Snake vs Zelda Match Up

[SuperUltraHyperOrochiPika]

So I'm a Zelda main and my friend has been using Snake for a while now. Before I used my Zelda against him it seemed like Snake was so difficult to approach and he was getting some crazy kills off of dair to C4 stick etc. Snake is a good character for sure. Then I brought out Zelda and at first it seemed rather even, but then I started to play really campy with my din's once he started to crawl under all my grabs and whatnot then kill with the Snake stuff. From then on, it turned into a one sided match every game. It used to be a back and forth battle with near victories or near losses. Now I'm winning with 3 stocks most of the time. He's tried using mines, but I can teleport past them and even while invisible I blow them up along my travel path before I appear. Grenades aren't a threat to me because I can use them against him along with his mines. C4 is not even a concern at all since transformation into Shiek removes C4s from me and I can transform back easily. He's tried setting up C4s on the stage in combination with his mines and grenades but Zelda can avoid it all while using din's and using his own stuff against him. It would seem she has an option for everything against him. Any advice I can pass on to my friend? I find it hard to believe that there are any damn near unwinnable match ups in PM.

 

[cisyphus]

My experiences playing Rizner tell me the matchup is only bad if you make it bad. I kinda auto-piloted and went for combos and that got me down two games. I snapped out of it, started playing more conservatively, and I had a 3 stock on him in game 5. What is your friend doing? Din's should be ridiculously punishable in the ways you're using it. Zelda dies extremely early off the top, and transform can more or less be punished on reaction either detonating the c4 or through ****ing over the obviously not strong Sheik (since she actually does win the MU—there's no other reason to pick Zelda) once the transform happens.

He should be baiting you to try and destroy mines, because he can just as well place a new one and make your effort pointless. He shouldn't be leaving Dins out in play since Zelda has zero trouble utilizing that (it's a mine that doesn't hurt her and provides more combo opportunities!), disarming them via back air or neutral air. If you're able to avoid his grenades, he's not spacing his grenades properly to pressure Zelda. Grenades should only ever have three functions: gaining positional advantage, gaining advantage on block, and gaining advantage on hit. Positional advantage is where it forces you out of a certain area (otherwise you take a hit on block or take the hit outright). Advantage on block is dually a way for HIM to get out of shield (because he definitely knows the shieldstun timing better than you do and has faster OOS options than you) or to keep you IN shield so that he can react to what you try to do (usually something he can crouch under). Advantage on hit is pretty obvious in that it hits Zelda, a floaty low-air mobility character, upwards; but it's also useful for trading on some of Zelda's meatier hitboxes because Snake tanks grenade hits up to insane percentages, especially if he can DI for the grenade hit (which you probably won't be doing because you want to hit him). This is why it's scary to fight Snake from a deficit and why a lot of Snakes have trouble making comebacks: he is allowed to trade with you until basically anything will KO you. Meanwhile, he doesn't die _too_ easily off the top and his recovery just gets better with more percentage (to a point).

The major thing I can assume here (because you've given very little information) is that he doesn't have full control over his grenades and he doesn't understand how to punish Zelda when she throws out unsafe moves (like Dins and her smash attacks), and he doesn't know how to bait out those unsafe moves.

 

[SuperUltraHyperOrochiPika]

I should also mention that up close, his Snake is scary as hell. He comes from a 2d fighter background and uses his jab cancels as both frame traps and shield pressure. His biggest threat for me is his use of Dair, Up B, and crawling options. Once I'm touched by any of these, its almost always death. Your advice for him so far is actually what he does in every other match up I've seen him play so far. I'm a very patient player so I pay close attention to what I must avoid. Once he picked up the DACUS I used my din's at a safer distance or when he's close enough to punish din's start up, but far enough t only use DACUS I block and grab him before and or after the bomb comes out of the mortar. My Zelda is my best character who I've studied the ins and out of what she can do. We're both definitely above average and arguably close to the higher up players so we know how to play our characters well. His Snake is still pretty new, I'd say maybe a week so far, but even still Zelda is my most comfortable character to use against him.

Let me clarify how the matches go down. I keep a safe distance from the start and start my dins with placing them on him right when he pulls out a grenade so that he's forced to block and drop it right away. This puts him in shield stun long enough to either grab him after the grenade blows up on his shield or follow a roll to do some combo damage. If he regrabs the nade to approach me with a shield or dodge of some kind I've learned that once he grabs the grenade again I can run up and forward throw since will keep the grenade in his hand. Rarely does he drop it after the throw, but I take the risk since its not a bad trade for me. When he doesn't pull out a grenade I place dins on stage at a hight that he can crawl under them but still needs to jump over. The reason for this is because I can blow up the din if he goes under it and follow up. If he jumps over it I have better aerials in that situation and if he tries to remove my din's with his own aerial I run up and grab him right when he L cancels. My other option in this situation is up tilt which sets up combos, has good enough range and her whole arm during that up tilt is intangible.

I dont let him get near me unless I want to attack. I know how punishable din's is so I use it wisely while also being campy. I also use it in the air more so that I can be jumping further from him while still using din's. His best options that are notable so far are well timed DACUS to close the gap quickly and get some damage. However Zelda is light so I get knocked up high enough to avoid any follow ups. Because I play so campy I also take advantage of his understanding of how I play and will randomly be aggressive and quickly approach him with dash attack or fair/bair. I do this at random times so that he doesn't expect it.

Based on this what are your suggestions. At the moment our matches have become heavily stage dependent for him. Small stages are best for him so far.

 

[BND]

If he regrabs the nade to approach me with a shield or dodge of some kind I've learned that once he grabs the grenade again I can run up and forward throw since will keep the grenade in his hand. Rarely does he drop it after the throw, but I take the risk since its not a bad trade for me.

Good to see people are realizing this. This is one of the main reasons as to why I envisioned IGT as better than wavedash-to-pick-up-grenade and the future of the metagame.

(Tell your friend to read http://smashboards.com/threads/instant-grenade-tossing.383089/. In retrospect the guide's pretty darn clunky, since I haven't updated it significantly after going full crab mentality, but it might help your friend, since I started using it after I encountered similar problems against my friend.)

Also, Snake generally shouldn't be approaching from above unless he's somehow conditioned the opponent to not challenge him. Tell him to learn his grenade throwing trajectories, in particular the airborne trajectory. I'm pretty sure he can weave his grenades through the Dins, though if necessary chucking the grenade at the Dins will likely active it (As in, make it return to the user).

I've never played against a good Zelda before, but realistically if he knows his grenade timing and trajectory and is willing to abuse it, Zelda and Snake should be evenly matched in the camp game. Grenades are pretty bad if the opponent knows the timing too and are telegraphed, but Dins requires charging for it to have an appreciable hitbox, and one grenade cancels it out (though admittedly you could use it as a satellite afterwards if you use a grenade to cancel it out).

If your friend is intent on approaching for an interesting/fast-paced match (Good for him!), then he might want to try shielding after crawling close to the Dins. Shield post-crawl outranges din's explosion if you don't charge it much (Shield post-run, on the other hand, probably does not), and given that Din's startup is 15 frames it'd be disadvantageous to actually challenge it (according to this). It also deactivates the hitbox, which is nice. None of Snake's non-projectile moves are completely safe to deactive Dins with if you compare the minimum explosion hitbox to Snake's disjoints, but unfortunately projectiles don't deactivate the residual hitbox of Dins.

...Something tells me that I can't comment about the matchup any more without actual gameplay footage of said camping. Try recording a match/uploading it (Potato phone quality works if you have nothing else better).

 

[SuperUltraHyperOrochiPika]

...Something tells me that I can't comment about the matchup any more without actual gameplay footage of said camping. Try recording a match/uploading it (Potato phone quality works if you have nothing else better).

We just recorded this now.

 

[BND]

Oh man that potato quality

Anyways, took a look at your match. The bit around 0:55 were actually just 2 really poorly timed grenades, but those were two potential moments during which your friend could have IGTed them for damage/at least a shield/reflection attempt.
Regardless, if he has a grenade, he shouldn't panic while using them. Snake is perfectly safe in shield, damage/knockback-wise with a grenade barring a grab; his focus should be on somehow getting the grenade to hit or take up space.

Not much to say about the first two stocks or so, since you two seemed relatively evenly matched. The last stock just seemed unfortunate.

I do notice a few semi-obvious suggestions that I can make/errors your friend is making though:

1. One of the main ways you were winning neutral in the 3rd stock was through use of up-B, but your friend was doing nothing to contest it. Your friend should have been throwing out a meaty every time you teleported; bair and cypher come to mind. Both of them have higher hitstun scaling than Zelda's up-B. (Of course, there's no guarantee that they would have hit but there's no reason to consistently lose half a stock from this.)
2. At 0:11, your friend wavedashes back after a crouch cancelled ftilt. One's reaction to crouch cancelling something shouldn't be "Oh, great; I crouch cancelled something, so now I can get away without any hitstun"; it should be more of an "Aha, I got you" kind of thing. Zelda's ftilt is pretty laggy and there was no way you could've gotten the grab afterwards if he had been mashing the attack button. On the other hand, if your friend had gotten a Dtilt off of you, assuming that you weren't expecting it, he probably would have gotten a free grab.
3. I see very few non-neutral techs. Mixing them up might help avoid followups like at 1:05, since Zelda's tech-chasing isn't too great.
4. Similarly, there weren't many times during which your friend grabbed the ledge, but it was invariably followed by an attack of sorts. In both cases (There was one tranq and one fair that I saw), he was punished.

Hopefully this helps a bit. There's more I can say, but a lot of it (E.G. Combos/shield pressure need work, etc.) wouldn't be constructive.

 

[cisyphus]

Yeah the video convinces me that most of what I said is accurate. The jab to grab is a glaring error since you seem to avoid it the majority of the time (and he could literally just grab you instead). He also forgoes use of c4 a lot of the time, which makes everything KO Zelda like 30% earlier at least and gives Snake just a bit more control overall.

 

[SuperUltraHyperOrochiPika]

Yeah the video convinces me that most of what I said is accurate. The jab to grab is a glaring error since you seem to avoid it the majority of the time (and he could literally just grab you instead). He also forgoes use of c4 a lot of the time, which makes everything KO Zelda like 30% earlier at least and gives Snake just a bit more control overall.

To be fair, I dont let him get C4s on me. If he does, I have enough time to either knock him away or get away far enough to remove it. He's also learned this and doesn't waste the time doing that.

 

[cisyphus]

It's definitely not a waste of time though and there are literally guaranteed setups for c4 sticks. There's even setups where you don't get the chance to hit snake away. It forces you off of your main character into a character that has more trouble without the MU experience (and I doubt you practice the Snake MU as Sheik). Rizner tried that a few times and learned that I could punish the Sheik transformation with a stock loss almost 100%, mostly because he doesn't have any reason to practice Sheik vs. Snake.

 

[SwagThugGod]

Been reading the posts and see some good tips I'll mos def incorporate, from playing the matchup it seems like snake is forced to play aggressive, I've tried putting distance (as well as a mine) between me and Zelda, but it eventually just turns into a game of grenades vs dins, which imo Zelda wins having more control over her projectile, how should I be securing kills since Zelda and Sheik gets rid of his best killing option? They both have the option to disable c4 and mines (shieks needles blow them up easily) and make snake approach.

 

[cisyphus]

If they're investing all that time into blowing up mines, you can literally just put a new mine up and have it be a non-issue. Keep doing that until a mistake is made. Grenades are great as well. Other than that just bait committal options. Like this matchup isn't that big a deal at all :\ Sheik is way scarier than Zelda.

Basically:
- Snake has more stage control than Zelda due to being faster and having more methods of controlling space (mine, c4, grenade, mortar, hitboxes, tranq).
- Snake lives longer than Zelda due to his higher weight and fallspeed and a better recovery as well as his upward KO complex which targets Zelda specifically because she is SUPER floaty.
- Zelda's combos might technically be better, but this strength is minimized due to her lack of mobility and Snake's stage control.
- Many of Zelda's moves, especially her grounded moves, require a lot of frame commitment, which means that tranq punishes them easily on whiff. Abuse that to get really low percent KOs (for example, f-tilt, u-tilt, c4 is a di-dependent combo that KOs at less than 70 on Battlefield).
- Zelda's only answer is to transform to remove c4, which you can bait and punish due to Snake's ability to combo Sheik extremely hard. He can also edgeguard sheik extremely hard.

You focus too much on Snake's normals in your play, which minimize your ability to truly punish what Zelda does. Your specials are extremely strong in these sorts of matchups and have no trouble edging out Zelda. If the Zelda plays extremely safely, you'll be in for a very long match, but you SHOULD win in the end due to your higher capacity to deal damage and take stocks.

 

[SuperUltraHyperOrochiPika]

It forces you off of your main character into a character that has more trouble without the MU experience (and I doubt you practice the Snake MU as Sheik). Rizner tried that a few times and learned that I could punish the Sheik transformation with a stock loss almost 100%, mostly because he doesn't have any reason to practice Sheik vs. Snake.

When I picked up Zelda as a main I figured it would be common sense to learn Sheik too. And Sheik vs Snake still feels favorable for me.

 

[SwagThugGod]

Thanks for the tips BND, and Cisyphus, I'm definitely starting to see some improvement in this matchup.

 

[LupinX]

When I picked up Zelda as a main I figured it would be common sense to learn Sheik too. And Sheik vs Snake still feels favorable for me.

Usually Zelda mains have weaker Sheiks and vice versa. It's a thing to pick up unless they play both characters well. Even then you will see differences and that can tilt to your favour. I play against my friend who mains Zelda and I used to have the trouble same as your friend. I do well against his Zelda because I've played patient over the months, I have picked up that his Sheik is a lot weaker and easily pressured so I tend to stick his Zelda, to which he will ALWAYS transform and I 0-death his sheik. If not, I get a kill at 70%. Your friend plays really aggressive, I suggest he thinks through his moves and stop constantly challenging you up close because Zelda is good at rejecting aggression, so your friend needs to learn how to space nades and mines properly. It's a long matchup that requires patience but it will work out, depending who can utilize their kit better at neutral.

 

[red hot roy]

Usually Zelda mains have weaker Sheiks and vice versa. It's a thing to pick up unless they play both characters well. Even then you will see differences and that can tilt to your favour. I play against my friend who mains Zelda and I used to have the trouble same as your friend. I do well against his Zelda because I've played patient over the months, I have picked up that his Sheik is a lot weaker and easily pressured so I tend to stick his Zelda, to which he will ALWAYS transform and I 0-death his sheik. If not, I get a kill at 70%. Your friend plays really aggressive, I suggest he thinks through his moves and stop constantly challenging you up close because Zelda is good at rejecting aggression, so your friend needs to learn how to space nades and mines properly. It's a long matchup that requires patience but it will work out, depending who can utilize their kit better at neutral.

with me my melee sheik is amazing, but PM sheik is balls awful, wheres my melee zelda is non existent, and my PM zelda is pretty good.

 

[KACHOW!!!]

SwagThugGod , I'm asuming you're the snake player from the cell phone video; another thing to note is that if you stick zelda with the c4, she can transform into shiek to make the c4 fall on the ground (it doesn't disapear, it falls on the ground), but I tested it, and i think you have time to blow up the c4 until zelda is completely gone, and she turns into the white flash before turning into shiek. the way i tested it was i shot zelda with fox's lazer continuously with one controller while transforming zelda with another, so i think that works. When zelda is the white ball of light, before she turns into shiek, there's no body there to hit, and it's also important to note that your c4 doesn't disappear when shiek/zelda transforms it off, but rather it falls on the ground. part of me wants to think Cisyphus and BND covered all of that, but I'd rather be thorough.

 

[ForgottenLabRat]

Here is high level gameplay of Snake vs. Zelda/a little Roy. The snake is Messi(beat M2K several months ago) and Zelda is Romance(a Zelda/Roy main who is ranked a little higher in the PR, but they seem pretty equal). I would suggest having your friend watch this videos (there is a link to set two in the vid as it goes to second set): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwXrhgiyCJA