MU Discussion: Cloud

[Colony]

So, Cloud is the new character, and tons of people are picking him up very easily. He relies heavily on all his aerials, and retreating to charge his Limit Meter. This baits players into trying to chase him, or staying back and helping hin even further charge his limit. I'm not quite sure what to do vs all these new Cloud players. People are now saying that Cloud has a good MU against Yoshi, and I can see why since his aerial reach spans larger than Yoshi, and benefits from getting sandbagged.

I would like to know from the Yoshi Community, how do you deal with the Cloud MU?
Do you wait for a punishable moment and go in?
Do you use aggressive techniques to rush down Cloud while he is charging?
What stages do you want to take Cloud to?
Or do we have to camp the ledge, cause his recovery is awful enough for some to not use him... https://gfycat.com/RadiantCarelessCrab

IMO Cloud is as braindead as prepatch Diddy, and If I really want to win, I have to play him just like prepatch Diddy. Most just try to l keep Yoshi above them with autocanceled Uairs and utilts.

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Moderator Edit: DJlive has written up a great guide and starting point for looking into this match up. It can be found just a few posts down on this page, or here: (http://smashboards.com/threads/mu-discussion-cloud.429168/#post-21249274), It has also been copied into the collapse tag below.

Spoiler

You all have a pocket one, and so does the rest of the community. Cloud is one of the characters that is easy to pick up and can ruin our chances in getting far in our tourney. The good news is that he's so linear, we have the tools to beat him out.

First of all, please do watch ZeRo's video in how to beat Cloud. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3lQNxDbtUM

Alright, so I'll start with Cloud's strengths against us:

1. Cloud's sword makes it hard to approach him.
The sword provides an extra layer of protection that must be respected at all times. This means that a strategy of fair spacing would not work. Also, given how easily he can use nair, fair, ftilt, fsmash, utilt, usmash to break eggs isn't fun.
2. Cloud in limit increases his mobility to a degree more than ours
With limit, Cloud has increased speed and mobility. This literally makes him Sword Yoshi (patent pending, rights reserved to BlaiseAgain). And we all know how bad the Yoshi MU is. So be even more careful when he's in limit.
Alright, so a match like this can be overwhelming so here's a list of DONT'S against him.

1. Do NOT play aerial against him. Yoshi's aerial mobility against Cloud is a weakness. It makes us overextend more and get easily hit by the sword.

2. Do NOT fair space against him. Any of his tilts, smashes, or aerials can stop us from using our nose to hit him. It's not something to throw out in neutral.

3. Do NOT short hop egg toss him blindly. Be aware of Cloud's range when throwing eggs. Cloud can easily break your eggs, or just powershield them.

So how do you play neutral then?

1. Play defensive. Shield is your best friend.
You want to bait him to overextend to you. Just how aggressive Yoshis are bad against shield (unless you already use egg lay and grab often), Cloud is the same. He, like Yoshi, also doesn't get much from grabs anyway so he'll rarely use it unless you're being overly predictable with your baits.

Shield gives you tons of oos options that will work in the match up, jab, utilt, nair, uair, jc usmash and down b. The first four are to combo him, the last two are to kill. The combo moves (jab, utilt, nair, uair) is your opportunity to go hard on Cloud and punish him. Time to go to juggle city.

You would want to shield the following moves if you know they will come out: nair, fair, usmash, utilt, fsmash, ftilt, dsmash, dtilt, beam blade, limit beam blade, cross slash, limit cross slash, climhazzard, finishing touch. You can bait by approaching then shielding, perfect pivot then shielding and basically, most of the grounded movement tech.

2. In neutral, Cloud usually AC dairs to lead to combos. Utilt is your best friend.
Now you don't want to shield this move, given this move is easily auto-cancelled and would normally give Cloud a chance to grab you if you shield. You can generally just quickly perfect pivot (or uturn) utilt to catch his landing. You want the tail disjoint to hit Cloud while spacing it so the sword won't reach your hurtbox. Now once you get the utilt, profit with uair and nair strings.
3. He'll bait you with nairs and uairs. Aim for the body.
A common strategy for Cloud is just to throw out random nairs and uairs. He's essentially baiting you to approach. You can follow advice 1, run then shield, or you can go for a safer egg throw if you're a good sniper. You want to aim at Cloud's body, avoiding the sword. If he uairs, aim for the feet. If he nairs, aim for the head (it circles around so time it so that the sword is down when it's supposed to hit).
4. He'll try to block your recovery with limit cross slash, just jump.
He'll always try to intercept recoveries with limit cross slash if he has it. Know this and recover with your jump safely. If you must, air dodge but time it so you don't leave yourself vulnerable. We have enough air speed to do this.
Alright, so we covered neutral, how about when you're disadvantaged...aka you got hit by the big sword...

1. DI away!!!
Once you get hit, you might be tempted to fight. Do not. Our aerials (except sometimes nair) just lose against that big chunk of sword. Get yourself out of the situation quick. That goes whether it's utilt, nair, uair, ftilt. Just get away and reset neutral.
2. When in the clear, egg toss
Turn the disadvantaged state into an advantaged one and lob an egg to disrupt any aerial he's still doing. This gives us the advantaged state.
3. Do not always do this, but if you know he's just going for an(other) uair, air dodge downwards and punish with our own uair. Then it's juggle city again.

So how do we get the kill?

1. Capitalize on the fact that he has a really bad recovery. Use nair, dair, dtilt or egg toss.
Out of all your edgeguard options, nair is arguably the best move you can use. Just nair him when he uses his double jump or when he's using climhazzard. Dair also trades or outright beats climhazzard. Dtilt is also a good option if you can get the frame 2 punish. Or just lob an egg so that it hits right after he jumps. Easy kills.
2. Use shield neutral. Shield an extremely laggy move and punish with oos down b, nair or jc upsmash.

Other advice?

Know when he would normally throw out kill moves. His kill moves are normally usmash, utilt, fsmash, ftilt, dsmash, dair, uair, fair spike, limit cross slash, finishing touch.

Usmash, utilt, fsmash, ftilt, dsmash and grounded limit cross slash should be shielded. Dair was covered above, same with uair and fair spike, and also offstage limit cross slash.

For finishing touch, they'll normally do it from a combo starter, so just keep mobile from the combo starter, double jump and get away.

Questions?

 

[Garde Noir]

EDIT: Said better by Yikarur

no point having multiple people say the same thing.

 

[NotMegaMan]

I feel like cloud is a bad matchup vs yoshi, his aerials have more range, he can stall your aggro with his wind slash while he charges, I have always found myself switching to my second main, Mega man, because he can counter clouds stall. This is just based on Clouds I have seen and based on my yoshi playstyle, yours may be much different. Good luck.

 

[Skitrel]

Shield.

Cloud loses if most characters play shield heavy. He gets buggerall from grabs so the percent here and there you'll take from grabs is inconsequential.

Play it slow and watch out for well spaced attacks on shield.

This matchup is easier than the Ike matchup for us, Cloud has fewer tools. I don't put it in Cloud's favour. It's probably even or slightly worse for him, but we're also relatively good at gimping him offstage too, dair gimp works vs his recovery nicely.

 

[Yikarur]

Short Hop Nair does only autocancel if it's not (or very late) fast falled. So every time you shield a short hop nair, you can punish their landing. (Shielding Nair = about 20-30 frame window to punish)
Never challenge his upair, you can either predict his fullhop upair (in which case you can airdodge through it) or get far off-stage out of the way. (if you assume other options you can of course use the corresponding counter)
Dair is extremely interesting, because it overwhelms people who are new to the move.
You have to be aware of the following facts:
- The hitbox is frame 1-42 and autocancels from frame 43. The Move lasts 59 frames.
- his full hop air time is 53 frames, which means he has a 9 frame window to fast fall the move and still get the autocancel.
- it also means once commited to full hop dair, he cannot act out of it until he's landing
- if you shield it once, the hitbox cannot hit you anymore (more relevant for chars who can angle their shield)
- you can hit him from below with upair as demonstrated by Kamemushi in this game . Just get to his side, you have enough time to react to it.

If he has limit break and you're in kill% just shield in critical situations. His grab isn't rewarding, it's always just better to get grabbed than to get hit.
You can dair into his limit upB so if he is recovering really low with limit upB he should be dead if you have positioned yourself right (dair -> fast fall drift away so the last hit doesn't connect -> profit)

I think thats all I have to say for now

 

[Skitrel]

Short Hop Nair does only autocancel if it's not (or very late) fast falled.

Also worth noting that it doesn't autocancel at all with full limit break charge.

 

[Yikarur]

You confuse that one with bair. Bair is the move that doesn't autocancel with limit active

 

[DJlive]

You all have a pocket one, and so does the rest of the community. Cloud is one of the characters that is easy to pick up and can ruin our chances in getting far in our tourney. The good news is that he's so linear, we have the tools to beat him out.

First of all, please do watch ZeRo's video in how to beat Cloud. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3lQNxDbtUM

Alright, so I'll start with Cloud's strengths against us:

1. Cloud's sword makes it hard to approach him.

The sword provides an extra layer of protection that must be respected at all times. This means that a strategy of fair spacing would not work. Also, given how easily he can use nair, fair, ftilt, fsmash, utilt, usmash to break eggs isn't fun.
​

2. Cloud in limit increases his mobility to a degree more than ours

With limit, Cloud has increased speed and mobility. This literally makes him Sword Yoshi (patent pending, rights reserved to BlaiseAgain). And we all know how bad the Yoshi MU is. So be even more careful when he's in limit.
​

Alright, so a match like this can be overwhelming so here's a list of DONT'S against him.

1. Do NOT play aerial against him. Yoshi's aerial mobility against Cloud is a weakness. It makes us overextend more and get easily hit by the sword.

2. Do NOT fair space against him. Any of his tilts, smashes, or aerials can stop us from using our nose to hit him. It's not something to throw out in neutral.

3. Do NOT short hop egg toss him blindly. Be aware of Cloud's range when throwing eggs. Cloud can easily break your eggs, or just powershield them.

So how do you play neutral then?

1. Play defensive. Shield is your best friend.

You want to bait him to overextend to you. Just how aggressive Yoshis are bad against shield (unless you already use egg lay and grab often), Cloud is the same. He, like Yoshi, also doesn't get much from grabs anyway so he'll rarely use it unless you're being overly predictable with your baits.

Shield gives you tons of oos options that will work in the match up, jab, utilt, nair, uair, jc usmash and down b. The first four are to combo him, the last two are to kill. The combo moves (jab, utilt, nair, uair) is your opportunity to go hard on Cloud and punish him. Time to go to juggle city.

You would want to shield the following moves if you know they will come out: nair, fair, usmash, utilt, fsmash, ftilt, dsmash, dtilt, beam blade, limit beam blade, cross slash, limit cross slash, climhazzard, finishing touch. You can bait by approaching then shielding, perfect pivot then shielding and basically, most of the grounded movement tech.​

2. In neutral, Cloud usually AC dairs to lead to combos. Utilt is your best friend.

Now you don't want to shield this move, given this move is easily auto-cancelled and would normally give Cloud a chance to grab you if you shield. You can generally just quickly perfect pivot (or uturn) utilt to catch his landing. You want the tail disjoint to hit Cloud while spacing it so the sword won't reach your hurtbox. Now once you get the utilt, profit with uair and nair strings.
​

3. He'll bait you with nairs and uairs. Aim for the body.

A common strategy for Cloud is just to throw out random nairs and uairs. He's essentially baiting you to approach. You can follow advice 1, run then shield, or you can go for a safer egg throw if you're a good sniper. You want to aim at Cloud's body, avoiding the sword. If he uairs, aim for the feet. If he nairs, aim for the head (it circles around so time it so that the sword is down when it's supposed to hit).
​

4. He'll try to block your recovery with limit cross slash, just jump.

He'll always try to intercept recoveries with limit cross slash if he has it. Know this and recover with your jump safely. If you must, air dodge but time it so you don't leave yourself vulnerable. We have enough air speed to do this.
​

Alright, so we covered neutral, how about when you're disadvantaged...aka you got hit by the big sword...

1. DI away!!!

Once you get hit, you might be tempted to fight. Do not. Our aerials (except sometimes nair) just lose against that big chunk of sword. Get yourself out of the situation quick. That goes whether it's utilt, nair, uair, ftilt. Just get away and reset neutral.
​

2. When in the clear, egg toss

Turn the disadvantaged state into an advantaged one and lob an egg to disrupt any aerial he's still doing. This gives us the advantaged state.
​

3. Do not always do this, but if you know he's just going for an(other) uair, air dodge downwards and punish with our own uair. Then it's juggle city again.

So how do we get the kill?

1. Capitalize on the fact that he has a really bad recovery. Use nair, dair, dtilt or egg toss.

Out of all your edgeguard options, nair is arguably the best move you can use. Just nair him when he uses his double jump or when he's using climhazzard. Dair also trades or outright beats climhazzard. Dtilt is also a good option if you can get the frame 2 punish. Or just lob an egg so that it hits right after he jumps. Easy kills.
​

2. Use shield neutral. Shield an extremely laggy move and punish with oos down b, nair or jc upsmash.

Other advice?

Know when he would normally throw out kill moves. His kill moves are normally usmash, utilt, fsmash, ftilt, dsmash, dair, uair, fair spike, limit cross slash, finishing touch.

Usmash, utilt, fsmash, ftilt, dsmash and grounded limit cross slash should be shielded. Dair was covered above, same with uair and fair spike, and also offstage limit cross slash.

For finishing touch, they'll normally do it from a combo starter, so just keep mobile from the combo starter, double jump and get away.

Questions?

 

[Codaption]

Note that Jab oos can lead into a smash attack or Yoshi Bomb for a kill, or Utilt for laddering. Since it's faster and less punishable than any oos option that isn't Nair, it's good to note for your shield game. (he's also a fastfaller, though not particularly so, so jab combo might set up for a tech chase at low percents but they'd have a somewhat wider window to tech on reaction unless you delay the second jab. Might be good to mix it up with other followups at these percents with that in mind).

Also, Dair. Dair eats Climmhazzard alive offstage, as it'll either trade with the move or beat it out entirely even with Limit on the table; either way, it's good for us.