Official Young Link Match ups 2015

[Kidney Thief]

Hello everyone I'd like to introduce myself, I'm Kidney Thief a Young Link user from Quebec, Canada who participates in the Ottawa scene. You may not have heard of me unless I'm really famous by the time you read this thread, but I consider myself pretty decent. I've solo mained Young Link from 2003-2007 and I am back in the melee scene in full force since early 2014. I think Young Link is underrated, but not by that much. I wouldn't move him up the tier list, I just think mid tiers are underrated in general. His matchup against space animals are pretty bad and you may want to switch characters. It's not impossible but it's a tough life.

How we're going to proceed : Since these boards are more dead than my wooden floor, I will have to go solo and I will make mistakes with match ups. Other matchups will simply not be there due to the fact that there aren't any good Pichu mains in my region for example, so if there's one character in your region that I don't have listed I'll be counting on you to drop some knowledge in here real quick.

Young Link wins many match ups, but the one he loses are to the most popular characters, and he loses those match ups pretty badly, that's why he's considered not so good

>>>> Means it's almost impossible
>>> means a large advantage
>> means an advantage
> means a small advantage
= means the matchup is tied

So here we go in no particular order :

Young Link <<<< Fox (My worst match up personally. Most people dislike Falco more)
Young Link <<<< Falco (You'll get wrecked, ban Final Destination at all costs)

Young Link <<< Sheik

Young Link << Marth
Young Link << Captain Falcon (Use 2-3 times less projectiles than you usually do)
Young Link << Yoshi

Young Link < Pikachu

Young Link = Ice Climbers
Young Link = Ganondorf
Young Link = Luigi
Young Link = Mario
Young Link = Young Link (What were you expecting?)
Young Link = Link
Young Link = Zelda

Young Link > Jigglypuff
Young Link > Princess Fruit
Young Link > Dr. Mario
Young Link > Samus


Young Link >> Roy (I have no idea, will go with other's opinions on this one)
Young Link >> Ness (I have no idea, will go with other's opinions on this one)
Young Link >> Game & Watch (It's pretty bad for flatman, just throw lots of bombs)
Young Link >> Pichu (Probably, when's the last time we saw a good Pichu anyway)
Young Link >> Kirby

Young Link >>> DK
Young Link >>> Mewtwo

Young Link >>>> Bowser

Agree or disagree? Please discuss

 

[EddyBearr]

I prefer four arrows. Using Sheik match-ups as exemplars:
Sheik = Falco almost definitely even
Sheik > Marth could go either way, slight advantage
Sheik >> Falcon one has clear advantage, but the other winning is not surprising
Sheik >>> Pikachu the disadvantaged should not win. Quite surprising
Sheik >>>> Bowser the disadvantaged has never won and never could

.......

Young Link <<< Fox: Fox is effectively a hard-counter to Young Link as long as the Fox knows the match-up. Lasers bounce bombs away, he has a reflector, he's somewhat hard to KO, he's more mobile than Young Link, he can out-camp Young Link, and he has an extremely easy time both combo-ing and KO'ing Young Link. The only thing Young Link has are okay juggles.

Young Link <<< Falco: It's akin to the Fox matchup, but in different ways. He shuts us down horizontally and takes away our top platform. He can KO us easier and we can gimp him easier.

Young Link <<< Sheik: Chain grabs and every combos, she might have some trouble getting us, but if she gets us, we should lose that stock.

Young Link << Marth: Young Link is quite an underdog here, but you can play keep away and get some kills on him. Bomb-dair is a great auto-kill in edgeguard situations.

Young Link > Jigglypuff: Young Link somewhat counters Puff, but he's always susceptible to backairs. If Young Link plays smart, then Young Link has a slight advantage. He's like a weaker Fox that doesn't get up-throw rested or gimped [very easily]. As a dual Sheik/Young Link main, it feels much easier as Young Link than as Sheik.

Young Link > Peach: The spamming Young Link is a bit of a counter of the walling Peach, but Peach is just so much better fundamentally that it's not surprising is Peach wins. Feels slightly easier as Young Link than as Sheik.

Young Link << Captain Falcon: Young Link is definitely the underdog here, but Young Link can definitely win. His juggling and edgeguarding game against Falcon is too strong. It's a weird match-up, though, and it takes getting used to before it feels winnable.

Young Link = Ice Climbers: Again, this feels easier as Young Link than as Sheik. It's like Puff/Peach except ICs are quite mobile and hit quite hard. Uniquely, Young Link retains this roughly equal match-up regardless of whether the ICs is able to 0-death off grabs, because Young Link can interrupt grab combos and simply not get grabbed.

Young Link < Dr. Mario: It could go either way, but Dr. Mario is pretty mobile, can camp well, KOs pretty easily, is a bit harder to combo, and has a cape. I think Dr. Mario mostly has an advantage by being a better character.

Young Link < Pikachu: Pikachu is similar to Doc, but with more strengths and weaknesses.

Young Link > Samus: Young Link's matchup against Samus is comparable to his matchup on Peach. Samus has difficult projectiles, but she lacks the same kind of powerful moves as Peach.

Young Link = Ganon: It's like a Falcon match-up except you out-maneuver him really badly. He's still got huge limbs and hits extremely hard, making the interactions usually end-up in being no advantage for either side.

Young Link = Luigi: It's on par with the IC's match-up. Luigi has a slightly harder time getting in, but has an easier time comboing/KOing you.

Young Link = Mario: It just like a worse Dr. Mario with a much worse Projectile.

Young Link >>>> Young Link: Young Link can combo himself pretty hard and hit-confirm well off-projectiles. He's just mobile enough to always punish Young Link for trying to be mobile enough to pull a bomb.

Young Link > Link: Young Link traditionally has a bit of an advantage in this matchup, and he definitely does. He does pretty much what Link does, but he's much faster at it, and his projectiles are much better. The only exception in the world is a certain Link player name SAUS, who is the scourge of all Young Link mains. Really, though, SAUS is probably just really good -- Young Link has an advantage against Link.

Young Link >> Donkey Kong: He's very easy to combo, and he's a huge target. Young Link beats DK for sure, but DK can always smack him pretty hard or up-air him. You can generally outmaneuver him. His grab-centric game means little in the face of a projectile spammer.

Young Link = Yoshi: Young Link thrives off of hit-confirms, and Yoshi generally can't be hit-confirmed. With that said, It's still Yoshi. At aMSa level, I think Yoshi might have a slight advantage (I think aMSa can beat Armada, Axe, etc.)

Young Link >> Zelda: Zelda is like a fusion of Peach/Puff, except she's a pretty bad character. Zelda can still get kicks in, though especially off of failed hit-confirms.

Young Link >> Roy: Young Link has the same problems with Roy that he has with Marth, but Roy is really bad, and is much easier to juggle. Even so, Forward Smash will kill us quite early. It's not surprising if Roy wins, but Young Link has the advantage.

Young Link >>> Mewtwo: Mewtwo is like a huge Jigglypuff who can't do much of anything to you. This is probably Young Link's best matchup in the entire game. If you ignore the chain-grab, then it's as bad for Mewtwo as Sheik is for Bowser.

Young Link >>> Mr. Game & Watch: Young Link's bombs ruin G&W's life, and then he dies really early. Likewise, for some reaosn, G&W's lack of a sheild really hurts him in this matchup.

Young Link >> Ness: Young Link definitely has an advantage on Ness, but.. well just watch Hungrybox (Ness) vs Armada (Young Link) on YouTube. Ness is weird.

Young Link >>> Bowser: It's like a DK that can't hurt you or chase you. You can almost literally just throw bombs at him until he's at 300%, then nair him.

Young Link >> Pichu: Young Link wins because he's a better character, by far, but Pichu is so mobile and small that it's kinda weird for Young Link.

Young Link >> Kirby: Young Link has an advantage on kirby, but Kirby is a rare exception for floaties -- he doesn't really jump. Kirby's dair is also horrendously painful when trying to recover. Young Link can't get effectively guaranteed abuse against Kirby. But one day, I will beat Triple R.. And one day, you will beat SAUS, @ Kidney Thief !

I do have some experience in all these matchups. I don't know how to explain why.

 

[Kidney Thief]

I agree with most of this, but it is a well know fact among Doc's and Mario's that regular Mario is better against both links, Sheik and Marth. Doc usually does better in every other match up. I agree with a lot of the info you posted, I will update my thread. Also my training partner for years was a dual Mario and Dr. Mario main so it's by far the two match ups I know the most about.

Also the Luigi board find it difficult to fight a good Young Link, they feel at a disadvantage, and I feel like it's to our advantage. I will leave it at our advantage until other people disagree

Also I've always had slight trouble with Pikachu, but not that much. I thought it was me not the match up. Glad to know it's normal

I'll go with your opinion with ganon for now, but I'll tell my ganon friend to come over so we can practice and I'll drop my two cents after

As for Zelda, most people I've talked to think it's to her advantage, but you say it's largely to ours. I will wait for more feed back on this one

Can we talk about the grab thing with Ice Climbers? Are you saying we can't get wobbled? I'm not sure I understand

And there it is we have every character listed thanks for the input

 

[EddyBearr]

Can we talk about the grab thing with Ice Climbers? Are you saying we can't get wobbled? I'm not sure I understand

Yeah, boomerangs returning and bombs exploding help keep us safe from grabs if we're cognizant of it. Alongside this, we're generally always running around and not approaching, so they should have trouble even getting a grab to begin with.

 

[Kidney Thief]

Makes sense, thanks for the tip

Update : I've talked to another young Link main and will update in accordance to what we discussed about

 

[EddyBearr]

Disagreements with new matchups:

(PAL) Sheik: Chain-grabs never really did it in for YL anyways (Sheik can't grab>death Young Link). Her needles and combos just destroy everything Young Link wants. I'd say that it's the difference between harder << (I'd still say <<<) and easier/mid <<. It should definitely be <<, but obviously lower than NTSC Sheik.
--
Link: It's only slightly harder than Samus. Traditionally, and based on competitive footage, Young Link beats Link. I'd accept putting it at equal if you think SAUS has found something against YL that GERM or J666 have not.
--
Zelda: I dunno where this came form, but if this was true, then Peach should be << over Young Link. She's floaty, is always in the air, has no mobility (can't shark, pressure, or camp) and has no real answer to projectiles (because of YL's speed). A Zelda main in my state stated that some Zeldas think it's her hardest matchup (but he disagrees. He still think it's very hard). The only reason a Young Link can lose to a Zelda is if the Young Link screws up a lot.
--
Ice Climbers: Traditional thought was that ICs "bodied" Young Link, but we know that isn't true. However, they sadly out-range us (while having faster & stronger moves), and have the potential to keep up with our movement (especially shark with uair into 2 more uairs) on YS and FoD (and only 2 uairs on BF) or even outmaneuver us (PS-neutral, FD). One could argue < = or >, but I think = is the most honest. Of the three top tier floaties YL can challenge, this one is definitely the hardest. We beat Sopo quite badly, though, and we have an easy time splitting them up.
---
Ganon: Definitely not in our advantage the same way Luigi or Samus might be. It only takes 4 hits for him to kill us.His hitboxes are huge (and can beat projectiles,) he edgeguards us quite hard because of our up-B leaves our head exposed and his range out-doing our fair/etc, and he does have a chain-grab on us (and grab->ouch on us at later percents.) I still think it's even, because one could even argue Ganon beats us.
--
Pichu: We beat Pichu, but it's not easier than DK. In other news, I got 3-stocked in tournament by a Pichu last weekend.. (jiggs player CP'd me. Played him again out-of-tourney and got down to basically last hit (60% pichu, though). He's hard to hit and slightly outmaneuvers us. He's got faster moves, and has a few reliable kills. But, he's still Pichu. Young Link >>.
--
Kirby: We beat kirby harder than Pichu/Roy but not as hard as DK. Spaced attacks, projectiles, and hit-confirms are hard to land. Kirby can play footsies very well. Kirby's uair sharks are surprisingly painful, and kirby's zoning is a little better than outs. More importantly, if we're off-stage, kirby's dair basically guarantees that we die. To be honest, I'm probably the most experienced player in this matchup from this decade. Triple R's so good. Lol.
--
Mewtwo: <<<<. Huge, slow, floaty, light.. GG mewtwo.

 

[Kidney Thief]

I'm not convinced yet by some of the stuff you've said, but I've compromised some of my opinions to match more your match up list for the sake of including every one so that it represents a more general opinion and not just mine. I can beat more often than not my Ganondorf main friend who traditionally won against me back when I used Peach and Peach is considered = with Ganon. Either he doesn't know the match up or I'm doing something right. I do agree that he kills easily though and the tipman can mess you up sometimes. I don't know man I'll have to play more matches against him to see if he adapts and it's not like there's too many Young Links on youtube that we can watch and get a general feel, especially vs characters that are less popular like Ganon. I think it's worth noting that Kage thinks Old Link > Ganondorf (I've seen him say this on facebook) As for Mewtwo I agree I just forgot to change it in the first place. Also I think I know where we may disagree when we really don't. My list isn't in any particular order. So if I put two characters in the >> section but one's on top of the other they are in the same spot in my mind. Perhaps I should make this clearer.

 

[EddyBearr]

No strong disagreements anymore. Thanks for clarification.

I noticed you put Yoshi > Young Link. The more I'm thinking about it, the more I kinda think that.. yoshi doesn't care about anything we do while we have to care quite a bit for what he does.

 

[mynameisdog4]

I just looked at the OP for so freaking long trying to find Peach.

Then I found it.

>_>

 

[Kidney Thief]

I had the opportunity to go to the come up an amazing tournament in Toronto and we had friendlies going on in our spare time and I met other Links and Young Links and eventually we got this setup where we decided only Links and Young Link mains were allowed to play and eventually I got to discuss match ups with them. Will update to include their opinions.

 

[Avro-Arrow]

I had the opportunity to go to the come up an amazing tournament in Toronto and we had friendlies going on in our spare time and I met other Links and Young Links and eventually we got this setup where we decided only Links and Young Link mains were allowed to play and eventually I got to discuss match ups with them. Will update to include their opinions.

Woah why is your main Peach now on your account?

 

[Kidney Thief]

I play both characters about equally

 

[yoyoX]

Hey!
I was surfing around in the melee forums and fall on this thread.
I am actually very interested in the ssbm scene or just getting better overall. Since you are from Quebec (and so do i) i was wondering if you could help me get better at the game. I play sometimes with another friend and now that our smash 4 hype have passed i need another toy haha. Just reply or send me a pm. Im from longueuil and have no problem going in Montreal

 

[Kidney Thief]

Hey!
I was surfing around in the melee forums and fall on this thread.
I am actually very interested in the ssbm scene or just getting better overall. Since you are from Quebec (and so do i) i was wondering if you could help me get better at the game. I play sometimes with another friend and now that our smash 4 hype have passed i need another toy haha. Just reply or send me a pm. Im from longueuil and have no problem going in Montreal

I'd like to help you improve, but I'm from Gatineau and Longueil is too far for me. I suggest finding the Montreal melee scene of facebook they are very good players and they will be happy to show you the game

 

[yoyoX]

I'd like to help you improve, but I'm from Gatineau and Longueil is too far for me. I suggest finding the Montreal melee scene of facebook they are very good players and they will be happy to show you the game

okok thanks!!!

 

[Kidney Thief]

After about 50 hours of young link vs ganon I feel like the match up is pretty even

Edit for the sake of not double posting : Sorry guys the more I play Young Link the more I realise he's not as good as I initially thought. I'm leaving this character for someone else to explore and I'll go play a better character. It's been a good run with this character from 2002 to 2007 and even lately a bit but the spacies match up is really bad and not fun either so it's time for me to move on. Young Link is not a viable character but he's fun against the match ups he stands a chance against. I think Using this character has been a good reality check on how hard it is to win with a low tier. Fox and Falco have beat the Young Link out of me

 

[The Prince: SDJ]

Fox versus young link is worse than falco young link.
Young link loses gimping potential as fox recovers higher than falco by a wide margin.
IMO young link falco way eaiser than young link fox.

Edit: But falco versus young link is still a rough MU D;:

 

[Avro-Arrow]

Jigglypuff and YL is even; the neutral game goes either way and the punishes are fairly equal too. Puff can have a hard time getting in but she can zone herself out of range of the bombs and over the reach of the rang. Grabs are too risky to go for. Puff generally kills YL earlier than he does her in my experience, as long as they zone the projectiles properly, because otherwise bomb or rang to dair kills at 120% or less, dependant on the stage of course.

EDIT: Marth : YL is slight Marth, it feels similar to Link : Marth. For example, we have dsmash, and Link has upB semi-spike (although ours generally doesn't need a grab like Link's does). Link has a longer grapple which helps him punish Marth's poor spacing and recover, but YL is faster and so he can outspace Marth easier than Link can. Both Links have uAir strings that tack on quite a bit of damage.

We have a free edgeguard on Marth when he recovers from below the stage too: bomb drop (use z to drop the bomb), then the Marth uses Dolphin Blade, and be popped up for a free dair (or nair if you want). It's foolproof. It's guaranteed. Otherwise, don't try to follow him offstage, as he will use Dolphin Blade and kill you (on Yoshi's it might be alright to follow him if you are prepared to tech the wall). If you know he is going onstage (for some reason), wavedash into him after he lands and dsmash to punish his landing lag.

CFalcon : YL is pretty bad, but I have pretty decent exposure to zoning out Falcon, and so I can share some information on this matchup. Learn how to predict a knee. Seriously, learn his running short hop length and aerial hitboxes, and be methodical and observant of his movements; always adjust your spacing. You cannot mis-space a projectile, otherwise you're getting punished pretty hard. Kidney Thief is right in saying you have to throw a lot less projectiles.

I use a lot of platform movements in this matchup to keep unpredictable and on the go. Nair is awesome, as is dsmash if you can land it. Edgeguards are free with nair and dsmash. Uair strings are awesome too. If you're near the ledge, stay underneath a platform so that he can't come from above. Always have an escape route planned, and be ready to punish with a few SHFFLs when he misses.

2nd edit: added extra paragraph for Marth

 

[The Prince: SDJ]

As I dual main of puff and young link, young link wins the neutral if the puff is throwing out air attacks, as puff does not have disjointed hitboxes on any of her hitboxes. If you watch HBox vs Armada you can see that armada can call a back air from hbox with a down air or a bomb with little to no risk to young link

 

[EddyBearr]

Young Link definitely does not have an easier time spacing vs Marth than Link has, and Captain Falcon is definitely not a harder matchup than Marth.

 

[Dominus Felis]

Seriously? Fox a worse matchup than sheik? I disagree.

 

[MagicScrumpy]

I posted some ramblings about a couple matchups in another thread; they probably belong here as well.

Young Link = Luigi

Luigi
Luigi is a pain, but Young Link has the kit to deal with his weird Luigi stuff. It's kind of hard for Luigi to get in because he's hilariously susceptible to Young Link's projectile game, but if he gets in, you have a decent chance of losing your stock because he is very good at continuing combos and the early hit frames and high priority of his moves makes your combo breakers (nair, bair, uair) a whole lot less useful. If you do end up surviving, you have probably taken a whole lot of damage and are at a positional disadvantage.

But Young Link has the tools to deal with Luigi. Camping projectiles and use of relatively low-commitment projectile --> aerial "combos"––especially when coupled together-–– are very effective against Luigi. The trick is to place and space your projectiles so that Luigi , who relies a lot on wavedashing and wavelanding all over the place, doesn't have as much free room as he would want. Since his movement options are very good, this can be fairly difficult. My favorite projectile to use to keep Luigi out is the boomerang; it's incredibly versatile because of Young Link's ability to angle them and the easy followups (nair, dair, uair). Bombs can be effective to stuff obnoxious wavedash --> dsmash approaches and rogue fairs/nairs.

Young Link, for the most part, has a bad combo game, and Luigi's mobility options and ridiculous floatiness aggravates that. In this matchup, there's no way you are going to get meaningful combos on Luigi. The best thing to do is just camp with projectiles and follow up with an aerial if you're sure it will hit (because, if you mess up, he can really hurt you). Since Luigi is very light, killing him off the top with bomb --> dair is a very good option because it kills at a fairly low percent.

Another selling point for Young Link in this matchup is his edgeguarding ability coupled with Luigi's terrible recovery. If Luigi gets off the stage, it should be very easy to prevent him from getting back onto the stage with ftilt, dsmash, and nair (bomb --> nair and bomb --> dair being especiaily effective). Honestly, the only thing that should save him is the misfire, and that's punishable by simply walking over to where he landed and hitting him with either a dsmash or a bomb --> dair. He may try to sweetspot the ledge with his up B, but you can beat that with nair or bomb --> aerial.

Basically, both characters are really, really good at killing each other. I would say the matchup is fairly even. But it's a very frustrating matchup for both parties.

Young Link = Ganondorf

Ganon
Ganon is kind of annoying because you basically die if he touches you. The good news is that Young Link almost horrendously outmaneuvers Ganon. This is good because it helps you to avoid being hit and it helps you do what Young Link does best: camping.

Camping is very effective against Ganon because he is relatively slow and big. Spamming Ganon with projectiles makes it harder for him to get to you and also reduces his movement options, which are already limited in the first place.

With all that being said, Ganon can still get to you because of the deceptive range on his aerials. Shielding isn't always all that effective because of Young Link's poor shield and Ganon's ability to absolutely demolish shields. The Ganon I play against will often shield stab me with his uair if he catches me sleeping on a platform. It's a good thing for us that Ganon, like Young Link, doesn't have a good combo game. Unfortunately, unlike YL, he can kill most of the cast in just a few good hits. Young Link dies at fairly early percentages, and Ganon can do a lot of damage in a short frame of time.

Ganon's ftilt will stuff your aerial approaches, so you always need to hit confirm with a projectile and then go in with a safe aerial that you don't have to commit too much to. Basically, you want to be really campy in the neutral game. There's really not that much that Ganon can do about that; unlike characters like Marth or Fox, Ganon doesn't really have any tools to deal with being camped. Since he's also an absolute behemoth, it's really easy to confirm hits on him. From there, dairs and nairs work wonders.

A selling point for YL in this matchup is his spectacular edge guarding game coupled with Ganon's garbage-tier recovery. Nair and dsmash absolutely demolish Ganon off stage. Boomerangs and bombs can also be used to disrupt with some degree of success. In short, if Ganon makes his way off stage, you can almost always kill him.

Ganon is also a proficient edge guarder. Young Link, however, has a better recovery kit with more options. If you're off stage, you're in danger. Mix up your up Bs and your hookshots. Ganon hits really hard, and a good bair or uair will send you flying.

Ganon is kind of heavy, but he's also fairly floaty, so bomb --> dair is pretty good.

The problem with Ganon being heavy is that he is harder to kill. You basically want to slowly rack up his percent with camping until he's at high percent; then you get to bomb --> nair/dair him.

I feel like there was more I wanted to touch upon, but I forgot what I was going to add. Basically, Ganon is a killing machine, so keep him away. Edge guard him when you can, and as always, dsmash is godly.

 

[Chaos0205]

Based on my experience with some of these matchups, I'd have to say that, of the higher tiers, minus jigglypuff, Marth is the easiest. It's still an uphill battle for ylink, but I'm much more comfortable facing Marth than any of the others. Fox and Falco are abysmal matchups for ylink, C. Falcon is very difficult due to his speed and power, I've only faced a couple Sheiks as ylink, but they did not go well for me, but of the Marths I've faced, I'm about even.

 

[MagicScrumpy]

I disagree.

Against Captain Falcon, you often have more good options than you do against Marth. This is especially true in netural, where Falcon is far more susceptible to projectiles than Marth. I feel like, in this matchup, it's easier to deal with Falcon in neutral game and in the punish game when the advantage is yours; however, if Falcon is punishing you, he can often do quite a bit more damage.

Let's break it down.



Neutral Game - Young Link's Options against Marth
Young Link is fairly limited in the neutral game against Marth; since his sword renders your bombs a non-issue, YL's ability to effectively camp is heavily reduced. You are going to have to rely more on boomerangs and arrows; bombs are just a situational mixup. Since Young Link likes to rely on camping in the neutral game, losing (or at least drastically reducing the effectiveness of) a whole host of options in your bombs is really bad. This is especially bad against Marth because he can punish you really hard if you play aggressive.

His grabs get a fair amount of mileage, and his sword hurts. Unfortunately, Young Link is easy to combo due to his weight, so one grab or hit can mean the stock or getting to death percent (which, against Marth for Young Link, can be as early as 60-70%). So you're forced to play with a crippled camping game, and you can't really go in all that much to compensate for it. You have to camp harder than ever with your boomerangs and arrows, and on top of that, you have to be really solid with your hit-confirm two-hit "combos".

If Marth decides to approach, there isn't that much you can do besides run away and camp if the Marth is playing smart.



Neutral Game - Young Link's Options against Falcon
Young Link is limited in the neutral game against Falcon, but that's due to Falcon's speed. Falcon doesn't have any good way to deal with projectiles other than maneuvering around them, which he's really good at. However, his lack of other tools to deal with projectiles makes it kind of easy to control lots of space and, to an extent, Falcon's positioning choices.

Boomerangs and bombs are also effective in stuffing Captain Falcon's approaches, which is a good thing because Falcon is often forced to be aggressive. If you are able to punish Falcon for that, which YL can do a lot of the time, then you can get lots of mileage off of it because you're able to effectively nullify lots of the options that Falcon needs. This forces Falcon to adapt and re-evaluate, and it almost always leads to a less-effective Falcon. This removal of options is very similar to Marth nullifying the whole bomb problem in that it drastically reduces the effectiveness of the affected character.

Though it seems like Falcon would be a fairly easy matchup based on the explanation above, it's still definitely very hard. Falcon is still extraordinarily mobile and has a fantastic punish game. If Falcon nets a grab or a nair, he will do a lot of damage and oftentimes kill you. Falcon can 0-death Young Link with relative ease due to his weight granting him the gift of dying early and being especially susceptible to combos.



Based on neutral game alone, Marth is a harder matchup because you have far fewer options. Since what dictates the difficulty of a matchup is just the array of options both characters have at any given time, Marth is therefore harder. On top of Marth being harder in neutral, he is also far harder to edge-guard than Falcon. If Falcon goes low, grab the edge; if he goes high, hit him with a nair or fair with or without a boomerang or bomb preceding it. When edgeguarding Marth, you have to rely more on shenanigans such as bomb --> dsmash. At least with Marth you can at least be fairly sure that he will want to recover low. Young Link has the kit to edgeguard both at least fairly handily, but Falcon is much easier. The one way Falcon is more difficult than Marth is in his extraordinary punish game against YL; however, Marth still does fine in that field.

In my opinion, Young Link's hardest five matchups, in order from hardest to easiest, are Fox, Falco, Sheik, Marth, and Falcon. I can write up a monster post on why I think this, but I don't have the time right now.

 

[Avro-Arrow]

ehhh Scrumpy, I disagree a little bit with a few of the things you have mentioned. I also have a couple of things to add:

1. Falcon can nair boomerangs to clank them

2. Marth is easier to edgeguard, zdrop a bomb > dair is free (unless we are talking about far off stage, in which Falcon is free ^-^)

3. A Falcon who DIs up your nairs offstage will be able to recover high. Falcon is a lot harder to edgeguard when going high than he is going low. Dsmash is a little harder to hit in this matchup because you have to get it off of a missed tech, grab or hit confirm.

However, all this being said, it's definitely arguable either way. For example, you can totally get a read on how Falcon is going to recover if you analyze them, and I'm sure I don't have the necessary experience to flat out call you wrong (which I don't think you're wrong anyways).

 

[MagicScrumpy]

Haha, forgot about the nair. I still think Falcon is far easier to edgeguard; both are pretty easy, though.

 

[ihasabuket]

I prefer four arrows. Using Sheik match-ups as exemplars:

Young Link <<< Fox: Fox is effectively a hard-counter to Young Link as long as the Fox knows the match-up. Lasers bounce bombs away, he has a reflector, he's somewhat hard to KO, he's more mobile than Young Link, he can out-camp Young Link, and he has an extremely easy time both combo-ing and KO'ing Young Link. The only thing Young Link has are okay juggles.

Fox is actually very easy to KO off the side. His weight is 75, making him the 4th lightest in the game and hes a fastfaller which means he cant DI up as much. Just hit him with downsmash at around 90% and hes screwed. He's pretty hard to kill off the top but if you take him to a place with a low ceiling so you can dair him at a reasonable %. Dairing him on a platform or in the air makes this possible much earlier.

 

[Avro-Arrow]

Taking him to places with low ceilings against Fox is not a good idea actually. It means he kills with uair and upsmash a lot easier, whereas the stage size doesn't matter if we're getting kills by edgeguarding.

 

[EddyBearr]

Young Link's only real kill move at normal kill percents is d-smash. Fox can play around this move and effectively make it so Young Link can't KO.

 

[ihasabuket]

Yeah youre right that a low ceiling benefits fox more. Im assuming you meant that horizontal blastzones dont matter much because the stage size is important. However, Id think you want a smaller stage so fox doesnt have so much room to run around and make it easier for you to abuse stage control.You can die at 80% from an upsmash on yoshi's but you can also kill fox at around 95% with a downsmash and the stage benefits your neutral, You can also kill with up throw dair at about 100%.Plus edgeguarding is easier because the horizontal blast zones are so close to the stage. Not saying young link has an advantage overall in any stage against fox but i dont think yoshi's is that bad especially since you can SDI upthrow upair. PS is probably his worst as the stage benefits fox in almost every way. You can get camped on dreamland and the platform heights make it harder to hit fox on when hes on a platform but you can live longer, though imo its not worth it if you cant really win neutral. A lot of the times i have to pick between yoshi's and dreamland and id rather have a better neutral and offstage edgeguarding game than live longer. FoD is probably young links best stages in this matchup. Small stage and blastzones and relatively high ceiling, plus an extra recovery option. I think in general its foxes worst stage.

 

[EddyBearr]

Young Link vs Fox stages imo:

1: FoD
2: Yoshi's Story
3: Battlefield
4: Dream Land 64
5: Pokemon Stadium
6: Final Destination.

Fox can also Amsah tech YLink's D-smash. Young Link should never be able to land a grab on Fox. Young Link's main kill move on Fox is nair.

I mostly agree with your post, though.

 

[ihasabuket]

You can amsah tech foxes up smash too so long as youre already touching the ground since SDI occurs during hitlag frames and hitlag occurs before knockback. Axe did it against silent wolf at evo. It was the the 56 second 4 stock match. Grabs are easy to get when they have to tech on a platform since your grab covers most of the platform. You can also pull off grabs by using shield SDI (fiction does this with fox), theres a great post on here ill leave a link.
http://smashboards.com/threads/do-you-use-shield-di.314831/

Also here's some young link reference material for anyone that cares to watch axe play young link vs westballz falco - 6:47
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Grt58qRODs

 

[ihasabuket]

I disagree.

Against Captain Falcon, you often have more good options than you do against Marth. This is especially true in netural, where Falcon is far more susceptible to projectiles than Marth. I feel like, in this matchup, it's easier to deal with Falcon in neutral game and in the punish game when the advantage is yours; however, if Falcon is punishing you, he can often do quite a bit more damage.

Let's break it down.



Neutral Game - Young Link's Options against Marth
Young Link is fairly limited in the neutral game against Marth; since his sword renders your bombs a non-issue, YL's ability to effectively camp is heavily reduced. You are going to have to rely more on boomerangs and arrows; bombs are just a situational mixup. Since Young Link likes to rely on camping in the neutral game, losing (or at least drastically reducing the effectiveness of) a whole host of options in your bombs is really bad. This is especially bad against Marth because he can punish you really hard if you play aggressive.

His grabs get a fair amount of mileage, and his sword hurts. Unfortunately, Young Link is easy to combo due to his weight, so one grab or hit can mean the stock or getting to death percent (which, against Marth for Young Link, can be as early as 60-70%). So you're forced to play with a crippled camping game, and you can't really go in all that much to compensate for it. You have to camp harder than ever with your boomerangs and arrows, and on top of that, you have to be really solid with your hit-confirm two-hit "combos".

If Marth decides to approach, there isn't that much you can do besides run away and camp if the Marth is playing smart.



Neutral Game - Young Link's Options against Falcon
Young Link is limited in the neutral game against Falcon, but that's due to Falcon's speed. Falcon doesn't have any good way to deal with projectiles other than maneuvering around them, which he's really good at. However, his lack of other tools to deal with projectiles makes it kind of easy to control lots of space and, to an extent, Falcon's positioning choices.

Boomerangs and bombs are also effective in stuffing Captain Falcon's approaches, which is a good thing because Falcon is often forced to be aggressive. If you are able to punish Falcon for that, which YL can do a lot of the time, then you can get lots of mileage off of it because you're able to effectively nullify lots of the options that Falcon needs. This forces Falcon to adapt and re-evaluate, and it almost always leads to a less-effective Falcon. This removal of options is very similar to Marth nullifying the whole bomb problem in that it drastically reduces the effectiveness of the affected character.

Though it seems like Falcon would be a fairly easy matchup based on the explanation above, it's still definitely very hard. Falcon is still extraordinarily mobile and has a fantastic punish game. If Falcon nets a grab or a nair, he will do a lot of damage and oftentimes kill you. Falcon can 0-death Young Link with relative ease due to his weight granting him the gift of dying early and being especially susceptible to combos.



Based on neutral game alone, Marth is a harder matchup because you have far fewer options. Since what dictates the difficulty of a matchup is just the array of options both characters have at any given time, Marth is therefore harder. On top of Marth being harder in neutral, he is also far harder to edge-guard than Falcon. If Falcon goes low, grab the edge; if he goes high, hit him with a nair or fair with or without a boomerang or bomb preceding it. When edgeguarding Marth, you have to rely more on shenanigans such as bomb --> dsmash. At least with Marth you can at least be fairly sure that he will want to recover low. Young Link has the kit to edgeguard both at least fairly handily, but Falcon is much easier. The one way Falcon is more difficult than Marth is in his extraordinary punish game against YL; however, Marth still does fine in that field.

In my opinion, Young Link's hardest five matchups, in order from hardest to easiest, are Fox, Falco, Sheik, Marth, and Falcon. I can write up a monster post on why I think this, but I don't have the time right now.

Among the top tiers i think marth is the one i have the easiest time with. He can only avoid getting hit by bombs if hes fairing in place or retreating in which case you can just throw another projectile. He shouldnt be getting zero to deaths on you unless youre not covering the ledge with projectiles before recovering. You also have air dodge on to stage and airdodge grapple as recovery mixups. Marth doesnt have very long combos on ylink either, most of the time you just end up offstage. You can punish his normals with shield grab or if he spaced an attack really well WD OoS->normal. Your spotdodge is good enough to punish his moves and grab but you can also stuff his grab approach with jabs. Your problem may be that youre getting thrown offstage and edgeguarded, or maybe youre jumping too much in neutral. I got better at the marth matchup by using captain falcon against my friends marth in pm. I learned that you have to play a good horizontal game, avoid the platforms and the air, and work on your spacing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qzfr9iepFgQ - more reference material ylink vs marth

 

[JANKX]

Is it possible to amsah tech Fox's up smash when you're at higher percents? I watched the Axe vs Silent Wolf match again and Pikachu was at 0% before Fox did jab -> up smash. I saw a video guide for amsah teching as Jigglypuff and it basically said that teching up smash only works at low percents: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZXdE0r2m4I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCHYfFbVL7A - Another reference video of Axe's Young Link vs Marth. He loses the set because he gets caught in Marth's dtilt way too much, but it seems like Axe could have circumvented it with better recovery.

 

[ihasabuket]

Yup thats true you have to be at lower percents to tech the upsmash but because young links falling speed and weight arent that low you can tech it at higher percents than jiggs. Also fox wont lose all his momentum after he amsah techs and will have to go through his tech roll animation which can probably give you an easy offstage edgeguard.

 

[Avro-Arrow]

Among the top tiers i think marth is the one i have the easiest time with. He can only avoid getting hit by bombs if hes fairing in place or retreating in which case you can just throw another projectile. He shouldnt be getting zero to deaths on you unless youre not covering the ledge with projectiles before recovering. You also have air dodge on to stage and airdodge grapple as recovery mixups. Marth doesnt have very long combos on ylink either, most of the time you just end up offstage. You can punish his normals with shield grab or if he spaced an attack really well WD OoS->normal. Your spotdodge is good enough to punish his moves and grab but you can also stuff his grab approach with jabs. Your problem may be that youre getting thrown offstage and edgeguarded, or maybe youre jumping too much in neutral. I got better at the marth matchup by using captain falcon against my friends marth in pm. I learned that you have to play a good horizontal game, avoid the platforms and the air, and work on your spacing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qzfr9iepFgQ - more reference material ylink vs marth

Oh. My. Goodness. You did not just link The Gregfather did you? That commentator is so annoying, my goodness. XD

 

[EddyBearr]

You can't actually Amsah tech foxes up-smash because of the trajectory it sends you at -- you can't smash DI into the ground during hitstun and tech it, that's referred to as forbidden smash di.

Being able to double-stick tech Fox's up-smash at very low percents (Which I don't fully understand, and I don't know if the lanky Young Link can do it like the ball shaped Pika or Puff) isn't the same as Fox being able to tech our kill move and cancel all knockback at 999%. I do not think Young Link can cover many options after an Amsah roll-tech. He's not -that- fast.

 

[ihasabuket]

I dont really understand why you can amsah tech the upsmash at low % either but amsah teching doesnt cancel momentum it just applies traction (which reduces your momentum) because you slide on the floor. You still fly pretty far and if its a small stage you can prbably reach them considering the spacies tech rolls are 40 frames long and their side b has about 20 frames of startup.

 

[JANKX]

Young Link can amsah tech Fox's up smash (uncharged) up to around 20%. So it's useful to be prepared to execute it if you miss a grab or down smash at low percents.

 

[ihasabuket]

Itd give you 24-34 frames to punish him depending on how early the upsmash hits you, but since were assuming youre in front of him so you can tech well say that he hit you frame 7 or 8. neutral tech is 26 frames so youd have 7-8 frames to punish him. You can potentially get a nair, jab combo, or maybe a grab if you know he is going to shield.