Mahone
Smash Champion
Mang0's original Stuff About Puff thread
These are mango's thoughts on camping:
Before I start all of this.. I got one thing to say..Once there was a great man named Gimpyfish who told me something..That Changed my life =). He said "u dont have to go to him if u dont want him". Which means is like when someone is camping u dont have to go to them all the time. JUST BE PATIENT!!! and keep ur spacing people!
Here's my thoughts:
This is one of the biggest issues with playing puff. If you play in a way that is even remotely safe you are going to be called gay.
You have two options...
1. Play aggressive and only beat people you are SIGNIFICANTLY better than (the mango approach)
2. Screw the haters and just play smart, even if it’s considered "gay" (the right approach)
I am so tired of fox players camping you for 8 minutes and then getting upthrow rested and then calling you gay and claiming they are better and it’s just jiggs…
Jigglypuff gets camped harder than any other top tier!!
... So don't feel bad if you counter camp!!
Jiggs is a slow character and does not have the shield pressure of the spacies so of course she is going to approach less and bait the opponent more…
The ***** Sheik
Mahone Percentage: 60-40 Puff wins
Actual Percentage: 60-40 Puff wins
If you play a really bad, or even mid level sheik, you will probably think this matchup is like 80-20 puff, but if sheik plays it right it can be much more difficult. A good sheik will not give you all those free crouch rests (although you will still get some inevitably), but instead will camp with needles and space bairs while abusing platforms (using needles and fairs).
I think this matchup is one of the few that you can be pretty aggressive in. In my experience if you don’t approach the sheik will just camp a platform while throwing needles at you. You need to watch for the sheik’s platform camping pattern and then punish it. For example, the sheik might run of the platform with a fair when you try to approach her on the platform, so you would want to bait that fair and hit her with a bair or grab her, etc.
A lot of sheiks like to move around the platforms a lot, so just try to catch them with upairs from below, these should lead to very good combos and often times easy rests. Also pound is pretty ****, it can also lead to rests, but use it sparingly since it’s so laggy (and only use it when sheik is airborne... upsmash oos hurts). As for her ground game, that’s where you reign supreme… you can outspace her with fairs and bairs most of the time, I especially like going for bair/fair to falling upair on her shield (you can condition her to shield with the spaced bairs/fairs) because than can lead to an easy rest… plus if it doesn’t hit just land right in front of her and crouch and most sheiks will try to grab on reaction (at least the first time) and you can rest them, even if they don't grab, there isn't much she can do in that position… you can also mix up your approaches with empty hop to land in front of her… then just guess the timing of her letting go of shield and uptilt for a low risk/high reward rest setup.
Because sheik is forced to shield if you can space your bairs well… you can grab her and downthrow her, which will often times result in a rest… if she di’s in at low to mid percents then you can just rest out of the downthrow, but if she di’s away on most stages, she will have to land on a platform and you have a chance at a techchase rest (just a tip… if you have no idea on their teching habits, tech in place seems to be the most common tech option).
Edguarding is easy, just try to aerial her when she’s far off the stage and when she gets close, edgehog to force her to upb on stage and then rest her. Just make sure to practice your jump off the ledge timings so you don’t accidently get hit by the up-b when trying to rest her on stage… the timing can be pretty tight if she upbs really far on stage… also watch out for wall jump bair tricks if she is close enough to do so.
Recovering is pretty easy, she will most likely grab the ledge and do bairs off of it... its the only real thing you have to avoid, so even though it has pretty good range, it is easy enough to avoid once you get used to it. Some aggro sheiks will also be willing to do quick run off fairs or wall jump fair stuff, but most will be too uncomfortable offstage vs puff to try those kind of tricks.
Also remember than when she grabs you, di the downthrow AWAY and then the fair IN… if you don’t di the throw away, you can get upsmashed or upaired, which kill a lot earlier… sometimes if I know im dead to a dthrow fair, I will di up and in hoping that they mess up, but besides that I don’t ever see it being worth it.
You can rest A LOT of her moves (listed below in the pros section) and she has the worst rest punish of the high tiers, which leads to some pretty fun games… I personally love going for nair rest, because if I miss at low percents I just eat an upsmash, which doesn’t do much, and if I’m at a really high percent, I was probably gonna die soon anyway, but if it hits it kills her at like 0% lol… poor sheik… oh well just take your free win, jiggs has enough hard matchups.
Levels To Counterpick:
Mangoland - she still dies quick but you don't
Final Destination - is can be good because there are no platforms for her to camp
Levels to Ban:
Battlefield - It's platforms are just great for sheik to camp effectively and she can use them to move around
GOOD MATCH TO WATCH: Hbox vs Amsah (notice the rest spamming)
Postives In the Matchup
[COLLAPSE="KirbyKaze *new*"]
Freaking Marth
Mahone Percentage: 60-40 Puff wins
Actual Percentage: 55-45 Marth wins
I don’t care what most puffs say… this matchup is not puff favor!!! I’ve been playing Marth players since I started playing (both my main training partners are marth mains)… so much that now it’s my best matchup, even though I ****ING hate it.
Luckily most marths play the matchup horribly wrong so it doesn’t really matter…
What you want to do in this matchup is play a lot more patient than you normally do… marth is one of the few, if not only, characters that can just outspace all of your moves. Normally it’s the other way around, where jiggs is the master of poking with single hits, but gets punished hard when the opponent gets in… but in this matchup, you will be the one getting zoned out and poked, but when you get in you can combo Marth hard.
Make no mistake, you can still get comboed if Marth gets one of those stupid inside fairs, but that shouldn’t happen too often if you keep your spacing… also remember to di all of his hits AWAY, don’t worry about dying, his moves don’t kill until really high percents unless he gets a tipper.
Just try running up and shielding when Marth is walling you out, and then fair out of shield… or try to get a well spaced bair in to disrupt his wall, but really you are just waiting for him to mess up or get predictable. I like to pound when I have a good read on my opponent because even though its risky, it will lead to insane combos, bair chains, and sometimes rest, also it has good range and its hitbox stays out long, so it can catch a lot of marths off guard. The best move you have for comboing marth is upair, if you can get an upair off when he messes up and you get in, it will lead to more upairs to rest or to bairs that will get him off stage.
Once you get marth with a bair close to the ledge, he will usually be dead because he will either have to di in and get baired again or di out and die to the final bair plus edgehoging. Edgeguarding marth is pretty simple… it’s similar to sheik, just bair him when he’s far away and edgehog when hes close to force an up-b onstage and rest it… but unlike sheik, marth can defend himself against your bair offstage pretty well, and can use his side-b to mess up your ledge invul timing… I like marthkiller(ask someone in this thread to explain it if you don't know what this is) a lot because it prevents his timing mindgames when he has to recover low.
One of the hardest parts of this matchup is coming down against marth. He can safely go for upairs when he is below you because your dair sucks and you have no move that can outspace it from above, so he gets free chances to hit you with upair… and once it hits he gets to do it all over again… what I do is use a lot of jumps to avoid it and most marths with do some sort of laggy move predicting you will come down, like uptilt or fsmash, and that’s when you can finally come down safely (and maybe even punish them). If they don’t fall for your tricks, just land on the top platform to regain your jumps and try to juke the marth out horizontally… hopefully they will eventually mess up, as it is actually pretty hard for the marth to keep his spacing while moving around and trying to watch for what you are doing.
On the ground you just have to watch out for grabs, make sure that you duck if you predict it and you can rest him, also some marths like to dash attack, but if they misspace it you can rest it out of shield. Besides that most marths won’t really be approaching you on the ground, they will just be fairing trying to get single hits. If you do get grabbed, make sure to di DOWN so they can’t tipper you (that should be good enough vs most marths, the full grab/di mixup stuff is pretty complicated, i won't get into here).
The spacing I like being in this matchup is just outside of tipper spacing, it can be really risky at first because you could be wrong and you know… get tippered, but I’ve played the matchup so much I am used to it. When starting out though, you can just stay a little farther outside of tipper spacing… then be patient and wait for him to misspace; you also should quickly move forward when its safe and shield to throw off his spacing so you can hopefully punish. You will also be forced to retreat a lot since he will try to move into tipper spacing … just watch out for ftilt… that move is too good (but no marth’s use it for some reason). You can also choose to try to play more in the air, trying to stay outside the fair and fsmash arcs and then fall down on him with aerials (that you will have to weave out at cc percents).
Also, BE PATIENT. It can be annoying when you keep getting outspaced and you can't get in but don't be impatient, remember that those are just single hits and he can't even kill you until crazy high percents so the damage isn't that big a deal. Just wait for the marth to mess up, they eventually will. Also remember to bait stuff and move around to mess up his spacing, you should be able to get a good read on your opponent because while they are putting up their wall and you are at a safe distance, you can focus 100% of your mind on what their aerial patterns are, their reactions to certain movements you do, etc.
Levels To Counterpick:
Dreamland - he can't ever kill you, most marths will start spamming side-b hoping to combo into uptilt, but you can di it and it is easy to outspace/bait marth because hes so eager for the kill
Battlefield is the next best stages, but its pretty neutral, not a huge advantage like dreamland.
Levels To Ban:
Yoshi's Story - you can die at zero from random throw to tipper, and overall you die too early, but sometimes you can get quick kills via edgeguards and rests (downthrow will lead to a follow up no matter where you start it on this stage)
Pokemon Stadium - This is actually pretty good for marth because he has space to move around and can kill early, but I would still ban Yoshi's because if you mess up your di just once on that stage it can mean death.
GOOD MATCH TO WATCH: Mango vs. M2k (notice the fairs oos and the patience)
Postives In the Matchup
Negatives In the Matchup
Stupid Fox
Mahone Percentage: 50-50
Actual Percentage: 60-40 Fox wins
Puff ***** aggro fox, but gets ***** by camping fox. And when i say campy, i don't mean running around for 8 minutes after shooting one laser, which is what most people think of... I mean dash dance camping, a little top plaform camping maybe, and only lasering to force you to approach or to put you in kill percent if you're close to it.
Against aggro fox, just wd back to grab and just keep bairing all of his approaches. You should be able to get a lot of edgeguards and upthrow rests against this type of fox. This type of fox will try to force running upsmashes against you when you are in kill percents. Remember that if they misspace the upsmash on your sheild you can rest it oos, otherwise wd oos and grab foxes that upsmash. Against this type of fox you won't need to do empty hops and tricks as much because he won't be shielding as much... just space bairs and wd back and don't worry if people call you gay.
Against campy fox, you are going to have to get really tricky. Most of your rests are going to be trades because a smart fox will laser you to kill percent every stock before they start actually approaching (I'm overexaggerating, it won't be JUST lasers to rack up the damage, you will also get hit with some safe shines and aerials) and they will di the rests down. I think you should still take all of these rests because you need them even if they trade since this is a losing matchup (and you benefit from both players being at last stock, since you can be at 999% and still rest for the win).
You are going to have to approach, so make sure you weave out with all of your aerials so that you can't get shield grabbed. Against this type of fox i think the most important thing is abusing his shielding. You have to be spot on and quickly notice when he starts shielding because he predicts aerials... then you have to empty hop and grab him or do something like falling upair to uptilt. Another tip is that most puffs uptilt right away which will probably work the first time when the fox is caught off guard and tries to react right away, but eventually they will wait in shield so you will have to wait also and predict when to uptilt... its really easy to get a feel for this, just think about when you would try to get out of shield if you were fox and its usual the same timing as them.
You will also benefit from watching their approach habits and general jump habits and getting upairs off, at super low percents, you can usually get sh upair to grab to upthrow rest if you hit one of their approaches, because that whole sequence is very hard to react to. In my experience, fox is too fast to react to, you will usually have to predict when you go for upairs, but this is essential since upair leads to the strongest punishes, along with grabs. Which is also why you need to make many finite adjustments to your spacing and just try to always stay just out of range of fox's approaches so you can get a grab.
If they are plaform camping, it can be hard, especially if it's the top platform. The problem with the top platform is that it takes you to many jumps to get up to him and he can just drop down shine jump back up and repeat or mix in some aerials. A much better way to approach is to get on the side platforms and then approach horizontally with bairs or from underneath with upairs. Basically what you have to do against platform camping is get one good upair off, because it will lead to so many upairs or rest if you want. Just wait for fox to tech and then upair, you can cover all the options if you space correctly under the platform. Once you get enough upairs you will have to land (or to be quicker waveland) on the platform and then continue with more upairs or finish with a rest or bair -> edgeguard opportunity. Another tip is that when you are pressuring a fox when they are near the ledge, they like to waveland the platform -> bairing you or just getting to the top platform so try to predict it and catch them with upair.
Make sure you tech shines. If you don't, fox can reactively grab rolls so you basically have a mixup between getup or not getup attack, and when you are right nothing happens, but when you are wrong you get grabbed to upthrow upair... so make sure you get used to situations where you get shined because its really fast and hard to react to.
You have to master sdi'ing foxes upair. If you can get full di behind fox on his upthrow you will usually just get a bair so that's a good option, but fox can still hit an upair and foxes are getting better at this. It's actually easier and better in my opinion to not di the upthrow and then smashdi the upair the way that the fox is facing. If you do di, you will have to use your judgement to decide how to sdi, usually its the opposite of which way they are running because they are likely to overshoot, but some foxes will undershoot so just use your judgement. Also at high percents, like ~70+, i always sdi the upair up, and i have a 90%+ rate of getting out, so DO THAT!! Also, if they upair you by overlapping you instead of just hitting with their feet you can rest them out of it. I don't think i can react quick enough to do it consistently, but you should try in out and friendlies and get a feel for it, also it might be worth it at like 0% to go for it, since the risk/reward is in your favor even if you are doing it just predicting they mispace.
EPIC MANGO QUOTE --> "go all out because ur going to die at 70 percent anyways"
Levels To Counterpick:
Mangoland - He has to start killing with bairs at 150 or get random upsmashes (which is good for you because you can punish random upsmashes HARD). He will probably resort to camping though, so keep that in mind.
Fountain of Dreams and Battlefield are also pretty good. Fod has a high ceiling and Battlefield takes away some of their recovery options.
Levels To Ban:
OH GOD... this is the worst!
Pokemon Stadium - He can camp easily and then get kills hella early because of the low ceiling, also the transformations are random and annoying.
Yoshi's Story - He gets kills hella early but at least back throw anywhere gets him off stage and you can get a lot of edgeguards, also rest will kill at very low percents even if they di, but so will the rest punish
Final Destination - Some foxes **** on this stage because they can dash dance and laser camp really well and can get upthrow upair galore, but on the plus side i find it simpler to figure out their habits and outspace them since platforms aren't a variable.
GOOD MATCH TO WATCH:
Aggro: Mango vs. Armada (I know its Armada's fox, but its a good example of aggresive fox, notice the wavedash backs)
Campy: Hbox vs Jman (notice everything, great match)
Postives In the Matchup
Eh Falco
Mahone Percentage: 50-50
Actual Percentage: 50-50
Playing falco can be frustrating because lasers are annoying and the sheild pressure is really good, but if you play the matchup right you can deal with both of those problems.
You have to stay in the air a lot. If you stay on the ground you will be forced to shield because of lasers and if you are forced to shield you will get shield pressured and grabbed a lot, so don't do that. If you do get grabbed: if the falco upthrows make sure that you di full behind sdi the lasers behind if you get hit with them, otherwise you are going to get hit with dairs and upairs. For dair you can tech and falco will have to guess your techs and techchase or you can just di the lasers and not have to tech at all, which one you pick is situational and depends on your opponent’s habits. You should assume the falco will upthrow when he grabs you and di accordingly, and then reactively adjust your di and decide whether to tech if they downthrow (you should have enough time during the dthrow animation but its hard so you should practice it).
If you stay in the air, falco can't do much, just float over the lasers towards falco and then mixup how you come down... falling nair is ****, make sure to hit his head with it and then start weaving out so that it is safe. You also need to mix in just landing outside of his grab/shine range and going for grabs. Bairs are really good when you are horizontal and close to falco because it will lead to more bairs and then you have to techchase, and if you guess right, falco will usually be off the ledge and you can go for easy edgeguards. One tip is that if you catch them off guard they will likely miss the tech so space the bair to hit missed tech and then land and immediately start jumping to continue the bair chain. Fairs are good for when you are kinda close and are just spacing him out, just weave out all this ****!! I can't stress that enough!!! When you are getting shield pressured pay attention to what type of pressure falco is exerting (late aerial to shine to grab vs. early aerial to shine vs....) because that will determine how to beat the pressure. You can wd oos away after the shine and fsmash them if they try to do repetitive aerial shield pressure, or roll oos after the shine usually if they are just going to do a retreating aerial or shinegrab or most other stuff, but rolling isn’t the best with jiggs and the falco can read it and start dairing your roll, which can lead to a lot. If they are going to retreating aerial afterwards, then holding shield would be better than rolling and losing stage, but you really just have to decide what to do based on what you think they are going to do. There are a lot of different shield pressures and they all have different correct responses so I won’t get into all that in this basic guide (especially since I’m not good at this aspect of the matchup). But as you can see, you’re better off just not being in shield, so try to focus a lot on not lingering in shield and staying in the air.
Also, wavedash back is really good in this matchup because it will force the falcos to overshoot their aerials otherwise they will get grabbed.
One really difficult thing that’s good is taking the laser to fair to grab. It is hard to time, but if you get good at doing aerials after taking a laser, the matchup will be a little easier. After the fair you will get the grab usually because they will be so surprised and it is very quick. Learning how to take lasers effectively in general is great and unexplored territory for the most part… something like sding a laser away and then wavelanding could be really powerful, so remember to try moving after the lasers hitlag is over (it’s a lot less than you might think) and experiment with different options (sometimes airdodge might be good for example if you don’t think you have time to move out of falco’s way).
One random thing to note is that you can duck under the lasers (unless they shoot really low ones) which comes in handy when you are trying to move around on the ground... just wavedash while crouching or what I usually do is duck under one laser and then jump over the next one and get up in the air again.
EPIC MANGO QUOTE --> "Falco Can be hard but eh its kinda easy but hard at the same time."
Levels To Counterpick:
Fountain of Dreams - I actually like this stage more than dreamland in this matchup. Falco can't camp you out with lasers and there just isn't a lot of room for him to move around like he wants. Also the high ceiling can be nice and you can get a lot of edgeguards.
Mangoland - This stage can still be good, but you are probably going to get camped. I would say you should pick this against aggresive falcos, but against campy falcos its still not bad.... probably like 55-45 in jiggs favor, but i think Fod is slightly better.
Levels To Ban:
Yoshi's Story - He gets kills off the top sometimes and he can get good combos with the platform, but laser camping isn't as strong and you can get gimps off bthrow. I would ban this against aggresive falcos.
Pokemon Stadium - This stage is perfect for falco to camp and occasionally be aggresive. I would ban this against campy falcos.
GOOD MATCH TO WATCH: Hbox vs. PP (notice everything, upair against platform camp, resting the sideb, dealing with lasers, etc.)
Postives In the Matchup
BiAtch Peach
Mahone Percentage: 45-55 Peach
Actual Percentage: 55-45 Puff
*This matchup guide is written by Idea
You’re both good at being floaties but jiggs is better at it.
Bair should be your default move in this matchup. Rely on it more than any other moves. It outranges most of peach’s moves, and she can’t move very quickly in the air or on the ground, so unless she is explicitly running away from you, it’s hard for her to dodge it. She’ll probably have to shield.
Peach has medium range and high move priority. You have high range and slightly lower move priority. Therefore, bair.
(to clarify, without bair, jiggs would only have low-medium range)
One of my favourite tricks works very well on peach: dthrow her onto a platform and techchase rest. It’s pretty easy to grab peach since she shields all the time against jiggs (to block all those bairs and fairs). And she’s in the right weight class for it to work at maybe 0-40%. The reason it’s not higher is that she can usually double jump past that point (being a floaty). It’ll work at higher percents on dreamland (but possibly not at 0...i can’t remember). Anyway, a lot of peach players will tech even when they don’t strictly have to, so expect it. Also they’re all going to DI away and tech in place, trust me =3
There are kind of two conflicting forces in this matchup.
1. Peach can’t reliably punish rest
2. It’s hard to hit peach with moves that combo into rest
You have to balance the desire to try for uptilts and falling upairs with the safety of your bair and fair. Play it by ear. It’s tricky, cause it’s REALLY good to rest peach, since she has so much trouble coming back from the stock deficit, but the setups aren’t likely to work since she’ll probably be spamming crouch cancel (she’s peach). And getting your uptilt CCed into her dsmash is not fun.
The most reliable ways to rest her are that dthrow thing, and getting behind her shield and uptilting. (why do jiggs’s tricks work on like every character?) she can’t do anything about it except get out of the way. To be evil, jump behind her and wait half a second before uptilting. Hopefully she’ll get scared and try to jump OOS, only to get caught in the delayed uptilt. Uptilt combos into rest extra-easily on peach because her double jump goes nowhere.
Bair/occasionally fair to rest in the air can work if she DIs badly. See Mango vs. Armada...one of the matches on FD =P I remember hearing that Mango asked Fuzzyness for peach advice and he said to do this. Makes sense. Resting on peach is not very risky.
Oh, and you can rest her dash attack OOS. Just jump straight up. If you CC it, which you shouldn’t be doing against peach, that works too.
Fair is also pretty good in this matchup. I find its main use is to hit her out of her float. If she is floating facing you (which she probably will be if she is floating at all) then she is going to fair. Fair will pretty much beat all your moves. You have to either not be in its way or stop it before it starts. The latter is a pretty good option, you just have to be a bit aggressive. Jump after her with fair. You don’t even have to time it cause weak fair combos into strong fair. Just try to hit her with fair, at all, before her own fair comes out. Once you hit with one, you can often fair and/or bair until she’s offstage.
Fair is inferior to bair for shield pressuring peach since there’s a greater chance she’ll be able to nair OOS after you hit her shield. But y’know, it can be situationally good too. Sometimes doing this will still end up catching her out of her float.
Turnips aren’t really that scary. Just don’t get caught in their slow, predictable arc. You should probably either run/float far enough back that it won’t hit, or nair through it. The first option isn’t all that bad because by the time she pulls another one you’ve probably gotten a lot closer to her anyway. Just be patient, they can get in the way but they don’t actually do very much. (oh, but if you do get hit, DI away just in case she’s trying to fair you afterward)
Edgeguarding!
If she goes high: float after her, she can’t do very much to you.
If she’s trying to float back from the side, it’s just about timing your bair or fair. Just be careful cause she might try to fastfall, which isn’t all that ‘fast’ anyway. if she is falling back over but not parasoling—meaning falling normally—then she is probably going to try to do a move early to block your aerials. So wait for that, then hit her afterward.
If she’s trying to float over then fall down onto the stage from above, you should upair. BUT, beware of her dair—it can cut through your upair, and then combo into nair, if you’re not careful. (or maybe it’s not a true combo...? but it doesn’t matter, watch out for it anyway.) you should try to bait the dair then upair after it finishes. Or, you could try hitting her offstage again with bair.
If she goes low: parasol outprioritizes everything, so don’t be anywhere near its range. You can try to fair or bair her against the stage and hope she doesn’t tech. A better option, though hard to time, is to grab the edge and nair with invincibility. Hopefully it’ll stage spike her. If not...some bull**** will happen, she’s not getting back after that anyway. lol
Edgeguarding peach is all about timing. Wait for her to make herself vulnerable. She always does, it just takes a while.
EPIC MANGO QUOTE --> "All her are dumb"
Levels To Counterpick:
It's really just personal preference. I prefer small stages because i have a hard time killing her so I pick Yoshi's Story, but you might like living forever and if you are good at getting rests then Mangoland is probably the best choice.
Levels To Ban:
This one is really weird, it all depends on what type of peach you are playing
Final Destination - I like platforms in this matchup, i feel like they help me get around turnips and get some rest opportunities and good upairs, so I usually ban this, but i would say that it is just personal preference and if you don't mind the turnips and think you can just outspace her, this stage should be fine.
You might even want to ban Yoshi's Story, just ban whatever you think is best, honestly no stage is that bad for this matchup.
GOOD MATCH TO WATCH: Mango vs. Armada (notice the edgeguarding)
Postives In the Matchup
Smexy Falcon
*This matchup guide is written by Tekk
Tekk percentage: 99-1 Puff wins
Actual percentage: 60-40 Puff wins
Bad falcons will make this matchup seem like a free win for Puff, but actually it's kinda tricky. Falcon is probably the character that punishes puff the hardest (with fox), but luckily he also suffers really disadvantaging flaws.
Your neutral position in this matchup should be crouching/WDing, because jumping around is pretty bad against falcon, since all he is looking for is an opportunity to land a grab or a mid% upair on you.
Remember this: once falcon catches you, he WON'T let you go. If you start to get combo'd, be sure do DI/SDI away as hard as you can, and to airdodge whenever he misses a timing. A good way not to get punished on your shffls is to wavedash away whenever you touch the ground.
A routine that works well for me is: SH nair=>fade back=>WD away. This way, if falcon tries to stomp you out of shield, you'll get a free grab.
About falcon's oos options: good falcons will often bait you with their shield and stomp you on your grab (especially if you're in their back). SH Uair beats that.
Falcon is easy to grab if you condition him to. spamming shffl naifs and bairs is a good way to do that. Then, when you get a grab, upthrow is the best option at low and mid%, and it leads to an easy upair rest if falcon doesn't DI (and a very few actually do). At high%, Fthrow is okay and Dthrow can work, on the ledge (if they DI inward you get a free fair/bair).
Falcon's most exploitableweakness in this matchup is his fastfalness+his weight… The guy's a real sandbag, and he's dead whenever you land an upair on him at mid%, since it leads to puff's every other move.
Some possible oos rests: on falcon's sideB, fsmash, downB
possible crouch rests: on falcon's jab, low% knee, upsmash…
Resting falcon after he Dthrows you is a matter of reaction; with practice you'll see when his knee isn't safe. Tip: if he tries to knee you with his thigh hitbox, you can rest him. If he tries to stomp you, rest.
Crouch is realllyyyyyy good in this matchup as well: always crouch when you land in front of him: bad falcons will try to grab you which is a free rest/grab, other falcons will try to stomp you oos (and good ones will mix it up, lol).
Nair is my favorite move in this matchup: almost always leads to a grab when it connects at low%, good grab bait and pressure tool: a lot of falcons will roll when you try to pressure them, and with puff's great air mobility, you can hit them with a weak air, fade back and punish the roll.
A trick of mine that works well on falcon (as well on fox/falco): on a platform stage, when you get to uthrow him onto a plaform, follow him, waveland then react to his techroll (which is very slow) with another grab/fsmash to send him offstage.
About edgeguarding falcon: Be patient. Don't chase him offstage. Wait for him to try to recover, then punish with a bair that'll send him a bit further. If he tries to recover from below the edge, Dsmash is a really good option, since this move is so hard to tech. If the falcon often goes for a sweetspotted upB below the edge, go for that good ol' edgehog, and if you misread his upB and he does make it to the ledge, that edgehop dair => grab hbox does will give you another chance. I usually just grab the edge whenever I send him offstage and react to his recovery.
Levels To Counterpick:
Fountain of Dreams - falcon hates this stage, and puff loves it. But it'll get banned anyway
Dreamland - you can tank pretty well here, and falcon doesn't benefit from this as much as you do i.e. the stage being wide doesn't prevent him from getting edgeguarded.
Levels To Ban:
Pokemon Stadium: biggest stage, plenty of room for falcon to run…
Final Destination: Same as PS, except the stage doesn't transform.
Yoshi's Story (?): Kind of a wild card; falcon doesn't have a lot of space, but a knee will kill you at 55%
Other stages are pretty neutral to me.
Postives In the Matchup
-falcon is the easiest character to combo, especially from a mid% upair
-he can't do much when you pressure him
-grabs often put him in a really bad situation
-bad recovery vs best edgeguarder in the game
-pretty easy to rest if you have good reaction
-he's scared of your crouch
Negatives In the Matchup
-It's really hard to escape once he lands his hands or feet on you
-fullhopping is bad vs him, will get you upair'd a lot
-you die at 90% max on big stages, watch for that spaced knee when you're at high%
-falcon is kind of hard to catch when he's on his dashdance routine
Jigglypuff
Hey-oh Yoshi
Ferrish Percentage: 50-50
Actual Percentage: 60-40 Puff
Yoshi can be a nightmare if you aren't familiar with his deep bag of tricks. His eggs can give you a real headache. He has lots of ways to trade with you, is tough or impossible to edgeguard/combo before about 80%, and his air speed is almost as good as yours (better with smart wavelands on plats). He can combo you better than most char's thanks to his glitchy auto-cancel insta-land on plats during his dj, even when ascending. He can dj armor Rest and punish you with fair which combos into fair or uair, both of which suck to get hit by. His moves in general are very powerful. His shield pressure should not be underestimated. The good news is Puff has the tools to deal with all that.
Yoshi's strengths in this MU are all in his defensive zoning and ability to trade favorably. His approaches are situational at best and gimmicky at worst. Due to the nature of his dj, he can either go low or cover horizontal distance but generally not both at the same time. What this means for you is that if you are grounded or very low, Yoshi can't approach you willy-nilly unless he has low% and center stage, if he has plat wavelanding shenanigans, or if you have high% and he nails you with an egg. Even then, you can generally counter with basic stuff like wavedash back, uairs, retreating bairs. This means you can easily be at a range where you are threatening bair but still be pretty safe from him, except maybe eggs. Watch for his backwards sh bair which covers a ton of space and trades way more often than it should (or maybe I just suck), and also watch out for plat malarkey that can get him to center stage where he really wants to be.
If you get stuck in your shield, keep in mind that he has decent shield pressure. His jabs and tilts are pretty good, and his dj-canceled nairs are fast and can stay out of grab range. He can easily adjust to cover the distance of your wavedash oos unless you are really perfect with that timing, but there's no reason to when rolling away from him does a much better job. Again, his dj's nature means he has a tough time following a simple roll--maybe dash attack, but that's not exactly a top-tier shield pressure move.
All in all, his inability to approach you and the relative ease with which Puff can escape make it very difficult for Yoshi to challenge your hit-and-run game. That being said, don't try to beat Yoshi with just bairs. There's a reason he's still around when all the other dinosaurs are dead, and that's because he powershielded the asteroid like a boss has a million ways to trade with you. His fsmash/usmash/dash attack give him invinc head. His powershield and CC give him opportunities to close the gap, if not counter you outright. He can tank through your aerials with his dj until about 80%, and because the "hinge" of his turnaround dj is about the base of his tail, if you aerial him from behind his dj will get him way closer to you than it appears. His afore-mentioned bair trades too often. He doesn't suffer shieldstun, so if you aerial his shield on a plat he can shield-drop and throw out an aerial or an egg. Plus, when you break his dj you have to hit him again to actually send him flying, so you might end up bairing him up until 120% on every stock. That's a lot of opportunities for him to trade with you, and you can bet that good Yoshi's are going to make good use of them.
You can totally go for tomahawk/ac grabs, or try to bait him into a position where you can get a grab. I generally find that fthrow is best just because of damage, but other throws have uses too. Utilt or low uairs at low% scare the crap out of him even if it doesn't chain into Rest. Fsmashes can also freak him out. Getting a stock lead off of a Rest can give you control of the entire match and force him to rely on his bad approaches. Keep in mind that you do have to work your top-tier tomfoolery into a hit-and-run strategy. You can't get in, start trading blows, and still expect to win. You also can't go for Rest willy-nilly, because eating a Yoshi fair is unappetizing and leads to an uair or just another fair and techchase.
Moral of the Story: You win this MU if you can play smart, not get lost in his trick-or-treat bag, and keep him guessing if you're going to wall him out with bairs or go in for top-tier malarkey.
Levels To Counterpick:
Final Destination - Without plats to waveland on or hide under, Yoshi can't keep up with you in the air or throw eggs very safely.
Fountain of Dreams - The high ceiling really helps you out. Plus, half of the stage becomes FD once that plat sinks into the ground.
Yoshi's Story - Kind of double-edged, but if you want to go for janky Rest combos, you want to make sure they KO.
Levels To Ban:
Pokemon Stadium - The low ceiling makes approaches harder and side plats make egg camping easier.
Battlefield - No real reason, it just seems like that is the favorite stage of many Yoshi's and the one they practice on the most.
Positives in the MU
Yoshi doesn't have a reliable response to Puff's hit-and-run game
Puff can easily edgeguard Yoshi if he loses his dj
Yoshi fears Rest combos even if they don't actually lead to Rest
Puff can roll out of Yoshi's shield pressure
Negatives in the MU
Egg camping
Yoshi has many tricks to take center stage and can keep you out once he gets there
Yoshi has many tricks to give him trading opportunities and his moves are quite powerful
Yoshi can dj armor the Rest
Camping
Before we talk about puff stuff, we gotta get this out of the way...These are mango's thoughts on camping:
Before I start all of this.. I got one thing to say..Once there was a great man named Gimpyfish who told me something..That Changed my life =). He said "u dont have to go to him if u dont want him". Which means is like when someone is camping u dont have to go to them all the time. JUST BE PATIENT!!! and keep ur spacing people!
Here's my thoughts:
This is one of the biggest issues with playing puff. If you play in a way that is even remotely safe you are going to be called gay.
You have two options...
1. Play aggressive and only beat people you are SIGNIFICANTLY better than (the mango approach)
2. Screw the haters and just play smart, even if it’s considered "gay" (the right approach)
I am so tired of fox players camping you for 8 minutes and then getting upthrow rested and then calling you gay and claiming they are better and it’s just jiggs…
Jigglypuff gets camped harder than any other top tier!!
... So don't feel bad if you counter camp!!
Jiggs is a slow character and does not have the shield pressure of the spacies so of course she is going to approach less and bait the opponent more…
Matchups:
The ***** Sheik
Mahone Percentage: 60-40 Puff wins
Actual Percentage: 60-40 Puff wins
If you play a really bad, or even mid level sheik, you will probably think this matchup is like 80-20 puff, but if sheik plays it right it can be much more difficult. A good sheik will not give you all those free crouch rests (although you will still get some inevitably), but instead will camp with needles and space bairs while abusing platforms (using needles and fairs).
I think this matchup is one of the few that you can be pretty aggressive in. In my experience if you don’t approach the sheik will just camp a platform while throwing needles at you. You need to watch for the sheik’s platform camping pattern and then punish it. For example, the sheik might run of the platform with a fair when you try to approach her on the platform, so you would want to bait that fair and hit her with a bair or grab her, etc.
A lot of sheiks like to move around the platforms a lot, so just try to catch them with upairs from below, these should lead to very good combos and often times easy rests. Also pound is pretty ****, it can also lead to rests, but use it sparingly since it’s so laggy (and only use it when sheik is airborne... upsmash oos hurts). As for her ground game, that’s where you reign supreme… you can outspace her with fairs and bairs most of the time, I especially like going for bair/fair to falling upair on her shield (you can condition her to shield with the spaced bairs/fairs) because than can lead to an easy rest… plus if it doesn’t hit just land right in front of her and crouch and most sheiks will try to grab on reaction (at least the first time) and you can rest them, even if they don't grab, there isn't much she can do in that position… you can also mix up your approaches with empty hop to land in front of her… then just guess the timing of her letting go of shield and uptilt for a low risk/high reward rest setup.
Because sheik is forced to shield if you can space your bairs well… you can grab her and downthrow her, which will often times result in a rest… if she di’s in at low to mid percents then you can just rest out of the downthrow, but if she di’s away on most stages, she will have to land on a platform and you have a chance at a techchase rest (just a tip… if you have no idea on their teching habits, tech in place seems to be the most common tech option).
Edguarding is easy, just try to aerial her when she’s far off the stage and when she gets close, edgehog to force her to upb on stage and then rest her. Just make sure to practice your jump off the ledge timings so you don’t accidently get hit by the up-b when trying to rest her on stage… the timing can be pretty tight if she upbs really far on stage… also watch out for wall jump bair tricks if she is close enough to do so.
Recovering is pretty easy, she will most likely grab the ledge and do bairs off of it... its the only real thing you have to avoid, so even though it has pretty good range, it is easy enough to avoid once you get used to it. Some aggro sheiks will also be willing to do quick run off fairs or wall jump fair stuff, but most will be too uncomfortable offstage vs puff to try those kind of tricks.
Also remember than when she grabs you, di the downthrow AWAY and then the fair IN… if you don’t di the throw away, you can get upsmashed or upaired, which kill a lot earlier… sometimes if I know im dead to a dthrow fair, I will di up and in hoping that they mess up, but besides that I don’t ever see it being worth it.
You can rest A LOT of her moves (listed below in the pros section) and she has the worst rest punish of the high tiers, which leads to some pretty fun games… I personally love going for nair rest, because if I miss at low percents I just eat an upsmash, which doesn’t do much, and if I’m at a really high percent, I was probably gonna die soon anyway, but if it hits it kills her at like 0% lol… poor sheik… oh well just take your free win, jiggs has enough hard matchups.
Levels To Counterpick:
Mangoland - she still dies quick but you don't
Final Destination - is can be good because there are no platforms for her to camp
Levels to Ban:
Battlefield - It's platforms are just great for sheik to camp effectively and she can use them to move around
GOOD MATCH TO WATCH: Hbox vs Amsah (notice the rest spamming)
Postives In the Matchup
- You can crouch her grab, ftilt, jab, and more and rest it!
- Edguarding is easy, just try to aerial her when far off the stage and when she gets close, edgehog to force her to upb on stage and then rest her
- nairing -> crouch or uptilt is ****, sometimes if i need it i just go for nair rest because....
- She has one of the worst rest punishes (her best one imo is to fully charge needles and then grab slap you)
- You can rest out of shield her dash attack if she misspaces, her fsmash, and i've heard her downsmash, but its hard
- Easy rest setups, besides crouch you can: uptilt, upair, pound sometimes, downthrow to platform techchase rest (if she dis the downthrow so shes above you, rest her!) and all of these rests will kill her at very low percents.
- Grab leads to a slap up to death percent
- Needle and platform camping is hard to deal with sometimes
[COLLAPSE="Teczer0"]
Sheik vs Jiggs is a weird match up to say the least.
A reminder not to go for too many grabs. They can be helpful if you get them but going for too many = getting crouched then rested. Same goes for her Dash attack don't do it too often. Tbh I stay away from dash attacks period in this match up.
At lower percents the game is to tack on percent. Use needles A LOT. Don't approach jiggs often or at all. Stay safe and keep your space and take advantage that you have projectiles while jiggs doesn't.
At low percents I camp my shield a lot if I'm not throwing needles. Jigglypuff is almost always going to come by air, her run is horrifyingly slow. Then it depends on what happens.
If jiggs is floating near you (Like around sheik's head) do a N-air oos (Don't use this tactic at too low percents, they may be able to hit you if you do it at like 0 wait till about 20% to use it). It'll hit fast then you can run away with the nair.
If they seem to be running away or just "floating" near your shield just WD OOS ftilt into something. Or if you are confident you can hit it, a f-air is ideal since the knockback makes it very easy for you to run away afterwards.
Remember the point is to tack on dmg. As long as you can add percent you're fine.
If you feel like you need space and want to run away use b-airs. Its range is huge and you should be far enough from jigglypuff where you can just simply run away. Or you can WD back and run too.
This strategy is okay for mid percents (50-75ish) too just make sure you don't do unnecessary things. One hit is fine.
Once they get to around 60-70ish area start to abuse your crouching more. Your crouch is really low so Jiggs's WoP isn't as useful. D-tilt allows you to very easily set up for a up-air for the kill. CCing a b-air to get a dtilt isn't a bad idea if you are at low enough percents.
I usually crouch then as I see my opponent running quickly WD then D-tilt hoping it hits. If it doesn't I run away.
This usually works for stages with small/normal ceilings.
Sometimes though its very difficult to always catch a dtilt upair. Especially if your opponent is like Darc who isn't dumb and is eventually going to catch on. *shakes fist out of <3*
Unfortunately if you drag jigglypuff to percent you cannot d-tilt upair its going to be hard.
You have to catch random hits and jigglypuff can live most of your aerials if you hit them.
So camping shields is usually my choice at this point. If jigglypuff messes up and hits your shield wrong or is caught sleeping you can hit them with some aerial to send them off the stage.
Then you can catch them off the stage, sounds risky at first but you have to know what to look for.
One thing to look for is Pound. Jigglypuffs instinctively use it to help them recover. If you see a jiggs use it kinda close off the stage just run off fast fall double jump fair them. There is a decent amount of cool down for you to go and do this.
The other one is a little more risky and you have to use your best judgement on it. When jigglypuff gets very close to the stage most of time the just float at the edge as they try to grab it. If you are fast enough you can fall really fast and come back up to the stage with a nair to hit them off. They lose whatever jumps they used and will probably be forced to use pound. Or they get stage spiked ^_^. Or they tech it... but you won't be in major danger so *shrugs*.
Like soap said upsmash is pretty good for jigglypuffs expecting to just catch CC rests all day. At semi mid percents it makes the jigglypuff fall down and unable to rest you.
CC grabs are VERY good if you can get them. They let you get a good amount of percents and can kill jigglypuffs at percents that dtilt upair can't kill.
Upsmash OOS is good too if you think your opponent is going to bair,fair, nair through your shield.
Reminder too - Watch out when your shield gets too small. Try to run away if it happens to regenerate your shield. If it gets too low watch out for empty jumps into Fsmash. Its deceptive and has a bigger hitbox then you think it does. And if you get hit it hits REALLY hard so watch out.
[/COLLAPSE][/collapse]Excuse the double post, this is from KirbyKaze:
Jigglypuff
A word from the author: I skimmed the Sheik board today and noticed people answering questions about this MU and several others. Since discussion seems to be shifting back into something I somewhat enjoy, I decided to craft the second MU for my guide. Falco is put on hold because I just learned a lot about fighting spacies that I wish to incorporate into his section and Fox’s section. Fox is on hold for a similar reason.
On that note, since Tope is leaving us to become an American pirate (and he’s perhaps the one of the only other Sheiks in the universe who I think is actually good at this one) I figured I’d give you guys something to chew on while I’m banned. This should cover most questions of the MU.
This part of the guide is strictly for NTSC.
All numbers are ‘before the hit’.
1. Background Information
This MU has a lot of history to it. In earlier times, this MU was considered easy for everyone’s favourite ninja. But the past few years (2009 onwards) have been a very interesting time for SSBM. M2K unveiled his super tournament-threat Sheik. Armada showed prowess on the national scale by taking second at Genesis with the Peach that changed how over two-thirds the Melee population looked at Peach. And we discovered a second heavy tournament-threat Sheik in Europe, something that we haven’t had in ages.
All of these were then stopped by the most hardcore pudding-pop diva-bunny ever. The aftermath was staggering. Numbers were tossed around haphazardly. Some claimed the Sheik Puff MU was horrific whereas others made excuses for inexperience. Whole regions began learning secondary characters in an effort to counter the jiggling menace. It was a very strange time. Nowadays, it is generally agreed upon that this one isn’t so grim. There is not yet a solid consensus on who has the advantage, but the strategy is at least beginning to be settled.
This is perhaps one of the most irritating characters Sheik faces for a variety of reasons. The constant proximity of death makes this a challenge that punishes you very heavily for slip ups – whether they are errors in tech or poor decisions. Many of Sheik’s time-honored advantages evaporate in the face of a character who resists combos, edgeguards, gimps, and whose range compares to yours. But Sheik is still a threat in this one if you understand Puff’s limitations, and she comes with needles. Even in our crazy Melee universe, sharp objects are still good against balloons.
2. Mechanical Information
There’s a lot of mechanical and technical information vs. Puff because her character design is weird and has all sorts of little gimmicks and nonsense.
Shield Counterattacks:
Are almost totally worthless vs Puff's aerials. It's stupidly easy for her to avoid it because of crouch, aerial mobility, range, etc. So unless they give you a cue that nair OOS or whatever will work (crossing up, being in the air forever, etc), then don't bother. Puff can decide for Sheik's nair OOS and shield grab to suck pretty much at will. So yeah, usually they're gonna suck.
Rest and Death:
DI Rest to kill yourself if you’re over about 10-15% (depending on stage and positioning) so you can punish her for hitting with it. This is important so Puff does not use Rest to cover too much ground either getting ahead or coming back when she’s at KO percent.
To get a feel for survivability, at the edge of Pokemon Stadium, up tilt Rest kills Sheik at 0 (according to M2K, who I trust). Use that as a general base as to whether or not it’s worth attempting to DI to survive or not. Generally it won’t be, but surviving rests when it’s appropriate to do so will prevent you from losing games.
Teching vs Puff:
Sheik has wonderfully huge tech rolls so tech rolling is actually really good against Puff. This forces Puff to take preemptive actions to cover multiple options or far techs, so if you can spot her cues (as to which she’s covering) you can often get out for free, which is great.
With non-tech options, rolling into her is absolutely horrible because it’s the easiest thing for her to react to and rest. It can be tempting to go for getup attacks to try and shake her, but be wary of rest OOS and her ability to fish for it with her DJs. Standing and moving away from her are probably going to be your best bet (usually).
On platforms it’s a bit different. Something you’ll notice is that in certain positions, Puffs like to down throw Sheik because if Sheik DIs anywhere but away, she can be directly comboed or rested. So it’s often used in certain positions where DIing away will put Sheik on a platform. In these cases, Puffs are usually looking for tech stands for the rest because they’re the fastest option. Try to observe which way the Puff is committing with her jump and trick her with a tech roll. You’ll sometimes get caught anyway and die, but the biggest mistake players make in this situation is limiting their tech selection to the stand; make Puff work to kill you.
Puff Crouch Mechanics:
Puff’s crouch mechanic vs. grab – Puff’s crouch will dodge Sheik’s dash grab and standing grab. For the first 10+ frames (not sure the exact amount) of her crouching animation, Jigglypuff sits still and you cannot grab this. However, after that period, she begins to fidget about at set intervals. While she is fidgeting about, you can dash grab to overlap her head and nick her.
Ground needles work similarly. You can shoot her with sets of ground needles when she fidgets, but not when she’s simply crouching. You need a bunch (3+) because the needles shoot low every third or second needle (forget which). Single needles will still miss.
In order to connect aerial needles > grab on her crouch, you require to connect minimum two needles during descent. The timing is fairly tight. You can practice this by setting a CPU Puff to crouch in training mode (calibrate the stick ‘up’) to get a feel for it. It is a reasonable trick. I do not recommend using this as a rest punishment (as many have suggested in the past) because of the versatility of the full needle set as an edgeguard, zoning tool, and combo finisher (which is worth more than the 6-9% extra from a needle grab setup).
Puff’s crouch vs. dash attack – Surprisingly, dash attack is one of the moves I like most against Puff’s crouch. Though risky, it’s a reasonably good trick if used correctly (and sparingly) for racking damage and even scoring kills vs. her duck.
At 50% (or so) your dash attack begins to knock her over. Knocking her down and down smashing isn’t a bad play by any means for racking damage.
At 80% (or so) your dash attack begins to launch her, in spite of her crouch. The reduced KB (because she was crouching) keeps her from drifting away too far. Tight timing is required for you to follow up on it (the stun is also reduced) but you can combo to fair and uair off this. At 90%+, it’s feasible to kill her with this (so I don’t really recommend you do it below that percent if you can help it, except perhaps on Yoshi’s Story).
At about 120% (or so) your dash attack begins to kill her on most stages (not Dreamland) if she’s not crouching (dash attacking beneath her bairs and such for a KO is not a terrible idea).
Rest Punishes:
These are fairly optimized AFAIK. There’s probably room for improvement but this is what I got so far. I do other stuff sometimes but these are tried, true, and work.
At roughly 75% on standard ceiling heights (BF, FD, FoD, PS) it is optimal to simply fully charge an up smash and KO her off the roof (from the floor). You will have to fiddle for more exact percents.
If she misses a Rest on the platforms of neutral Pokemon Stadium, you can tipper up smash her feet (her feet stick through the level and extend her hurtbox going down). On Yoshi’s Story’s side platforms, you can tipper up smash beneath her if she’s on the half of the platform closest to the center. It kills on Yoshi’s Story (fully charged) at something ridiculous (maybe like 23?).
If those options aren’t available you’re probably going to fully charge needles and then either SH an aerial (dair or uair) on top of her or do a down throw combo.
At 18% your strong up air (assuming full power uair) will knock over Jigglypuff if she attempts to hold down on it. This allows you to follow up with a down smash (even if she techs; if she tech rolls then you can dash attack or unload the set of needles and take the damage). If you’re ballsy, you can attempt a jab reset (which works if she continues to hold down on it, but if she doesn’t then you lose the combo). If she does not hold down on the up air and gets popped up in stun, you simply follow with more aerials. If you’re lucky, you might get a second up air into another aerial. You’re more likely to simply get a nair or fair, however. Do the up air as low to the ground as possible for this to be effective.
Dair functions similarly except it knocks over closer to 40%. Do the dair as low to the ground as possible to maximize your ability to dash after her DI (if she DIs away) so you can follow. This punish is effective up to about 60% or so.
If you are worried about platform interference with your jumps or whatever (relevant on YS and FoD) or simply want to do something easier, a simple d-throw combo (any fast aerial, probably fair or uair) will also suffice and do comparable damage. The main benefit to hitting her high as possible is positional, however, since Sheik likes to threaten with bair and needles as Puff is coming down. This is why the low uair and dair combos are good.
Throw Combos:
You can always link uair after you d-throw Jigglypuff. Below about 20% it's better to fair if she DIs away from your d-throw. However, around 20% the uair opens up a few options you don’t have otherwise (namely a second aerial, and the option to protect her landing area with needles or zone with bairs). Fair is still really good, though and easier to hit (if you mistime the uair you can be rested and it’s a fairly tight timing if they DIed the d-throw away). For non-lethal percents, pick your poison.
D-throw > up air kills her on away DI (on both the throw and on the up air) around 85-90% on most standard levels (not Dreamland, which is about 100%). You can sometimes play little DI games with fair (expecting her to DI to the side to survive the up air) if you’re near the edge at slightly lower percents.
The Importance of Storing Needles:
Puff is going to be luring you a lot in this MU so charge your needles whenever nothing is going on (if you’re in a safe position to do so). They are amazing. This is why:
Offstage: having the full set of needles gives your edgeguarding a buff because it allows for better and further distance needle cancels into fairs (or more needles) because of the longer stun time. It covers a larger area for longer too, which makes clipping jumps easier (her later jumps are smaller than her early ones, so following up on the edgeguard sometimes becomes possible). Even if you just rack damage on her offstage that’s completely fine.
Onstage: they’re just nice to have because comboing into the full set of needles off your stray fairs and such adds a lot of damage. Using the needles to keep her from attempting to land on the ground (and thus forcing her onto platforms) makes it easier to hit follows and rack damage. If nothing else, it exerts a weird form of pressure on her that she either has to respect and work around or she eats a good chunk of damage. Needles are incredible. Charge them. Love them.
3. Combat Stuff
Well, that was a lot of nonsense. Let’s move onto the fun stuff. The MU actually breaks down easily enough. There are just a lot of little rules that you are expected to know, and teensy nuances that you need to be aware of in order to avoid dying an untimely death to her godlike down+B.
Puff’s Air Game:
The most important move in Sheik’s entire moveset against Jigglypuff is bair. If you learn nothing else from this guide, learn bair. The Puff match comes down to a lot of aerial spacing and movement because of how volatile Jiggs can be against everything else. Bair has a lot of important traits for interacting with Puff aerials. Its range is huge and it has enormous priority. Just about anything in Sheik’s bair space will likely be trumped by it. Since Jigglypuff likes to jump to initiate, this is invaluable. The angle that Sheik aims her leg at is important because it makes it good for moving underneath and around the moves that Jigglypuff will be protecting herself with (which will often be her own bair). By moving away from Puff, it’s very reasonable to beat non-bair aerials aimed to go under Sheik’s bair, provided you can put enough distance between the two of you.
As a bonus, Sheik's bair often combos into itself. So it's even good for racking damage.
Sheik’s bair can be used to counter a lot of Jigglypuff’s generic bair spacing. The positioning is a bit over a bair’s length away (yours, not Puff's). Crouching under Puff's rising bair (both FJ and SH rising back air misses against your crouch) and then jumping up with your own bair is a good way to counter standard FJ double bairs by Puff. Falling aerials can be reacted to (jump and bair first; you have a big speed advantage) or punished with evasion (mostly jumping over them, maybe dash dance punish if you’re really quick [don’t try to dash dance grab]). Losing the rising bair hurts Puff. Similarly, if you notice she turns around to attack with a sex kick or dair (which can hit your crouch while rising) you can simply jump away and outprioritize it with bair.
As a quick side note, the crouch's effectiveness against her primary spacing tool enables a bunch of options for sneaking around. Crouch > WD movements are a pretty good way to fish for d-tilts, which can be a reasonable way to kill her at high percents (75%+). Escapable, but not a terrible plan. Anyway, back to bair...
The amount of aerial approach space that Sheik’s bair covers necessitates that an approaching Puff attempts to play around it or get under it. She can attempt typical lag punishes (usually with evasion > dash attack or f-smash, bairing further away, and grab stuff [run under bair, block, shield grab]) but these are handled mostly by not swinging blindly when she tries to bait the bair with farther-spaced jumps, or by simply keeping proper bair distance.
If you notice Puff is retreating a lot to try and lure you into attacking her, you can just shoot needles at her. Fullscreen bair camps by Puff give you ample opportunity to charge full sets and unload them as she attempts to land; pay attention to how she spends her jumps and when she’s bairing. Challenging her airspace aggressively when she is in full retreat is very difficult. It is very easy for her to move back further, double jump out of reach, or change her position in some similar way (which leads to you possibly getting hit). Hitbox drag works very favourably for her here. Half-retreats, stationary aerials, and weaves (when she jumps forward and pulls back) can sometimes be aerialed aggressively (or even naired around). This style of play is not bad when used sparingly, but do not underestimate her ability to drift further from you. Sheik’s low aerial mobility works against her here.
Up tilt does a good job covering approaches directly on top of Sheik. Puffs often attempt to nair coming down off of platforms or after they’ve been comboed (or similarly been forced above you). It covers an area that bair doesn't.
Puff comes with a reasonable pair of sex kicks so I’ll cover them briefly. They’re not really hard to deal with relative to her other stuff but you should know the basics. You can counter most of her SH sex kicks with SH back fairs, bairs, and even f-tilts. It’s also reasonable to sneak down tilts underneath them as she’s falling with them, provided you can move back enough. It is viable to CC down smash on them, but be careful because she can poke with nair and then drift back outside of your range (although if she commits and goes into you then it’s pretty good).
Against higher sex kicks (DJ and FJ versions), just treat them like you would any other high approach. Up tilts and bairs. Not much else to say. You can fair, if you want, and it can work, but her weaving is reasonably good against this whereas it’s much poorer against your bair.
Sheik on Platforms:
I wasn’t really sure where to put this so I put it here. Platforms are kind of a weird hybrid of air game and ground game.
Platform camping used to be the best general strategy to do the MU and it’s a useful skill to have. The platform camping principle is simple: Puff is slow going up and down whereas Sheik is not. Sheik moves fast across platforms whereas Puff does not. This allows you to get a speed advantage and zone certain areas very effectively; mostly through the needle triangle.
The needle triangle is very good against aerial Puff. If Puff approaches into the needle triangle of the platform then you can actually get some very good combos from it at low percents. Aerial needle (cancel on platform somehow) > run off fair > follow (f-tilt, fair, etc) is pretty easy to land if they jump into the needle. At higher percents you can exchange the run off fair with a weak aerial (bair) and link from there. This sort of thing relies a bit on Puff moving into the triangle zone, but it’s not a bad position for Sheik defensively if you can get up there safely.
One of her main counters is to get under you and shark with uairs through the platform. She will likely do this by shielding needles and WDing OOS deep enough into the triangle so the needles miss. You can do pretty typical shield stuff (lightshield to slide off the platform facing forwards; often get a free bair this way), run off the platform, or reposition with the top platform in response but there is a danger in being above Jigglypuff for so long. Those up airs can very easily kill you. I’m not sure how the shield drop interacts with her stuff.
Another thing she might try is to aim for Sheik’s face, outside the needle triangle. This requires her to have some height, however, because Sheik is atop a platform. This can be annoying, but isn’t unbearable because you can take the ground floor in response to this, and play Sheik’s typical game with bair when she’s below Puff. You can also simply bair or fair on the platform itself, or maneuver with the top platform.
Life on the Edge:
Puff is going to want to corner you at the edge. Your shield is very important in this position. Puff generally looks for people to swing at her, so she can punish the lag and score a gimp or bair chain (which converts into a gimp). It’s not unreasonable to return to the edge and replenish your shield in the event this happens. Having proficiency with ledgedashes can give you invaluable options in this situation. Small ledgedashes are an effective way to possibly catch Puff aiming her bair further away from the edge, in the expectation that you will ledgedash deep (or roll, get up attack, deep ledgehop fairs, etc). Once onstage, you can begin a less optimal version of the crouch strategy (you don’t have as ideal spacing) or attempt to dash through her. Going on the platform is similarly reasonable, but be wary of wavelanding forward when you do so (she will try to protect that space). Paying attention to her positioning and whether she can cover that option is very important. Once you’re on the platform, if you didn’t waveland forward, you can decide to go around her or return to land (if she’s going high in preparation of you going forward on the platform) and see if you can make back ground through the middle.
It will be tempting to go for the middle with quicker, more dynamic actions (roll, waveland, etc). Wavelanding across the side platform and rolling to the middle are not terrible options when used sparingly but try to do them when Puff is committed to something else so you don’t get punished for them (particularly the roll; you can be rested for it).
Another important thing to note about being by the edge is that you will probably tempt Puff into going for grabs on you by shielding so much. If possible, try to WD back on these efforts (other actions can be stuffed by her changing her mind and going for an aerial, WD back, etc). If WD is not available because of space constraints, you may require alternative options (SH, FJ > platform, FJ > waveland, etc). Jumping OOS on attempted empty jump > grabs is also fairly good (this is also a point in the MU where sidestep has a lot of potential, though it’s admittedly risky).
Sheik’s low dash is conducive to running under aerials. For this reason, running through Puff’s aerials to reach the middle (or even just to get under her) is not unheard of. Dashing under her bairs is not a bad way of positioning yourself to attack her (dash attack, rising aerials, etc) or push her away from the middle of the stage.
When Sheik has Puff pushed to the edge, your game does not really change too much. Positioning should be roughly a third of the stage’s length from the edge (can vary, depending on how competent you are with platforms, etc). If Puff is holding the ledge, shooting ground needles as she comes up with whatever is a fairly simple, effective way to put pressure on her without risking anything. Unload, charge, repeat if necessary. However, be careful – being near the edge often makes Puffs go for riskier plays (gimmicky throw setups, Pounds, cross up aerials, etc) so be wary of these and punish them accordingly. Be patient; make her do all the work. Bairs are your friend. Pounds and b-throws are probably the most dangerous thing here, so watch for them the most. If she pounds your shield, remember that you can do more than simply nair OOS (up smash, grab, and up air OOS can all be good).
In general, if you have Puff with her back to the edge, you’re probably doing well so long as you’re not getting gimped. Puff is less troublesome when she’s pressured.
Handling Grounded Puff:
A lot of the above has mostly related to Puff when she’s in the air. Grounded Puff is a little different.
On grounded Puff you mostly want to be facing forward (if you’re intending to challenge her). There’s not really much you need to do about her ground game when she’s not crouching or shielding. If she’s not crouching then standard SHFFAC fairs are pretty effective (they need to be a bit lower because she’s short). If you’re on defense and she’s grounded, be wary of her efforts to WD into you and pierce your shield with up tilt. You can shield grab her up tilt, on that note. Her dash attack goes quite a distance too so be aware of that as an option but it can similarly be shield grabbed. You can hang outside her f-smash range pretty easily and just wait pretty effectively versus most of her ground stuff.
Her crouch is annoying, but not really that different.
On her crouch, you really only have a few options to engage it directly. Low fairs are okay; so are aerial needles. You don’t necessarily need the needles to combo into anything, but linking them into down tilt or down smash is a pretty good way to rack damage. Going for the needle grab is okay but requires you essentially be in her face for it to work and that can be dangerous (her spontaneously doing up tilt out of crouch, or moving under you with WD is a real threat). Beware of typical stuff against low aerials (her jumping with an attack, WD back > attack, etc).
Riskier options include down smash and dash attack. Puff can shield punish both of these with aerial OOS fairly easily. But they aren’t horrendous against her crouch (they have percentage restrictions so you don’t get crouch-rested; down smash is weird against shields and near the edge).
Finally, you have the option to simply not engage it all that much. This is not a bad option at all. Invoke the platform needle position. Her crouch doesn’t actually do much if you’re not close enough for it to be relevant and it doesn’t do anything against platform play. So if you decide you do not feel comfortable challenging the ducking Puff, there’s nothing that says you really have to. Charge your needles across the stage and wait, prepare to down smash her if necessary as she WDs into you, go under a platform in preparation of FJ needles > needle cancel if you want, and so forth. Make her come to you and reposition. It’s really not that bad.
All this stuff with needles, down smash, dash attack, and low aerials will likely encourage blocking by Puff. Believe it or not, you want her to block. This is the one time in the MU where it’s actually okay to go for grabs on Puff without it being some kind of lag punish or gimmicky needle setup. However, it is strongly advised you max-range your standing grab. The standing grab and range requirements are precautions so she does not get a rest for sidestepping something; if you do the dash grab, the lag makes it possible to be rested from sidestep and other OOS options. Puff crouches when she jumps OOS so max ranging is similarly important to reduce risk of rest KO and force her to punish with aerials and such, which are manageable. It is not guaranteed by any means but this system allows you to fight with a favourable risk-reward for Sheik on the table, which is rare in this MU.
Empty jump to grab is your friend. Walk forward grab is your friend. Dash to crouch or WD down (to break the momentum so you can space) grab is your friend. Give her the impression that you are going to do something she can shield-punish, or that she wants to shield, and then grab.
Edgeguarding Puff:
Shoot her with needles whenever you can. Stealing jumps and stuffing pounds are very, very important!
On high recoveries you sort of have to accept that there’s nothing you can do for sure so you just want to stay below her and threaten with whatever you can. Bair, up tilt, f-tilt, jab, even CC d-smash. Be wary of pounds. There’s not much to say about this. Sheik is one of the characters that actually can jump offstage and swing a bair at a high Puff, but it’s very risky and if Puff spots you doing it then she can usually pull back enough to avoid the bair (and possibly pound at you and kill you). That said, it’s not a bad idea to threaten with it (remember to avoid the pound!) and abort mission, grab edge, etc. If you see her attack offstage for whatever reason in your range (whiffed pound, fair, etc) then feel free to swing.
On low recoveries, whenever you can ledgehop nair a Jigglypuff into the edge and stage-spike her, do it. None of them have ever really learned how to ledge tech, so if you catch them hugging the wall (which will happen sometimes, because they’ll try to do it to make your bair soft hit) then just nair them. Beyond that, shoot them with as many needles as you can and make them drop as many jumps as possible. Needle > fair if you can. Hitting strong bair gives them height (assuming they survive it), but if they’ve lost a bunch of jumps then it’s not bad to do it just to push them away and force them to Pound a bunch to recover. Otherwise, you generally want to minimize how much height she can gain and try to choke her jumps as much as possible. Again, I stress don’t get pounded (or baired or whatever attack she swings with). It is likely that she will try and trick you by hovering just outside your ledgehop bair range; just shoot her with needles for this.
I want to stress that you be very careful with your invincibility because trades can very easily kill you in this position. Edgeguarding a low Puff recovery is hard to make lethal even if you rack a lot of damage (barring a stage-spike). If you drop an edgeguard because you hit with a poof or naired her across the stage when she air-dodged up, that’s not as bad as risking your stock because a pound traded with something. Racking damage is perfectly fine.
General trick: if Puff goes over the lip of the stage after 100% or so on most stages then it’s reasonable to just ledgehop uair and attempt to kill them. Nair is also good because of its size, duration, and how easy it is to strong hit.
Freaking Marth
Mahone Percentage: 60-40 Puff wins
Actual Percentage: 55-45 Marth wins
I don’t care what most puffs say… this matchup is not puff favor!!! I’ve been playing Marth players since I started playing (both my main training partners are marth mains)… so much that now it’s my best matchup, even though I ****ING hate it.
Luckily most marths play the matchup horribly wrong so it doesn’t really matter…
What you want to do in this matchup is play a lot more patient than you normally do… marth is one of the few, if not only, characters that can just outspace all of your moves. Normally it’s the other way around, where jiggs is the master of poking with single hits, but gets punished hard when the opponent gets in… but in this matchup, you will be the one getting zoned out and poked, but when you get in you can combo Marth hard.
Make no mistake, you can still get comboed if Marth gets one of those stupid inside fairs, but that shouldn’t happen too often if you keep your spacing… also remember to di all of his hits AWAY, don’t worry about dying, his moves don’t kill until really high percents unless he gets a tipper.
Just try running up and shielding when Marth is walling you out, and then fair out of shield… or try to get a well spaced bair in to disrupt his wall, but really you are just waiting for him to mess up or get predictable. I like to pound when I have a good read on my opponent because even though its risky, it will lead to insane combos, bair chains, and sometimes rest, also it has good range and its hitbox stays out long, so it can catch a lot of marths off guard. The best move you have for comboing marth is upair, if you can get an upair off when he messes up and you get in, it will lead to more upairs to rest or to bairs that will get him off stage.
Once you get marth with a bair close to the ledge, he will usually be dead because he will either have to di in and get baired again or di out and die to the final bair plus edgehoging. Edgeguarding marth is pretty simple… it’s similar to sheik, just bair him when he’s far away and edgehog when hes close to force an up-b onstage and rest it… but unlike sheik, marth can defend himself against your bair offstage pretty well, and can use his side-b to mess up your ledge invul timing… I like marthkiller(ask someone in this thread to explain it if you don't know what this is) a lot because it prevents his timing mindgames when he has to recover low.
One of the hardest parts of this matchup is coming down against marth. He can safely go for upairs when he is below you because your dair sucks and you have no move that can outspace it from above, so he gets free chances to hit you with upair… and once it hits he gets to do it all over again… what I do is use a lot of jumps to avoid it and most marths with do some sort of laggy move predicting you will come down, like uptilt or fsmash, and that’s when you can finally come down safely (and maybe even punish them). If they don’t fall for your tricks, just land on the top platform to regain your jumps and try to juke the marth out horizontally… hopefully they will eventually mess up, as it is actually pretty hard for the marth to keep his spacing while moving around and trying to watch for what you are doing.
On the ground you just have to watch out for grabs, make sure that you duck if you predict it and you can rest him, also some marths like to dash attack, but if they misspace it you can rest it out of shield. Besides that most marths won’t really be approaching you on the ground, they will just be fairing trying to get single hits. If you do get grabbed, make sure to di DOWN so they can’t tipper you (that should be good enough vs most marths, the full grab/di mixup stuff is pretty complicated, i won't get into here).
The spacing I like being in this matchup is just outside of tipper spacing, it can be really risky at first because you could be wrong and you know… get tippered, but I’ve played the matchup so much I am used to it. When starting out though, you can just stay a little farther outside of tipper spacing… then be patient and wait for him to misspace; you also should quickly move forward when its safe and shield to throw off his spacing so you can hopefully punish. You will also be forced to retreat a lot since he will try to move into tipper spacing … just watch out for ftilt… that move is too good (but no marth’s use it for some reason). You can also choose to try to play more in the air, trying to stay outside the fair and fsmash arcs and then fall down on him with aerials (that you will have to weave out at cc percents).
Also, BE PATIENT. It can be annoying when you keep getting outspaced and you can't get in but don't be impatient, remember that those are just single hits and he can't even kill you until crazy high percents so the damage isn't that big a deal. Just wait for the marth to mess up, they eventually will. Also remember to bait stuff and move around to mess up his spacing, you should be able to get a good read on your opponent because while they are putting up their wall and you are at a safe distance, you can focus 100% of your mind on what their aerial patterns are, their reactions to certain movements you do, etc.
Levels To Counterpick:
Dreamland - he can't ever kill you, most marths will start spamming side-b hoping to combo into uptilt, but you can di it and it is easy to outspace/bait marth because hes so eager for the kill
Battlefield is the next best stages, but its pretty neutral, not a huge advantage like dreamland.
Levels To Ban:
Yoshi's Story - you can die at zero from random throw to tipper, and overall you die too early, but sometimes you can get quick kills via edgeguards and rests (downthrow will lead to a follow up no matter where you start it on this stage)
Pokemon Stadium - This is actually pretty good for marth because he has space to move around and can kill early, but I would still ban Yoshi's because if you mess up your di just once on that stage it can mean death.
GOOD MATCH TO WATCH: Mango vs. M2k (notice the fairs oos and the patience)
Postives In the Matchup
- Jiggly Can Combo HARD once she hits (mango's advice)
- Marth cant really kill besides the dumb tipper (mango's advice)
- Up Air ***** MARTH (mango's advice)
- You can crouch standing/jc grab to rest (or running grab if you start crouching as he grabs)
- Rest oos misspaced Fsmash, downsmashes, dash attack
- You can actually crouch uptilt (and getup attack i think) to rest if you are close enough lol
- Edgeguarding is easy
Negatives In the Matchup
- Random fthrow, dthrow mixup to tipper kills early (make sure to di down/down and away)
- Can keep you out forever
- When you are above marth you are kinda ****ed
- If he gets an inner fair, you are going to be taking a few more aerials before you can get out
Jigglypuff
Odds: 60/40
Marth is said to be one of her worst match ups because she can not get inside of Marths sword. While this is true to the utmost, IF she gets inside Marth, she can **** the mother****ing crap out of him due to his floatiness. Don't let this happen. Fairs, bairs, uairs, and actually a single side B swipe are your friends in this match up. Grabbing jigs can be either your WORST NIGHTMARE (she can duck it and then follow up with a rest to kill you!) or your BEST FRIEND. Getting a lead in this match is extremely important because than you really from that point on have NO NEED to approach. All you should be doing is camping well spaced fairs. There is really no need to approach jigs....ever. This match is all about zoning and baiting the jigs into having her where you want her to be and baiting her. Often you can either d throw to fsmash or f throw to fairs or wavedash forward to fsmash. You want to focus on keeping jigs in front of you at ALL TIMES and spacing your fairs nicely. Don't let Jigglypuff get inside of you or she'll combo your *** to hell. She can u tilt to rest, wall of pain you easily, edge guard you well, and combo you nicely too. A single side B swipe to u tilt is AMAZING in this match up...use it. Don't ABUSE it...but its an amazing surprise every now and then for jigs at high percents because it is highly capable of getting the kill. ALL of your tilts are extremely useful in this match up. Your u tilt will kill her at around 90-100% on most stages, your f tilt is a beautiful option to space, and your d tilt is nice if the Jigglypuff is recovering low and has trouble sweet spotting the ledge. (most Jigs do) In terms of your aerials you want to use bair, uair, and fair the most. Don't use nair often but it is nice to throw in every now and then. It works nice if she is shielding or is at high percent. The same applies for bair. Use it sparringly but mainly for edge guards when shes up high. Use fair, and uair to rack up damage and try to use bair and nair to go for the kills. F smash is always beautiful but make sure you won't get punished if you miss. Surprisingly, f tilt can sometimes get the kill.
Most Used:
FAIR
BAIR
F tilt
D tilt (if they are coming from below the stage)
side b (use the first hit to follow with an U tilt...its so good and no one ever expects it)
LIMIT YOUR GRABS!!!!!
Mahone Percentage: 50-50
Actual Percentage: 60-40 Fox wins
Puff ***** aggro fox, but gets ***** by camping fox. And when i say campy, i don't mean running around for 8 minutes after shooting one laser, which is what most people think of... I mean dash dance camping, a little top plaform camping maybe, and only lasering to force you to approach or to put you in kill percent if you're close to it.
Against aggro fox, just wd back to grab and just keep bairing all of his approaches. You should be able to get a lot of edgeguards and upthrow rests against this type of fox. This type of fox will try to force running upsmashes against you when you are in kill percents. Remember that if they misspace the upsmash on your sheild you can rest it oos, otherwise wd oos and grab foxes that upsmash. Against this type of fox you won't need to do empty hops and tricks as much because he won't be shielding as much... just space bairs and wd back and don't worry if people call you gay.
Against campy fox, you are going to have to get really tricky. Most of your rests are going to be trades because a smart fox will laser you to kill percent every stock before they start actually approaching (I'm overexaggerating, it won't be JUST lasers to rack up the damage, you will also get hit with some safe shines and aerials) and they will di the rests down. I think you should still take all of these rests because you need them even if they trade since this is a losing matchup (and you benefit from both players being at last stock, since you can be at 999% and still rest for the win).
You are going to have to approach, so make sure you weave out with all of your aerials so that you can't get shield grabbed. Against this type of fox i think the most important thing is abusing his shielding. You have to be spot on and quickly notice when he starts shielding because he predicts aerials... then you have to empty hop and grab him or do something like falling upair to uptilt. Another tip is that most puffs uptilt right away which will probably work the first time when the fox is caught off guard and tries to react right away, but eventually they will wait in shield so you will have to wait also and predict when to uptilt... its really easy to get a feel for this, just think about when you would try to get out of shield if you were fox and its usual the same timing as them.
You will also benefit from watching their approach habits and general jump habits and getting upairs off, at super low percents, you can usually get sh upair to grab to upthrow rest if you hit one of their approaches, because that whole sequence is very hard to react to. In my experience, fox is too fast to react to, you will usually have to predict when you go for upairs, but this is essential since upair leads to the strongest punishes, along with grabs. Which is also why you need to make many finite adjustments to your spacing and just try to always stay just out of range of fox's approaches so you can get a grab.
If they are plaform camping, it can be hard, especially if it's the top platform. The problem with the top platform is that it takes you to many jumps to get up to him and he can just drop down shine jump back up and repeat or mix in some aerials. A much better way to approach is to get on the side platforms and then approach horizontally with bairs or from underneath with upairs. Basically what you have to do against platform camping is get one good upair off, because it will lead to so many upairs or rest if you want. Just wait for fox to tech and then upair, you can cover all the options if you space correctly under the platform. Once you get enough upairs you will have to land (or to be quicker waveland) on the platform and then continue with more upairs or finish with a rest or bair -> edgeguard opportunity. Another tip is that when you are pressuring a fox when they are near the ledge, they like to waveland the platform -> bairing you or just getting to the top platform so try to predict it and catch them with upair.
Make sure you tech shines. If you don't, fox can reactively grab rolls so you basically have a mixup between getup or not getup attack, and when you are right nothing happens, but when you are wrong you get grabbed to upthrow upair... so make sure you get used to situations where you get shined because its really fast and hard to react to.
You have to master sdi'ing foxes upair. If you can get full di behind fox on his upthrow you will usually just get a bair so that's a good option, but fox can still hit an upair and foxes are getting better at this. It's actually easier and better in my opinion to not di the upthrow and then smashdi the upair the way that the fox is facing. If you do di, you will have to use your judgement to decide how to sdi, usually its the opposite of which way they are running because they are likely to overshoot, but some foxes will undershoot so just use your judgement. Also at high percents, like ~70+, i always sdi the upair up, and i have a 90%+ rate of getting out, so DO THAT!! Also, if they upair you by overlapping you instead of just hitting with their feet you can rest them out of it. I don't think i can react quick enough to do it consistently, but you should try in out and friendlies and get a feel for it, also it might be worth it at like 0% to go for it, since the risk/reward is in your favor even if you are doing it just predicting they mispace.
EPIC MANGO QUOTE --> "go all out because ur going to die at 70 percent anyways"
Levels To Counterpick:
Mangoland - He has to start killing with bairs at 150 or get random upsmashes (which is good for you because you can punish random upsmashes HARD). He will probably resort to camping though, so keep that in mind.
Fountain of Dreams and Battlefield are also pretty good. Fod has a high ceiling and Battlefield takes away some of their recovery options.
Levels To Ban:
OH GOD... this is the worst!
Pokemon Stadium - He can camp easily and then get kills hella early because of the low ceiling, also the transformations are random and annoying.
Yoshi's Story - He gets kills hella early but at least back throw anywhere gets him off stage and you can get a lot of edgeguards, also rest will kill at very low percents even if they di, but so will the rest punish
Final Destination - Some foxes **** on this stage because they can dash dance and laser camp really well and can get upthrow upair galore, but on the plus side i find it simpler to figure out their habits and outspace them since platforms aren't a variable.
GOOD MATCH TO WATCH:
Aggro: Mango vs. Armada (I know its Armada's fox, but its a good example of aggresive fox, notice the wavedash backs)
Campy: Hbox vs Jman (notice everything, great match)
Postives In the Matchup
- Backthrow off the stage to edgegaurd is really good, you can kill at zero if you guess right.
- Nair to fsmash or dash attack at high percents, at low percents weive out with all your nairs
- Wavedash back to grab *****! Even if they di the upthrow you can get a lot with upairs to regrab or pound to jab reset, platform rest opportunity, etc.
- Upair to upair to upair to upair to upair to upair to upair to upair to upair to upair to upair to finish
- Fox players usually fall apart in real life after low percent rest kills or gimps, as well as good wall of pains
- If they are smart you are almost always in kill percent
- Lasers mean you always have to approach if they want
- Upthrow upair!!!!!
- Random upsmashes trading with your aerials or after they bait you
- You can actually get shine spiked if you are too impatient with your recovery
- Fox is just too fast and has so many great options, you usually just have to be smarter to win
B. High Tier
3. Jigglypuff
Jigglypuff may not be the most common of tournament characters (although modern
tournament play is witnessing a marked increase in Puff usage), but she never-
theless packs her fair share of power when wielded correctly. With proper
spacing and timing, her characteristic "wall of pain" and powerful, high-
priority aerial game can allow her to hold some degree of control over the
match. In addition, Jigglypuff can very easily take advantage of your recovery,
dragging you down to your death with neutral-aerials or simply batting you away
with a well-placed back-aerial. The smart Fox player also must not entirely
discount Jigglypuff's arsenal of Rest combos, which severely punish you for any
botched spacing, missed shuffles or L-cancels, predictable techs, or missed DI.
These facts may seem to paint a grim picture of this match-up; indeed, many
players persist in the notion that Jigglypuff is in some way a suitable counter
to Fox. At low-level play, you may find yourself falling victim to Jigglypuff's
simple up-throw-to-Rest "space animal slayer," as well as her aforementioned
ability to cheap out recoveries; however, at higher levels (especially in terms
of technical ability), you will find that you can make life very difficult for
Jigglypuff with a more defensive, precise style and your customary shines from
aerials.
Ground play against Jigglypuff can become somewhat unnerving at times. You will
need to exercise a bit of patience in this match-up; running head-long into her
spaced back-aerial "wall of pain" is not the wisest of decisions and will allow
your opponent to tack on easy damage that you otherwise could have avoided with
some simple thought. Keep just enough distance between yourself and the enemy
Jigglypuff so that you are out of range of her wall of pain and still have the
proximity to run in and punish when appropriate. Admittedly, this is often not
the easiest of tasks; the speed and range of properly-spaced back-aerials can
make your advance tricky, and you very well may underestimate Jigglypuff's
horizontal movement. Should a back-aerial connect with your shield, you should
resist the temptation to shield-grab automatically; correct spacing will see
that your hand grabs nothing but air as your opponent moves away, setting you
up for another quick back-aerial. Of course, if you sense consistently bad
spacing on your foe's part, take advantage with a grab or, preferably, an up-
smash out of your shield, an extremely useful punisher in this match-up. If you
do land a grab, rely on your usual up-throw to up-aerial at lower percents; at
this time, you can catch the Jigglypuff with your aerial and perhaps land a
lethal blow (watch for attempts to DI your up-aerial upward so that your more
powerful kick misses). Grabs lose their effectiveness at higher percents here
because of Jigglypuff's floatiness, although you can of course try a down-
throw to tech-chase with an up-smash, if you so desire. At these percents, you
can try to connect with a falling up-aerial or a neutral- or back-aerial to
finish the job. However, it is important that you do not allow your opponent to
reach the higher percents on a consistent basis; doing so makes it difficult to
land your killing blow, especially if proper spacing and shield-play disallow
use of your jump-canceled and from-shield up-smash.
Yet again, words alone can really only do so much for this portion of the
match-up; you will need to be able to pick up on and take advantage of the
timing and range of Jigglypuff's wall of pain, perhaps facilitating mistakes in
spacing by running in and holding up your shield from time to time, which may
very well allow you to score an up-smash from shield. If you happen to be
caught in your shield, you can break out with a simple jump to an aerial of
your choice (preferably a falling up-aerial or a down-aerial) to put the
pressure back on Jigglypuff. Should you land a down-aerial or a low-percent
neutral-aerial, Jab afterwards instead of shining on instinct and follow up
with a jump-canceled up-smash; you will find this jab-to-up-smash sequence to
be very useful in setting up your opponent for lethal blows. You can also take
advantage of human reaction times and attempt a down-aerial into a grab from
time to time.
Overall, your style for this match-up should be defensive. Lure your opponent
in with blaster fire and focus on landing a lead-in Jab or shine to a tech-
chasing up-smash at the middle percents. Both sides of this match-up thrive
on low-percent kills, you with your vertical kill mechanisms and Jigglypuff
with her various Rest lead-ins, and as such you should take care not to pour
the blaster fire on too heavily lest you make your opponent exceedingly
difficult to finish. If you choose to be aggressive, make certain that you are
well-versed in your shuffling, fast-falling, L-canceling, and follow-up shines
as a low-percent grab when coupled with missed DI could spell a lost stock for
you. You can fight Jigglypuff's aerial game quite effectively with your back-
aerial, but her greater aerial maneuverability could allow her to space out
your aerial and retaliate as she sees fit. Unknown522 of SWF highlights another
powerful option of Fox's in his up-tilt, which, he states, can combo during
lower and middle percents into your up-aerial and can kill at around 90-100%.
If you happen to run into a shield in some manner (usually from a foiled jump-
canceled up-smash), you should always remember to hold left or right to DI your
opponent's up-throw as soon as you can; you can hardly allow Jigglypuff to land
easy kills with something solved by simple DI. If you miss this DI, you can of
course always DI the Rest itself with upwards-against DI to minimize the
horizontal knockback length of the move. Take care not to DI up too much,
however, as you may find yourself being killed vertically instead of actually
surviving the Rest. If you can survive this Rest, your stock should be largely
secure for some time provided that edge-play with Jigglypuff does not lead to a
cheaped-out recovery; also be wary of running head-on into your opponent's
methodical wall of pain (remember that patience is your friend in this match-up
as well as many others). You will need to be able to "feel" when Jigglypuff is
vulnerable in the air and during her wall of pain as the spacing between the
characters influences each of their viable options. Similarly, you cannot be-
come impatient at middle percentages and run in constantly with mistimed jump-
canceled up-smashes as you probe desperately for a kill; doing so will cause
you to hit far too many shields and lose all of your momentum (or even your
entire stock) to a grab or Rest out of shield. Following this same line of
thought, if you are forced to hit a shield, do your best to do so from the
back; this will remove your foe's shield grab option and will help maintain the
integrity of your momentum.
Other than Jigglypuff's wall of pain, her aforementioned Rest also factors in
as an integral part of her game plan against you as a fast-falling space
animal. Note that her up-throw is far from her only method of setting up a
Rest. She can also lead in with an up-tilt from an aerial (should you miss your
DI on the up-tilt) or from ground-based spacing via wavedashes; a properly L-
canceled down-aerial; a neutral-aerial; a falling up-aerial; a crouch-cancel
(all the more reason to remove dash attacks and forward-smashes from your move-
set here); a crouched grab; and from platform-based tech-following, among
others. This last method is of particular interest as far as stages are con-
cerned. You must take care on platform stages not to be predictable on your
get-up should you land on a platform; it is no great task for your opponent to
float to your level and land a Rest off your tech-roll or in-place tech on a
platform, in which case you should do your best to DI the Rest itself as
appropriate.
On that note, be aware that upwards-against DI is in fact not always the ideal
choice when it comes to being hit with a Rest. As previously mentioned, an
excessive up component on your DI could cause you to die upwards from a Rest
that you could have survived and recovered from with slightly more horizontal
DI. RaynEX of SWF provides the following effective solution to this situation:
by initially Smash DI'ing the Rest upwards and against and then sliding the
control stick past the left vertex and down to the corresponding downwards and
against direction, you can prevent vertical Rest kills. As well, keep in mind
just how vulnerable Jigglypuff is after using her Rest; she is rendered com-
pletely immobile as she gradually wakes up. If you constantly DI Rests with a
strong upward component, your "star KO" animation will easily last the entire
length of your opponent's wake-up animation, allowing Puff to escape completely
unpunished. As such, from around the high forties and onward, take care not to
impulsively DI Rests upwards; should the Rest connect, you are virtually
guaranteed to die regardless of your DI, and if you tend to DI such Rests up-
wards and against (technically the "correct" DI), you will forfeit the opening
that your foe presents to you as you return with your next stock. Of course,
proper execution of this line of thought depends upon your knowing just when a
Rest set-up has been performed and when the Rest itself is coming; keep in mind
that while horizontal DI is appropriate in the circumstances described above,
it is anything but correct when you are hit with a forward-smash, back-aerial,
or the like. Should you make it back to the stage in some fashion while Puff is
still asleep, Miggz of SWF recommends a barrage of standing lasers followed by
a charged up-smash released just as Puff awakens.
Also be wary of attempting to take on Jigglypuff around edges. Her innate
floatiness allows her to reach out from the ledge with a neutral-aerial and
then weave back to grab the ledge again, safely out of your range and further
protected by a few invincibility frames. She can also Sing-cancel from the
ledge by cutting off her Sing animation with a ledge grab, sending you to sleep
close enough to land an easy Rest at the stage's edge. You can hardly afford to
make such careless mistakes in this match-up and still expect to triumph. As
such, take care not to be lured into edge-play with the opposing Jigglypuff;
rather, always force your enemy to you with blaster fire and more than a little
patience, remembering to focus the action of the fight largely in the center of
the stage, especially at low percents where Rests can still easily claim
stocks (you will need that extra space on either side to capitalize on your
DI). If your opponent is prone to Pounding from the ledge, see if you can
punish him or her with an up-smash from your shield (note that many players
also attempt to Pound out of their aerial "tumbling" animation in an effort to
catch you off-guard; they should meet the same fate for their predictability).
Jigglypuff's floatiness, aerial maneuverability, and corresponding options from
the ledge make edge-guarding her a chore. An opponent who knows how to DI will
not die horizontally very often with Jigglypuff, so your primary focus should
again be vertical kills via up-throw, tech-follows, or Jab set-ups, among
others. The shine-spike is largely impractical in this match-up, although it is
entirely possible to land enough off-stage shines (returning to the stage each
time) so as to exhaust Jigglypuff's jumps; however, keep in mind that her
rising Pound enables her to gain height. Jigglypuff, on the other hand, can
edge-guard you quite well if she chooses to remain on-stage; her down- and
forward-smashes are particularly effective in this regard, and even her dash
attack is a viable option as it possesses a long-standing hitbox and
startlingly high knockback. However, experienced players will largely forego
this method of edge-guarding and instead go right off-stage and exploit your
recovery as much as possible. Your Illusion and Firefox start-ups will meet
with back-aerials or a series of descending neutral-aerials to drag you too far
down to recover. Again, remember the vulnerability of your recovery to Jiggly-
puff's aerial play and take care not to hand over stocks with thoughtless
attempts to fight her on the edge; you simply have far less to gain and far
more to lose than she does.
Stage selection for Fox vs. Jigglypuff follows the usual thought process; she
does not want to die vertically while you want to kill vertically. As such,
expect to be taken to such locales as Jungle Japes, Dream Land 64, and Kongo
Jungle 64, all infamous for their ceilings. Mute City is also a favorite
Jigglypuff counter-stage as the City's unique structure allows her to make the
most of her aerial options and maneuverability. Brinstar is yet another poten-
tial counterpick choice for your balloon-like foe as Puff can snag Rests off of
the acid, which can trap you for a good deal of percent thanks to your fast-
falling nature. Your counter-choices should include Yoshi's Story, Corneria,
Onett, and Yoshi's Island; Rests on these last two choices should be DI'ed more
horizontally and less vertically to avoid falling victim yourself to low
ceilings. Again, however, keep in mind that few modern-day tournaments permit
Onett and Yoshi's Island.
Mahone Percentage: 50-50
Actual Percentage: 50-50
Playing falco can be frustrating because lasers are annoying and the sheild pressure is really good, but if you play the matchup right you can deal with both of those problems.
You have to stay in the air a lot. If you stay on the ground you will be forced to shield because of lasers and if you are forced to shield you will get shield pressured and grabbed a lot, so don't do that. If you do get grabbed: if the falco upthrows make sure that you di full behind sdi the lasers behind if you get hit with them, otherwise you are going to get hit with dairs and upairs. For dair you can tech and falco will have to guess your techs and techchase or you can just di the lasers and not have to tech at all, which one you pick is situational and depends on your opponent’s habits. You should assume the falco will upthrow when he grabs you and di accordingly, and then reactively adjust your di and decide whether to tech if they downthrow (you should have enough time during the dthrow animation but its hard so you should practice it).
If you stay in the air, falco can't do much, just float over the lasers towards falco and then mixup how you come down... falling nair is ****, make sure to hit his head with it and then start weaving out so that it is safe. You also need to mix in just landing outside of his grab/shine range and going for grabs. Bairs are really good when you are horizontal and close to falco because it will lead to more bairs and then you have to techchase, and if you guess right, falco will usually be off the ledge and you can go for easy edgeguards. One tip is that if you catch them off guard they will likely miss the tech so space the bair to hit missed tech and then land and immediately start jumping to continue the bair chain. Fairs are good for when you are kinda close and are just spacing him out, just weave out all this ****!! I can't stress that enough!!! When you are getting shield pressured pay attention to what type of pressure falco is exerting (late aerial to shine to grab vs. early aerial to shine vs....) because that will determine how to beat the pressure. You can wd oos away after the shine and fsmash them if they try to do repetitive aerial shield pressure, or roll oos after the shine usually if they are just going to do a retreating aerial or shinegrab or most other stuff, but rolling isn’t the best with jiggs and the falco can read it and start dairing your roll, which can lead to a lot. If they are going to retreating aerial afterwards, then holding shield would be better than rolling and losing stage, but you really just have to decide what to do based on what you think they are going to do. There are a lot of different shield pressures and they all have different correct responses so I won’t get into all that in this basic guide (especially since I’m not good at this aspect of the matchup). But as you can see, you’re better off just not being in shield, so try to focus a lot on not lingering in shield and staying in the air.
Also, wavedash back is really good in this matchup because it will force the falcos to overshoot their aerials otherwise they will get grabbed.
One really difficult thing that’s good is taking the laser to fair to grab. It is hard to time, but if you get good at doing aerials after taking a laser, the matchup will be a little easier. After the fair you will get the grab usually because they will be so surprised and it is very quick. Learning how to take lasers effectively in general is great and unexplored territory for the most part… something like sding a laser away and then wavelanding could be really powerful, so remember to try moving after the lasers hitlag is over (it’s a lot less than you might think) and experiment with different options (sometimes airdodge might be good for example if you don’t think you have time to move out of falco’s way).
One random thing to note is that you can duck under the lasers (unless they shoot really low ones) which comes in handy when you are trying to move around on the ground... just wavedash while crouching or what I usually do is duck under one laser and then jump over the next one and get up in the air again.
EPIC MANGO QUOTE --> "Falco Can be hard but eh its kinda easy but hard at the same time."
Levels To Counterpick:
Fountain of Dreams - I actually like this stage more than dreamland in this matchup. Falco can't camp you out with lasers and there just isn't a lot of room for him to move around like he wants. Also the high ceiling can be nice and you can get a lot of edgeguards.
Mangoland - This stage can still be good, but you are probably going to get camped. I would say you should pick this against aggresive falcos, but against campy falcos its still not bad.... probably like 55-45 in jiggs favor, but i think Fod is slightly better.
Levels To Ban:
Yoshi's Story - He gets kills off the top sometimes and he can get good combos with the platform, but laser camping isn't as strong and you can get gimps off bthrow. I would ban this against aggresive falcos.
Pokemon Stadium - This stage is perfect for falco to camp and occasionally be aggresive. I would ban this against campy falcos.
GOOD MATCH TO WATCH: Hbox vs. PP (notice everything, upair against platform camp, resting the sideb, dealing with lasers, etc.)
Postives In the Matchup
- Upthrow rest, upair to rest, pound to MangoCombo sometimes, rest the phantasm
- Gimps are sooo easy (unless the falco is really good at mixing it up), and if he up-bs hes done
- Wavedash back grabs ****, wd oos to fsmash or bair can get out of their pressure and put you on the offensive
- If you stay in the air and play smart, his lasers aren't a big problem
- Lasers are sometimes hard to get around if you get pinned down
- Falco can counter bair spam with his bair spam along with lasers to turn you around
- Some stages allow for shine off the top
- Overall... its FALCO, great shield pressure, great dair, great uptilt, just a good moveset thats hard to deal with
- Dair to dair to dair... your techroll sucks and falco can techchase really well sometimes
vs PUFF
Alright, so I decided to redo the Puff matchup since I learned a lot fighting Hungrybox at HERB 3. I’m gonna try a different style of writing for this one, so let me know if I am clear or not.
So I’m just going to break this down generally at first. I prefer to play with more stage control, but I think it is possible to aggro Puff like Shiz and Chops do. Since I’m terrible at aggression, I’m just going to talk about what I know, which is focusing on stage control and hitting Puff when she commits or when you think it’s safe to go in after spacing her out/watching her. I suppose it is fair to note that Shiz and Chops haven’t beaten Hbox in a while though.
LOL
So I wrote this whole thing and forgot to do stages. Ima get on that now.
Her ban-YS. I’d be surprised if Puff banned anything else, but it’s possible they could ban DL if you played campy enough there.
Your ban- Brinstar. You can camp the top platform pretty well on that stage(which is a good strategy vs puff since her upwards mobility is slow), but it doesn’t make up for the stage screwing up your l-cancels, getting you grab rested, and dealing with tough edges.
RC- I have no clue what to think of this. The ceiling is pretty low at times so you could get shine kills? Puff’s aerial movement is super **** here, but your vertical movement might even it out? I dunno.
KJ64- I don’t think I’d enjoy fighting Puff here. She would live a long time and it would be very campy. Falco could camp the higher platforms or just run away I guess. I do like the height of the rotating platforms and the stable ones for some Puff combos though, so it could be doable? Recovering here makes me maybe think it’s not worth it.
FoD- Probably a good Puff stage in this matchup. Not a lot of room to laser or control Puff, and there are no off the top kills. The platforms can help you with comboing though, but I don’t really think that’s worth it. The top platform being small makes “the jump into center stage to avoid pressure” option kinda weak as well.
FD- I actually never played Hbox here at HERB, but I’d say that Puff might have it. No top platform to retreat to, no platforms to camp on or under, and the blast zones aren’t really small. Uthrow combos(yeah she can tech chase off of those on this stage I believe) are really good here for Puff. Puff can’t retreat to a platform to avoid your lasers, so I guess that’s something.
DL- This stage is probably better the gayer you play it. Big top platform is easy to retreat to and camp on, and the large side platforms are very accommodating to camp under. Puff still lives forever, so you have to be pretty persistent(and probably go for Dair to Dair kills lol) in order to make this one work. Fortunately, you also have lots of room to get away from puff’s pressure, so go here if you’re feeling cramped in I guess.
BF- I actually grew to like this stage a lot vs Puff. You still have decent sized platforms for camping if need be, and combos here feel easier to pull off. The ceiling isn’t terribly high either, so kills off the top are certainly possible.
PS- Great counterpick against Puff. Big enough stage to shoot lasers/retreat as needed, but small enough blastzones to help finish stocks quickly. The transformations are typically helpful for combos as well(at least rock and grass are), and the higher parts of all transformations make off-the-top kills much more accessible, which is always a good thing. Only problem with the stage is there is no middle platform to retreat to, but that isn't entirely necessary to regain stage control anyway. You just have to maintain your composure and fight your way out more often when you don't have control sometimes.
………
Like dogy said, you want to keep the middle of the stage to yourself. It’s pretty important to stay towards the middle because you can’t be knocked off and gimped then. Plus, you get to bait Puff much better then.
Puff can float away off of the stage trying to space you out, but even puff is scared of stage control, so be diligent. Bairs and lasers and even some uptilts are your choice spacing moves here(when puff is in the air). Unless Puff goes offstage and grabs the edge(which is still pretty good for you, but I’ll mention that later), then she’s going to have to land if she never approaches. Wait out her 5 jumps. In fact, start counting her jumps and see if there are any patterns(do 2 aerial fairs to a falling nair or something, as an example). Puff likes to do a rising Bair to spaced falling Bair, but what happens after that is crucial, and recognizing when you have a red or green light to avoid such bairs is one of the most important parts of the matchup, and it’s where puff’s main mixups come into play.
Let me back up and finish stage control before I go back to watching puff and all that more painful stuff. When you’re in control, you just don’t need to run over to puff and give her something to grab onto. You can pretty much watch puff and see what she does after that. If she’s shielding by the edge, I recommend going in there to get her(or at least space some stuff on her) because 1. Puff’s shield blows, 2. Puff is scared which is always good and 3. It’s harder to float out of the way and counter your approach if you’re sitting still with your shield up. At the moment, I don’t recommend any type of shield pressure like repetitive aerial-shine(puff has an upsmash OOS that seems quick and a shield grab that seems to get me even when I delay my aerials at times, but don’t be afraid to at least try to get something off), but puff still has her weaknesses in shield, so it’s important to remember that you have the upper hand when you approach.
**I just remembered a good tip my good buddy Arcnatural(shoutouts!) told me on aim one day. He said that the reason some people missed the DI when they tried to aerial-shine puff’s shield and got uthrow-rested was because they were hitting down to FF when they got grabbed. Arc suggested that you approach with an angle of 45 degrees on your control stick when you FF’d I believe so that you would also be DI’ing to the side if you got grabbed. ****
Oh, one more important thing about approaching a shielding Puff. GRABS….obviously. I really like lasers to grab on Puff, but puffs really like seeing their shield get hit by a laser to Fair/Bair OOS to dead Falco(that junk sucks). Now, I’m not saying a puff would try this every time on you when you approached(they ARE scared and sometimes can’t think quickly enough to do one of those moves), but it’s worth keeping in mind so you can mix in laser timings/DDs/WDs/etc to screw with puff’s head. Make them suffer when they hit the ground.
*Quick thing about making them suffer when they hit the ground….sometimes they can dash attack under your lasers after they land and hit you. It’s really weird and won’t be spammed, but it’s something to watch out for. I’d deal with that just by shooting lower lasers or maybe throwing the occasional spaced Dair in for effect. If you just shoot very low lasers vs grounded Puff in the first place, then you can avoid this though.
Finishing up on grabs, I really like to use upthrow. Low %s give me an upair. Mid percents give me a Dair, and higher percents give me a Dair/Nair. Puff likes to DI out after the throw to get away, so it makes things funny.
If Puff starts to DI the upthrow(which is hard to do since puff flies up so fast and is scared in shield), then Dthrow is probably your next best option. It’s kind of crazy though. If Puff techs, you get to abuse her terrible ground options, but she could also not tech and just fly up in your face. I find it hard to react to with all of the lasers and possible movements, but maybe I’ll mess with it more or something. It definitely has potential. I’d follow up a tech with an Fsmash/Dsmash/Dair and a missed tech with an Fsmash/Dtilt. I don’t know much about Fthrow/Bthrow, but anything that gives you stage control is good. Lower % Fthrow/Bthrow could give you a chance to FH/DJ aerial puff and maybe set something up on a platform stage, but I haven’t tested this yet.
FINALLY coming back to having stage control(lol), you still have aerial puff to deal with. Dealing with Puff when you have control is different for every Puff I’d imagine, but I’d say that they all will approach eventually, so I’ll work from there. Hbox liked to mix up doing just odd amounts of aerials completely out of range before either choosing to go above my head to get to the middle or come in with a Bair on me. Going above Falco’s head isn’t a big deal, you just have to remember that you can’t let Puff fall on you and try to get under her with a Bair/utilt before she goes too low(she’ll probably drop pretty quickly after getting over you since she will have used about 3 of her jumps at this point I’m guessing). You have a few ways to deal with Bair. You can try to move out of her range and punish her landing lag, or get under her before she moves down and gets the Bair out and hit her with a Bair or Nair or laser, or you could laser her just as she comes eye level with you(my favorite). The laser on Puff at eye level is super important because it disrupts Puff’s Bair wall timing. She thought she would whiff/hit a shield/get a hit, and instead she is turned around and falling stead of maybe jumping. It screws with their timing at first. After a bit, the Puff will start to Fair into you or away from you after the laser. If she Fairs into you, just turnaround utilt or follow up Nair(at lower percents, this Nair can land you an utilt or a Dair on Puff afterwards, which are very good). If she Fairs away, then you could try to hit her as she jumps back, but more than likely you’ll both whiff and it’s not worth risking your stage control. Just thought about it, and you might be able to upsmash either way, which would **** for a kill. Testing that later. OH, and jabs are great laser follow ups because they lead into Nairs or upsmashes(sometimes) as well. Jabs shouldn’t be spammed though, but if you feel like you can get the hit then go for it.
Now, when you’re on the bad end of stage control, life isn’t too fun. Puff gets lots of space to maneuver around you and bait any OOS options or any approaches you have, so you have to be patient. You just can’t wait too long or you’ll get shield stabbed/suddenly grabbed by a fake aerial(they float at you after they do a move and then don’t do another one so they land and grab). This is the main point where watching Bairs is crucial. When Puff does a rising Bair, she’s looking to get that second one out before you think about moving, so if you shield the first Bair, you have time to jump out. Full hops towards the center are very good, especially with a central platform to move to. You can really just laser Puff after the first aerial and mess with her Bairs, or just kind of react to what she does. Basically, she’s gonna try to poke you and force that roll or shield stab for the easy edgeguard. Just staying calm and trying to work your way back to the middle or lasering Puff is good. Don’t worry about getting back to the middle at the risk of becoming predictable though. You’re not necessarily gonna kill Puff a lot faster if you have center stage the whole time, and any hit is a good one, so if you can stay calm by the edge, you can mess with Puff pretty well because she wants the kill(although she’ll approach more if you hog center stage long enough). I don’t like Bair very much here, but I suppose that and Utilt are still usable, but they might be harder to use since you can’t bait puff as well.
Edgeguarding Puff….
It’s not the safest-sounding idea, but it should try to happen more. Puff has 5 dinky jumps, and she can only stick her feet out for a little bit at a time during her jump. Bair obviously ***** but it only stays out so long, and Fair will bring Puff down a little since it stays out a while(this is all assuming Puff uses these moves as she jumps). I’m not going to say I have a perfected method for this or anything, but I know that Puff isn’t very secure recovering and she needs to be exploited by the edge more. I feel like Dsmash, maybe Fsmash, Dtilt, Dair, Ftilt, and Bair are all pretty reliable at certain times at certain heights for keeping Puff from coming back to the edge. While Puff is floating back to the stage, Bair is mostly for when she’s higher, and everything else is for when she’s lower(btw you can laser Puff as she’s recovering too for free damage). Getting above Puff and Dair’ing her or walking/running up and hitting puff just as her lag ends but before she can grab the edge(or is right below it) with the other moves is how I would recommend punishing anything lower.
*note- try to adjust your spacing to Puff’s potential moves. Standing right by the edge will get you ***** if Puff is floating up right beside the edge(she’ll just jump away and space a bair or something), but standing too far away will make you whiff a move and possibly get you counterattacked by a Puff who just grabbed the edge. Try to be flexible, and learn your limits for every move.
Being egdeguarded…..
This sucks. I heard once or twice that you could shine out of death Bairs off the side, but that was for UUAA’s Fox, so I don’t know if Falco can do that or not. Anyway, DI’ing the first Bairs out is good so you hopefully can’t get hit by them all, but you may be too far off the stage then to recover anyway.
If you’re recovering with up-B, I recommend you try to go pretty low or pretty high(as far as where you start the move). Puff likes to go out and hit people about edge-height. Don’t be afraid to go at Puff either. She’s pretty slow so you could catch her off-guard.
When puff is on the edge you pretty much have an easier version of having total stage control. Work the Bairs/utilts/lasers to whatever and make Puff sad.
When you’re on the edge, you have to get creative. Throw in some different-height DJ/firebird regrabs. This means that you should jump high sometimes and low sometimes to regrab the edge so that you can stay tricky and get onstage after either of these jumps. Up-B is just for invincibility lol. I like to side B onto the stage a lot, but you can even jump backwards and up-B on because puff won’t know wtf is going on if that happens lol. I don’t recommend ledgehop double lasers ever because puff can just float over the second one and hit you out of your second jump. Not worth it. Yeah, just try to keep your options in mind and watch Puff’s movements. If she floats back a lot, then she’s looking or a side B. If she stays close, she’s looking for a standard getup or double lasers or she wants to catch you out of your invincibility and mess you up.
And finally, comboing!
I don’t have a lot to say about this because I’m not amazing at comboing. I’ll share what I do know, though.
Shines in combos are pretty bad after 35%, and maybe lower than that, just because Puff is sent too high. Utilts are conveniently good then, though. In my opinion, Dair to Dair to Dsmash or more Dairs is very good, because you get to abuse Puff’s terrible tech rolls and ground game(if you miss) as well as keep the combo going longer.
I actually approach Puff’s shield with Dairs a lot because, first of all, it likes to shield stab, but it also gives me some combos(especially since puff isn’t ready to DI).
And uh, that’s about it lol. Hope this helps!
BiAtch Peach
Mahone Percentage: 45-55 Peach
Actual Percentage: 55-45 Puff
*This matchup guide is written by Idea
You’re both good at being floaties but jiggs is better at it.
Bair should be your default move in this matchup. Rely on it more than any other moves. It outranges most of peach’s moves, and she can’t move very quickly in the air or on the ground, so unless she is explicitly running away from you, it’s hard for her to dodge it. She’ll probably have to shield.
Peach has medium range and high move priority. You have high range and slightly lower move priority. Therefore, bair.
(to clarify, without bair, jiggs would only have low-medium range)
One of my favourite tricks works very well on peach: dthrow her onto a platform and techchase rest. It’s pretty easy to grab peach since she shields all the time against jiggs (to block all those bairs and fairs). And she’s in the right weight class for it to work at maybe 0-40%. The reason it’s not higher is that she can usually double jump past that point (being a floaty). It’ll work at higher percents on dreamland (but possibly not at 0...i can’t remember). Anyway, a lot of peach players will tech even when they don’t strictly have to, so expect it. Also they’re all going to DI away and tech in place, trust me =3
There are kind of two conflicting forces in this matchup.
1. Peach can’t reliably punish rest
2. It’s hard to hit peach with moves that combo into rest
You have to balance the desire to try for uptilts and falling upairs with the safety of your bair and fair. Play it by ear. It’s tricky, cause it’s REALLY good to rest peach, since she has so much trouble coming back from the stock deficit, but the setups aren’t likely to work since she’ll probably be spamming crouch cancel (she’s peach). And getting your uptilt CCed into her dsmash is not fun.
The most reliable ways to rest her are that dthrow thing, and getting behind her shield and uptilting. (why do jiggs’s tricks work on like every character?) she can’t do anything about it except get out of the way. To be evil, jump behind her and wait half a second before uptilting. Hopefully she’ll get scared and try to jump OOS, only to get caught in the delayed uptilt. Uptilt combos into rest extra-easily on peach because her double jump goes nowhere.
Bair/occasionally fair to rest in the air can work if she DIs badly. See Mango vs. Armada...one of the matches on FD =P I remember hearing that Mango asked Fuzzyness for peach advice and he said to do this. Makes sense. Resting on peach is not very risky.
Oh, and you can rest her dash attack OOS. Just jump straight up. If you CC it, which you shouldn’t be doing against peach, that works too.
Fair is also pretty good in this matchup. I find its main use is to hit her out of her float. If she is floating facing you (which she probably will be if she is floating at all) then she is going to fair. Fair will pretty much beat all your moves. You have to either not be in its way or stop it before it starts. The latter is a pretty good option, you just have to be a bit aggressive. Jump after her with fair. You don’t even have to time it cause weak fair combos into strong fair. Just try to hit her with fair, at all, before her own fair comes out. Once you hit with one, you can often fair and/or bair until she’s offstage.
Fair is inferior to bair for shield pressuring peach since there’s a greater chance she’ll be able to nair OOS after you hit her shield. But y’know, it can be situationally good too. Sometimes doing this will still end up catching her out of her float.
Turnips aren’t really that scary. Just don’t get caught in their slow, predictable arc. You should probably either run/float far enough back that it won’t hit, or nair through it. The first option isn’t all that bad because by the time she pulls another one you’ve probably gotten a lot closer to her anyway. Just be patient, they can get in the way but they don’t actually do very much. (oh, but if you do get hit, DI away just in case she’s trying to fair you afterward)
Edgeguarding!
If she goes high: float after her, she can’t do very much to you.
If she’s trying to float back from the side, it’s just about timing your bair or fair. Just be careful cause she might try to fastfall, which isn’t all that ‘fast’ anyway. if she is falling back over but not parasoling—meaning falling normally—then she is probably going to try to do a move early to block your aerials. So wait for that, then hit her afterward.
If she’s trying to float over then fall down onto the stage from above, you should upair. BUT, beware of her dair—it can cut through your upair, and then combo into nair, if you’re not careful. (or maybe it’s not a true combo...? but it doesn’t matter, watch out for it anyway.) you should try to bait the dair then upair after it finishes. Or, you could try hitting her offstage again with bair.
If she goes low: parasol outprioritizes everything, so don’t be anywhere near its range. You can try to fair or bair her against the stage and hope she doesn’t tech. A better option, though hard to time, is to grab the edge and nair with invincibility. Hopefully it’ll stage spike her. If not...some bull**** will happen, she’s not getting back after that anyway. lol
Edgeguarding peach is all about timing. Wait for her to make herself vulnerable. She always does, it just takes a while.
EPIC MANGO QUOTE --> "All her are dumb"
Levels To Counterpick:
It's really just personal preference. I prefer small stages because i have a hard time killing her so I pick Yoshi's Story, but you might like living forever and if you are good at getting rests then Mangoland is probably the best choice.
Levels To Ban:
This one is really weird, it all depends on what type of peach you are playing
Final Destination - I like platforms in this matchup, i feel like they help me get around turnips and get some rest opportunities and good upairs, so I usually ban this, but i would say that it is just personal preference and if you don't mind the turnips and think you can just outspace her, this stage should be fine.
You might even want to ban Yoshi's Story, just ban whatever you think is best, honestly no stage is that bad for this matchup.
GOOD MATCH TO WATCH: Mango vs. Armada (notice the edgeguarding)
Postives In the Matchup
- Bair most of the time
- Fair her quickly when she’s floating
- Wavedash back after hitting her shield
- Float behind her shield and uptilt, rarely
- Grab her
- Be really patient...but not necessarily campy (she wants you to give her that space to move around)
- Shield. Peach has good shield pressure with all her float-cancelling stuff. She also likes to grab you and combo dthrow into nair. Float around and use aerials instead.
- Crouch cancel. It doesn’t really work on her. And sooner or later you’re gonna CC a dsmash and take like 50%.
- Miss L-cancels. She’s fast enough on the ground that she can punish you for stuff like that. As jigglypuff matchups go, peach can be a surprisingly technical one.
- Nair. It’s not really that useful. You need the range on peach, her moves will just outprioritize or trade with nair, which is always worse for you
6. vs Jigglypuff - 55:45
VaNz Percentage - 55:45
People who play the match up best: MaNg0, Hungrybox
Pros
- Turnips are really gay against puff
- DAIRS!! they combo into your other aerials and builds damage nicely.
- BAIRS!! the key to winning the air battle.
- NAIRS!! especially out of the shield. they ****
- Puff is pretty slow, so she doesn't edge guard Peach as well as other characters (tiers)
Cons
- Less Dsmash. Like.. a lot less Puff will usually try to bait and rest them.
- No 'Strong' kill moves.
So.. this match up is just one big air battle. the trick is to read jigglypuff's movements, and attack during the cool down of her aerials. Any time she hits your shield, nair or bair! this is how you will build damage seeing as how there won't be many combo ops.
Stages we like: Yoshi's Story, Fountain of Dreams, Mute City, Kongo Jungle, Final Destination
Stages they like: Dream Land, Battlefield
Smexy Falcon
*This matchup guide is written by Tekk
Tekk percentage: 99-1 Puff wins
Actual percentage: 60-40 Puff wins
Bad falcons will make this matchup seem like a free win for Puff, but actually it's kinda tricky. Falcon is probably the character that punishes puff the hardest (with fox), but luckily he also suffers really disadvantaging flaws.
Your neutral position in this matchup should be crouching/WDing, because jumping around is pretty bad against falcon, since all he is looking for is an opportunity to land a grab or a mid% upair on you.
Remember this: once falcon catches you, he WON'T let you go. If you start to get combo'd, be sure do DI/SDI away as hard as you can, and to airdodge whenever he misses a timing. A good way not to get punished on your shffls is to wavedash away whenever you touch the ground.
A routine that works well for me is: SH nair=>fade back=>WD away. This way, if falcon tries to stomp you out of shield, you'll get a free grab.
About falcon's oos options: good falcons will often bait you with their shield and stomp you on your grab (especially if you're in their back). SH Uair beats that.
Falcon is easy to grab if you condition him to. spamming shffl naifs and bairs is a good way to do that. Then, when you get a grab, upthrow is the best option at low and mid%, and it leads to an easy upair rest if falcon doesn't DI (and a very few actually do). At high%, Fthrow is okay and Dthrow can work, on the ledge (if they DI inward you get a free fair/bair).
Falcon's most exploitableweakness in this matchup is his fastfalness+his weight… The guy's a real sandbag, and he's dead whenever you land an upair on him at mid%, since it leads to puff's every other move.
Some possible oos rests: on falcon's sideB, fsmash, downB
possible crouch rests: on falcon's jab, low% knee, upsmash…
Resting falcon after he Dthrows you is a matter of reaction; with practice you'll see when his knee isn't safe. Tip: if he tries to knee you with his thigh hitbox, you can rest him. If he tries to stomp you, rest.
Crouch is realllyyyyyy good in this matchup as well: always crouch when you land in front of him: bad falcons will try to grab you which is a free rest/grab, other falcons will try to stomp you oos (and good ones will mix it up, lol).
Nair is my favorite move in this matchup: almost always leads to a grab when it connects at low%, good grab bait and pressure tool: a lot of falcons will roll when you try to pressure them, and with puff's great air mobility, you can hit them with a weak air, fade back and punish the roll.
A trick of mine that works well on falcon (as well on fox/falco): on a platform stage, when you get to uthrow him onto a plaform, follow him, waveland then react to his techroll (which is very slow) with another grab/fsmash to send him offstage.
About edgeguarding falcon: Be patient. Don't chase him offstage. Wait for him to try to recover, then punish with a bair that'll send him a bit further. If he tries to recover from below the edge, Dsmash is a really good option, since this move is so hard to tech. If the falcon often goes for a sweetspotted upB below the edge, go for that good ol' edgehog, and if you misread his upB and he does make it to the ledge, that edgehop dair => grab hbox does will give you another chance. I usually just grab the edge whenever I send him offstage and react to his recovery.
Levels To Counterpick:
Fountain of Dreams - falcon hates this stage, and puff loves it. But it'll get banned anyway
Dreamland - you can tank pretty well here, and falcon doesn't benefit from this as much as you do i.e. the stage being wide doesn't prevent him from getting edgeguarded.
Levels To Ban:
Pokemon Stadium: biggest stage, plenty of room for falcon to run…
Final Destination: Same as PS, except the stage doesn't transform.
Yoshi's Story (?): Kind of a wild card; falcon doesn't have a lot of space, but a knee will kill you at 55%
Other stages are pretty neutral to me.
Postives In the Matchup
-falcon is the easiest character to combo, especially from a mid% upair
-he can't do much when you pressure him
-grabs often put him in a really bad situation
-bad recovery vs best edgeguarder in the game
-pretty easy to rest if you have good reaction
-he's scared of your crouch
Negatives In the Matchup
-It's really hard to escape once he lands his hands or feet on you
-fullhopping is bad vs him, will get you upair'd a lot
-you die at 90% max on big stages, watch for that spaced knee when you're at high%
-falcon is kind of hard to catch when he's on his dashdance routine
Jigglypuff
1) Magus on what to do against a ledge camping Puff 6/17/10
2) S2J on the optimal way to play Puff 7/22/10
3) Grinin on cutting Puff down to size 1/19/11
4) Etwist on what move is the best against Puff 4/22/11
5) Thumbs on Puff 4/22/11
6) JPOBS on the dangers of grab 4/22/11
7) Nando on Hax advice 4/22/11
8) BigD on what's safe and what's not 11/23/08
9) Scar on Jiggs 11/23/08
10) Scar on pressure 1/6/09
11) G-Reg on the importance of patience 7/5/09
12) Hax on Jiggs 7/14/09
13) PureKorea on jiggs 8/27/07
14) Mogwai on jiggs 7/14/09
2) S2J on the optimal way to play Puff 7/22/10
3) Grinin on cutting Puff down to size 1/19/11
4) Etwist on what move is the best against Puff 4/22/11
5) Thumbs on Puff 4/22/11
6) JPOBS on the dangers of grab 4/22/11
7) Nando on Hax advice 4/22/11
8) BigD on what's safe and what's not 11/23/08
9) Scar on Jiggs 11/23/08
10) Scar on pressure 1/6/09
11) G-Reg on the importance of patience 7/5/09
12) Hax on Jiggs 7/14/09
13) PureKorea on jiggs 8/27/07
14) Mogwai on jiggs 7/14/09
Hey-oh Yoshi
Ferrish Percentage: 50-50
Actual Percentage: 60-40 Puff
Yoshi can be a nightmare if you aren't familiar with his deep bag of tricks. His eggs can give you a real headache. He has lots of ways to trade with you, is tough or impossible to edgeguard/combo before about 80%, and his air speed is almost as good as yours (better with smart wavelands on plats). He can combo you better than most char's thanks to his glitchy auto-cancel insta-land on plats during his dj, even when ascending. He can dj armor Rest and punish you with fair which combos into fair or uair, both of which suck to get hit by. His moves in general are very powerful. His shield pressure should not be underestimated. The good news is Puff has the tools to deal with all that.
Yoshi's strengths in this MU are all in his defensive zoning and ability to trade favorably. His approaches are situational at best and gimmicky at worst. Due to the nature of his dj, he can either go low or cover horizontal distance but generally not both at the same time. What this means for you is that if you are grounded or very low, Yoshi can't approach you willy-nilly unless he has low% and center stage, if he has plat wavelanding shenanigans, or if you have high% and he nails you with an egg. Even then, you can generally counter with basic stuff like wavedash back, uairs, retreating bairs. This means you can easily be at a range where you are threatening bair but still be pretty safe from him, except maybe eggs. Watch for his backwards sh bair which covers a ton of space and trades way more often than it should (or maybe I just suck), and also watch out for plat malarkey that can get him to center stage where he really wants to be.
If you get stuck in your shield, keep in mind that he has decent shield pressure. His jabs and tilts are pretty good, and his dj-canceled nairs are fast and can stay out of grab range. He can easily adjust to cover the distance of your wavedash oos unless you are really perfect with that timing, but there's no reason to when rolling away from him does a much better job. Again, his dj's nature means he has a tough time following a simple roll--maybe dash attack, but that's not exactly a top-tier shield pressure move.
All in all, his inability to approach you and the relative ease with which Puff can escape make it very difficult for Yoshi to challenge your hit-and-run game. That being said, don't try to beat Yoshi with just bairs. There's a reason he's still around when all the other dinosaurs are dead, and that's because he powershielded the asteroid like a boss has a million ways to trade with you. His fsmash/usmash/dash attack give him invinc head. His powershield and CC give him opportunities to close the gap, if not counter you outright. He can tank through your aerials with his dj until about 80%, and because the "hinge" of his turnaround dj is about the base of his tail, if you aerial him from behind his dj will get him way closer to you than it appears. His afore-mentioned bair trades too often. He doesn't suffer shieldstun, so if you aerial his shield on a plat he can shield-drop and throw out an aerial or an egg. Plus, when you break his dj you have to hit him again to actually send him flying, so you might end up bairing him up until 120% on every stock. That's a lot of opportunities for him to trade with you, and you can bet that good Yoshi's are going to make good use of them.
You can totally go for tomahawk/ac grabs, or try to bait him into a position where you can get a grab. I generally find that fthrow is best just because of damage, but other throws have uses too. Utilt or low uairs at low% scare the crap out of him even if it doesn't chain into Rest. Fsmashes can also freak him out. Getting a stock lead off of a Rest can give you control of the entire match and force him to rely on his bad approaches. Keep in mind that you do have to work your top-tier tomfoolery into a hit-and-run strategy. You can't get in, start trading blows, and still expect to win. You also can't go for Rest willy-nilly, because eating a Yoshi fair is unappetizing and leads to an uair or just another fair and techchase.
Moral of the Story: You win this MU if you can play smart, not get lost in his trick-or-treat bag, and keep him guessing if you're going to wall him out with bairs or go in for top-tier malarkey.
Levels To Counterpick:
Final Destination - Without plats to waveland on or hide under, Yoshi can't keep up with you in the air or throw eggs very safely.
Fountain of Dreams - The high ceiling really helps you out. Plus, half of the stage becomes FD once that plat sinks into the ground.
Yoshi's Story - Kind of double-edged, but if you want to go for janky Rest combos, you want to make sure they KO.
Levels To Ban:
Pokemon Stadium - The low ceiling makes approaches harder and side plats make egg camping easier.
Battlefield - No real reason, it just seems like that is the favorite stage of many Yoshi's and the one they practice on the most.
Positives in the MU
Yoshi doesn't have a reliable response to Puff's hit-and-run game
Puff can easily edgeguard Yoshi if he loses his dj
Yoshi fears Rest combos even if they don't actually lead to Rest
Puff can roll out of Yoshi's shield pressure
Negatives in the MU
Egg camping
Yoshi has many tricks to take center stage and can keep you out once he gets there
Yoshi has many tricks to give him trading opportunities and his moves are quite powerful
Yoshi can dj armor the Rest
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