DemonicTrilogy
Smash Lord
Wth... I was talking about how MK owns SoPo... Are we even on the same page -_-||...
Edit: Yeah, misread... But seriously, don't get so mad just because I made a mistake...
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Only the Lonely - The SoPo Matchup Thread / #2-Snake
- Thread starter l!nk_aut
- Start date
Edit: Yeah, misread... But seriously, don't get so mad just because I made a mistake...
FrozenHobo
Smash Hero
YES. but you seem to be reading my posts as saying the opposite.....
DemonicTrilogy
Smash Lord
I edited all the crap...
FrozenHobo
Smash Hero
sorry for going off, but i had just finished/was in the middle of an argument/discussion with sword and was still in attack mode. it was an honest mistake, but at least we're all ont he same level now: MK beats SoPo majority of time.
DemonicTrilogy
Smash Lord
It's fine. I have a question though on this match up. What would be your best chance at blocking an approaching MK as SoPo.
Sorry about the misreading thing...
FrozenHobo
Smash Hero
retreating blizzard. uair can help but are somewhat circumstantial. our tilts are pretty much all beaten (sometimes you can get a lucky utilt, but don't count on it), you can sometimes time a fair to hit him out of his glide, but the timing is VERY tight and not entirely worth the danger your in if you mess up.
nasir123
Smash Ace
umm well due to my experiance shield grab is kinda useful when using IC in m/k matchup 
Thats cause everyone has a grudge agaisnt him =D
We still need to find someone with difficulty 5 for this to work.
I like to never attack first with single climber. It's a lot safer to punish moves rather then to build up damage. Many people are really aggressive against single climber so it works out pretty well. I will grab first though.
At Ozzfest I was playing a Marth player 3rd round and he was winning pretty much the whole first match. He killed my nana when popo was at like 150% on my last stock while he was at 100%. I managed to pull out the win.
The second match I grabbed him once, stock gone. I grabbed him again right when he came back (I had like 10%) and started CGing and he just quit out even though he had 2 stocks left.
At Ozzfest I was playing a Marth player 3rd round and he was winning pretty much the whole first match. He killed my nana when popo was at like 150% on my last stock while he was at 100%. I managed to pull out the win.
The second match I grabbed him once, stock gone. I grabbed him again right when he came back (I had like 10%) and started CGing and he just quit out even though he had 2 stocks left.
C~Dog
Smash Champion
I dont know whether this is something to aspire to or not =x
My Sopo usually does okay. People tend to get careless one Nana is gone, letting me rack up a fair amount of damage, and occasionally a KO.
nasir123
Smash Ace
honestly with single popo don't go offensive like hylian said mainly punish but don't jsut stand the do shb-airs and the second hop b-airs and then ffb-airs trust me it works because it out prooritizes all of m/k's moves exept for shuttle loop but b-air out ranges it so gg to the other player XD
and with IC just de-sync ice blast forward but dun ferget you have another person with u so if they be cool and go above you you always have a shot at going and doing and u-air or u-tilt
and with IC just de-sync ice blast forward but dun ferget you have another person with u so if they be cool and go above you you always have a shot at going and doing and u-air or u-tilt
FrozenHobo
Smash Hero
except this is a discussion about SoPo, so this entire part of your post is pointless.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ohl373LU1qU
Last stock (even though the mistake speak for itself), keeping pressure and taking almost all oppoturnitys to damage MK is genereally worth it, since that is more taking the stock in small steps instead of thinking that SoPo needs to take the whole stock.
Something IMO extreemly important is to take move decay into account so you won´t have used your F/Usmashes so it wont kill at around 140% for sure, and try to hit with every Iceblock and othermoves that the opponent won´´t thionk matters anyway.
Getting grab and their pummels is probably something that needs to be used more since it helps getting the other attacks kept strong.
Last stock (even though the mistake speak for itself), keeping pressure and taking almost all oppoturnitys to damage MK is genereally worth it, since that is more taking the stock in small steps instead of thinking that SoPo needs to take the whole stock.
Something IMO extreemly important is to take move decay into account so you won´t have used your F/Usmashes so it wont kill at around 140% for sure, and try to hit with every Iceblock and othermoves that the opponent won´´t thionk matters anyway.
Getting grab and their pummels is probably something that needs to be used more since it helps getting the other attacks kept strong.
Well, since noone started before, i guess il do it.
MK: Difficulty rating of 7 out of 10
I will proceed in this fashion: Ground game, air game, blind spots, the usefullness of blizzard/ice blocks, edgeguarding/killing, the opponents killing move followed by how to recover, with a final conclusion.
First of all, we have a chaingrab on metaknight, which lasts decently long(up to 50ish with fsmash i believe, and if anyone can tell me which is better to upsmash or fsmash would be usefull). This grab is not easy nor too hard to obtain. As with double climbers, we can still pivot grab the nado, or grab a short hop fair by using a running shield to grab as they fall.
On the ground, MK will most probably abuse his range with forward and down tilts and something rush in for the easy grab. MK's also tend to abuse the fact that other ice climbers try to get a grab at low %. They will therefore abuse of spotdodge to tilts or dsmash at higher %. In order to avoid this, you have 2 choices. Either try to bait the spotodge to get a free grab after, but this can be dangerous since if he sees that you are going to do this he can punish before the grab instead of spotdodging. The second option is viable at lower and higher %, it is jabbing.At low %, you can sometimes get in a running grab after the jab on unwary MKs, and at high % it is usually a better choice than grabbing since for a slightly lower output of damage you get a very safe option.
In the air, metaknights can combo solo climber alot with upairs. When you are in the air, some MKs will take for granted that you have a completely blind spot in front of you, which you can punish by a fast nair if he doesnt space well. Also you can use fair as a surprise killing move. Your bair doesnt outrange his fair but it comes out very fast and can be used to kill MK too. When you are under MK in the air, you can usually try to go for the up air if you are directly under, and get in a few extra % with up air to up air. When slightly above MK, you have to watch out for the obvious Up-air comboes and the jump to nair which can kill, but also the tornado which can come out surprisingly fast and kill when you are near the top. You can go through the tornado which is under you with a dair, I believe it is also possible to trade with the nair but the upair outranges you. Nair and nado counter your spotdodge options but you can quickly change your falling speed by using side-B, but at the cost of maybe getting punished near the ground or by the tornado.
The hard thing vs MK is that he has no obvious blind spot. This is because he can use dair to hit horizontally . This is very dangerous, because even though we outrange his down air in a purely vertical way, we must make sure that your spacing is perfect and we come from directly under him or he gets a free dair, which while at low % isnt so bad, can easily throw us offstage at high %.
Blizzard is very effective in this matchup because it is one of the only thing that outranges MK's sword. It is also very usefull to stop metaknight from overabusing the nado. Ice blocks are also decently usefull but must not be abused because metaknight can very easily nado through them to you. The only problem with blizzard is that it will more than likely trade hit with a following dair when MK breaks out from above.
In terms of edgeguarding/killing, metaknight is on the easier end to kill but one of the harder to edgeguard. First of all, he happens to be light, meaning he has a very very small base knockback reduction. This means it is easier for us to kill him at low % near the ledge than at high % from the middle of the stage. This is because he has a high decelaration rate vertically due to his high falling speed. The most effective way to kill MK is to do a forward smash near the edge, as stated by lain it can kill at around 70%. Fsmash comes out very smash and has alot of range and can hit with the reverse part. Upsmash is good too agaisnt MK because it comes out very smash while running AND out of shield (PS to OoS upsmash=****). Back air is a bit hard to land on MK due to the fact that he can fair **** or nado **** when were at the same height. Forward air can be landed, but not more than once per game mostly due to its startup lag. Remember that up air can also be a killing move if not too stale, so when you grab make sure to use em headbutts. To edgeguard MK, one must stand outside of the range of the shuttle loop and spam usually blizzards/ice blocks. Metaknight is overall hard to effectively edgeguard.
Metaknights killing moves all send in a diagonal horizontal fashion, meaning that you must hold up in order to survive them. Fortunately, none of his killing move are that powerful except charged forward smash (for all the people out there who dont know, where your recovering alot of MKs will charge fsmash knowing that if you side b into them your dead meat). Also watchout for the shuttle loop, if you intend to dair through it try to not to use your double jump before or else you will be stuck outside the stage with no second jump. ALso remember to hold up when getting hit by it to survive as long as possible the shuttle loop. MK can easily edgeguard each of your recoveries, dairing and nairing them, using dsmash when you land.
Conclusion: Overall, this matchup is hard but doable due to the fact that MK is killed easily and can be chaingrabbed to get an easy percent. HEs comboable a bit and you can abuse the use of spotodge with jabs. It is still very hard due to MKs speed and gimping abilities put together with his long range. Fortunately bliThis is the reason why i rate it as a 7 on the scale.
I think i just started this XD
MK: Difficulty rating of 7 out of 10
I will proceed in this fashion: Ground game, air game, blind spots, the usefullness of blizzard/ice blocks, edgeguarding/killing, the opponents killing move followed by how to recover, with a final conclusion.
First of all, we have a chaingrab on metaknight, which lasts decently long(up to 50ish with fsmash i believe, and if anyone can tell me which is better to upsmash or fsmash would be usefull). This grab is not easy nor too hard to obtain. As with double climbers, we can still pivot grab the nado, or grab a short hop fair by using a running shield to grab as they fall.
On the ground, MK will most probably abuse his range with forward and down tilts and something rush in for the easy grab. MK's also tend to abuse the fact that other ice climbers try to get a grab at low %. They will therefore abuse of spotdodge to tilts or dsmash at higher %. In order to avoid this, you have 2 choices. Either try to bait the spotodge to get a free grab after, but this can be dangerous since if he sees that you are going to do this he can punish before the grab instead of spotdodging. The second option is viable at lower and higher %, it is jabbing.At low %, you can sometimes get in a running grab after the jab on unwary MKs, and at high % it is usually a better choice than grabbing since for a slightly lower output of damage you get a very safe option.
In the air, metaknights can combo solo climber alot with upairs. When you are in the air, some MKs will take for granted that you have a completely blind spot in front of you, which you can punish by a fast nair if he doesnt space well. Also you can use fair as a surprise killing move. Your bair doesnt outrange his fair but it comes out very fast and can be used to kill MK too. When you are under MK in the air, you can usually try to go for the up air if you are directly under, and get in a few extra % with up air to up air. When slightly above MK, you have to watch out for the obvious Up-air comboes and the jump to nair which can kill, but also the tornado which can come out surprisingly fast and kill when you are near the top. You can go through the tornado which is under you with a dair, I believe it is also possible to trade with the nair but the upair outranges you. Nair and nado counter your spotdodge options but you can quickly change your falling speed by using side-B, but at the cost of maybe getting punished near the ground or by the tornado.
The hard thing vs MK is that he has no obvious blind spot. This is because he can use dair to hit horizontally . This is very dangerous, because even though we outrange his down air in a purely vertical way, we must make sure that your spacing is perfect and we come from directly under him or he gets a free dair, which while at low % isnt so bad, can easily throw us offstage at high %.
Blizzard is very effective in this matchup because it is one of the only thing that outranges MK's sword. It is also very usefull to stop metaknight from overabusing the nado. Ice blocks are also decently usefull but must not be abused because metaknight can very easily nado through them to you. The only problem with blizzard is that it will more than likely trade hit with a following dair when MK breaks out from above.
In terms of edgeguarding/killing, metaknight is on the easier end to kill but one of the harder to edgeguard. First of all, he happens to be light, meaning he has a very very small base knockback reduction. This means it is easier for us to kill him at low % near the ledge than at high % from the middle of the stage. This is because he has a high decelaration rate vertically due to his high falling speed. The most effective way to kill MK is to do a forward smash near the edge, as stated by lain it can kill at around 70%. Fsmash comes out very smash and has alot of range and can hit with the reverse part. Upsmash is good too agaisnt MK because it comes out very smash while running AND out of shield (PS to OoS upsmash=****). Back air is a bit hard to land on MK due to the fact that he can fair **** or nado **** when were at the same height. Forward air can be landed, but not more than once per game mostly due to its startup lag. Remember that up air can also be a killing move if not too stale, so when you grab make sure to use em headbutts. To edgeguard MK, one must stand outside of the range of the shuttle loop and spam usually blizzards/ice blocks. Metaknight is overall hard to effectively edgeguard.
Metaknights killing moves all send in a diagonal horizontal fashion, meaning that you must hold up in order to survive them. Fortunately, none of his killing move are that powerful except charged forward smash (for all the people out there who dont know, where your recovering alot of MKs will charge fsmash knowing that if you side b into them your dead meat). Also watchout for the shuttle loop, if you intend to dair through it try to not to use your double jump before or else you will be stuck outside the stage with no second jump. ALso remember to hold up when getting hit by it to survive as long as possible the shuttle loop. MK can easily edgeguard each of your recoveries, dairing and nairing them, using dsmash when you land.
Conclusion: Overall, this matchup is hard but doable due to the fact that MK is killed easily and can be chaingrabbed to get an easy percent. HEs comboable a bit and you can abuse the use of spotodge with jabs. It is still very hard due to MKs speed and gimping abilities put together with his long range. Fortunately bliThis is the reason why i rate it as a 7 on the scale.
I think i just started this XD
FrozenHobo
Smash Hero
for what? he just reiterated what everyone was saying for the past 4 pages.
its like thanking wikipedia for discovering the information in its articles.
its like thanking wikipedia for discovering the information in its articles.
kackamee
Smash Master
You would kinda think MK would air camp more vs. SoPo knowing that the blizzard is comming...I unno though. BTW does anyone know if SoPo can do a grab release>uair on MK? I don't have my wii, so can anyone try it out for me?
I actually formatted it and added precision instead of it being random and also made it SPECIFIC, not just like LOL BLIZZARD! which is what a few people have been doing (not targeting anyone). This is more specific as it relates to each and every of MKs move. Also, since you are the one who mained sopo for so long, give us your opinion on this.
FrozenHobo
Smash Hero
i already did. page 1. we had a bit of a back and forth. it went on for a couple of pages. you integrated some of it into you big summary. any of this ringing a bell?
DemonicTrilogy
Smash Lord
Could we move on to the next character... This whole thread just got stuck on MK (how ironic since everyone hates him yet we are taking the longest on him).
Frankly, i dont believe this is gonna work if everyone isnt going to try to give input.
And input needs to be more than 4 lines long and be formatted/readable.
Thats how you get decent character matchup discussion.
I shouldn't post because you guys are obviously better than I am, but I do agree. MK is like 6 or 7 points out of 10
I agree with everything the swordgard summary said, except maybe for the part that blizzard is very useful in the matchup. I think that it is mostly useful to do retreating blizzards when mk approaches (mindgame, can also do pivot grab in some stupid approaches on his part) or starts a tornado (not mindgame).
I found that using blizzard semi-often with sopo gets easily punished. You don't have nana now to react while he is reacting to your blizzard, or to protect blizzard's ending lag, or to protect his DI up when he gets hit by it followed by an aerial (all this last part) if he is close enough. In my opinion its really useful 2 or 3 times if ou use it as a cheap mindgame vs his approaches or if you use it for stopping nados. But if you think is a good move to use often, In my opinion, there are better options.
Of course, maybe I misunderstood and swordgard just said that blizzard is really useful in A FEW SITUATIONS and it shouldn't be used more than rarely.
Just my 2 cents.
I agree with everything the swordgard summary said, except maybe for the part that blizzard is very useful in the matchup. I think that it is mostly useful to do retreating blizzards when mk approaches (mindgame, can also do pivot grab in some stupid approaches on his part) or starts a tornado (not mindgame).
I found that using blizzard semi-often with sopo gets easily punished. You don't have nana now to react while he is reacting to your blizzard, or to protect blizzard's ending lag, or to protect his DI up when he gets hit by it followed by an aerial (all this last part) if he is close enough. In my opinion its really useful 2 or 3 times if ou use it as a cheap mindgame vs his approaches or if you use it for stopping nados. But if you think is a good move to use often, In my opinion, there are better options.
Of course, maybe I misunderstood and swordgard just said that blizzard is really useful in A FEW SITUATIONS and it shouldn't be used more than rarely.
Just my 2 cents.
Well your right, it should never be spammed too close to MK, only when hes at the tip to keep him at bay. Because if you hit him as a whole he while get out by the top and get a free dair, which results in a bad trade for your at higher % because it can send you off stage at a bad angle.
Teh Future
Smash Master
My vote goes for 6 points out of 10. This is because while MK is a difficult character for sopo, he is actually one of the easiest for racking up damage if he is at low percentages due to the CG > fsmash. Once he is at higher percentages due to his light wieght it is very possible to hit with a tip'd fsmash or an upsmash underneath his jump and get the kill.
The toughest part is when he is at between 50-100% because you cant CG and it is tough to land a hit. One of the best ways to hit MK is with a blizzard because it outranges all (?) of his attacks, although spamming it is not a good idea because it is quite easy to simply stay out of range and punish the lag afterwards. Use blizzard more on reaction than trying to anticipate moves with it. MK can DI through it and dair you, but as long as you are not at >100ish it is worth it to get any damage on MK that you can.
^ my input, mostly just saying everything already said, but this thread kinda died D:
The toughest part is when he is at between 50-100% because you cant CG and it is tough to land a hit. One of the best ways to hit MK is with a blizzard because it outranges all (?) of his attacks, although spamming it is not a good idea because it is quite easy to simply stay out of range and punish the lag afterwards. Use blizzard more on reaction than trying to anticipate moves with it. MK can DI through it and dair you, but as long as you are not at >100ish it is worth it to get any damage on MK that you can.
^ my input, mostly just saying everything already said, but this thread kinda died D:
k i´ll give mk a 6. we can change it anyway... btw a good way to rack up damage between 50 and 100% is dthrow > upair
e: i updated the first post. i will put it more information when i´m back on my pc.
lets discuss about the guy who´s second on the tier list - snake
e: i updated the first post. i will put it more information when i´m back on my pc.
lets discuss about the guy who´s second on the tier list - snake
Il be doing a second summary tonight at some point.
Fino
Smash Master
The bold tags for mk in the OP are messed up.
~Fino
~Fino
JustNoOne
Smash Lord
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2008
- Messages
- 1,537
He's gonna **** our ***. Not much we can do.
He'll grenade cook us and throw them to deflect our ice blocks. We get hit like 5% everytime we get hit with ice blocks and really not much to do with that Ftilt of his alone...
I'd grab that Snake and Uthrow or Dthrow him into a Uair to keep him in the air as long as possible to juggle him so I can rack up damage and hopefully knock him out with a smash attack or finish him off with a CG if I do lose a stock when going solo.
Not much to do... I guess.
He'll grenade cook us and throw them to deflect our ice blocks. We get hit like 5% everytime we get hit with ice blocks and really not much to do with that Ftilt of his alone...
I'd grab that Snake and Uthrow or Dthrow him into a Uair to keep him in the air as long as possible to juggle him so I can rack up damage and hopefully knock him out with a smash attack or finish him off with a CG if I do lose a stock when going solo.
Not much to do... I guess.
FrozenHobo
Smash Hero
snake dash -> snake dash -> grenade spam -> snake dash -> edge **** -> utilt
10/10
**** it.
10/10
**** it.
Er, not really.
Sorry i had internet problems yesterday, ima post my summary tonight instead.
Snake: since MK was 6, im gonna put snake as 8.5 (because this scale is rleative and it seems like MK is our starting point). I couldnt decide between 8 or 9.
I will proceed in this fashion: Ground game, air game, blind spots, the usefullness of blizzard/ice blocks, edgeguarding/killing, the opponents killing move followed by how to recover, with a final conclusion.
First of all, we have no chaingrabs on snake. This mean no easy damage racking. Well, at 0% till like 9% i believe, dtrow to jab is a true combo i believe. So do it for that extra damage!
On the ground, snake is a high reward/low risk character vs popo. Everything he has outranges us, save for our blizzard. His tilts deal 21%, which can be mixed up with jabs to make even more damage. His grab can lead to dthrow tech chase. He also has very good options with nade camping and grabbing out of nades. Let us not forget the omni powerfull snake dash. Nor the godly ranged uptilt. All of this seems to make snake an invincible ground tank. In theory at least.
Turns out he has a few problems here and there. First of all, our blizzard is a bit better vs him because if we manage to hit him and freeze he has no instant response like MK with dair, he is stuck in the air, but be carefull since sometimes it sends him well placed for a bair which kills. The tilts can be powershielded followed by your own if close enough or if PS-ed during a run-shield you can get a grab off. If you get predictable, he will start grabbing more. When he is running toward you with a grenade in hand, the best thing to do is to upangle ftilt, you will never blow up the grenade. You can easily pivot grab the snake dash if it is predictable or shield grab by facing the opposite way . Bair can also dissuade snakes from coming too close. As for the uptilt, i guess just watch out for it. Spamming ice blocks is somewhat usefull at long-medium range, just make sure to not use it carelessly or his grenades will hit you. Try to use his grenades to block his own spacing too. Do not try to hit him carelessly with aerials or you will get ftilted, which hurts. Eventually, the game will turn between a rock paper scissors between his grab, his ftilt, your grab and your ftilt. He still has a better damage output though.
Also, if you somehow manage to land uptilt, you get a free 2nd one and maybe a follow up aerial, so use em =D
In the air, snake is killing machine. But a predictable one.Most of his attacks can be seen coming from a mile away, such as fair, nair or dair. His bair can come out fast, and his upair suprisingly fast too. The trick is to stay under him, or out of range if at any other angle. You can airdodge sometimes out of nair, so try to learn to SDI it to even further your survival chances. His bair can kill, his upair will be tried once in a while with fast falling to get an early KO.He can still use his nades to trade hits with your upair in order to damage you. If he is above you on a platform, you can upair and hit him without hitting the grenades if you are carefull during your spacing. You can usually get a few upairs vs him as he has no direct counter but airdodge, which can be countered by baiting it into another upair. However, it is kind of hard to follow after 2 up airs or up air to back air due to ice climbers very slow drift speed.
The weird thing about snake is that he has no blind spots on the ground, he outranges you but he has small risks on everything he does. The huge spot where you can hurt snake is on his landing. He has HUGE troubles landing, especially agaisnt characters who can keep him in the air like metaknight. Unfortunatly, this isnt the case for ics due to their very small drift speed. They do however have a very good way to punish snakes that are trying to land. Its to pivot grab em during their fall or shield grab they. Snake have basically 4 viable options when landing. To jump again before landing to avoid and further run away until they land. You cant do much here but continue on waiting onto the ground. Then he has to b reversal to switch his landing spot. You can grab snakes using nades to do this if you predict it. Then he has bair, which you can shield grab. And airdodge, which you can pivot grab. Out of the 3, bair is the only one dangerous to you, and snakes not airdodging can either be shield grabbed either way when they do bair or just fall to the ground. This is a huge advantage for ics that you must exploit as much as possible. Once you get the grab, either dtrow or uptrow again(dtrow is risky because at low% they may choose to just fall onto the ground again and be ready to own again), use both in order to minimize move decay. Good snakes will try to use platforms or the ledge to ensure easier landing.
Blizzard is kind of effective in this matchup. The good part is if it hits and launches snake in the air, its hard for him to punish. The bad part is, if it doesnt, your getting snake dashed or ftilted in the face. Grenades can also blow you up if they come into contact with the blizzard in an horizontal fashion (if they hit the top diagonal part, you wont get hit). The key is to use blizzard sparingly when snake his running low on shield.
In terms of killing, snake is a plain *****. His range makes it very hard to land any killing move except when hes the air or landing. Bair can be usefull to get an early kill sometimes, especially when edgeguarding. Same goes for fair. Otherwise, on the ground, he is pretty hard to hit due to his own disjointed range. Snake is also a bit hard to edgeguard considering to beat his upb we need aerials that deal over 7% at once, so we cannot use nair . Back air is pretty viable, but overall i believe it is usually better to just wait for snake to try to land. You can still grab the cypher, but most snakes will make sure to never fall intoa position where this will happen.
Snakes killing move are beast. Simple as it is, stay away from his nair, bair and upair in the air. On the ground, his uptilt kills at 100ish percent. His ftilt can kill if DI-ed bad, his jab is definitly a suprise killer too. He can also use c4 to kill. The mean thing about snake is he can kill in every direction, mostly upward, but if you keep DI-ing to the side, he will launch you too low to recover. You have to stay out of range of his uptilt at any cost at high%, or at least dissuade him to do it. His c4 can be used when hes out of the screen so that you dont see it fall, so keep an eye on this. You have to learn to DI on the spot, and whenever he hits with the first hit of jab or ftilt, make sure to hold shield and not only DI, yes it may set you up sometimes for a free grab, but thats better than getting uptilted because you werent expecting it. Whenever you get grabbed, DI up if he throws either side, or you will get killed sometimes. If he dthrows, roll away out of uptilt range (can still be ftilted, but wont kill you).
Snake will not edgeguard you in the same way most other characters do, because he will not go out of the stage to gimp you. He will instead heavily restrict your options using well placed nades and upsmashes or c4s. He will try to force you into doing a side b which he will punish with ftilt, or uptilt you out of it. Remember that during side b you get more knockback due to it being a move with variable lenght, so try not to get uptilted during it unless you are sure to survive it which will allow you to better choose where to land. Do not be affraid to go for the ledge and stall a bit there if necessary.
Conclusion: Overall, this matchup is really ghey, but not the worst due to a few of snakes glaring weaknesses. First of all, he has huge troubles landing, cannot camp platforms as effectivly as some snake mains would think, can be up air comboed fairly well, has a rock paper scissors game on the ground vs ice climbers despite his better damage output, can be gimped sometimes, has a weaker punish power to blizzard and the fact that you can use his nades vs him a bit.
I will proceed in this fashion: Ground game, air game, blind spots, the usefullness of blizzard/ice blocks, edgeguarding/killing, the opponents killing move followed by how to recover, with a final conclusion.
First of all, we have no chaingrabs on snake. This mean no easy damage racking. Well, at 0% till like 9% i believe, dtrow to jab is a true combo i believe. So do it for that extra damage!
On the ground, snake is a high reward/low risk character vs popo. Everything he has outranges us, save for our blizzard. His tilts deal 21%, which can be mixed up with jabs to make even more damage. His grab can lead to dthrow tech chase. He also has very good options with nade camping and grabbing out of nades. Let us not forget the omni powerfull snake dash. Nor the godly ranged uptilt. All of this seems to make snake an invincible ground tank. In theory at least.
Turns out he has a few problems here and there. First of all, our blizzard is a bit better vs him because if we manage to hit him and freeze he has no instant response like MK with dair, he is stuck in the air, but be carefull since sometimes it sends him well placed for a bair which kills. The tilts can be powershielded followed by your own if close enough or if PS-ed during a run-shield you can get a grab off. If you get predictable, he will start grabbing more. When he is running toward you with a grenade in hand, the best thing to do is to upangle ftilt, you will never blow up the grenade. You can easily pivot grab the snake dash if it is predictable or shield grab by facing the opposite way . Bair can also dissuade snakes from coming too close. As for the uptilt, i guess just watch out for it. Spamming ice blocks is somewhat usefull at long-medium range, just make sure to not use it carelessly or his grenades will hit you. Try to use his grenades to block his own spacing too. Do not try to hit him carelessly with aerials or you will get ftilted, which hurts. Eventually, the game will turn between a rock paper scissors between his grab, his ftilt, your grab and your ftilt. He still has a better damage output though.
Also, if you somehow manage to land uptilt, you get a free 2nd one and maybe a follow up aerial, so use em =D
In the air, snake is killing machine. But a predictable one.Most of his attacks can be seen coming from a mile away, such as fair, nair or dair. His bair can come out fast, and his upair suprisingly fast too. The trick is to stay under him, or out of range if at any other angle. You can airdodge sometimes out of nair, so try to learn to SDI it to even further your survival chances. His bair can kill, his upair will be tried once in a while with fast falling to get an early KO.He can still use his nades to trade hits with your upair in order to damage you. If he is above you on a platform, you can upair and hit him without hitting the grenades if you are carefull during your spacing. You can usually get a few upairs vs him as he has no direct counter but airdodge, which can be countered by baiting it into another upair. However, it is kind of hard to follow after 2 up airs or up air to back air due to ice climbers very slow drift speed.
The weird thing about snake is that he has no blind spots on the ground, he outranges you but he has small risks on everything he does. The huge spot where you can hurt snake is on his landing. He has HUGE troubles landing, especially agaisnt characters who can keep him in the air like metaknight. Unfortunatly, this isnt the case for ics due to their very small drift speed. They do however have a very good way to punish snakes that are trying to land. Its to pivot grab em during their fall or shield grab they. Snake have basically 4 viable options when landing. To jump again before landing to avoid and further run away until they land. You cant do much here but continue on waiting onto the ground. Then he has to b reversal to switch his landing spot. You can grab snakes using nades to do this if you predict it. Then he has bair, which you can shield grab. And airdodge, which you can pivot grab. Out of the 3, bair is the only one dangerous to you, and snakes not airdodging can either be shield grabbed either way when they do bair or just fall to the ground. This is a huge advantage for ics that you must exploit as much as possible. Once you get the grab, either dtrow or uptrow again(dtrow is risky because at low% they may choose to just fall onto the ground again and be ready to own again), use both in order to minimize move decay. Good snakes will try to use platforms or the ledge to ensure easier landing.
Blizzard is kind of effective in this matchup. The good part is if it hits and launches snake in the air, its hard for him to punish. The bad part is, if it doesnt, your getting snake dashed or ftilted in the face. Grenades can also blow you up if they come into contact with the blizzard in an horizontal fashion (if they hit the top diagonal part, you wont get hit). The key is to use blizzard sparingly when snake his running low on shield.
In terms of killing, snake is a plain *****. His range makes it very hard to land any killing move except when hes the air or landing. Bair can be usefull to get an early kill sometimes, especially when edgeguarding. Same goes for fair. Otherwise, on the ground, he is pretty hard to hit due to his own disjointed range. Snake is also a bit hard to edgeguard considering to beat his upb we need aerials that deal over 7% at once, so we cannot use nair . Back air is pretty viable, but overall i believe it is usually better to just wait for snake to try to land. You can still grab the cypher, but most snakes will make sure to never fall intoa position where this will happen.
Snakes killing move are beast. Simple as it is, stay away from his nair, bair and upair in the air. On the ground, his uptilt kills at 100ish percent. His ftilt can kill if DI-ed bad, his jab is definitly a suprise killer too. He can also use c4 to kill. The mean thing about snake is he can kill in every direction, mostly upward, but if you keep DI-ing to the side, he will launch you too low to recover. You have to stay out of range of his uptilt at any cost at high%, or at least dissuade him to do it. His c4 can be used when hes out of the screen so that you dont see it fall, so keep an eye on this. You have to learn to DI on the spot, and whenever he hits with the first hit of jab or ftilt, make sure to hold shield and not only DI, yes it may set you up sometimes for a free grab, but thats better than getting uptilted because you werent expecting it. Whenever you get grabbed, DI up if he throws either side, or you will get killed sometimes. If he dthrows, roll away out of uptilt range (can still be ftilted, but wont kill you).
Snake will not edgeguard you in the same way most other characters do, because he will not go out of the stage to gimp you. He will instead heavily restrict your options using well placed nades and upsmashes or c4s. He will try to force you into doing a side b which he will punish with ftilt, or uptilt you out of it. Remember that during side b you get more knockback due to it being a move with variable lenght, so try not to get uptilted during it unless you are sure to survive it which will allow you to better choose where to land. Do not be affraid to go for the ledge and stall a bit there if necessary.
Conclusion: Overall, this matchup is really ghey, but not the worst due to a few of snakes glaring weaknesses. First of all, he has huge troubles landing, cannot camp platforms as effectivly as some snake mains would think, can be up air comboed fairly well, has a rock paper scissors game on the ground vs ice climbers despite his better damage output, can be gimped sometimes, has a weaker punish power to blizzard and the fact that you can use his nades vs him a bit.
Sorry to doubles post, but guys, stop doing that.
Placing 1 liners in a matchup thread is really ghey and distracts from the actual discussion, especially when you list no reason to your choice. Instead argue agaisnt whatever argument people bring.
nice post swordguard. iteresting to see the matchup from your point of view. I like that you talk in a rock paper sisor way. Since its how i see the game too, especialy against against the IC. I will throw more grab next time i promise
I think you did not say it, but its my impresion that popo should try to recover as high as possible because i think snake has more stuff to hurt you when your not high enough
"side b which he will punish with ftilt" are you sure about this ? i think side B beats ftilt at least when your with nana, dunno
I think you did not say it, but its my impresion that popo should try to recover as high as possible because i think snake has more stuff to hurt you when your not high enough
"side b which he will punish with ftilt" are you sure about this ? i think side B beats ftilt at least when your with nana, dunno
FrozenHobo
Smash Hero
good post sword. i agree with all of that.
Oh, i meant hel get hit then ftilt, for more damage trade. Also shield to ftilt works.
So, stalking our boards to steal my strategies to beat me? D=