SNAKE:
Summary:
Lucario wants to bait snake to commit to a tilt or dacus by dancing around his shield leading to a punish which ultimately puts snake in the air. Once Snake is in the air, Lucario must juggle snake as much as possible. Lucario Kills snake by reading his landing or killing snake off the side with an Aura Sphere or Bair or off the top with uair. Occasionally you can get a kill with a throw if the snake doesn't expect it. If the snake is avoiding all other kill options on the ground, you always have the forcepalm mixup which is extremely valuable.
Snake wants to bait lucario into a punishable option. Snake generally will approach by dashing, crawling or walking and then shielding or spot dodging expecting lucario to counter that approach with an fsmash or aura sphere. Snake can and will punish grounded aura spheres and smashes on his shield with a tilt, grab, or dacus. If snake forces lucario to be airborne, (which he most likely will) Snake will try to punish lucario's landings with various explosive traps including a ledgehog + uair or Dsmash trap which is almost unavoidable on most stages. Snake can Pshield Utilt most of lucario's predictable aerial approaches to get an early kill thus preventing lucario from gaining a high aura boost.
Nades:
There are a lot of different styles of how snakes use nades. I have played a wide range of snakes, some who don't use nades at all (shoutout to masonomace!!) and some who rely almost exclusively on explosives. It is important to be able to deal with snake's projectile and explosive options in order to not be forced to approach predictably and avoid unnecessary damage. Lets analyze the mechanics of nades:
1) When snake pulls a nade:
he throw it (lob up, lob forward weakly, throw forward strongly), he can jump or crawl, he can drop the nade with a shield laglessly (into grab! or almost anything if the snake is technically fluent!).
2)If snake subsequently picks up a nade that he shield dropped his options change:
he throw it (
lob up, lob forward weakly, throw forward strongly
throw in any direction strongly), he can jump or crawl,
he can drop the nade with a shield laglessly (into grab! or almost anything if the snake is technically fluent!).
It is crucial to understand the difference between these two sets of options. For this reason I copied exactly the options of a pulled nade and crossed out those that didn't apply to a picked up nade. The important thing to note is that shield counters every option snake has if he picks up a nade from the ground ( WITH THE EXCEPTION OF C4 but I've only seen Ally use a C4 in a situation where he picked up a nade and someone walked up to him in shield). Now that we realize that snakes options are limited when he picks up a nade, we can try to take advantage of this weakness by using our camping projectile to interfere with how the snake likes to cook his nades. We want to FORCE snake to have to commit to either throwing a fresh nade ( which is easily avoidable) or dropping it to cook it.
Lucario has great options to counter cooking nades. Firstly, you should approach snake to a distance where he cannot easily ftilt you or dacus but where, if he throws a nade strongly forward, he cannot shield drop another nade to make the thrown nade drop on top of you because it will travel to far before he is able to do so. (this only applies to uncooked nades, but it is still relevant because snake will constantly try to throw fresh nades at you if he can). You should be proficient at spot dodging these hard nades so that you don't waste shield on them. Now when snake is cooking a nade , you can time your aura sphere so that he cannot pick up the nade until it has already exploded. Conseqeuntly he will start to experience shield fatigue from having to shield his own nade or he will take your aura sphere hit. This is hard to do consistently especially if the snake is good at mixing up his use of nades. The important thing to take away from this discussion is that if you play smart, you should not feel overwhelmed by Snake's camping arsenal.
If Snake Approaches:
Snake's approaches will tend to be grounded. He will likely cover his movement with nades so that you cannot roll freely. He will likely try to powershield your most obvious grounded defenses and punish accordingly. (Ftilt punishes unspaced fsmash or AS, Dash attack/Dacus punish wiffed fsmash if snake waits right outside of the range of the hit box). Snake also has the tools to punish lucario's roll very easily as long as snake hasn't committed to anything. His turn around + jab is his fastest weapon to counter a roll.
Given the strategy of approach + shield that snake will utilize, it is extremely important that lucario grab him to mess with that strategy. Here, I would like to recommend that you watch this match:
Azen vs Chillin Round 3 at C3 ECRC 2008
specifically looking for the grabs that lucario gets on snake especially:
http://youtu.be/xwk40OsCKXY?t=1m26s
http://youtu.be/xwk40OsCKXY?t=1m51s
Follow ups from a successful low/mid percent grab on snake:
A grab vs snake at low percent is extremely rewarding for lucario. Up throw + up tilt puts snake in a terrible position. I feel that for this matchup you need to know all the follow ups and possible outcomes from this setup so I will go over them here:
At low percent upthrow utilt is guarunteed. Perhaps under some conditions snake can bair before the utilt comes out but I think if you properly buffer everything that should not be possible. Now after the utilt there are several things you can do as lucario. You can utilt again, (I would not do utilt more than twice in a row however). My favorite option is pivot grab. If lucario has a tiny bit of aura boost, or snake has already sustained a litttle damage, then you have enough time to pivot grab in such a way as to space and not get hit by snakes bair. If, however, the percents are too low for this then it is best to shield + dash attack snake's landing if he bairs or grab if he does anything else (air dodge, pull a nade). Another possibility is to foxtrot away to avoid the bair but still be in position to grab immediately after snake's landing.
After observing your opponent react to this situation several times you should be able to consistently force snake to up B or go to the ledge in this scenario.
My personal favorite string is as follows: upthrow utilt ( snake wants to avoid more up tilts so he will air dodge) pivot grab dthrow + follow up
Dthrow is probably the best throw if the percents on snake and lucario or not well suited to the upthrow utilt combo. After a Dthrow, your priority should be to prevent snake from returning to the ground in the most immediate fashion available to him. For that reason I recommend NOT trying to follow up with a fair string immediately unless his DI of the dthrow allows you to create a frame trap. Otherwise, I recommend dashing in the direction of his DI (usually away) and setting up to trap snake's landing. Consistent use of dash attack in this situation can condition the snake to bair in order to try to counter the dash attack. IF successfully conditioned in this manner, snake can be punished with an Fsmash because his Bair lands with a lot of lag. Another option after a Dthrow that is DI'd away is to shoot an aura sphere if you can aim it to perfectly punish snake's immediate landing option.
Going back to the Dthrow, If you see that snake is conditioned not to air dodge, then you can punish him with a fair combo when he is not expecting it. (fair fair fair dair, etcet).
Approaching Snake - Grounded
I've already mentioned that grab is a really good tool in this scenario. Nevertheless, the situation I've analyzed so far involves grabbing snake out of his approach by reading his intention to shield or spot dodge. Approaching Snake is really a different story. First, you should charge your aura sphere. It is a good thing to NEVER approach or jump in the air unless your aura sphere is partially charged. All of your mind games stem from the idea that your opponent is waiting for you to lose it. The first step in approaching snake is getting into burst range. I've already described roughly what that is. That range is outside of snake's ftilt range, outside of your fsmash range, but inside of the range in which he can shield drop a hard-thrown nade. You can get in this range by walking, fox trotting, dashing, or jumping. I think that the most effective method of moving around that lucario has in this context is throwing out an empty short hop followed by a fast fall ASC. That allows you to move with the threat of shooting a projectile and allows for a lot of conditioning opportunities. Once in the burst range, you can begin to read snake's nade habits. His nade habits can often lead to a safe roll-behind approach. Make sure he doesn't bait this out of you by walking backwards with a nade in hand.
ROLLING BEHIND SNAKE
If you roll behind snake and he does not read this immediately then your best aggressive option is dtilt. Dtilt's hit box is special because it can go under snake's jab which I already mentioned is snake's primary weapon in this scenario. Dtilt also punishes a spot dodging snake effectively because it lasts just short enough to give you frame advantage. Finally, Dtilt sends snake on a trajectory that is very advantageous for lucario. At low percent you can follow up with a grab or dash attack. At mid percent you can try to catch him in the air if his DI allows for this. At high percent, Dtilt can actually kill snake. Asides from Dtilt, it can also be a good idea to just wait in shield to bait some reaction out of snake, space away to bait snake to try to chase you, or if you really want to punish a spot dodge or roll towards you, charged dsmash does the trick. The important thing is NOT to fsmash because that covers very few options. Also, Jab is not as good in this scenario as you may think. The reason is that the situation where a roll behind snake is effective is when snake is committed to an ftilt. However snake moves forward with his ftilt so in many cases he actually ends up out of range of a jab if you try to jab him out of a roll. Dtilt is better for that reason because it covers more options.
The important thing is to maximize the reward out of your successful cross-up rolls. Lucario's roll is amazing so if you are being consistently punished for rolling, you are being to predictable or are picking ineffective options out of a roll. I suggest avoiding rolls towards snake if you are at kill percent from an uptilt. Most competent snake's earn their victories from this exact scenario so don't fall for their ploys.
Dealing with Snake's Ftilt on shield
Snake's ftilt on shield is punishable by lucario and many snake's and lucario's do not realize this. A perfectly spaced ftilt is hard to punish if you do not power shield it. When I am getting to know my opponent's habits I usually retreat to see how he reacts out of an ftilt. If snake buffers a jab, that means he is trying to cover the roll behind as well as the dash attack/ dash grab. You can actually punish this habit by dtilting (because of the hit box properties I mentioned earlier) or fsmashing. Ideally, however, I recommend trying to bait snake to space ftilt unsafely. An unsafe ftilt ( not at max range) gives lucario a guarunteed dash attack punish. Dash attack often combos into many strings so this is actually a very significant advantage for lucario. Usually I try to grab snake at low percent after a dash attack because of the setups and conditioning tools I mentioned earlier. Rolling between hits of Ftilt is a mixup that is worth trying once in a while especially if you are not near kill percent. Good snake's will not commit to the full ftilt if the first hit connects on shield. You should be prepared to read this and dash attack immediately after the first hit in case they have a habit of turning around in anticipation of a roll.
Approaching - Aerial
I mentioned short hopping and fast falling with ASC as a useful method of getting into Lucario's burst range.
(
http://youtu.be/n7XHYWnSDXs?t=6s)
Once in this range snake is worried about being able to read your rolls, aura spheres, and shfairs because they are all hard to react to. If possible, you should see if he has a nervous habit of dacusing, or tilting to get out of the predicament. If he does, then you should punish with pivot grab, b reversed aura sphere charge, tilts, or sh fair/dairs. However, if he holds his ground or is hard to read then you need to be prepared to approach him. Your safest approach and primary conditioning tool will be to full hop, fast fall, and quickly wavebounce an aura sphere. This type of movement is completely safe unless snake goes for a hard read which can be later punished.
see:
http://youtu.be/GdyPm_8bhKY?t=34s
You need to be able to fast fall, then quickly wave bounce. I suggest practicing this until you are fluent. You can apply this type of approach out of a double hop, or even a short hop as well. The important thing is to condition snake not to throw out hitboxes as soon as he sees you moving towards him in the air. The fast fall wavebounce AS is your tool to do that.
Now once you feel that you have some advantage ( snake wiffed a tilt, a couple nades exploded near him so his shield is low, etcet) you can approach with an aerial crossup. If your fair connects then you have the classic lucario textbook follow ups (nair, air dodge + grab, frame-1 force palm, etcet). If the fair does not connect then you still have several options to escape safely. The most shield pressure you can put on snake is to immediately double jump dair, which gives you time for a ff nair to space away from him. Alternatively you can doublejump and jump away from snake trying to land safely with your jump-less landing options. Finally you can land behind snake with a bair, nair, or air dodge. In general, the goal is for the fair to connect. You should always be aiming for that to happen.
**** I'm SLEEPY I might add more to this some other time but for now I'm calling it a night. Let me know if you agree/disagree, want to add stuff.
