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Sonic The Hedgehog: Community Matchup thread

What is Sonic's worst match up?


  • Total voters
    52
  • Poll closed .

Napilopez

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Has anyone here by any chance played xJumpx's Snake, from AiB? What do you think of it if you have?

I can't believe the matchup numbers throwing out, but oh well.

Sonic can get past snakes defenses better than most characters.

Snakes ftilt will always do 21% damage? ASC will always do 18, plus easy follow ups averaging more. Sonic combos into snake so well.

Question cuz I've never tried it, can sonic Grenade counter if he grabs a nade?

And just grab if you see a nade counter coming, lol. Wait, you can grab it right? Just use a bthrow so you don't hit the nade.

Nade spam shudnt be an issue btw... Dash attack. grab them, use them against him, or jest get them out of the way.

I have no clue why snake would use nikita in this matchup more than once or twice. SDRing owns it. Even if he cancels it, it should be no problem for you. You can see the nikita drop rather slowly when he cancels it, so just SDJ and HA, lol. Ending lag on that thing is horrendous.

And yea, every character can gimp snake pretty much, but for Sonic this really too easy. if you fsmash snake from one end of FD to the other end offstage, no other character has the speed to get to snake before he realeases himself from his C4. Gimp Gimp Gimp. Uair juggle onstage.

Utilt is the only thing I find particularly dangerous in this matchup. Just dont use HA against Snake unless it to punish horrendous lag(nikita, fsmash/dsmash startup), for gimping, or for recovery. otherwise Utilt will be like a instinctual reaction from Snack that will own you. I don't consider ftilt particularly problematic, since SDRs and your own tilts at least clang with it. Ftilt trip to usmash is annoying though.

Don't get grabbed by snake. Dthrow techchase is too good.

On the other hand, grab snake. Dthrow techchase is too good. Bthrow techchase is too good. Uthrow into aerial juggling and strings is too good.

Snake's tilts and attacks come out quick, but their ending lag is very noticeable. Shieldgrab everything. And against Snake, its really not that hard, since Sonic eats through his defenses sooooo well and is so quick. Shield cancels are also uber important because of ending lag. Using sideB powershield Cancel into Snake's ftilt is too good, and this really isnt hard to do. I've realized that because SideB cancelling pushes you forward instantly, if you initiate SideB cancel right outside your opponents range, and then shield cancel, you will be "pushed" right into your opponents hitbox into an immediate shield. What does this mean? An auto-powershield. Its too good, try it.

C4s... make sure you keep moving, and snake is going to have a very tough time landing them on you, because of the nature of Sonic's movements, he's just so darn quick.

Landmines: Unless you want to try to use it against snake at your own risk, or you enjoy blowing up, just eliminate it immediately. Some snakes will plant a landmine right after they kill you. just use your starter invincibility frames to run over the mine and blow it up, lol. No matter where in the stage he may put them, Sonic is quick enough to get there before his invincy frames wear out.

If he plants one onstage at any other time, just run right at it, SH and UpB. The spring will blow it up, you can Dair back down, and you're safe now.

Snake is heavy, and he has tons of powerful moves. I honestly don't get why people fret so much though about Snake's killing power. Like yea, he can kill you with like 90% of his moves, but except for his utilt, none of these are particularly low percents. unless you get hit by his fsmash, which is about as bad as getting hit by Ike fsmash, lol. You can argue that if he uses them near the edge however, you may be in for trouble... but that can be said about most chars. He can definately land kills easily, but I think people exaggerate this.

People, ftilt has crazy range, but on the *Second* Hit. the first hit isnt as broken or ranged or damaging. One can clang into it pretty well because its a 2 part hit, it doesnt actually do 21 damage in one blow, so the 10% rule for each move saves you.

Sonic can combo easily into Snake, Sonic> Snake in the Air, Sonic>Snake offstage. Like, not just damaging snake offstage, but killing him offstage. Sonic is quick enough to punish ending lag onsnakes' attacks, and he can deal with allll of snakes projectiles better than many if not most characters. Uair juggles him easily, and his aerial mobility is no better than yours.

Since we're judging at the highest level of play, Sonic *will* be punishing the ending lag of Snakes moves. Yea, you can say punishment doesn't come into a match-up discussion, but for a character like Sonic its a crucial aspect. If snake has ending lag for Sonic to punish, Sonic will get a grab, simple as that.

I really want someone to tell me why this matchup is 60:40 or above in Snake's favor. 55:45 seems Ok to me, even if I personally would call it neutral. I just really want to know what Snake has significantly over Sonic besides weight and amount of kill moves? Its not just a player based thing for Sonic to get around snake's projectiles and punish ending lag: its in the nature of the character.

So yea, sorry for the wall of text.

Edit: Oh and Tenki, you mentioned something about snake recovering from above the edge to avoid being punished. The problem with that against Sonic is that, Cypher is slow, Snakes airspeed/mobility is slow, and Sonic is quick. Sonic can be there before snake gets back on stage.

ShadowLink said he prefers fighting Olimar to Snake, I find that soooo interesting. Olimar is such a pain for my Sonic ugh. Snake is easy peasy though.

btw, Uair kills will be common in this matchup if you know what you're doing. you uair> his dair. if he cyphers too high up... then he dies.
 

Browny

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so after an annoying amount of games vs my brother... dash attack is pretty good. even if snake nade counters, since sonics DA is so fast he ends up picking up the grenade very often. an SH fair was kind of safe, sheild poke his head ftw.

also when snake is landing from the air and hes facing you, more SH fairs are too good. catch him out of the landing lag frames pretty much every time.
 

da K.I.D.

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so far the only thing i really REALLY agree with is that cypher recovering super high is really fun because we play the only character that can actually reach him up that high

but I move that we suspend this discussion until after the weekend
so that cat can have his mind opened, and malcom i hear you did good at a tourney recently, congratz

grab him everytime he lands
best way to get out of down throw garbage (if you havent gotten 40-50% from down throws and followups from snake you need to re-evaluate the snakes that you play against)
wait half a sec, roll forward, immediately spring...
its the safest option, but it wont work everytime

also, as a general sonic thing, unless you are already on the offensive, spring to down air is stupid, when i played the match last night, freefalling and beign able to control where i was going was much better, especially if i was trying to get out of a bad situation.


on a last note, we have 8 stickeys...
ROFL now nobody will read them
 

Terios the Hedgehog

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As a note against Snake. I was playing as Pikachu against my brother and he recovered high and went to land on the stage. I caught him before he TECHNICALLY hit the ground and just let him release. He popped in the air and I ran forward and caught him again. (NO grabjabs.) I chained 3 grabs and watched him fall helpless.

Can we do that? He might have been able to escape. He's not really good.
 

Tenki

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Has anyone here by any chance played xJumpx's Snake, from AiB? What do you think of it if you have?

I can't believe the matchup numbers throwing out, but oh well.

Sonic can get past snakes defenses better than most characters.

Snakes ftilt will always do 21% damage? ASC will always do 18, plus easy follow ups averaging more. Sonic combos into snake so well.

Question cuz I've never tried it, can sonic Grenade counter if he grabs a nade?

And just grab if you see a nade counter coming, lol. Wait, you can grab it right? Just use a bthrow so you don't hit the nade.

Nade spam shudnt be an issue btw... Dash attack. grab them, use them against him, or jest get them out of the way.
- stale moves.
- Grenade counter rests on the idea that the grenade is on the floor and your opponent hits it while you're shielding.
- Grab if you see Snake take out a grenade LOL. Just be aware that if he's in "default grab", he can shield/roll. But if shield-drops it and picks it up to throw, go for the grab - he can't really do anything from the floor if he picks up a grenade. If he jumps, that might be a different story.
-

I have no clue why snake would use nikita in this matchup more than once or twice. SDRing owns it. Even if he cancels it, it should be no problem for you. You can see the nikita drop rather slowly when he cancels it, so just SDJ and HA, lol. Ending lag on that thing is horrendous.
What I mean from the Nikita is, if it's a low Nikita on the ground, you can go through it with Sonic, right?

Good. If I was Snake and Sonic made contact with a Nikita while I was controlling it, I'd hit the shield button. The Nikita will change state from the hitme=changedirection to contact=explosion fall state. You won't be going THROUGH Nikitas with SDR's.

And yea, every character can gimp snake pretty much, but for Sonic this really too easy. if you fsmash snake from one end of FD to the other end offstage, no other character has the speed to get to snake before he realeases himself from his C4. Gimp Gimp Gimp. Uair juggle onstage.

Utilt is the only thing I find particularly dangerous in this matchup. Just dont use HA against Snake unless it to punish horrendous lag(nikita, fsmash/dsmash startup), for gimping, or for recovery. otherwise Utilt will be like a instinctual reaction from Snack that will own you. I don't consider ftilt particularly problematic, since SDRs and your own tilts at least clang with it. Ftilt trip to usmash is annoying though.
Alternatively, after playing Ally a few times over the summer, U-air can be as dangerous as U-tilt if you somehow forget about it lol. SH U-air has comparable knockback but more reach (since he can do it out of jumps)


Don't get grabbed by snake. Dthrow techchase is too good.

On the other hand, grab snake. Dthrow techchase is too good. Bthrow techchase is too good. Uthrow into aerial juggling and strings is too good.

Snake's tilts and attacks come out quick, but their ending lag is very noticeable. Shieldgrab everything. And against Snake, its really not that hard, since Sonic eats through his defenses sooooo well and is so quick. Shield cancels are also uber important because of ending lag. Using sideB powershield Cancel into Snake's ftilt is too good, and this really isnt hard to do. I've realized that because SideB cancelling pushes you forward instantly, if you initiate SideB cancel right outside your opponents range, and then shield cancel, you will be "pushed" right into your opponents hitbox into an immediate shield. What does this mean? An auto-powershield. Its too good, try it.
The main difference between Sonic and Snake D-throws in this matchup is that Snake can DI so that he can double jump and/or avoid tech chasing. I guess you can do landchasing lol.

Side-B's shield cancel is the same as a running shield's slide, except the shield slide has the shield coming out instantly, whereas the side-B version has the slide happening instantly.

So take it for what it's worth:
- Side-B (instant movement+stop) > shield
or...
- --wait for attack to come out -- shield > slide

C4s... make sure you keep moving, and snake is going to have a very tough time landing them on you, because of the nature of Sonic's movements, he's just so darn quick.

Landmines: Unless you want to try to use it against snake at your own risk, or you enjoy blowing up, just eliminate it immediately. Some snakes will plant a landmine right after they kill you. just use your starter invincibility frames to run over the mine and blow it up, lol. No matter where in the stage he may put them, Sonic is quick enough to get there before his invincy frames wear out.

If he plants one onstage at any other time, just run right at it, SH and UpB. The spring will blow it up, you can Dair back down, and you're safe now.
Meh, the landmines, like grenades, are doublesided. They limit your moves, and they limit Snake's. If anyone remembers "MaD" from a certain... chat transcript, he was being dumb and tried to approach me by jumping over his own landmine. I took advantage of his landing lag and Falcon Punched him out of it lol. Better Snakes will probably camp behind a land mine or whatever. I haven't fought a land-mine campy Snake yet, so I don't know what kind of behavior that would call for. In that case, you might want to break it, I guess.


Since we're judging at the highest level of play, Sonic *will* be punishing the ending lag of Snakes moves. Yea, you can say punishment doesn't come into a match-up discussion, but for a character like Sonic its a crucial aspect. If snake has ending lag for Sonic to punish, Sonic will get a grab, simple as that.

I really want someone to tell me why this matchup is 60:40 or above in Snake's favor. 55:45 seems Ok to me, even if I personally would call it neutral. I just really want to know what Snake has significantly over Sonic besides weight and amount of kill moves? Its not just a player based thing for Sonic to get around snake's projectiles and punish ending lag: its in the nature of the character.

So yea, sorry for the wall of text.
Good Snakes (and even Ikes for that matter) can avoid the landing lag we so love :[

Snake still have bothersome stage control abilities and priority :l

Edit: Oh and Tenki, you mentioned something about snake recovering from above the edge to avoid being punished. The problem with that against Sonic is that, Cypher is slow, Snakes airspeed/mobility is slow, and Sonic is quick. Sonic can be there before snake gets back on stage.

ShadowLink said he prefers fighting Olimar to Snake, I find that soooo interesting. Olimar is such a pain for my Sonic ugh. Snake is easy peasy though.

btw, Uair kills will be common in this matchup if you know what you're doing. you uair> his dair. if he cyphers too high up... then he dies.
lol fine, argue that. Just space well. I've chased after Snake in cypher just to get U-aired a bit too many times via Ally.

I think I did play against xJumpx over the summer and lost.
It was during my Jungle Japes phase and I suicided a few times. :urg:

PS.

I think we need Snake mains. They're probably disgusted at our strawman ezpz Snake and actually have some sort of invincible antiSonic strategy that neutralizes/neuters everything we've ever said.
 

Terios the Hedgehog

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This butt shield intrigues me. Go on.


ANYWOOOO I say we just wait until the Snakes come in.
Holy could probably give us some tips too considering he IS Ally's brother.....

And someone should answer that Pika Chain release thing I brought up.
 

da K.I.D.

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go to the snake boards and search shadow moses,
its a strat that my snake friend made up that works on sonic
since you dont believe me, ill bring him in and let him explain to you
 

CaliburChamp

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Sonic's attacks knock Snake up in the air alot of his attacks do, from that point he is a victim of pain, and easy rack up damage. Also Sonic can spring + up-air Snake as Snake is recovering up high with his cypher. Snake is just overall a really good character, and his standard jab can keep Sonic from approaching with spin dashes. The few moves he has can completely shut down Sonic's spin dash approaches, however Sonic has other ways to approach rather than spin dashes, like shield dash, spin dash cancel to spring to d-air usually tricks Snakes.
Overall, they both have a good advantage on each other that really work well. I'd say this match up is 50-50 neutral.
 

Stealth Raptor

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As a note against Snake. I was playing as Pikachu against my brother and he recovered high and went to land on the stage. I caught him before he TECHNICALLY hit the ground and just let him release. He popped in the air and I ran forward and caught him again. (NO grabjabs.) I chained 3 grabs and watched him fall helpless.

Can we do that? He might have been able to escape. He's not really good.
Wait you grab released him across a level? and there was noway for the snake to get out?
 

Terios the Hedgehog

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Wait you grab released him across a level? and there was noway for the snake to get out?
I don't KNOW. DI or nades might have saved him but he doesn't really play Snake so he didn't know this. his second jump and cypher were DEFINITELY unavailable. And since I never let him hit the ground and he kept air releasing I just carried him to death.

Then he quit. ^_^


I guess I should have shared this with my fellow Pikas......
 

Terios the Hedgehog

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Err... Hmmm... It's actually WAY different than I remember it.... The point about the cypher still stands though. He was using Upb and landed on the stage. I caught him. Then GROUND released. He even turned around in his standing animation and then I dash grabbed twice. THEN he fell off and died. No second jump or upB to be had. I THINK what happened was......

Okay. You know how Lucario can't use his up B again after traveling along the ground if he doesn't jump first? Just like that.


**** double posts. I keep expecting people to post before I do again.....
 

infomon

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Oh, so you're talking about air tripping (I think that was the term for it?). Like when Sonic up-B's and lands on the stage with "perfect" spacing so that he's in his useless "no-specials" falling state the next time he gets airborne.... lol. I HATE that. Sakurai :(

It's the same mechanic behind Snake's cypher-fail, I guess; grab-release means he's "air-tripped" until he jumps and lands again? That's awesome to know if it's the case. I'd want to test moar.
 

Kinzer

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I've seen Xjump's Snake on the AiB...in fact, I beat his Snake, if you look at my ladder history, he even admitted that he had to go MK on me to win the set.

Anyway I'm going to read what else I haven't in this thread and go from there.
 

ROOOOY!

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Let's cover the commonly used moves bit now.

Ftilt.
Utilt.
DACUS
Mines
Grenades
Bair ? (I don't play aerial Snakes)
 

Kinzer

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Bair can be used, it comes out fast, and has a lot of attack power, not to mention it is a sex-kick kind of thing to.

Only diwnside is that it has a lot of landing lag, just like all of his other aerials.
 

Tenki

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Nikita??

That's a first.

Spring U-air and I usually get counter U-aired or N-aired if he's falling. lol
 

thecatinthehat

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Yeah I haven't heard of/seen Nikita used like that.

Most of the Snakes I've played have Jab baited 2-3 times during a match.
 

Tenki

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did Ally do that one?

Ally has some of the most fun/omglolimgettingpwndandilikeit traps ever.
 

Phoenix_Dark

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I haven't played his Snake yet actually. I don't remember who did that to me. I'll assume it was G-reg, since he's one of the few smart Snake players I've fought.
 

Napilopez

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Snake mainsss where aree youuuu.

I want to see what they'll say. I still don't see clear values of why snake would have the advantage here.

And I just mentioned xJumpx because I pwned his snake the first time I faced him, and lost the second time only because of at least one SD every match in the set -_-. He's a pretty good snake.

And yea, I haven't faced Ally, but I'm sure I'd probably lose that just because of the huge skill gap anyways, lol.
 

thecatinthehat

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Snake mainsss where aree youuuu.

I want to see what they'll say. I still don't see clear values of why snake would have the advantage here.

And I just mentioned xJumpx because I pwned his snake the first time I faced him, and lost the second time only because of at least one SD every match in the set -_-. He's a pretty good snake.

And yea, I haven't faced Ally, but I'm sure I'd probably lose that just because of the huge skill gap anyways, lol.
NapNapNapNapNapNapNapNapNap

Are you going to gametable in mineola this saturday?
 

Napilopez

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Nooo, I have a bunch of friends coming to visit me in college on saturday, so I isn't goingg.

EDIT:

Oh yea Tenki, yea, i get how SideB basically gives youu the boost from running instantly, but yea I think its useful because it makes powershielding a breeze. Cuz u are basically shielding instantly as you enter the hitbox if spaced correctly. IDK, its hard to explain what I'm getting at.
 

Tenki

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Dang, you guys have such good matchups. I was shocked to see Sonic that low on the tier list. Like seriously.
ya ino rite?


Just wondering, what was the 'threshold' for neutral and all those other colors?

45:55 feels neutral to me :l
 

Camalange

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Dang, you guys have such good matchups. I was shocked to see Sonic that low on the tier list. Like seriously.
Thank you.

@Thread - Where are all the Snakes??
 
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