, but don't land Ivy many kills. Ivy's issue is unlike Fox or Falco, Wolf's recovery options are much stronger. Bside to the ledge is anglable and puts out a hurtbox so refreshing invincibility is important

What to Avoid:

Getting Crouch canceled. Wolf's weight allows him to crouch cancel most of Ivy's approaches and close range attacks. Space appropriately.

Extras:

Verduyn · Dec 5, 2015

Squirtle is in the wrong place imo. I play both Ivy and Squirtle and I'd say the MU is slightly in Squirtle's favour.

Summary:
Squirtle is a slippery little **** who can easily get in and out on us. Squirtle is awkward for Ivy to combo into kills for with his small size making him very difficult to hit with Vine Whip and his incredible aerial mobility making Solarbeams harder to land.

Difficulty: (45:55)
Squirtle can get in on Ivy very easily with a lot of tools to disrupt her neutral. The light armour on many of Squirtle's moves (in partiular Withdraw) mean that Razor Leaf is almost never safe in neutral as Squirtle can Water Gun it to neutralise it or Withdraw straight through it for a free combo starter. Also we are a very good combo weight for the tiny turtle and our floatiness means we die quite early to Aqua Jet. However, we have the ability to make it so that once Squirtle is offstage he never gets back on and we can juggle him decently well.

Stages: (Battlefield, Yoshi's Melee)
We generally want small stages where Squirtle doesn't have enough room to run away and do his Shellshift shenanigans, although you do have to be careful when taking Squirtle to small stages as well. I am also of the opinion that Ivy gets more from platforms than Squirtle. In very general terms Squirtle will kill us off the top and Ivy will kill off both the top and the side so low ceilings aren't that great. It's worth noting that Squirtle's wallcling can be well utilised on stages like GHZ but that shouldn't be too much of a consideration unless the Squirtle player is abusing it.

How to win:
Don't be afraid to get close. Ivy wants to be at around the tip of Ivy's dtilt away from Squirtle. Squirtle has a lot of burst movement but it's very high commitment so if you're up in his face he is generally left with two options, sh Water Gun and grounded Bubble. IF YOU GET HIT WITH BUBBLE YOU NEED TO TECH IT. Some Squirtle players will abuse Withdraw as an approach option and if they do this there are a couple of ways to get around it. Shield and hold shield after Withdraw bounces off. A lot of Squirtle players will attempt to follow up with aerial even if the Withdraw bounces off a shield and if you shield the following aerial a punish should be easy due to Squirtle's short range. Some attacks also stop Withdraw (fair, bair, dtilt, jab 2) but most of these require precise timings to get the strong second hit (dtilt, bair, jab 2) to actually hit Squirtle so the best option is generally fair for attacking a withdraw. Another, mostly swag, option for dealing with it is short hopping over it and attempting to footstool it. Yes, you can footstool Withdraw. It's a dumb mechanic left over from Brawl that gives Squirtle over a second (I can't remember the exact number of frames) where he is just flailing on his back unable to do anything. Just jumpping over the Withdraw is a decent option as well as is sh dair, but where's the swag in that? Once we get Squirtle offstage he is fairly easy to edgeguard. We have considerably more range on our aerials than him so RAR bair is always great. If a Squirtle drops low chances are he is sweetspotting so get the ledge if you can. Failing that Ivy has a lot of tools for spiking Squirtle out of Waterfall. Dair can be sweetspotted through the Waterfall and it is possible to land the Uair meteor through it. Realistically Dair is the best option for that.

What to avoid:
A grounded Squirtle with a lot of space to run around. If you let that happen and do anything laggy Squirtle will slide in with a punish. Squirtle also has the 2nd best wavedash in the game so be aware of things like WD OoS if you're pressuring him. Try not to get grabbed by Squirtle. His throw options against floaties are crazy. Dthrow is a kill throw but with good DI it should kill ~150%. Uthrow can lead into most aerials, Aqua Jet and Waterfall depending on DI. Fthrow is a DI trap with Uair. Also with Ivy's floatiness she is very susceptible to Fthrow to RHUS which will kill at around 90% on PS2 so if the Squirtle goes for an Fthrow DI down and away for the tech.

Extras:
Don't use Razor Leaf on the ground and it should be used minimally againt Squirtle anyway.
Squirtle doing a Shellshift is a commitment equal to that of a wavedash. There are 15 frames in which Squirtle cannot raise a shield (although there is a hitbox out for some of them)

Steel Kangaroo · Dec 5, 2015

Marth

Stages: I think we want a tri-plat of any size. Top platform is relatively safe if you need a breather since marth has to really commit to get you up there (especially on BF and DL). Platforms are also beneficial because of the followups we get from dthrow. If Marth DIs improperly on a dthrow from stage, we can potentially follow with uairs onto mid and then top platform. I think BF is our best stage in the matchup, then DL. Assuming the marth is playing the matchup properly and DD-ing a lot, the bigger the stage size the harder it will be to actually land hits and interact favorably in neutral. Ps2 is a mixed bag bc of this: we get earlier kills from uair but their sideB to utilt confirms kill us earlier as well and the larger stage means they can DD on us more easily.

How to win: Your entire goal in neutral should be to figure out how to navigate around their DD and land either a dthrow or dtilt. You almost always want to stay grounded if Marth is facing you as fair and ftilt can stuff any aerial approach. Razor leaf forces marth to approach but you have to be extremely aware of when it's safe to use. Marths dash dance is very vulnerable to interruption during their dash back, as all they have is pivot ftilt/fsmash which is hard to do, and SH bair which is pretty bad tbh. Try to close space by playing footsies, dashing back/WD back on their dash forward (or dtilting/ftilting if they get close enough without throwing their dtilt) and dashing forward/tomahawk on their dash back. When you do throw RL there are two purposes: 1. To close space on their dash back and gain stage control or 2. To see how they react to it. Sometimes marth will jump oos after shielding RL, which can be exploited by SH bairing from max range. If they run shield it and shield grab you or ftilt the leaf, you won't get any mileage out of leafs thrown at marth when he's facing you. Focus your energy on reacting to the options they choose out of their dash dance and trying to safely close space and gain stage control on their dash back.

Combos will get started with dtilt or dthrow. Bthrow/fthrow near edge will be better when they're not liable to be setup for anything good off dthrow (i.e. higher percents).

Edgeguarding marth can be tricky but there are really a limited number of options marth has and we can cover them all. First things first, grab ledge. From ledge, you can drop down and Bair marth if you see him sideB stalling...however if the marth catches on to this they can bair YOU if you get greedy so holding ledge is usually the safest option. When marth goes for UpB, they will have to choose ether ledge or stage. If you clearly have ledge and invul, they will go for stage which can be punished with a dair or waveland on bthrow if you're a baus. If you need to refresh your ledge invul quickly and try to trick the marth into choosing ledge, you can re-tether above the stage (practice this it's awesome) to avoid the hitbox of the UpB and then snap to ledge as marth is falling, snatching the ledge from them.

What to avoid: Your DI MUST be on point whenever you get grabbed or fair'd. Proper DI on fthrow is down and away...if you're getting regrabbed or tippered you aren't DIing properly. At higher percents there's a mixup where fthrow and bthrow have opposite ideal DI...unless you're near the edge where it's clear they're trying to setup for a tipper try to judge based on the player and their playstyle. If you get faired, you want to DI up and away and try to go offstage. Marth can't really followup on you if you're offstage as long as you aren't in range for dair. Avoid being above marth bc you can get utilt juggled and killed easily from it. Also avoid getting impatient in neutral....large flat stages like FD will probably make it harder for you to play a patient neutral bc you WI get DD camped. Avoid being airborne in front of Marth, avoid throwing RL at bad times, avoid their fsmash range unless you're trying to bait it out.

Extras
If you go to a flat stage like GHZ or FD (which will probably happen on their counterpick), smart, judicious use of seed bomb to disrupt their DD will serve you well. Don't overuse it because it can be punished pretty bad but using it to either close off space and gain stage control or setting a trap when they dash in can be effective.

Steel Kangaroo · Dec 6, 2015

Okay I'll add some stuff to the GW Matchup section because I've played a few and I think the way to play it is obvious.

Stages: BF is a decent neutral, GW has good combos on it but we get a lot of stage control through vines on plats. PS2 is really good for us because it sets up for easy kills and the large-ish stage allows us to zone him pretty well. This is kind of minor but the camera on that stage makes it harder for GW to sweetspot their UpB so it's another reason why I like it :D.

What to do: SH fair is your best friend in this matchup. Don't approach GW unless they're really choking out your stage control and you're in the corner, otherwise zone with RL and your superior range. WD back -> dtilt will catch a lot of their approaches if they're coming from farther away. You want to avoid being stuck in shield or in SH fair -> dtilt range because it's hard to deal with that ****. Our SH fair outright beats any aerial GW tries to come in with and also beats SH bacon...keep them away from you and hit them out of their approaches and slowly take away their space. This matchup will be more about stage control than combos for Ivy. To edgeguard, hold ledge and refresh invul when they're near UpB range (assuming no DJ, if they have their DJ you need to be more predicitive) so they have to overshoot ledge and go to stage. You can ledgehop bair and hit them out of their UpB and then regrab ledge and do it again until they die. Your biggest assests in this matchup will be zoning and stage control (and patience!)

What to avoid: Making mistakes, letting GW into your ****. Any GW punish will be for at least 40% if they're at all decent at comboing. Don't overextend your own punish because, lets face it, you're not gonna combo GW super hard and he can make you regret your overextension. Don't be phased by the bacon just don't let them get their setups. Stay the **** outta their dtilt range--know that if they go for dtilt a lot you can punish them for it by dtilting yourself. They will be CCing it so you can usually get at least another dtilt if they don't SDI out of it.

Extras: You can option select tech their dthrow by holding L or R while they're throwing you and then react to any of their aerial throws. They have a lot of guaranteed followups from either uthrow or f/bthrow so they probably wont go for dthrow but you HAVE to tech it or else it leads to dsmash or dtilt. They can DACUS followup the dthrow so mixup your tech habits.

Steel Kangaroo · Dec 7, 2015

Wario because Nova Fuzz requested it

Stages: You want to avoid platforms in this MU, and ideally you want a bigger stage to zone him better. Smashville seems ideal because the celings are a bit higher than PS2 so Wario's uair won't kill as early. I like FD in the matchup for this and other reasons. You may also want to take him to a smaller stage and stifle him with vines if he seems like the kind of Wario to be more campy

What to do: Zone Wario out. Make him afraid to get up in your space. Use RL, dtilt, and SH fair to keep him out and to set up for combos. Wario will be trying to weave through your aerials and tilts so a patient neutral is key to identify their jumping patterns, otherwise you will get baited with a lot of empty hops or retreating double jumps. Know where your effective ranges and really try to zone Wario and keep him there. Keep in mind that if he tries to camp you for waft, keep the pressure on him by charging solar beam as well. At around 40 or 50% dthrow followups won't work. If you get a grab center stage at this percent uthrow will give you some charge and setup for a seed bomb. Otherwise start going for gimps because if you don't gimp him or get him with a falling uair setup he will live a long time. Shoulder bash is best dealt with by shielding and WDing oos to punish. I've had mixed success with clanking shoulder bash with dtilt and the like so be aware of the ranges Wario will use it to approach. If you can get above Wario in the air you may have success with falling uair to knock him out of the air and start combos. Be VERY aware of how you are DI-ing his bite, as its a 50/50 mixup into fairs and waft. If he has a waft you want to DI away from where he throws you (he can throw you either direction with bite, hence the mixup) no matter what and try to DI up and out so you don't get weak fair -> waft. Otherwise you may want to opt for DI in at low percents to avoid fair chains and just take the uair. Essentially you choose your punish from bite based on your DI and where he throws you, so be smart about it!

On the edgeguarding side, you can knock Wario out of his SideB with our bair, and it also works on his UpB. Falling uair will usually trade with UpB which is good for us. Treating Wario like Sheik in recovery style is legit, his UpB has a surprising amount of hitboxes on it that you don't really want to deal with. If Wario goes over the ledge a ledgehopped bair would work also.

What to avoid: Avoid throwing aerials on a grounded Wario; dtilt is much more effective. Wario has insane CC and he can also jab you out of some aerial approaches. Try to never get caught in shield against Wario...his nair will almost guaranteed shield poke us (strong multihit + our ****ty shield = RIP), his bite is his main combo starter and it goes through shield as well so shielding is bad unless its against shoulder bash or you act oos really quickly. On that note: AVOID GETTING BITTEN AT ALL COSTS. If a competent Wario player lands bite on us, we're probably going to eat a huge punish, or die if he has a waft. The amount of DI mixups and different combo trees he has from bite makes it incredibly deadly. A common tactic Warios will use is getting you to a platform and going for an aerial (or even faking the aerial) so you shield, and then going for bite. Its easier to land when you're on a platform! Also Wario's tether punishes are disgusting, especially if he has waft. He can drop down and waft us while we're hanging in tether, he can follow our forced hop and waft, he can bair us to cover either drift forward or drift back, hell he can probably bite us as a tether punish. Be really smart about how you clear the ledge and get back to stage. Wario may also try for an offstage nair which is deadly if it hits. If you sense Wario going for that try to tether from a good distance so you don't get clipped.

Extra:
Wario's getup attack is ****ing gigantic, seriously look at it in debug so you never get hit by it wtf why is it so big

Steel Kangaroo · Dec 7, 2015

This is Charizard. I think I have a decent handle on the MU because its just so intense and combo heavy I love it...Basically punish game is even between us but we have an easier time in neutral and on the edgeguard front so we have a pretty big advantage. They have more str8 up kill power but not by much.

Stages: You want to avoid really big stages or stages with low ceilings. Zard has confirms off the top that are much better than what we can do so low ceilings are not good for us. Zard is heavy and has a really good recovery if they avoid being gimped so if you take him to dreamland or something he's gonna live till 200% every stock. GHZ is good, Smashville is good, BF is good although a lot of Zards like that stage but if you're confident in your zoning those are all good picks. If you go to BF you are gonna want to mostly stay on the ground, zard can kill very early from top platform so be aware.

How to win: Overall Ivysaur has the tools to zone charizard out and combo him to death. First you need to identify what type of Zard you're playing. The two basic types I've seen are spaced nair zards and dash dance heavy/combo zards. The space nair zards will take to the air at any opportunity and try to space sweetspot nairs. This is actually pretty easy for us to deal with, especially on more open stages like smashville and GHZ. Seed bomb and vine whip will be key at locking them on the ground and punishing them whenever they're in the air. If they're going for a lot of nairs you either want to stay far away from them and throw leaves or be closer to them so they dont get the nair sweetspot. Against a more grounded zard you gotta play honest footsies and use dtilt and RL to punish them for being out of position. Generally we don't have to approach them because of RL, ftilt and jab are the only things that they have that can easily beat RL on the ground and those are both punishable. Be aware that if you're jumping in with aerials he can jab you out of it so the ideal way to approach neutral is getting confirms with RL and then going HAM. Once you land a hit you can take it really far because zard is so big and at a nice combo weight. Fair -> nair -> utilt still works on zard much better than a lot of other characters because of his size. Seriously just practice your combos on zard and you will be able to tack on 60 or 70% off a grab or utilt. Dtillt -> vinewhip is a good kill option.

When being combo'd by zard, which will happen because zard loves our combo weight just as much as we love his, you want to avoid being directly above him in the air, and stay away from his fair. DI-ing up and away from most of his setups will keep you safe, but zard is really good at following in the air and continuing the juggle so often your safest bet is to try to go offstage and just tether to ledge. BnB combos for Zard include uair strings to upB, uair -> dair (tech that ****), and bthrow -> fair. You pretty much want to always DI for bthrow unless its obvious hes gonna fthrow, at least until he starts using the mixup. Bthrow sets up for so much that you really have to be aware. At higher percents they may go for uthrow to kill us, I've been told its ideal not to DI as it gives us the best chance of surviving.

On the edgeguard side, we have a pretty big advantage here. If you can hit zard out of his glide with bair, he's dead. Falling uair will kill him at some percents unless theyre godlike at meteor canceling, and zard's recovery pattern can be very predictable. I would say opt for holding ledge and either bairing them as they return or doing the SK patented marth killer technique (tether above ledge and resnap to steal ledge) if they're trying to sweetspot their upB. Ledgehopped bair also is great if they're trying to glide above ledge.

What to avoid: Being in the air, especially right above Zard. His jab and usmash are quick anti-airs that can lead into some nasty juggles. Avoid getting impatient and getting baited if the Zard is dash dancing on you...our RL and maneuverability can compete with Zard's dash dance if you're patient. Also avoid getting zoned out by Zard's bair, nair, and dtilt. Know the spacing of his sweetspots and avoid those. Taking a sourspot nair is MUCH preferable to the sweetspot so know where you can zone safely. Avoid approaching if you can, Zard is pretty good at stuffing approaches and we have no reason to approach in the MU because hes a fat **** with no projectile. If you get dair'd, you gotta tech it and mixup your tech habits so they don't pillar you.

Extras:
Tech in place -> jab will beat or clank with any followups Zard has on dthrow. Unless he dashes out of jab range and goes for a regrab, tech in place jab is ideal for beating his dthrow quasi-cg. Otherwise you want to mixup your tech habits a lot (but favor tech away because they have to react to it), because if they read it they can punish hard.

it's Papa · Dec 8, 2015

For the 1000th time, Jiggs is an even MU. Don't feel like getting into it right now but might contribute that section later, since I'm probably the only upper tier Ivy that has any consistent experience playing against a top Jiggs.

WickedUMD · Dec 9, 2015

it's Papa said:
For the 1000th time, Jiggs is an even MU. Don't feel like getting into it right now but might contribute that section later, since I'm probably the only upper tier Ivy that has any consistent experience playing against a top Jiggs.

Fixed. I went with Mach's list and my own intuition, but I noticed in his more recent one he expressed more uncertainty. I don't want to get too caught up in spreads with the meta being so young, I want the strats so we can advance the meta. Get that writeup done for me when you get a chance. Thanks, mate!

Elwing285 · Dec 12, 2015

I don't think Ivy wins against sonic... In my experience, sonic is fast enough to DD circles around Ivy and easily punish all of her options. Ivy's spacing options become so much weaker vs a character as fast as sonic. It plays similar to the Captain Falcon matchup, but sonic doesn't punish as hard but has an easier time getting in.

Verduyn · Dec 13, 2015

Elwing285 said:
I don't think Ivy wins against sonic... In my experience, sonic is fast enough to DD circles around Ivy and easily punish all of her options. Ivy's spacing options become so much weaker vs a character as fast as sonic. It plays similar to the Captain Falcon matchup, but sonic doesn't punish as hard but has an easier time getting in.

Sonic's bad hitboxes gives us an easy time in neutral. Sonic can DD all he wants but that doesn't change the fact that we can stop all his approaches with a well placed Razor Leaf or SHFFL bair. Neutral is where Ivy beats Sonic so in that MU the gameplan is really to keep resetting to neutral and keep winning it

WickedUMD · Dec 13, 2015

Again, guys. Let's stop focusing on spreads. They are subject to change as we have top Ivys play top Sonics, which doesn't exist right now. What I care about is getting actual, useable MU information. This is a guide, I only have them here for extra information, but I will just remove them if they keep distracting from actual point of this thread.

Ark5712 · Jan 29, 2016

The Diddy matchup is not easy for Ivysaur. He has a lot of high-pressure, low-commitment tools that can keep us out. You have to understand Diddy’s kit extremely well to excel in the matchup against him.

Neutral: I’ll start off by just listing Diddy’s options, then I’ll detail some of our own. Different Diddys like to do different things, but it could be argued that a Diddy playing campy is playing optimally against Ivysaur. Diddy will often start off the game with a banana pull. He can then shoot peanuts to bait an approach, then punish the approach with the banana.

There is a common situation in this matchup that I ‘lovingly’ refer to as “Behind the Banana” (BTB). This setup can be quite tough for us to deal with, especially without matchup experience. How it works is, the monkey will place the banana a character length or two in front of him, with the ledge to his back, also at around two character lengths. From there he will popgun you, or otherwise try to bait an approach. On larger stages you can camp and heal, but if you are behind or on a smaller stage, you have to react somehow. If you jump over the banana/peanuts to try to poke him, be ready for his myriad of options. The peanuts will eat razor leaf, so it’s difficult to pressure with those if he’s behind banana. If you try to cross him up, he can usually punish on reaction. Good Diddys will often punish you for going for the banana as well.

Let it be noted that Diddy has a spectacular shield. Like, I’m pretty sure it was the best shield in Brawl, and it’s pretty much carried over from that. If he’s patient in shield, he can hold it for quite a while and still not be shield poked. In a “Behind the Banana” situation, a LOT of our typical approach options get shut down. You cannot land in front of Diddy or you will trip. Even if you waveland back to catch the banana, he can cover most of your options. You cannot shield poke him with nair > jab > jab; he can roll through the banana to the other side of it, he can bair out of shield, or instant throw OOS if he’s holding the banana. Jab > grab can work, but only if you condition him into holding shield, and it’s a bit slow. If you’re in a situation where you have to pressure his shield, usually nair > jab > move away is optimal, then try to punish his OOS option (which will often be a roll or Bair, especially in a BTB situation.

Diddy can also crouch cancel in neutral to absurd percents. Both Dtilt and Dsmash work on many of our moves past 60-70%. Poking with our own downtilt at max range isn’t bad, but you have to be extra careful when attempting to space fairs, bairs, or nairs in neutral. Razor leaf, too, gets CC’d pretty hard, so you have to be careful not to autopilot after your regular hit confirms.

Diddy can dthrow chaingrab at low percents. Your escape options are to either DI forward then nair out of it, or DI hard behind him, after which you can tech or land. He can Dthrow into fair as a kill setup, so be prepared to Di the fair upwards if you’re at high percent. He can also dthrow > upsmash depending on your percent and DI, so be prepared to potentially SDI the soft hits of upsmash so you can avoid the finisher.

If the banana is in Diddy’s hand, he can still popgun, and he can instantly throw the banana out of shield. He can cover his landings with popgun or banana similarly to what we often do with razor leaf, except it’s much lower commitment for him. Don’t miss techs in general, especially off banana and MIX UP YOUR TECH OPTIONS. When I say ‘in general’ I mean it may not hurt to miss one on purpose once in a while after conditioning the opponent into believing you will nail the tech every time. They’re mixups. Do them.

Alright let’s review: Diddy has an insane shield, good CC, and BTB to shut down our options. On the defense, mixup tech options, camp bigger stages, and apply very careful pokes and shield pressure.

Now on our end, what can we do? First let’s talk about handling the biggest potential shutdown: BTB. If Diddy’s BTB on a stage without platforms, we can apply pressure with high seedbombs. Don’t waste your double jump (you need to be able to land safely). Angle them so they land at his feet, or on the banana. Peanuts won’t cover them since they come from above. Diddy’s options are: Stop shooting and shield, stop shooting and dodge the seed, stop shooting and roll away, or get hit. The important part about all this is that he should stop shooting. This is the opening you want. After he stops shooting during a BTB setup, you finally have options. If you cross him up before the seed lands, you can bait the shield and then grab him. If he rolls, you can poke him to punish or try to land and grab. Alternatively, you can waveland catch the banana without fear of punish, because the seed should cover you.

Once you get an opening, you want to do everything in your power to land a grab. Just about every action you take in neutral should have one of these three goals in mind (in order of highest priority):

1) Grab

You should know as an Ivysaur main that we can get SO much off of a grab. Learn your combos on fast fallers, especially diddy. He feels very similar to comboing Roy. Low percent: DI out leads to fair, or he has to land in which case you can techchase > regrab. DI in should lead to no less than eight sweetspot upairs into solarbeam (really though chain as many as you can). DI in can also lead to dair > techchase > dair or regrab. If you get a grab facing offstage, DI out on downthrow leads to fair > dair (dunk) and DI in leads to dair > (double dip if you need to). Really, grabs are our best conversion.

Upthrow can be used to some success at low-mid percents. If they DI in front of you, you can jab > regrab before they land. It’s a good DI mixup if you’ve conditioned them to always DI away because of downthrow.

Backthrow at ledge can kill or lead to an edgeguard situation. Forward throw is not bad either for the same purpose, but it kills a bit later.

2) Safe pokes

Optimally space fairs, you can waveland out of them to avoid CC moves. Dtilt is good because it can lead to a grab or upairs if it pops diddy up. Nair isn’t great at lower percents because it can be CC’d, but higher percents it can lead to an edgeguard situation or even kill outright. Bair is not usually good in neutral because it can be CC’d or reacted to. It can, however, eat peanuts, so use at your own discretion.

3) Kill setups

This is an extension of safe pokes. Dtilt leads to upair, dash attack leads to solarbeam, downthrow is bae. Upthrow can also convert into solarbeam depending on DI. You can dthrow> vinewhip for a kill above 110 or so need to check percents on that if they DI right for it. Fair is a great edgeguard, sets up into more fairs or dair.

Stages: I mentioned earlier that you can camp healing on larger stages. Generally you want to take diddy to platform stages because it gives him more to work around and makes the banana less of an issue. The addition of a platform strengthens his BTB tactic, because it shuts down aerial approaches and seed bomb. However, if you gain control of the banana, it’s much easier to get it out of play or in your favor. Even though I love GHZ as ivysaur, it can be tough there against diddy: platform isn’t really an issue for the banana, stage itself is small, high ceilings mean he lives a bit longer to uair, and small sides mean we die to fair sooner. He can outcamp us there pretty well, which isn’t fun. However, you can at least rain seedbombs on him there. Battlefield and Smashville are alright, fountain is okay, PS2 is fluid, it depends on the ivy/diddy players in my opinion.

Edgeguarding: After refining your onstage combo game, you need to make sure you can finish the job offstage if need be. Low percent you can cheese hard with a grab near ledge with bthrow > chunky dunk > ledgegrab. As mentioned earlier you can also dthrow > dair > (second dair if needed) if they DI offstage. Once diddy is offstage, he has a pretty simple flow chart. Simple, but effective. Diddy can recover from pretty far away, but I wouldn’t say that makes his recovery amazing. You have to guess his angle then punish accordingly. Wide arcs can be chunky dunked, if you read his side-b you can RAR a backair, and if he misses a sweetspot or tries to go onstage you can dsmash him away. Really good diddys also have AGT as a mixup, but I’ve rarely seen it utilized as a recovery (so far). If you can burn his second jump you should almost never have an excuse not to finish the stock. If he’s deep his flowchart will be: Side-B kick (If you can get deep enough fast enough you can end it here) > jump (if he has it) > charge up B. You can follow his angle somewhat be seeing which way he angles his body before firing the rockets. He can release it whenever he wants, but know that a longer charge = more distance. Ledgegrab > invincible nair is a great punish for rocketbarrel, because it trumps a bunch of timing mixups diddy can try. You can also bait him into shooting for stage by grabbing the ledge, then you can ledgedash > grab in time to punish his landing, if he goes too high for your nair.

This writeup is a fluid work in progress, if you have any insight or suggestions, let me know!

Steel Kangaroo · Feb 21, 2016

Okay guys, here's Ike. CO is the land of Ikes, with JuSt being #1 in CO playing mainly Ike and the #10 on our PR (BB) also being an accomplished Ike.

Difficulty: (Ivy%:Opp%)
50/50 but very stage dependant. We both punish super hard, we have the tools to force approaches and faster aerials but they have stronger, easier to land kill moves and an amazing recovery.

Stages:
I think our only two “good stages” in this matchup are Smashville and BF. The platform(s) usually helps us more than it helps Ike, since we can use it to escape juggles and continue our own, and the wider blastzones (but not too big), mean we don’t die as easily to fair and RAR bair but Ike’s godlike recovery doesn’t let him live forever like on DL.

PS2 is also okay for us because we can camp a bit more but we die SO early to Ike’s kill moves, so one grab at 70% is usually death.

Bad stages for us are very small stages and very large stages. Ike has a weird combo of a strong recovery and strong kill moves, so small stages and large stages both emphasize aspects of this issue. Typically Ikes prefer either smaller or larger stages, so try and think about how they play and what they may like when doing bans, but honestly expect to be cheesed at least somewhat on their CP, Ike has a LOT of good stages.

#1 worst stage for us against Ike is FoD, no question. If that’s in your stage-list, it’s an autoban against Ike. His UpB hitbox on that stage is 100% pure bull****, the larger top blastzone and small sides means he kills us more easily than we kill him (typically I find I kill Ike off the top), and the small stage + platforms means its harder for us to camp.

How to Win:
Basically we want to force Ike to approach, win neutral once, and then push our combo game as hard as possible. Ike has trouble acting OoS and doesn’t really have ways of dealing with pressure, however his shield size + grab range means we can’t go full HAM on his shield. Things like RL -> crossup nair -> pivot grab can be hard for Ike to deal with save buffering a roll or WD OoS. The issue is that Ike’s hitboxes can beat RL fairly easily, so you can’t become predictable with your RL spam or your neutral movement. Our dtilt is a great move for us to start combos but in neutral can be difficult to land if the Ike takes to the air, since a SH fair will almost certainly hit us or at least trade, a winning trade for Ike. Basically I alternate between RL spam to keep them from QDing and force them to shield/play on their backfoot and approaching with RAR bair or nair. Nair is faster than all of their aerials, so it’s a game of who acts first and who makes the right guess. If they attempt to nair or fair at us and you read it quick enough, nair will beat it. If they bait you, you just got ****ed (either fadeback fair’d or DD grabbed). For this reason it’s advisable to force Ike to make the first move and then punish them. If they are keen to use fair across your dash dance (i.e. in a way that beats WD back/dash back), proactive rolling may be ideal (roll behind as their fair). Additionally it’s hard for us to DD grab Ike because of his insane jab…it reaches super far and comes out quick. Instead of going for pivot grab we need to DD JC grab from farther away. Dthrow confirms will work for a long period of time into uair strings. Uair is great because we keep him close and do tons of damage. We set up for uair and solar beam kills pretty well also.

Edgeguarding is another huge topic with Ike because he has SO many options, but we can cover most of them (or at least some of them lol). Basically Ike has two main options, SideB and UpB. SideB can be intercepted with bair if they try to sweetspot ledge or go below ledge to walljump, but you have to catch them as they’re coming in. Note that if they DI up and away and end up in top corner, they may SideB but land on stage, so SideB doesn’t immediately equal bair, since you have to be prepared to meet them on stage if they go high. Covering both high and ledge is really tough and I’m not quite sure how to do it. Also note if they’re SideB-ing to ledge, grabbing ledge and rolling will kill them outright.

UpB is a whole ‘nother beast. It really depends on the angle and place they initiate their UpB what they’re trying to do. In general, you want to grab ledge if you suspect an UpB. If they’re close enough that you can invul bair from ledge and hit them as they’re starting up, do that, but generally you won’t be able to because UpB can cover a pretty decent horizontal and vertical distance. It’s better to avoid the UpB hitbox if you’re not sure. Assuming you maintain ledge invul and don’t go to hit them out, you basically have to judge whether they’re going for ledge or stage and act accordingly. If they’re going for ledge, roll when they come down and they should die. If they go for stage, they’ll probably land near ledge (like Sheik) and you can punish accordingly. I like dair from ledge -> uair/vinewhip or ledgedash bthrow as options but be creative. Note that there are some times where it’s completely ambiguous where they’re going with their UpB and in those cases you can either go based on their habits or just do the safest option. There are some times where Ike just gets back, straight up.

If he goes for SideB walljump -> UpB, its usually better to wait for the UpB and force him to go to stage. We don’t have a strong hitbox that can reliably trade with the SideB or walljump, except for maybe invul dair but Ike can drop lower than invul dair will reach. Again, sometimes Ike just gets back. His recovery is ****ing GOOD.

What to Avoid:
Ike has some of the most bonkers confirms off of grab. At low percents they can mix up between fthrow regrab, bthrow regrab, dthrow nair, or uthrow uair. (yeah seriously) I think we can jump out of uthrow followups pretty early so the basic mixups are dthrow followups and regrab followups. At 70/80%, we are pretty much guaranteed to eat a followup from dthrow/fthrow regardless of DI (confirmed this with JuSt, between RAR bair and fair, we are guaranteed to be sent offstage from a grab at 80%+) If you aren’t good at putting on the pressure, Ike will overwhelm you with strong hitboxes, force you into shield, and then **** you up off grabs. Spaced bair is safe on shield from Ike and basically requires a WD OoS to deal with.

The other issue is getting juggled. Once you’re above Ike, you’re at an extreme disadvantage. My recommendation is to be smart about when you use your double jump and when to use dair or uair. Generally you want to go to ledge as soon as possible and just slowly regain positioning. Be patient in this sense and don’t burn your DJ unless you see the Ike jumping at you. If you can avoid getting juggled hard your % won’t be too bad.

Oh also, never fade back against Ike during a tether punish. They have one of the most braindead punishes in the game, because bair covers both fade forward and fade back and bair will outright kill us. So you gotta fade forward no matter what until they super commit to dairing us onstage and then you can squeak in a fade back. Nair also hits forwards and backwards as well so even if they're unoptimal we still lose on fadeback. It's ****ing stupid but what are ya gonna do? In general try to airdodge on stage or fall with uair

steelguttey · May 1, 2016

yea i just cant agree with ivy-oli being 70-30 in your favor, the more i play it the more i see it being closer to even. olimar's gameplan in neutral is to use side b to condition the opponent into giving up stage control or giving olimar free punishes, and he does that by forcing you to stop camping and throw ot aerial so you can stop getting damaged by pikmin. while synthesis does windbox pikmin off, it isnt too bad because 1. its the same thing as using an aerial to hit pikmin off and 2. unlike when you hit pikmin off, i can just whistle and they immediately come back because windboxes just push them. so honestly, its better if you just nair them off. also you can get solar beam charge from pikmin, but moves that charge solar beam (uair, usmash, dair) are all super slow so that gives me a free punish if you do them from center stage. not only that, but ivy has a huge cc problem and olimar has a dtilt that comes out frame 6 and pops ivy right up. and if you dont know how long olimar can cc ivy's neutral tools for, he is heavier than roy, so he can cc your bair until pretty high percents. you're also a very good combo weight for olimar, uthrow to fair/bair is a combo until around 140% depending on the pikmin (leaf white uthrow might combo even higher), weak pikmin fair to fair combos until very high percents, and its hard for you to land against my uair. sure, you can edgeguard me easily, but olimar is extremely good at punishing tether characters because of his extremely good ledgedash which lets him push you back offstage and repeat. not only that, but if he takes your double jump he can straight up gimp your tether going low with fsmash which has a hitbox lasting all the way down. the mu is probably even or slightly in your favor, really not as bad as i thought it was.

Saproling · May 2, 2016

steelguttey said:
yea i just cant agree with ivy-oli being 70-30 in your favor, the more i play it the more i see it being closer to even. olimar's gameplan in neutral is to use side b to condition the opponent into giving up stage control or giving olimar free punishes, and he does that by forcing you to stop camping and throw ot aerial so you can stop getting damaged by pikmin. while synthesis does windbox pikmin off, it isnt too bad because 1. its the same thing as using an aerial to hit pikmin off and 2. unlike when you hit pikmin off, i can just whistle and they immediately come back because windboxes just push them. so honestly, its better if you just nair them off. also you can get solar beam charge from pikmin, but moves that charge solar beam (uair, usmash, dair) are all super slow so that gives me a free punish if you do them from center stage. not only that, but ivy has a huge cc problem and olimar has a dtilt that comes out frame 6 and pops ivy right up. and if you dont know how long olimar can cc ivy's neutral tools for, he is heavier than roy, so he can cc your bair until pretty high percents. you're also a very good combo weight for olimar, uthrow to fair/bair is a combo until around 140% depending on the pikmin (leaf white uthrow might combo even higher), weak pikmin fair to fair combos until very high percents, and its hard for you to land against my uair. sure, you can edgeguard me easily, but olimar is extremely good at punishing tether characters because of his extremely good ledgedash which lets him push you back offstage and repeat. not only that, but if he takes your double jump he can straight up gimp your tether going low with fsmash which has a hitbox lasting all the way down. the mu is probably even or slightly in your favor, really not as bad as i thought it was.

Glad to see you guys are coming around im sure its annoying not being able to side B but it really isn't that vital to success just an annoyance.

WickedUMD · May 2, 2016

Aight I'm stepping in again... this thread is meant for additions to the guide, not debate or discussion. Direct that conversation to the Discord or make a new post. If you don't have something to add to one of the sections (Stages, How to Win, or What to Avoid), you should not be commenting here.

Guide It's Super Effective! Ivysaur 3.6 Matchup Guide

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