Key points in Samus' matchups?

[Sam'sAwakening]

So I am very new to playing Samus, and I was wondering about some key points in Samus' matchups (obviously). I'm not asking for an essay about each matchup, I am talking about 5 to 10 short (like a sentence or 2) key points about each mathup the Samus player should know. I am asking for short key points because I like to put notes on my phone to look at before I play a match in a tournament. You can leave a couple paragraphs if you want (I know there is already a thread with that somewhere), but I am just asking for something short. Thanks in advanced

 

[Litt]

So I am very new to playing Samus, and I was wondering about some key points in Samus' matchups (obviously). I'm not asking for an essay about each matchup, I am talking about 5 to 10 short (like a sentence or 2) key points about each mathup the Samus player should know. I am asking for short key points because I like to put notes on my phone to look at before I play a match in a tournament. You can leave a couple paragraphs if you want (I know there is already a thread with that somewhere), but I am just asking for something short. Thanks in advanced

Anything short enough to write in a notebook about a match up which you would reference before a match is worth memorizing or not even worth while writing down.

Notebooks are better for player specific tendencies or patterns, or things you notice about your own play to change up next time you play a specific person or match up.

If you want match up tips, go read the threads instead of asking others to TLDR summarize for you or go to the samus discord server and ask specific questions about match ups.

 

[343]

Matchups are way too complicated to break down into a few sentences for each matchup. The important stuff to learn first, I guess, are (1) what basic combos each character has on the other (pay attention to the first move of the combo because that's the move you or the opponent will be looking for in neutral), (2) ranges of each option and their ranges relative to yours, (3) what's safe on shield / against crouch-cancel for both sides, (4) what edgeguarding looks like for each character.

Once you're comfortable with these and actually play the matchup a bit, you can formulate more specific questions about specific situations. In general, you should only expect answers to very specific questions, because you'll only receive answers at the same level of generality as your question.

 

[dietsnapple89]

Since you will probably see Fox and Falco in tournament a lot, you need to know how to UpB out of shield to beat their shine pressure. Also, grab to Up Throw is good against fox and falco. If you up throw normally you can follow up with a Nair, Bair or Fair depending on the direction the player DI's. If you are on a stage with platforms, you can followup upthrow with a dair if the fox/falco likes to tech on the top platform(This is really good on Yoshi Story and Fountain of dreams). Getting the dair followup on fox/falco is great since it pops their body up into the air, allowing Samus to charge Fsmash, or use Up Tilt to send them flying towards a side blastzone.

Other than that, work on knowing when to crouch cancel and learn how to crisply approach and retreat with F-tilt using wavedashing. That's Samus's bread and butter.

 

[Thor]

Dsmash, dtilt, dash attack, and fsmash on block against Puff are punishable by Rest [as are other options like badly spaced aerials, but those 3 are notable]. Be very careful of those options. Some won't punish it [they'll opt for other options out of comfort, don't know it, or will opt for other options to try to condition you into thinking it's safe so they can land multiple rests if you keep doing it] but good ones will.

Up+b can be punished by rest if she falls out, if she SDIs out, and/or if you don't edge-cancel it [and of course if you whiff]. Be careful of that as well.

I'm not sure how reliable this advice is, but I know some pretty good Puff players said Samus's best strategy is to kick Puff away and charge charge shot [the way you might see Clouds try to get limit in Smash 4, if you're familiar with the game]. This will let you get access to charge shot more often during the match, and charge shot is extremely useful against Puff [25% fresh and fully charged, KOs early, connecting one lets you get progress on another or stage control at almost every percent if it doesn't seal a stock]. It's something I tried vs Puff the few times I tried the MU and it seems to work fine if you're comfortable with the endlag on charge shot cancelling.

Puff can duck Samus grab. She can't duck extender with homing on [from what I know], but grabs are thus risky vs Puff too (and extender has its own problems).

Good Puffs will come offstage against you to intercept bomb recoveries... be ready to be tricky with your recovery and be prepared to throw out aerials or avoid her while trying to get back onstage. Her airspeed is better though, so gimps are quite possible even if you're recovering pretty smartly.

No actual advice on fighting neutral from me [besides the one part about charge shot], but I imagine this is the sort of thing you'd want to put in your phone if you're worried you'll be forgetful.