Playing Ganon more aggressively

[JimPaladin]

Here's a random discussion thread for the Ganon community to talk about;

Let me start by saying I'm not a big 'meta competitive blah blah' kind of guy. I think Smash tournaments are fun to watch and I don't mind people taking the game more seriously but I find a lot of the would-be technical babble lots of people shoot out to really just be mostly silly when even 'high level' competitive matches always tend to be two sweaty guys randomly mashing wave dashes and c-sticks hoping they'll hit something.

Now that I've thoroughly denounced talking about technicalities of Smash gameplays, let's talk about some technicalities of Smash gameplay.

Ganon seems to be a pretty underrepresented character in (I'm sighing as I type this) high-level competitive Project M play. When I see videos of him, I see him played rather passively and never going in much. I do understand this is simply due to the fact Ganon gets juggled easily once in the air and can't go so toe-to-toe with other characters like Fulcko very well due to the fact he's an obese ****** gypsy who lives in a pyramid all day.

In Brawl, Ganon was neigh unplayable. I don't know what he was doing on the competitive sides of things because I wasn't following the community at all back then, but I can't imagine he was doing very well. He was slow, had almost no mobility and going up against a character with any speed at all, urban legend has it, would just instantly result in the victory screen with Ganon clapping in the background. With Project M, however, he's gotten some aggressive mobility from his Wizard's Foot and side-b slide/grab (I'm not sure if he had that one in Brawl or not). When I see gameplay of Ganon, the Ganon almost always goofs around on platforms like he's trying to mate with them, hoping the Falco player will mistake his platform dashing as signs the other player is suffering a stroke and will be an easy KO.

I understand Ganon's flaws and that Wizard's Foot makes him quite vulnerable if not used correctly, but I've noticed whenever a Ganon begins to be more hyper-aggressive, he usually ends up at least performing better. Wizard's Foot is rarely utilized in high level games I watch, and I understand why but I also don't understand why. When used correctly, Wizard's Foot is a great tool to get around the stage and make or clear distance. Ganon, as a heavy weight character, is also incredibly powerful (I think he's got some of the highest damage smashes in Project M, doesn't he?). I think lots of people are too attached to his flaws that they don't commit to more of a "get right in there and trade blows" kind of playstyle that, from what I like to believe, Ganon excels in.

So, I call for playing Ganon much more hyper-aggressively. Staying on your opponent and, while you're taking percentage, always causing more to your opponent. Utilizing Ganon's weight, power and snap mobility to engage in and out or at least force projectile spammers to move around or shield to avoid the Wizard's Foots.

Anyways, I'd like to hear what the potatoes of Smashboards have to say about this.

 

[Russy]

I think that ganondorf is best played with a Hot/Cold mentality

Basically for the first 30ish seconds of a stock I play to feel my opponent out, see what kind of approaches they're making, I make dashes in and play the mindgame angle super hard, so i can see when they shield, when they back off, and when they return with aggression. I call this the "Lukewarm" phase.

Once i've got a pretty good idea of how they're reacting, I do the same strategy, but throwing in attacks here and there. If they're consistenly shielding my attacks, the water is "Hot" and i need to cool it down and play more passively, baiting mistakes and getting hard punishes with tilts and grabs. However, if i'm getting in their head and getting alot of my attacks in, the water is "Cold", so I crank up the heat and go balls to the wall aggressive to overwhelm them and get a quick kill with ganondorf's powerful, crushing aerials.

Ganondorf should never be played only aggressively, you'll never get anywhere playing like that, i know, i've tried and it just doesn't work as well as you'd think