Okay.....
Sheilda's gameplan, a very raw explanation by Kyo (who's bad with words and long comments)
For starters, a lot of people confuse Sheik's "unability to kill" with "unability to transform". Sheik can't kill efficently because her attacks just aren't powerful enough. However, they are good for throwing the opponent away, and most characters can't catch her if she transforms right away when she lands a strong hit.
Now, Zelda is a bad character with terrible options, yes.
But her problem as a solo gets much worse because those options most of the time would force her to lose the lead. Now she has to approach, and that's another thing Zelda is terrible at. Most of Zelda's Matchups in the chart (I think) consider her unability to approach and that make some of them look worse than they could be.
Sheik's main ability is to build damage. She can do that prety well, and I am pretty sure that she can get a good lead on most matchups if plays correctly.
With a lead, Zelda does not need to approach. She might be bad, but she is not completly worthless if the opponent is the one who has to get to her. She only needs to land few hits before killing.
That's pretty much it.
The "strategy" does not work if:
*The opponent can reach to her when transforming, even after being sent away too far away.
*The opponent has a good matchup against Sheik, making her unable to gain the lead.
*The opponent has a strong enough projectyle game to beat Nayru and Zelda's shield and able regain the lead without approaching, forcing Zelda to do so. It's still doable for Sheilda, but harder than it should.
*The opponent complety shuts down one of the two parts (Olimar, ICs, Pikachu).
*The opponent gets complety shut down by one of the two parts (Fox).
Overall, in most matchups it won't make a big difference, but whoever has played a good Sheilda (>implying) should agree that the matchups get certainly harder, even if not by much.
