Sage JoWii
Smash Champion
^ The above post made me lol so hard. I agree with that statement though that all the matchups should be even when we copy them. 
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Kirby Match-Up Thread: THE ANSWER to all MUs!
- Thread starter Sage JoWii
- Start date
DarkDefeater
Smash Apprentice
I hope the kirby vs rob matchup is posted soon. Due to Rob's aerials, combined with his projectiles...
Just now I was rather dominated by a good R.O.B.
Just now I was rather dominated by a good R.O.B.
Ussi
Smash Legend
you'd think Kirby would just copy then do it better
Triple R
Smash Lord
The ROB export matchup thread is already open. Look at the list of threads and you'll see it. Then you can go to town.
Sage JoWii
Smash Champion
Also we don't do ratios. Only how large or small the advantage or disadvantage is.
DarkDefeater
Smash Apprentice
Any advice on yoshi? Darn pivot grab. :/
Sage JoWii
Smash Champion
Lots of pressure man. Don't let up and get him off the stage.
Stay in the air but try and BAir retreat because Yoshi's aerials are kinda brutal but short-range.
Don't copy his power because it's just not worth it.
FTilt, BAir, and grabs are going to be your 'go-to' moves. If he's charging head on FTilt to stop him in his track and reverse>BAir.
Make sure to powershield his downB (I think that's the one where he slams down) and follow up with a DSmash. It last pretty long and has decent knockback to ensure you'll punish without being punished.
Most of this game is gonna be in the air and offstage. Keep pressure on him and pursue him offstage.
Stay in the air but try and BAir retreat because Yoshi's aerials are kinda brutal but short-range.
Don't copy his power because it's just not worth it.
FTilt, BAir, and grabs are going to be your 'go-to' moves. If he's charging head on FTilt to stop him in his track and reverse>BAir.
Make sure to powershield his downB (I think that's the one where he slams down) and follow up with a DSmash. It last pretty long and has decent knockback to ensure you'll punish without being punished.
Most of this game is gonna be in the air and offstage. Keep pressure on him and pursue him offstage.
Sage JoWii
Smash Champion
We haven't decided yet but we know it's an advantage matchup. Feel free to leave your thoughts about the matchup in the export. We have a falcon export open right now for both mains to comment on the matchup if you'd like to leave ur opinion.
Thank you. Will do.
Well, out-of-the-blue, the majority of Kirbies suddenly changed from their "Marth ***** us" stance to a "Marth is pretty even" one. That's a lot of different people's opinions, so I'm gonna check into the Marth MU as soon as I can for an extended period of time. Granted I never had problems against Marth in PR and the only Marth to 2-0 me was Pierce while I was nervous at Pound4 pools, which would pretty much point out to the matchup being even from my experiences, I still accepted that Marth's inherent traits were something that soundly beat Kirby when played in the right hands. Even some top Marth mainers say it's near even! So, I'll just check it out for a while and report back when I get enough up-to-date experience and insight.
One less disadvantageous MU wouldn't be bad at all, so hey, I wouldn't mind it going from disadvantaged to even. I would mind, however, if after researching more into it it's still not evenish and the MU thread changed it to even. Still, it's you guys' call here, since I'm just one person and the majority always wins.
One less disadvantageous MU wouldn't be bad at all, so hey, I wouldn't mind it going from disadvantaged to even. I would mind, however, if after researching more into it it's still not evenish and the MU thread changed it to even. Still, it's you guys' call here, since I'm just one person and the majority always wins.
Sage JoWii
Smash Champion
>_> The second to last sentence doesn't make sense.
Yeah it does. o_O Lemme simplify:
*I wouldn't mind if I found out the MU is really near-even, and we had one less disadvantaged MU, and the thread changed it to a more "even" number.
*I would mind if I found out the MU isn't really near-even, and we still had it as disadvantaged, and the thread changed it to a more "even" number.
Sage JoWii
Smash Champion
Kewkky just jump on bored will all us that have massive amounts of experience with this matchup.
I got some experience! Just... Not the best experience as far as I can see...
And how can I do that and then call myself a BBR member? I gotta learn before I take a decision, man! D:
Sage JoWii
Smash Champion
True. Just space your BAir, shield as much of his **** as you can and mindgame him with your grabs. >_>
C~Dog
Smash Champion
I have trouble with Marth :C
What can I do to BE THE VERY BESS??
What can I do to BE THE VERY BESS??
Sage JoWii
Smash Champion
Read the Marth summary first.
BAir a lot but space it ALL. If you don't space well you'll be RAEPED.
Pay attention to your grab combos and mindgame the UpB from Marth for a nice amnt of punishment damage.
Derp.
BAir a lot but space it ALL. If you don't space well you'll be RAEPED.
Pay attention to your grab combos and mindgame the UpB from Marth for a nice amnt of punishment damage.
Derp.
lucassassin
Smash Cadet
OK guys. I know I'm knew and all and correct me if i'm wrong but the way you lay out the match ups is a little hard to decipher. Try putting it in a chart and using ratios and state whether it's for or against. I beleive this would make the list a lot easier to read as a whole and make finding a specific match up a lot less complicated.
Sage JoWii
Smash Champion
new*
I love that we have a new Kirby main but I also know w/ that being said you're new to how the Kirby boards are run. Your mentor can elaborate on how I run my MU thread but I'll simplify my reasoning behind how this is working so far.
I started this MU thread and my aim isn't for it to look appealing and elaborate (yet). My mission is to get all the MUs discussed and available for anyone to link to and understand a MU. Ratios are bad in that they are NOT universal and leave out the main point of 'what kind of MU is it'. If you had read the OP you would've seen the foreword and the rest of my thoughts which would make this post unnecessary. I'd be glad to talk in length abt this if you care to PM later in ur SWF adventure when you have the opportunity and ability or on Skype but you can also ask your mentor for help since that's what he is there for.
Welcome to the Kirby boards. <3.
I love that we have a new Kirby main but I also know w/ that being said you're new to how the Kirby boards are run. Your mentor can elaborate on how I run my MU thread but I'll simplify my reasoning behind how this is working so far.
I started this MU thread and my aim isn't for it to look appealing and elaborate (yet). My mission is to get all the MUs discussed and available for anyone to link to and understand a MU. Ratios are bad in that they are NOT universal and leave out the main point of 'what kind of MU is it'. If you had read the OP you would've seen the foreword and the rest of my thoughts which would make this post unnecessary. I'd be glad to talk in length abt this if you care to PM later in ur SWF adventure when you have the opportunity and ability or on Skype but you can also ask your mentor for help since that's what he is there for.
Welcome to the Kirby boards. <3.
Sage JoWii
Smash Champion
BAir a LOT! And keep track of the bike. Also don't approach Bite!
Tiersie
Smash Ace
Covering your missed/whiffed bairs with utilt works great on wario since he has to get in close to punish almost everything. Also DI away from all aerials since they can all pretty much combo you. Special note to this is dair and nair.
The real way to fight Wario is to utilt a lot with your back turned to Wario. It's immensely hard for him to get past our utilt with his aerials, and his grounded approach options are VEEEERY limited. Utilt whenever he gets near the ground! if you're below a platform, you're basically impenetrable. What makes this so effective? Our utilt's speed. Even Wario doesn't have the speed to punish a spaced utilt of ours, even if he's in the air, it's THAT fast.
Tiersie
Smash Ace
Start-up: 1-3
Hits: [(4-5)(4-9)]
IASA: 21
Hitlag: +6
Taken directly out of T!mmy's guide. All frame data is there. All kirby's tilts come out faster than a TL jab *smirk*
Hits: [(4-5)(4-9)]
IASA: 21
Hitlag: +6
Taken directly out of T!mmy's guide. All frame data is there. All kirby's tilts come out faster than a TL jab *smirk*
A1lion835
Smash Champion
Utilt is a very good move, but its range is pitiful. It only outclasses Nair, although it's extremely close to grab.
Don't get me wrong, utilt is almost a Kirby staple, but just be aware of its weaknesses.
Don't get me wrong, utilt is almost a Kirby staple, but just be aware of its weaknesses.
It's not the horizontal hitbox that I use, it's the vertical one! Wario approaches from the air, so vertical/diagonal is what we want, anti-air attacks! Since ours is grounded, it either beats aerials or we both get hit, and with Wario's signature dair beint a multi-hit, we're gonna take negligible damage while he gets hit with either another utilt or a bair (utilt>bair string). It's a good move, and it's even more helpful when you're below a platform, since he can't approach you from the air anymore, and if he tries from the ground, we either ftilt, bair/retreat a bair, or grab.
It doesn't get you wins if you spam it, but smart usage makes it very difficult for Wario to get in without taking damage, no matter how fast he weaves in and out of your maximum range/plays footsies. Just pay attention to his height, and utilt whenever he shows signs of landing, and done!
MikeKirby
OTL Winrar
U-tilt is better than it was in Melee (range wise) that's for sure. It launches up, and sets up for some fun! Well said Kewk!
Also, I think it'd be a good idea to link the "Big Picture" MK thread in OP of the MK Match-Up Export thread. Yes?
Also, I think it'd be a good idea to link the "Big Picture" MK thread in OP of the MK Match-Up Export thread. Yes?
Sage JoWii
Smash Champion
Good point MikeKirby. I'll get to it I'm sure lol.
A1lion835
Smash Champion
Hey all! JoWii doesn't have as much time for the MU thread as before and I stepped up. You're all probably pretty tired of me doing this (I would be), and I feel wrapping up the MU thread will be my last real involvement with MUs for a while.
For the most part, I'll be running the MUs the same as JoWii has. I can only think of one small difference that I feel will help the threads run a little more smoothly: the summaries will be posted at the very beginning of the discussion, completely blank. As the discussion moves on, I'll build up the info discussed in the thread, and also from other write-ups of the matchup (t1mmy writes a series of summaries on AiB). That way, you can look in on any point of the discussion and see which topics have already been covered and which need addressing, as well as make arguments with anything you disagree with.
Let's ****ing do this.
For the most part, I'll be running the MUs the same as JoWii has. I can only think of one small difference that I feel will help the threads run a little more smoothly: the summaries will be posted at the very beginning of the discussion, completely blank. As the discussion moves on, I'll build up the info discussed in the thread, and also from other write-ups of the matchup (t1mmy writes a series of summaries on AiB). That way, you can look in on any point of the discussion and see which topics have already been covered and which need addressing, as well as make arguments with anything you disagree with.
Let's ****ing do this.
I started writing some a while ago, but stopped and don't remember why. Here's the ones I have:
[collapse=Metaknight]It’s true that in a direct comparison, MK’s moveset outmatches Kirby’s in a lot of things., but that doesn’t mean the pink puffball doesn’t stand a chance. While it is true that this MU has to be played with much precision on Kirby’s part, it’s also true that Kirby has it better than many other characters, and it can be seen immediately as soon as the match begins between the respected mainers, the lead shifting back and forth between the two until a stock is taken. I’ve noticed that when Kirby takes the first stock, MK comes back and has no problem revenge-killing Kirby while taking minimum damage, which effectively sets the match back to even, but when MK takes the first stock, due to his better spacing options (both ground-spacing and diagonal-aerial spacing [a.k.a. Air Camping]), Kirby has a harder time killing MK to even out the match again, and will find himself taking noticeable damage before MK’s stock is gone. This is due to MK’s superior spacing options, and how vulnerable Kirby is left after each attempt at taking a stock from his opponent.
Kirby’s main game consists on baiting MK to react in specific ways, then punish accordingly. This could be making the MK dtilt or ftilt while we feint approaches then later trick him into doing either of them while we run in and shield his attack successfully for a free grab, or trick him into thinking we’re going to walk into his ftilt range and then hit him with a well-spaced ftilt (our best grounded spacer, it reaches farther than most people think), or tripping him with a well-spaced dtilt then techchasing his wake-up decision… Or it could be aerial too, just short-hopping near the ground in front of MK will force him to ftilt, which means a free bair when he slows down/is done, or maybe land into a grab as well if we’re close enough… We don’t have the ability to simply rush the opponent down like MK does, so we have to find ways to force MK into reacting certain ways for us to punish afterwards. On a note, a very popular option Kirby mainers use is they force MK into attacking with any grounded move, then they roll behind MK and pivot an utilt (frame 4 move, if I'm not mistaken). Utilt chains into utilt, which chains into a bair. Space the bair well at higher-than-lowest %s and MK can't hit you back for chaining those moves, effectively a safe way of starting stocks against opponents who get baited.
Kirby has 3 ways of reliably killing MK in this MU, all very different:
-Going through MK’s tornado attempts or shielding his misspaced attacks and punishing with an fsmash. It’s no secret that our fresh up-angled fsmash has deceiving range, and with the added bonus of strength, an MK hit with it at 120%+ shouldn’t be living (unless the stage has a high ceiling, which means that the opponent has more room to DI in).
-Outspacing MK in the air, or simply catching the MK off-guard near the ground with well-spaced bairs. Our bair might get stale, but what people sometimes fail to notice is thatpart of Kirby’s main game is grabs, pummels and throw. Apparently Sakurai decided to bless his pink puffball with a great pummel, because even if Kirby only does 1% each pummel, they refresh his moves even if you mash them down, as long as MK receives damage from the pummels. Add the throw into the equation, and his bair is almost as good as new after just two grabs! All that’s left is landing a bair and the stock is gone at 140%+.
-Fresh uthrows. I remember to thank Sakurai each time I play this MU at battlefield and other platformed stages, because he was kind enough to give this character a killing throw. A fresh uthrow on BF’s ground should take MK’s stock at around 160% with proper DI, but on a platform, it can be as low as 130%, and even lower the higher the platforms are. This works exceptionally well on stages with platforms that are very high up, like the infamous Rainbow Cruise uthrow kills, where you can take your opponent’s stock at as low as 0% with a well-aimed uthrow.
Kirby should never try to inhale MK, since MK can outrange his inhale without even trying. But if somehow, during the course of a match, Kirby manages to inhale MK, he now has an alternate recovery option. It’s no secret that MK is THE best offstage fighter in the game, so even Kirby will have problems recovering against an MK who knows what he’s doing, but with the tornado ability, we have now a very fast horizontal recovery option which we can use to speed past MK’s slow horizontal aerial movement.
All in all, this MU is a definite disadvantage.
*One thing I should make clear is that Kirby has no safe way of getting MK to leave the ledge if he starts planking with a lead. That is all.
[/collapse]
[collapse=Snake]Snake is a difficult character to gain the upper hand against, even moreso maintaining the advantage. He hits hard, he tanks hits like nobody’s business, he has fierce stage control, lots of sneaky tricks, and stage advantages. His recovery is average, but it can be done more than once, and with his C4, it makes gimping him far offstage impossible, and only near-stage gimps are possible (excluding Kirbicides, which work everywhere). His grenades are strong, have quite the large hitboxes, can kill, and refresh his moves, ensuring that his moves are as close to fresh as possible when he needs them, which of course, means less survivability for us. I guess Sakurai was close friends with Hideo Kojima, because he decided to bless Snake with the craziest grounded moveset in the game in terms of speed:range:damage; he isn’t what you would call a “balanced top tier character” in terms of his ground game… But lucky for us, even though he is a tough opponent, we still have a chance, and it’s because the tools we have work so well against heavy characters, even more on characters with linear recoveries and who are vulnerable to juggling!
In this MU, the only way to properly describe what Kirby does is with a redundant comment: “Kirby plays the same way, but different”. What I mean by this is that everything the Kirby mainer usually does in a matchup he knows by heart, he will do here too, but with some unnoticeable key differences . What differences? Well let me list them for you!
-Once you’re stringing, don’t stop. Normally as Kirby, you would start your string and you would complete it, then retreat to avoid damage. While this is true on this MU as well and you should always be careful, if you’ve got a string going, don’t stop it, and instead continue the string with baits and pressure. If before you would’ve ended in a retreating bair, now you don’t retreat it, but instead you follow Snake and force him to try and “punish” your “mistake”. While Snake’s in the air during a string, he’s only safe if Kirby’s on his backside, since no front-side aerial will knock Kirby away from him and he will always lag upon landing, his only true saving graces would be either upB’ing away and mindgaming a wavebounced grenade to escape a string or juggle, or buffering a grenade pull and hoping that Kirby’s attacks hits it while he drops it from the shock of Kirby’s attack. You’ll get damaged from the grenade of course, but add in all the hits you just inflicted on Snake (string = +damage), plus your last hit that also detonated the grenade (last hit = +damage, grenade explosion = +damage), and you’ll find that Snake just got racked up past 60% in a single go, and now it’s just a matter of baiting and punishing!
-Don’t shorthop your bairs, his ftilt beats it. Instead, either fullhop your bairs so that he stales his utilt instead (chances are it will miss if you spaced properly, believe it or not), or space with ftilts and dtilts. Our ftilt being our grounded spacer with most range, it challenges his ftilt’s range and punishes him for allowing you to get too close, and it has more range than his grab as well so if he’s a grab-happy grenade-dropping Snake you’ll find that ftilts do the trick perfectly. Dtilts trip Snake, and since he has a high traction, he won’t get knocked back as far, allowing us to chain dtilts until he trips, then run in for a shieldgrab chase, which sets up stringing and juggling scenarios. While we usually shorthop bairs in other MUs, his ftilt packs devastating damage and range which unluckily outranges our bair, it’s wiser to look for smarter alternatives than simply taking the hit and trying a second time, in this case it would be trading shorthops for fullhops.
-When dealing with grenades, either jump over them, or simply ignore them and get pelted. During my own matches versus other Snakes, I’ve noticed that if you simply ignore the uncooked grenades Snake throws at you and take the pelt damage, they are barely any nuisance and it forces the opponent into reacting out of fear of taking damage/losing the lead, and Snake’s reaction would be an ftilt, spot-dodge, or a pivot grab. What I usually do against Snakes when they throw grenades is I dash-attack and eat their spotdodges if they show the habit, I stop in a shield and immediately ftilt them from a safe distance, or I keep running and attempt a shieldgrab. It’s not a rock-paper-scissors scenario, the options correspond to what the opponent does during the course of a match, and how long he takes reacting to your approaching options… And about grenades on the floor? Simply float over them until they explode, then land.
-Juggle, juggle, JUGGLE! There is nothing sweeter in this MU than spacing your uairs well on a Snake that’s trying to touch ground, especially on stages without platforms where he is forced to land on the stage’s low floor. Kirby’s uair is disjointed so Snake will have lots of trouble beating it from above/in front, and while you juggle him your other moves refresh, assuring that your bair is fresh or near-fresh for the kill. If you’re juggling Snake and realize you’re on his backside, stop and move away. His bair has more range and is far stronger than your bair, stays out longer, and has some curious property to it (I went through a Snake’s legs while he baired with Kirby’s downB, and Snake didn’t get hit, and instead it clanked with Kirby’s stone and stayed out). Only juggle from below or in front of him!
Aside from those points, Kirby should play the MU like he usually does: start the stock with a grab or utilt if the possibility presents itself (or link an aerial/tilt to a grab), knock the opponent offstage and/or into the air on-stage, pressure the opponent off-stage, juggle, attempt a kirbicide if possible, and end the stock with a fresh move.
How to take a stock, though? Snake has range, strength, survivability, and speed, he’s a walking death machine for characters with no projectiles. Well, our kill moves will be bair, fsmash, dsmash, uair, and uthrow.
-Bair: Remember to refresh your moves with pummels whenever you grab Snake. Pelt him with hits from aerials/pummels/throws/tilts, and on later %s you’ll find your bair is still near-fresh and ready to kill with. Snake generally dies from a fresh bair at 160%+.
-Fsmash: Only way fsmash will kill in this MU is by frame-trapping Snake’s landing, or clashing against his bair when he’s near killing %. Snake is heavy, so he dies from a freshup-angled fsmash at around ~140%+.
-Dsmash: Sometimes it’s hard properly tracing Snake’s landing patterns due to his wavebouncing and you’ll find that landing fsmashes is harder than it seems in this MU. When this happens, you follow Snake’s landing pattern (while staying away from his backside) and hit him with a dsmash, which hits in front and behind of Kirby, and amazingly, above Kirby as well. Since dsmash has the same attribute as his fsmash in that it stays out for a while, you have a decent window for error and can certainly frametrap a landing Snake. If the ceiling is low, this should be a smart way of taking his stocks. Snake should be dying from a dsmash at about 160%+ off the top, and the lower the ceilings of the stages are, the faster he dies, naturally.
-Uair. This move will probably be stale, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t follow a recovering Snake high up above the stage and take his damaged stock with another uair AS LONG AS YOU’RE NOT ON HIS BACKSIDE. You’d be surprised how often this works after a failed KO attempt.
-Uthrow. Not the best way to kill, but sometimes you’ll find yourself dealing major damage to Snake and not able to land a killing blow, all while landing more grabs than smashes. You shouldn’t use uthrow during a match unless you had a situational tactic in mind (omnigay, windmill-spiking, ninja spiking, throwing them into a hazard, using Kirby’s rising invincibility frames to avoid damage from a mortar…), or Snake is ready for an uthrow kill. On Battlefield’s floor a uthrow generally kills Snake at above 210%+, and on a platform at 190%+.
Snake is a disadvantaged MU for Kirby. It’s not one of his worse MUs, nor even close to his worst MU, especially when you get used to changing up your tactics to deal with heavy-hitting tanks.
Oh, and remember to powershield his tilts, and chain utilts into bairs![/collapse]
[collapse=Diddy]Diddy is an interesting character to play against. There’s not that many MUs where you go up to a character who can spawn items at will and whose pressure strategies involve items. He’s been arguably the 3rd best character in the game for a while, popular because of his ground control and item game. Those characters who have a fast fallspeed, low jumps, and whose metagame revolves around the stage floor, find that Diddy is a very hard matchup to deal with due to his bananas having the ability to trip, essentially becoming the first hit towards an inescapable combo if you get hit by them while on the ground. Lucky for us, this is not the case with Kirby, and we have the upper hand here, even though it’s slightly!
Kirby’s main goal in this MU is, basically, to have Diddy throw his bananas at you. Usually this is a bad thing to want, but we have some traits that make it possible for us to turn this into an advantageous situation: multiple jumps, floatiness, and our small size! Due to us having multiple jumps, we can aircamp Diddy and avoid the dangers of bananas, while all the time keeping an eye on him as to when he commits to a decision for us to punish from above. None of Diddy’s aerials are menacing to us while aircamping (save for his fair, and it’s just a matter of learning how far it reaches and how fast he moves in the air), and if we just float near the ground, we’re constantly bombarding the Diddy’s second-nature reaction of “throw the banana!” (technically, we’re playing footsies with his banana’s range), landing at random intervals to renew our jumps, it’s just a matter of time before we successfully bait a banana throw, and now Diddy has no banana with which to threaten us. If you’re near Diddy when this happens, landing into a grab or a well-spaced bair would be your best options at this moment. While Diddy has no bananas in his hand, we can now string in peace as if he was any other character. It’s recommended that you know a fair share about item handling, because experience and observations have taught me that when other Kirbies don’t know how to use bananas properly the matchup gets much harder, but after I applied my item knowledge to the MU, Diddy was having more trouble than usual controlling the bananas due to an opponent with a high level of item control. If you don’t know how to use them you should throw them offstage, if you do then you should know what to do whenever a situation presents itself.
For damage-racking, your goal is to string him when he throws his banana. From the Diddy’s positioning it should be fairly obvious when and when not to approach with a bair; too far, and you should wait for another opportunity. Whenever the chance to trade hits presents itself, take it since his killing options will be saved for when he has the chance, the more damage you cause to Diddy the faster you take his stocks! You don’t have to worry about killing him as much as he has to worry about you, since your killing moves are disjointed and can frametrap his bad decisions.
Diddies usually kill with surprise throws you failed to DI, utilt at high %s, banana>dsmash combo, fsmash’s second hit, and fair at high %s. Although he has some relatively fast killing options, he has no frametrapping capabilities so usually his killing moves come from him approaching, or a banana throw, or an OoS option from one of your poorly-spaced attacks. If you’re careful enough, you could easily live past 180% by DI’ing his staled aerials from all of your air-camping, or from raising your shields whenever he gets near you without a banana and not letting go until he grabs you (you can’t get smashed in your shield, his only option of damage-racking is grabbing), which is great for a character as light and floaty as Kirby. Don’t try anything risky like a dash attack or a dair while he’s on-stage, those decisions are what will get you killed most of the time, so just stick to your safer options and you’ll breeze through stocks against Diddy like nobody’s business. That’s not to say that a Diddy who knows how to force reactions from you won’t trick you into committing to an attack for him to kill you though, you have to take this MU seriously all the time, since it’s nearly even he can still turn the matchup around with some smart options.
Our killing options will be the same as always: (re)freshed bairs at 140%+ (revenge killing when you respawn and he’s at higher %s, or forming gimping scenarios with staled/sourspotted bairs), uthrows on platforms at 150%+ (and on the ground at 170%+), up-angled fsmashes at 130%+ (clash against his grounded approaches or aerials), frame-trapping dsmashes (catch him when he comes back from off-stage recovering), dairs at Diddy for being below stage-level (blow up his barrels, it’s a 100% death rate for him)… Racking damage is the same as always as well, from tilts to juggling to shieldgrabs. String as much as you can when Diddy’s above you, since his aerial game isn’t good enough to pose a threat to you when you’re below him.
Conclusion? Kirby versus Diddy, slight advantage for Kirby. We have it easier in this MU, but there’s always the chance that the Diddy will know what to do more than you do, so stay on your toes. And on a small note, this is one of my favorite MUs to play as Kirby.[/collapse]
[collapse=Falco]Another character that has never gone below the highest tiers, Falco is one of those characters with the ability to both camp all match then come in for the kill, and play aggressive while staying relatively safe. A well-played Falco will always make it into the higher tourney placings, it’s only a handful of characters that have an edge over Falco, and it’s always for some different reason. Lucky for us, Kirby has a small advantage over Falco! This MU has been debated quite fiercely in the past, people saying it’s Kirby’s advantage, others saying it’s Falco’s slight advantage, and many others supporting the other more even areas. His famous lasers and chaingrab make up most of his metagame, and thanks to Kirby’s light weight, multiple jumps, floatiness and small crouch, we can get around this relatively easy.
One thing you have to know in this MU is that Falco chains his laser into many things. When he lasers while landing, he has no landing lag, so he gets frame advantage even if you shield them. His jab is also fast enough to get him frame advantage, so expect a lot of chaining from lasers and jabs against you. Your goal should be to get yourself somewhere where Falco is forced to commit to a longer-lasting attack, so the air is where you want to be. He has decent aerials, but half of them are multi-hit so you can SDI them and bair him for doing them, and the others won’t hit you if you’re hovering at the right distance (bair and dair are the only single-hit aerials of his, also his aerial movement is slow so uair isn’t something you have to be afraid of). If he jabs you or lasers you from close-up at lower %s, he’s going to dthrow chaingrab you. We only take about 25% from dthrows, but he’ll try and end in a dair or a gatling combo (dash attack + usmash) for an added 10-15% damage, so evading his grabs is a necessity, simply space your rising bairs and you’ll be safe. He’s a fastfaller but the slowest of the space animals, so strings/combos/chains won’t work as much against him as they would against the other two… Once you get him offstage, all you have to do is bair. Dair won’t knock him out of his sideB unless you aim it well, but bair will always knock him away, so stick to bairing him. If he’s below stage-level, a single dair hit will kill him, so if you see him upB’ing towards the ledge, jump after him and dair.
Falco kills with his usmash (boosted usually, its his most surprising smash since he can hit you with hit from long distances), fsmash (has some start-up so you should always know to not jump into his fsmashes, usually Falcos do it as an edgeguard/punish when you’re near them), dsmash (has relatively low range, and usually punishes you for landing near him or rolling into him), and bair (kills at high %s, so don’t worry much about it). He has no killing throws, so if you’re torn between taking a hit or getting grabbed at high %s, you should always choose to get grabbed. If he hits you with a multy-hit aerial while you’re on the ground and at high %s, make sure to buffer a shield so that he can’t kill you! If you’re offstage he can’t do anything to you but laser, and if you’re below stage-level you’re safe from everything, and he risks dying if he jumps down to try and hit you. When aiming for the ledge, don’t upB too high and always go for the lowest sweet-spotting possible, since he can dair your upB and kill you! He can also kill you with uair, but you should make sure that, with your multiple jumps, you won’t get uair’d and die. Apart from these things, there’s no need to worry about Falco’s killing options.
You, as Kirby, will do what you always do to kill: fsmash punishes (he can wavebounce lasers when recovering from high up to trick you into fsmashing, so only do so if you’re confident it’ll hit), dsmash his landing attempts (fresh dsmash kills him at if he predict you’re not gonna shield and dairs/nairs you for it, fsmash him next time… Our fsmash trades hits with all his aerials so he’ll die), uthrowing him (platformed stages mainly of course, kills him at ~180% from the ground at BattleField and ~160% from the top platform), bairing him (after refreshing it with pummels, or after respawning when it’s fresh), and dairing him offstage (situational since Falcos will always try to recover from high, but it’s common sense that they always aim for the ledge due to them falling faster than they move horizontally in the air). If you can, take Falco to a stage with no ledges/lack of ledges and no walkoffs to see him struggle while recovering. One offstage Falco in these is guaranteed death if you intercept him with bairs all the time until he’s at high %s.
On a side note, our fsmash clashes with his sideB, and doesn’t hit him. Stick to bairing the recovery attempts unless he goes for an upB while offstage.[/collapse]
[collapse=Wario]Wario’s aerial movement makes it so that he’s the most evasive character around. Commit to an attack, and he’ll be on you before you have a time to react. He’s so fast that he can weave around grab attempts as well and punish you for trying! He’s also one of the most notorious characters for timing out matches, he’s usually faster than his opponents in the air so he can evade aerials and run away until the match ends and he wins. Now, the ability to run away wouldn’t be THAT bad if he didn’t have a lethal attack that gets stronger as time passes! He can frametrap you with his downB, intercept your attacks or recovery attempts, recover himself, or bait reactions from you and punish with something else. His downB, when charged appropriately, can kill almost any character at 60%, and Kirby should die after 50%, even with good DI. Apart from that attack, Wario doesn’t pose much of a killing threat in the air, his only other killing aerial hits straight above him so it can be evaded by staying away from that zone.
Due to Wario’s aerial movement, you don’t want to commit to long-lasting attacks. You also don’t want to recklessly throw out aerials because he can easily punish them with a dair, which leads to a grab more than half of the time. So, common sense dictates that you want fast attacks that can stop Wario in his tracks for you to string moves, fast in start-up and cooldown. Lucky for us, Kirby has one such attack, and it’s his utilt! I’ve tried it many times before and it completely ruins Wario’s aerial game. Simply turn your back to him and utilt whenever he comes close to you or the ground (essentially frametrapping his landings, since our utilt’s hitbox doesn’t instantly disappear), and the only way he can get to you is from the ground, which is where he’s worst. If you position yourself below a stationary platform and turn your bck to Wario, he has no chance of getting to you from the air at all. From a utilt, you can do another utilt if he didn’t SDI and end with a bair, or just go straight to the bair. This is one of those MUs where you can’t rely on grabs for damage-racking too; it’s all tilts and aerials this time because of Wario’s mobility and ability to punish your whiffs. Also, the usual gimps will be hard to pull off in this match because of Wario’s ability to cover large vertical distances with a mix of his second jump+sideB+jumping off the bike+downB+upB, all while moving away from our dair attempts due to his horizontal aerial movement. This is one of those MUs where it would also do Kirby good to take his opponent’s copy ability, since it will come in handy much more than an inhale, and it’s relatively easy to pull off due to Wario’s short-ranged attacks.
Wario doesn’t have many kill moves. His most reliable kill moves are fsmash, uair and downB.
His most dangerous move, of course, is his downB. He can catch you by surprise and take your stock, and no amount of DI will save you if you’re above 50% and it’s timed well. Wario loves to camp his opponents, but what hurts him is if you camp him as well. Don’t approach if you don’t need to, stay under a platform and utilt his approaches, and wait until he starts shining green before you can approach again; a fully-charged downb won’t kill Kirby until mid-high %s (around 90%+, depends on the stages’ ceiling’s height), and while Wario tries to go in, you’re racking up damage and refreshing your bair with utilts. Once Wario decides to try something risky to hit you with, you can punish him with a smash or a grab for the kill!
What Kirby should use for killing in this MU would be up-angled fsmashes as punishers once Wario is at 130%+, and dair gimps when Wario’s recovery trajectory below stage-level is predictable. It’s not smart to be overly aggressive here, and if you keep your fsmash fresh the whole match, one fsmash punish at higher %s is enough to take care of his stock. Dsmash is also an acceptable punisher if Wario is coming back on-stage, or you’re forcing Wario to airdodge into you by utilting his aerial approaches, due to its range and how long it lasts it has a decently-sized margin for error, you can be off in the timing and still kill him at ~150%+.
Other than that, the MU is slow. Don’t let your need to hurry up get the better of you, this match MUST be played patiently or else he’ll take your stock before you realize he just downB’d you. And as a last important note: always pay attention to the timer and learn everything you can about Wario prior to your tourneys! Going up against a character that forces you to play a bit differently with no idea of what he’s thinking will lead to a shameful loss.[/collapse]
[collapse=Metaknight]It’s true that in a direct comparison, MK’s moveset outmatches Kirby’s in a lot of things., but that doesn’t mean the pink puffball doesn’t stand a chance. While it is true that this MU has to be played with much precision on Kirby’s part, it’s also true that Kirby has it better than many other characters, and it can be seen immediately as soon as the match begins between the respected mainers, the lead shifting back and forth between the two until a stock is taken. I’ve noticed that when Kirby takes the first stock, MK comes back and has no problem revenge-killing Kirby while taking minimum damage, which effectively sets the match back to even, but when MK takes the first stock, due to his better spacing options (both ground-spacing and diagonal-aerial spacing [a.k.a. Air Camping]), Kirby has a harder time killing MK to even out the match again, and will find himself taking noticeable damage before MK’s stock is gone. This is due to MK’s superior spacing options, and how vulnerable Kirby is left after each attempt at taking a stock from his opponent.
Kirby’s main game consists on baiting MK to react in specific ways, then punish accordingly. This could be making the MK dtilt or ftilt while we feint approaches then later trick him into doing either of them while we run in and shield his attack successfully for a free grab, or trick him into thinking we’re going to walk into his ftilt range and then hit him with a well-spaced ftilt (our best grounded spacer, it reaches farther than most people think), or tripping him with a well-spaced dtilt then techchasing his wake-up decision… Or it could be aerial too, just short-hopping near the ground in front of MK will force him to ftilt, which means a free bair when he slows down/is done, or maybe land into a grab as well if we’re close enough… We don’t have the ability to simply rush the opponent down like MK does, so we have to find ways to force MK into reacting certain ways for us to punish afterwards. On a note, a very popular option Kirby mainers use is they force MK into attacking with any grounded move, then they roll behind MK and pivot an utilt (frame 4 move, if I'm not mistaken). Utilt chains into utilt, which chains into a bair. Space the bair well at higher-than-lowest %s and MK can't hit you back for chaining those moves, effectively a safe way of starting stocks against opponents who get baited.
Kirby has 3 ways of reliably killing MK in this MU, all very different:
-Going through MK’s tornado attempts or shielding his misspaced attacks and punishing with an fsmash. It’s no secret that our fresh up-angled fsmash has deceiving range, and with the added bonus of strength, an MK hit with it at 120%+ shouldn’t be living (unless the stage has a high ceiling, which means that the opponent has more room to DI in).
-Outspacing MK in the air, or simply catching the MK off-guard near the ground with well-spaced bairs. Our bair might get stale, but what people sometimes fail to notice is thatpart of Kirby’s main game is grabs, pummels and throw. Apparently Sakurai decided to bless his pink puffball with a great pummel, because even if Kirby only does 1% each pummel, they refresh his moves even if you mash them down, as long as MK receives damage from the pummels. Add the throw into the equation, and his bair is almost as good as new after just two grabs! All that’s left is landing a bair and the stock is gone at 140%+.
-Fresh uthrows. I remember to thank Sakurai each time I play this MU at battlefield and other platformed stages, because he was kind enough to give this character a killing throw. A fresh uthrow on BF’s ground should take MK’s stock at around 160% with proper DI, but on a platform, it can be as low as 130%, and even lower the higher the platforms are. This works exceptionally well on stages with platforms that are very high up, like the infamous Rainbow Cruise uthrow kills, where you can take your opponent’s stock at as low as 0% with a well-aimed uthrow.
Kirby should never try to inhale MK, since MK can outrange his inhale without even trying. But if somehow, during the course of a match, Kirby manages to inhale MK, he now has an alternate recovery option. It’s no secret that MK is THE best offstage fighter in the game, so even Kirby will have problems recovering against an MK who knows what he’s doing, but with the tornado ability, we have now a very fast horizontal recovery option which we can use to speed past MK’s slow horizontal aerial movement.
All in all, this MU is a definite disadvantage.
*One thing I should make clear is that Kirby has no safe way of getting MK to leave the ledge if he starts planking with a lead. That is all.
[/collapse]
[collapse=Snake]Snake is a difficult character to gain the upper hand against, even moreso maintaining the advantage. He hits hard, he tanks hits like nobody’s business, he has fierce stage control, lots of sneaky tricks, and stage advantages. His recovery is average, but it can be done more than once, and with his C4, it makes gimping him far offstage impossible, and only near-stage gimps are possible (excluding Kirbicides, which work everywhere). His grenades are strong, have quite the large hitboxes, can kill, and refresh his moves, ensuring that his moves are as close to fresh as possible when he needs them, which of course, means less survivability for us. I guess Sakurai was close friends with Hideo Kojima, because he decided to bless Snake with the craziest grounded moveset in the game in terms of speed:range:damage; he isn’t what you would call a “balanced top tier character” in terms of his ground game… But lucky for us, even though he is a tough opponent, we still have a chance, and it’s because the tools we have work so well against heavy characters, even more on characters with linear recoveries and who are vulnerable to juggling!
In this MU, the only way to properly describe what Kirby does is with a redundant comment: “Kirby plays the same way, but different”. What I mean by this is that everything the Kirby mainer usually does in a matchup he knows by heart, he will do here too, but with some unnoticeable key differences . What differences? Well let me list them for you!
-Once you’re stringing, don’t stop. Normally as Kirby, you would start your string and you would complete it, then retreat to avoid damage. While this is true on this MU as well and you should always be careful, if you’ve got a string going, don’t stop it, and instead continue the string with baits and pressure. If before you would’ve ended in a retreating bair, now you don’t retreat it, but instead you follow Snake and force him to try and “punish” your “mistake”. While Snake’s in the air during a string, he’s only safe if Kirby’s on his backside, since no front-side aerial will knock Kirby away from him and he will always lag upon landing, his only true saving graces would be either upB’ing away and mindgaming a wavebounced grenade to escape a string or juggle, or buffering a grenade pull and hoping that Kirby’s attacks hits it while he drops it from the shock of Kirby’s attack. You’ll get damaged from the grenade of course, but add in all the hits you just inflicted on Snake (string = +damage), plus your last hit that also detonated the grenade (last hit = +damage, grenade explosion = +damage), and you’ll find that Snake just got racked up past 60% in a single go, and now it’s just a matter of baiting and punishing!
-Don’t shorthop your bairs, his ftilt beats it. Instead, either fullhop your bairs so that he stales his utilt instead (chances are it will miss if you spaced properly, believe it or not), or space with ftilts and dtilts. Our ftilt being our grounded spacer with most range, it challenges his ftilt’s range and punishes him for allowing you to get too close, and it has more range than his grab as well so if he’s a grab-happy grenade-dropping Snake you’ll find that ftilts do the trick perfectly. Dtilts trip Snake, and since he has a high traction, he won’t get knocked back as far, allowing us to chain dtilts until he trips, then run in for a shieldgrab chase, which sets up stringing and juggling scenarios. While we usually shorthop bairs in other MUs, his ftilt packs devastating damage and range which unluckily outranges our bair, it’s wiser to look for smarter alternatives than simply taking the hit and trying a second time, in this case it would be trading shorthops for fullhops.
-When dealing with grenades, either jump over them, or simply ignore them and get pelted. During my own matches versus other Snakes, I’ve noticed that if you simply ignore the uncooked grenades Snake throws at you and take the pelt damage, they are barely any nuisance and it forces the opponent into reacting out of fear of taking damage/losing the lead, and Snake’s reaction would be an ftilt, spot-dodge, or a pivot grab. What I usually do against Snakes when they throw grenades is I dash-attack and eat their spotdodges if they show the habit, I stop in a shield and immediately ftilt them from a safe distance, or I keep running and attempt a shieldgrab. It’s not a rock-paper-scissors scenario, the options correspond to what the opponent does during the course of a match, and how long he takes reacting to your approaching options… And about grenades on the floor? Simply float over them until they explode, then land.
-Juggle, juggle, JUGGLE! There is nothing sweeter in this MU than spacing your uairs well on a Snake that’s trying to touch ground, especially on stages without platforms where he is forced to land on the stage’s low floor. Kirby’s uair is disjointed so Snake will have lots of trouble beating it from above/in front, and while you juggle him your other moves refresh, assuring that your bair is fresh or near-fresh for the kill. If you’re juggling Snake and realize you’re on his backside, stop and move away. His bair has more range and is far stronger than your bair, stays out longer, and has some curious property to it (I went through a Snake’s legs while he baired with Kirby’s downB, and Snake didn’t get hit, and instead it clanked with Kirby’s stone and stayed out). Only juggle from below or in front of him!
Aside from those points, Kirby should play the MU like he usually does: start the stock with a grab or utilt if the possibility presents itself (or link an aerial/tilt to a grab), knock the opponent offstage and/or into the air on-stage, pressure the opponent off-stage, juggle, attempt a kirbicide if possible, and end the stock with a fresh move.
How to take a stock, though? Snake has range, strength, survivability, and speed, he’s a walking death machine for characters with no projectiles. Well, our kill moves will be bair, fsmash, dsmash, uair, and uthrow.
-Bair: Remember to refresh your moves with pummels whenever you grab Snake. Pelt him with hits from aerials/pummels/throws/tilts, and on later %s you’ll find your bair is still near-fresh and ready to kill with. Snake generally dies from a fresh bair at 160%+.
-Fsmash: Only way fsmash will kill in this MU is by frame-trapping Snake’s landing, or clashing against his bair when he’s near killing %. Snake is heavy, so he dies from a freshup-angled fsmash at around ~140%+.
-Dsmash: Sometimes it’s hard properly tracing Snake’s landing patterns due to his wavebouncing and you’ll find that landing fsmashes is harder than it seems in this MU. When this happens, you follow Snake’s landing pattern (while staying away from his backside) and hit him with a dsmash, which hits in front and behind of Kirby, and amazingly, above Kirby as well. Since dsmash has the same attribute as his fsmash in that it stays out for a while, you have a decent window for error and can certainly frametrap a landing Snake. If the ceiling is low, this should be a smart way of taking his stocks. Snake should be dying from a dsmash at about 160%+ off the top, and the lower the ceilings of the stages are, the faster he dies, naturally.
-Uair. This move will probably be stale, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t follow a recovering Snake high up above the stage and take his damaged stock with another uair AS LONG AS YOU’RE NOT ON HIS BACKSIDE. You’d be surprised how often this works after a failed KO attempt.
-Uthrow. Not the best way to kill, but sometimes you’ll find yourself dealing major damage to Snake and not able to land a killing blow, all while landing more grabs than smashes. You shouldn’t use uthrow during a match unless you had a situational tactic in mind (omnigay, windmill-spiking, ninja spiking, throwing them into a hazard, using Kirby’s rising invincibility frames to avoid damage from a mortar…), or Snake is ready for an uthrow kill. On Battlefield’s floor a uthrow generally kills Snake at above 210%+, and on a platform at 190%+.
Snake is a disadvantaged MU for Kirby. It’s not one of his worse MUs, nor even close to his worst MU, especially when you get used to changing up your tactics to deal with heavy-hitting tanks.
Oh, and remember to powershield his tilts, and chain utilts into bairs![/collapse]
[collapse=Diddy]Diddy is an interesting character to play against. There’s not that many MUs where you go up to a character who can spawn items at will and whose pressure strategies involve items. He’s been arguably the 3rd best character in the game for a while, popular because of his ground control and item game. Those characters who have a fast fallspeed, low jumps, and whose metagame revolves around the stage floor, find that Diddy is a very hard matchup to deal with due to his bananas having the ability to trip, essentially becoming the first hit towards an inescapable combo if you get hit by them while on the ground. Lucky for us, this is not the case with Kirby, and we have the upper hand here, even though it’s slightly!
Kirby’s main goal in this MU is, basically, to have Diddy throw his bananas at you. Usually this is a bad thing to want, but we have some traits that make it possible for us to turn this into an advantageous situation: multiple jumps, floatiness, and our small size! Due to us having multiple jumps, we can aircamp Diddy and avoid the dangers of bananas, while all the time keeping an eye on him as to when he commits to a decision for us to punish from above. None of Diddy’s aerials are menacing to us while aircamping (save for his fair, and it’s just a matter of learning how far it reaches and how fast he moves in the air), and if we just float near the ground, we’re constantly bombarding the Diddy’s second-nature reaction of “throw the banana!” (technically, we’re playing footsies with his banana’s range), landing at random intervals to renew our jumps, it’s just a matter of time before we successfully bait a banana throw, and now Diddy has no banana with which to threaten us. If you’re near Diddy when this happens, landing into a grab or a well-spaced bair would be your best options at this moment. While Diddy has no bananas in his hand, we can now string in peace as if he was any other character. It’s recommended that you know a fair share about item handling, because experience and observations have taught me that when other Kirbies don’t know how to use bananas properly the matchup gets much harder, but after I applied my item knowledge to the MU, Diddy was having more trouble than usual controlling the bananas due to an opponent with a high level of item control. If you don’t know how to use them you should throw them offstage, if you do then you should know what to do whenever a situation presents itself.
For damage-racking, your goal is to string him when he throws his banana. From the Diddy’s positioning it should be fairly obvious when and when not to approach with a bair; too far, and you should wait for another opportunity. Whenever the chance to trade hits presents itself, take it since his killing options will be saved for when he has the chance, the more damage you cause to Diddy the faster you take his stocks! You don’t have to worry about killing him as much as he has to worry about you, since your killing moves are disjointed and can frametrap his bad decisions.
Diddies usually kill with surprise throws you failed to DI, utilt at high %s, banana>dsmash combo, fsmash’s second hit, and fair at high %s. Although he has some relatively fast killing options, he has no frametrapping capabilities so usually his killing moves come from him approaching, or a banana throw, or an OoS option from one of your poorly-spaced attacks. If you’re careful enough, you could easily live past 180% by DI’ing his staled aerials from all of your air-camping, or from raising your shields whenever he gets near you without a banana and not letting go until he grabs you (you can’t get smashed in your shield, his only option of damage-racking is grabbing), which is great for a character as light and floaty as Kirby. Don’t try anything risky like a dash attack or a dair while he’s on-stage, those decisions are what will get you killed most of the time, so just stick to your safer options and you’ll breeze through stocks against Diddy like nobody’s business. That’s not to say that a Diddy who knows how to force reactions from you won’t trick you into committing to an attack for him to kill you though, you have to take this MU seriously all the time, since it’s nearly even he can still turn the matchup around with some smart options.
Our killing options will be the same as always: (re)freshed bairs at 140%+ (revenge killing when you respawn and he’s at higher %s, or forming gimping scenarios with staled/sourspotted bairs), uthrows on platforms at 150%+ (and on the ground at 170%+), up-angled fsmashes at 130%+ (clash against his grounded approaches or aerials), frame-trapping dsmashes (catch him when he comes back from off-stage recovering), dairs at Diddy for being below stage-level (blow up his barrels, it’s a 100% death rate for him)… Racking damage is the same as always as well, from tilts to juggling to shieldgrabs. String as much as you can when Diddy’s above you, since his aerial game isn’t good enough to pose a threat to you when you’re below him.
Conclusion? Kirby versus Diddy, slight advantage for Kirby. We have it easier in this MU, but there’s always the chance that the Diddy will know what to do more than you do, so stay on your toes. And on a small note, this is one of my favorite MUs to play as Kirby.
[/collapse][collapse=Falco]Another character that has never gone below the highest tiers, Falco is one of those characters with the ability to both camp all match then come in for the kill, and play aggressive while staying relatively safe. A well-played Falco will always make it into the higher tourney placings, it’s only a handful of characters that have an edge over Falco, and it’s always for some different reason. Lucky for us, Kirby has a small advantage over Falco! This MU has been debated quite fiercely in the past, people saying it’s Kirby’s advantage, others saying it’s Falco’s slight advantage, and many others supporting the other more even areas. His famous lasers and chaingrab make up most of his metagame, and thanks to Kirby’s light weight, multiple jumps, floatiness and small crouch, we can get around this relatively easy.
One thing you have to know in this MU is that Falco chains his laser into many things. When he lasers while landing, he has no landing lag, so he gets frame advantage even if you shield them. His jab is also fast enough to get him frame advantage, so expect a lot of chaining from lasers and jabs against you. Your goal should be to get yourself somewhere where Falco is forced to commit to a longer-lasting attack, so the air is where you want to be. He has decent aerials, but half of them are multi-hit so you can SDI them and bair him for doing them, and the others won’t hit you if you’re hovering at the right distance (bair and dair are the only single-hit aerials of his, also his aerial movement is slow so uair isn’t something you have to be afraid of). If he jabs you or lasers you from close-up at lower %s, he’s going to dthrow chaingrab you. We only take about 25% from dthrows, but he’ll try and end in a dair or a gatling combo (dash attack + usmash) for an added 10-15% damage, so evading his grabs is a necessity, simply space your rising bairs and you’ll be safe. He’s a fastfaller but the slowest of the space animals, so strings/combos/chains won’t work as much against him as they would against the other two… Once you get him offstage, all you have to do is bair. Dair won’t knock him out of his sideB unless you aim it well, but bair will always knock him away, so stick to bairing him. If he’s below stage-level, a single dair hit will kill him, so if you see him upB’ing towards the ledge, jump after him and dair.
Falco kills with his usmash (boosted usually, its his most surprising smash since he can hit you with hit from long distances), fsmash (has some start-up so you should always know to not jump into his fsmashes, usually Falcos do it as an edgeguard/punish when you’re near them), dsmash (has relatively low range, and usually punishes you for landing near him or rolling into him), and bair (kills at high %s, so don’t worry much about it). He has no killing throws, so if you’re torn between taking a hit or getting grabbed at high %s, you should always choose to get grabbed. If he hits you with a multy-hit aerial while you’re on the ground and at high %s, make sure to buffer a shield so that he can’t kill you! If you’re offstage he can’t do anything to you but laser, and if you’re below stage-level you’re safe from everything, and he risks dying if he jumps down to try and hit you. When aiming for the ledge, don’t upB too high and always go for the lowest sweet-spotting possible, since he can dair your upB and kill you! He can also kill you with uair, but you should make sure that, with your multiple jumps, you won’t get uair’d and die. Apart from these things, there’s no need to worry about Falco’s killing options.
You, as Kirby, will do what you always do to kill: fsmash punishes (he can wavebounce lasers when recovering from high up to trick you into fsmashing, so only do so if you’re confident it’ll hit), dsmash his landing attempts (fresh dsmash kills him at if he predict you’re not gonna shield and dairs/nairs you for it, fsmash him next time… Our fsmash trades hits with all his aerials so he’ll die), uthrowing him (platformed stages mainly of course, kills him at ~180% from the ground at BattleField and ~160% from the top platform), bairing him (after refreshing it with pummels, or after respawning when it’s fresh), and dairing him offstage (situational since Falcos will always try to recover from high, but it’s common sense that they always aim for the ledge due to them falling faster than they move horizontally in the air). If you can, take Falco to a stage with no ledges/lack of ledges and no walkoffs to see him struggle while recovering. One offstage Falco in these is guaranteed death if you intercept him with bairs all the time until he’s at high %s.
On a side note, our fsmash clashes with his sideB, and doesn’t hit him. Stick to bairing the recovery attempts unless he goes for an upB while offstage.[/collapse]
[collapse=Wario]Wario’s aerial movement makes it so that he’s the most evasive character around. Commit to an attack, and he’ll be on you before you have a time to react. He’s so fast that he can weave around grab attempts as well and punish you for trying! He’s also one of the most notorious characters for timing out matches, he’s usually faster than his opponents in the air so he can evade aerials and run away until the match ends and he wins. Now, the ability to run away wouldn’t be THAT bad if he didn’t have a lethal attack that gets stronger as time passes! He can frametrap you with his downB, intercept your attacks or recovery attempts, recover himself, or bait reactions from you and punish with something else. His downB, when charged appropriately, can kill almost any character at 60%, and Kirby should die after 50%, even with good DI. Apart from that attack, Wario doesn’t pose much of a killing threat in the air, his only other killing aerial hits straight above him so it can be evaded by staying away from that zone.
Due to Wario’s aerial movement, you don’t want to commit to long-lasting attacks. You also don’t want to recklessly throw out aerials because he can easily punish them with a dair, which leads to a grab more than half of the time. So, common sense dictates that you want fast attacks that can stop Wario in his tracks for you to string moves, fast in start-up and cooldown. Lucky for us, Kirby has one such attack, and it’s his utilt! I’ve tried it many times before and it completely ruins Wario’s aerial game. Simply turn your back to him and utilt whenever he comes close to you or the ground (essentially frametrapping his landings, since our utilt’s hitbox doesn’t instantly disappear), and the only way he can get to you is from the ground, which is where he’s worst. If you position yourself below a stationary platform and turn your bck to Wario, he has no chance of getting to you from the air at all. From a utilt, you can do another utilt if he didn’t SDI and end with a bair, or just go straight to the bair. This is one of those MUs where you can’t rely on grabs for damage-racking too; it’s all tilts and aerials this time because of Wario’s mobility and ability to punish your whiffs. Also, the usual gimps will be hard to pull off in this match because of Wario’s ability to cover large vertical distances with a mix of his second jump+sideB+jumping off the bike+downB+upB, all while moving away from our dair attempts due to his horizontal aerial movement. This is one of those MUs where it would also do Kirby good to take his opponent’s copy ability, since it will come in handy much more than an inhale, and it’s relatively easy to pull off due to Wario’s short-ranged attacks.
Wario doesn’t have many kill moves. His most reliable kill moves are fsmash, uair and downB.
His most dangerous move, of course, is his downB. He can catch you by surprise and take your stock, and no amount of DI will save you if you’re above 50% and it’s timed well. Wario loves to camp his opponents, but what hurts him is if you camp him as well. Don’t approach if you don’t need to, stay under a platform and utilt his approaches, and wait until he starts shining green before you can approach again; a fully-charged downb won’t kill Kirby until mid-high %s (around 90%+, depends on the stages’ ceiling’s height), and while Wario tries to go in, you’re racking up damage and refreshing your bair with utilts. Once Wario decides to try something risky to hit you with, you can punish him with a smash or a grab for the kill!
What Kirby should use for killing in this MU would be up-angled fsmashes as punishers once Wario is at 130%+, and dair gimps when Wario’s recovery trajectory below stage-level is predictable. It’s not smart to be overly aggressive here, and if you keep your fsmash fresh the whole match, one fsmash punish at higher %s is enough to take care of his stock. Dsmash is also an acceptable punisher if Wario is coming back on-stage, or you’re forcing Wario to airdodge into you by utilting his aerial approaches, due to its range and how long it lasts it has a decently-sized margin for error, you can be off in the timing and still kill him at ~150%+.
Other than that, the MU is slow. Don’t let your need to hurry up get the better of you, this match MUST be played patiently or else he’ll take your stock before you realize he just downB’d you. And as a last important note: always pay attention to the timer and learn everything you can about Wario prior to your tourneys! Going up against a character that forces you to play a bit differently with no idea of what he’s thinking will lead to a shameful loss.[/collapse]
Tiersie
Smash Ace
The only critique I have is that there aren't more of these
Sage JoWii
Smash Champion
I only read one and I can definitely say I enjoyed reading the MK summary. Very informative and tomorrow in my free time I'll add them to the MU summary in the respective exports. Good **** Kewkky <3
Here's 3 more of the "how I personally view each MU" summaries! Currently writing one for IC's, I jumped Marth for now:
[collapse=Diddy]Diddy is an interesting character to play against. There’s not that many MUs where you go up to a character who can spawn items at will and whose pressure strategies involve items. He’s been arguably the 3rd best character in the game for a while, popular because of his ground control and item game. Those characters who have a fast fallspeed, low jumps, and whose metagame revolves around the stage floor, find that Diddy is a very hard matchup to deal with due to his bananas having the ability to trip, essentially becoming the first hit towards an inescapable combo if you get hit by them while on the ground. Lucky for us, this is not the case with Kirby, and we have the upper hand here, even though it’s slightly!
Kirby’s main goal in this MU is, basically, to have Diddy throw his bananas at you. Usually this is a bad thing to want, but we have some traits that make it possible for us to turn this into an advantageous situation: multiple jumps, floatiness, and our small size! Due to us having multiple jumps, we can aircamp Diddy and avoid the dangers of bananas, while all the time keeping an eye on him as to when he commits to a decision for us to punish from above. None of Diddy’s aerials are menacing to us while aircamping (save for his fair, and it’s just a matter of learning how far it reaches and how fast he moves in the air), and if we just float near the ground, we’re constantly bombarding the Diddy’s second-nature reaction of “throw the banana!” (technically, we’re playing footsies with his banana’s range), landing at random intervals to renew our jumps, it’s just a matter of time before we successfully bait a banana throw, and now Diddy has no banana with which to threaten us. If you’re near Diddy when this happens, landing into a grab or a well-spaced bair would be your best options at this moment. While Diddy has no bananas in his hand, we can now string in peace as if he was any other character. It’s recommended that you know a fair share about item handling, because experience and observations have taught me that when other Kirbies don’t know how to use bananas properly the matchup gets much harder, but after I applied my item knowledge to the MU, Diddy was having more trouble than usual controlling the bananas due to an opponent with a high level of item control. If you don’t know how to use them you should throw them offstage, if you do then you should know what to do whenever a situation presents itself.
For damage-racking, your goal is to string him when he throws his banana. From the Diddy’s positioning it should be fairly obvious when and when not to approach with a bair; too far, and you should wait for another opportunity. Whenever the chance to trade hits presents itself, take it since his killing options will be saved for when he has the chance, the more damage you cause to Diddy the faster you take his stocks! You don’t have to worry about killing him as much as he has to worry about you, since your killing moves are disjointed and can frametrap his bad decisions.
Diddies usually kill with surprise throws you failed to DI, utilt at high %s, banana>dsmash combo, fsmash’s second hit, and fair at high %s. Although he has some relatively fast killing options, he has no frametrapping capabilities so usually his killing moves come from him approaching, or a banana throw, or an OoS option from one of your poorly-spaced attacks. If you’re careful enough, you could easily live past 180% by DI’ing his staled aerials from all of your air-camping, or from raising your shields whenever he gets near you without a banana and not letting go until he grabs you (you can’t get smashed in your shield, his only option of damage-racking is grabbing), which is great for a character as light and floaty as Kirby. Don’t try anything risky like a dash attack or a dair while he’s on-stage, those decisions are what will get you killed most of the time, so just stick to your safer options and you’ll breeze through stocks against Diddy like nobody’s business. That’s not to say that a Diddy who knows how to force reactions from you won’t trick you into committing to an attack for him to kill you though, you have to take this MU seriously all the time, since it’s nearly even he can still turn the matchup around with some smart options.
Our killing options will be the same as always: (re)freshed bairs at 140%+ (revenge killing when you respawn and he’s at higher %s, or forming gimping scenarios with staled/sourspotted bairs), uthrows on platforms at 150%+ (and on the ground at 170%+), up-angled fsmashes at 130%+ (clash against his grounded approaches or aerials), frame-trapping dsmashes (catch him when he comes back from off-stage recovering), dairs at Diddy for being below stage-level (blow up his barrels, it’s a 100% death rate for him)… Racking damage is the same as always as well, from tilts to juggling to shieldgrabs. String as much as you can when Diddy’s above you, since his aerial game isn’t good enough to pose a threat to you when you’re below him.
Conclusion? Kirby versus Diddy, slight advantage for Kirby. We have it easier in this MU, but there’s always the chance that the Diddy will know what to do more than you do, so stay on your toes. And on a small note, this is one of my favorite MUs to play as Kirby.
[collapse=Falco]Another character that has never gone below the highest tiers, Falco is one of those characters with the ability to both camp all match then come in for the kill, and play aggressive while staying relatively safe. A well-played Falco will always make it into the higher tourney placings, it’s only a handful of characters that have an edge over Falco, and it’s always for some different reason. Lucky for us, Kirby has a small advantage over Falco! This MU has been debated quite fiercely in the past, people saying it’s Kirby’s advantage, others saying it’s Falco’s slight advantage, and many others supporting the other more even areas. His famous lasers and chaingrab make up most of his metagame, and thanks to Kirby’s light weight, multiple jumps, floatiness and small crouch, we can get around this relatively easy.
One thing you have to know in this MU is that Falco chains his laser into many things. When he lasers while landing, he has no landing lag, so he gets frame advantage even if you shield them. His jab is also fast enough to get him frame advantage, so expect a lot of chaining from lasers and jabs against you. Your goal should be to get yourself somewhere where Falco is forced to commit to a longer-lasting attack, so the air is where you want to be. He has decent aerials, but half of them are multi-hit so you can SDI them and bair him for doing them, and the others won’t hit you if you’re hovering at the right distance (bair and dair are the only single-hit aerials of his, also his aerial movement is slow so uair isn’t something you have to be afraid of). If he jabs you or lasers you from close-up at lower %s, he’s going to dthrow chaingrab you. We only take about 25% from dthrows, but he’ll try and end in a dair or a gatling combo (dash attack + usmash) for an added 10-15% damage, so evading his grabs is a necessity, simply space your rising bairs and you’ll be safe. He’s a fastfaller but the slowest of the space animals, so strings/combos/chains won’t work as much against him as they would against the other two… Once you get him offstage, all you have to do is bair. Dair won’t knock him out of his sideB unless you aim it well, but bair will always knock him away, so stick to bairing him. If he’s below stage-level, a single dair hit will kill him, so if you see him upB’ing towards the ledge, jump after him and dair.
Falco kills with his usmash (boosted usually, its his most surprising smash since he can hit you with hit from long distances), fsmash (has some start-up so you should always know to not jump into his fsmashes, usually Falcos do it as an edgeguard/punish when you’re near them), dsmash (has relatively low range, and usually punishes you for landing near him or rolling into him), and bair (kills at high %s, so don’t worry much about it). He has no killing throws, so if you’re torn between taking a hit or getting grabbed at high %s, you should always choose to get grabbed. If he hits you with a multy-hit aerial while you’re on the ground and at high %s, make sure to buffer a shield so that he can’t kill you! If you’re offstage he can’t do anything to you but laser, and if you’re below stage-level you’re safe from everything, and he risks dying if he jumps down to try and hit you. When aiming for the ledge, don’t upB too high and always go for the lowest sweet-spotting possible, since he can dair your upB and kill you! He can also kill you with uair, but you should make sure that, with your multiple jumps, you won’t get uair’d and die. Apart from these things, there’s no need to worry about Falco’s killing options.
You, as Kirby, will do what you always do to kill: fsmash punishes (he can wavebounce lasers when recovering from high up to trick you into fsmashing, so only do so if you’re confident it’ll hit), dsmash his landing attempts (fresh dsmash kills him at if he predict you’re not gonna shield and dairs/nairs you for it, fsmash him next time… Our fsmash trades hits with all his aerials so he’ll die), uthrowing him (platformed stages mainly of course, kills him at ~180% from the ground at BattleField and ~160% from the top platform), bairing him (after refreshing it with pummels, or after respawning when it’s fresh), and dairing him offstage (situational since Falcos will always try to recover from high, but it’s common sense that they always aim for the ledge due to them falling faster than they move horizontally in the air). If you can, take Falco to a stage with no ledges/lack of ledges and no walkoffs to see him struggle while recovering. One offstage Falco in these is guaranteed death if you intercept him with bairs all the time until he’s at high %s.
On a side note, our fsmash clashes with his sideB, and doesn’t hit him. Stick to bairing the recovery attempts unless he goes for an upB while offstage.[/collapse]
[collapse=Wario]Wario’s aerial movement makes it so that he’s the most evasive character around. Commit to an attack, and he’ll be on you before you have a time to react. He’s so fast that he can weave around grab attempts as well and punish you for trying! He’s also one of the most notorious characters for timing out matches, he’s usually faster than his opponents in the air so he can evade aerials and run away until the match ends and he wins. Now, the ability to run away wouldn’t be THAT bad if he didn’t have a lethal attack that gets stronger as time passes! He can frametrap you with his downB, intercept your attacks or recovery attempts, recover himself, or bait reactions from you and punish with something else. His downB, when charged appropriately, can kill almost any character at 60%, and Kirby should die after 50%, even with good DI. Apart from that attack, Wario doesn’t pose much of a killing threat in the air, his only other killing aerial hits straight above him so it can be evaded by staying away from that zone.
Due to Wario’s aerial movement, you don’t want to commit to long-lasting attacks. You also don’t want to recklessly throw out aerials because he can easily punish them with a dair, which leads to a grab more than half of the time. So, common sense dictates that you want fast attacks that can stop Wario in his tracks for you to string moves, fast in start-up and cooldown. Lucky for us, Kirby has one such attack, and it’s his utilt! I’ve tried it many times before and it completely ruins Wario’s aerial game. Simply turn your back to him and utilt whenever he comes close to you or the ground (essentially frametrapping his landings, since our utilt’s hitbox doesn’t instantly disappear), and the only way he can get to you is from the ground, which is where he’s worst. If you position yourself below a stationary platform and turn your bck to Wario, he has no chance of getting to you from the air at all. From a utilt, you can do another utilt if he didn’t SDI and end with a bair, or just go straight to the bair. This is one of those MUs where you can’t rely on grabs for damage-racking too; it’s all tilts and aerials this time because of Wario’s mobility and ability to punish your whiffs. Also, the usual gimps will be hard to pull off in this match because of Wario’s ability to cover large vertical distances with a mix of his second jump+sideB+jumping off the bike+downB+upB, all while moving away from our dair attempts due to his horizontal aerial movement. This is one of those MUs where it would also do Kirby good to take his opponent’s copy ability, since it will come in handy much more than an inhale, and it’s relatively easy to pull off due to Wario’s short-ranged attacks.
Wario doesn’t have many kill moves. His most reliable kill moves are fsmash, uair and downB.
His most dangerous move, of course, is his downB. He can catch you by surprise and take your stock, and no amount of DI will save you if you’re above 50% and it’s timed well. Wario loves to camp his opponents, but what hurts him is if you camp him as well. Don’t approach if you don’t need to, stay under a platform and utilt his approaches, and wait until he starts shining green before you can approach again; a fully-charged downb won’t kill Kirby until mid-high %s (around 90%+, depends on the stages’ ceiling’s height), and while Wario tries to go in, you’re racking up damage and refreshing your bair with utilts. Once Wario decides to try something risky to hit you with, you can punish him with a smash or a grab for the kill!
What Kirby should use for killing in this MU would be up-angled fsmashes as punishers once Wario is at 130%+, and dair gimps when Wario’s recovery trajectory below stage-level is predictable. It’s not smart to be overly aggressive here, and if you keep your fsmash fresh the whole match, one fsmash punish at higher %s is enough to take care of his stock. Dsmash is also an acceptable punisher if Wario is coming back on-stage, or you’re forcing Wario to airdodge into you by utilting his aerial approaches, due to its range and how long it lasts it has a decently-sized margin for error, you can be off in the timing and still kill him at ~150%+.
Other than that, the MU is slow. Don’t let your need to hurry up get the better of you, this match MUST be played patiently or else he’ll take your stock before you realize he just downB’d you. And as a last important note: always pay attention to the timer and learn everything you can about Wario prior to your tourneys! Going up against a character that forces you to play a bit differently with no idea of what he’s thinking will lead to a shameful loss.[/collapse]
Tiersie
Smash Ace
What I do when I don't know a falco's playstyle in tourney is to stand at about a quarter of the length of the stage while he tries to recover and use uptilt to break out of his phantasm. It's really hard to not get him with it and puts him in a bad position every time. It's also not that intensive so you can think about his recovery pattern; at the middle/end of the match you will always be able to catch his recovery with a fsmash or a dair once you know his preferred recovery trajectory.
Speaking of dair: Fullhopped dairs create gréat frametraps against falco at the ledge, it gimps him if he tries to start up an IAP, gets him in position for a grab if he tries to ledgehop a dair and gets him with the last hit if he uses getupattack or just a regular getup. You might still be able to grab him if you time it right and he rolls, but I don't manage that very often. FASTFALL the last part of your dair though, else you won't get the landing hit when you fullhop.
Speaking of dair: Fullhopped dairs create gréat frametraps against falco at the ledge, it gimps him if he tries to start up an IAP, gets him in position for a grab if he tries to ledgehop a dair and gets him with the last hit if he uses getupattack or just a regular getup. You might still be able to grab him if you time it right and he rolls, but I don't manage that very often. FASTFALL the last part of your dair though, else you won't get the landing hit when you fullhop.
For getups, I sometimes find myself downB'ing at just the right height. It frametraps every single thing they can do, even rolls, just like dair does, but since the attack is fresh I hit them with decent damage and send em high up, ready for juggling.
I think I've done it to Twinkie, it's IMMENSELY hard to miss a get-up punish this way... Sometimes I just fsmash for the kill though.
And doesn't utilt clank with Falco's phantasm?
I think I've done it to Twinkie, it's IMMENSELY hard to miss a get-up punish this way... Sometimes I just fsmash for the kill though.
And doesn't utilt clank with Falco's phantasm?