Snake's worst match up's ?

[ep1c_marf]

Hey just wanted to get all you snake mains input on his potential worst match ups and why. Imo i think mewtwo can give him alot of trouble because his back air seems to shut down his recovery pretty well and his up throw chain grab doesn't work as long, but i don't know much about snake so discuss.

 

[FlashingFire]

Personally, I think Kirby is Snake's absolute worst matchup. Kirby's crouch alone invalidates most of Snake's moveset, and the little puffball has amazing combos against our air-mobility-challenged hero.

Snake also struggles a lot against Falco, Marth and Ness imo. Mewtwo is tough, but it's not nearly as bad as some people make it out to be.

 

[SSS]

Kirby is Snake's absolute worst matchup

 

[Professor Pro]

I pretty much know every character Snakes loses to though the amount he loses it by obviously various, it could be slight, and it some cases it's pretty horrible lol.

1) Mario
2) Peach
3) Diddy Kong
4) Falco
5) Fox
6) Zelda
7) Sheik
8) Link
9) T.Link
10) Mewtwo
11) Ivy
12) Samus
13) Lucas
14) Ness
15) Pit
16) Kirby
17) MK
18) Marth
19) Sonic

(19 out of 40 characters, Snake is broken Kappa)
From my personal experience and also just general knowledge of how the game works, if I was to do a top 8 of worst, it would be
Diddy Kong, Mewtwo, MK, Kirby, Marth, Peach, Mario, Sheik

 

[ep1c_marf]

I pretty much know every character Snakes loses to though the amount he loses it by obviously various, it could be slight, and it some cases it's pretty horrible lol.

1) Mario
2) Peach
3) Diddy Kong
4) Falco
5) Fox
6) Zelda
7) Sheik
8) Link
9) T.Link
10) Mewtwo
11) Ivy
12) Samus
13) Lucas
14) Ness
15) Pit
16) Kirby
17) MK
18) Marth
19) Sonic

(19 out of 40 characters, Snake is broken Kappa)
From my personal experience and also just general knowledge of how the game works, if I was to do a top 8 of worst, it would be
Diddy Kong, Mewtwo, MK, Kirby, Marth, Peach, Mario, Sheik

woahhhh you really think snake loses to all those characters?

 

[FlashingFire]

In theory I can see most of those being disadvantageous. I'm surprised at a few things, though - no mention of Luigi, yet Peach, Diddy, Toon Link and SONIC make the list? I'm curious about that one.

 

[Professor Pro]

woahhhh you really think snake loses to all those characters?

Definitely, you might look at this and disagree with 2 or 3, but the majority of it is correct.
Do you have any characters you feel shouldn't be on the list?

In theory I can see most of those being disadvantageous. I'm surprised at a few things, though - no mention of Luigi, yet Peach, Diddy, Toon Link and SONIC make the list? I'm curious about that one.

I've played against Eli at SKTAR 3 in a MM and it was 3-2 to me lol, but I haven't played it enough to determine my opinion.
There's absolutely no way Peach and Sonic aren't disadvantageous MU....ESPECIALLY DIDDY lol (that character is ridiculous), Toon Link is the only one I feel people can debate on, but I've played Jolteon loads and I don't think it's a counter, I just think it's slightly in T.Link's favour.

Do you have any MU's on that list you don't think is against Snake out of curiousity?

 

[Strong Badam]

FYI there are 41 characters not 40.

Prof trying to make his char seem worse than he is???

 

[turtletank]

I'd like to see a list of the absolute worst matchups with at least some reasoning. 19/40 bad matchups for Snake seems a bit extreme.

 

[Risky]

Do you have any MU's on that list you don't think is against Snake out of curiousity?

I don't mind fighting spacies, Fox is more annoying than Falco. Pretty easy to avoid lasers and Snake can 0-Death off one grab. Up-B -> Dair combos work really well to 50-60 and you get free grab combos after that %.

Why is Peach bad? I'm trying to find a character to deal with her and was hoping Snake would be decent.

 

[ELI-mination]

I think Snake loses to Luigi by a bit, like 55-45 imo

 

[RolexPachinko]

Snake is a bad character and loses to nearly every top tier in the game.

 

[FlashingFire]

Do you have any MU's on that list you don't think is against Snake out of curiousity?

I guess I'll go ahead and share my full opinion.

Extremely Difficult: Kirby

Very Difficult: Mario, Marth, Falco, Ness, Luigi

Difficult: Fox, Mewtwo, Sheik, Link, Pit, Meta Knight, Roy

Even imo, but debatable: Lucas, Samus, Ivysaur, Tink, Zelda, Diddy, Peach

I'll elaborate a bit. The "Even imo" category contains somewhat volatile MUs that could go either way, especially depending on the stage. The next category contains characters that have a pronounced advantage on pretty much any stage, particularly in the neutral game, but can still be heavily punished for messing up. "Very Difficult" characters have a combination of good movement and powerful projectiles (or in Marth's case, that sword) that makes it very tough to maneuver on the ground and set up stage control. In some cases, Snake's punish game is also rather limited by the awkward weight and floatiness of these characters. Playing against these characters is a test of patience, overall movement, and creativity.

Kirby is kinda ridiculous. If your opponent knows what he's doing, it is EXTREMELY hard to grab him or hit him with normal moves. The crouch ducks under many of Snake's moves and CCs most of the things that hit. Kirby beats Snake in the air, combos him for oodles of percent off of many attacks, has low endlag on his approach options, and cannot be grabbed period during his dash attack. The threat of a swallowcide can turn any lead into a campfest (though tossing a grenade into Kirby's mouth yields delicious results) and Utilt can catch you out of your OoS options. Now, if you actually manage to hit Kirby with some explosives and/or stick him with C4 (CC sticky is pretty cool here), you can KO the puffball quite early...but it's a ton of work. Easily Snake's worst MU imo, but still not impossible.

 

[Mischief]

I think people have a tendency to discredit their main. I think snake is high tier, he just doesn't have a lot of easily spam-able moves many characters have in PM (one of the reasons I like him). Snake has two real problem spots.

First comes in the neutral game. Snake is bad at dealing with projectiles, as most of them can destroy his mines (which would supposedly help with the spacing in such a matchup) and his grenades are not a serious threat to a player that knows how to dodge them (seeing as I can only draw one every four seconds). A lot of projectiles even offer great edgeguards against Snake, making it hard for him to get back on stage. The good things about Snake though is that he can combo the living **** out of most of these characters. So even if he sucks in the neutral, a good snake can easily tack on 40-50 damage with a grab and hopefully set up for a kill with a c4. I think Snake has one of the best punish games in PM and this in a way makes up for his bad neutral. For this reason I would still call him high tier.

The bigger problem comes from floaties, as most people agree. If snake can't combo, it's not like his crappy neutral game really makes up for it. Luigi is such a **** matchup for instance because I usually can only rack up 10% off each hit before Luigi flies away from combo distance. In matchups like these Snake pretty much has to win in the neutral game....again....and again...and again.

That said I still think there is a lot of room for meta development with Snake. He has a lot of tools and a lot of trap "methods" that can probably still be developed. I would still say Snake is high tier, though he is certainly not top tier. If you're not a floaty, getting grabbed by him really, really, really sucks.

 

[SSS]

I have a pretty tough problem with Samus. It's all missile cancels all day and I just can't get in. Any advice?

 

[internetmovieguy]

I think mario is a bad match up for snake. I usually choose mario to beat snakes.

 

[Professor Pro]

FYI there are 41 characters not 40.

Prof trying to make his char seem worse than he is???

LOL I said 40 because I was taking away the Snake ditto (in before someone says port priority is in blah blah favour lol)
But if it helps...19 out of 41 character

I don't mind fighting spacies, Fox is more annoying than Falco. Pretty easy to avoid lasers and Snake can 0-Death off one grab. Up-B -> Dair combos work really well to 50-60 and you get free grab combos after that %.

Why is Peach bad? I'm trying to find a character to deal with her and was hoping Snake would be decent.

I agree, Fox is more annoying and harder to deal with than Falco.

Peach multiple reasons, her float camping Snake doesn't have much of an answer except, and also Snake's general combo game on her which is pretty bad, Snake has to give her a lot of respect in many situations. And of course her weight, and general playstyle makes it really hard to get C4 sticks

I guess I'll go ahead and share my full opinion.

Extremely Difficult: Kirby

Very Difficult: Mario, Marth, Falco, Ness, Luigi

Difficult: Fox, Mewtwo, Sheik, Link, Pit, Meta Knight, Roy

Even imo, but debatable: Lucas, Samus, Ivysaur, Tink, Zelda, Diddy, Peach

I'm sorry, but there's no way that Falco is harder than Mewtwo, MK and Diddy.
And I'm confused at how you see Lucas, Diddy and Peach even close to even, Diddy is ridiculous for one and he destroys Snake in multiple ways.
I'm confused at why Falco is viewed as one of this characters hardest MU to some, I'm pretty convinced that the majority of people who hold this viewpoint don't come from a Melee background and don't have the same long term experience dealing with this character.
Also Roy is definitely in Snake's favour lol...
I agree with you though on the Kirby is ridiculous comment lol.

 

[Strong Badam]

Snake bodies himself dude

 

[Professor Pro]

Snake is a bad character and loses to nearly every top tier in the game.

Snake isn't a BAD character, but he does lose to every Melee top/High tier except prob Jiggz and CF lol.
As for the ridiculous PM characters (the obvious ones) he loses to all of them.

 

[FlashingFire]

I did specify at the beginning of my post that those are my opinions. I'm definitely open to changing them upon further discussion.

It's true that I don't come from a Melee background and that I lack the years of experience fighting spacies that Melee veterans have. I will say that Falco's Dair is virtually free against a recovering Snake, which is one of the main reasons I view it as harder than the Fox MU.

I would like to hear more about your opinion on Diddy, and maybe some of the other characters we disagree on. In my experience, if you can handle grenades you can handle bananas, so I'm curious what else you think Diddy has on Snake.

 

[Rubix.]

For some reason I struggle against ivy. I know it's not his absolute worst MU but that back air is just so dumb.

 

[Professor Pro]

I did specify at the beginning of my post that those are my opinions. I'm definitely open to changing them upon further discussion.

It's true that I don't come from a Melee background and that I lack the years of experience fighting spacies that Melee veterans have. I will say that Falco's Dair is virtually free against a recovering Snake, which is one of the main reasons I view it as harder than the Fox MU.

I would like to hear more about your opinion on Diddy, and maybe some of the other characters we disagree on. In my experience, if you can handle grenades you can handle bananas, so I'm curious what else you think Diddy has on Snake.

Bananas and grenades are extremely different so if you can handle grenades it definitely doesn't mean you can handle bananas. Bananas are like ten times better for one lol, Grenades don't blow up on impact and are based at you throwing it at a certain time if you want to get the explosion, and the timing is universally known so most people don't get hit by it and shield or roll away, though it's good for forcing defensive situations.
Bananas trip on thrown impact, can be combo'd from if you D-Throw next to an opponent with a Smash attack, can be thrown at a very fast speed which is incredibly hard to predict, out of shield or just in general and also act as a stage control tool during tech chases and in neutral, and you can have TWO of them out lol.
You can also have a Banana in your hand and still shoot a peanut which means you have to give it even more respect.

Diddy has this weird complex where he can force you to play defensive and than use his command grab to abuse your defensiveness and abuse your offensiveness with his projectile
If Bananas weren't used at all the MU would still not be that bad for Diddy lol, but that one projectile changes absolutely everything, especially with Snake's poor approach game, it's really hard for him to deal with.

Honestly, it's pretty terrible lol, I would take a Falco or Fox over Diddy any day.

 

[Mischief]

I hope projectiles become less ridiculous in the next build.

 

[SAX]

I think fox ***** Snake. You basically have to hope the fox player messes up to get a hit in imo. Albiet the punishes can often lead to death, Fox's SH DL and his shield pressure (mainly shine grab) is way too much for snake to effectively handle imo. I usually go Game and Watch if I get ***** by a spacy player.

 

[SAX]

Double post for how awful the diddy match-up is. I go sonic for that **** lmao **** is freeeeeeeeee

 

[0mart]

Double post for how awful the diddy match-up is. I go sonic for that **** lmao **** is freeeeeeeeee

I think fox ***** Snake. You basically have to hope the fox player messes up to get a hit in imo. Albiet the punishes can often lead to death, Fox's SH DL and his shield pressure (mainly shine grab) is way too much for snake to effectively handle imo. I usually go Game and Watch if I get ***** by a spacy player.

honestly I don´t think it helps to the discussion saying that you use other characters aside from snake as a counter to the matchup.

 

[0mart]

Also Roy is definitely in Snake's favour lol...
.

Could you help me in the Roy Matchup? I don´t seem to understand how should I play this match. I keep getting juggled by him and I feel that Roy kills me earlier ( aside from the Uthrow - C4) @ Professor Pro

 

[victinivcreate1]

Could you help me in the Roy Matchup? I don´t seem to understand how should I play this match. I keep getting juggled by him and I feel that Roy kills me earlier ( aside from the Uthrow - C4) @ Professor Pro

I know I'm not Professor Pro but hear me out. If you recover low, Roy wins. Roy easily edgeguards Snake. Also if you're above Roy you're kinda screwed. He juggles very easily. IMO the best way to escape is to force him to commit and then catch him with a falling C4 or if you're looking to gtfo and reset to neutral go for a B-Reverse Grenade. Or you could always try the unorthodox and airdodge down lol. Sometimes they don't expect it so it works lol.

 

[0mart]

@ victinivcreate1 yeah thanks, I know about that I have to mix up my recovery because if I recover high or mid-high he can use his Flare Blade or even the Bair. but it is more about the Neutral game and how I can get a got amount of % or even kill him after a confirm. After making that post I play against him again and I discover that we can Chaingrab him until like 40(?) and sticky him. there are a couple of techs with snake that I would like to share but I dont have a capture card at the moment.

 

[cramazzratazz]

peach really is a menace...

 

[victinivcreate1]

Falco for Snake's worst MU. I have a ton of Falco experience (even if it is wifi, our connection is pretty solid) and tbh it is insane. On one hand we can WRECK Falco with one grab, and get guaranteed up throw C4 stickies and insane combos. And we can get a ton of forward air spike set ups, not just from up throw (mortar into fair spike is guaranteed at mid high percents).

Problem is getting in. Falco has basically a free neutral. Powershielding is basically a must for the MU. Many approaches are pretty much rendered unsafe cuz Shine OoS. You can't CC shine or dair either. You're forced to bait him into doing something with incorrect spacing and then punishing with X move. And if the Falco is smart, well its gonna be difficult for him to actually get him to mess up.

 

[beanwolf]

I treat the spacie matchups like I do sheik/spacies in melee. I play pretty defensive, abuse platforms, and fish for a grab in any way I can. Off the grab, you tech chase and go for your strong combos. Sheik and Snake actually have really similar issues in the matchup, although they are better/worse in specific areas. Snake suffers worse in the approach area for sure, so just don't approach while dodging, powershield lasers and chucking nades at him.

I know being offstage v. Falco is a really bad situation because of the dair, but don't be afraid to try really standard gimps on him. Throw him off, take ledge, back air. You can back air and regrab the ledge if you do it fast enough. Not every offstage kill you get has to be a forward air.

 

[Risky]

Crouch v Falco

 

[Mischief]

Hard matchup? Just gotta start shanking um.

Seriously the cc knife is a great option and it can get you under a lot of projectiles like lasers or peanuts.

 

[Pr0fessor Flash]

Any advice for the MK Matchup it's so hard!

 

[cisyphus]

Any character whose main game plan is tight combo strings and shield pressure (aka every spacie) gets wrecked by Cypher OoS, y'all. Every time I play a melee spacie main for the first time with Snake, they inevitably say "What the hell, I shined you!?" right after I Cypher OoS. They're conditioned for speed and quickness, which means they use very few frames of shine—therefore, the invincibility on grounded Cypher eats it up and punishes them. This leads to C4 sticks on good DIs and resets neutral on bad DI. The other good aspect for Snake vs. Spacies is how mobile they are (with Wolf being the least susceptible) which aids in your strong trap game. Even if they do wait out the Cypher, it tends to trade, which is good for Snake because he KOs spacies far more easily than they KO him. Resetting to neutral isn't bad so long as you can avoid Falco's lasers (Fox's are no problem) long enough to set up mines (which they have to detonate carefully). Once that happens you can just reset the shield trap and force them to have limited options in response, where you then go for grabs, jab resets, etc. If they camp, you camp right back with grenades. Spacies are pretty even and I can't imagine why people have so much trouble. If you adequately punish the approaches (which Snake can do rather easily), they're forced to play a slower game which will be in Snake's favor. Edgeguarding additionally is no problem since Snake has a solid punish against most of their options:
- C4 on platforms to punish high recoveries
- mine on ground to cover edge rolls.
- GRAB LEDGE to force bad options.
- Ledgehop Tranq/aerial to cover any other options (and if they sweetspot ledge you can shieldgrab the standard getup and reset the edgeguard with back throw/dthrow techchase w/ mine coverage.
- dair/fair spike or bair UpB and shinestalls

The matchup is far less dependent on C4 sticks as well since fair/bair will KO around 20% earlier than a up throw -> C4. If you play the matchup like a Sheik would it goes a lot better: Edgeguard spacies and KO toward the sides. They're fast fallers! Ban FD and Smashville, those stages suck for Snake anyway and spacies generally have trouble coming down against Snake because of grenades, Cypher hitboxes, Uair, usmash, utilt, and mines limiting so many options. Doing SHFFL Nairs, but jumping with Cypher, when they're above you covers a lot of approaches because you have an upward hitbox to cover above you (I'm pretty sure that's the fastest reliable option) that will also hit them if they didn't approach. I do this vs. Falcos all the time and their dair gets eaten up and I get grab off of it pretty easily.

Meta Knight does seem trickier because he has such a potent grab game against Snake as well as disjoints on his moves which make a lot of the above strategies much more difficult. Avoid using grenades in situations where MK can grab since a good MK combos off of those really easily. Place mines religiously and try to mix them up as best you can so that the MK can't remember where they are. Camp him out and force him to approach and get the C4 early. From there, trade with grenades and Cypher until you can KO, because again: MK dies WAY before Snake does. Be smart with your recoveries and know that trading with a grenade tends to be advantageous since it resets your Cypher, overrides their hit trajectory, and puts your opponent in a bad spot. B-reverse every single on stage recovery because that makes it harder for them to outspace the explosion. Use ftilt to punish techchases because it's faster than Cypher and has far better follow-ups than jab. Outside that, Metaknight has huge trouble sweetspotting the ledge, so use that against him with mine to cover missed sweetspots and C4 to cover any sweetspot options (between roll and stand, it can cover both). Cover the platform with your grabs and aerials and don't be afraid to spike with fair or meteor with dair. It's still in MK's favor, but he has to approach, which makes it far from one-sided.

Sonic shouldn't be too difficult if you apply the same kind of concepts for the spacies matchups: Sonic loves fast, tight combo strings and Cypher shuts them up real quick. You just get the added benefit of a predictable recovery, easier upward kills, and far stronger mine abuse given how much Sonic has to move.

I can't honestly say much for the Diddy matchup since my area only has one strong Diddy main and I've only played him once ever.

The real menace I've been seeing is Squirtle, who has all of the movement strength of Sonic WITH knockback armor and projectiles in bubble and water gun to destroy mines. I feel like his short stature also makes grabs extremely difficult, which is the best option vs. side-b at low percents. Zelda is also very difficult because of how many safe on-shield options she has combined with her floaty weight making it difficult to combo anything. Ness invalidates grenades and mines with PK Fire and also has a low weight. Ivysaur and Marth have the proper spacing ability to make any of Snake's options outside grenades very underwhelming. Really, any character that has strong disjoints and/or flexible projectiles is probably difficult for Snake. So, ordered roughly from hardest down:

1. Link
2. Diddy
3. Squirtle
4. Pit
5. Toon Link
6. Zelda
7. Samus
8. Mewtwo
9. Ness
10. Ivysaur
11. Mario
12. Peach
13. Marth
14. Sheik
15. Ike
16. Metaknight

Lucas, Fox, Falco, and Wolf have limitations on both of those categories and also have a great combo weight for Snake. Lucas also gets chaingrabbed to like 50%.Snake's gameplay is focused on building a wall which cannot be broken. The characters above have the tools necessary to chip away at that wall without sacrificing their spacing. I'd argue that most other characters have an even or close to even matchup against Snake, with a few that are clearly in Snake's favor (Bowser, DK, Puff, Falcon, Ganon, G&W).

 

[Risky]

So about that Cypher OoS...

 

[KeO C.]

Yea recently my friend picked up squirtle and has been wrecking my snake, barely beat him now due to lack of knowledge of the MU.
My main strat. was of course always have a Dsmash out and to cypher oos squirtle's side b when possible. Not use to such a (no pun intended) slippery character w/ a killer Usmash. Any tips?

 

[FlashingFire]

CC pretty much everything but Dsmash, and grab him if he starts to get predictable with side-B.

 

[Pr0fessor Flash]

Any advice for the Falco MU?