Sonic Stage Discussion Export: Brinstar

[Tesh]

Welcome to the first in our NEW stage discussion series. These are the important points we need to cover in this thread:
-How can Sonic use this stage most effectively and against which opponents?
-In which matchups should this stage be avoided?
-Miscellaneous tips and tricks (we all love a fun gimmick)​

Brinstar

Brinstar's uneven slopes, destructible ground and rising acid force battles into the sky. So what does this mean for a ground based character like Sonic?

Useful tips:
-When the acid rises and falls, you can platform cancel anywhere on the stage(?)
-iSDR can be performed on either of the side platforms after destroying the tether
-Sonic can walljump on the eggs/bubbles in the middle of the stage.
-Anthinus combos can kill very early on the upper platform (as low at 20%)

Resources:
Raziek's Acid Guide

 

[Life]

Anthinus combo?

Anyways, generally Sonic's worst stage due to not having room to run around and uneven terrain (especially the cylinders because they form a tiny little wall that stops Sonic). Not all bad, though: as mentioned, acid helps damage rack and blastzones are fairly small.

Correct?

 

[Tesh]

Anthinus combos are all of the little tricks used to get an opponent to land on top of your spring, putting them very close to the blast zone for upair kills. Its risky, but it works sometimes.

 

[JayBee]

I generally do not want to go here at all. Insta-ban against metaknight, and probably wario's unless im positive that i know the player wont go there. You would have to not use your run based tactics much in this stage, and its probably easier to get trapped in close combat too much, which I do not want as a sonic player unless its on my terms because my melee moves are bad in the footsies game overall. I dont really bother with isdr tactics because i will usually not have time to set it up without giving up momentum, and even when I get the isdr its purely for show as i dont see much portential for abuse like in pictochat or yoshis. It's playable against certain characters, and you can always master it, but for right now, i dont play here. i rather go to norfair.

 

[Mr. Johan]

Game and Watch is pretty stupid here as well. The ability to kill at 50-60 with fresh smashes, and having his Nair and Bair stick out for even longer thanks to the appendages that keep the platforms level make this a brutal CP for GW. It's good if the GW doesn't know the Sonic MU, but once the GW figures it out, I'd rather have the GW CP Rainbow Cruise on me.

The stage being so cramped and uneven is what kills Sonic here. He can't use his Spin Dashes because he'll stop and go through his push-wall effect when he gets to the spongy material, he's got no room to run, his base aerial speed is awful and so he can't maneuver his way through the air easily, the acid eating up the stage at times gives Sonic even less room to space himself, it just does not scream "mobile" for Sonic.

Meta Knight, Marth, Wario, Donkey Kong, ROB, Game and Watch, and Peach will have the time of day against Sonic here, outzoning him left and right and killing him freakishly early to boot. I'd just ban the stage and go from there in my personal experience, unless the player I'm fighting has an even stronger CP to go with, such as Link and Norfair.

 

[Kinzer]

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

This stage is not necessarily bad for Sonic, it's just that more often than not other characters will gain so much more benefit from this stage that I will almost never counterpick this stage myself. The rare occasion that you happen to come across a couple of die-hard character players that happen to be worse than Sonic on this stage, then by all means use the uneven terrain and the lava hazard to your advantage.

Camping becomes a chore here though, if not nearly impossible due to how small this stage actually is. Sonic to me feels like he needs to play keep away at times, and unless your offensive/aerial game is leagues above, then once again I would highly discourage use of this stage.

At the very least though, it is very easy to keep certain moves fresh and others stale thanks to the beads and the tether. If you happen to land any one of Sonic's killing moves, you can be sure that unless they're a super heavyweight they won't be coming back.

 

[Tesh]

At least Norfair you could just run from Link. He would never catch Sonic. Especially if you learn how to power shield the lava. Norfair kills Sonic's gimp game, his mobility, spacing and doesn't make up for it in many relevant ways.

This stage is good for heavies like Ike that can use the limited space to make the most of oppressive range. The can ruin gimps and limit Sonic's ability to recover low when needed.

Kinzer I would say its bad in the sense that Sonic is a versatile character without any real "bad" stages. But this seems to be a good candidate for "least good".

Any character that would find this stage a poor choice against Sonic would probably lose worse somewhere else anyway.

Edit: Legendary Brinstar AT

 

[Tenki]

Gimmicks:

on a thin bridge (and maybe sometimes, not so thin bridges), a D-throw might break through the bridge and force a ground release WHILE breaking the stage in half.

For many not-as-aerially mobile characters, a moment of surprise/hesitation can mean death, and for some others, it can lead to a free gimp.

That Acid Guide link is pretty cool. I should try it some time ;p

 

[JayBee]

there is no real counter stage for sonic if you want to get extreme about it, but generally speaking the more a stage interferes with sonic's horizontal ground movement, or constricts movement, the more it hurts sonic's overall game. I want to have the room to weave in and out of my opponent's zoning and this stage obviously makes that more difficult. But the thing right now is that most people dont go there anyway, so i dont have to blow a counter pick on it.

 

[da K.I.D.]

Brinstar is only good for sonic if his air game is better than the opponents as brinstar inherently promotes air combat more than almost any other stage. For the characters that actually will counterpick you to this stage, they most likely outprioritise you in the air, and thus will **** you on this stage.

I play against a bunch of metas here, and I for the most part just go fox or falco whenever I can choose to if I know im going to this stage.

 

[Trillion]

I don't like playing on Brinstar as any character. I just plain don't like it. A unique advantage for Sonic that many characters do no have howerver, is that we can use our spin to go from the stage, to underneath the stage, and then use the spring to go through the bottom and use an aerial on an opponent above us as we pass through.

 

[Kinzer]

I will forever ban Brinstar against Ness.

Trust me on this.

 

[~TBS~]

Thanks for the protip Kinza.

I like the fact that you can WJ off of the middle part where the stage breaks apart at. live saver at times. Fighting on this stage is just plain weird, i dont see how its necessarily bad but...im banning this vs wario and ness and *insert other chars here*.