Match-Up Thread Export: Snake

[SpeedyJ]

Snake

DIFFICULTY: 40:60 – Challenging​

Summary

• Old Match-Up Thread
  
• G&W is light and dies early to Snake, even with Bucket Braking. But unlike other characters, Snake doesn't live ridiculously long when fighting G&W.
  
• G&W does very well on stages with platforms because he can juggle Snake. Platforms also ensure G&W doesn’t get shut down by legit mine set ups and Grenades at a distance. We are [possibly tied for] the "Best Character for Juggling Snake".
  
• G&W has a fantastic aerial game and can deal lots of damage off stage or while edge guarding.
  
• Snake’s entire game plan is either waiting for a dumb technical error or mistake which he can punish. His Grenades are also easy to see coming. G&W doesn’t have to get hit.

Tips

• Tip of D-Air, U-Air from underneath, Chef’s projectiles, and an empty bucket can destroy Snake’s mine without GaW taking damage.
  
• On Battlefield, if Snake is below/in front of you while standing on a platform, keep in mind that when he's standing, he's tall enough to D-tilt from that position and that D-Tilt’s lingering hitbox can protect you from U-Tilts.
  
• You can set up some nice K.O.s with U-Air -> smash.

Mindset

• Good stage awareness (just like with every other character when fighting Snake) is very important in keeping track of all of Snake’s explosives.
  
• Playing safely and patiently is the key to winning. Have a clear mind during the game. Simple mistakes will cost you a ton of damage.
  
• Be unpredictable, but at the same time, your frame of mind should be “don’t get hit”. Remember that getting hit is always avoidable, just extremely costly in this matchup.

Strategies

Air > Ground

• Snake has better tools on the ground. He has a bigger grab range, more range on his ground moves, and deals more damage so G&W wants to stay aerial. You can even try to stay above Snake and wait for the opening, keeping in mind that key beats mortar. Snake gets poked all day with full jump aerials [F-Air is particularly good]. Just keep an eye on where he puts grenades, which aren’t that hard to space anyway.

Beating the F-Tilt

• If Snake F-Tilts your shield, get ready to F-Air/B-Air/D-Tilt OoS as applicable. Snake will often try to hit confirm F-Tilt 1 in an attempt to make it safer once he realizes that G&W is good at punishing F-Tilt 2 on block. F-Tilt1 is also unsafe on block, and you can definitely hit him out of shield before he can shield after F-Tilt1. Try to F-Air/B-Air him out of shield every so often when he does F-tilt1. Also remember to Smash DI F-Tilt1. This allows you to SDI away from him to completely avoid F-Tilt or you can SDI into him and end up behind him. You can also Jab -> Grab after sheilding first hit of Snakes F-Tilt.

Grabbing is Good

• It is important to getting used to threatening to grab Snake. When Snake pulls a grenade he cannot attack you. Get in the habit of running up to grab Snake when he pulls grenades. Eventually he will either change strategy or start relying on defensive options to avoid the threat of your grab, at which point you have more freedom to pick him apart. G&W’s throws work wonders in this match-up. The ones you’ll be using the most are the U-throw and D-throw. U-throw is fantastic for setting up juggles and keeping him airborne. D-throw provides openings in KO-ing Snake. It allows you to more reliably set up into sweetspot F-air or D-tilt on a read. You can also D-Smash him during the odd instance he uses the get-up attack.

Dash Attack!?

• Dash attack is a great move to use – it has long duration and launches him into the air. Up-B is also great for escaping things or prolonging your air time. A good strategy would be to use Up-B to escape if Dash Attack clashes. You can also do a Dash Attack after D-Throw, given the positional setup from Dash Attack is amazing in this match-up.

Stages

G&W does very well on stages with platforms. It's entirely feasible to get the lead on stages with convenient platforms, and proceed to not take any damage at all from that point on if you're extremely careful. If you get the stock lead against Snake, the game is pretty much in the bag at that point especially if you're platform camping on BF or Lylat.
Watch out for his N-Air shenanigans, pay attention to grenades as usual, and it should be fine.

The stages to play on are pretty self explanatory. They either have platforms G&W can control nicely, or have transformations where G&W can take advantage of the limitations of Snake's recovery. This leaves large (campy) stages and Halberd (because of the super low ceiling) as stages to avoid.

Play on:

• Battlefield
• Yoshi's Island
• Lylat Cruise
• Delfino Plaza
• Frigate Orpheon
• Rainbow Cruise
• Brinstar
• Pokemon Stadium 1
• Pokemon Stadium 2

Avoid:

• Final Destination
• Smashville
• Halberd
• Pictochat

Mumbo Jumbo
DI

Spoiler

Assume snake is facing right while performing any of these attacks:

Utilt: DI Left
Ftilt: DI Up, and ever so slightly left.
FSmash: DI Left, and somewhat up.
Uair: DI Left or Right, try to smash DI down first.
Nair: SDI out, if you get hit by the final hit, you don't need to DI it.
Bair: DI Up somewhat.

Frame Data

Spoiler

Neutral B: 2 (after it explodes)
Side B: 82
Up B: N/A
Down B: 29
Fsmash: 41
Dsmash: 130 (hitbox on frame 2 after contact)
Usmash: 11 (snake's body), 29 (earliest mortar shell)
Ftilt: 4, *
Dtilt: 6
Utilt: 6
Nair: 10, 28, 46, 61
Fair: 23
Bair: 7
Uair: 10
Dair: 6, 23, 40, 57
Jab: 3, *, *
Dash Attack: 5
Standing Grab: 8
Dash Grab: 12
Pivot Grab: 9

* Variable input times

Videos

• Utdzac vs Razer
• Vinnie vs MVD
• Vex vs MVD

Conclusion
People complain Snake shuts down G&W when that's completely false. G&W easily gets around Snake’s projectiles. G&W plays in the air in this match-up which allows him to escape Snake’s nasty ground game.

All in all you just want to do safe juggles, edgeguards, and then when the time comes you want to land a D-Tilt on him so that he'll be offstage for an easy F-Air KO. Or you want to read his landing and kill him with a Smash. At any rate controlling Snake with your superior spacing game is the goal, and once he's off his feet, make sure you pick safe and reliable options for damaging him.

I would like to gratefully thank the G&W boards for their support and contributions, especially A2ZOMG, who practically wrote this all by himself. You guys are amazing! In case anybody is interested, here are some of the original posts and everyone's opinion on the ratio.


NOTES!

Spoiler

Individual Ratios

Spoiler

• Splice – 40:60
• JMoney – 40:60
• YarsRevengerson – 40:60, 45:55 on CPs
• UTDZac – 45:55 skilled, 35:65 unskilled
• Makke – 40:60
• Alphicans - 50:50, 45:55 maybe

Original Quotes
I didn't use just these, but these are the best which I feel should be highlighted.

Splice

Spoiler

Snakes a good starting point I guess.

60:40
cuz we can juggle
get lots of damage offstage
edgeguard well
use platforms well against him
kill him relatively early compared to other chars

However we get outcamped
he can actually beat us out when we plank
Approaching above 90% is damn risky because his Utilt will punish most things
We get shut down by Ftilt at close range
We get shut down by legit mine set ups and nades at a distance
Unless we have a platform set up that allows us flexibility

GaW wants to stay aerial, from my experience
What I do is I actually try to stay above Snake and wait for the opening.

Dealing with all the different mine setups gets really complex

A2ZOMG

Spoiler

First, Snake matchup:

Vs Snake is like REALLY super close to even imo. Like the only reason he even wins is because he does slightly better on neutrals, and maybe a CP stage or two. Although you do clearly beat him on a few stages (imo Lylat, Brinstar, and PS2 at least. Norfair as well if it's allowed).

The goal of the matchup is to basically play "don't get hit". Getting hit is always avoidable, just extremely costly in this matchup. You can poke him all day with fullhopped aerials and he usually can't stop it. Just keep an eye on where he puts grenades. It's not particularly hard to space to not hit his grenades, just you need to be watching where he pulls them.

If he F-tilts your shield, get ready to F-air/B-air/D-tilt oos as applicable. Snake will often try to hit confirm F-tilt 1 in an attempt to make it safer once he realizes that G&W is good at punishing F-tilt 2 on block. The key thing you have to realize is F-tilt1 is ALSO unsafe on block, and you can definitely hit him out of shield before he can shield after F-tilt1. Try to F-air/B-air him out of shield every so often when he does F-tilt1. The nice thing about this is if Snake tries to hit you with F-tilt while you're in the air, it does less damage and knockback.

The other basic thing that is important to get used to is threatening to grab Snake. When Snake pulls a grenade, it's a commitment where he cannot attack you. Get in the habit of running up to grab Snake when he pulls grenades. Eventually he'll either have to change his strategy or he'll start having to rely on defensive options to avoid the threat of your grab, at which point you have more freedom to pick him apart if he persay gets conditioned into spotdodging for example.

All in all you just want to do safe juggles, edgeguards, and then when the time comes you want to land a D-tilt on him so that he'll be offstage for an easy F-air KO. Or you want to read his landing and kill him with a Smash. At any rate controlling Snake with your superior spacing game is the goal, and once he's off his feet, make sure you pick safe and reliable options for damaging him.

While juggling him is good, D-throw is underestimated against Snake. The good thing about D-throw is it lets you more reliably set up into sweetspot F-air or D-tilt on a read, both of which are extremely helpful when trying to KO him. Comboing into Dash Attack after D-throw isn't a bad idea either, given the positional setup from Dash Attack is AMAZING in this matchup.

Spoiler

You never have to get hit by anything Snake does. His entire gameplan is either waiting for some random technical error or convincing you to do something stupid that he can punish unfairly hard. Grenades are EASY to see coming unless you're perhaps playing on a TV with bad resolution.

Especially on stages with convenient platforms, it's entirely feasible to get the lead, and proceed to not take any damage at all from that point on if you're extremely careful. If you get the stock lead against Snake, it pretty much should be GG at that point especially if you're platform camping on BF or Lylat. Watch out for his N-air shenanigans, pay attention to grenades as usual, and it should be fine.

On BF also, if Snake is below/in front of you while you stand on a platform, keep in mind that when he's standing, he's tall enough to D-tilt from that position. D-tilt's lingering hitbox is also good at protecting you from U-tilts.

UTDZac

Spoiler

Simply put, the trick to winning against Snake is to play safe and patiently. Have a clear mind during the game. Simple mistakes will cost you half your life worth in damage. You have more mobility than Snake, use that to your advantage.

Spoiler

For utilt you say Front DI?

To clarify: Snake is facing right and you are facing left. Snake does Utilt (again facing right). The correct DI is left.

Here's my list pretty much the same thing, assume snake is facing right while performing any of these attacks:

Utilt: DI Left
Ftilt: DI Up, and ever so slightly left.
FSmash: DI Left, and somewhat up.
Uair: DI Left or Right, try to smash DI down first.
Nair: SDI out, if you get hit by the final hit, you don't need to DI it.
Bair: DI Up somewhat.

Alphicans

Spoiler

Just a few things to mention.

SDI THE FTILT!! Punishing ftilt1 is very nerve racking and risky; it's hard to do because you need to be very fast. By now everyone should know when ftilt is going to hit, and when he is going to use it... SO SDI IT! You can SDI away to completely avoid ftilt2 and to be really safe, or you can sdi into him and end up behind him (if you have very good sdi or are relatively close inside of him). I find sdi'ing into him and then grabbing is the most rewarding of all for obvious reasons of course.

I also just wanna say that I think GaW is either tied for the best or is the best character for juggling snake. Not to say he's the best at setting it up, but when he does I don't think any character does it better, and for sure no one punishes landings harder than GaW, except for maybe IC's... but they'll usually have to deal with a grenade anyways.

Overall I think this match-up is a solid 50-50, or maybe a 55-45 in his favour. I do think we win on PS1 and battlefield, and I do think we lose on FD and halberd (maybe castle siege). I think we go even with him on yoshi's and smashville and lylat. I think pictochat is based on what transformations you get, but I also think that's a stage to make it an even match-up.

 

[Alphicans]

Just a few things to mention.

SDI THE FTILT!! Punishing ftilt1 is very nerve racking and risky; it's hard to do because you need to be very fast. By now everyone should know when ftilt is going to hit, and when he is going to use it... SO SDI IT! You can SDI away to completely avoid ftilt2 and to be really safe, or you can sdi into him and end up behind him (if you have very good sdi or are relatively close inside of him). I find sdi'ing into him and then grabbing is the most rewarding of all for obvious reasons of course.

I also just wanna say that I think GaW is either tied for the best or is the best character for juggling snake. Not to say he's the best at setting it up, but when he does I don't think any character does it better, and for sure no one punishes landings harder than GaW, except for maybe IC's... but they'll usually have to deal with a grenade anyways.

Overall I think this match-up is a solid 50-50, or maybe a 55-45 in his favour. I do think we win on PS1 and battlefield, and I do think we lose on FD and halberd (maybe castle siege). I think we go even with him on yoshi's and smashville and lylat. I think pictochat is based on what transformations you get, but I also think that's a stage to make it an even match-up.

 

[SFA Smiley]

Expect GW vs snake matches to last a long time. Between you patiently trying to get in his zone and his high weight and him trying to catch you there's going to be a lot of grenades thrown and a lot of parachuting around by you. Be patient. That's really all it is, take few risks and you will both realize that both of you have the same concerns: Not dying at stupid percents, not getting hit, and not making mistakes. That applies to all matchups but this one in particular, both these characters can homo the other REALLY quickly. You're both afraid the entire time, well the snake main should if you guys are on the same level If he isn't just as afraid as you are you're doing it wrong.

 

[SpeedyJ]

Just a few things to mention.

SDI THE FTILT!! Punishing ftilt1 is very nerve racking and risky; it's hard to do because you need to be very fast. By now everyone should know when ftilt is going to hit, and when he is going to use it... SO SDI IT! You can SDI away to completely avoid ftilt2 and to be really safe, or you can sdi into him and end up behind him (if you have very good sdi or are relatively close inside of him). I find sdi'ing into him and then grabbing is the most rewarding of all for obvious reasons of course.

I also just wanna say that I think GaW is either tied for the best or is the best character for juggling snake. Not to say he's the best at setting it up, but when he does I don't think any character does it better, and for sure no one punishes landings harder than GaW, except for maybe IC's... but they'll usually have to deal with a grenade anyways.

Overall I think this match-up is a solid 50-50, or maybe a 55-45 in his favour. I do think we win on PS1 and battlefield, and I do think we lose on FD and halberd (maybe castle siege). I think we go even with him on yoshi's and smashville and lylat. I think pictochat is based on what transformations you get, but I also think that's a stage to make it an even match-up.

Thanks, I will try add that. And with regards to the ratio, I appreciate your input, and will take it into consideration, if enough people give their feedback, the ratio will probably change.

 

[Alphicans]

Expect GW vs snake matches to last a long time. Between you patiently trying to get in his zone and his high weight and him trying to catch you there's going to be a lot of grenades thrown and a lot of parachuting around by you. Be patient. That's really all it is, take few risks and you will both realize that both of you have the same concerns: Not dying at stupid percents, not getting hit, and not making mistakes. That applies to all matchups but this one in particular, both these characters can homo the other REALLY quickly. You're both afraid the entire time, well the snake main should if you guys are on the same level If he isn't just as afraid as you are you're doing it wrong.

This speaks loads of truth. Just to reiterate...

Snake should not feel he can do whatever he wants in this match-up. Committing to an aerial should not be an option for him, because once we get below him, he's ****ed, and ****ed HARD. A very good way to tell if you're doing the match-up right is to see if he's doing aerial to attack you often. If he is, you're not playing smart enough/not punishing nearly as well. His aerials suck, and for some reason snakes like to use nair. I've never understood that, because I always just nair/bair right into it and **** them... Plus if you DO get hit, you can just sdi out of it and hit him. Such a bad move :/.

 

[Wilmenz]

Slowfall key is **** in this MU for shield poking safely and even more if he has some grenades beside him, also try to aim to hit him with the last hit of Nair whenever possible and drift back it pokes shields and is safe also Frigate Orpheon is a bad stage in this MU cause of phase 1 and in phase 2 he can camp really well it is almost impossible to get in ._.

 

[MysteryRevengerson]

Slowfall key is **** in this MU for shield poking safely and even more if he has some grenades beside him, also try to aim to hit him with the last hit of Nair whenever possible and drift back it pokes shields and is safe also Frigate Orpheon is a bad stage in this MU cause of phase 1 and in phase 2 he can camp really well it is almost impossible to get in ._.

Game and Watch can camp well? With what?

I'm assuming that you mean using bair and nair and playing overall more defensively on it then yes, we can do that. Frigate's also a great stage because it's good for getting people into the air with platforms as well as flipping and being small in general.

 

[Alphicans]

I think he meant snake can do those things, and I am not sure if I agree.

Anyways GaW can camp well, just he needs a good % lead, like maybe a ~30% lead or something like that.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Usually when I tell someone to camp on a lead, I want them to be winning at minimum by 50%. Ideally winning by a stock is preferred, since it's much easier to avoid getting killed than it is to avoid taking chip damage.

You can take 30% pretty easily if someone pulls off a clutch combo or 3 hit string out of nowhere. Actually you can take that much damage if for example Snake D-throw -> F-tilts you.

 

[Wilmenz]

Game and Watch can camp well? With what?

I'm assuming that you mean using bair and nair and playing overall more defensively on it then yes, we can do that. Frigate's also a great stage because it's good for getting people into the air with platforms as well as flipping and being small in general.

I ment Snake can just camp his *** off in Phase 2, approaching is nerfed in that part btw Snake's standing grab is 6 frames not 8 lol

 

[A2ZOMG]

Snake's standing grab is indeed 8 frames. I just checked.

 

[MysteryRevengerson]

I don't think his camping improves all that much, I just think G&W has to mix up his approach a little (the middle platform mixed with the depression in the middle is quite interesting, does anyone know that if you duck in the center of the depression if a grenade will hit you while it's directly above you on the platform?), that is, if he has to approach. If not he can chill out until Snake approaches or the stage switches forms.