[MU] Peach

[O1DsLeNdYwHiTe]

From midnight to three in the morning, I was playing For Glory, when eventually I encountered a very well-versed Peach. He gave me a lot of trouble, and the mere fact that he bodied me the first match was intriguing enough for me to stay a few matches and take that moment to analyze the MU. I managed to adapt to his play-style and picked up 3 / 5 games, all of them being extremely close with the acception of the first game where I got 2-stocked pretty badly.

I have a lot of trouble dealing with her floating angle. She either easily manuvers away from my angled projectiles, or she easily punishes my approaches with well timed fast fall aerials, which are all extremely resourceful, more along the lines of her fair.

I need insight on this match-up for future references. What options and approaches can I utilize? What defensive action does Link take against Peach?

 

[Jasudin]

I haven't really played any Petches, but zair and downward-angled boomerangs probably hurt her float/approach. Peach should be approaching you, though. Dash shield if you know there's going to be an FF aerial when approaching or bait it when close with SHFF to Pivot Cancel Ftilt.

 

[O1DsLeNdYwHiTe]

Its hard to out-space good Peach players for me. They either easily float around my projectiles, or pelt me with turnips when I attempt to change up my approach options.

 

[8bitArcher]

Here is my opinion on this MU from what I just recently played (5 match FG). I noticed that Peach loves to float around a lot, so like Jasudin stated "downward-angled boomerangs probably hurt her float/approach." Remember, Peaches turnips CAN be blocked by Link's shield, so use that to your advantage. Spacing against Peach is very important from what I noticed. Keep her (at most) medium to far ranged so she is unable to go in and combo you with down throws to aerials. I found that the easiest way to approach Peach (when she is not approaching you like she should) was to wait until Peach is on the ground and either throw your boomerang at a downward angle OR grab into d-throw followed by UTilts and Bairs. In my opinion, Peach is very simple to KO. Wait until she is in kill percentage and keep her off the stage as much as you can. When she tries to float back, pummel her with your boomerang or go off stage to Nair her. I hope this was helpful!

 

[Drigo Toes]

I have to say... watch out her Fair... That thing is not even fair (i hope you got the joke : D)
Not even try to punish her Fair, it is impossible. It has no landing lag, it has a very good kill power and it covers a lot of space...

For our advantage, while she is in the air, she can't shield, so our projectiles are more effective against her.

 

[8bitArcher]

I personally had a difficult time DI'ing away from Peach's dthrow. Is there a preferred direction to DI to get out?

 

[TurboLink]

I personally had a difficult time DI'ing away from Peach's dthrow. Is there a preferred direction to DI to get out?

Is there, anyone?

 

[ShadowKing]

Against peach players who float alot I short hop with a neutral b to space

 

[Tri Knight]

I tend to counter her with bomb spams should she try to float around a lot. Sometimes it can be a chore chasing her with the boomerang. If she's floating low you could try spacing with Zair to stay away from the inevitable Fair

 

[Shadow_13]

UTilts for days! Peach's FAir out prioritizes all of Link's moves except the UTilt.

 

[Catana]

UTilts for days! Peach's FAir out prioritizes all of Link's moves except the UTilt.

this **** is gold

 

[Shadow_13]

this **** is gold

Test it, brother. If you can't learn to be faster then feel free to spam UTilt. They'll change their game just like you should.

 

[Batu]

I really believe that we have the projectile advantage, so we can capitalize on that! Just try not to be predictable with your spam game.

 

[Rinku リンク]

- Angle your rangs to keep her at bay.

- Z-air can be handy for spacing against her.

- Bombs can be very helpful if used correctly.

- F-tilt and U-tilt are your best friends when spaced.

Overall you wanna try to keep her on the ground since most of her best moves are aerials.

 

[Catana]

- Angle your rangs to keep her at bay.

- Z-air can be handy for spacing against her.

- Bombs can be very helpful if used correctly.

- F-tilt and U-tilt are your best friends when spaced.

- This goes for pretty much any MU

 

[Rinku リンク]

- This goes for pretty much any MU

True true, can't really argue against that lol.

The MU is slightly unfavored for Link because she beats us in close quarters but we still have a good amount of options to beat her.

She can't out camp us and she isn't exactly the fastest character when it comes to approaching.

I guess what I'm trying to say is just space and zone like you normally would.

(Nice avatar btw, Homura's my fav from PMMM)

 

[Catana]

True true, can't really argue against that lol.

The MU is slightly unfavored for Link because she beats us in close quarters but we still have a good amount of options to beat her.

She can't out camp us and she isn't exactly the fastest character when it comes to approaching.

I guess what I'm trying to say is just space and zone like you normally would.

(Nice avatar btw, Homura's my fav from PMMM)

Actually we can't really camp peach and she doesnt have too much trouble approaching due to her float combined with amazing aerials that apply tons of pressure and can combo us hard up until pretty high %.

Zair can work but you need to be careful not to use it too close or be predictable with it because she can just run under it with a DA if anticipated as to be seen here: https://youtu.be/L0FsBPRY9pI?t=4m49s

As you can see I started my zair when peach was still close to max range but she knew I was going to do it, she just ran in there and still managed to get a DA in while completely avoiding my zair.

 

[Rinku リンク]

Actually we can't really camp peach and she doesnt have too much trouble approaching due to her float combined with amazing aerials that apply tons of pressure and can combo us hard up until pretty high %.

Zair can work but you need to be careful not to use it too close or be predictable with it because she can just run under it with a DA if anticipated as to be seen here: https://youtu.be/L0FsBPRY9pI?t=4m49s

As you can see I started my zair when peach was still close to max range but she knew I was going to do it, she just ran in there and still managed to get a DA in while completely avoiding my zair.

That was a close first match, props to ya.

Z-air works but it's easily punishable compared to how it was in brawl by far. Hence why I don't use it a lot myself to be honest.

I agree with you that we can't camp her but I was just stating that she can't really out camp us with her turnips (I remember seeing a Link being out camped by turnips in competitive play and I got a brain tumor).

Approach wise, she can easily weave and float through our projectiles if we're not careful. As you've stated already, once she's in we're probably going to take a lot of %.

Don't get me wrong, I've fought really good Peaches and I'm well aware of how nasty they can be.

I just wanted to point out that compared to characters like Sheik, Sonic and Captain Falcon her style of rush down isn't as fast. It gives us a bit more time to think and react which makes the MU a bit less stressful.

 

[Natmax]

Anyone have any further insight on this MU? We have several peach players in the region, the best one bodies me, and even the more mediocre ones have a winning record on me. It's gotten to the point where I'm better at the Sonic and Fox MU's than this one. I just have so much trouble spacing her out.

 

[ZSaberLink]

Anyone have any further insight on this MU? We have several peach players in the region, the best one bodies me, and even the more mediocre ones have a winning record on me. It's gotten to the point where I'm better at the Sonic and Fox MU's than this one. I just have so much trouble spacing her out.

Hm interesting. I actually don't find this matchup all that bad in person. If you're on a large stage like FD or Duck Hunt, you can use your bombs and boomerangs from pretty far away. Peach has about the same running speed as Link (she's slightly faster) so you can actually generally run away from her. Her float doesn't allow her to shield, so you can exploit her float with Zair, bombs & boomerangs. When she gets in of course, it's super scary, and Peach can definitely edge guard you well with the Toad counter and other things.

Also I heard from our state's top Peach that while Peach's jab 1 comes out on frame 2, her jab 2 is pretty bad. Looking at Kurogane hammer, it looks like the first active frame is on frame 30. As such I'd assume it's not safe on shield.

Edit: Didn't notice that Cat had responded in this thread earlier... so I guess listen to him.

Izaw did pretty well against Meru, so maybe there's something he did differently than Cat here?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb-oD7JLpQA

 

[Natmax]

Hm interesting. I actually don't find this matchup all that bad in person. If you're on a large stage like FD or Duck Hunt, you can use your bombs and boomerangs from pretty far away. Peach has about the same running speed as Link (she's slightly faster) so you can actually generally run away from her. Her float doesn't allow her to shield, so you can exploit her float with Zair, bombs & boomerangs. When she gets in of course, it's super scary, and Peach can definitely edge guard you well with the Toad counter and other things.

Also I heard from our state's top Peach that while Peach's jab 1 comes out on frame 2, her jab 2 is pretty bad. Looking at Kurogane hammer, it looks like the first active frame is on frame 30. As such I'd assume it's not safe on shield.

Edit: Didn't notice that Cat had responded in this thread earlier... so I guess listen to him.

Izaw did pretty well against Meru, so maybe there's something he did differently than Cat here?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb-oD7JLpQA

How do you normally fair against Celestial?

The peaches I play against generally don't use jab 2 unfortunately, and have incredible item control. Whenever I try to punish float with bomb they catch the bomb, which pretty much restricts to boomerang and zair, which can both be punished if they read it. I don't know, maybe I just need to mix up my options more

 

[ZSaberLink]

How do you normally fair against Celestial?

The peaches I play against generally don't use jab 2 unfortunately, and have incredible item control. Whenever I try to punish float with bomb they catch the bomb, which pretty much restricts to boomerang and zair, which can both be punished if they read it. I don't know, maybe I just need to mix up my options more

I last played Celestial about 6 months ago and he beat me pretty easily in friendlies, but I felt like that's because I was (and probably still am) much worse than him. However, once I started playing more and more friendlies, I almost started taking games off of him to be honest. As such, I felt the matchup wasn't that bad since he's clearly better than me. Izaw & Cat were thinking it was 50:50 as well. I was playing another decent Peach in friendlies at Northwest Majors, and we were fairly even. I noticed I started doing better when I was more unpredictable. At least once I started off with being a bit slower and more careful, and then sped it up unexpectedly and racked up quite a bit of damage. @link7 played against the same Peach with me (we were rotating).

Hm, I figure that if an opponent catches your bomb while you're throwing it down, if they try to catch it you can simply use a falling aerial and punish them before they get rid of the bomb. Good Peaches wouldn't be using Jab 2 all that much though obviously (Celestial is the one who mentioned that to me).

 

[Natmax]

I last played Celestial about 6 months ago and he beat me pretty easily in friendlies, but I felt like that's because I was (and probably still am) much worse than him. However, once I started playing more and more friendlies, I almost started taking games off of him to be honest. As such, I felt the matchup wasn't that bad since he's clearly better than me. Izaw & Cat were thinking it was 50:50 as well. I was playing another decent Peach in friendlies at Northwest Majors, and we were fairly even. I noticed I started doing better when I was more unpredictable. At least once I started off with being a bit slower and more careful, and then sped it up unexpectedly and racked up quite a bit of damage. @link7 played against the same Peach with me (we were rotating).

Hm, I figure that if an opponent catches your bomb while you're throwing it down, if they try to catch it you can simply use a falling aerial and punish them before they get rid of the bomb. Good Peaches wouldn't be using Jab 2 all that much though obviously (Celestial is the one who mentioned that to me).

Hmm I hadn't really tried throwing bombs down from above, is that advisable in the MU? Admittedly that's something I think I do less than other links (unless I'm trying to land), my style is probably a bit too grounded, for better or for worse. Yeah I think predictability is really detrimental in this MU particularly (of course it is in general too), but when you can be punished so hard from float if they read your option. Hopefully I can get some games in with Celestial over summer to practice the MU

 

[Derpnaster]

I run friendlies with a half decent Peach. In my experience a good option is to force her to approach from the air and punish her for it. Keeping bombs flying around the stage throws off a lot of Peach's options in the air as at any time a freaking bomb could come down, or up, or from the sides and set up for a very fast hard hitting follow up.

Another thing I do is try to wiff Gale and catach Peach on the return or just bait Peach into using Gale to get at Link. It usually results in Peach eating a fair, which she can't seem to beat if it's spaced right.

If the Peach gets defensive and begins to throw out turnips a good option is to meet spam with spam, Link can spam harder and faster than Peach which stuffs the camping game real quick and forces her into our court.
After that zoning out peach with Gale thrown from a SH and plenty of bombs and mid ranged air attacks, fair nair, maybe bow if you feel brave but be ready to eat it. Link lives a little on the edge here has we want peach close, but not too close.

As to throwing bombs down form above. I never do it unless I'm going to FFdair into the bomb or FFuair into it for a safer landing. Most players won't get near a Link that's about to explode, and if they do they risk the explosion hitting them thus giving Link a chance to flip the tables on them.

EDIT: I only just saw my post was partially eaten, fixed it.

 

[Catana]

keeping peach out is harder than most people think because of the lack of good peach players, but with her float and it's cancelling she can get through relatively easily and more quickly than you'd think. she can punish almost every move we do on her shield with any aerial except fair and sometimes dair, although her fair and dair are both completely safe (fair if spaced well) on our shield and therefore should be avoided at all costs, so try to spotdodge fair if you can, if its on your shield just retreat or whatever but dont try to punish it. if she's pressuring you with dair your only real option is to roll away which is horrible so avoid that at all costs at well. her dair is also an amazing edguarding tool which can result in a relatively easy 2-frame which can lead to an untechable stagespike. also our tether recovery is easy for her to interrupt by waiting at the ledge with her float and do a fair/nair, if we go for upb she can counter which will also result in death. very heavy mixup game with your recovery is definitely a must in this mu, especially because of how easily we get sent off-stage by a simple dair on-stage which combos easily into fair with huge knockback. also our dair gets beaten by uair/upb/usmash so unless you're sure it'll work out, that is not a landing option in this mu at all. i'd say play the mid-range game and dont rely too much on your projectiles, space with fairs, zairs (although her dash attack tends to beat it as stated in earlier posts, so watch out for that) and ftilts. jab and grab arent great because for some reason jab has trouble connecting at times and she can easily jump out of jab2 80% of the time, and dthrow combos are rarely confirmed which also hurts us pretty badly. at high % especially avoid fair at all costs so dont be in the air too much and stay grounded a lot where you can shield and her grab combos dont work anymore. as of right now i'd probably say this matchup is about 55:45 in peach's favor, maybe even at best, but if thats the case its much more difficult for link to live up to that. a lot of precision and care is required to beat a decent peach that knows how to get around projectiles.

 

[ZSaberLink]

keeping peach out is harder than most people think because of the lack of good peach players, but with her float and it's cancelling she can get through relatively easily and more quickly than you'd think. she can punish almost every move we do on her shield with any aerial except fair and sometimes dair, although her fair and dair are both completely safe (fair if spaced well) on our shield and therefore should be avoided at all costs, so try to spotdodge fair if you can, if its on your shield just retreat or whatever but dont try to punish it. if she's pressuring you with dair your only real option is to roll away which is horrible so avoid that at all costs at well. her dair is also an amazing edguarding tool which can result in a relatively easy 2-frame which can lead to an untechable stagespike. also our tether recovery is easy for her to interrupt by waiting at the ledge with her float and do a fair/nair, if we go for upb she can counter which will also result in death. very heavy mixup game with your recovery is definitely a must in this mu, especially because of how easily we get sent off-stage by a simple dair on-stage which combos easily into fair with huge knockback. also our dair gets beaten by uair/upb/usmash so unless you're sure it'll work out, that is not a landing option in this mu at all. i'd say play the mid-range game and dont rely too much on your projectiles, space with fairs, zairs (although her dash attack tends to beat it as stated in earlier posts, so watch out for that) and ftilts. jab and grab arent great because for some reason jab has trouble connecting at times and she can easily jump out of jab2 80% of the time, and dthrow combos are rarely confirmed which also hurts us pretty badly. at high % especially avoid fair at all costs so dont be in the air too much and stay grounded a lot where you can shield and her grab combos dont work anymore. as of right now i'd probably say this matchup is about 55:45 in peach's favor, maybe even at best, but if thats the case its much more difficult for link to live up to that. a lot of precision and care is required to beat a decent peach that knows how to get around projectiles.

Btw Cat, against Meru, I noticed Izaw weirdly was using a lot of BAirs to go through Meru's shield and landing behind Peach and never really got punished for it. Is that actually safe against Peach or was Meru respecting it too much?

 

[Catana]

meru played rather poorly those matches, thats definitely something peach could punish or at least not get pressured much by doing bair oos. it would come out quicker than if link would jab and if link shields or does anything else defensively she would be safe. i wouldnt say that set is a good representation of the mu

 

[ZSaberLink]

meru played rather poorly those matches, thats definitely something peach could punish or at least not get pressured much by doing bair oos. it would come out quicker than if link would jab and if link shields or does anything else defensively she would be safe. i wouldnt say that set is a good representation of the mu

Ok good to know. Thanks!