Before I say anything about the MU itself, be wary that my stance on what needs to happen with Shiek and my view of the MU have very little to do with one another. In fact, the changes I want to see to her would probably affect our MU with her less than most. I just want to see a balanced metagame that isn't centered around beating 1-2 characters, AKA not end up like Brawl.
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As for how we do in this MU... IDK. I'm still on the fence.
On one hand, everything I've ever said about this MU still seems to hold true:
-Hydrant blocks needles, allowing us to safely charge from afar and launch hydrant instantly if she does needle it. Fruits also beat needles. This is especially important since like us, she can't go instantly from charge to shield and has to go through neutral stance first, meaning key at some ranges can punish a needle charge on reaction.
-Trampoline OoS does put a hamper on her relentless pressure, and Fair at the range where jab follow ups would normally lock you in shield become unsafe. Also having a trampoline out means that shiek can no longer run up and grab, taking out a significant neutral game option for her. On the flip side, safe Dairs and Bouncing Fishes. Also cancelable grenade tosses by doing it above the trampoline.
-Side B to the ledge behind her when she recovers to punish her UpB. She is just as vulnerable to our ledge trap shenanigans as everyone else as well.
-Fruits help us a lot in the neutral game, but be careful of using them. If she grabs our fruit she can needle camp us for all of eternity.
-Once we have pressure on her, we can maintain it fairly well and combo her pretty well.
-We punish her in general more consistently than most characters.
HOWEVER from playing several good Shieks, I have learned a few other things:
-Shiek is still Shiek, and by that I mean that despite the fact that we may punish her more than most characters, she is still ridiculously safe, and a good Shiek will make it very hard to get a punish.
-While we have tools to help us in the neutral, Shiek still dominates it with her superior range and her lack of hurtboxes on a lot of moves mean that we are not going to be trading with her often, if at all.
-Hydrant will not help us escape juggles/get back to the ground. Uair beats it, and Vanish gives no ****s with that complete invincibility thing it has going on.
-While we can camp Shiek, all it takes is her catching one fruit for her to dominate the zoning war. Similarly while we can rush her down fairly effectively, she can outspace us with Fairs if she maintains good spacing, can wall us out until she gets an opening for a grab, which leads to a lot of guaranteed damage.
Now with smart fruit placement and good use of our normals, we can break this wall, but the risk/reward is never in our favor in the neutral game unless we get a stock lead.
If you DO get a stock lead, I would suggest at some point camping in front of the right side glitched hydrant. None of her moves can instantly break it, and if you are standing close enough to it, any attempt to attack you will either lose to or clash with the glitched hydrant. If she clashes with it, you get a free punish during her clash animation.
-It is incredibly hard to gimp Shiek. TBH you're better off setting up a ledge trap.
-While we have the ability to rack damage faster than most characters in the game, Shiek is going to be getting damage much more easily and consistently in this MU if she gets even a single grab or air-to-air Fair.
I used to think this MU was in our favor because of the first section of comments I just put up. The more I play it though the more I feel it is in Shiek's favor.
That said this MU is still definitely winnable and TBH whenever I lose to a Shiek I just feel I was outplayed and lost to the player, not the character.
