Official Snake Q&A Area

[Attila_]

Can you give us an example?

 

[Ken Neth]

Of the dash->power shield against wolf? I'll see if I can find a replay against him on my wii since our snake/mk/wolf main just barely moved so I won't get any current matches from him.

 

[Kuro~]

Crouching is very effective at dealing with "WoPers".

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

I'm always worried about Wolf's random **s ground approach (fsmash). I still have no idea how to cover this option unless I make sure I maintain a constant fsmash range spacing. How the hell are you suppose to react to a move that covers a rolls distance in 10 frames?

 

[Kuro~]

Hold up and get a free backair :/

 

[KuroganeHammer]

alternatively shield and get a free forward tilt

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

Kuro, are you telling me you always hold up when you face a Wolf on the ground or just going for that gut feeling when they might Fsmash?

And Aero, are you advocating hard reads to cover fsmash too?

I guess there is not better solution than trying to hard predict it.

 

[Black Mantis]

How would a Snake and Bowser team work?

 

[Bonds]

you dthrow one opponent and have bowser cover the roll behind option with fsmash?

idk, bowser seems like a good punisher but he's low tier for a reason and all. You can help him set up koopa klaw kills in doubles I guess, and using that as an option to cover rolls out of dthrow sounds good. Maybe bowser combos fair out of fthrow/bthrow or something too, but that's all I can think of. Bowser's really too slow to do any amazing team combos imo

 

[Tesh]

Snake is a truly amazing teams character and universal stuff like C4 to grab works great. Klaw to C4 is just as good as with any throw, but way more devestating (though klaw itself really sucks in doubles because its so easily to interupt to block the 18%).

Firebreath camp while you throw grenades over him (they will land in the fire and explode). Works with charizard anyway.

Bowser is horrible and even worse in doubles though. He isn't good at saving snake from gimps and he gets thrown around, gimped, comboed and he isn't very strong for a heavyweight either.

 

[Kuro~]

Kuro, are you telling me you always hold up when you face a Wolf on the ground or just going for that gut feeling when they might Fsmash?

And Aero, are you advocating hard reads to cover fsmash too?

I guess there is not better solution than trying to hard predict it.

You don't have to hard read it :/ It's relatively easy to do consistently.

If you want to be more specific on the situations fsmash is causing you issues...

are you having trouble covering all the mix-ups with bair?

Are you having issues at the ledge?

While camping?

Approaching?

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

Funny, I'm complaining more about fsmash than Bair lol Its the mix-up in his ground game that always gets me. Its generally whenever I'm in range of getting hit by Fsmash that it becomes a problem. jab -> fsmash, walk away -> fsmash, dash away -> fsmash, dthrow -> fsmash, air dodge -> fsmash, spot dodge -> fsmash, roll -> fsmash, laser -> fsmash. Anytime I get stuck with Wolf bouncing around me the single fsmash mix-up throws me off completely. I want to try spacing myself for his other moves such as SH bair, then this random fsmash get thrown around.

 

[Attila_]

Snake out spaces wolf on the ground.

We have more range, damage output, and kill earlier. I don't see why it's a problem.

If you find yourself in fsmash range, remember they can't react to our dash attack or boost grab either, which itself is a 50:50 mixup.

If you whiff with something, and know youre going to get punished, di/Sdi up and you'll avoid the punish.

Bair is way more of an issue in the mu.

 

[Bonds]

dealing with wolf fsmash is mostly about spacing from my experience, but also imo not the most important part of the matchup. I think we should be dealing with wolf by taking space from him and forcing him to cross us up near the ledge, because his options to do so are bad for the most part. I might go as far as to say fthrow/bthrow off the ledge over dthrow for him.

 

[Dcold]

How should a Sheik play against a competent Snake in this MU? I'm pretty clueless and I find this MU very frustrating and annoying task.

 

[Ken Neth]

You will probably get better answers from asking the sheik boards cause I doubt most people here have fought a competent sheik player. I do fight Mars a lot and he's really good at the match up, but I wouldn't be able to tell you what he is looking for in the match up compared to other ones cause I don't play sheik. All I know is he ***** lol

 

[Ralph Cecil]

After telling him about the Snake mu(if anyone can) could someone tell me how the Jiggs mu goes? :x I really don't know anything about that mu. D=

 

[Kuro~]

How should a Sheik play against a competent Snake in this MU? I'm pretty clueless and I find this MU very frustrating and annoying task.

Bait the grenade. Sheik's speed+needles make her adept at punishing the nade pull.

Knowing how to space just outside snakes effective range. Meaning dtilt, uptilt, ftilt, and grab. Dash attack should be relatively easy to bait+punish w/o him having a read.

Grabs. Grabs get him exactly where you want him and you can constantly reset the situation against him. I'm not saying juggle him. A bit of air strings here and there but you gotta recognize when it's best to land and reset the situation again.

Find his habitual response to pressure on landing.

If he lands with a nade how does he react and why did he react that way? Does he spotdodge? roll away? roll towards? Does he stay in shield for a second or two then choose? Find out and choose the appropriate punish.

if you can get behind a snake you're in a perfect situation. His best option (albeit one most snakes won't notice/use) is JCUpsmash for the ground hitbox it provides. I'm not sure on sheik's ftilt cooldown+shieldstun rates but what i do know is that if you're behind a snake it SHOULD if you go about it right result in him being forced to choose an unsafe option. Which you should be looking for and punishing correctly.

Don't be stupidly aggressive. Know what's safe/unsafe and know the risk reward to it you attempt it. E.g. aerial crossovers can lead to juggling scenarios but can also be pivot grabbed which results in a tech chase for snake which is baaaad for sheik. So it's high risk high reward assuming no read and you're just taking a risk.

Here's a really big part i don't see enough of.

There's two more important parts to this mu.

Ledge trapping(keeping snake on the ledge)

and forcing him to ledge/edge of the stage with zoning and pressure.

You could write an essay on how to get that to happen/do it. Will come with experimentation and time. I def. didn't cover everything. But it's a start.

 

[luxingo]

Do you generally keep Snake's C4 on stage or save it for offensive C4 in the air or C4 recovery?

 

[Jrugs]

D. all of the above

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

I think I should always have C4 in reserve in case I get pushed into a situation where I need it or else I lose my stock too early. Having C4 sitting on stage for 30 seconds I think is a horrible waste.

But you still want to use it though. If I'm playing on Smashville, and I need a kill soon since they are entering that KO percent, I'll go and place a C4 on the platform for that KO attempt. Most other times I won't bother placing it on the platform since I do not see the reward being that great. If I do place a C4 occasionally, I'll usually use it right away. Standing over the C4 is a great way of people not paying attention to the C4 at all. I'll let someone try approaching me instead and hard predict that approach and C4 as I run away (Sh or dash).

Might come down to preference actually. I heard a couple people say they prefer to place C4 on platforms and hold it there as incentive to box people in and give snake more stage control. I do not believe people find C4 all that threatening if its sitting out there for ages.

 

[Attila_]

i use it at low percent, and keep it at high.

we should all be good enough to avoid situations where we need it at low percent (from grab releases and stuff), so that's not an issue. but at high percent, i find a wavebounce c4 easily the most evasive way to recover from above. nades are so low, and leave you vulnerable for much longer. and with c4, you maintain the threat of blowing stuff up.

 

[Ralph Cecil]

I personally just try and have a c4 on stage all the times(unless it does nothing in the mu), and just try my hardest to recover without it or just try to avoid a situation that would require it in the first place.

Also could someone tell me how to do that fake-out grenade throw where Snake is throwing one way, but the grenade goes a different direction? I know it seems pointless, but I think I could catch some people off guard with it at times. ^_^

 

[luxingo]

Also could someone tell me how to do that fake-out grenade throw where Snake is throwing one way, but the grenade goes a different direction? I know it seems pointless, but I think I could catch some people off guard with it at times. ^_^

IIRC, it's doing the DACUS input with a grenade in hand, with the dash attack throwing the grenade forward and the upsmash as Snake 'fake-throwing' upwards.

The grenade comes out before he throws upwards, so it'll be difficult to 'catch some people off guard' imo.

Also, jump-cancelled forward throw from dash is less laggy.

 

[Ralph Cecil]

kk I thought so. I didn't practice it much, so I wasn't sure if I was doing the wrong thing or not when it didn't work. =p

 

[luxingo]

You can't do it from a standstill/from the initial dash animation though; you have to already be dashing to do it.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Why do you have to be dashing already?

 

[luxingo]

I don't know the game mechanics behind it, but from trials, it just doesn't work when you're not dashing.

 

[-LzR-]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMCTfAKvL4c&hd=1&t=25s

Why did Snake get to upB again?

 

[Ralph Cecil]

It might have something to do with Falco potentially foot stooling him. At least I think he foot stooled him. o-o

 

[-LzR-]

So a footstool will give him back his cypher even if he is in the middle of using it and doesn't get spiked by it?

 

[Ralph Cecil]

I guess so? It's just a guess though lol.

EDIT: I guess it's pretty easy to verify though if you have a second person to help.

 

[Jrugs]

the falco def foot stooled something.

 

[Ken Neth]

It is because he got footstooled. If snake gets footstooled during his up b he gets a second one.

 

[Ralph Cecil]

That's what I thought it was, but I didn't want to say it for sure.

 

[-LzR-]

Does the same apply for Sonic and G&W since I think they have the same mechanics on their upB?

 

[Ralph Cecil]

Can you foot stool people who are on the ledge? I think I saw someone do that once, and if that's the case it would be a neat thing to know when recovering imo.

 

[C.J.]

As long as they don't have invincibility frames from grabbing the ledge, yes you can footstool people on the ledge.

 

[Crackle]

Do a lot of fakeouts on the approach. Get ftilt combo savy. Use Fair and such. Learn BDACUS and profit from a dash-dance or a grab.

Edit: Oh someone responded to the Sheik already

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

and profit from a dash-dance

Okay, this has sparked a serious question from me.

Has anyone been able to profit off of a dash dance, ever? I do it for funsies when waiting between stocks, but I have never applied thinking it could be useful. DD for all characters is pretty sad. Its like Sheik's DD from melee, but I think even worse than that. Without jump cancel into grab or faster aerials, I do not think DD in brawl can ever be applied. Although, it might be and I have simply never been clever enough to think of a way to apply it.