Shulk vs. Sheik matchup

[Rango the Mercenary]

I have no idea why this thread is locked...

http://smashboards.com/threads/enga...p-directory-match-up-threads-now-open.369284/

Anyway, until we get a matchup topic rolling, I'll post my findings here.

Sheik vs. Shulk feels like a punch in the nutsack.

>Her Uair beats his Nair, making aerial approaches or landings uncomfortable
>Incredibly hard to punish due to her lack of hitlag. Even your FTilts and Dtilts get rendered ineffective quickly.
>Shulk is a great gimper, but not good for off-the-edge air kills. Sheik quickly takes advantage of this with her recovery.
>Natural spacing with Needles is hard to get around

Speed might be your best benefit to attack her with. Buster is just asking for you to get smacked.

 

[Berserker.]

Buster works like maybe half the time. Buster's inconsistent so I'll ignore that

And no to speed being your best art here. Jump is the way to get over those needles and speed is your way to stay close to her. Unless you don't have jump on, needles are indeed annoying.

This match up is indeed annoying but it's those "uphill winnable" types. I'm not sure about her U-air beating his n-air though. I think it does but you're suppose to be spacing/tipping with n-air to get the most damage out of it and because it's the safe way to go (Edit: About u-air beating n-air, it depends on where the hitbox of n-air at that certain moment). You can get good off-stage KO's with b-air or even f-air (that's if you have smash activated). I think the key here is to avoid staying too close to her and space as much as possible because she beats us in close quarters. Maximize your range. Also if you're given the chance, go for grabs

Playing defensively is useless here because she'll camp with needles so you'll be forced to approach anyway.

This match up is alright. By alright, I meant you're still at a disadvantage but you can still win

 

[erico9001]

I agree that MJ is probably best, but I still usually go to a different main for this match-up. A good sheik is going to know to shield your Nair and try to punish your landing. This is why you should try to space Nair out. She may try running away from you so she can do Needles on you again - don't let that happen if you can.

 

[Claxus]

Sheik is pretty hard to deal with for anyone... I blame the needles. Pls nerf. Such an amazing melee character has about the best poking projectile ever. /salty

Anyway, I find Shulk's biggest strength here is the ability to survive. I get beat up like crazy by Sheiks, but I always make it out alive, especially thanks to Monado Shield, and Jump recovery. I've made it to really deep percents, but they just couldn't finish me off. If you don't sweat the small stuff and focus on avoiding her KO moves, they tend to get kinda desperate while you can slowly zone them out and bait flopping fishes and U-smash and stuff, and shutting away any aerial KO attempts with N-air and F-air.

Sheik's annoyingly safe, and Shulk is probably one of the worst punisher characters. I find I use D-tilt a lot in the matchup once in range. I also find myself using Vision more occasionally than usual, because Sheik is a follow-up monster, but getting too aggressive can cost them. Then they'll think twice about trying to string combos.

Her recovery isn't the best, either, so be on your A-game for gimps, usually one good F-air settles the stock. A bit hard to predict her recovery, though, but worth it.

Well, abuse that Shield, Sheik's main weakness is lack of KO power, so Shulk can survive longer than ever. And otherwise, don't fret too much about getting combo'd for 10 seconds so long as you can zone out her KOs. Beware the flopping fish and spot dodge it for the easiest punish in the matchup (usually a good D-smash). Not easy though.

And on another note, I was also wondering what happened to the matchups thread. In the link the OP posted, it was explained in another topic that they scratched that one, and were instead going to do weekly matchup topics. Dunno why they didn't just delete it, but they only ever made like two or three of the matchup topics and stopped.

 

[Berserker.]

Eh. Not much match up discussions are active at this point. People are still talking about developing their character's gameplan

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Use speed. either from start or to start an m-cancel.
I disagree with jump, im not a fan of it onstage that is a recovery/gimp option I like to have available.
You can shorthop right over needles in speed and bluff your landings to challenge her spacing. The real thing is vanilla though. You have greater reward per hit then Sheik does, so if you can manage some vanilla trades you will come up ahead.