Match Ups | 3.5 Samus General MU Discussion

[Chevy]

Gerudo dragon isn't in this game...

 

[ph00tbag]

Haha, wow. Ignore me.

 

[Taytertot]

Im a roy main and ganon secondary. Ive been thinking about learning wolf as well (i know that the general recommendation is to stick with one character but its just my preference to play a few) and i then realized that if i picked up wolf then id have 3 characters who i feel dont handle the samus MU well. This brings me to my questions; is there a samus MU that the samus boards can, for the most part, agree is rough for samus (or a few if applicable)?

 

[Narpas_sword]

R.O.B is a pretty gammy matchup for us.

otherwise most of samus matchups are fairy even, not a lot really get much worse/better than 60/40

i dont like vs sheik, marth or falcon though.

 

[Chevy]

Ganondorf has a pretty good matchup against Samus, actually, even at worst for him. And Roy is also about even. I actually think Samus loses to every character in Hyrule, plus Ike, Marth, R.O.B.

 

[Taytertot]

Ganondorf has a pretty good matchup against Samus, actually, even at worst for him. And Roy is also about even. I actually think Samus loses to every character in Hyrule, plus Ike, Marth, R.O.B.

Really? I feel like zair, missiles and charge shot cover most of ganon's approach options quite handily i suppose ganon could just try to power shield everything but im doubtful that power shielding would be realistic to so heavily relied upon in order to win an MU. Once ganon gets in im sure he can givve samus a hard time but i feel like crawl attack, ftilt and nair can just reset the whole situation. And roy has a bit of difficulty comboing samus floatiness which is generally how roy sets up his kill moves.

Maybe im wrong but that's the way ive seen the matchups go and how ive experienced them when i play them. But i can definitely see why shiek and ROB would be rough and i dont know enough about the others to say. I'll have to try them out or maybe just pick up samus haha. Thanks for the advice.

 

[Chevy]

Autocancel n-air fixes all of Ganon's problems in the Samus matchup.

 

[Ivko]

In my own local bubble, the hard matchups for me are:
- Fox: maybe because the player is really good, but I still think it's pretty bad for her.
- Marth: I usually win but have to think a lot more vs him. I feel like a great marth would destroy me though.
- Luigi: he can combo you pretty well and edgeguard, although I think I'm starting to figure out how to avoid some of the crap.
- Ganondorf: sounds like it would be okay in theory, but in practice I feel like I have to win hard most of the time because he needs way fewer punishes/neutral wins than you. I could be bodying him, then a good f-air and edgeguard (which he's good at) ends my stock.
- Ike: range, hard hits and early kills. Can chase off stage into fair very well.
- Falcon: not any great players maining him around here, but it's pretty rough. Easy knees at dangerous % ranges, great chasing.

I can also see the potential for sheik and falcon being bad but no one at my skill or better plays them much. The people that do tend to go for Fox vs me instead and do much better.

 

[Taytertot]

Ah ok. just out of curiosity how does ganon's autocancel nair fix everything? doesnt it beat out missiles and samus' anti-air game?

Also i was curious whether there are uses for SHFF zair or if everyone uses SH and then does the air dodge zair to boost to the ground (hopefully this isnt a dumb question) or if there isnt enough air time to do SHFF zair at an effective range?

 

[Chevy]

Auto-cancel n-air simultaneously gets Ganondorf closer to Samus, eats all missiles in it's path, and is safe on shield. There's no reason to SHFF zair, since air dodge zair does the same thing faster. You don't really boost to the ground with the air dodge, you just interrupt your jump before you get any real height, which also let's you maneuver forwards or backwards with your air dodge while zairing.

 

[Taytertot]

Oh ok thank you. I might have to pick up samus since she's so fun to play.

 

[Taytertot]

what are the best MUs for samus? Id assume probably bowser is up on that list and maybe DK or Charizard due to their size and slowness, but i might be completely wrong.

 

[Chevy]

She pretty much beast non DDD fatties, and a few corner cases. She goes even with or slightly beast most the cast, and has a handful of terrible match-ups.

 

[pooch182]

She loses to the Legend of Zelda and Fire Emblem primarily. It's annoying to fight Kirby or other multi jump characters, but she otherwise does okay. Ivy can be a hassle if they know how to space against you. Otherwise it's pretty smooth sailing.

 

[Taytertot]

Alright. How about mewtwo? it seemed like a rough matchup in 3.02 but since the recent nerf to mewtwo im not so sure.

 

[Chevy]

Still pretty tough. Avoid getting grabbed at all costs, stay grounded as much as possible. His powershield is still pretty easy, and he has an actual reflect move on top of it. It's very difficult to get back to stage against him, so get good at recovery mixups.

 

[pinkdeaf1]

G&W? Anyone? I'm not familiar with him, but I know that his attacks are primarily disjointed and tough to punish without being really good at spacing.

 

[Chevy]

G&W? Anyone? I'm not familiar with him, but I know that his attacks are primarily disjointed and tough to punish without being really good at spacing.

Everything GnW has has is super disjointed, and his d-tilt/jab shield pressure is safe, so you'll be forced to roll away if he plays on your shield properly. His f-tilt and f-air will beat anything you can throw out once he's too close to z-air away, so keep him out of that zone at all costs. Don't overextend your combos, because his up-b is frame 1 and can instantly reverse the situation into you getting killed by n-air/hammer. On the bright side, GnW doesn't have a great answer to missiles, and is fairly slow on the ground. I believe that this is a matchup where you just have to camp, and camp hard. Run away, shoot more missiles/zair. And look for small openings to sneak in a hit or two. Ice f-air helps to challenge his disjoint, and gives you a decent kill option in neutral, which is where you'll spend most of this matchup. D-throw should net you either ice f-air or up-smash at kill percents. All of GnW's aerials come out slow, so you should be able to punish sloppy combos with a n-air or something similar. Do your best not to get hit, cause getting combo'd by GnW hurts.

 

[Orion Prime]

G&W? Anyone? I'm not familiar with him, but I know that his attacks are primarily disjointed and tough to punish without being really good at spacing.

There are a couple solid G&W's in my area and both give me significant trouble. His ledge drop nair is perfect for killing me when I have to recover below stage bc it lasts a while, the hitbox is freakin huge, and he can go down so deep to hit w it due to his super high UpB. It may just be me, but I would also not recommend trying to waveland onto stage from the ledge against G&W. Between his Dtilt which is quick/disjointed and Fsmash which is disjointed and has wonky timing, he has good options to punish this method of ledge recovery. I tend to get on stage more consistently just jumping, especially if platforms are available...could just be me though.

I dont particularly like playing on Yoshi's Story, but I'm interested in it as a stage against G&W's. I'm fairly certain his UpB goes so high that he cannot sweet spot it to ledge on YS because the lower blast zone, being very high on this stage, will eat him before he gets to the right depth. I'll have to check this out before I declare it an advantage, but its something I've thought about.

 

[Taytertot]

Id imagine you'd want a lot of space vs GnW and maybe a couple of platforms for missile shenanigans since hes not particularly quick in horizontal air mobility or dash speed, which would allow samus a lot of space to camp and reset to neutral easily. So maybe PS2, Dreamland or maybe Yoshi's Island (island is the brawl one for those who dont know).

 

[Samuch]

G&W's shield blows. Is it easy for Samus to shield poke him with a ftilt or something to the top of his head or feet?

 

[Downdraft]

Does anyone have a good idea of what Zelda can do against Samus?
Samus controls the pace of the match, and missiles just bait Nayru's, which Samus punishes.
The missiles are even better bait when edgeguarding.
Additionally, Samus can execute small combos on Zelda, and she's got power too.
Approaching is difficult, but Zelda can't just sit back or set traps.
Wouldn't you say that Samus is a good counterpick to Zelda?

 

[Kati]

R.O.B is a pretty gammy matchup for us.

otherwise most of samus matchups are fairy even, not a lot really get much worse/better than 60/40

i dont like vs sheik, marth or falcon though.

So what can we do against Rob? what works and what doesn't?

 

[Taytertot]

Does anyone have a good idea of what Zelda can do against Samus?
Samus controls the pace of the match, and missiles just bait Nayru's, which Samus punishes.
The missiles are even better bait when edgeguarding.
Additionally, Samus can execute small combos on Zelda, and she's got power too.
Approaching is difficult, but Zelda can't just sit back or set traps.
Wouldn't you say that Samus is a good counterpick to Zelda?

Im not a great samus player yet nor do i know a whole lot about zelda but from what i understand zelda has a lot of great defensive options but has a rough time playing more aggressively, samus has good defensive options and a great projectile game as well as a few aggressive options in certain situations. Because zelda doesnt have as good a projectile game she would have to approach most likely which is not good for her because it seems to me that her best approaches are fair and bair (maybe im missing some stuff, i suppose FW canceling might be an approach though idk for sure). But those options are predictable and easy for samus to counter if prepared.

In other words, yeah this MU feels like itd be in samus' favor. hopefully one of the better samus players can give you answers as to what zelda can do because im unaware.

So what can we do against Rob? what works and what doesn't?

from what ive heard when watching IaB (where oracle plays often, I think it was a recent match between lunchables and oracle if youre looking to hear the info yourself about ROB) ROB has one main approach option, fair. more specifically sideB into fair. All of ROB's other options in the air are a bit slow (uair's not too slow but its also not an approach option really) and on the ground ROB would have to rely on either footies poking with dtilt, ftilt, and jab (or throw out a grounded sideB which isnt safe). Because those pokes are probably not great options vs samus ROB is likely to use aerial sideB into fair if hes approaching which samus should be able to stuff if your ready for that options from ROB.

That being said, i dont think ROB would approach because ROB's projectile game is a bit faster then samus' so lasers and gyro from ROB are going to win him the match generally. So, the question is how, as a samus player, can we shut down ROB's projectile game so that he approaches us. Thats difficult to say because laser is very fast, although Gyro shouldnt be too big a deal if you learn how to catch it, which can be used to your advantage. unfortuneately im not sure exactly how to shut down laser and i imagine that it would depend on how the ROB player plays. Maybe using downB to avoid lasers by messing up ROB's ability to angle the lasers, though that would have to be a prediction since laser comes out faster then one can react with downB. But if you can find a pattern in how the ROB player uses laser then maybe downB to avoid the laser and SWD to them for a surprise approach (if used sparingly). Regardless, idk that that would win you the match and im not a good enough samus player to say for sure that this would work. Im simply try to think theoretically about how samus could beat ROB's options.

 

[Kati]

I find that as long as I can keep my eyes glued to Rob I can react and sometimes powershield his laser. I just find so many of his tools to be a little much and then when combined be completely overwhelming. I ended up having to switch to Falcon... which feels wrong for this mu.

 

[pinkdeaf1]

Honestly, good missile pressure shuts down most of rob's approaches. His side b grounded is something to watch out for though as it can readily punish overzealous missile spam. If we trade missile to laser, we win out unless the missile get sniped by the laser. Zair can also beat out approaches, forcing rob high or into shield.

rob wants us high where we get juggled and then forced offstage. Edge guarding us is not too hard, but spacing right to avoid rob shouldn't be much harder. Especially nice is when they burn too many side b's and we nair them in return for the edgeguard attmpt, or simply f-tilt.

Reading when they side b to recover can net us a missile hitting them back over the ledge or even farther out or a charge shot for a near instant kill at mid percents.

 

[Orion Prime]

I dont particularly like playing on Yoshi's Story, but I'm interested in it as a stage against G&W's. I'm fairly certain his UpB goes so high that he cannot sweet spot it to ledge on YS because the lower blast zone, being very high on this stage, will eat him before he gets to the right depth. I'll have to check this out before I declare it an advantage, but its something I've thought about.

Just to follow up on GnW on this stage - he can still sweet spot wo dying, so scratch that. It is very close though, and the GnW may prefer to come above stage and try to sweet spot horizontally, so it still could prove slightly advantageous.

 

[TimeMuffinPhD]

Yo guys Wolf player. Was struggling against a Samus more than I should because I never play against that character. Any general tips? I was winning neutral most of the time, and edge-guarding was were I was really looking bad. I know that tethers are more punishable, and that was my game plan going in, however I just wasn't getting any punishes from it.

 

[Narpas_sword]

force reel in, ledgehop dair?

 

[TimeMuffinPhD]

force reel in, ledgehop dair?

Yeah that was pretty much my plan, never worked for some reason. I'll be getting the videos tomorrow or at least somepoint during the week so I can see where I went wrong.

 

[Chevy]

Yeah that was pretty much my plan, never worked for some reason. I'll be getting the videos tomorrow or at least somepoint during the week so I can see where I went wrong.

If she drifts back from the forced reel in, d-air meteor. If she drifts in, wait for her to land, d-air the land-lag into side-b.

 

[TimeMuffinPhD]

If she drifts back from the forced reel in, d-air meteor. If she drifts in, wait for her to land, d-air the land-lag into side-b.

Could you explain the drifting further? Does she just sort of move while tethered? How can I tell?

 

[Chevy]

After doing the forced reel in, you still maintain some air control. If you do nothing she'll drift mostly forwards and land on stage with a bunch of land lag. If you hold back she'll drift backwards after the jump off stage again.

 

[SkyRW]

How do you DI against Mewtwo's aerials? I find myself getting bair and shadowclaw combo'd to death after I get grabbed and thrown up. Any ideas?

 

[pinkdeaf1]

How do you DI against Mewtwo's aerials? I find myself getting bair and shadowclaw combo'd to death after I get grabbed and thrown up. Any ideas?

As Samus? DI away I think would be intuitive. DI behind mewtwo for the up throw, I think was the DI which would take you the furthest from mewtwo, and just hold away from mewtwo...

 

[Chevy]

How do you DI against Mewtwo's aerials? I find myself getting bair and shadowclaw combo'd to death after I get grabbed and thrown up. Any ideas?

DI shadowclaw the opposite direction of Mewtwo's momentum generally, probably out if he isn't moving left or right. Up-air probably same thing. DI b-air down and away so you don't get carried off stage. It's rough though, Mewtwo combos Samus hard.

 

[SkyRW]

Thanks, guys!
It's definitely really scary... I just get comboed to 95%, grabbed, hit a couple times and up-thrown, so I'm trying to figure out how to get out of the combos early enough. Mewtwo wracks up damage SO QUICKLY!!!
Even if I manage to escape, It takes a lot of effort on my part to try to get back into the neutral game and get to center stage. One of the positives I've noticed in the matchup though is how well it goes in my favor if I win the neutral game exchange. So long as I don't mess up and am cautious, I can usually get fairly close to taking out a stock, which is awesome.

 

[CELTiiC]

I'm just wondering how is the matchup vs Peach, ZSS, Zelda and Sheik? I am deciding if I want to pick up Samus for some of the matchups I find troubling with DK and would like some input before I learn a new character.

 

[joie]

Any tips on the Falcon MU? I know wd back > ftilt is supposed to be really good, but I'd like more good options than that.
Thanks!

 

[YourOpinionIs]

Anyone have a suggestion for a secondary to cover Samus's weak matchups?