Hey Espy, what's good about Sonic?
Or rather, what's so good about his so-called gimp game? I'm probably doing something wrong, but all of my kills come from outright killing and not from offstage shenanigans. I'll get Fair and Dair edgeguard kills once a moon, but I feel I could be doing offstage stuff better.
It's not so much Sonic's gimp game that's so extraordinary, in my opinion, but just how well he can apply pressure to most off stage characters. Aside from the beginning of dair, none of our moves are moves that I can define as "gimping tools", really.
Sonic's ability to jump incredibly far off of the stage, threaten the opponent with bairs, fairs, uairs, dairs, HA (lol), spin dashes, spring, and even nair is one hell of a versatile tool. There's virtually no safe zone to stay in off of the level against a Sonic, unless you're Meta Knight.
Sonic can jump out, apply this pressure through his various options, and then make a quick jump back to the level using his absurd recovery options (which can double as pressure if you're in the right position, too).
Again, it's not so much his gimp potential. There isn't much to that. It's just how well Sonic can choke people offstage.
Espy, I've been meaning to ask you this for a little while, but in your estimation is there anybody who is NOT a furry? Srsly.
(Also, what's good about Sonic?)
I don't know. There's a line there that separates the two, but it's different based on your perspective of the whole shtick. Personally for me? Sure, there are those who can not be furry.
However, the odds are quite impractical.
Ice Climbers. What does sonic legitimately have over them. And what do you think of my style (forcing them to make mistakes through blatent pressure and aggression) compared to iyo, the optimal way to play the matchup. be specific and point out as many individual situations as you like.
Sonic can run away from them with incredible ease. He can separate them with almost no problem at all if you choose your punish options appropriately. He hurts them very hard off of the level since their recovery sucks regardless of single or double Climbers.
The only thing Sonic has issues with in the match up is how well Ice Climbers can cover up the holes that Sonic exploits. Walls of blizzards, ice blocks, and whatnot are tough, but each one of them has a certain pattern that Sonic can punish, or fake out the player.
I will say that if an Ice Climbers would play 100% perfect, that it would probably be more in their favor. However, that assumes they never screw up desynchs, they always select the proper choices when desynching, and they don't get provoked during Sonic's fake approaches (for example, running near them as their blizzard finishes more often than not make them react). It's improbable to assume they'll be perfect.
So what do you do? Combine real punishes on errors in desynchs (or just bad option choices). Milk this as hard as you can by separating them, and then keeping them separated. Sonic is incredibly good at making sure Popo never gets near Nana. Provoke the IC main to make a movement to fake outs (or real approaches if you are trying to read or condition them). Typically, they'll want to either blizzard or pivot grab (assuming that you will run into them). Force them into a bad stage positioning (near the ledge, perhaps) with this. Also, you can always apply pressure with the spins, but this needs to be done with a lot of precision, or else you'll be getting grabbed often.
My only problem with your style is that the aggression against a character who obviously has decent methods of walling out Sonic is only asking for punishments that the ICs can easily dish out. The aggression makes you more prone to errors, and in this match up, the different in the number of errors either player can make is convoluted based entirely off of how well you can separate and KO them, and how well they can chaingrab you. It can literally boil down to "winner is whoever gets hit first", though that's very extreme.
The aggression itself is the problem. If you're not careful (I'm assuming that you can never be always careful, else you'd never get hit, obviously), you'll get grabbed, and then you are KO'd if they can 0-death you.
I haven't seen your vids vs. ICs in a bit, so I'd have to check up on that. For the sake of the conversation though, you want to, again, be separating them ASAP, and keeping them that way. Sonic has very easy ways to deal with an approaching Pop while trying to gimp/KO Nana.
If all else fails, remember that running and camping is also a powerful option against the ICs. If you have the lead, the pressure you put on ICs to land that grab is INSANE.
If I need to get more into this, I will. Sorry it took so long to respond.
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