Project: M Snake MU Thread. (3.0 Currently)

[JTsm]

Project: M Snake MU Thread

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This thread will discuss Snake’s matchups and will hopefully lead into a better understanding of what strengths and weaknesses Snake faces. This thread will be updated with each update so we can try to keep discussions relevant. I’ll be listing the characters in alphabetical order so that it would be much organized and help people see which MU’s they have trouble with the most. Let’s not try to discuss on the actual Ratio and focus more on what to do in the 1v1 matchup. It’s nice to label a number on there, but try to give a nice thorough explanation on why you think this ratio is warranted. Do not flame or start a conversation that will go off-topic. Keep discussions civil please. We’re here to learn an amazing character. Let’s not ruin it.

So basically:
- - Stay on topic.
- - Be nice.
- - Learn and have fun.

Text Colors:
- - White: Not Discussed
- - Green : Discussed and Finished!
- - Red: Being Discussed!


Format:

- Ratio? ([50:50] For example)
- In-depth description (General things to do, what not to do, techs that are useful, can we chaingrab, can they chaingrab us?)
- Strengths? (What strengths can benefit from this MU?)
- Weaknesses? (What should we avoid doing in this MU?)
- Stages: Strike/Ban/CP? (Which stage should you strike/ban? Which Stage should you go for?
- Video Examples? (Tutorials of tech and MU specific sets)

Spoiler

Bowser

Spoiler

Captain Falcon

Spoiler

Charizard

Spoiler

Donkey Kong

Spoiler

Diddy Kong

Spoiler

Falco

Spoiler

Fox

Spoiler

Ganondorf

Spoiler

Ice Climbers

Spoiler

Ike

Spoiler

Jigglypuff

Spoiler

King Dedede

Spoiler

Kirby

Spoiler

Link

Spoiler

Lucario

Spoiler

Lucas

Spoiler

Luigi

Spoiler

Mario

Spoiler

Marth

Spoiler

Meta Knight

Spoiler

Mewtwo

Spoiler

[/collapse

Mr. Game & Watch

Spoiler

Ness

Spoiler

Olimar

Spoiler

Peach

Spoiler

Pikachu

Spoiler

Pit

Spoiler

R.O.B.

Spoiler

Roy

Spoiler

Samus

Spoiler

Sheik

Spoiler

Snake

Spoiler

Sonic

Spoiler

Toon Link

Spoiler

Wario

Spoiler

Wolf

Spoiler

Yoshi

Spoiler

Zelda

Spoiler

Relevant Links:
Snake Move Info Dump
Snake Video Thread of Manliness

 

[JTsm]

I guess I'll start the discussion of Captain Falcon. We can decide what's more important to discuss, but since no is saying anything, I'll start:

[50:50] Even Match Up

In general, both of these characters can really mess each other up. On one hand, you have Snake that excels in close range by using his grabs CF and potentially a 0% to death combo. Then on the other hand, you have CF that can juggle you to no end with amazing mobility. It's important to know that Snake needs to use mines and C4 to control the stage and the pace of the game. In doing so, you need to be ready for CF's approach options; SHFFL'd Nair/Dair/Fair/Uair, Side-B, DA, DownB, etc.

During the beginning of the match it depends on what you could varying on what stage your on, how good your opponent is and how good you are at your tech skill and reaction times. If you have good reaction time, you will no doubt excel. If you expect CF to approach you with SideB, just crouch and punish. But with stages like BF, YI, and other smaller stages, I think it would be best to predict when CF will approach accordingly. Laying a mine early could already be fatal if you time it wrong in the beginning of the match. With stages like Dream land, FD, and such, I would immediately lay a mine and predict CF's movement afterwards.

Chain grabs on CF are pretty straight forward. CG's can be a HUGE asset to potential combos into basically anything if you predict their DI. The CG usually goes from 0% - 40%. After that, you can decide what you can do based on the situation. CG's are probably the safest option to sticky CF. You could also UpB > Sticky as well, but spacing and DI is heavily dependent, so it's more riskier.

When recovering, you should always be high enough where CF can't reach you. As hard as it is, it's one of the few options that can help you get back on stage. If you're too low, CF can use any aerial, grab, or ledge grab you easily. One thing Snake can do is C4 recover away from CF's edge-guarding options and go from there. Grenade recovering is useful in certain situations. Halberd, DK's Jungle stage, and Delfino can help aid this recovery by going through the base platform of the stage.

Edge-guarding CF is basically predicting CF's recovery and deal with the situation accordingly. If CF is too low for you to Dair/Fair Spike, then don't do it. lol. I've seen Snake's do that and it's way too risky doing so. Being Flashy is fine, but the short term reward isn't worth it IMO. When talking with Professor Pro, he said that you could lay a mine and Wavedash to the ledge if you predict CF's UpB to land on the stage. To eliminating CF's sweetspot, you could potentially put a C4 close to the edge and detonate it. If placed right, the explosion should hit CF as the blast hitbox is big enough to go through the ledge. Another option, yet riskier one, is to jump off stage high enough to drop the C4 and kill him that way. The generic mine to nikita missle technique can be countered by invincibility from the ledge easily. So many snakes(including myself) do it naturally. It can be a good edge-guard, but you have to know when to assess the situation that way.

Pros:
- Snake CG's CF 0%-40% Range.
- Snake can have amazing stage control with mines, c4, grenades.
- Has many options to edge-guard CF very well.
- Crouching can help IMMENSELY in this MU.

Cons:
- CF has a lot of mobility where as Snake is slower.
- Can easily juggle Snake if not careful.
- Recovering in general is a problem.
- Due to slower mobility, has a harder time approaching.

Stages to go for IMO:
Neutrals (Bottom 7 Stages): I think anything is fine as long as your playstyle works for it. I usually go for the smaller stages to put a lot more pressure on CF so like: BF, YI(Melee), FoD. But really, Anything but DL is fine IMO.

CP's: Anything that could limit CF's recovery like PS1, PS2. Stages with a low ceiling like Halberd or Norfair.

Stages to Strike IMO:
Neutrals: I would just say Dream Land. DL practically eliminates your vertical kill option unless you know how to to completely destroy your opponent. Otherwise I would not go there.

CP's: Any stage that helps CF wall jumping recovery, large stages in general for CF to move around like SSE, Skyloft, DK's Jungle, Dracula. But it's really up to you depending on how comfortable you feel with that certain stage.

A video of Unholydeath's Snake vs Hakeem's CF. Granted, UHDeath lost the set, but there are a lot of situations in which Snake can easily close off CF's approaching options. :

 

[Professor Pro]

If you're at all familiar with Peach vs CF MU in Melee, I think Snake suffers from the same problems that Peach does in that MU, which is he gets ***** in the air and off stage, and CF can combo him really well. But I think he has better tools to escape these situations than peach does as well, such as C4's and grenades and probably being able to trade Dair with CF's Uair.

Also I think that the punish game Snake has on CF is slightly better than peach's in the sense that he can CG on more stages (not dependant on FD like Peach) due to the height of the chaingrab.
And also due to grenades he doesn't get as easily and freely air juggled.

Edgeguard wise they can both **** him, just down to how the player plays.

I'm not really sure if it's just because it's Wi-Fi but it seemed like Unholydeath didn't play that well that set, I saw a lot of edgeguard attempts with U-Smash which failed and just not really much combo-ing going on, just a lot of hit for hits when you can combo CF pretty well

I'm not too sure about this MU overall though, I would still need a bit more experience in it.

Edit - Also you I just saw you said in the Pros
CG 0%-40%
I think that's probably wrong
CG is probably like 20%-90%
But his CG's are different to most characters because neutral DI gets you out A LOT earlier than most CG's, probably at like 60%, but it gets you an absolute free C4 stick, and DI'ing to the left or right means you remain in the CG for like an extra 30% so it's a tradeoff.

 

[BryE]

If you're at all familiar with Peach vs CF MU in Melee, I think Snake suffers from the same problems that Peach does in that MU, which is he gets ***** in the air and off stage, and CF can combo him really well. But I think he has better tools to escape these situations than peach does as well, such as C4's and grenades and probably being able to trade Dair with CF's Uair.

Also I think that the punish game Snake has on CF is slightly better than peach's in the sense that he can CG on more stages (not dependant on FD like Peach) due to the height of the chaingrab.
And also due to grenades he doesn't get as easily and freely air juggled.

Edgeguard wise they can both **** him, just down to how the player plays.

I'm not really sure if it's just because it's Wi-Fi but it seemed like Unholydeath didn't play that well that set, I saw a lot of edgeguard attempts with U-Smash which failed and just not really much combo-ing going on, just a lot of hit for hits when you can combo CF pretty well

I'm not too sure about this MU overall though, I would still need a bit more experience in it.

Edit - Also you I just saw you said in the Pros
CG 0%-40%
I think that's probably wrong
CG is probably like 20%-90%
But his CG's are different to most people's in terms of neutral DI gets you out REALLY early, probably at like 60%, but it gets you an absolute free C4 stick, and DI'ing to the left or right means you remain in the CG for like an extra 30% so it's a tradeoff.

Both players didn't play that well in that set actually.

It was a pride set in which both players were extremely annoyed iirc. So both of them were kinda salty before they started playing.

 

[Professor Pro]

Both players didn't play that well in that set actually.

It was a pride set in which both players were extremely annoyed iirc. So both of them were kinda salty before they started playing.

Yeah you're right about that, I just said Unholy because I was mostly focusing on the Snake's behalf lol.
But I don't think Unholy represented well what Snake can do in that MU or the CF player represented the trouble that CF can give Snake well

And pride and salt about what out of curiousity lol?

 

[BryE]

Yeah you're right about that, I just said Unholy because I was mostly focusing on the Snake's behalf lol.
But I don't think Unholy represented well what Snake can do in that MU or the CF player represented the trouble that CF can give Snake well

And pride and salt about what out of curiousity lol?

I'm not sure actually. I wasn't there when it happened. I think it was just a bunch of smack talk which got out of hand and they wanted to have a pride set. lol

 

[JTsm]

Any opinions on the Shiek MU? Having a hard time dealing with her aerials/approaches.

 

[bubbaking]

Sheik is hard. She can crouch/crawl under grabs (we can do the same to her, though), jabs, most tilts, and the first hits of fsmash. If we end up offstage, needles make our life literall hell. Mines can be disarmed with needles and the like. I think we can CG her fairly hard into C4 stick, but her throws also set-us up for nasty stuff as well. I think that MU centers around not letting Sheik move around too much 'cause she's way too mobile and also CCing what we can, since her moves are fairly easy to CC. Advantage goes to Sheik, IMO.

On the topic of a new MU, I think ROB kinda bodies Snake. Last time I spoke to JC about it, he fully agreed with me, and I've also done quite a few MMs and tourney sets against decent Snakes and have yet to lose a set to one with ROB. Thing is ROB completely out-spaces Snake, out-camps Snake, juggles him fairly hard, and gimps the living daylights out of him. Low, high, Snake can't really recover reliably against ROB at all. I mean, imho, ROB:Snake looks like it might be 65:35 or worse. Anything Snake can do, ROB has an answer for. I've had that opinion since 2.5b and 2.6 ROB is even better (while 2.6 Snake seems to be ever-so-slightly worse or about the same to me).

 

[Professor Pro]

I don't know about body...I kind of **** Alpha Dash whenever he goes R.O.B. and I am very consistent at powershielding Gyro (even with it's glide tossed) and even laser on reaction so camping doesn't work too good against me.

But that might be just because I am better then him, I would need to play against someone who is better with him.

Though I can understand the recovery aspect. in terms of Snake struggling, but Snake can also **** R.O.B on his recovery as well.

 

[EastCoastEddie]

Lately I've had a lot of trouble getting camped out. Is the best way to counter that powershielding and approaching with DACUS?

 

[JTsm]

Lately I've had a lot of trouble getting camped out. Is the best way to counter that powershielding and approaching with DACUS?

Who are you getting camped out by?

ROB : Snake is 50:50 IMO. Snake's famash is a wonderful tool in the ROB MU. Rob can juggle snake pretty well tho

 

[bubbaking]

Going by the topic of discussion, I would assume that he's talking about either Sheik or ROB. Regardless, DACUS is a really good approaching tool. DA is also pretty nice. Crawling is also surprisingly good, because Snake's crawl is pretty fast.

ROB's lasers can be PS'd, but does Alpha Dash always shoot them at the same angle? It gets kinda hard to consistently PS them, IMO, if the ROB keeps varying his laser angles. For this exact reason, I always vary between laser down to bounce off the floor, laser straight ahead, laser slightly upwards to catch your head, and laser downwards out of a SH.

Yeah, I can agree that Snake can make ROB's recovery very difficult, but I just find that Snake will be in that position a lot more often than ROB because he keeps Snake out so well and his throws are also really fast and instantly launch you out there. As for Gyro, I rarely use it to actually approach or directly hurt you via throwing it. I just leave it on-stage as a barrier and then proceed to laser, tilt, and fair around it. It's really, really problematic for Snake, imho.

Basically, I just think that ROB easily capitalizes on what I assume most of us can agree is one of Snake's biggest weaknesses: actually getting in on the opponent to do some real damage.

 

[SAX]

Snakes main problem is that he gets juggled and has a hard time touching the stage when he's getting juggled.

His approach would be his next biggest flaw.

 

[bubbaking]

Personally, I don't think being easily juggled is too big a problem, especially if your approach is solid. Case in point: the spacees. They can be juggled to death, but it doesn't matter too much if they can avoid being hit while approaching or retreating. Having a bad approach kinda leads into Snake getting messed up by being juggled. That's just how I look at it...

 

[SAX]

Personally, I don't think being easily juggled is too big a problem, especially if your approach is solid. Case in point: the spacees. They can be juggled to death, but it doesn't matter too much if they can avoid being hit while approaching or retreating. Having a bad approach kinda leads into Snake getting messed up by being juggled. That's just how I look at it...

I agree. Whenever I play Wizzy and Plup, I get edgegaurded by them very consistently, especially Plup's MK. Like, once he gets me off stage, I hardly ever get back on. No matter what I try to do MK just has the options to deal with it, especially when piloted by arguable the best PM player in the world. But, when I play people who aren't Wizzy Hbox and Plup, getting juggled isn't too much of a problem. I make it down with relative ease.

The thing is, snake's approach isn't solid, which transfers to him getting juggled because he has to wait. If snake goes in and gets a grab, sure he gets a TON out of it. But the risk is usually not worth the reward, especially vs high level players. But being juggled is definitely a flaw. I've seen mango gets cg'd to death by m2k and armada before. And mango approaches all the time.

Futher more, snake's mobility can't really be compared with spacies... haha.

Anywho, I have more matches from last nights stream. Check em out. Open to any commentary.

http://www.twitch.tv/smashstudios/b/437464641 : 16:50 - 19:34 (Snake vs Pit) / 19:35 - 26:42 (Snake vs Charizard) / 27:21 - 43:00 (Snake vs Sonic) / 52:05 - end of video (Snake vs DDD)

http://www.twitch.tv/smashstudios/b/437464641 : 11:05 - 22:25 (Snake vs Fox) / 23:15 - 38:25 (Snake vs Captain Falcon) / 43:10 - 46:11 & 53:10 - 56:30 (Snake vs Puff) / 1:00:30 - 1:03:38 (Snake vs Fox) ENDING IS SO SEXY<3 / 1:21:55 (Snake vs Lucario) / 1:26:22 (Snake vs Pit) / 1:28:50 - 1:33:10 (Snake vs Luigi) / Last match is an unfinished match (Snake vs Tink)

 

[EastCoastEddie]

Who are you getting camped out by?

ROB : Snake is 50:50 IMO. Snake's famash is a wonderful tool in the ROB MU. Rob can juggle snake pretty well tho

Yeah at the last tournament it was ROB and Sheik somewhat. But I've always had trouble vs Link and Mario too.

Reflecting back I think I need to have more patience moving forward.

 

[Juushichi]

@Sax, I think by nature Snake is a pretty defensive character... in ways akin to Peach.

A lot of his damage comes off of trades and projectiles and junk, so characters with ambiguous approaches (sonic for the most part) and ones with hard rushdown (MK) are going to be problematic.

 

[bubbaking]

I actually like hard rushdown because of upB OoS. ^_^ Disregarding Sheik, that is...

 

[DMG]

Snake vs Marth seems like the least fun MU he has.

 

[bubbaking]

I agree. Marth vs Snake is absolute booty for Snake. I don't consider Marth rushdown, though. He's like some weird mix of defensive zoning and passive-aggressive positioning.

 

[EastCoastEddie]

I think Snake can chain grab Marth at lower %s, makes the match up a bit better. Also I think grenades trade with almost all of Marth's moves. But yeah it's not that great of a matchup for Snake.

 

[Juushichi]

Snake can CG most of the cast at lower percents, but Marth's passive-aggressive game and relative hard punishes (and that sword, let's not forget that sword) means that any whiff on Snake's part could mean he's going to get juggled for a long, long time.

 

[EastCoastEddie]

Snake can CG most of the cast at lower percents, but Marth's passive-aggressive game and relative hard punishes (and that sword, let's not forget that sword) means that any whiff on Snake's part could mean he's going to get juggled for a long, long time.

That's true. I have decent luck with grenades against Marth though when he is trying to juggle. Also Snakes crouch cancel game and punish game help him a lot against Marth.

 

[Juushichi]

Yeah, I can agree with that. Snake's weight class should be pretty cumbersome to deal with.

 

[bubbaking]

Once Snake is hit, it's either fair > fair > fair or utilt/air > utilt/air > utilt/air for days. Snake can't really do anything to get out reliably, IMO. Btw, EastCoastEddie, Marth is very capable of hitting Snake without getting hit by his held 'nade's explosion, even if Snake turns around to place the grenade closer to Marth. I know this very well because I had to face Redd's Marth in the LF's of a tourney, and the ol' reverse-B 'nade pull is my BnB way of getting down out of juggles and recoveries. At first, he was trading every time because he has very little MU experience against Snake, but near the end of the match, he started picking me out of it very precisely, setting the 'nade off on me without touching it himself. Eventually, he was able to consistently land hits on me without trading. Also, it is possible to just hit Snake without touching the grenade at all. Grenades are good, but an experienced Marth who knows Snake's tricks will be able to play around them at will.

Edit: That being said, you are very correct about CC's and hard punishes. Snake's CC game is amazing and Marth is one of those chars who is more susceptible to it, due to his intensive spacing requirement. Snake's fast crawl allows him to retain decent mobility while CCing all the time, so you can get some things in like grab, jab, or sticky after a CC.

 

[Minor Pandemic]

I'm hoping this is the right place to post this, because it is a matchup question, but it's kind of the reverse of what this thread's purpose is; I'm looking for advice in fighting against Snake. My question is fairly specifically for Professor Pro after I watched his latest videos, but anyone with insight is welcome to weigh in.

What advice do you guys have for avoiding being stuck by C4? Things as specific as possible are greatly welcomed, like DI on certain throws, as is more general advice.

Edit because I forgot: Also, I main Meta Knight and Captain Falcon, if that helps at all.

 

[Professor Pro]

I'm hoping this is the right place to post this, because it is a matchup question, but it's kind of the reverse of what this thread's purpose is; I'm looking for advice in fighting against Snake. My question is fairly specifically for Professor Pro after I watched his latest videos, but anyone with insight is welcome to weigh in.

What advice do you guys have for avoiding being stuck by C4? Things as specific as possible are greatly welcomed, like DI on certain throws, as is more general advice.

Edit because I forgot: Also, I main Meta Knight and Captain Falcon, if that helps at all.

To be honest his set ups into C4 sticks are pretty harsh, you can pretty much get guaranteed sticks on your opponent from grab situations and there's nothing you can do about.
Depending on the characters weight, the floatier they are, the more likely they can punish you after a U-Throw C4.

Example = Against Wario I can get a free stick from U-Throw, but afterwards the Wario can always Nair, Fair and MAYBE (never actually tried it out) even Waft in time.

The best thing to do would be to neutral DI and then if Snake does stick you, you might be able to punish him with a hit after...I'm still not 100% how this works on fastfallers but this is the method for floaties, mid-weights.

Also when Snake's at higher percentages sticks become riskier because you can sometimes just get hit after it

Example = I can't C4 stick Sheik at like 120-130% because she will just Nair me as soon as she's out of lag before my stick animation stun ends.

DI'ing U-Throw left or right at early-mid %'s gets you CG'd for longer, and DI'ing neutral gets you out quicker but you get stuck for free, but occasionaly you can get a hit after, it's just up to you to experiment and assess what is better.

I hope this helped

 

[Minor Pandemic]

snip

Thanks for your wisdom, sir.

 

[Professor Pro]

Thanks for your wisdom, sir.

BTW, overall his grab setups mostly work in his favour, so there isn't really a consistent plan to avoid it, but those are just the occasional tools to avoid it. He gets loads from his grab setups which is why it's important to not get grabbed to begin with.

 

[Minor Pandemic]

BTW, overall his grab setups mostly work in his favour, so there isn't really a consistent plan to avoid it, but those are just the occasional tools to avoid it. He gets loads from his grab setups which is why it's important to not get grabbed to begin with.

That much I picked up on :D. Thanks again.

 

[bombrider]

So what is the match up between Snake and Ganondorf? I seem to be having a lot of trouble with this match up lately. In particular, I'm having trouble dealing with Ganon's pokes. Advice would be welcomed.

 

[JTsm]

Hmmmm Ganon can juggle snake like every other character, but I think Snake has more options punishing Ganon's approaches.

CGing is something you should look into as well as mine placement. You ultimately set up traps and wait for approaches. If Professor Pro would do the MU, I would imagine him using a lot of stickies and juggling if you're really agro and technical. Being very technical and being aware about ganon's movement isn't too hard to work around.

It would be nice to have some more experienced players give input because I sometimes say things that aren't true. xD

 

[DMG]

Ganon loses if you play patiently, and defensively Snake is hard to crack. Ganon is pretty unsafe approaching Snake, and when you have to deal with Side B, it makes you want to quit Ganon. Ganon literally has to PS/shield 80% of the time to get close. Even something as simple as setting up a mine, and using Usmash/Side B/Grenade forces him to slow down and play at your pace.

 

[bombrider]

I've seen this chain grab and people comboing into the sticky as well from up grab. Is there a trick to doing this? I'm not really used to using chain grabs. I've tried using it before with...pretty laughable results lol.

 

[DMG]

It's pretty simply. You Uthrow them and read their DI. For a CG, sometimes it's very easy because people don't release very high. Kind of like Ganon's Dthrow CG: People don't fly above you very high until later. Once you get near the end of the CG threshold, sticky them or GG Upb --. Uair/Bair stuff

Once you get a sticky, you usually go for the Uthrow and run to where they will be. Upb or directly Uair them into the C4 explosion. If they are so high that you can't naturally follow up from Uthrow, chances are they will die or nearly die from C4 anyways so you can blow it up still.

 

[foxygrandpa]

Its a losing matchup for ganon if you ask me. My brother plays snake and I play ganon so I have a good amount of experience with the matchup. The upthrow works extremely well on ganon and he has a hard time getting out of it because of his slow aerials. Chain grab for massive damage and get a c4 in there somewhere. Its not a hopeless matchup but certainly in snakes favor.

 

[BUFF SNAKE PLEASE]

Any thoughts on the zelda or shiek matchup? I have trouble with those two in particular

 

[bombrider]

I was talking to a friend and we were talking about the Snake and Wolf match up...which character's favor is this match?

 

[SAX]

Snake is pretty mediocre. I believe he loses more MU than he wins imo. When people camp him out there is almost nothing he can do about it. I think that will simply keep him out from winning a lot of match-ups.

 

[bombrider]

Snake is mediocre? I was under the impression that Snake was a strong character.