Link Matchups Thread

[kingPiano]

I likely have the most experience vs link, of any of the Yoshi players. I'll gladly give you guys the idea of what to look for. =)

WU / Vman

V3ctorman, are you going to help us drive the dinosaurs into eggstinction again?

muhauhaahhahaa

 

[Team Plasma N]

A friend of mine has been able to get an archive of Lord HDL's Link guide, it seems to contain some useful information, including matchups.

http://web.archive.org/web/20060710181112/http://www.superzetroid.com/LinkGuide.html

 

[AoZora]

This is an awesome guide to Link's MU.

 

[Team Plasma N]

Seems like our boards are going inactive again. Just to spark up discussion, thoughts on the Yoshi MU? What we know is to watch out for that super armor on his double jump and you can't shield stab him like we can most characters. I've only fought two of them so I'm still lacking in this MU.

 

[SAUS]

I think Yoshi is a pretty tough matchup for Link. Not the worst, but it's not easy, imo. Yoshi has good mobility and can face tank through some of your zoning moves. He's also super heavy, so he can abuse crouch cancel. Overall, I think it is a little bit like fighting captain falcon, except Yoshi is more of a tank but has less guaranteed kill setups.

 

[Thor]

I heard somewhere that Yoshi's double jump armor is directional - so it's very resistant to moves that send him downward [see Falco dair] but not to moves that launch him upward (and also that Fox shine is extremely good at breaking the armor for whatever reason]. I don't know if this is true or not, but it might be best to try to uair or dair a Yoshi mid-double jump to avoid double jump armor -> nair you, since if you break the armor Yoshi staggers [I can't say that's true for sure though]. This obviously is stupidly risky to edgeguard with, but it's something to look into.

 

[Wreckarooni]

I heard somewhere that Yoshi's double jump armor is directional - so it's very resistant to moves that send him downward [see Falco dair] but not to moves that launch him upward (and also that Fox shine is extremely good at breaking the armor for whatever reason]. I don't know if this is true or not, but it might be best to try to uair or dair a Yoshi mid-double jump to avoid double jump armor -> nair you, since if you break the armor Yoshi staggers [I can't say that's true for sure though]. This obviously is stupidly risky to edgeguard with, but it's something to look into.

Yes, it may seem that way but I think it just has to do with the KB. Most spikes and meteor smashes don't have massive knock back or growth except for a few like Ganon and Falcon's Dairs.

For example:
Falco's Shine has the same KB at 0% as Marth's Dair at >100%

Falco's shine can break it at 0% (hits upward, large initial KB)
Zelda's kicks can at 30% (Sakurai but more powerful than knee)
Falcon's Knee at 40% (shallow angle)
Marth's Dair is like > 100%
and so on

All pretty much equivalent in final overall KB on Yoshi at differing percentages. i'm not 100% sure on the figures but it seems to be from 120-140 in KB that Yoshi's tremendous weight on the double jump armor is nullified.

 

[SAUS]

Yoshi's DJ armour reduces knockback by a flat amount (100 maybe? I don't remember...).

Upward moves seem to have less knockback than they do because they also fight against falling speed, whereas downward attacks add the falling speed, so there's actually a massive difference in knockback when a character gets hit up at some speed and when they get hit down at that speed.

 

[EZえん]

i believe the kb reduction is exactly 120

 

[RetroGamersGuru]

The research and advice on Yoshi looks good so far. Does anybody know if Vectorman is going to give us some other pointers, or is he going to let Amsa take Evo first. Lol

Aside from this, anybody have something to add about the other matchups or to correct for the sake of the people going to the other majors? Otherwise, we probably are better off continuing to discuss Yoshi considering all of our inexperience with him unless you play as Yoshi or are SAUS.

Sorry, I was busy for the past few months.

 

[Bravo_10]

I played a bunch of friendlies with a Yoshi player at CEO. Not as good as Vman or aMSa obviously, but I learned a few things about how to fight the character.

For one, Link definitely has the knockback strength to smack Yoshi out of his double jump. Down air stops him in his tracks, but it's incredibly risky to use offstage. Still, just short-hopping a dair when Yoshi's trying to come in for a ledge sweetspot will knock him out of his double jump and put him into an unrecoverable situation with as little as 60% damage. Throwing projectiles at him while he's offstage is literally useless. Unless you already have a bomb in your hand and want free damage, just try using moves to deny his recovery. Up-B is always cool, but Yoshi can pretty easily dodge his way around that unless he's forced to recover high for some reason.

I also noticed that a shielding Yoshi can be a bit of a problem for Link. I rely pretty heavily on shield pokes instead of grabs to get opponents out of shield, and Yoshi just kinda laughs at that. Grabbing is a risky option in case Yoshi decides to roll or spot dodge, so just waiting for him to drop his shield seems to be the best option. If he's shielding on a platform, up smash is an incredible way to deny shield drop options because of its huge interruptibility window (thanks @ SAUS for the tip, you told me about up smash versus shield drops once and I've gotten big time use out of it).

 

[Looticforgothispassword]

Just continue to hit the shield, yoshi cant jump and his grab is slow so you end up forcing him to roll away which means he forfeits some stage control. If you can continue to pressure him after that you can corner him and that usually means a good chunk of damage.

 

[EZえん]

Do we have an actual mu list for link anywhere?

 

[RetroGamersGuru]

Do we have an actual mu list for link anywhere?

1st Post before the list of matchups.

I searched throughout the Melee Link Boards, and we don't really have a MU thread like the other boards do/are creating. Sure, we have some threads discussing on certain MUs, but there isn't one on discussing all of them. In regards to the MUs on the Link guide, it really should be expanded when we really agree on certain scenarios that Link can find himself in any MU and how to deal with it, and we should do this with all of them (to prevent being Unknowned). I'm not saying that we should stop discussing the higher MUs since they are more common. So I will create this thread to discuss them, and important points in each one will be added eventually allowing us to even expand the guide in the future.

 

[V3ctorMan]

The research and advice on Yoshi looks good so far. Does anybody know if Vectorman is going to give us some other pointers, or is he going to let Amsa take Evo first. Lol

Aside from this, anybody have something to add about the other matchups or to correct for the sake of the people going to the other majors? Otherwise, we probably are better off continuing to discuss Yoshi considering all of our inexperience with him unless you play as Yoshi or are SAUS.

Sorry, I was busy for the past few months.

I don't mind giving away a few secrets about the MU to you guys. =)

I'll post by Saturday if not sooner.

EDIT: or some for now xD

I PROMISE you guys the MU isn't as bad as you guys might think. 50/50 for sure.

I will say it can be a nightmare for you though upon simple mistakes, such as incorrectly challenging superarmor. =p

Also yes moves that cause yoshi to go upwards work well... sadly Link Doesn't exactly have a safe option that will break a yoshi armor at low % Dair is best, but yoshi players will avoid that to put you in bad position or if you were at Combo percent (15-35% range) yoshi would just
DJC counter and uair chain anyway for a better punish..

this is a match up that you want to stay on the ground and zone Yoshi with your arsenal of projectiles...after you've properly baited them much of your damage will be airborne. (Assuming you're wall of projectiles don't do this already) boomerang and bomb work best here... the trick is to bait Yoshi to look for something they believe to DJ CC counter (such as boomerang to bomb) depending on the situation Yoshi's will absorb the boomerang if worked correctly whiff and miss on the counter and if still airborne (which is the trick here)

You bomb yoshi lacks a jump and uair chains work annoyingly well here....some Yoshi's panic and downB? No problem uair wins vs that...they sweet spot to ledge with downB? Links sour spot UpB that's a dead dino (note this can cause trades but worth)...yoshi tries to tumble away? You have annoying projectiles to keep from landing...Egg roll?? Lol anything you want that keeps yoshi from landing and Yoshi's very vulnerable. Air dodge? Most cases this is the tricky one to cover but all of links aerials have long duration...NAIR.. <----Eff this move

^If utilized properly this can be a NIGHTMARE for the Yoshi player...

Do you know how good/annoying single full jump Nair to Uair/Nair can be vs a grounded yoshi? (Can also be used as bait like I mentioned above baiting yoshi to waste DJ) <--which is bad on Yoshi because yoshi will need to use aerial movement to get close to you anyway since you can wall a grounded yoshi with endless projectiles...

^these are simple things and opportunities you will want to look for...

my next post will be things you will want to completely avoid because he Yoshi can punish very hard in this MU and even kill at low% the trick here is to learn proper DI

Bye for now..

 

[[yung] Link]

i feel like people get too worked up over link v falco because they assume that since falco, being a spacie, will be just as hard as fox. but fox is good against link mainly because of waveshines and shine spikes, both of which falco doesn't have. my practice partner is a falco/samus main and i have an easy time destroying both, and the best advice i can give against falco is spam boomerang. like more than usual. it beats out lasers and forces falco to either:

a.) shield, which you can go in and grab them on
or
b.) approach, which is the least likely option, but shorthop nairing is great in this situation.

 

[Team Plasma N]

For Falco having a bomb in hand seems to work out for me. They stop the lasers that collide with it and they're just something you can throw at them OoS when dealing with the pressure.

 

[ChivalRuse]

@ V3ctorMan Why would Link do an uair after full jump nair?

 

[[yung] Link]

For Falco having a bomb in hand seems to work out for me. They stop the lasers that collide with it and they're just something you can throw at them OoS when dealing with the pressure.

yeah i agree that bombs are good to have on hand because of the lasers. worst case scenario is that you throw a bomb to block a laser and rush in and take bomb damage, but this rarely happens, and can be avoided easily.

 

[[yung] Link]

@ V3ctorMan Why would Link do an uair after full jump nair?

he also mentioned full jump nair > nair

 

[ChivalRuse]

Yeah I saw that. I'm just confused because it seems like doing a laggy move like uair while landing makes you susceptible to getting whiff punished. And it doesn't have much of a hitbox in front of you when you're landing. I suppose it could work if you read Yoshi's DJC approach or something.

 

[Looticforgothispassword]

You do the uair after you hit with a nair, it leads to comboes.