Match-Up #4 Snake

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

SNAKE

Bio:

Unveiled at E3 2006, Snake (スネーク, Sunēku) is a character who appears in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Instead of using a gun, like he usually does in his games, he was designed instead to use explosive-type weapons and CQC (close quarters combat) from his own games.

A popular rumor states that Hideo Kojima, the creator of Metal Gear, "practically begged" to include Snake in Super Smash Bros. Melee, but the game was in an advanced development stage and in an early launch in Japan, thus making it too late to include him as a character. However, it was later announced at E3 2006 in one of the first teaser videos for Super Smash Bros. Brawl that Snake would be included in the game, making him the first official "guest" character in a Super Smash Bros. game.

Summary:
*Coming soon*

 

[False]

Yep. I had a chance to play this match up against KirinBlaze back in KTAR4 and I must say that Link must heavily outplay Snake. :l I wasn't as good back then but I managed to beat Kirin in losers.

As a Snake against Link I can say that I'm comfortable with hiding in shield.. You guys usually don't go for the grabs so yeah.

 

[Wilmenz]

Zair really throws Snake off since he has no response to it that isn't just shield and explodes any grenade he was holding. Ftilt isn't so good in this match up Snakes will rarely find themselves using it and Link does not die easily off the top so Utilt isn't as good as in other match ups... Snake doesn't have any attack to effectively gimp Link with good DI.

 

[Beat11]

As far as Link vs Snake goes, Snake doesn't have anything really that Link can't play around/adjust to. It is only slightly in Snake's favor because of his better tilts and longer survival rate with a BETTER RECOVERY. This is one of Link's easiest A tier matchups besides ICs for self explanitory reasons but lately people has been dropping the ratio down for some reason. More detail later when i'm not busy.

 

[Ryos4]

I think the only reason the ratio for Link vs Snake to further decrease in Link's favor, is Snakes traps are vastly more effective then Link. As long as you dont give him time the match up is a little more even. While he will have trouble killing Link, every time he knocks Link away he has time to set up his traps putting Link in a disadvantage.

 

[IYM!]

Snake is a easy match for Link

the only things then we have to be careful are his Utilt and Bthrow,

Link > Snake in spaming terms. he have granades, traps and Usmash. but he cant do a U Smash spam or a trap spam, only granades spam.

but granades have flaws:
1) Snake cant do anything woth Granades in hand, only trw it and drop it with shield
3) The granades dont explode at the contact, so we can pick up and counter attack him.
4) He dont have a free movenet when he hold a granade, if we pick it up after a throw, we have a normal movement.

if we compare it with our bombs, we can notificate than Bombs out class granades in usefulness.

Bombs have multiple funtions than granades dont have, mindgames, we can do any airmove with bomb in hand and we can throw it in many directions.

in this simple comparation, we demostrate than the Link spaming is better.

snake have his traps, but we have our boomerang 8than can screw up his Dsmash traps and our arrows than can attack him at a bigger distance.

but our rally strong card is our Zair, that can punish snake spamin a lot, make him drop his garnades with one hit and expode it with the other hit. also Snake is a tall character, so our Zair is a pain for him.

at close combat, snake have strongs adventages, his range, hitboxes and strenght make him a strong rival. But nonetheless, Snake has problems for kill us, our exelent DI and Momentum cancel cand help us to live for a realy long time. until his Utilt wont be so much efective here.

Snake have better recovery, power and resistance, that is why he is better. But Link many tools too

my ratio 55/45 Snake favor

 

[Ryos4]

Not to burst your bubble. But Snake can do a lot with grenades. Shield and pick them up to throw them normally and do anything link can with bombs. They explode on contact of a hit box even when hes shielding. He can drop it, pick it up and go straight into a DAC and then throw the grenade afterward. He can use his C4 to blow up his grenades any time he wants. Snake can "cook" grenades to have them explode where he wants them to. They also bounce on Dthrows and fly super high on Uthrows. And they do much more damage then bombs. Overall grenades have much more versatility.

C4 when combined with Dthrow and a ledge is the ultimate trap with almost no safe way out. And when people talk about Snake's Traps. They aren't just talking about a land mind or C4 on the ground as a trap. A trap limits the amount of safe options Link can have to escape or attack, making it easier for Snake to predict. Any of his projectiles can be used effectively as traps, grenades, C4, land mine, Usmash, and the missle. With as many tools in his arsenal, if you aren't careful, you could unknowingly be guided to exactly where Snake wants you.

This is what makes Snake really dangerous, not his strong melee attacks.

 

[IYM!]

you are right Ryos, but if he want do that, he nees do a shield to drop it, that mean than he cant do tha in the air, we can pull of a bomb in the air.



i Forgot mention his DAC. that move is a dangerous aproach move for us, is fast and the dash attack hit can kill us if take us with the guard down.

we have to do a defencive tactic, Zair with bomb in hand, Zair to prevent a Granade attck, and bombs to start a move

 

[Ryos4]

I just have to say. Snakes DAC will probably never end up killing you. Link is just too fat. The mortar might kill you if you are high enough, but if you are you have time to prepare.

Snake really has no trouble recovering from a vertical knock back. He got C4, grenades, and the missile protecting him. If you hit him while he has a grenade in hand, theres a good chance you both will get hit by the explosion and then Snake can Uair or Bair to kill when you fly in the same direction. Which is a very common strategy among Snake players. Or if he wants he can use the C4 as a deterrent, and then use a wave bounce grenade to put the C4 between you and him. Strategies not limited to these are why Snake players general recover very high, as it is his safest option for recovery.

Also another point is that Link needs to pull bombs in the air because they take so long. Snake on the other hand pulls grenades in a few frames. Making it completely safe to just ground pull them and shield then pick them up again. It probably takes just as long as Link's bomb pull.

Plus lobbing grenades is a pretty decent option. It tends to make players back up even further, and Link is best at mid range vs Snake. Snake has the advantage in long range combat. Grenades can be thrown faster, further, and do much more damage. Best of all they don't have to make contact with anything and explode exactly when Snakes predict it to.

Zair is good yes. Which is what makes Link dangerous at mid range. All of his projectiles, and his long range sword attacks out range most characters and are most dangerous mid range. If Link is allow to space perfectly, even MK will owned. Unfortunately for Link, Snake makes mid range combat dangerous with grenades all over that can and will explode from a hit box. With Link's large swings, it makes it hard to avoid hitting a grenade.

 

[X3DS]

Not to burst your bubble. But Snake can do a lot with grenades. Shield and pick them up to throw them normally and do anything link can with bombs. They explode on contact of a hit box even when hes shielding. He can drop it, pick it up and go straight into a DAC and then throw the grenade afterward. He can use his C4 to blow up his grenades any time he wants. Snake can "cook" grenades to have them explode where he wants them to. They also bounce on Dthrows and fly super high on Uthrows. And they do much more damage then bombs. Overall grenades have much more versatility.

Yeah this is what I've been telling people all this time. Nades > bombs. Just look at how Snake players like Ally and Ultimate Razer use their nades and tell me that nades aren't versatile.

 

[Beat11]

Nades and Bombs are both just as versatile, just in different ways. Link can easily space aerials and other attacks with a bomb in hand type strategy while Snake's nades can be thrown farther, do more damage and knockback, shield dropped for better defense and mixed with DAC effectively. C4 and nades are the only things Link has to worry about while Snake is forced to react to Link constantly throwing rangs and clawshots at him along with bombs. This encourages Snake to take the offensive style, something he has never done before in almost no other matchup.

 

[Wilmenz]

Can't Snake crouch Link's ShZair?

 

[Huggles828]

Yeah, but that's kinda like saying Link can stand still and use his Hylian Shield to render all of Snake's projectiles useless. Link's not gonna walk up, go "Herp Derp" and shoot a zair out at Snake the whole match for him to conveniently duck under, and just sitting there waiting to respond to a zair by ducking leaves you too committed to dodging zair to be realistically useful.

In my mind the biggest deciding factor in this match is Snake's ability to quickly rack up damage and kill with every move. Link with proper DI is comparable to Snake in survivability in general (a little less difficult to kill but reasonably close). A good Link can keep up with Snake's spam/camping and has responses to it. Boomerang can stop grenades/blow them back at Snake, if zair hits them they'll blow up far enough away to not hurt Link, etc. Zair is a good tool against Snake because he's so tall. I think Link can legitimately jab cancel > jab on Snake a lot easier than most other characters (although Link's still better off mixing his jab cancels up I'd think). Link can stop Snake's DACUS reasonably well, especially since both people are likely to be trying to set up a camping projectile game, leaving too many hazards for Snake to approach that way outside of a mixup/mind game. With good DI neither character is going to be in a prime position to reliably gimp the other (again, outside of failDI or something).

In the end I think it boils down to raw damage output and killing power. Link will get a nice read/ trap on Snake, bam, 30 damage. Snake gets an equally nice read on Link or traps him, bam, 60 damage. Link is pretty powerful and has lots of kill moves, but they're not as strong or as powerful as Snake's. Sure, utilt may not kill a good Link until much later than other characters, but Link's survivability in this matchup relative to how much damage Snake deals, and how much he deals to Snake, puts this as an advantageous matchup for Snake (and utilt is still hella strong anyway). You'll watch the match, see both characters seemingly going toe to toe, and then look down and Link will be at 130% to Snake's 70% or so.

I think it's 40:60 Snake's favor.

 

[Tech-Nelium the Shark]

I haven't played a Link main but I have play Ryo (the #2 Ike main) who has made it a point to pick up every low tier in the game and he has a pretty nasty Link. My opinion is that it is 60:40 Snake's favor. When I think about this MU as a Snake I think of the MK vs Snake MU with snake as Link and MK as Snake. When I say that I mean that the most proficient way to play the match is to not try and outright kill Link as Link is a fat ***. The best way to play is to send Link off the edge and edge guard him. This way the only way to make my matches close with Ryo. Once Link has Snake in the air link has some amazing trap for Snake to keep him there. I prefer the Ike vs Link MU.

 

[Lawz.]

As far as Link vs Snake goes, Snake doesn't have anything really that Link can't play around/adjust to. It is only slightly in Snake's favor because of his better tilts and longer survival rate with a BETTER RECOVERY. This is one of Link's easiest A tier matchups besides ICs for self explanitory reasons but lately people has been dropping the ratio down for some reason. More detail later when i'm not busy.

Snake has more power, range, better recovery, weight, options, and just as versatile camp game. Mix that with his ability to gimp Link with bair and you've got a solid disadvantage for Link. Yes Link has zair and yes Link can camp, but any decent Snake knows how to shield projectiles and ftilt OoS (which pretty much destroys Link). Link has enough lag for Snake to punish and easily rack up damage.

I think the only reason the ratio for Link vs Snake to further decrease in Link's favor, is Snakes traps are vastly more effective then Link. As long as you dont give him time the match up is a little more even. While he will have trouble killing Link, every time he knocks Link away he has time to set up his traps putting Link in a disadvantage.

Snake's traps aren't the biggest factor by any means when it comes to match-up ratios. It's Snake's better KO power, the ability to live longer, better recovery, versatile camp game, better range, and his insane up close game that deals far more damage than Link can.

Snake is a easy match for Link

the only things then we have to be careful are his Utilt and Bthrow,

Link > Snake in spaming terms. he have granades, traps and Usmash. but he cant do a U Smash spam or a trap spam, only granades spam.

but granades have flaws:
1) Snake cant do anything woth Granades in hand, only trw it and drop it with shield
3) The granades dont explode at the contact, so we can pick up and counter attack him.
4) He dont have a free movenet when he hold a granade, if we pick it up after a throw, we have a normal movement.

if we compare it with our bombs, we can notificate than Bombs out class granades in usefulness.

Bombs have multiple funtions than granades dont have, mindgames, we can do any airmove with bomb in hand and we can throw it in many directions.

in this simple comparation, we demostrate than the Link spaming is better.

snake have his traps, but we have our boomerang 8than can screw up his Dsmash traps and our arrows than can attack him at a bigger distance.

but our rally strong card is our Zair, that can punish snake spamin a lot, make him drop his garnades with one hit and expode it with the other hit. also Snake is a tall character, so our Zair is a pain for him.

at close combat, snake have strongs adventages, his range, hitboxes and strenght make him a strong rival. But nonetheless, Snake has problems for kill us, our exelent DI and Momentum cancel cand help us to live for a realy long time. until his Utilt wont be so much efective here.

Snake have better recovery, power and resistance, that is why he is better. But Link many tools too

my ratio 55/45 Snake favor

-Snake pulls out grenades faster than Link pulls out his bombs
-he also throws his grenades faster and farther than Link can.
-Snake has the abilty to have 2 grenades out at one time,
-they deal twice as much damage as Link's bombs do,
-Snake has the abilty to grenade strip which means that if any Link player picks up a grenade to throw it back, Snake can easily force (literally) Link to drop it and have it land at his feet. Attempting to throw grenades back at Snake puts you at risk of getting blown up.
-Snake's grenades take roughly 3 seconds to detonate giving Snake the ability to cook them and then throw them at Link making his chances of throwing them back even less.

Don't underestimate Snake's grenade/camp game, it's more complex and dangerous than it seems to be.

Yeah this is what I've been telling people all this time. Nades > bombs. Just look at how Snake players like Ally and Ultimate Razer use their nades and tell me that nades aren't versatile.

I'd have to agree with this statement.

Can't Snake crouch Link's ShZair?

He can but it's impractical and Snake just plainly has better options than that.

Overall I cannot agree that this match-up is even or 55-45 Snake. I'd have to put this as at least a 60-40 in Snake's favor. In a nutshell Snake is just a far better Link:

I mean he can KO faster, camp just as hard, deal more damage, live longer, punish easier, has more range, and has the ability to gimp Link moreso than Link gimping him. This is just my two cents on this match-up.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

^ I trust this because he plays both and knows both characters well, and I trust Laws.

I'm favoring Huggles & Laws, 55:45 is too generous considering what Snake can do.

I'll have my input probably tomorrow.

 

[Wilmenz]

I admire Link mains at discussing match ups :3

 

[Huggles828]

I take it we're going 40:60 then?

Updated chart.

Full sized image.

If we want to continue discussion/disagree on the MU ratio, I can change it, but it looks like most people agree this is about accurate. Plus it's kinda been quiet, as if everyone's done talking about it.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

You guys got it well, just one thing.

Handling Grenades can be tricky, first learn the timing, it's about 3 second.

All of Link projectiles and even Zair can stop them, but the thing to remember is that Snake takes a short time to pull them compared to Link would has more time to use to whip something out.

His set-ups and techs with nades are better for something but his nades shouldn't be ignored, there are times on certains stages where Link needs to reposition himself or he will be outcamped if we're not careful.

Like people said it's damage output, range and gimping which makes this hard for Link. If you see Snake try and pull a nade do the same with an arrow, bomb, or boomerang. Zone at mid range and keep the space clear while throwing stuff at Snake, be mindful of his dash attack and Ftilt, they are fast and cover a lot of space if you mess up on spacing, try and stay spot on with it.

 

[AeroLink_the_SoulMaster]

Just briefly looking at that chart, there's still plenty of debate to go around.

 

[Problem2]

Just briefly looking at that chart, there's still plenty of debate to go around.

this.

10ALSM

 

[AeroLink_the_SoulMaster]

Yeah, but that's kinda like saying Link can stand still and use his Hylian Shield to render all of Snake's projectiles useless. Link's not gonna walk up, go "Herp Derp" and shoot a zair out at Snake the whole match for him to conveniently duck under, and just sitting there waiting to respond to a zair by ducking leaves you too committed to dodging zair to be realistically useful.

In my mind the biggest deciding factor in this match is Snake's ability to quickly rack up damage and kill with every move. Link with proper DI is comparable to Snake in survivability in general (a little less difficult to kill but reasonably close). A good Link can keep up with Snake's spam/camping and has responses to it. Boomerang can stop grenades/blow them back at Snake, if zair hits them they'll blow up far enough away to not hurt Link, etc. Zair is a good tool against Snake because he's so tall. I think Link can legitimately jab cancel > jab on Snake a lot easier than most other characters (although Link's still better off mixing his jab cancels up I'd think). Link can stop Snake's DACUS reasonably well, especially since both people are likely to be trying to set up a camping projectile game, leaving too many hazards for Snake to approach that way outside of a mixup/mind game. With good DI neither character is going to be in a prime position to reliably gimp the other (again, outside of failDI or something).

In the end I think it boils down to raw damage output and killing power. Link will get a nice read/ trap on Snake, bam, 30 damage. Snake gets an equally nice read on Link or traps him, bam, 60 damage. Link is pretty powerful and has lots of kill moves, but they're not as strong or as powerful as Snake's. Sure, utilt may not kill a good Link until much later than other characters, but Link's survivability in this matchup relative to how much damage Snake deals, and how much he deals to Snake, puts this as an advantageous matchup for Snake (and utilt is still hella strong anyway). You'll watch the match, see both characters seemingly going toe to toe, and then look down and Link will be at 130% to Snake's 70% or so.

I think it's 40:60 Snake's favor.

Snake has more power, range, better recovery, weight, options, and just as versatile camp game. Mix that with his ability to gimp Link with bair and you've got a solid disadvantage for Link. Yes Link has zair and yes Link can camp, but any decent Snake knows how to shield projectiles and ftilt OoS (which pretty much destroys Link). Link has enough lag for Snake to punish and easily rack up damage.



Snake's traps aren't the biggest factor by any means when it comes to match-up ratios. It's Snake's better KO power, the ability to live longer, better recovery, versatile camp game, better range, and his insane up close game that deals far more damage than Link can.



-Snake pulls out grenades faster than Link pulls out his bombs
-he also throws his grenades faster and farther than Link can.
-Snake has the abilty to have 2 grenades out at one time,
-they deal twice as much damage as Link's bombs do,
-Snake has the abilty to grenade strip which means that if any Link player picks up a grenade to throw it back, Snake can easily force (literally) Link to drop it and have it land at his feet. Attempting to throw grenades back at Snake puts you at risk of getting blown up.
-Snake's grenades take roughly 3 seconds to detonate giving Snake the ability to cook them and then throw them at Link making his chances of throwing them back even less.

Don't underestimate Snake's grenade/camp game, it's more complex and dangerous than it seems to be.



I'd have to agree with this statement.



He can but it's impractical and Snake just plainly has better options than that.

Overall I cannot agree that this match-up is even or 55-45 Snake. I'd have to put this as at least a 60-40 in Snake's favor. In a nutshell Snake is just a far better Link:

I mean he can KO faster, camp just as hard, deal more damage, live longer, punish easier, has more range, and has the ability to gimp Link moreso than Link gimping him. This is just my two cents on this match-up.

I originally stated this MU being 55:45 Snake's favor, but when I read these statements, look back at my own tourney experiences, and thought about it more, this has led me to agree with this being 60:40 Snake's favor.

Good reads, guys.