Super Effective! Ivysaur match-up thread. [Updated for 3.0+]

[Kyle Strand]

I played against a mk at a local tournament and I seemed to find that up throw/down throw to upb works most of the time against him. I dont know if he just didnt know the mu or not, but he used a lot of downb so it got easy to predict after that. Fairs lead to more combos easily and backairs helped a lot with spacing

 

[Kyle Strand]

Can anyone give me some tips on how to handle Warios and Falcos? I have a friend who plays a good Wario and ran into a couple of Falcos at a local tournament. I didn't know how to handle the matchup well

 

[EmLeingod]

Can anyone give me some tips on how to handle Warios and Falcos? I have a friend who plays a good Wario and ran into a couple of Falcos at a local tournament. I didn't know how to handle the matchup well

The Falco MU is like a completely up hill battle. Avoid situations where he could apply shield pressure, use platforms to avoid laser camping (in this same vein, avoid stages like FD and Smashville where you don't have platforms). Fair through platforms to convert into other stuff. Nair is 2gud on fast fallers. Try getting them offstage, and don't let them come back. If he uses firebird, that should be the stock, bair him out of it, but at the same time be wary of the meteor on Falco's side-b.

Wario is also a tough MU imo, but much better than falco. Do not challege the side-b just don't do it. Recognize when your opponent is going to try and go for them and either shield grab them or just plain grab them. and IIRC you should be able to slap him out of the side b with a bair. Beyond dealing with his side-b I think it's a really easy and standard MU. But I haven't fought a lot of good wario's just 1 or 2 decent ones.

@TheReflexWonder should be able to help you out with the Wario MU more considering he plays both Ivy and Wario.

 

[Swann]

I'm fairly certain that nair > Wario

 

[it's Papa]

Do not challege the side-b just don't do it.

Ivy's nair stops Wario's Side-B

 

[EmLeingod]

Am I insane or is the Link MU completely manageable? I really think it's even.

It sounds bad on paper, but I do so well against Link it's not even funny. I live in Texas and I've played my fair share of Links from all skill categories, and I feel like if I do lose, it's 100% player skill thing, I'm never in a situation where I felt helpless, I always see my mistakes in the link MU. The flip side to this is I think Tink is completely unmanageable. He's like Link, but with a boomerang that needs to be spaced, but once out is a million times more useful. His up-b acts as a swiss army knife, safe recovery option(despite it's not so great travel distance) one of if not his best killing options, great defensive out of shield option, good in the neutral, like it just does so much for him. Low-tier my ass ().

This is kind reinforced because Denti usually does pretty well against our local top-level Link (AeroLink) but struggles with our local top-level Tink (Lunchables).

 

[PartlyCloudy]

I looked through the thread and didn't see any discussion on Pit, so I'm asking. How does Ivy deal with Pit? In my matches with a friend, Pit can force Ivy to approach with arrows, not worry about getting back on stage, and get consistent kills with shield grabbing, D-Throw, into Up-B. I know some of this is just the two of us not figuring it out, like with Ivy lacking edge camping against Pit and the consistent grab into Up-B kills, but I'd love another perspective.

 

[TreK]

I have very little experience against Pit, as I pretty much made the only Pit player in my region switch mains haha

Ivysaur is probably the only character that can edgeguard Pit in the game imo. Go hang the ledge, most Pits will then try to either A) fire an arrow to make sure you free the ledge, or B) recover high with side B. Answer to A) with a late bair so that the second hit hits Pit instead, and to B) with a reverse upB (or down B if he goes too high).

Perfect shield arrows. Very important. If you can reflect, then he won't be able to spam arrows unless you're at least three dashes away from him. He can charge them so it is a little bit tricky, but it is still very doable.

Learn Ivy's frame data so that you don't do stuff that can get shield grabbed.

You can always setup upB with utilt and dtilt, usmash with shffl nair and solar bim with autocancel nair. Don't rely on grabs too much, good players react to Ivy's grab "mixup".

 

[it's Papa]

Ivy's nair eats Pit's arrows, so if Pit tries to shoot you at an unsafe range, you can potentially punish with a short hop nair approach. This can lead to just about any other move in Ivy's combo toolbox.

 

[kevinw0w]

Am I insane or is the Link MU completely manageable? I really think it's even.

It sounds bad on paper, but I do so well against Link it's not even funny. I live in Texas and I've played my fair share of Links from all skill categories, and I feel like if I do lose, it's 100% player skill thing, I'm never in a situation where I felt helpless, I always see my mistakes in the link MU. The flip side to this is I think Tink is completely unmanageable. He's like Link, but with a boomerang that needs to be spaced, but once out is a million times more useful. His up-b acts as a swiss army knife, safe recovery option(despite it's not so great travel distance) one of if not his best killing options, great defensive out of shield option, good in the neutral, like it just does so much for him. Low-tier my *** ().

This is kind reinforced because Denti usually does pretty well against our local top-level Link (AeroLink) but struggles with our local top-level Tink (Lunchables).

I don't agree at all. Denti has to work very hard against Aerolink. There's a lot of patience on his part. If Link gets a lead, then it becomes especially difficult. Aerolink is obviously a very very good player, but as of recent his results are not as impressive as Lunchable's. You can not compare Denti's performance against two different players like that. I think both links are pretty tough for Ivy, and as a general rule, any character that can outcamp her doesn't do terribly.

 

[KenboCalrissian]

I have a ton of trouble against Ike with Ivy. I almost feel like it's a lost cause, but it appears the consensus is it should be an even match. I guess that's technically true since I can get a good Ike down to one stock, but he's also surviving at insanely high percentages (190% +) before I can seal the deal. What am I doing wrong?

Also, I've never had any trouble against Link. I even picked Ivy against one in a tournament I played today, and I destroyed him. Not sure what the fuss is about, though it's possible that guy hadn't practiced against Ivy and couldn't figure out how to counter.

 

[EmLeingod]

Razor leaf knocks Ike out of his side-b aka quickdraw, which is the cornerstone of any good Ike main, so you should be able to shut that down pretty hard for them. Your spacing tools are basically the same, just play a very careful neutral game, and when you win the neutral game (and you usually should) don't let them re-enter it. Is there anything in specific you're struggling with? You mentioned killing him, but just focus on getting grabs, if he's at a really high percent, you're back throw will kill early than you might think (maybe 130% near the ledge), and even if it doesn't, it'll put you in to a great position to back air him offstage, which you should know is basically a gaurnteed kill. Before that (around the 80%-90%) the up-throw/d-throw mix up in to up-b should net you a kill more often than not.

I actually think this MU slightly favors Ivy. Ivy is (slightly) more likely to win the neutral game, and when she does, Ike's gonna have a bad time.

 

[KenboCalrissian]

Is there anything in specific you're struggling with?

I think my biggest problem against this particular Ike was recovery, or just plain getting back on the ground. He had great reads and had an up-smash ready for me every time I was above him. I did eventually learn to come in low, but then he'd drop off stage and up+b to cover ledge with the sword as it's spinning. As far as kills, I just couldn't get a good angle to land anything powerful.

(I did beat him in a rematch with R.O.B., using lasers and gyros to shut down quickdraw more effectively than razor leaf could. It was a very unfortunate first round for me with Ivy though.)

 

[EmLeingod]

When you're coming back, keep in mind that ivy falls rather slow, so you can usually throw out a fair or RL(be careful with this, remember it takes a while before you can act) to keep them scared away while you're coming back.

People that challenge Ivy offstage are usually in deep ****, your aerials can make him have a bad time, especially if you still have a jump. If you can get him in hitstun offstage, you should be able to kill him with either a bair or dair, and in some situations the soft meteor on your uair but remeber this also makes you plummet and doesn't have a whole lot of priority. They will quickly learn that you are a terrifying force to try and ledge guard.

 

[KenboCalrissian]

Awesome... Thanks for the tips, hopefully they'll help me out next time I have to go up against that guy!

 

[EmLeingod]

@ Machiavelli.CF

some opinions on the OP:

Lucas close to even? I think this is one of her worst MU's, she has a much worse neutral game than lucas, and when she loses neutral she's combo fodder, most grabs at high damages are guaranteed kills.

Snake a bad MU? I really don't see this, what advantages do you feel snake has in this MU? I personally see this as pretty even, but I do only have one (maybe an up and coming second) decent snake in my region.

Mewtwo... uhh how is this not her worst MU? He out-ranges her and is faster, has a reflector that lasts forever rendering RL completely useless for approaching, and a combo breaker fair. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHYzHoTbsXk

Tink is understandable why you have him there, considering we have the only really good tink, but I really disagree. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqj5PmqC4K8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R07C2m3j5vo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LJKn_MdMKM

WISH THERE WAS OTHER TOP-LEVEL IVY PLAYERS I COULD SHOWCASE

 

[TreK]

You're going to have to get used to it, this isn't Melee where the whole population concentrates on basically five characters, there are still a majority of characters in PM who don't even have a single top player representative. Let alone several.

I agree with snake. I've played a bunch of games with @ Professor Pro when I hosted him at Republic of Fighters 3 and felt like I did a bit better than I deserved to, more often than not putting him last stock when I'm not nearly a top player. He still won 38-1 so it's possible he sandbagged until the last stock, mind you :V
I think he'll agree Ivy wins it, at least slightly. We can detonade nades, mortars and mines safely with our disjoints, and he's the right weight/falling speed for our combos while he has trouble landing combos on us. Both characters struggle at edgeguarding each other, so that area does not matter all that much.

I don't think mewtwo is our worst matchup, because Marth exists. But yeah it's bad xD

 

[KenboCalrissian]

Is Marth really that bad a MU for Ivy? I've never had any trouble against one. RL and fair are very good for triggering counterstrike out of Marth's range, granting enough time for a punish. He is easy to edge guard, seems to deal with bair a lot worse than most characters, and the Marths I've played have a lot of trouble getting close to me. If they start comboing, I can just dair out of it. Even the notes in the OP seem to show more positive points than negative, and they're all valid.

 

[EmLeingod]

His range combined with the speed of his attacks are really what can make this MU bad. If the marth is good at spacing, you really shouldn't be able to get in, and I'm pretty sure he can swat away RL really easily. It can be manageable depending on the skill of the Marth, but the really good ones make the MU seems impossible.

But as with most of the melee s-tiers, you get them offstage, they're done for.

 

[Ralph Cecil]

I thought another bad thing about the matchup is how helpless Ivy is out of Marth's fthrow. :o

 

[Professor Pro]

You're going to have to get used to it, this isn't Melee where the whole population concentrates on basically five characters, there are still a majority of characters in PM who don't even have a single top player representative. Let alone several.

I agree with snake. I've played a bunch of games with @ Professor Pro when I hosted him at Republic of Fighters 3 and felt like I did a bit better than I deserved to, more often than not putting him last stock when I'm not nearly a top player. He still won 38-1 so it's possible he sandbagged until the last stock, mind you :V
I think he'll agree Ivy wins it, at least slightly. We can detonade nades, mortars and mines safely with our disjoints, and he's the right weight/falling speed for our combos while he has trouble landing combos on us. Both characters struggle at edgeguarding each other, so that area does not matter all that much.

I don't think mewtwo is our worst matchup, because Marth exists. But yeah it's bad xD

Yeah lol, Snake is definitely not a bad MU for Ivysaur, it's definitely in Ivysaur's favour, I don't know how people are playing against Snake to come to a conclusion otherwise...

Also Ivy can definitely edgeguard Snake...just saying

 

[Swann]

@ Professor Pro , yeah we can edgeguard Snake... if the match timer doesn't run out first.

 

[TreK]

Yeah, I didn't mean we can't, I just said it's a struggle. You have to hit him three-four times if he recovers high, and while hitting him isn't exactly hard, it takes a bit of work and patience.

He's pretty much free if he recovers low I'll give you that :V

While I agree the Marth matchup would be much better without his fthrow leading into everything he wants it to (including a tipper fsmash at any % with a simple DI read), he'd still win without it imo.

 

[steelguttey]

hey guys! this week the Olimar Matchup Thread were talking about olimar vs ivysaur! come and tell us how bad our character is!

 

[KenboCalrissian]

Thanks for the invite! I just went and gave some input for ya.

 

[steelguttey]

Spoiler: Ivysaur

Good Stages: Lylat, PS2, Battlefield

Percent at which flowered purple usmash can kill at: 66%

Matchup Ratio: 4-6

Tips:

I think that olimar vs ivy is bad for olimar but not that bad, he gets juggled really hard by every character but with ivy one grab could lead to an easy follow up up-b for the kill

Avoiding this takes some practice you got to avoid RAZOR LEAF if you don't you are going to die the best options would be either jumping over it or power shield but if you do that then you must make sure you power shield and not just regular shield or you are very vulnerable DO NOT throw pikmin at ivy for camping they get blown away by her neutral b then die forcing you to start the blooming process with no one has time for.

Mainly just wait for him to mess up then pivot grab yours should out range her regular grab and once she's above you in the this becomes a better mu you should either u-smash or u-air to put on some good percent

About ivy she can just neutral b all Pikmin away anyways I don't know why they have a wind box on ivy's attack
It's incredibly stupid
But they gave her one but it is what it is
I lost to Mach last tourney but hopefully I can learn a move to cancel rl
Because sadly i find it hard to beat
You can't shield it because it stuns enough for ivy to pressure with nair or simply grab
So that's something else about the ivy match up

Oh yeah, neutral-B is silly.

Ivysaur matchup can be pretty hard. Ivysaur out ranges Olimar from the front and the back. Not when she's above Olimar though.

In neutral you have to be patient and you have to react quickly. Olimar has the lucky advantage of being small which let's you get around F-Air and her projectiles. Wavedash OoS is your best friend. Once you get in you can combo Ivysaur to stupid amounts of damage. She's also fairly floaty so she gets star KO'd pretty easily.

Stages are kind of personal preference. I prefer medium stages because I have room to breathe and but I'm also able to kill Ivysaur at a reasonable amount of damage.

I still like Lylat.

Also on the topic of throwing Pikmin. I don't think it's something you should never do. True she can U-Air, D-Air, or U-Smash them for healing and charge, but those three attacks are some of her most punishable. You can get big damage on Ivy should she choose to use those moves.

Re: Ivysaur. As Olimar, you should remember one HUGE rule:

Do not.

Throw.

The Pikmin.

When a Pikmin is attached to Ivysaur, it's a free SB charge. Usmash, uair, and dair will almost always hit an attached Pikmin, granting her some healing and getting her closer to Solar Beam (I'm not exactly sure why it isn't 'always...' seems like there might be some weirdness in where they attach that might make it not work every time. This is one of the reasons I'm anxious for debug mode so I can figure out what's going on). RL also stops incoming Pikmin. The exception to both of these of course is purple Pikmin. You're probably better off throwing away until purple comes up.

On the upside, Olimar's smashes appear to beat out Ivysaur's. I'm hesitant to say more, however, because Olimar overall is a weakness of mine no matter who I'm using, so I think any further input from me is going to be biased in Olimar's favor.

 

[TheCometCE]

So I've gotten a buncha people playing at my college, and I keep encountering trouble from both of the links.

I guess it's mostly his Usmash tearing me a new one and his projectiles, it feels like he takes priority on EVERYTHING I throw (I'm seed bomb heavy, I do a great deal of setups into multiple seeds at once, good times).

seems to clink my Bair and Fair too D:

 

[KenboCalrissian]

It sounds like you have the same issue I had with Ivy when I first started using her. Don't rely too heavily on seed bomb - it's a great move and all, but it brings a lot of lag while offering very little threat to the guy standing right in front of you, especially against a ranged character. You're much better off leading with razor leaf and using the multi-hitstun to start combos. Try RL > fair or RL > dash > utilt or usmash for starters.

I tend to reserve seed bomb for special occasions, specifically for meta-utility:

-I frequently have trouble getting back on the ground with Ivysaur, no matter the MU. One solution I've found is to launch a seed bomb or two while I'm still very high in the air, preferably out of the camera's field of view. They probably won't hit, but it's enough to make my aggressor paranoid about where they'll land, and often that's enough to make them less focused on where I'm going to land. Don't forget uair and dair are both great tools for confounding your enemy by altering the amount of time you stay airborne.

-Opponent is too far above you to reach safely with uair or vine whip, or they have a high-priority dair (especially against Link). One nice side-effect I've found is some opponents think they're getting smart by nair- or dair-blocking, but doing so means you've forced their hand into waiting for that move to complete, and making contact with the seed will at least hold them up an extra fraction of a second. This grants you a lead into another aerial attack, a better position, or another seed bomb, hopefully well-timed so it connects right as they're coming out of their attack animation.

-Opponent is off-stage and you're about to ledge guard. A seed bomb can limit their recovery options, making them easier to read.

-Throwing one out randomly while on ground to threaten them with stun. Remember the lag-to-threat ratio is very risky for low payoff, but there's a nice window just outside razor leaf range where you can afford to pop one up. With practice, you could even start with a seed bomb, land a razor leaf, and keep them hit-stunned in place long enough for the bomb to hit them. Works even better if you can land a grab while they're stuck in RL and you can hold them in position for the seed.

Overall, my goal isn't necessarily to hit them with the seed; it's to take their eyes off of me so I have an easier time starting a combo. If they ignore the bomb, they run the risk of getting punished hard for it.

 

[TheCometCE]

Seed bombing offscreen is always fun, I use that pretty heavily

Thanks for the tips, I probably am relying too miuch on the seed bomb to trap/punish when I should be using my expansion attacks more. Will report back with how it all works out

*too many damned link players here T_T*

 

[EmLeingod]

Neutral Air is really good against most projectiles, I believe a smash thrown RL with clank with boomerang. You really just have to rush him down, after he throws out the rang, and hope for the best. If Ivy wins the neutral game, I think it's a positive MU. The problem is, she has a really hard time winning the neutral game. Smash throw a RL, and dash into a crouch canceled d-tilt.

I have no idea how to deal with tink tho, he's hard even if you win the neutral, lol.

 

[TreK]

Well you pretty much have one denti vs lunchables video every week so finding ressource for this matchup shouldn't really be a problem :V

Although I think Denti doesn't use all available options when countering projectile play (especially anti-item ATs and perfect shields), he is more than on point when it comes to countering Tink's approaches and landing some nice combos and edgeguards.

 

[KenboCalrissian]

I watch a lot of Denti, but I often struggle to understand his solar beam game.

I understand that he holds onto it to scare his opponent. However, there are a lot of opportunities where I'm practically screaming for him to shoot it because it looks like it'll hit and kill (Obviously, he knows way more than me though, and since he lands 9 out of 10 shots who am I to judge?).

I tend to play a little more loosely with mine, favoring more opportunities to heal over faking the enemy out for a very long time. Holding onto it as long as he does also means giving up another SB opportunity.

To me, this seems like an even tradeoff and it depends on your style. Are there any advantages/disadvantages to either strategy I'm missing that make one better than the other?

 

[TreK]

The way I look at it is, it's not about healing versus dealing damage. It's about healing ~10% vs landing a killmove. Realistically, in a bo3 set you're going to get 4 or 5 solar beams in good matchup, 2 or 3 in bad matchups. Landing 2-5 killmoves is extremely significant in my opinion, much more than healing 50%.

I also miss out on a lot of opportunities, but it's just because I suck at Smash Bros :C

 

[kevinw0w]

I don't think Denti holds onto it as a "fakeout". He simply doesn't shoot it unless he has a real opportunity. If you can show me a video of him not shooting when you think he should have at least a couple times, then I'll take back what I said haha

 

[KenboCalrissian]

I could do that, though I'm certain that on closer inspection we'll see that I'm wrong and he was right to hold onto it. After all, one of us is at grandmaster tournament level status and the other's making commentary on the sidelines! I'm not so much criticizing his performance as I am trying to bridge the gap between what he's doing right and what I'm doing wrong - especially since at the moment, I'm not even sure if how I'm playing is a problem.

If you're curious, I can't get the exact link right now but it was against Hungrybox (he went Olimar first and Jigglypuff second). I'll edit with a link and exact timestamps when I get home - at the very least, helping me identify why I'm wrong to think he should have fired might improve my own game!

 

[Swann]

Metaknight is difficult to deal with.

He can't clank leaf, but his movement and dash grab is so good that he just needs one read or a misspaced anything-but-jab and we take a guaranteed dthrow followup to the face. His juggles are pretty automatic and lead into kill setups at <80% (shuttle loop) on most stages. Nair OoS means we can't really touch his shield except for well-spaced fair. I was experimenting with usmashing his dair but it was difficult to implement mid-match--going to have to sit down and practice it. I was able to start a lot of extended combos with utilt. Seed bomb was moderately useful.

Actually, now that I think about it, neutral trajectory seed bomb to leaf might nullify direct attempts to shieldgrab leaf. Gonna mess with that a bit.

Played an MK in tourney Saturday, and I concluded that since all my options were bad, I would do nothing. Camping him out really seemed like one of the only strategies I could rely on. I forgot about dsmash, though. Mental oversight which might have helped me close his stocks out, but that's not worth dwelling on.

Could anyone with MK experience shed some more light on this matchup? Not like I don't enjoy 7-minute matches (Kappa), but...

 

[EmLeingod]

ZSS and Yoshi help? I can't ledge guard them at all.

Yoshi has jump armor so none of my combos work unless I manage to win neutral after he burned his jump, and a competent Yoshi will almost never do this even when baited into it. Forget about killing him, he's heavy as all hell, falls extremely slow and has jump armor. And according to OP this is supposed to be a good MU for me.

ZSS has a better projectile that just goes through my leaf and she can recover from any of my ledge guard attempts. Her stage control vs mine is insane with her side-b, up-b, neutral-b. I have to get so many hard reads to accomplish pretty much anything in this MU if the ZSS is on point. Once I get in, I can usually wreck shop, until it comes time to finish the stock. If I don't outright kill her, she comes back. According to OP this should be a neutral MU, but I do not see it.

 

[KenboCalrissian]

@ Swann : I've only fought a MK with Ivy once, and he was still learning the character, but honestly I found the same thing you did - camping was the most effective strategy. Have you played around with ftilt at all? I seem to recall having the most success with that, at least for a start. Bair is also incredibly powerful, since a lot of MK's strategy involves swooping in from the air, and you have a huge arc combined with two very fast attacks.

@ EmLeingod : Sorry, I'm not that familiar with either of those matchups. I know RL works well against Yoshi while he's on the ground, which I think is why it's marked as a good matchup - you can shut down a lot of his horizontal game, which he really needs to be effective. Getting him off the stage is pretty easy, I think - but you're right, I can't think of any good ways to keep him off.

 

[TreK]

Have you played around with ftilt at all? I seem to recall having the most success with that, at least for a start.

Burn this traitor !
(I've been salty about Ivysaur's ftilt ever since 3.0 was released. T'was one of my favorite moves, and now victims can SDI through it and punish you for landing the damn move, it's not even hard, most of my training partners are able to do it on reaction even if they planned to CC or whatnot. The only way I've found to use this move safely is to miss the first few hits on purpose so that the victim doesn't have the time to SDI through it and punish. It's basically a Brawl move at this point.)

 

[KenboCalrissian]

Wait, really? Ftilt is a huge part of my repertoir! I've never seen anyone SDI out of it to punish me. Maybe I played against people not used to Ivy, but it's often how I put on the most ground pressure (that or dtilt). Maybe I'll need to change it up if I play a little more with the group I'm in now...