phi1ny3
Not the Mama
Snake
Matchup:
45:55
General info:
Snake... hahaha
I had an emo stage where I thought snake was borderline unwinnable, but my impressions really changed after I got good practice against snake, it's not so bad.
Definitely in the 45-40 range for lucario's chances and tool comparison.
The problem is that Snake is the antithesis of Lucario's strengths: he outcamps him (sort of, it really is more of a draw more often), kills stupid early, has really good edgeguard pressure, and can really kill off lucario's long range game.
<3 Lucario match-ups
but yeah my input.
Snake is REALLY stupid, I usually find the match ending up close whether they're good or bad simply because of our lolaura and the fact we have to be either losing or kill % to kill snake.
And I may sound crazy with this, but aerial lucario if done really well will be nearly unfazed by a lot of snake's stuff, the problem is if he predicts things.
What to avoid:This matchup is so stupid though. ._____.
Low % = You juggle us for a good 50-60%, your juggles stop working. You get ****ed
Mid % = You're about 50-85% and just poking an attack in here and there for damage. BAS and sh retreating fair can keep you safe for a little while. Fair stops grenades, BAS is hoping we don't powershield it. If we run at you, the lag is decieving and we get hit by fair. It's "whoever ****s up camping first" at this point
High % = 100% +, you're practically in KO %'s and 1 mistake WILL be a KO against you. However you finally have some good KO power. You better have kept your fsmash fresh, because unless you get a good read. No other move should kill us. (We seriously shouldn't get hit by dair...)
If you die first, you may as well kiss the game goodbye. Now you can't KO us til mid/high %'s (most likely high %'s) and the second we die, practically any move we have will KO you. Then your 3rd stock is a repeat of that.
There's your "how to" guide.
Keep fsmash fresh, space with BAS and fair, don't **** up, don't die first.
60-40 or 55-45 Snake. It's only a slight advantage. Because if we die first, it CAN be a *****.
And in a ground to ground situation [how snake wants it], Snake is hard to kill
As Usual VS heavy characters you cannot afford to die 1st or else you will have a very hard time killing/getting the lead back.
Explosives:
Grenades are pain in the *** until you learn how to deal with them too. I forget exactly when the blow-up time is, I think its 4 seconds ircc. fair clanks with them ever so often, but other times blows them up
When Snake pulls a grenade he has 5 options from most common to least:
Shield
Grab
Roll Backwards
Sidestep
Roll Forward
of course when canceling to shield he can do any OOS option [Grab,Sidestep, Upsmash,... Cypher? lol oh and shieldrop]
It is also important to note which way he's facing you, if he has your back to you you're more likely to blow up the grenade with an attack BUT he can't grab you.
If he faces you you're less likely to blow the grenade with a FF Aerial but he can shieldgrab/grab :/
Pay attention to their grenade habits, it may help you in the long run.
Now onto the C4 [just what is C4 supposed to mean anyway ] The C4 can be stickied like almost anywhere so pay attention [even on the side of a wall that got me a free stock once LOL <3]. be careful if its stickied to you, and don't do anything too committing unless you're close to snake remember that it'll shake off eventually in time as well.
C4 takes 27 seconds to autoexplode so keep your eye on that timer fellas, if the snake is ignorant you can take advantage of this.
Ok now onto the last explosive [I don't consider mortars apart of these] the Proximity Mine These can be nasty, but you can autodetonate them while taking no damage by rolling past them, DON'T LAND ON THEM FROM THE AIR YOU WILL TAP THEM AND WON'T BE ABLE TO SHIELD.... unless you charge AS and time it perfectly on landing to powershield [if we charge AS while landing we suffer no landing lag, but unlike snake we can't just hold R to buffer the shield since we can Airdodge out of ours.
Oh yeah, and they take 25 seconds to despawn and despawn on snakes death [? I've noticed it a few times but I need confirmation].
ALWAYS KNOW WHERE THE EXPLOSIVES ARE, IF YOU DO NOT YOU RISK TAKING HEAVY DAMAGE OR AN EARLY DEATH WHICH YOU CANNOT AFFORD IN THIS MATCH-UP.
CQC:
Common Snake moves include.
Close Range - Mid range
-Jab1
-Ftilt1 [on hitconfirm combo into ftilt2 of course]
-Uptilt
-Upsmash
Mid - Long range
Dash attack
Motor Slide
Lets dissect these shall we.
Jab1 - This is used to put us on the spot or interrupt stuff. It doesn't combo into ftilt/Uptilt and I literally die a little inside whenever I see that workthe full 3 hit does though however but can be DI'd out of, jab1 can be held repeatedly, Jab3 is capable of killing at the side of the stage or at least sends you very far away.
Ftilt1 - lolhitboxes, learn ftilt1's range and especially its aerial range as well. Ftilt2 can knock you out of the air too if your not careful so look out. Don't dash into this seriously ._. a common mistake by some people is shieldashing when they're too close and they get ftilt'd before their shield comes out.
Uptilt - this is stupid move. Kills us starting 103 on FD according to their data. has stupid range.
I've noticed that sometimes weak hit [top part, when used as an anti air, ussually VS our Dair] kills sometimes too ,_,
has anyone tested if this has the same trajectory as the strong utilt? This has about the range of their ftilt, a smidge farther maybeee, remember you don't DI to the side you DI Up and behind Snake
Someone Do the rest for me
How to win:
I learned to never use fsmash unless he's landing or if he spotdodges, it's pretty much a free ftilt for him, and your time is better off getting a move that is a better setup for juggling, like jab, utilt, or grab. One of the first MUs where I learned to use pivot grab to a really strong extent, as fighting snake requires a similar mentality as D3, fighting predictable rock-paper-scissors with someone who plays boulder-kevlar-butcher blade, if you get the analogy. The problem is, you have more freedom with your moves, and can be far less predictable. I actually like using dtilt for this game as well, since it pops up snake for grabs and such, using ftilt as a spacer in this MU is asking to be whomped on the head. Quick moves with little commitment are what really makes or breaks this MU.
Lucario also does waaaaaaay better in the air. Provided you space correctly and mix it up a bit, I can see lucario not having to be nearly as worried about grenade pressure and can add layers to approaching.
These were all that I experimented with during TP3, and I found nothing but good results.
Had it. You guys are 100% blowing the MU out of proportion.
Snake:
I am going to get straight to the chase here. Everyone who is complaining about the MU needs to stop. For this character, as well as MK, I am going to do something a bit different. (ESP. on MK) Follow this carefully.
Snake is not that hard to handle. First of,stop thinking that "OMG he can camp us" because it's an illusion. Snake is a character who is heavily dependent on reading your opponent. Snake hits hard? Who the **** cares! Its time to get over that too. Once you do, read this:
Ever noticed how the snake MU numbers are dependent on these traits:
1) How easy it is for one's character to get snake into the air
2) How well you can keep Snake into the air
3) The ability to camp, or to get into snake
I want you all to really think about that. Take some time, drink some tea or a hot coco. Okay, ready?
How to handle snake:
It is pretty clear that snake hits hard, but it should also be mentioned that each one of his common moves, are punishable. Ftilt, Dtilt, Utilt, Fair, Nair, Bair,... Oh ****? Did I just name all of snake's moveset? Oh snap. I think its time to start baiting him into throwing the moves so I can punish them D=
How, you ask?
Throwing him into the air. Dthrow, And Uthrow are both Amazing moves for this MU. It put's snake into the place where he doesn't want to be. O_O
From this point, you will want to not try and follow up anything, but to be patient. What goes up, must come down yes? Not to mention his mobility is ****. Wait on the floor, and he is going to have to try to do something, because he is going to have to. This is where you need to be putting all your effort into. Any one of snake's air moves are all punishable with like a second for you to react too. If he throws any of them he will be open. Nair needs to be spaced, and its the only one that with proper spacing he can Auto cancel, and even then he suffers from a 2 frame landing lag. Be patient.
Some people are going to say, he can B reverse. This is where you say, so what...? If he does a B reverse, the only way to drop that nade is to either throw it, or shield it. If he is in the air, it really is his only 2 options he has after pulling one. You definitely have enough time to grab him, so do it.
After doing this for a bit he is going to be at a high percent. Try to toss him off at this point. Then proceed to bait him.
This MU is Baiting. That is all it is, on both parts. So stop trying to rush him, stop trying to make a good sequence of rushes. Stop trying to camp him. Do this, and you will find yourself having a better time with it.
D.D. Please show up and confirm how well this works. I told him awhile ago, and he has said to me this MU is way easier when you actually know what to do.
Questions?
Helpful tips:
Snake, do rock-paper-scissors for the port priority. It isn't rude, it's how to get the upper hand.
I swear your grab game changes a lot with this feature, uthrow if you don't have priority, dthrow if you do.
Also, iirc jab -> FP (not AA) works pretty well, as they don't have enough time to get back to ftilt, unless they're Ally (lol RJ knows what I'm talking about).
Also, if they use both ftilt hits, it's actually not safe for them, but a good snake will probe with jab1 or ftilt1, but if you do happen to see them over extend like this, it's pretty much grab/jab/utilt meat.
How exactly do you do this?
simple: mix it up with your air game, snake has limited options against lucario if he's spacing properly in the air, he can only hope to punish with jab1 or boost grab, so he'll sometimes use ftilt2 preemptively since it has a bigger hitbox against airborne opponents. I can't stress enough how important getting into the air and messing around with this, you can use dair and other tools many times to almost make this in your favor and help against grenade camping, at least from what I experienced from playing Zeionut and DanM.
fsmash should only be used in this MU when he spotdodges, messes up on something, or is landing. Ftilt can punish fsmash, you leave just enough of a hurtbox out for him to whomp you.
Oh, and if he dthrows you, try to roll away most often, as the most he can do is catch you in DACUS and maaaaybe another grab, which if you know how to DI the mortar, you'll take lol damage for it and get a possible opening.
Needless to say, snake won't do dthrow much against you if you're smart, he can't guarantee ftilt or utilt on you if you do it right.
For mines, you can just walk/run up and powershield or throw a AS. They do last about 25 seconds I believe. And mines just disappear, they do not self-destruct.
For nades, don't forget about stripping, cooking, etc...why are they so good?
I have a funny story about a player I played rock papaer scissors over port 4 but that is for a different time.
As many people have said but I'm going to repeat it again, Fsmash is not safe in this MU. Even if you space perfectly Snake can Utilt you because Lucario has to stick out his arms to get hit by him. Snake doesn't outcamp Lucario, well he can if Lucario doesn't force it into a stalemate by playing smart, fire Aura spheres to mess up cooking, shielding correctly, etc.
On the ground, it's trickier to play this MU. Snake's ground game is to be honest better than Lucarios, mostly because of his Utilt and Ftilt, 6/4 frame kill moves FTL.
In the air it's a whole different story, Lucario can juggle him like crazy. If Snake is airdodge happy, uair->dair I've done this a lot when snake wanted to be air dodge happy. Another trick I've learned it to fall with snake while doing an aerial and following up with another. Trust me be like Falco and prefer the air.
I'm agreeing with RJ, I think people are blowing this MU out of proportion. I'm honestly more afraid of King DeDeDe, Olimar, and MK than Snake.
55:45.
Stages:
For stages, I personally prefer YI as the platform is nearly unreachable by explosives, helps lucario have a safe place, gives a lot of leeway offstage for lucario to try his edgeguard game for good damage, as well as that platform to help juggle if you get him up there. That and on a psychological note, the explosives are really easy to see lol.
Cleaning Your room sucks- to get my mind off it lets do some stage analysis:
Snake kills vertically, really well, Lucario wants to stay alive as long as possible and must be within killable %s to kill [in this match-up], So going to a smaller stage hoping to outlive snake will NOT work [generally], for this reason I'll skip small stages/stages with low ceilings.
In a conservative region:
Final Destination - Very little platforms to control, one of our best stages in general.
It might be the snakes ban though.
Delfino - Although Constant stage changing can mess with their explosives, the stage's stop points will generally favor snake [Water, Walls to limit dthrow options etc], may be effective VS the unfamiliar,
meh pick.
Frigate - Some Lucarios' general pick, not too bad for snake, explosives are kinda hard to see... stage flips may work in our favor though... The left side doesn't really hinder snake too much since they recover high anyway. According to project vertical has a lower ceiling but I haven't experianced that too much <<. I myself wouldn't take them here but try and see for yourself.
Castle Siege - My Personal Pick, 1st state is a little sketchy but I find it fine, 2nd state is great once the platforms are eliminated (and even then you can surprise snake with longer hitboxes, be warned though, it applies to his explosives [and utilt...] as well). 3rd Stage is FD/Lylat's ******* child with a smaller ceiling height. Imo 2/3 we are favored. Try it and see.
Yoshis Island - same height as FD, as previously posted by Phil the explosives are quite easy to see here, and the stage is pretty small [in terms of one ledge to the other] so its not to hard to close distance on snake.
Smashville - Ussually how stagestrike ends LOL, C4 is commonly placed on the platform so watchout, not too much different from FD other then the fact that the platform can mess around with things.
Non-Conservative Stages:
Pictochat - high ceiling, explosives easier to see imo, the transformations can benefit both characters so be careful, during neutral state plays like FD with YI's sides, lower area below the stage.
Japes - Big ceiling, controlling the middle is key here, don't fall in the water <<
Places NOT to take snake to/ban:
Conservatives:
Halberd - Snake lower ceiling means snakes gonna kill you early, other then that not much to say, On the ship the attacks won't really change the battle that much, Claw is easy to dodge or shield on reaction, laser is easy to SDI, and the explosive is slowwww [but can kill rather easily].
Battlefield - Not nearly as bad as any other stage in this section, snake can set explosives and has good stage control here, its definitely winnable here but a little harder.
Lylat Cruise - meh... its not THAT bad, but definitely not that great, stage tilts and explosives are a little harder to see.
Brinstar - Its a smaller area, Snake will kill earllly << you can surprise snake with hitboxes lasting longer on the organic parts but don't expect too much.
Rainbow Cruise - Some Snakes HATE this stage, however some LOVE it [I have one of the latter within my area ] Theres a low ceiling here and if he lands a dthrow near the mini wall things can get pretty gay, Your time to shine VS snake is while ascending, but after that... be careful.
Non conservative -
Green Greens - VERY SMALL STAGE, walls can be destroyed but while they're up can limit dthrow options, terrible terrible stage.
Corneria - Stupid Stupid Stupid, another small stage, not a lot of options for us if he's camping on the left side and the wall there can limit our dthrow options, our worst stage imo. Not really VS snake but in general.
Norfair - Although from the middle its the same height as a neutral on the other platforms its easy as hell to Die from utilt, snake can control the area with explosives well and generally he'll outlast you here. Not a common snake cp though.
Um Not sure:
Conservative:
Pokemon Stadium 1? - I don't play this stage too much... neutralish aera with clingable walls,
platforms are located on the sides only giving yourself open room in the middle.
-Water - Windmill can help you live longer and deal extra damage on snake, but the same can be said for the reverse, tech tech tech tech.
- Fire - Snake's dthrow seems easier to follow-up on here, not many advantages for you, stay on one side until it transforms back.
- Grass - Theres platforms and a tree that Snake can stick stuff, not much to say.
- Mountain - oh god this stage lol, Hope you get that left side or in the middle, because if snake has that side its hard to reach him, I would wait him out and powershield nades/nikita.
Non-Conservative Stages:
Distant Planet - The only time I have played this stage was to camp on the left as olimar. The Leaf platforms fall if you stand on them, when water comes it blocks out the left side, you have to be a complete idiot to get thrown into the bulborb << I honestly have no idea.
Pirate Ship - even though the waters bad for us it isn't all that hard to avoid it and its not like snake can watercamp [Ike on the other hand...]. Bombs can get stupid surprise kills on both sides, getting snake in the air while everythings all floaty can be a boon but can also be stupid if you're trying to get back down. The Ceiling is higher then normal though.... idk about this one
My Opinion: Snake has better CPs on us than on him, if you live in a non-conservative region I highly recommend you either move out/pick up a secondary for the gay stages/convince the TO to ban the non-conservative/"gay" stages
You should mention Delphino, which imo is a decent CP against snake, as long as you stay away from side traps.
Also BF has some strengths and weaknesses that are ezploitable, like the fact that DACUS gets nerfed there, and some snakes actually don't like this stage as much as SV, where they're grenade placement isn't so messed up by platforms at times, although I would never try to land on the same platform as snake, his dthrow is nearly a CG on a small platform because of how much easier it gets to use.
The electric stage on PokeStadium 2 hurts snake more than lucario overall. Explosives are constantly being shoved off (no grenade camping) Lucario can deal with escalators better than snake can, and lucario imo can regain the middle ground pretty well, despite snake being a tough fight. I would consider the ice thing a good/bad thing against him, because of the general inability to space on the ground and avoid explosives (in this case just take it to the air) and he gets to try sliding utilts (maybe ftilts too, but I would think he'd suffer slide lag).
Rock imo is pretty much a break from it, snake can technically do more to you, but if you play it right, you'll have a rest period to get a fully charged AS, which is always good.
Overall I'd say it's actually a decent lucario stage.
Snake does better on starter stages and has a wider stage list to CP Lucario than vice versa, as Flame said.
- From the common starters -
Yoshi's Island - This is Lucario's best stage against Snake for a starter. Stage is rather small but it makes it easier to get to Snake. The tilting platform above can mess-up Snakes mines and camping a bit. If your opponent knows Lucario they will strike it or maybe even ban the stage vs him if CP comes around.
Final Destination - This is probably Lucario's second best choice. No platforms means Snake can't stage control as he would like to. It's more open so Lucario can take advantage of the open space to get at Snake without much fear.
Smashville - I hate how often this stage pops up after stage striking. Well this is Lucario's third best in which is kind of an even playing ground. Snake gets a fun moving platform to place mines and camp. Lucario gets open space to fight Snake. I don't think Lucario gains much here but compared the the bottom two it's a more preferable choice.
Lylat Cruiser - I don't think it's a really bad stage vs Snake and might be better than Snashville in some cases. But from what I've seen and played this appears to assist Snake more than it helps Lucario.
Battlefield - Snake excels here, no doubt about it. So many fun platforms for him to toy with and stage area to set up his control over it. This should be the first stage to strike against a Snake and one that I'd ban from CP.
- Counterpick stages -
Pokemon Stadium 1 - I've played here against Snakes, I didn't like it. It had a lower ceiling than BF and gave Snake new platforms and stage options with the other transofrmations. I wouldn't pick it.
Pokemon Stadium 2 - Contrary to stadium 1, this one has a few things that work better for Lucario. The air portion lets us keep Snake longer in the air to keep good juggling going. Ice isn't doing huge favors, everyone just slides when they do attacks. Electric is rather wierd, it can force Snake to recover but if he gets control of the center it may be tough to get it back. Rock just has a middle like wall in the center, less space to move but it means we might have to approach from the air. It's not bad at all, but like Frigate there is probably better.
Frigate - There may be a better counter pick than this, but as a general stage that is usually good for Lucario is works well. The only flaw with this stage is the ceiling, it's a bit low; other than that the stage work well for Lucario to wall cling and wall Snake offstage.
- Closing thoughts -
In general Yoshi's Island seems to be the ideal anti Snake Stage. Frigate, PS2, and Final Destination seem to be good choices as alternate canidates.
Disclaimer: This thread is made for the sole purpose of keeping matchup discussing clean and organized. If people wish to discuss a past matchup, they may do so in this thread without cluttering the current discussion.