The Kirby/Cloud matchup: Maybe not that awful?

[CanisInfernus]

Now before you call me crazy and point out "but Cloud is just going to zone out all of Kirby's moves ever with his giant flyswatter of a sword," hear me out here.

Yes, Cloud pretty much dominates Kirby in the neutral. I'm not going to try to argue against that. However, Cloud's neutral is obnoxiously strong, to the point that trying to beat him in the neutral honestly seems like maybe the wrong way to deal with him?

To deal with Cloud, Kirby is basically forced to maintain safe pressure while waiting for the Cloud to make a mistake. This isn't a huge deal; almost every character pretty much has to handle Cloud like this. The difference for Kirby is that his combo game and offstage presence let him capitalize much harder on those occasional mistakes than most characters can.

Or, to put it more briefly:
Cloud has big advantages over Kirby, but those advantages are already just extensions of the small advantages Cloud has over almost everyone else. On the flip side, Kirby can reap huge rewards out of patient play against Cloud; this puts Cloud in a situation where he hypothetically has an extreme matchup advantage, but in practice he needs to play perfect or die.

 

[KingDaiGurren]

To deal with Cloud, Kirby is basically forced to maintain safe pressure while waiting for the Cloud to make a mistake.
Cloud has big advantages over Kirby, but those advantages are already just extensions of the small advantages Cloud has over almost everyone else. On the flip side, Kirby can reap huge rewards out of patient play against Cloud; this puts Cloud in a situation where he hypothetically has an extreme matchup advantage, but in practice he needs to play perfect or die.

That's how the large majority of our MUs are handled though...capitalize on mistakes, don't dair in neutral, apply safe pressure, don't get bodied. Forgive me if i'm being negative but what's the point of just pointing out that we have to play patient when Kirby is a character is pretty much designed for patient play?

 

[CanisInfernus]

That's how the large majority of our MUs are handled though...capitalize on mistakes, don't dair in neutral, apply safe pressure, don't get bodied. Forgive me if i'm being negative but what's the point of just pointing out that we have to play patient when Kirby is a character is pretty much designed for patient play?

I guess it'd make more sense to say "Kirby isn't actually all that different from most of the rest of the cast when it comes to Cloud." The matchup just kinda underplays both Kirby's weaknesses (slow and bad range, but you're fighting the guy with the biggest disjoints in the game) and Cloud's strengths (mostly referring to juggling).

Or rather: Kirby already pretty much does what everybody else has to do when it comes to dealing with Cloud, while everything Cloud does to Kirby is stuff Cloud does to pretty much everyone else anyway. The matchup as a whole pretty much just becomes "Kirby gets bodied by up air slightly harder than everyone else, and if Cloud goes offstage he's deader than usual."