I'm curious as to where the favor in that matchup lies, myself. Cloud's Uair is phenomenal for juggling, which we're weak against, yet he's not so super mobile that he can exploit it as easily as the likes of Rosa and Sheik. On the other hand, his inability to ledge snap gives us myriad ways to mess with his recovery, be it countering from the ledge, dropping off in his way and countering, using Eruption, run-off Fair, or even spacing Fsmash if you want to get cheeky. And his only saving grace, Limit Climhazzard, is still vulnerable to Eruption.
Um, just saying, pretty sure that Cloud's dash and airspeed are at least equal to Rosa's. IMO Cloud's uair is better than Rosa's and Luma's combined.
In this matchup, you Ikes are going to face a problem you almost never normally face:
you're going to get out-disjointed. iirc all your aerials have less range than ours, but nearly all of your ground moves will out-disjoint ours.I guess not all of them, just nair and bair, but these are the ones we'll be using. Not sure how many ground moves of Ike's are actually feasible for outranging us, but Cloud will definitely want to wall you out with nairs and bairs, both of which can confirm into at least a grab, and occasionally Cross Slash and dtilt (for nair, ditlt won't work after bair because you'll have to turn around). Cloud's excellent landing frame data, huge aerial hitboxes, and lingering aerial hitboxes is something that I feel is THE key function of this character, not limit. Sure, limit is extremely important, but it's not the thing I think of when I think of Cloud's "gimmick". On the subject of Limit, in this matchup I feel it will be saved for recovery mostly. As Arrei said, it's still vulnerable to Eruption (are you sure? Wouldn't every char be vulnerable if you're exploiting this 1-2 frame vulnerablity?), but with a Limit Climhazzard in our hands, we can do some pretty nifty things. We can straight up just soar over you if you start your Eruption early; we can fly up, then shoot down for the edge, protecting ourselves with our falling hitbox (admittedly this is a bad option vs Eruption due to Eruption's high vertical hitbox); we can choose to not sweetspot and hit with the falling hitbox quickly (this is a pretty bad option overall, even less useful against Ike's huge sword); or we can not sweetspot, hit you or a shield, then release down and sweetspot during hitlag.
However, there are other ways we can use Limit in this MU. If you ever decide to Aether and I'm anywhere near you onstage, I can Finishing Touch and blow you away with it's windbox for a kill. You'll definitely want to try to avoid Aether as a recovery tool in general here, because unless you space it perfectly similar to the Mario MU, I can fsmash or Blade Beam you out of range of the protecting hitboxes on Aether. Even if you space it perfectly, we may be able to hit you with the hilt of dsmash (has surprising range) for a stage spike. If you Quickdraw and go high over Cloud, you should be fine most of the time, especially if you autocancel it. Even if you eat a punish, the worst it’ll be is a DA/grab, which is better than the LB Blade Beam you’ll take if I’m able to read when you’ll unleash Quickdraw at a low height (i.e going for the ledge/just above the ledge).
On the other hand, Cloud's recovery sucks. It just sucks. If you get him in a position where Cloud is forced to upb and not sweetspot, he should be dead pretty much every time. You guys know the ways Ike can destroy Cloud in this state better than I do. However, there are a couple ways Cloud can mixup his Climhazzard use if he’s forced to use it.
DISCLAIMER: I am not stating that Cloud’s recovery is good/better than Ike’s. I am simply stating the ways Cloud can mixup his recovery to make it slightly safer. I did not state these for Ike because I am unaware of the things Ike can do to mixup his recovery (besides the ways I have previously stated). Compare this to Ness. He has PLENTY of ways to mixup his recovery, but when it comes down to it, when he’s forced to use PK Thunder, his recovery sucks. Cloud doesn’t have nearly as many mixup options as Ness, but he has a few useful ones that can improve his safety offstage.
Cloud can sweetspot early with Climhazzard if you are within range of the ledge (he has a very large horizontal sweetspot range) when he sticks the Buster/Fusion Sword out during startup. This can be used at longer ranges by DJ -> airdodge toward the ledge, then canceling the ending frames of the airdodge with Climhazzard to hopefully sweetspot early and safely.
A wall jump -> Cross Slash when near the ledge will apparently give you 100% safety to Climhazzard and grab ledge, even on shield. (This is according to GHNeko, maybe I’m interpreting this wrong, idk)
We can always sweetspot with the downward strike of Climhazzard if we’re about a DJ’s height above the ledge, relying on the large hitbox of our descending sword for protection. However, this hitbox doesn’t fare very well against Ike’s well timed… um… like everything disjointed, and Counter.
Feel free to tell if any of this is incorrect! Just looking to learn! :D
MewSquared
hey man I watch you guys over at at tourney locator all the time you are super sick and tell hyrulehero grats on third last week awesome link play also I still would like to see if I could just get a quick Mario rundown if you guys already discussed it
