Match-Up Chart (Outdated); please refer to the new chart.

[t3h Icy]

Don't worry about them. =)

 

[ChivalRuse]

Don't worry about them. =)

So in case you haven't yet, make sure you change ICs = Luigi to ICs < Luigi.

 

[giuocob]

I don't have a whole lot of IC experience, but when I've played them, Ice Blocks have more or less shut Luigi's long range wavedash game down. I try doing platform **** and then get ***** by Uairs. How is he meant to get around them effectively?

 

[ChivalRuse]

Ice blocks are pretty good in that match-up, but ICs can't really use them at short range, because Luigi can just dsmash through them. At longer range, Luigi can simply shield them, wavedash oos and dsmash/SH aerial/ftilt, depending upon which is applicable. Futhermore, Luigi's SH height and floatiness are perfect for simply SHing over ice blocks, regardless of whether or not they're desynched.

 

[giuocob]

Luigi can just dsmash through them.

Wow...I somehow never realized this. I think my ICs game just got a lot better.

 

[ChivalRuse]

Yea. Luigi's dsmash actually clanks with Marth's fsmash. Lol. It's a pretty good move.

 

[giuocob]

Yeah...lol. I know Luigi Dsmash is amazing, I just somehow never made the connection during an ICs match that Dsmash would go through them. I kinda feel dumb now that I think about it, actually.

 

[chamberlin]

I'd say ICs go even with Fox... ICs' edgeguarding, chaingrabs, and combos (sometimes even leading to grab) are more than enough to compete with Fox's shine, upkilling power, and overall speed. ICs have been doing well vs Fox in tournies lately also.

 

[Merkuri]

Here we go again with the 'character X beat character Y once in a tourney, character X must have an advantage!' Fly has beaten Scar and Silentspectre, I guess that means Forward's Falcon is better than either of them, right?

It's not as if I'm claiming this proves this match up is in Falcon's favor. I'm just using it as evidence. I'm not sure Fly has ever beaten Silent Specter and tournament. Also learn how to read, Forward defeated wobbles with Falcon, not Fly Aminita.

This is a flawed argument because you are referring to the eras when Ken and m2k were the undisputed best players in the world. Regardless of what character their opposition is using, the best player in the world is supposed to win. Anything else would be an upset. Considering this, it is worth noting that Chu was one of the biggest threats to Ken and m2k in their prime. Unlike every other player except like KDJ, PC Chris, and Azen, Chu was the only player able to consistently take matches off of these guys.

m2k in his prime did not use Fox often, claiming it's because he's much more consistent with Marth. Consistency vs. ICs is one of the keys to beating them, because if you aren't consistent you get grabbed.

I didn't have an argument there. Someone made an inaccurate statement and I was correcting it.

And I realize when I say this I may be of the unpopular opinion. But during 2005 and early 2006 I'm not convinced Ken was a better player than Chu. The two almost always met at the MLG finals, and Ken always beat him. There was a point that the only one who was beating Chu was Ken. And I think that was less because Ken was better than Chu so much as Chu couldn't win that match up.

 

[TheManaLord]

The IC mains are also putting way too much credit into their characters gameplay. IC's are a ****ing mess of a character and alot of their strongest assets are situational and have difficult execution. The fundamentals of IC's deem them an inconsistent character and I don't think anyone is factoring this into gameplay. The discussion seems to be based on ideal IC circumstances which realistically never come up.

This is supposed to be an accurate chart, right now it's a whole lot of BS not based on real gameplay.


EDIT: Who's ****ing alt is Merkuri? Get out of here.

 

[Merkuri]

The IC mains are also putting way too much credit into their characters gameplay. IC's are a ****ing mess of a character and alot of their strongest assets are situational and have difficult execution. The fundamentals of IC's deem them an inconsistent character and I don't think anyone is factoring this into gameplay. The discussion seems to be based on ideal IC circumstances which realistically never come up.

This is supposed to be an accurate chart, right now it's a whole lot of BS not based on real gameplay.

That is so true. But whenever we factor these flaws into the match up they say things like ''You're not giving ICs enough credit''.

EDIT: Who's ****ing alt is Merkuri? Get out of here.

I'm not an alt, I'm a real person. Don't be a douche man.

 

[TheManaLord]

Oh, you agreed with me. Alright I'll be nice to you.

 

[ChivalRuse]

The IC mains are also putting way too much credit into their characters gameplay. IC's are a ****ing mess of a character and alot of their strongest assets are situational and have difficult execution. The fundamentals of IC's deem them an inconsistent character and I don't think anyone is factoring this into gameplay. The discussion seems to be based on ideal IC circumstances which realistically never come up.

What are these situations? I'd like to hear some examples to reinforce your point. What you're saying makes sense, I just want to know what you mean by ideal circumstances for ICs. What would those be?

 

[TheManaLord]

Being in sync and out of sync for whatever combo grab setup edgeguard whatever you're trying to do.

Everyone knows the IC's have problems and dynamics no other characters have, they have to be weighed into the matchups. We can't look at ideal IC play and use it at the standard. Their mechanics don't allow this level to be readily achievable. One of the best IC's ever has played since the dawn of competitive melee, the character was pushed to where it was back then, there's not any breakthrough happening to add utmost consistency to how IC's operate.

The IC mains* are looking at their character in the brightest light. This is alright with some characters because their operations don't vary much, but with IC's there's a long range of playability that must be observed properly.

*especially kyu puff my GOD is that guy biased as **** holy **** lmfao

 

[Kyu Puff]

TML, you've never even played a decent ICs and you assume that you know more about how our character works than we do. I'm really going to enjoy taking your money at mm20, please don't ***** out and not go because the rest of your region is going. tbh I can't read this discussion either, so far the only coherent poster in the last 3 or 4 pages has been nintendude.

I'd say ICs go even with Fox... ICs' edgeguarding, chaingrabs, and combos (sometimes even leading to grab) are more than enough to compete with Fox's shine, upkilling power, and overall speed. ICs have been doing well vs Fox in tournies lately also.

I agree with this but none of the Fox players did. I think Fox might have a really slight advantage but I'm fine with ICs < Fox (by the way I think we played at Genesis).

Alphicans: Which IC player that you've played against is this coming from? I know the Link match-up pretty well, the YL match-up less so, but I know that weight and close range play a huge role in the Link match-up and that Young Link is significantly worse in both respects. Shield pushback is important because ICs slide a lot and moves with sufficient knockback are virtually unpunishable. Link lives a long time with DI and besides shooting ice blocks, ICs can't really edgeguard him. Young Link doesn't live nearly as long, he's comparable in edgeguarding, but ICs smashes actually kill him at a reasonable %.

 

[ChivalRuse]

Being in sync and out of sync for whatever combo grab setup edgeguard whatever you're trying to do.

Everyone knows the IC's have problems and dynamics no other characters have, they have to be weighed into the matchups. We can't look at ideal IC play and use it at the standard. Their mechanics don't allow this level to be readily achievable. One of the best IC's ever has played since the dawn of competitive melee, the character was pushed to where it was back then, there's not any breakthrough happening to add utmost consistency to how IC's operate.

I agree completely. But you have to also allow that those desynch factors are completely irrelevant when we look at pure results of wins versus losses, which is the basis of a match-up chart. We can analyze advantages and disadvantages in a neutral position with ICs synched or in a situation with only Popo or in cases when Nana is separated from Popo, and we can try to quantify why these wins and losses occurred. That's all I'm trying to do. I don't know about others ...

 

[TheManaLord]

TML, you've never even played a decent ICs and you assume that you know more about how our character works than we do. I'm really going to enjoy taking your money at mm20, please don't ***** out and not go because the rest of your region is going. tbh I can't read this discussion either, so far the only coherent poster in the last 3 or 4 pages has been nintendude.



I agree with this but none of the Fox players did. I think Fox might have a really slight advantage but I'm fine with ICs < Fox (by the way I think we played at Genesis).

Oh shut up. I'm major troll with serious undertones. I am not going because I have a real job. I played competitively when Melee was really awesome and I've played enough superstars to make me credible (for some reason you always bring that card in, and I always have names to drop...). I've played you, I've played nintendude, and I've played chu dat in tournament. I get around, mostly in the past and less of recent years.

 

[Nintendude]

Thank you for once again demonstrating my point that non-ICs players do not understand how the character works. Desynchs, other than grabs, are simply mixups that help their neutral game. They can start them almost instantly and also do just fine without them. I don't understand how you think that edgeguarding desynchs are inconsistent when all they do is allow ICs to cover multiple options at once when players are recovering from far away.

There are two subsets of grab combos: Popo only or both Climbers. There is no particular desynch setup that leads to particular grab combos. It's simply you have a certain amount of options at your disposal if Nana is around, and if she isn't, you have a smaller set of options that are still very worthwhile.

What's different between Chu's prime and the current ICs metagame is there are a lot more mixups and tricks that exist today that didn't a few years ago. The fact that they have more options to work with make them a more consistent character than they used to be in all aspects of their game.

People also do not give Popo enough credit. A solo climber is surprisingly capable.

TML when have we played? I honestly do not remember and the only time I can think of might have been at RFS a few years ago.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

It's not because of the IC mains that this discussions fails. It's because there are people who have never played ICs coming in here and spouting all kinds of crap about what they can/can't do, basically spreading lies that are confusing everybody and clogging the whole discussion up.

No i think its because a lot of ICs "mains" barely understand their character outside of "grab, chaingrab, stock" and therefore have basically no conscious knowledge of the matchup so they think to how often they win against X character and say thats how the matchup goes, even if neither player are playing the matchup very well.


Answer me this ICs players: if any one of their grab combos leads to death or high damage, whether it be dair cg, edge infinite/cg, fsmash cg or wobbling, does it really make a difference which one you use?

 

[TheManaLord]

I'm not talking about them in that sense, somebody wanted examples so I spouted w/e I could think, I hate situational analysis and I think it has no place in this discussion. I'm mostly talking about how easily nana gets displaced in gameplay.

 

[Kyu Puff]

Oh shut up. I'm major troll with serious undertones. I am not going because I have a real job. I played competitively when Melee was really awesome and I've played enough superstars to make me credible (for some reason you always bring that card in, and I always have names to drop...). I've played you, I've played nintendude, and I've played chu dat in tournament. I get around, mostly in the past and less of recent years.

You played me in a few friendlies a long time ago that I don't even remember. I didn't play anything like I do now. You might have played Chu but you didn't beat him, so how did you come to the conclusion that Falcon ***** ICs?

Also... johns... :/

 

[TheManaLord]

A lot of the problems people have with my views on the matchups come from this charts ****ing format. Give me 0:100 god ****it!

I think it's 55:45 for falcon, falcon mains don't care about the IC matchup (it's always been historically thought of as an easy matchup, but today it's not the case) and falcons don't play gay enough. I wanna see hax play v ic's his matches are usually pretty long and bair happy.

edit: who knows I might be at mm20, usually the tournies I say I will attend I don't go to, and the ones I say I can't go I somehow get to them. We'll see, I'm not really sure what my work schedule is or who from my region is going. The only one who will do good anyways is Jesiah probly

 

[#HBC | Mac]

Kyu Puff, is link's shield knock back really an argument of yours? -_____-.

really?

this is an incredibly important detail for ics. Esp since sheild is more important to ICs then most characters. If they can't punish you out of sheild, ICs are at a disadvantage which is why peach and samus do well vs ICs and why falcon and doc can do well with proper spaced fairing.

don't be ignorant.

 

[Alphicans]

Alphicans: Which IC player that you've played against is this coming from? I know the Link match-up pretty well, the YL match-up less so, but I know that weight and close range play a huge role in the Link match-up and that Young Link is significantly worse in both respects. Shield pushback is important because ICs slide a lot and moves with sufficient knockback are virtually unpunishable. Link lives a long time with DI and besides shooting ice blocks, ICs can't really edgeguard him. Young Link doesn't live nearly as long, he's comparable in edgeguarding, but ICs smashes actually kill him at a reasonable %.

I am not really arguing against anything because I've never played a good IC's, I was just pointing out that your claims in the differences between the two characters are incorrect. Y.link's close up game is not worse than link's...

 

[john!]

Can we just get a pro IC's player in here to tell us what the matchups are and move on? This thread is going nowhere fast. There's clearly a lot of misunderstanding about the character.

Oh and manalord, if you're half troll and half serious, your posts don't mean much.

 

[Nintendude]

really?

this is an incredibly important detail for ics. Esp since sheild is more important to ICs then most characters. If they can't punish you out of sheild, ICs are at a disadvantage which is why peach and samus do well vs ICs and why falcon and doc can do well with proper spaced fairing.

don't be ignorant.

Actually Samus is really easy to punish out of shield. That's not why she does ok in the matchup. Yeah your point is correct though. It especially holds true for Ganon.

 

[TheManaLord]

Can we just get a pro IC's player in here to tell us what the matchups are and move on? This thread is going nowhere fast. There's clearly a lot of misunderstanding about the character.

Oh and manalord, if you're half troll and half serious, your posts don't mean much.

The content is relevant, the delivery in many times is not. Blame various impairments that I chose to indulge in at the time.

 

[Kyu Puff]

I think it's 55:45 for falcon, falcon mains don't care about the IC matchup (it's always been historically thought of as an easy matchup, but today it's not the case) and falcons don't play gay enough. I wanna see hax play v ic's his matches are usually pretty long and bair happy

He runs away a lot and camps platforms. I mmed him twice, he won both the mms but the games were always really close. I think his style is good vs ICs but it still didn't feel any less than even to me.

john!: Fly is a pro ICs. We agreed on pretty much every match-up. The only resistance is coming from people who have their own theories but don't have any match-up experience.

 

[giuocob]

A lot of the problems people have with my views on the matchups come from this charts ****ing format. Give me 0:100 god ****it!

Oh no, can we please not go over this **** again...

 

[ChivalRuse]

Answer me this ICs players: if any one of their grab combos leads to death or high damage, whether it be dair cg, edge infinite/cg, fsmash cg or wobbling, does it really make a difference which one you use?

Yes, it does.

1. Wobbling is usually banned, otherwise we would ALWAYS use it in tournament everytime we got a grab for obvious reasons.

2. Fsmash cg only works on Fox, Falco, Falcon. It's a mixup that uses DI tricking and is inescapeable assuming you succeed in tricking their DI before the throw. That's too complicated to talk about here though.

3. The ledge chaingrab (i.e., the handoff) depends on you grabbing them while within proximity of the ledge AND facing it. Some characters can be reverse dair chaingrabbed, effectively enabling you to turn around and transition into the handoff, but even with that taken into account, it's extremely situational. It's also the hardest CG to do consistently. We use it whenever we can, weighing into account whether or not it's worth the risk of messing up over another chaingrab.

4. Dthrow dair is the bread and butter chaingrab. We use it when the above chaingrabs can't or shouldn't be performed for any of the reasons explained. This chaingrab is also limited because it can be smash DI'ed, in some cases normal DI'ed out of, and in other cases it doesn't work at all (Jiggs, Mario, Mewtwo, etc.).

5. The regular dthrow chaingrab on Sheik, Roy, and several others ... is pretty broken.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Those are different means to the same end.

itd be like a falcon saying that he has the option between nair nair knee and nair uair knee somehow increases his potential. does it matter? nope, as long as he does them right they both end with a knee and do relatively equal percent.

 

[Kyu Puff]

It matters because you can't do all of them against every character. I don't really understand what your point is.

 

[Nintendude]

Those are different means to the same end.

Yes, but the different means are situational. That'd be like saying that Marth f-throw to f-smash and d-throw to f-smash are exactly the same thing because they lead to the same end, but obviously this is wrong because it matters which way the opponent DIs. Other than the handoff, which only works at the edge (and should always be used at the edge), the other chaingrabs must be mixed up because they are not guaranteed. They only lead to death if the opponent simply doesn't know how to escape or the opponent is tricked by the mixups and doesn't know which way to DI.

In your Falcon example, there are specific situations where Falcon should choose Uair over Nair (like if the opponent is too high). Same deal goes for ICs - there are specific situations where you would want to do a particular method of chaingrab. Kyu mentioned reverse dair chaingrab to get the handoff going, for example.

 

[MEXICAN]

dk<<<falco
dk<<<sheik
dk<<fox maybe dk<fox
dk<marth maybe dk <<marth
dk<falcon
dk<jiggs
dk<ic's
dk<<peach
dk=samus, maybe dk>samus but slightly
dk<ganon
dk>>luigi
dk>>roy
dk>>bowser
dk>>>pichu
dk<mewtwo (that just being based off of taj beating me, lol)
dk=dk
dk<pikachu maybe dk=pikachu (i don't really know this matchup)
dk>ness
dk>>zelda
dk>mario
dk=doc
dk>>GaW (don't really know this matchup either)
dk>>kirby
dk>link
dk>ylink
dk>>yoshi

Thats all my opinion. *shrugs*

 

[JPOBS]

its funny how the lower we go on the tierlist the more heated discussion gets.

low tiers are serious business.

 

[otg]

dk<<<falco
dk<<<sheik
dk<<fox maybe dk<fox
dk<marth maybe dk <<marth
dk<falcon
dk<jiggs
dk<ic's
dk<<peach
dk=samus, maybe dk>samus but slightly
dk<ganon
dk>>luigi
dk>>roy
dk>>bowser
dk>>>pichu
dk<mewtwo (that just being based off of taj beating me, lol)
dk=dk
dk<pikachu maybe dk=pikachu (i don't really know this matchup)
dk>ness
dk>>zelda
dk>mario
dk=doc
dk>>GaW (don't really know this matchup either)
dk>>kirby
dk>link
dk>ylink
dk>>yoshi

Thats all my opinion. *shrugs*

Good ****. I'm curious about a few. Particularly, Luigi, Y.Link and Jiggs. I would imagine jiggs and Y.Link are both A LOT worse for him, and I can't see what makes that matchup so bad for luigi, so please enlighten me.

its funny how the lower we go on the tierlist the more heated discussion gets.

low tiers are serious business.

It's because not that much is known about the lower tiered characters, so douchebags like TML have to come in with their jaded *** baseless opinions.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Yes, but the different means are situational. That'd be like saying that Marth f-throw to f-smash and d-throw to f-smash are exactly the same thing because they lead to the same end, but obviously this is wrong because it matters which way the opponent DIs. Other than the handoff, which only works at the edge (and should always be used at the edge), the other chaingrabs must be mixed up because they are not guaranteed. They only lead to death if the opponent simply doesn't know how to escape or the opponent is tricked by the mixups and doesn't know which way to DI.

In your Falcon example, there are specific situations where Falcon should choose Uair over Nair (like if the opponent is too high). Same deal goes for ICs - there are specific situations where you would want to do a particular method of chaingrab. Kyu mentioned reverse dair chaingrab to get the handoff going, for example.

you're just arguing the situations they can be applied in. If given a situation where you could use any of the CGs, does it matter which one you choose?

 

[Kyu Puff]

What is your point?

No i think its because a lot of ICs "mains" barely understand their character outside of "grab, chaingrab, stock" and therefore have basically no conscious knowledge of the matchup so they think to how often they win against X character and say thats how the matchup goes, even if neither player are playing the matchup very well.

I may not be the most well-known IC but I have plenty of experience against good players in these match-ups. I promise you I know my own character outside of "grab, chaingrab, stock;" in fact, the problem here is that nobody else seems to be aware of anything past that -- they think Falcon's knee and raptor boost spam is unbeatable because they've never played against a good IC player. And honestly it's kind of funny that you're the one making this accusation because you've been guilty of a lot of theory-smashing in this thread.

 

[MEXICAN]

Good ****. I'm curious about a few. Particularly, Luigi, Y.Link and Jiggs. I would imagine jiggs and Y.Link are both A LOT worse for him, and I can't see what makes that matchup so bad for luigi, so please enlighten me.




It's because not that much is known about the lower tiered characters, so douchebags like TML have to come in with their jaded *** baseless opinions.

Uh...its really hard for luigi to get passed dk's b air spam if dk does it right. This mainly due to luigi's lack of horizontal distance in his jump. Down b luigi runs into a lot, but thats mainly just for throwing him off, it doesn't really lead to anything. lol. And dk can edgeguard luigi really well and giant punch is well...it *****. lol. Oh yeah, and luigi players love to d air your shield and then sex kick, but dk's up b out of shield ***** that and most of luigis moves...

Y link i don't really know very well, so that was kind of just a guess. lol. I beat chudats ylink without too many problems, but he's an ic's main..not a ylink main. lol. I can't honestly tell you on that one

vs jiggs...its basically just a spacing match. Dk CAN BE edgeguarded by jiggs...but not that bad, dk can recover most of the time (his hands are invincible during his up b). And obviously the rest is a big factor with such a huge target. However, as light as jiggs is, the giant punch is just about as good as a rest. B air, up b, and giant punch are pretty much the only moves dk's going to be using in this matchup. DK just has to play smart and be patient and obviously try to avoid the rest. Also, with dk's weight, if he's not getting hit with the rest, he can easily survive well over 100 damage

 

[Vanitas]

Kyu Puff is actually mad under rated. He is very knowledgable about ICs and is prih good himself.