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

[it's Papa]

Agreed. We can combo Sheik pretty well (almost as well as they can). I'd say the biggest issue for Ivy in this MU is that CC is so strong against her, and Sheik is CCing half the time whether they mean to or not with such a strong dtilt and dsmash. Oh and needles can be annoying...but not overwhelming...mostly annoying.

The matchup basically revolves around patience and good use of razorleaf and ftilt/d-tilt. I like to take her to a stage with platforms and room to get away when I need to, like PS2, and basically just harass her for 5-6 minutes while staying out of grab range. We can punish her recovery insanely hard by forcing her to up-b on stage and punishing with ledgehop > sweetspot up-air and waveland on > upsmash

 

[-Sothe]

Upon having played m2k and other good PM players in tournament, I have some perspective to share. There was no PM footage, but for what it's worth, I'll share some opinions. I was generally very off my game during the tournament, but that doesn't change too much.

Fox: I had a lot of trouble against m2k's fox, and I got 3 stocked. I had trouble converting into actual combos and gimps, and I don't think I actually got a legitimate gimp opportunity, since m2k recovered so high most of the time. The matchup feels generally terrible.

Marth: This felt a lot easier than m2k's fox to be honest. I got 3 stocked, but m2k was at easy death percent for a lot of things. I got marthed as hard as one could ever be marthed, but it still felt better than when I was playing against the fox. Opportunities to get in on marth existed, but on fox these opportunities felt few and far between. Generally getting dash-dance camped by fox felt worse than getting dash dance camped by marth, and fox could actually intercept approach and pressure attempts, while marth wound up taking move d-tilt and bair.

Squirtle: I can confirm that this matchup seems in squirtle's favor. I will also have to say that the squirtle was going even with m2k's fox in friendlies. The squirtle player was cam2, and I can't seem to find any footage, but he was DAMN good. The general problem with the squirtle matchup is that he can get in your face literally more quickly than anyone else in the cast, and he does it with super armor (side b or nair) that your bair can't break through until 90 or something. I got 3 stocked, and I actually had to switch to roy, since my ivysaur coudn't cut it against that level of squirtle.

Sorry guys, I went out like a buster. xD

 

[eideeiit]

@ -Sothe Squirtle has no super armor. I think nair has medium and side-b has light armor, but I'm not all that sure. Super armor can never be broken. Just saying.

 

[TreK]

squirtle is so weird... I've yet to have the misfortune to play a good one. Dash attack and pivot grab seem to be our only "on reaction" answers to his side B, and that's less options than you'd want to have against a character with that kind of mobility and kill power haha

Marth and Fox sux, nothing new here haha. I'm curious though @ -Sothe , did M2K use anti-Ivy stuff like holding the ledge against our tether and generally holding down all the time or did he just spam Fox things and use Marth stuff ?

 

[-Sothe]

@ eideeiit my bad, I actually didn't know the distinction lol. I thought all those were types of super armor.

The squirtle kept closing space with the shellshift jump and using side-b, to which I could only bair on reaction. Of course, bair doesn't break the armor until at least 80%, not quite sure.

M2k knew the anti-ivy DI for sure. He only edgeguarded me with shine as fox, and he didn't really hold ledge because he either got me with shine or killed me with uair/upsmash. He did try holding ledge and doing drop down shine, but I'm proud to say I read it and reeled in to safety. Couldn't punish though.

Fox was sooooo rough though, like I couldn't get in at all with nair or fair, and all I could do was react to his cautious approaches with bair and hope it hit. I tried nair into dash grab, and got shined. I tried nair into jabs, and clanked with shine and got shined again. >_> I couldn't hit him with a single fair to start a combo, and his recoveries were always high and smart.

The marth felt surprisingly manageable, aside from the fact that I couldn't combo it well. I had opportunities to get in, but I kept getting killed by ken combo every time he touched me. He held ledge once or twice in this game, but his ledge punishes were actually sub-optimal it seemed.

 

[TreK]

So I need to get around to updating the orignal post to 3.5 and making it overall better. I haven't put much time into this, and probably won't feel confident about it until after my experiences at Aftershock, but I'm curious what the players here think about a precursory match-up list like this one

So, any post-Aftershock thoughts in the end ? :V

edit : me rambling about the Bowser matchup on the Ivy skype group. I'm double-posting it here in case someone comes later and has a use for it or wants to discuss it :

Spoiler

it's still vastly in our favor though. It's knockback armor, which means :
-it's an anti-poke. Like, that's knockback armor's primary use. Solution : don't poke. Focus on punishing instead.
-it's weak to patience, and grabs. Use one of those and bam. You have your opening and with Bowser's size you'll get a 70% combo out of it easily.
-it stops being useful at ~100%. Bowser may be heavy but his survivability is extremely low. It's kinda like Ice Climbers in that he starts the stock stronger than he finishes it.

In the neutral he pretty much only has three tools : shielding, dash attacks, and spaced fairs. In other matchups he mixes it up with grabs, but Ivysaur doesn't shield ever so he isn't really able to. It's kinda like the CF matchup : he has strong options, not numerous ones. If you can see through his movement and guess which one he's going for and when he's going for it, you win.

uthrow isn't a free kill move any more, but dthrow still is a guaranteed follow up, and Bowser's recovery absolutely sucks. So just push him offstage and finish him there. Combo like you're Marth : past 100% you don't need to go for high damage, you need to go for the option that gives you the best position. Kills should naturally follow.

 

[Machiavelli.CF]

Made a few updates, working partly with JZ. Hopefully accurate. Discuss!

Large Advantage - (65:35) +

Advantage - (60:40)

Slight Advantage - (55:45)

Even - (50:50)

Slight Disadvantage - (45:55)

Disadvantage - (40:60)

Large Disadvantage - (35:65) +

(Characters in each tier organized by alphabetical order)
???

 

[eideeiit]

Why is Ness only 55?

 

[TreK]

Made a few updates, working partly with JZ. Hopefully accurate. Discuss!

Large Advantage - (65:35) +

Advantage - (60:40)

Slight Advantage - (55:45)

Even - (50:50)

Slight Disadvantage - (45:55)

Disadvantage - (40:60)

Large Disadvantage - (35:65) +

(Characters in each tier organized by alphabetical order)
???

Aye, I agree with most of it.
My only problem would be Snake. I think we win that matchup, based on my experience against Leon who's forced to switch to Marth against me despite him consistently placing 1st and me consistently placing 3rd/4th.

 

[Sweet™]

I think Luigi is even at best.

 

[EmLeingod]

I'm interested in why you think Ganon and Zelda are good for us. And I agree that luigi is even with us.

And I really disagree with Falcon only being 45:55. If he touches us we die. Back air is the only good move we have against him in neutral, and if it's spammed they'll eventually catch on. Like I actually think Falcon is worse than fox for us (granted not by much).

 

[it's Papa]

Falcon is definitely one of the worst. Ivy has no answer for a dash-dance camping falcon. If we throw out anything he can just wait it out and then come in on us. If we throw a razor leaf at him he flies through it with nair on reaction and ****s us up. Falcon is definitely a worse matchup for us than anyone you have listed as 40:60 except maybe R.O.B.

Also, why do you consider ZSS a bad matchup?

 

[redcometchar]

So is there no general consensus on anything? Other than characters that can deal with her zoning win?

 

[EmLeingod]

So is there no general consensus on anything? Other than characters that can deal with her zoning win?

Its really hard to develop a general consensus when the metagame changes every patch lol.

 

[Smarf]

What can Samus do to make this match up in her favor? Does she just missile camp or does she have other advantages?

 

[Steel Kangaroo]

What can Samus do to make this match up in her favor? Does she just missile camp or does she have other advantages?

In general, projectile camping is pretty strong against Ivysaur. Missles and charge shot are strong enough to make us have to approach which allows Samus to space herself well and land dsmash/dtilt. Another thing that Samus has in the matchup is her strong crouch cancel game. I've yet to play against a Samus that really took advantage of this but I'd imagine it would stuff a lot of our aerial approaches until quite high percents.

 

[AlmostIvypuff]

Ivy doesn't lose to Snake, it's even at worst imo

We lose pretty badly to Captain Falcon and Lucario, I think ZSS is even

I find Ivy's medium-heavy weight combined with his floaty nature finds him being absolutely torn up by aggressive ZSS and Falcons. She gets trapped in ZSS's Uair combos since she doesn't have a fast enough option out. yes, there's Nair but with the speed of these two characters combined with the hitstun, I find it a very difficult matchup. help pls ;_;

 

[Psychofox]

I hate the GW matchup. I think it's incredibly polarizing and I honestly just switch to Falco because it is so obnoxious and unfun as Ivysaur.

To someone else on Reddit I said:
"My preliminary thought is that Ivy dominates the neutral against GW but I haven't learned how to space correctly around dtilt/up b so I just don't bother right now.
Getting auto combo'd to 90% every stock is pretty dumb too
Like I said I'd rather just do lol falco things for now until I understand the nuances better."

I still think Ivy wins on paper but it's just so dumb. It feels like GW can just mash buttons and win a lot of the time.

I'm not mashing

 

[Swann]

Lol hey Alec. I never said you were, just that GnW can get away with it sometimes.

EDIT: Peach tips appreciated @ I it's Papa

 

[it's Papa]

@ Swann I still haven't gotten to sit down with Hanky for a note taking session since I made that comment. He's an accountant, so he wasn't at any tournaments in the last month or so because of work lol. We're gonna be at the same tournament this Saturday, so I'll deliver my Peach analysis on Sunday.

Prelim: Do NOT get close, don't go to the ledge on purpose, watch out for dash attack, upair gimp low recovery (really good on peach), seed bomb is good.

 

[Swann]

Ah, didn't realize that uair spike would work well. That might actually be a game changer for me.

Looking forward to the full notes later. Cheers.

 

[Killem]

Okay so i've been trying to learn the lucario matchup and it's so difficult for me he just seems to CC all my approaches and it makes me super salty. whenever I get the lucario offstage I am able to easily gimp it's just getting him into that position I just seem to lose in the neutral then get stuck in my shield, poked or grabbed then just strait up bodied.

 

[TreK]

You want to have Lucario approach you instead of you approaching him. Due to his on-hit cancel mechanic, it's generally not a good idea for him to throw hitboxes without being sure they'll connect, which is why approaching him is a bad idea, and making him approach is a good one. Although you can always mix it up.
Additionally, whiff punishing someone has a huge advantage for Ivy : you can't crouch cancel unless you're actually crouching. The best you can do is ASDI down, which is much weaker. So not only is it advantageous to bait Lucario because the alternative is pretty risky, baiting him also leads to better rewards since you're more likely to land additional hits after you whiff punish him.

Machiavelli is probably the Ivysaur who knows this matchup the best, although he often says that he knows IPK a lot rather than Lucario. Here's a VOD of their last recorded set if you want to steal some stuff :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLGvcLN0BtU

And if you'll notice, IPK tries really hard to get Mach to approach him by dash dancing on the side of the stage, but Mach isn't taking the bait.

 

[X0dus]

Who wins that Wolf vs. Ivy match-up and why?

 

[Machiavelli.CF]

I explained my opinion of Lucario vs Ivysaur on Reddit. I'll copy/paste it here.

I'm not a big fan of Ivysaur vs Lucario.

Lucario is much faster than Ivysaur, has a down B that lets him threaten a larger space in front of him than Ivy can, and has a projectile that Ivy can't kill quickly and reliably with jab, tilt, aerials, or specials. Not only that, but Lucario's aggression is much safer on Ivysaur (whos out of shield options are limited) than the average character. On the other side of that coin, Ivysaur's close range pressure isn't exactly air-tight to begin with. These things combined make neutral very unpleasant for Ivysaur. The neutral game mostly involves Ivy feeling cornered a lot, throwing out a lot of anticipatory moves to try and stay safe, and trying to trick him into wasting his aura charges, so it's easier to throw him offstage and gimp him.

Gimping with bair is the biggest thing Ivy has going for her in the match-up, especially if you're familiar with the Lucario you're fighting, and how they recover. Lucario can't easily gimp Ivysaur, so he mostly plays the standard "hold ledge and punish reel in" game against recovering Ivysaurs. That's not as good as Ivy's options on him, but it's decent.

They've both got pretty decent combo games on eachother, and both kill off the top pretty well with uairs and Up B shenanigans. However, since Ivy has killing off the sides and bottom (through edge-guarding) over Lucario, it's a good decision for her to ban low ceilings and put more emphasis on that advantage, trying to take him to stages with large offstage areas. Because of Lucario's neutral advantage, he'd probably want to take Ivy to a stage with a small main platform, where there's less leg room for Ivy to retreat and set up a defense if she makes a mistake. He'll be able to close the gap and punish her more efficiently on stages like that.

All things considered, if both players have their heads, Lucario has the advantage. He'll lose it if he surrenders center stage, approaches Ivy at the ledge, and gets gimped. Ivysaur will lose if she gets impatient and tries to force her will on Lucario, because she will have to play largely off of his spacing, and his decisions.

 

[-Sothe]

Who wins that Wolf vs. Ivy match-up and why?

In brief, wolf because lasers are really really dumb. The solution is to powershield them (I find it much harder than falco's lasers for some reason), beat them with aerials, or jab them if you need a laser out of your face quickly. The more detailed version involves all of the really free combos and early kills that wolf gets off of back throw, shine, and dair into sweetspot fair and flash, both will kill ivy earlier than ivy can kill wolf off the top. The advantage ivysaur has in the wolf matchup is the edgeguard game, in addition to the fact that wolf generally has piss-poor options to actually punish our forced getup. In terms of counterpicking against wolf, fountain of dreams is your friend, since sometimes wolf can't laser you from anywhere in 1/3 of the stage. Generally, smaller stages with platforms are better against wolf. Do not ever let wolf take you to FD, that matchup honestly feels like a 70-30 wolf's favor on that stage only. Otherwise, I feel that this is 55-45 or 60-40 in most stages, wolf's favor.

 

[GrizzleDrizz1ed]

Hey! Olimar Main here, and I'm here to tell you that Ivy absolutely crushes Olimar. I'll explain why.

Ivy's Nair puts out incredible shield pressure and it will often end with hitting Olimar. It's really safe and you can aim to behind him if the shield does take the whole thing, and then do it again since the timing to stop it is so strict. If you land in front, follow up with a jab.
The Razor Leaf is a fantastic tool to get an easy approach. Throw it out and if he gets caught in it, DA or Grab. You could also Bair or do just about anything.
Get him off the edge and spam Bairs. 1 tap after he's used his jump will make it very unlikely that he will be able to return. You can also go for the Nair or Dair after he's latched to cut him off.
Olimar is essentially unable to use his Pikmin toss, as Usmash, Dair, and Uair can gain you health and Solar. Just watch out for the purples, though most of your attacks can stop it.
If you start to get combo'd at low percent, Nair is likely the best option as it can cut through Olimars attacks.

Over in the Olimar chat, we consider this MU to be 80-20 in Ivysaur's favor. When played well, Olimar just doesn't stand a chance. Even average players can take out a good Olimar.

And the last tip, use Nair a lot. Like, I mean, if you're close to him, use Nair.

 

[ZGE]

Does anybody have good Luigi experience? I'm wondering if Ivy wins against Luigi, I've noticed that generally everyone says she does but nobody is really sure how or why. In my mind Ivy can keep Luigi out with well spaced dtilts and razor leaves, plus once Luigi is in the air he's a sitting duck and we can seed bomb harass him for a while. It should be really hard for Luigi to get in + he's super easy to edgeguard, but it seems that once he gets in he should get a solid 50% or more. Also how good is OoS nair against him?

 

[it's Papa]

Does anybody have good Luigi experience? I'm wondering if Ivy wins against Luigi, I've noticed that generally everyone says she does but nobody is really sure how or why. In my mind Ivy can keep Luigi out with well spaced dtilts and razor leaves, plus once Luigi is in the air he's a sitting duck and we can seed bomb harass him for a while. It should be really hard for Luigi to get in + he's super easy to edgeguard, but it seems that once he gets in he should get a solid 50% or more. Also how good is OoS nair against him?

We can't seedbomb juggle him or combo him in the air at all because of his nair. Also it can be hard to zone a good Luigi because WD in > shield can annihilate pretty much all of our zoning tools and get us punished. You really need good mixups/unpredictability in neutral to win. Luigi also has a super braindead tether ledgehog edgeguard. He can react to drift back with a dair spike and to drift onstage with a fair, which usually ends up resetting the situation on the opposite ledge. Thankfully we can actually edgeguard him in this patch though. It was my least favorite MU in 3.5, even beyond Marth and Fox.

It's probably even in this patch, but idk; I haven't played this patch too much.

 

[ECHOnce]

@ Machiavelli.CF , I was redirected here (to your MU spreads) and am curious as to why you feel Ivy has an advantage over Zelda. Iirc my old Ivy practice partner from 3.02 said the Ivy MU thread agreed that Zelda won solidly, and I've always felt that was the case since lol. Have things changed for the worse since 3.02? Or has it always been good?

 

[Machiavelli.CF]

@ Machiavelli.CF , I was redirected here (to your MU spreads) and am curious as to why you feel Ivy has an advantage over Zelda. Iirc my old Ivy practice partner from 3.02 said the Ivy MU thread agreed that Zelda won solidly, and I've always felt that was the case since lol. Have things changed for the worse since 3.02? Or has it always been good?

Zelda players are few and far between, and there aren't any big ones around here in Socal, so I can't be that sure of the match-up. That said, out of all the ones I've played thus far, I've always had an pretty easy time.

The different things that I feel make the match-up poor for Zelda is:
-Ivy's superior range and mobility allows her to kite Zelda pretty well and stay relatively safe in neutral.
-Ivysaur kills Zelda off the top quite early. Dtilt, which should be easy to land in this MU, can lead reliably into either Up B or Uair.
-Ivy's weight and fall speed do not seem to compliment Zelda's combo game, so her punishes seem a bit weak. She has some stinging kill moves, but they seem difficult to lead into.

Neither characters projectile is threatening to the other in this match-up, and with those out of the equation, it just doesn't seem like Zelda would have a very easy time controlling Ivysaur. By the time Zelda wins enough neutral exchanges to get a meaningful amount of damage on Ivy, she will probably have been banged up enough to have fallen well into Uair's kill range.

It's been a while since 3.02 and I don't have the greatest long-term memory, but I want to say I felt fine about it back then as well. Though, Zelda was still rare back then too, so I can't be sure.

 

[Llama Juice]

With this matchup, I feel like Zelda has such an easy time edge guarding Ivysaur thanks to Dins Fire and Nayru's Love, and I feel like my tether recovery gimps way more often with din's fire between me and the ledge.

In neutral, the razor leaf isn't very effective against zelda thanks to her Nayru's Love reflector thing being such a good offensive and defensive option for her.

That being said, I feel like I'm just bad at this matchup, moreso than it being a terrible matchup for Ivy. I feel like I need to just not let the Zelda set up her Din's Fire and be able to control the match that way. I find myself playing Zelda's game more than Ivy's game in this matchup, which isn't ever a good thing.

 

[Steel Kangaroo]

The different things that I feel make the match-up poor for Zelda is:
-Ivy's superior range and mobility allows her to kite Zelda pretty well and stay relatively safe in neutral.
-Ivysaur kills Zelda off the top quite early. Dtilt, which should be easy to land in this MU, can lead reliably into either Up B or Uair.
-Ivy's weight and fall speed do not seem to compliment Zelda's combo game, so her punishes seem a bit weak. She has some stinging kill moves, but they seem difficult to lead into.

I agree with everything you've written here. Add on to that we have range and speed advantages on most of our moves, which allows us to bait and punish really effectively.

With this matchup, I feel like Zelda has such an easy time edge guarding Ivysaur thanks to Dins Fire and Nayru's Love, and I feel like my tether recovery gimps way more often with din's fire between me and the ledge.

In neutral, the razor leaf isn't very effective against zelda thanks to her Nayru's Love reflector thing being such a good offensive and defensive option for her.

We are able to stuff the din's fire with either a fair or RL as we are coming back to stage (unless you're hit really far away in which case, yeah dins can mess up our day). Honestly the dins is not threatening to us at all in neutral, as we can ftilt or dtilt it away and act right after because we clank with it. Nayru's is really good at stopping our RL, but its also extremely laggy. In the event you use RL to bait them into using Nayru's...its effectively a free punish once you wait for the hitbox to end. Zelda is best countered with a bait and punish style or with extreme aggression. We have the tools to do both, with a lot of fairs to outrange and overwhelm her or superior speed to dance in and out of her nayrus range.

 

[DrBrownBear]

Thoughts on the marth match up? I think that is by far my hardest.

 

[AuraMaudeGone]

Thoughts about Ivy's current spread in the Community MU chart?

 

[Machiavelli.CF]

Thoughts about Ivy's current spread in the Community MU chart?

For what they're worth, these are my current feelings on Ivysaur's MU spread in 3.6:
The top row is the list as it appears on your chart at the time of posting this, the row below it has my opinions instead.

There are several match-ups I don't feel I have enough experience in 3.6 to make a good judgement on, so I've left them as question marks. If you end up using my thoughts, you can probably just ignore those bits.

Also to any Ivysaurs it may concern, I promise I'll finally update this darn thread soon, since 3.6 is going to be a pretty long-term release.

 

[EmLeingod]

For what they're worth, these are my current feelings on Ivysaur's MU spread in 3.6:
The top row is the list as it appears on your chart at the time of posting this, the row below it has my opinions instead.

There are several match-ups I don't feel I have enough experience in 3.6 to make a good judgement on, so I've left them as question marks. If you end up using my thoughts, you can probably just ignore those bits.

Also to any Ivysaurs it may concern, I promise I'll finally update this darn thread soon, since 3.6 is going to be a pretty long-term release.

For the record, I think this is way more accurate than what is currently in the chart.

 

[AuraMaudeGone]

Thanks for the input guys!

 

[Steel Kangaroo]

For what they're worth, these are my current feelings on Ivysaur's MU spread in 3.6:
The top row is the list as it appears on your chart at the time of posting this, the row below it has my opinions instead.

There are several match-ups I don't feel I have enough experience in 3.6 to make a good judgement on, so I've left them as question marks. If you end up using my thoughts, you can probably just ignore those bits.

Also to any Ivysaurs it may concern, I promise I'll finally update this darn thread soon, since 3.6 is going to be a pretty long-term release.

Mach I agree pretty much 100% with your chart, except for giving us +1 against Luigi. My thought is that it's closer to even. I would say Ike is even as well, but it's also extremely volatile and stage dependent. Any rationale for your assessments would be interesting.

As for the marth MU, I'd put it at -1 or -2 myself, probably leaning closer to -2 depending on stage list. I'd be happy to elaborate my thoughts on that if anyone is curious.

 

[Kyle Strand]

For what they're worth, these are my current feelings on Ivysaur's MU spread in 3.6:
The top row is the list as it appears on your chart at the time of posting this, the row below it has my opinions instead.

There are several match-ups I don't feel I have enough experience in 3.6 to make a good judgement on, so I've left them as question marks. If you end up using my thoughts, you can probably just ignore those bits.

Also to any Ivysaurs it may concern, I promise I'll finally update this darn thread soon, since 3.6 is going to be a pretty long-term release.

I'm confused on why you think that Sheik is a positive matchup. I have always struggled greatly against her and unsure how to handle the matchup