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The Kirby Matchup Thread

Jethroo

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Anyone have any tips against lucas? DI tips would be appreciated to.

There were 2 things i did notice. First kirby can duck under his pk ice, but just like falco's laser he can short hop and fire it low enough to hit. I also noticed that Bair can out range his UpB allowing for edge guarding (same with Luigi's forward B).
 

Glick

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The key to the lucas matchup imo is nair out of sheild. if he's doing short hop pk ice into sheild pressure, duck the ice and short hop nair to get him off you. lucas is combo food. once you get him offstage try to bait his up b and either smack the bolt with a back air or jump nair. inhale scum is super effective, shoot him under the stage and follow him under the stage with aerials. it's mega lulzy and really effective.
 

Ogopogo

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If he tries to tether in, either intercept with a nair or hold the ledge, let him go up, and punish with hammer or something. (Not sure how well this works, seems ok on paper.)
 

Jethroo

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If he tries to tether in, either intercept with a nair or hold the ledge, let him go up, and punish with hammer or something. (Not sure how well this works, seems ok on paper.)
Hmm, that's an interesting idea. Using Nair to stop them from immediately grabbing edge, then grab edge, and then you could release edge into Dair if they are hanging or hit him with bair/nair if he pulls himself to edge. Hammer punish seems like it would be harder to do, but hitting would probably kill.

Also, if it was samus or link tethers for the edge and you are in the way will it hit you or would it just grab edge?
 

Ogopogo

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If tether does hit you, all the better, because that means they didn't tether on.
 

KarmaJolt

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I main Dedede but decided to play Kirby against a really good Ivysaur at the last tournament I attended. (This guy beat my Dedede in previous bouts)

Kirby worked out phenomenally. Dash attack is fast enough to punish Ivy's ranged moves, and can combo into up-air, which kills quite effectively.
Furthermore, it is wise to ABUSE inhale. Mixing up your approach with normal Kirby stuff (down-air, nooch, dash attack, falcon punch) and inhale can really catch you opponent off guard. I should also mention that dash-attack to Solar Beam got me at least 3 kills in the set.

As for gimping Ivysaur with Kirby, I feel as if my gimps only worked because I rarely went off stage to challenge Ivy. When I did go for an off-stage edgeguard, I think it surprised my opponent (I caught him with a back-air for a stage spike on PSdos after he vined the ledge).

Another thing: Grab ledge, and when ivy is forced to jump onto the stage, punish with hammer or upair. This only works if invincibility is timed properly, or else vine whip will smack you, I think.

Another thing: Do not read this text.
 
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Ogopogo

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As far as I know, most if not all tethers don't harm others when they attach to a ledge. But I'm not 100% certain, so I'll try it out when I can.
 

Jethroo

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Don't forget that when the tether grabs the edge the tetherer can still be attacked and can be poked to knock their tether off and that they are forced to move along the path of the tether which makes it easier to predict where they are going to come up. Most of kirby's aerials hitboxes stay out for a while, so he can cause problems for them.
 

roman5hero

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I recently went to a tournament and did well except for a few mu's that I just had no idea how to go about.

first I was zoned out by a snake and had no idea how to approach safely.

second I was just bopped by a wario and have zero clue how to handle that match up.

third was Ness but my problem was I kept shielding pk fire instead of spot dodge and did not know how to properly sdi out of it when I did get caught in it but now I know better and feel pretty confident on this mu for the future.

any help would be super appreciated. much love rodohk
 

Ogopogo

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When caught in PK fire just mash up and away a lot. I think.

Wario weaves in and out and can KO you well so you have to kind of play footsies.
 

Jethroo

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First, thing about kirby/snake match is you have to understand you won't kill him easily and him getting to a high % will happen.
Second, against snake you have to take advantage of his poor recovery from off the stage. He will ALWAYS try to recover high, so i found that Bair works best to hit him out of UpB. If he is low enough to connect with a hammer then that, of course, is the best choice. Also don't try to Dair his UpB it doesn't work that well.
Third, you have to prevent snake from setting up, so you have to keep pressure of him. But, you have to be careful approaching on the ground because his sleeping dart + C4 attach + up throw + blow up C4 = death for kirby on most levels at like 50-60%, so approaching with aerials is good idea. Dash attack can work, but don't forget about using short hop cutter dash to approach and throwing in a normal UpB to help keep him guessing a little as well as destroying his mines isn't a terrible idea. Lastly, if he starts to shield you aerials just use a shorthop inhale. That will make him think about shielding your approach.
Last notes is your stone has heavy armor on it and is basically your only chance to prevent your certain death from a remote mine while you are high in the air, if they are a little slow you can use it to survive. Make sure you know where his mines are on the ground and remember he can also be killed by it, so hitting/throwing him into it if possible.

Can't help you to much with wario. The one time i played one i played one I lost and had a problem with his charge which knocks shielded kirby far enough away that it is a pretty safe move for wario. I basically could only tilt him after he used it.

Don't have much experience against Ness either, but against PK fire you have to SDI away when you get hit by it. Also, Ness is pretty gimpable. Bair will beat his UpB and if you get hit by his UpB bolt before it hits him it will disappear and he will fall to his death. P.S. don't try that on lucas.
 
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SSS

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Yo, you don't have to short hop cutter dash anymore.
Also C4 is the thing he sticks on you, mines are the ones he puts on the ground.

Wario is a interesting matchup that I'm working on with my friend. I'll hopefully come back in a few days or whatever and let you know. Just saying if he's a Wario that likes to abuse the side-B/dash grab mixup (his side-b and dashgrab look the same; if you shield it expecting side-b and it ends up being the dash grab you'll get grabbed), you can inhale him out of it. Also rocking in the air when he tries to follow-up can ruin a lot of his stuff. He also kills stupid early so I would recommend banning Warioware (lol) and something like Yoshi Story or Fountain. I like to push for Dreamland for that matchup. Get him offstage, and if he has his fart, get him low enough to where he has to use it to recover. Get back onstage, and wait for the fart. After he does it, go down and dair or nair or bair him, and continue to aerial him away. Also if you wait for the fart you can jump out, inhale him, drop a bit and spit him out. Without the fart his recovery is garbage and he won't recover. Dreamland is good for this. Also like all characters dthrow --> techchase is great. I'll explain the options of that later.

For Ness you can literally spit him under the stage and it wrecks him. Spit him under the stage, fair/nair/uair (not sure which works better) him out of his double jump, and grab ledge. His recovery will pretty much never make it.

Samus is an interesting matchup, especially if she's missile-heavy. If Samus plays it right and just camps you hardcore you can get wrecked. You can't even guarantee duck under her missiles if she jumps and shoots them at the right time. If you do get in though, dthrow is wonderful. Different from other characters, where it leads to the techchase, on floaties like Samus, it can lead to all sorts of things, as it puts them in the air in front of Kirby. You can get an utilt from it at low percents (utilt utilt bair), you can get a short hop inhale from it for the lulz, and you can even get an usmash from it. I'm not sure what percents the usmash work, but I can tell you that it does stop working somewhere around the early hundreds (i might be wrong tho, have to test). Either way, dthrow to usmash is great against Samus. You'll have to do some DI following, but it's not hard. Just avoid stages like Dreamland and push for the lower ceilings. Hell, take her to Fountain (melee Samus favorite stage) if you feel ballsy enough. Don't try to follow up on her if you hit her far away from you, even if it looks like you might get something. She'll nair or Ice Fair you. Melee players trying to combo Samus know this well. Melee Nair got out combos that it seemingly shouldn't have been able to. It carries over.

Charizard is also interesting. He's hard to kill both on the sides and on the bottom. Dthrow techchase is great. You can react to what he does. If he techs through you, you can regrab. If he techs straight up you can regrab. If he doesn't tech you can jab reset regrab. If he techs away, you can dash attack into utilts and now he's in the air. If you PREDICT a tech away, you can head that way early and regrab. If you PREDICT a netural tech or no tech, you can get a hammer. Make sure you react fast enough to the neutral tech so he doesn't spotdodge your grab. If you find that you miss it a lot and he dodges it a lot, to the point where he does it automatically, either wait a second for the grab or hammer. When Charizard is in the air, avoid just running at him (unless he's in hitstun). Zard's nair and side-B (the sneeze) can beat most of what you can do. Wait for him to do something then react. If he's ever gliding at you, don't run in. He'll do glide attack and it'll beat you. Make it seem like youre going to attack, wavedash back to avoid the glideattack, and hammer. If he ever launches you up, use Rock. He can uair you for days into an upB for an early kill. Unless you rock through him. It messes up a lot of his stuff. Stage choice is a gamble. If you feel you can just live for awhile against a beast like Zard and kill him normally before he kills you, take him to a tiny stage like Yoshi Story or (god forbid) Warioware. If you think you can gimp him (pretty hard to do against Zard), take him to Dreamland. I prefer the latter, as our killing options just don't cut it against a Charizard. Gimping him is hard, but if you bair him away for long enough, then hang out onstage and dsmash whatever he tries to do, you can get him. Inhale off the stage just works too. Just make sure he's someone who tries to mash out (or you'll both die) and make sure it's a stage with a large bottom (or you'll both die). IF he doesn't mash out, spit him out and return to the ledge with a few well-timed bairs to keep him away.
 

Jethroo

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Yo, you don't have to short hop cutter dash anymore.
Against snake if he hits you with the sleep dart in the air it doesn't put you to sleep. I don't know if cutter dash from ground counts as you being in the air, but otherwise shot hopping would prevent you from being put to sleep by snake.

Also was trying to remember which was C4 and which was mine :p.
 
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SSS

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Against snake if he hits you with the sleep dart in the air it doesn't put you to sleep. I don't know if cutter dash from ground counts as you being in the air, but otherwise shot hopping would prevent you from being put to sleep by snake.

Also was trying to remember which was C4 and which was mine :p.
I tested it and you can't get tranqed out of it even if you don't jump before. It stops it but doesn't put you to sleep.
 

Jethroo

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I tested it and you can't get tranqed out of it even if you don't jump before. It stops it but doesn't put you to sleep.
Well that's nice to know. I guess it counts it as being in the air then. Wonder if that effects any other attacks in the game.
 

KarmaJolt

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Yo, you don't have to short hop cutter dash anymore.
Make sure you react fast enough to the neutral tech so he doesn't spotdodge your grab. If you find that you miss it a lot and he dodges it a lot, to the point where he does it automatically, either wait a second for the grab or hammer. .
In situations where my grabs get dodged, I like to short hop Down-Air, which covers multiple options: 1. He does nothing. 2. He dodges in place. 3. Shield.

Down air punishes all of these pretty well. Against shield, make sure to land behind your opponent while still hitting them with the DAir, so that you don't get shield grabbed. Against certain characters who have a good UpB OOS (Bowser for example), you might want to reconsider the Dair.
 

SSS

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In situations where my grabs get dodged, I like to short hop Down-Air, which covers multiple options: 1. He does nothing. 2. He dodges in place. 3. Shield.

Down air punishes all of these pretty well. Against shield, make sure to land behind your opponent while still hitting them with the DAir, so that you don't get shield grabbed. Against certain characters who have a good UpB OOS (Bowser for example), you might want to reconsider the Dair.
How about a fast fall fair into grab? You do it by not letting the last hit connect. That seems like it should cover most options.
 

SSS

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Yo so Kirby with Mario's fireballs is pretty legit. Kirby has so much freedom in the air that he can mix up the timings a lot. You can kinda derp in the air by double jumping and fireballing over and over again. You have a lot of freedom to drift while doing it, and can go in with a Cutter Dash to surprise them.

Also when Toon Links arrow is on the ground and burning, it clanks with our dash attack and stops it. Its pretty lulzy.

Also spitting Nana under the stage is guarantee kill against her. Does spitting Nana at Popo damage him? Because that would be hype.
 
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Fortune

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Do you guys have any way to edgeguard Ike after inhale release? or just to edgeguard his up b in general?
 

Jethroo

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If you inhaled ike at edge or off stage i recommend falling away from stage and spitting him away from stage and he will most likely die. He is good at complete horizontal or vertical recovery but not at a 45 degree angle. Otherwise, you going to have to hit him from behind. You can probably use back air or nair to either spike him against stage while he comes up or the lingering hitbox from those attacks will stop him. There is always reinhaling him from behind to.
 
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FreeGamer

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Stone is your best bet to reliably hit him out of Aether or Quick Draw, and depending on damage/DI it could lead to any aerial of your choice. D-Air is a good alternative if he's recovering really low or at high damage. Also, F-Smash and aerial Hammer can hit him out of his recovery if you can master the timing/spacing. Out of an Inhale release, I'd stick with something fast like N-Air or B-Air.
 
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JRad

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I thought I would share my experiences on the matchup against Link, ZSS, and Roy.

Link: This matchup is a headbanger because of projectiles but its definitely winnable. You can duck under his grab and his upb, both of which are his staple defensive moves. You need to pressure him into shield with a well spaced aerial or tilt, and then just duck and wait for him to do something. If he rolls then you get an easy tech chase, if he grabs or upb then you duck under it, if he jumps you can contest, and if he goes for nair out of shield you can CC and punish. I play this matchup like I am jiggs from melee playing against one of the taller characters. Punishing is really easy on link due to his weight and unlike most characters, kirby can actually ledgeguard him. Basically I would recommend just keeping close and really paying attention to stage control/position. If he cant spam his projectiles you should win

ZSS: No one likes playing against ZSS period but I think this is in kirby's favor. You can duck under side b and a far range grab as well as the stun gun. A lot of ZSS plyers like to do Stun Gun -> Downsmash so all you have to do is duck under that and then hit her with a tilt/dsmash/fsmash when she comes in for dsmash depending where she is. Fireball CLINKS with her side b so if you are prepared you can instantly ftilt or fireball again depending how far you are. Ledgeguarding with bair/nair is really good. Make sure that when you are offstage you dont get stunned in your up b. If you are having troubles in the neutral, stick with your aerials but jump high so she cant hit you with side b. Horizontal cutter is awesome for closing gaps when she misses sideb/grab.

Roy: This matchup sucks for kirby. He outranges you and can combo you like any other character so being floaty isn't even a real benefit - you just die eariler. If he grabs you he can do forward throw -> forward throw -> dash attack -> uptilt/smash -> fair string. He legit has a 0-60 on kirby if he knows the matchup. You can DI the forward throw in which is what I advise because sometimes he will dash forward for the regrab and miss but again if he knows the matchup he can just do fthrow -> sweetspot fsmash if you DI in. Basically if he grabs you then you are toast. I don't really know how his grab works but I seem to be only able to consistently duck under his standing grab. Sure we can trade bair with his up b but that is a lot harder said then done. Just try to get in on him and keep him in the air or offstage. He will CC most of your approaches and then dtilt, especially when you fire ball. Its really hard to get past his disjointed hitboxes.
 

roman5hero

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for roy, your d-air goes through his up-b. other than that play it like a marth mu and be happy it isnt marth who can land like 4 more grabs in a row than roy can uhg
 

JRad

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I honestly have no problem with Marth, you can duck under his grab pretty much 100% of the time and thats his bread and butter where as Roy could start his combos easily by going in for dtilt where as marths just pokes. CCing is also easier since he has to get a tipper otherwise. Ledgeguarding is also simpler. I main DK/Marth/Kirby in PM so maybe its just my knowledge of Marth that makes it easier, but I wouldnt say you can play against Roy like you would Marth.
 

Fortune

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in case you didn't know, kirby has an (infinite?) chain throw in the ditto matchup. just down throw.
 

Jethroo

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First time playing a yoshi player and noticed i had a really hard time killing him and was nearly impossible to gimp. Any tips for this problem?
 

WinterKirby

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I'm not sure about tips, but Kirby v. Yoshi seems to be in Yoshi's favor for this reason. The armor on Yoshi's second jump, along with its length makes him virtually impossible to gimp. The best you can do is go for an inhale and hope he mashes out before you get too close to the bottom blastline.
 

Jethroo

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This idea just popped into my head, but can yoshi's 2nd jump be footstooled?

Edit: He can.
 
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SSS

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I feel like if you wait on the edge, inhale him from his second jump, and just stand on the edge and let him mash out naturally, he'll pop out of your mouth without his second jump. I have to test though.
 

Jethroo

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Another problem was because of the angle i was hitting him away from. He was able to recover high enough most of the time with his double jump to egg roll.
 

OhBizzle

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What do you guys consider as Kirby's bad MUs?

I play Marth/Falco and I feel like dash attack is really tough to punish and i'm having trouble edge-guarding kirby.

Any advice for someone trying to battle kirby?

I also think its hard to get in on kirby in general but once i'm in theres not much combo potential. If i'm juggling him he just uses DownB and because of the cancel it becomes hard to punish at least for me.
 

Jethroo

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I have not yet faced a martha that has dominated me yet and "because" of that i think the martha/kirby MU is at least even if not in kirby's favor. Kirby has the tools to get in on martha's spacing, can duck martha's amazing grab, and one of the easier characters for kirby to edge guard. However, if you having a problem with kirby's dash attack spamming try dash dancing which martha is very good at. If you have the timing down fsmash can also hit kirby in his dash attack.

I'm not that familiar with falco, but the one time i played one in a tourney he 2 stocked me. Juggling kirby is not easy, since he is a slow faller, 6 jumps, and has downB which gives him heavy armor, a hit box, and falls fast.

Kirby can duck under his lasers, but a falco player who knows how to do the short hop laser can hit kirby ducking.

Falco would be one of the better characters at edge guarding kirby in my opinion.
1. His Dair would destroy kirby if he tried to come in low for the edge with jumps or final cutter (upB).
2. His laser adds a little pressure while kirby is flying back.
3. Recovering high can also be guarded by falco since he can jump high and do it very fast.
4. If you hit kirby out of his cutter dash (UpB forward) at start (maybe middle of it to) kirby losses all of his jumps and can only use cutter dash and air dodge to recover.
5. Cutter dash can be used by kirby to get back on stage and attack, but it is a pretty predictable recovery and as stated in 4. things can end up very bad for kirby.
Lastly, most people are not aggressive at all while edge guarding kirby and stay on the stage, so most kirby's are allowed to recover with out much trouble. You should realize that kirby is a slow moving target in the air while recovering. Suddenly jumping out there to meet him can surprise the kirby and net a kill.
 
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