Project M Community MU Chart [αlpha]

[DMG]

i think you should put CF as +1 on mewtwo. mewtwo doesnt have many losing MUs but CF might be his worst in the entire game.

Not a big stickler for difference between 50-50 and 55-45, fine with it staying +1. Might be bias for losing to all M2 so far in bracket (what a weird char LOL). All it takes is 1 or 2 decent edgeguards to erase any 5 point difference, seems 50-50 if ur on point and 4-6 if you drop edgeguards as M2 or get "swamped".

 

[Tobb99]

Will go over a decent number of CF MU's since many seem off by a bit atm

Format: Number = Falcon perspective (+2 Falcon wins vs character listed, -2 he loses)

Spoiler

Bowser / +2 or +2.5
Zard / +1
ICs / +2
Ivy / +2
Mewtwo / 0
Olimar / 0
Pit / +2
ROB / 0
Snake / +1
Sonic / 0
Squirtle / +1
Yoshi / +2
ZSS / +1

Most of these are only 1 point shifts but they are more accurate ratings IMO.

I'm not sure of the Olimar matchup and the ROB matchup.

Oli: Pretty much every one on the Olimar board agreed that this matchup favors olimar, not by much however like 55-45 or 60-40. I personally don't know much of this macthup but I assume that Olimar being a small character can give trouble for Falcon. I also think he's tough to combo as Falcon. I have heard that Olimars f-smash stops a lot of approaches and also is great for edge-guarding falcon. I can see Olimar also having great punishes if he gets a grab. That can either lead into fair>offstage and go for an edgeguard, or for up-airs juggles, up-air having an insane range and priority.


ROB: When I looked at the ROB boards most people seem to think that it is a bad matchup for ROB, like 40-60 in Falcons favor. ROB is in sort of similar to Samus, in terms of combo weight, who is a character who gets combod hard by Falcon, and the same thing goes for ROB. Falcons speed allows him do dominate the match, ROB doesn't have a good option to hit right in front of him which makes Falcons nairs and other airial approaches very dangerous, as they can lead into the knee easily. One of ROB's strengths is his great recovery, but it has little significance in the matchup since the knee is such a strong finisher so he won't get the chance to recover anyway. ROB on the other side do got some chain-grabs, a good punish game and a good edge-guard game, but all in all the Falcon seem to have an easier time than ROB in this matchup.

 

[Kneato]

I'm glad some people are still paying attention to this.

I think the current state of the chart is ok to use as a basis for growth. A number of these matchups are outdated or inaccurate, but note wildly so, and a number of others are still relatively spot on.

I think it may be a good time to revisit this and start gathering new data. My general plan to do so would be to take the current matchups listed for each character and just post them in that character's board as your own opinion. Yes it's inaccurate, yes it will make people mad, but like some guy once said, the best way to get the right answer to something, is to post the wrong answer on the internet.

 

[Tobb99]

I don't know, maybe that's a bit hasty. Maybe a better way is to fix match-ups some at a time, rather than at once. Especially those a lot of people and experienced players agree on. That will make things more smooth and not so sudden, if we touch up match-ups some at a time rather than all at once. The ones I mentioned were match-ups which I have seen most people agreed on which is why I posted them.

Bowser - Jigglypuff 60-40
Dedede - Jigglypuff 60-40, 55-45
Ice Climbers- Meta Knight 55-45 (don't know much of this, Phresh is the only one I've heard said anything on the match-up, but maybe not a -2 as of current state)

Also I don't know about some of Bowser's match-ups, they look worse then they might be. I'm thinking specifically about the match-ups against Dedede, Kirby and Jiggs (stated above). I don't know if they are advantageous or not but I don't think they're -3, seems too much IMO.

Also following the recent post on the Dedede match-up board as they're discussing Ness. Some seem to think that the match-up is advantageous for Dedede, opposed to what the chart says.

 

[nimigoha]

Kneato maybe if we had PM at EGLX we could gather more data

 

[Kneato]

nimigoha Lord knows I want it there too. But it's not really my decision.

Good news though is that it's starting to look in the realm of possibility. Maybe.

 

[nimigoha]

That's fantastic, at least there's a chance however small.

 

[Tobb99]

Some more questionable matchups I found when looking a bit closer:

DK - Fox probably 50-50, or slight advantage to Fox

Ice Climbers - Dedede 60 - 40, Icies are good against big characters, and Dedede has a tough time aginst them, I've heard.

Ice Climbers - Shiek wasn't this machup 60-40 or so in melee? I can't see that much have changed in PM. Both characters have had slight tweaks, but not something that I'd assume change the MU ratio. If so, in Icies favor, better recovery, better desyncs, still got a good grab game even without wobbling.

 

[shairn]

Shiek's grab game is a lot faster, which helps getting in on ICs I suppose.

 

[Tobb99]

What do you mean by "Shiek's grab game is a lot faster"? faster grab animations? Faster combos out of grabs??

 

[DMG]

Faster grab animation / less endlag after actual throw. If Nana lags behind or was knocked away recently, something like quick Bthrow to split them is more effective than Melee version.

 

[cisyphus]

idk if I've posted in here yet, but here goes [ordered within groups from worst to best for Snake]:
-2
-1
=
+1
+2||

Spoiler: write-ups

Spoiler: Bowser - 65:35 Snake's Favor

Bowser's biggest problems against Snake is the neutral game. Bowser is slow, lacks very many mixup tools, and generally struggles to catch up to Snake. Meanwhile, Snake has all of the tools and traps to play keepaway with Bowser until getting a hit in. This ranges from Snake's mass of projectiles, threatening any space on stage at any time as well as his fast, long, and strong normals. Once Snake gets a hit, it's revealed just how rough the punish game is as well for Bowser. Snake chaingrabs Bowser, has no problems linking fair and dair out of other hits to extend combos, and Bowser's massive size makes all of Snake's explosives that much more potent against Bowser. In a similar way though—and this is probably the saving grace for Bowser—is that his punish game is comparably as strong as Snake's, if not stronger. Bowser's juggle game is potentially really good, and should the Snake whiff or misstep at all, he's eating some big damage. Bowser's super-strong hitboxes also nullify Snake's survivability to some extent, making this MU not nearly as difficult as you'd initially think. Still, Snake can work the stage either by removing Bowser's ability to move safely on small stages or by camping Bowser out on large stages. He can win two neutral exchanges and close out Bowser's stock, which comes a lot more easily to Snake than to Bowser.

Spoiler: Captain Falcon - 50:50 Even Matchup

People really overestimate Falcon in this MU, I think. There are traditionally three things that make for a hard MU for Snake: disjoint, projectile, and speed. Falcon only has one of those, but has a huge issue on the punish game as well. Falcon struggles to find an in on Snake in general: grabs and uair are ducked, nair is CC'd into a punish, and knee can be baited into a punish via Snake's anti-airs, or grenades. Similarly, Snake is capable of shutting down a lot of Falcon's movement via explosives, and while the speed makes Falcon difficult to catch, Snake's hitboxes and hurtboxes out of crouch are immensely strong against Falcon. Similarly, Snake's punish game on Falcon is devastating: talking zero to death combos, regardless of DI from the Falcon. Up Tilt can set up a techchase at zero, as can f-tilt and u-throw. The chain grab runs from ~15% to 70%, which still sets up a c4 stick into a techchase (and Falcon's one of the few characters Snake can completely catch in the techchase game), and 70% guarantees u-throw, u-air, c4 KO's on nearly any stage (Dreamland might be an exception, but the combo is guaranteed up to ~100% anyway. Moreover, There's forward air, back air, neutral air, and down air all covering any DI path for large swaths of percentage on Falcon, whereas Falcon can kind of struggle to punish Snake as hard due to his high weight limiting throw follow-ups to an extent. Even if Snake doesn't KO outright, Snake just has to throw back airs at Falcon and edgeguard him to death, which is a task Falcon doesn' perform to the same efficiency. Essentially, Falcon has a slight edge in the neutral since Snake has to limit what he's able to do in order to properly deal with Falcon's kit, but Snake's advantage over Falcon in punish game is what brings this back to even.

Spoiler: Charizard - 50:50 Even Matchup

Charizard runs into a few of the same problems that Bowser does in that he's very limited by Snake's stage control game due to his large hurtbox. Moreover, his ridiculously small no-tech roll makes Snake's down throw exceedingly strong against Zard. However, Zard has two key components that make him perform a ton better: Speed and range. Charizard is waaaay faster than Bowser, and he has a lot of tools to get in on Snake that Bowser didn't have. Similarly, his long-range aerials and normals make for really effective boxing capabilities. Charizard's floatiness also aids him to a small extent, as mid-percent combos are less potent, but this is where Snake's down throw shines anyway. What this matchup comes down to is whether Charizard can convert off of his neutral wins harder than Snake.

Spoiler: Dedede 60:40 Snake's Favor

It feels like a disservice to constantly refer back to Bowser when talking about Fatties, but Snake really deals with them all pretty similarly. The large hurtboxes make mines and grenades more potent given how much more likely they are to threaten relevant space of larger characters. The high weight of these characters make Snake's light-hit-to-hard-hit combos more potent—especially when these characters tend to lack effective combo breaks for sub-optimal inputs. Moreover, Dedede is slower than Zard by some margin and only has Waddles to disrupt Snake's projectile game, which really isn't terribly affected: Snake can freely place new mines and accurately gauge grenades' bounce patterns to minimize this disruptive quality. Dedede is also a semi-fastfaller, enabling a greater degree of comboing than against Zard or Bowser. The chaingrab goes longer, the aerial combos hit longer, and grenade and mine follow-ups are easier overall. Still, Dedede possesses both range and a projectile to mitigate some of his disadvantage, but these options are slow and Dedede inevitably needs to get close enouh to grab Snake, at which point his best punish (down throw regrabs into dropzone fair) don't even KO Snake effectively due to Snake's strong recovery game, which Dedede lacks the mobility to effectively cover, needing to read Snake's recovery path instead. It's not as if Snake has a resounding advantage here, but he certainly wins both the neutral and punish games to a notable degree.

Spoiler: Diddy Kong - 45:55 Diddy's Favor

Diddy has a lot of tools which directly combat Snake's kit. His speed, banana, and command grab enable effective gameplay around Snake's shield and pressures him to stay vulnerable to Diddy's otherwise low range. Banana beats out crouch cancel as well. Peanuts and bananas together can aid in forming a wall to box Snake out just as Snake attempts to box Diddy out. Generally, Diddy forces Snake to work offensively when Snake lacks a lot of the tools necessary to do so, which forces him to use suboptimal options, or count on the Diddy making a mistake in neutral. That said, Snake's punish game on Diddy is horrible for the monkey: chaingrabs from 0-35% and guaranteed follow-ups off of most stray hits until 80% is nothing to scoff at, and a single stick can certainly mean death for Diddy. Diddy meanwhile lacks options to KO Snake outright, forcing him to deal with Snake's massive aerial mixup game. Granted, Diddy can deal with this better than other characters, he still struggles to KO Snake outright, and so Snake's survivability becomes a clear issue for Diddy in the punish game: Snake dies at 175% while Diddy's lucky to see 100%. Still, Diddy can make the neutral game an uphill battle for Snake, making the punish game less important and favoring Diddy as a result.

Spoiler: Donkey Kong - 55:45 Snake's Favor

Donkey Kong is an interesting situation where both characters absolutely destroy the other on punishes. Donkey Kong has the speed and range to challenge Snake on the neutral to an extent, but inevitably, the problems for Donkey Kong are twofold: needing to rely on mixups to solidify his follow-ups on Snake and overcoming his disastrous size and fall speed. Essentially, if Snake understands the matchup and DIs appropriately based on DK's movements on Cargo throws as well as avoids his neutral pokes, Donkey Kong struggles to secure KOs on Snake. Meanwhile, Snake can easily zone Donkey Kong and force approaches. Once Snake secures a hit, they just keep rolling and rolling. It's another occasion of fatties getting wrecked on Snake's combo game while struggling similarly to overcome their size in the neutral, which Snake can abuse to great effect. Still, Donkey Kong's speed, range, and power help him a lot and I feel like he has the best MU of any fatty against Snake.

Spoiler: Falco 50:50 Even Matchup

Now I'm pretty much alone in this thought, but Falco doesn't have a lot going for him in neutral against Snake, but Snake also doesn't have a lot going for him against Falco in neutral. Their punish games are both huge on each other, with Snake's being slightly better overall, but Falco having a stronger edgeguarding game than most characters on Snake. This thing about this matchup is that Snake's crouch all but nullifies lasers: only the lowest laser height can hit Snake's crouch. All others whiff and can be powershielded if the Snake wants, although it really doesn't matter much. This means that Falco has to approach without lasers, which strips away a lot of his gameplan, although nair shine is still pretty safe on shield. However, this necessitates a late nair, which opens up Anti-air and powershield possibilities for Snake. Powershield f-tilt is as fast as Fox's shine OOS and wrecks falco completely. Snake also has Cypher OOS which can set up techchases or combos extremely easily, and it's as fast as Falco's shine out of shield. All of this makes for an extremely volatile matchup where both characters zero to death each other with relative ease, but the neutral is a deadlock based on mixups and prediction: the better player wins, and thus this is the definition of an even MU. Snake and Falco both have to play extremely carefully and maximize their neutral openings.

Spoiler: Fox - 45:55 Fox's Favor

Fox has the best projectile in the game, one of the fastest kits in the game, and one of the best shield pressure kits in the game, so naturally this MU is gonna be a little tough for Snake. It's based a lot around Fox's interactions with Snake's shield and the Fox's ability to maintain his stage control. If Snake is able to push Fox into a position of restricted movement, things become a lot harder a lot quicker. Foxes KO options are somewhat limited on Snake, as u-throw u-air is nearly frame-perfect at most percentages and trades with Snake's down air (and lets him convert) and Shinespike is effectively pointless in 3.6 and risks trading with Cypher (a trade that Fox will lose a stock for). This leaves up smash, which requires a whiff on Snake's part. Snake meanwhile doesn't have much to catch Fox with: lasers explode grenades, Snake is relatively slow, a lot of his traps are difficult to set up against Fox, and while his tilts are strong and fast, they need to be placed nearly perfectly otherwise a whiff punishment will come, and Fox's combo game on Snake is pretty strong overall. Meanwhile, Snake has arguably the best punish game on Fox with a 20-80% chaingrab that confirms directly into death, regardless of positioning. If Fox DIs onto a platform, the chaingrab continues; if he DIs to top platform, he cuts his survival by 20%; if he DIs offstage, forward air or back air are guaranteed at most percentages and KO outright or set up edgeguards. This is without even considering c4 sticking, which compounds problems for Fox. If Snake can maintain the pressure against Fox once he wins one exchange (and it's entirely feasible for him to do so) then the MU is entirely manageable. Snake can definitely box out Fox to a great extent, but Fox will always edge things out in the neutral and his punishes are strong enough that it's still a huge threat.

Spoiler: Game & Watch - 55:45 Snake's Favor

Game and Watch is an interesting case. The character feels really developed in some aspects, but very underutilized in others. I feel as though his punish game is immense and intimidating but his neutral game lacks a lot, despite having relatively good tools to coordinate it. Inevitably, G&W lacks speed to a great extent but has combos for days, disjoint where it matters, and a mediocre projectile for dealing with Snake. Bacon works as a good anti air, but Snake frankly doesn't ever want to be in the air against G&W. All of G&W's high activity tilts fall prey to tranq and grenades to a vicious extent, and while Snake doesn't combo G&W enormously well, the techchases and KOs on G&W happen easily (U-throw C4 kills at like 75%). Snake basically has an easy time countering how G&W's tend to play, forcing them to play a very different game against him.

Spoiler: Ganondorf - 65:35 Snake's Favor

Snake bodies Ganon. He's slow, his moves are slow, his reach is okay but in general Ganon struggles immensely to get in on Snake at all. Meanwhile, Snake is free to set up traps, move around Ganon, and either chip damage or convert massively off of grabs tilts. Ganon's saving grace is his ability to shut out Snake's survivability via super-strong aerials and down air on recovery. Meteors and Spikes in general hurt Snake's recovery a ton, considering they'll trade with Cypher head-to-head, which actually enables easier recovery for the opponent (Cypher's hitstun is less than their aerial's recovery time, typically) and if the Snake isn't prepared or Cyphered in the wrong spot the meteor cancel can come quite hard to them. Still, Ganon needs to make solid reads in neutral to have a ghost of a chance against Snake, and as a result this is one of Snake's easiest matchups.

Spoiler: Ice Climbers - 55:45 Snake's Favor

Icies boil down to two things in neutral, from what I've experienced: Ice blocks and grab. If they can set up one of these two things uncontested, they win the game. Snake stops this from happening with platform movement and grenades, primarily. If Ice Climbers do anything besides this, they're liable to get punished, and Snake's kit in general is extremely good about splitting up the icies: Cypher back air can send them in two different directions, after which Snake can eliminate Nana quickly and minimize most of their grab game. Grenades and mines can trip up icies as well due to latency in inputs between the two, and they generally die very quickly to Snake's KO options. It's a very slow-paced and arduous matchup, but one Snake can inevitably win

Spoiler: Ike - 55:45 Snake's Favor

Another matchup that kinda makes people **** their heads when I first discuss it, but once you get down to it, Ike is SLOW. His movement is slow outside of quickdraw and his attacks are slow, and that isn't a good thing to have against Snake at all. Quickdraw first and foremost is simply boost movement, and while Ike has a lot of options out of Quickdraw, they're limited and quantifiable, or so slow you can react to them anyway. QD JC grab, for example, whiffs on Snake's crouch. That means Ike can't grab from across the stage, so he has to aerial Snake—likely nair or fair, which, when combined with quick draw, becomes slow and meticulous to space well to hit a crouching snake. This leads to Snake being able to readily punish a lot of Ike's aerial options, which essentially eliminates Quickdraw from the matchup. It works as a mixup, but that's it. The rest is Ike's standard movement (subpar) with an admittedly strong disjoint, but slow startup on his normals really hinders this to some extent. Snake essentially just needs to zone around Ike and avoid these tilt hits. It becomes a game of trades, more or less, with both characters having roughly equivalent punish games on the other, but in the game of trades, Snake is going to come out on top a lot of the time, and Snake frankly has an easier time getting things started than Ike does, granting slight advantage in the MU.

Spoiler: Ivysaur - 50:50 Even MU

Ivysaur has a lot of good things going for her in dealing with Snake: projectiles, disjoint, a super useful edgeguarding kit, and a floaty weight which tends to avoid Snake combos at mid percents. I used to think this matchup was even, but realistically Ivysaur probably wins slightly on account of her stronger zoning game. Back air blocks grenades iirc, as does razor leaf which itself is a solid anti-approach tool, and seed bomb is a constant threat looming if Snake tries to platform camp, not to mention the devastation that is forward air. On the edgeguarding side of things, Ivysaur's bair—while SDIable—still challenges Snake's Cypher reliably and Ivysaur's recovery is such that super low edgeguards are no big deal. Moreover, down air's hitbox is enormous, and meteors eat Snake's recovery alive, especially considering—once more—that Ivysaur can go deep to get them. This is somewhat negated by the ease with which Ivysaur dies off the top, as well as Snake's foolproof mine on edge with snake on the ledge edgeguards. So long as the Snake avoids any seed bombs, razor leaves, or fairs to knock him from ledge, an Ivysaur at kill percent is helpless to recover. While the punish game feels very much snake-favored, the neutral certainly favors Ivysaur, who more readily boxes out Snake than vice-versa.

Spoiler: Jigglypuff - 60:40 Snake's Favor

In the truest sense, a war of attrition. The only way for Snake to make headway in this matchup is to camp jiggs out, but he is so very good at forcing Jiggs to make moves and kills so readily. mines, c4, mortars, and grenades all work extensively to prevent Jiggs from moving on various portions of the stage and more readily limits her bobbing and weaving playstyle until she inevitably gets hit by one of these things. From there, these same tools prevent her from finding a safe place to land. AGT grenades work phenomenally to cover space above snake while mines and c4 discourage landings anywhere near the vicinity. Mortars, too, can be used to great effect considering the long duration in which Jiggs remains in the air after the initial hit. In the truest sense, Snake has to never let the balloon touch the ground. Platforms assist this greatly, of course, and proper platform camping hampers so many of Jigglypuff's options. The saving grace is Jiggs' punish game on Snake, most likely. Juggling and edgeguarding are Jiggs's bread and butter, and Snake's such a weight and air mobility that Jiggs can abuse him in these regards, but proper DI and smart recovery out of the Snake minimizes this punish game to a large extent. Even Rest runs huge risks, as Snake has massive punishes available to him on whiff (KOing Puff as low as 15%) and still gains at the very least the pivotal c4 stick, which absolutely neuters puff's survivability in the matchup. Little disjoint, no projectile, and mediocre speed don't help, either.

Spoiler: Kirby - 65:35 Snake's Favor

Take everything that Jiggs struggles with, and throw in an easier combo weight, less powerful punish game, easier edgeguarding, worse tools for neutral, and poorer super-punish (side-b hammer for rest), and you get the Kirby matchup. Snake destroys Kirby in the exact same way he wrecks puff, but Kirby is even less equipped to deal with it. Snake can just as well force Kirby to never land, and the second a grab or c4 is landed, Snake's already won. Kirby can't even hope to approach Snake while he's above him, as throwing up airs is his only answer to platform camping, and Snake easily punishes this when he sees the second jump (press b and hold R ). I'm tempted to say this is 70:30 but Kirby DOES still have a reliable punish game on Snake, so we'll hold on that a bit. Snake wins neutral super hard, and while his punishes aren't ironclad, they're strong enough for Kirby's advantage in that aspect to be minimal.

Spoiler: Link - 50:50 Even Matchup

Link is an odd case of a slow character that nonetheless has a myriad of tools to deal with Snake to some extent. He's similar in a lot of respects to toon link, but his overall punish tree is less pronounced and he has to rely much more heavily on either poor DI or knowledge on the part of the Snake or war of attrition playstyle. Snake's punish game on Link is likely stronger than Link's on Snake. To my knowledge, Snake is one of the few characters Link cannot chaingrab, and most Link combo starters pale in the face of proper DI or SDI, which isn't the case for Snake combos by and large. The two characters effectively box the other out to a large extent and while Snake can struggle to find his entry point, Link will struggle just as much. Link similarly fails to edgeguard Snake as well as Snake can edgeguard Link, which helps far more than one might initially expect. Overall I feel it's an even matchup, but Snake could end up having the advantage in the end.

Spoiler: Lucario - 50:50 Even MU

I'm hesitant to say this is definitively Lucario Favor, but I certainly feel like it is presently. Lucario has a lot going for him, but inevitably he gets punished far too hard by Snake for it to be massively in his favor. Lucario's speed, movement, and punish game are huge boons to his counter-snake ability, and aura sphere are more useful in the matchup than people seem to realize. He does a good job of avoiding a lot of what Snake throws out and manages to punish Snake harder than Snake punishes him (which is really something amazing).

Spoiler: Lucas - 50:50 Even Matchup

Lucas is another weird case, as his ability to pressure and combo Snake once he gets an opening is fantastic, but getting the opening he needs is so damn hard. His movement is good, yet his hitboxes pale in a considerable way and a lot of his punishes feel escapable in some small way. Meanwhile, he gets punished just as hard by Snake due to that high fall speed and low weight as well as poor tech rolls, meaning easy zero to death sequences for the Snake. Lucas similarly can't counter-camp Snake effectively with only PK freeze to work with, but has some workable edgeguards against Snake, at the very least. I want to say it favors Snake due to the convincing neutral Snake can command against Lucas, but it might come down to a lack of quality Lucas mains to play against for me.

Spoiler: Luigi - 50:50 Even Matchup

Luigi's a funny one. He has burst movement in the same way Ike does, but generally he has more options out of his wavedash than Ike has out of Quickdraw, but inevitably his short range put him at greater risk of Snake's defensive options, and remaining grounded for so long makes tranq a very real threat to Luigi's safety. Moreover, Luigi lacks a solid way of returning to the ground once he's launched in the air, making Snakes massive kit of juggling tools so much more potent against him. Add to that a general lack of vertical mobility in the air, and Snake can manage a lot of Luigi's actions through simple platform camping. Luigi has some answers and some extremely strong punishes to make use of on Snake, which I think balances things out to a great extent. I'm not entirely convinced that Snake doesn't win this, but every matchup I've ever played against a Luigi has been a narrow victory for me outside of XYK (ended 3-1), so I'll leave that as it may be.

Spoiler: Mario - 55:45 Snake's Advantage

Mario struggles for a lot of the same reasons Luigi does. Snake's back air eats up fireballs all day and chips at Mario for trying to approach. This forces Mario to play more defensively and carefully, so Snake can back him into a corner a lot more readily. Mario also struggles to jump so being above him isn't so bad, either. Snake's super big back air helps against edgeguarding Mario's mass of options, and mine on stage into wavedash to ledge nullifies the invincibility frames on UpB to an extent (or you can Marth killer it). Once you take all that out of the equation, Mario's just a stubby little man that can't get in on Snake, who blows him up a few times and kills at like 80%. Mario's projectiles don't adequately deal with Snake's options nor can they counter-camp him to a notable extent. Good DI and SDI ruin a lot of Mario's followups due to his low range, whereas Snake can zone and punish Mario more effectively than the reverse.

Spoiler: Marth - 45:55 Marth's Favor

This is a historically bad matchup that Snakes are really starting to figure out a lot better. There's a lot of nuances and rules to follow when playing against Marth that really defy basic Snake gameplay. You can't jump against Marth, but Snake's projectile spam works best from above. You can't ledge tech against Marth even though it's damn near your best option. You can't even go near the ledge lest Marth hits you with that silly dair. You're almost unable to pull grenades since Marth can dash up and grab you on reaction and convert. But once you manage all of this properly and get a grenade out or set up a mine camp or actually catch the Marth slipping, Snake really goes to town on Marth. The punish game is really nasty and Snake can pretty easily convert into a death off of one neutral win. Moreover, if Snake can manage to survive the 50-90% range, he's likely going to be living until 150%+ against Marth. In essence, this matchup feels a ton like Marth vs. Peach where you need to get your items pulled. Snake loses Peach's hard combo weight and trades in better neutral options and, arguably, better punishes.

Spoiler: Meta Knight - 45:55 Meta Knight's Favor

An annoying matchup if I ever seen one. Meta Knight has so many tools to make Snake's life miserable. He combos Snake for free with juggle strings and braindead techchases, he edgeguards Snake for free just by pressing the A button a bunch. He's tricky to pin down and has mixups on nearly everything to make proper reactions a bit moot in a lot of ways. But good lord when he gets grabbed he's going for a ride. When he catches an explosion, he'll be flying. Meta Knight has to play around Snake's gameplay extremely patiently and consciously considering how devastating the combo game is on him, a lightweight fastfaller. We're talking potential deaths at 50% from u-throw f-air on the wrong DI path; we're talking zero to deaths essentially guaranteed via chaingrabs and down air strings. Meta Knight seems altogether similar to Marth in that Snake can't do a lot of the basic Snake things, but once you learn the rules of the game you struggle considerably less and start to make a lot of headway.

I'm bored right now so I'm gonna leave this for another day(s).

2/18 edit: threw in all the characters up to Mario. Might do more yet tonight, we'll see.

 

[Tomaster]

Some of these matchups for diddy are completely off.. Like ROB and Link.
ROB is pretty much universally considered bad for Diddy.. And all links ive talked to don't think they lose to Diddy, at least not by much.

 

[Tobb99]

idk if I've posted in here yet, but here goes [ordered within groups from worst to best for Snake]:
-2
-1
=
+1
+2||

I'm not sure about the ROB match-up, that it is a +2 for snake. ROB has good projectiles to counter snakes mines and granades. Also seems like people on the ROB board think the match-up is even as well.

 

[cisyphus]

I'm not sure about the ROB match-up, that it is a +2 for snake. ROB has good projectiles to counter snakes mines and granades. Also seems like people on the ROB board think the match-up is even as well.

Mhm, I'm aware. The thing with ROB is that Snake can coordinate neutral very well and generally ROB's projectiles aren't fast or scary in neutral and all of his approaches are telegraphed. Moreover the punish game is really powerful on Snake's end due to ROB's poor tech options and a good combo weight for Snake to deal with. Going against a character like Snake with these qualities is pretty daunting. I'll go into more detail later. I think a fundamental flaw in thought regarding Snake is that destroying mines equates to an advantage in the matchup: every character has tools to do this. Some waste more time than others to do it (like throwing a projectile at it instead of running up and hitting L). It's less that you have to deal with the mine and more you have to play with the mine in mind, which is a considerable difference.

 

[JesteRace]

This post is for where I think Link's matchups stand right now, excluding a few matchups that I have no experience with whatsoever. I will be posting what the current spreadsheet's numbers are and what I think they should be in paranthesis. I will provide elaboration for anyone who cares enough to ask.

: +1 (+2)
: -2 (agree)
: 0 (+1)
: -3 (-1)
: +1 (agree)
: -2 (agree)
: -3 (-2)
: +2 (agree)
: +2 (agree)
: 0 (+1)
: 0 (+1)
: -1 (0)
: +1 (agree)
: +2 (0)
: +2 (agree)
: -3 (0)
: +1 (agree)
: 0 (+2)
: 0 (-1)
: 0 (agree)
: -2 (-1)
: 0 (no idea)
+2 (agree)
: 0 (no idea)
: +2 (agree)
: -1 (no idea)
: +3 (+2)
: 0 (agree)
: +1 (agree)
: +2 (agree)
: -3 (-2)
: 0 (agree)
: -1 (no idea)
: no input (+1)
: -1 (0)
: 0 (-1)
: no input (-2)
: +2 (+1)
: +2 (agree)
: 0 (no idea)

 

[Tobb99]

Olimars matchup seems pretty fine. But some things I think are incorrect:

I think the Olimar - Kirby matchup is slightly in Olimars favor +1.

The Olimar - Samus matchup is also in Olimars favor I think +1, maybe +2.

Olimar - ROB. Idk about this one but I've heard some ROB saying it's in ROBs favor or even. Idk honestly.

Maybe ask in the Olimar machup thread to see if people agrees or disagrees with the matchup chart, Kneato.

 

[Kneato]

So I spent the past month collecting data and feedback from the various matchup threads on each character board and Reddit.

I am still tidying up some of the data, but I believe I've compiled a solid update for the chart.

EDIT:

Ok so I've organized all the data

Spoiler

Into an update for the main chart

Spoiler

And did some analysis

Spoiler

To find, given our present understanding of the game, what I think is PM's current tier list

Spoiler

S:

A:

B:

C:

D:

E:

AuraMaudeGone if everything looks alright to you, could this update be merged into your chart? Let me know if you need to see any files or anything.

EDIT: Included the Snake update. "Tier List" updated.

 

[Tobb99]

Nice! I'm looking forward to the update, beta version I guess. Maybe update the OP when it's done, or make a new thread. Also, maybe keep this as a project and update the chart some months later when the meta has established itself even more.

Also I'm surprised how ROB is mid tier, I've heard a lot of people saying he's a clear top tier.

 

[Kneato]

Nice! I'm looking forward to the update, beta version I guess. Maybe update the OP when it's done, or make a new thread. Also, maybe keep this as a project and update the chart some months later when the meta has established itself even more.

Also I'm surprised how ROB is mid tier, I've heard a lot of people saying he's a clear top tier.

This is Aura's project. He's been maintaining and updating the chart for a number of months now but not much major has happened in 2016. So I thought I'd make an effort. As long as Aura is cool with it, this will probably get integrated into the chart in the OP (which mine was just a copy of). And as this is a living project, it will likely see future updates as our understanding of the game continues to change.

As for rob, and any other character people claim to be top tier. All they can base these claims off of are what they see in tournaments, and their limited matchup knowledge of their character vs him. This list is based strictly off of the matchup chart, not idle perception.

 

[cisyphus]

As a snake main your work is really misrepresenting how most Snake mains view the character.

 

[DMG]

The MU ratings would be gathered from both Snake and opposing character board. If you dislike a MU rating, chances are you disagree with the other side (or only one side put a number, so that number is used)

 

[Kneato]

As a snake main your work is really misrepresenting how most Snake mains view the character.

My apologies. I missed your post on the snake boards and no one replied when I asked about him on Reddit. So most of his data went unchanged and the only matchups that changed were usually other mains stating they beat snake. I'll update it.

The MU ratings would be gathered from both Snake and opposing character board. If you dislike a MU rating, chances are you disagree with the other side (or only one side put a number, so that number is used)

It was straight up my mistake. I missed the input he gave when I asked. Updating now. But yea you are right, both sides of the matchup's opinion are taken into account.

 

[CND]

So I spent the past month collecting data and feedback from the various matchup threads on each character board and Reddit.

I am still tidying up some of the data, but I believe I've compiled a solid update for the chart.

EDIT:

Ok so I've organized all the data

Spoiler

View attachment 99524

Into an update for the main chart

Spoiler

View attachment 99525

And did some analysis

Spoiler

View attachment 99526

To find, given our present understanding of the game, what I think is PM's current tier list

Spoiler

S:

A:

B:

C:

D:

E:

AuraMaudeGone if everything looks alright to you, could this update be merged into your chart? Let me know if you need to see any files or anything.

EDIT: Included the Snake update. "Tier List" updated.

I don't know if it's just me on mobile, but the characters along the x-axis are not visible in the mu chart. Do you have another image of the mu chart that can be seen (unless it is normal to you then probably just ignore me).

Also, I don't know how you came up with the tier list, but one thing I think should be considered (if it hasn't already) is which characters a character loses to and weighting them for such. In a hypothetical situation, if two characters have the same winning percentage and character A's losing matchups are against high tiers (Fox, Meta Knight, Diddy, e.g.) and character B's losing matchups are against low tiers (Bowser, Ganon, Yoshi, e.g.), then character B is a higher tier then character A because it is less likely the low tier characters will be encountered in a tournament because they will presumably not make it past the early rounds of a tournament. Kind of just felt like mentioning that especially since there are some oddities in that tier list.

 

[Kneato]

I don't know if it's just me on mobile, but the characters along the x-axis are not visible in the mu chart. Do you have another image of the mu chart that can be seen (unless it is normal to you then probably just ignore me).

Also, I don't know how you came up with the tier list, but one thing I think should be considered (if it hasn't already) is which characters a character loses to and weighting them for such. In a hypothetical situation, if two characters have the same winning percentage and character A's losing matchups are against high tiers (Fox, Meta Knight, Diddy, e.g.) and character B's losing matchups are against low tiers (Bowser, Ganon, Yoshi, e.g.), then character B is a higher tier then character A because it is less likely the low tier characters will be encountered in a tournament because they will presumably not make it past the early rounds of a tournament. Kind of just felt like mentioning that especially since there are some oddities in that tier list.

That's just how it is on mobile for some reason :/

And yea I've heard this reasoning for the tier list but to be frank I feel like it's garbage. Especially in a game like PM.
In PM, you could easily see every single character represented in a tournament. We have seen numerous times "low tier" characters make it to finals of a bracket (Ripple). Additionally, calculating this would be insane. If a low tier beats all the high tiers and you move him up to a high tier position, does every other charater's tier have to be re-weighted if they win or lose to this new "high tier"? If you do this for every character, this would create an endless feedback loop.

The tier list, to me, is based strictly on how well a character performs against the rest of the cast given our current knowledge of the game.

How I calculated the tier list was the average of all of a characters matchups, plus an offset based on their matchup ratio (number of positive matchups vs number of negative matchups). Many people just do character average, but I feel because PM is so matchup dependant (look at Paragon's bracket) the MU ratio was important to consider. In this way, it sorta takes into account what you asked about: "How likely is it for this character to face a losing matchup". Finally, this splits ties well. If two characters end up with the same average, with one character losing a handful of matchups, but losing them hard, while the other character only loses by a little, but loses to most of the cast, the first character will be ranked higher than the second.

 

[cisyphus]

The MU ratings would be gathered from both Snake and opposing character board. If you dislike a MU rating, chances are you disagree with the other side (or only one side put a number, so that number is used)

I was speaking with the knowledge that Kneato used outdated (from 3.5 primarily) data, yes. Nonetheless, it's a 1 to 1 sort of ratio afaik where both sides ought to be weighted equally, meaning there's no reason a character like Kirby, who most Snake mains agree gets soundly trounced by Snake, would be negative at all unless Kirbys all think Snake is a +3 easy win for them (which I'm sure they don't). We also by and large don't think Snake is bottom 5 as the previous data suggested, and no degree of bias on the other side is reasonable to drop him so lowly (as most people don't think their character is +3 on Snake). All of this is demonstrated by the inclusion of the update raising Snake two full tiers and something like 15 positions up. It's still lower than most Snake mains view the character (we [being myself, messi, flafi, and flipp] generally say he's clearly top 10 with potential to be top 5) but it's acceptable to be roughly top 20 and falls in line with the PMTV tier list as well. There's still some unreasonable assertions in my opinion regarding Snake's abilities, but I'm sure I overestimate him slightly as well, seeing what he can be instead of what he is.

 

[Kneato]

I was speaking with the knowledge that Kneato used outdated (from 3.5 primarily) data, yes. Nonetheless, it's a 1 to 1 sort of ratio afaik where both sides ought to be weighted equally, meaning there's no reason a character like Kirby, who most Snake mains agree gets soundly trounced by Snake, would be negative at all unless Kirbys all think Snake is a +3 easy win for them (which I'm sure they don't). We also by and large don't think Snake is bottom 5 as the previous data suggested, and no degree of bias on the other side is reasonable to drop him so lowly (as most people don't think their character is +3 on Snake). All of this is demonstrated by the inclusion of the update raising Snake two full tiers and something like 15 positions up. It's still lower than most Snake mains view the character (we [being myself, messi, flafi, and flipp] generally say he's clearly top 10 with potential to be top 5) but it's acceptable to be roughly top 20 and falls in line with the PMTV tier list as well. There's still some unreasonable assertions in my opinion regarding Snake's abilities, but I'm sure I overestimate him slightly as well, seeing what he can be instead of what he is.

For snake, I tried to take the average of all the top snake mains' opinions that you sent me. In only two or three cases did this directly contradict matchups that I gathered in the past month from other mains, and in those situations I usually averaged the two opinions (Hypothetical example, if the snake mains agreed they were +1 against peach, but the peach mains agreed they were +1 against snake, the final recorded data ended up being 0:0 even)

As for Snake's overall place in the tier list, until our understanding of the game greatly alters the matchup data, here is what it takes to be a top 10 character:

And this is where Snake stands:

basically just above "perfectly average"

 

[JesteRace]

Damn, Link at #11? Never thought I'd see that. His MU spread is pretty good overall, but you ask the average person or the average Link main and you don't get a number anywhere near that high. Some have even gone as far as saying bottom 10/5(although I pretty strongly disagree).

 

[Kneato]

Damn, Link at #11? Never thought I'd see that. His MU spread is pretty good overall, but you ask the average person or the average Link main and you don't get a number anywhere near that high. Some have even gone as far as saying bottom 10/5(although I pretty strongly disagree).

Yea, Link is 11th but there is a fairly large gap between him and 10th (Sheik):

EDIT: BTW cisyphus that spreadsheet of all the Snake mains' opinions was SO helpful. I didn't find anything like that for any other character. Ideally, EVERY character should have that and that would be such an incredible basis for the matchup chart to be built off of.

As it stands, other characters on this chart with "Snake Syndrome" (in dire need of an update) are Wolf, Yoshi, Wario, Tink, Pit, Pikachu, Marth, Jiggs, IC, G&W, DK, and DDD.

 

[Taytertot]

im very doubtful that link is truly 11th but we'll have to see how the meta progresses. im sure many characters will change placement.

 

[cisyphus]

Yea, Link is 11th but there is a fairly large gap between him and 10th (Sheik):
View attachment 99705

EDIT: BTW cisyphus that spreadsheet of all the Snake mains' opinions was SO helpful. I didn't find anything like that for any other character. Ideally, EVERY character should have that and that would be such an incredible basis for the matchup chart to be built off of.

As it stands, other characters on this chart with "Snake Syndrome" (in dire need of an update) are Wolf, Yoshi, Wario, Tink, Pit, Pikachu, Marth, Jiggs, IC, G&W, DK, and DDD.

The Link community has a similar spreadsheet, actually. I made some edits to emulate them after Blinkingsky showed it to me.

 

[Soft Serve]

Heres the curent Diddy Discord MU spread sheet
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mE7QzNnEEgome97XgL_PZg1J7gI4pjvmch4toKgNvmc/edit?usp=sharing

Not a lot of contribution, although it has my thoughts on his MUs. Its not that different than what the last few attempts at a MU spread has used for diddy's MUs, but yeah.

 

[Blinkingsky]

Huh, didn't expect to get tagged on Smashboards.

Kneato , here's the Link MU chart, compiled from the average of the Link skype chat+one or two people from the Discord:

Spoiler

There's also one for the Wolf Discord, however I don't know if it's ready yet or not. I will ask them today if they wish to have it posted, or at least have a prelim version posted.

 

[Ripple]

DDD's will never be updated because I don't trust anyone else enough to make an informed opinion on his MUs and I doubt others will take my word as the sole source for his MUs.

 

[Ripple]

I got bored and made this anyway.

the -4s are and are not a joke. they are unwinnable and would be harder than a -3, but DDD doesn't have any of those

 

[DMG]

Ripple and Birdman the only 2 I'd trust pretty openly

 

[MEnKIRBZ]

Take my opinion with grain of salt here, but i do disagree with a few of Kirby's MUs in the chart.


1. Why is roy 0 and marth 1? In this matchup there is no real tool roy has that marth doesn't that will help him with this matchup..... roy should be a 1.

2. Falco, if anything, is a 1 or 0. Sure he is a fkin 2 if the game only revolved around falco trying to recover against kirby, but neutral and punish game also play a role in this too people......

3. Ness is not a 2 when lucas is a -1 matchup. Ness has plenty of tools to keep kirby away from close quarters combat (where kirby excels), but does have a punishable recovery such as lucas. Should be an even 0 IMO.

That's all i can really speak on. Thanks for listening

 

[Tobb99]

I'm curious Kneato, when will the OP get updated? You posted some images of your changes you've compiled, but are still waiting for more forums to respond with more changes??

Take my opinion with grain of salt here, but i do disagree with a few of Kirby's MUs in the chart.


1. Why is roy 0 and marth 1? In this matchup there is no real tool roy has that marth doesn't that will help him with this matchup..... roy should be a 1.

2. Falco, if anything, is a 1 or 0. Sure he is a fkin 2 if the game only revolved around falco trying to recover against kirby, but neutral and punish game also play a role in this too people......

3. Ness is not a 2 when lucas is a -1 matchup. Ness has plenty of tools to keep kirby away from close quarters combat (where kirby excels), but does have a punishable recovery such as lucas. Should be an even 0 IMO.

That's all i can really speak on. Thanks for listening

Maybe post this in the Kirby MU forum as well and see if people agrees with you or if they have different opinions.

 

[Kneato]

I'm curious Kneato, when will the OP get updated? You posted some images of your changes you've compiled, but are still waiting for more forums to respond with more changes??



Maybe post this in the Kirby MU forum as well and see if people agrees with you or if they have different opinions.

OP is owned by Aura. But Aura hasn't been around in a while. I have my copy of his chart which is already updated. I may make a new thread if he stays away for too much longer.

 

[cisyphus]

Whoever was talking about my ROB number being questionable: Oracle and Sneez have both said Snake is among ROB's worst MUs: Oracle says it's "unwinnable" and Sneez just listed it as being notably bad. I'll eventually update more of my numbers with write-ups. Been really busy as of late.