So for now, how about everybody post your opinions on matchups that you feel that you are most familiar with. I'll update the OP with peoples' lists who contribute the most (even if it's just a detailed discussion about a single matchup... especially that even) and eventually, I might make a list of the general consensus regarding certain matchups, but I really doubt any sort of general consensus will ever happen in this game until 3.0 has been out for at least a couple months.
And as nice as it sounds to try weekly discussion of particular matchups... that would take forever to get through the cast, so I'd rather people just talk about whatever particular matchups they're most familiar with to get discussion going >_>
[COLLAPSE="my opinions"]
Lucas' # is first.
Sonic: 50-50
Sonic is a very interesting opponent. He has a very strong bait and punish game, capable of dashdancing just outside of hitbox ranges and zipping in to punish very small amounts of lag. Additionally, he has quite a sufficient combo game once he does get a successful approach against Lucas which can be quite difficult to get out of. However, he does tend to lack in priority, and Lucas also has a very sufficient combo game... The biggest difference is Sonic's combos will often lead into attempted gimps that you have to be very careful about, be it a homing attack or fair + spring or 'wait on ledge to downward f-tilt your rising ropesnake', while Lucas' combos lead primarily into strong kill moves. So Lucas' DI has to be really on point, and you have to know the best recovery option at any moment. This is true for all MUs ofc but especially against a decently gimpy sonic.
The best tools Lucas has against sonic, imo, are stage counterpicks and, well, Nair. The good sonic I've played, as well as a few Sonics I've seen online, still often seem to try to abuse his Down-B approach. Nair eats through this like no other (except when it doesn't and randomly trades hits but... it uuuusually eats through this) and leads into combos (often more chains of Nair, or whatever you need for the moment, pkf or ropesnake or mindgame into grab, whatever).
Anyways, counterpicks. My favorite counterpick stage against sonic is FD since I feel the lack of platforms limits his (and most of the cast's) approach options, allowing Lucas freedom to force the opponent into jumping situations that can be punished by spacing well with pkf and things like that. Battlefield also has nice blastzones for Lucas imo, along with PS2 and PS1. Stages like GHZ and FoD and Yoshi's Story are terrible imo because the first two have far too high of star ko zones, and yoshi's small ko zones benefit sonic's limited killing power more than Lucas' imo, and all of them make it fairly easy to approach Lucas with their platforms, since Lucas thrives on owning the bottom level of the stage imo. So yeah, tough but totally doable matchup imo, but be wise with your bans, depending on how the tourney is being run.
Fox: 55-45
Fox is incredibly easy to combo, be it Uthrow into Usmash or Dthrow into Utilt into Utilt into djc Uairx3 into regrab into whatever... and his recovery isn't too hard to dominate with the new Dsmash multi-timing once he's offstage. However, he of course has incredible gimping power and shield pressure and Fox stuff. But Nair often breaks through that, just be careful if your opponent starts CCing it into shine at lower percents and make sure to DI slightly away from the shine hitbox before you land and then continue to shield pressure with djcfair or jump away pkf or what have you. Pkf is also an incredible tool against Fox, who's used to going full aggro and jumping right into combat. It's like a slightly more painful Falco laser against him and not hard to hit with at all.
Just, you know, don't get shined and stuff. Also this is one of very few MUs that I would consider CPing a more high ceiling'd stage, since he's such a fastfaller, Lucas will be more likely to kill him off the side, and Fox's Usmash is worth avoiding. I'd probably go FD or GHZ or Stadium 2 (not 1 with them walls) or possibly Dracula's for CPs. And avoid Yoshi's and WarioWare and possibly Battlefield? idk it's hard to say for sure. I do think Lucas has a slight advantage in this MU though.
Falco: 45-55
Falco is one of the most difficult characters to approach in the game for Lucas, since he's one of very few that has a projectile that simply outclasses Lucas' most of the time. It's still reasonably possible to finesse your way around his lasers into a sneaky DJC pkf which usually ends up trading with a laser... which puts you at a slight advantage because he now has slightly more lag on him so you can use those couple frames to get in there and start spacing shield pressure. And then it's just a matter of making your successful approaches more painful than his successful approaches... which is tough since he bounces Lucas around effortlessly, while Lucas bounces him around.... effortfully? I mean it's very possible but can be tough sometimes since things like magnet land fastfallers into techchase situations instead of easy usmash/other type combo situations.
For this MU I'd actually enjoy more platforms to avoid those lasers. But most importantly, large blastzones give a good advantage too. DL64 isn't out of the question, but I'd lean towards PS2 and Battlefield as well.
Peach: 55-45
Peach is still one of the best gimpers in the game, making recovery quite tricky at times, and her float can neutralize pkf just as well as it neutralizes falco's lasers, but Lucas' Fair and ropesnake provide much better forward options than Falco has to make up for his lasers being ineffective in this MU. And Peach is so floaty that CPing any reasonably low ceilinged stage means she shouldn't live past 100% ideally, at least on half her stocks. I'd even consider Yoshi's story for a CP here, or Smashville, since that platform can give you more options against float and save you from getting gimped that one time that matters... but smashville might have a slightly high ceiling, and I kinda don't like it personally in general >_> so Battlefield and PS1/2 would also probably be solid.
Wolf: 55-45
Like the other space animals, you gotta watch out for him CCing through nair approaches at low percents, and he, like Falco, also has a projectile that simply outclasses ours if he's effectively wavelanding in and out with it. It's ocassionally possible to space a magnet that absorbs a laser and starts shield pressuring him if you predict a waveland in with his laser, but if he wavelands away instead then you're stuck in that absorbing lag and about to get punished so it's better to try to sneak around on platforms and sneak in a fair or djcnair or something instead of powering through the lasers with magnet and pkf since that'll land you in trouble generally.
Wolf has reasonably less gimping power than Falco and Fox, but he can still easily hit you out of reeling up with snake with his Fsmash or a number of other things, so try to make use of that snakesnap technique where you don't raise your head above the edge and expose yourself there. Also, it feels reasonably easier to SDI Wolf's shine than the other Spacies'. An SDI shine tech can really make a big difference in this MU between getting combo'd hard or getting into shield pressure instead.
Luigi: 65-45
Luigi as a character has a really good time with people who rely on comboing with their bodies, and a really difficult time against people with strong disjointed moves... and guess who has lots of strong disjointed moves? It's often painfully easy to bait out a nair from a falling luigi into an Usmash punish, and he will die from that at a very low %, same with Uthrow. Fair outspaces him a lot, but the key is to force him into the air with well spaced pkfs and then use his slow aerial mobility to outspace him with fairs or to get him with pkf/nair when he's getting closer to the ground or in the middle of wavedashing. Dtilt Fsmash is just as effective against Luigi as it is most of the cast (excluding spacies), just remember to angle it up once he's at the percentage to get knocked into the air from it since he's so floaty. Stages with large flat areas are good at taking advantage of Luigi's slow aerial speed... FD is great, Smashville too, Dracula's to a lesser extent. I don't think Lucas has to worry too excruciatingly hard about stages with this MU though. Just make sure you know when he has misfire ready heh.
Toon Link: 50-50
Toon Link is also one of the characters who has a vastly superior projectile game to Lucas. I haven't played against him much in 2.5 but I did quite a bit in 2.1 and I know he's been buffed a bit since then. I would've thought Lucas had a very slight advantage before so I can only assume it's slightly more even now. Toon Link's size and projectiles and nair all work really well against Lucas, but he still suffers from having the worst recovery in the game, once again making CPs a very important aspect of this MU.
Charizard: 60-40
Charizard, as a large character, is very, very fun to combo. He's got some good range on him and some sexy combos, but I feel that Lucas' approach game and subsequent punishments are relatively easier to make painful than Charizard's. Once you get inside a big character it should be very tough for them to get away until they're in a very bad situation.
Captain Falcon: 65-35
I think Lucas can really outspace good old C. Falc.. It reminds me a lot of the Falco vs Falcon MU, except Lucas has a much easier time recovering than Falco does against Falcon with the snake. Falcon still punishes mad hard once he gets his hit, but Lucas can make that hit very hard for him to land.
Ness: 70-30
None of Ness' projectile game works against Lucas, and Lucas has a lot more mobility and approach options imo. And ropesnake is a much better recovery, Ness is still stupidly easy to take advantage of when he's forced to recover.
Anyways I'm definitely getting progressively lazier with this so I'll update more later.
[/COLLAPSE]
[COLLAPSE="BairJew's opinion vs Fox"]
FOX: 40-60 (Fox)
Now not to confuse anyone but Lucas is able to win this if played extremely patiently and very cautiously. The huge thing in this match-up is Fox's grab game (uthrow->uair) being amazing against the floatiness of Lucas expecially on smaller stages. Which the stage striking list has made it quite difficult for you to solidly counterpick the stages you would prefer to go to.
Advantages:
-Lucas can chaingrab Fox at lower percents (it is slightly tricky) (Stage with few platforms would be preferable: Ex: Smashville, FD, Melee Poke's, etc.)
-Uthow->Usmash is super amazing at low-mid % (on any spacey basically)
-Uthrow->Uair can lead to some amazing juggling combos at mid %
-You are able to out space with DJC Freeze
-Following on point above it can lead into a few solid hits with a nair or fair combo to rack up decent %
-Retreating nair on the back of the shield is amazingg pressure followed up with magnet shine to WD back is a cute trick to fake the player out.
-Freeze can also set you up for grab shenanigans.
Negatives
-Uthow->Uair
-SPEED
-His pressure game when he gets in
-Shine = Sadness
-Usmash OoS destroys a lot of your pressure options on his shield
-His grab game is extremely dominant in this match-up
-Your pk freeze is slow in comparison to the movement which a good fox player will establish.
[/Collapse]
And as nice as it sounds to try weekly discussion of particular matchups... that would take forever to get through the cast, so I'd rather people just talk about whatever particular matchups they're most familiar with to get discussion going >_>
[COLLAPSE="my opinions"]
Lucas' # is first.
Sonic: 50-50
Sonic is a very interesting opponent. He has a very strong bait and punish game, capable of dashdancing just outside of hitbox ranges and zipping in to punish very small amounts of lag. Additionally, he has quite a sufficient combo game once he does get a successful approach against Lucas which can be quite difficult to get out of. However, he does tend to lack in priority, and Lucas also has a very sufficient combo game... The biggest difference is Sonic's combos will often lead into attempted gimps that you have to be very careful about, be it a homing attack or fair + spring or 'wait on ledge to downward f-tilt your rising ropesnake', while Lucas' combos lead primarily into strong kill moves. So Lucas' DI has to be really on point, and you have to know the best recovery option at any moment. This is true for all MUs ofc but especially against a decently gimpy sonic.
The best tools Lucas has against sonic, imo, are stage counterpicks and, well, Nair. The good sonic I've played, as well as a few Sonics I've seen online, still often seem to try to abuse his Down-B approach. Nair eats through this like no other (except when it doesn't and randomly trades hits but... it uuuusually eats through this) and leads into combos (often more chains of Nair, or whatever you need for the moment, pkf or ropesnake or mindgame into grab, whatever).
Anyways, counterpicks. My favorite counterpick stage against sonic is FD since I feel the lack of platforms limits his (and most of the cast's) approach options, allowing Lucas freedom to force the opponent into jumping situations that can be punished by spacing well with pkf and things like that. Battlefield also has nice blastzones for Lucas imo, along with PS2 and PS1. Stages like GHZ and FoD and Yoshi's Story are terrible imo because the first two have far too high of star ko zones, and yoshi's small ko zones benefit sonic's limited killing power more than Lucas' imo, and all of them make it fairly easy to approach Lucas with their platforms, since Lucas thrives on owning the bottom level of the stage imo. So yeah, tough but totally doable matchup imo, but be wise with your bans, depending on how the tourney is being run.
Fox: 55-45
Fox is incredibly easy to combo, be it Uthrow into Usmash or Dthrow into Utilt into Utilt into djc Uairx3 into regrab into whatever... and his recovery isn't too hard to dominate with the new Dsmash multi-timing once he's offstage. However, he of course has incredible gimping power and shield pressure and Fox stuff. But Nair often breaks through that, just be careful if your opponent starts CCing it into shine at lower percents and make sure to DI slightly away from the shine hitbox before you land and then continue to shield pressure with djcfair or jump away pkf or what have you. Pkf is also an incredible tool against Fox, who's used to going full aggro and jumping right into combat. It's like a slightly more painful Falco laser against him and not hard to hit with at all.
Just, you know, don't get shined and stuff. Also this is one of very few MUs that I would consider CPing a more high ceiling'd stage, since he's such a fastfaller, Lucas will be more likely to kill him off the side, and Fox's Usmash is worth avoiding. I'd probably go FD or GHZ or Stadium 2 (not 1 with them walls) or possibly Dracula's for CPs. And avoid Yoshi's and WarioWare and possibly Battlefield? idk it's hard to say for sure. I do think Lucas has a slight advantage in this MU though.
Falco: 45-55
Falco is one of the most difficult characters to approach in the game for Lucas, since he's one of very few that has a projectile that simply outclasses Lucas' most of the time. It's still reasonably possible to finesse your way around his lasers into a sneaky DJC pkf which usually ends up trading with a laser... which puts you at a slight advantage because he now has slightly more lag on him so you can use those couple frames to get in there and start spacing shield pressure. And then it's just a matter of making your successful approaches more painful than his successful approaches... which is tough since he bounces Lucas around effortlessly, while Lucas bounces him around.... effortfully? I mean it's very possible but can be tough sometimes since things like magnet land fastfallers into techchase situations instead of easy usmash/other type combo situations.
For this MU I'd actually enjoy more platforms to avoid those lasers. But most importantly, large blastzones give a good advantage too. DL64 isn't out of the question, but I'd lean towards PS2 and Battlefield as well.
Peach: 55-45
Peach is still one of the best gimpers in the game, making recovery quite tricky at times, and her float can neutralize pkf just as well as it neutralizes falco's lasers, but Lucas' Fair and ropesnake provide much better forward options than Falco has to make up for his lasers being ineffective in this MU. And Peach is so floaty that CPing any reasonably low ceilinged stage means she shouldn't live past 100% ideally, at least on half her stocks. I'd even consider Yoshi's story for a CP here, or Smashville, since that platform can give you more options against float and save you from getting gimped that one time that matters... but smashville might have a slightly high ceiling, and I kinda don't like it personally in general >_> so Battlefield and PS1/2 would also probably be solid.
Wolf: 55-45
Like the other space animals, you gotta watch out for him CCing through nair approaches at low percents, and he, like Falco, also has a projectile that simply outclasses ours if he's effectively wavelanding in and out with it. It's ocassionally possible to space a magnet that absorbs a laser and starts shield pressuring him if you predict a waveland in with his laser, but if he wavelands away instead then you're stuck in that absorbing lag and about to get punished so it's better to try to sneak around on platforms and sneak in a fair or djcnair or something instead of powering through the lasers with magnet and pkf since that'll land you in trouble generally.
Wolf has reasonably less gimping power than Falco and Fox, but he can still easily hit you out of reeling up with snake with his Fsmash or a number of other things, so try to make use of that snakesnap technique where you don't raise your head above the edge and expose yourself there. Also, it feels reasonably easier to SDI Wolf's shine than the other Spacies'. An SDI shine tech can really make a big difference in this MU between getting combo'd hard or getting into shield pressure instead.
Luigi: 65-45
Luigi as a character has a really good time with people who rely on comboing with their bodies, and a really difficult time against people with strong disjointed moves... and guess who has lots of strong disjointed moves? It's often painfully easy to bait out a nair from a falling luigi into an Usmash punish, and he will die from that at a very low %, same with Uthrow. Fair outspaces him a lot, but the key is to force him into the air with well spaced pkfs and then use his slow aerial mobility to outspace him with fairs or to get him with pkf/nair when he's getting closer to the ground or in the middle of wavedashing. Dtilt Fsmash is just as effective against Luigi as it is most of the cast (excluding spacies), just remember to angle it up once he's at the percentage to get knocked into the air from it since he's so floaty. Stages with large flat areas are good at taking advantage of Luigi's slow aerial speed... FD is great, Smashville too, Dracula's to a lesser extent. I don't think Lucas has to worry too excruciatingly hard about stages with this MU though. Just make sure you know when he has misfire ready heh.
Toon Link: 50-50
Toon Link is also one of the characters who has a vastly superior projectile game to Lucas. I haven't played against him much in 2.5 but I did quite a bit in 2.1 and I know he's been buffed a bit since then. I would've thought Lucas had a very slight advantage before so I can only assume it's slightly more even now. Toon Link's size and projectiles and nair all work really well against Lucas, but he still suffers from having the worst recovery in the game, once again making CPs a very important aspect of this MU.
Charizard: 60-40
Charizard, as a large character, is very, very fun to combo. He's got some good range on him and some sexy combos, but I feel that Lucas' approach game and subsequent punishments are relatively easier to make painful than Charizard's. Once you get inside a big character it should be very tough for them to get away until they're in a very bad situation.
Captain Falcon: 65-35
I think Lucas can really outspace good old C. Falc.. It reminds me a lot of the Falco vs Falcon MU, except Lucas has a much easier time recovering than Falco does against Falcon with the snake. Falcon still punishes mad hard once he gets his hit, but Lucas can make that hit very hard for him to land.
Ness: 70-30
None of Ness' projectile game works against Lucas, and Lucas has a lot more mobility and approach options imo. And ropesnake is a much better recovery, Ness is still stupidly easy to take advantage of when he's forced to recover.
Anyways I'm definitely getting progressively lazier with this so I'll update more later.
[/COLLAPSE]
[COLLAPSE="BairJew's opinion vs Fox"]
FOX: 40-60 (Fox)
Now not to confuse anyone but Lucas is able to win this if played extremely patiently and very cautiously. The huge thing in this match-up is Fox's grab game (uthrow->uair) being amazing against the floatiness of Lucas expecially on smaller stages. Which the stage striking list has made it quite difficult for you to solidly counterpick the stages you would prefer to go to.
Advantages:
-Lucas can chaingrab Fox at lower percents (it is slightly tricky) (Stage with few platforms would be preferable: Ex: Smashville, FD, Melee Poke's, etc.)
-Uthow->Usmash is super amazing at low-mid % (on any spacey basically)
-Uthrow->Uair can lead to some amazing juggling combos at mid %
-You are able to out space with DJC Freeze
-Following on point above it can lead into a few solid hits with a nair or fair combo to rack up decent %
-Retreating nair on the back of the shield is amazingg pressure followed up with magnet shine to WD back is a cute trick to fake the player out.
-Freeze can also set you up for grab shenanigans.
Negatives
-Uthow->Uair
-SPEED
-His pressure game when he gets in
-Shine = Sadness
-Usmash OoS destroys a lot of your pressure options on his shield
-His grab game is extremely dominant in this match-up
-Your pk freeze is slow in comparison to the movement which a good fox player will establish.
[/Collapse]
