Time Outs

[Liam_Butler]

When I play puffs, I have a tendency to get timed out because approaching a campy puff is generally not a smart idea. On stages with platforms, they generally throw out back airs while staying above a side platform, and I'm not sure how to deal with this. I know that baiting them to want to approach is a good idea, but I don't know what to use as bait. Desync smash attacks? I know they won't come near me if I have blizzard out, and at the heights puffs generally camp at, ice blocks don't work. Any suggestions or match up notes? (I did look at the stickied match up thread, but that didn't help)

 

[Smasher89]

going hyperaggresive against puff is prob the matchup where ICs thrives from that, since puff is limited to just 2 good options (rest and bair) throwing out long lasting aerials for trades are good. Puffs like to force shields, so make sure you shield on your own termsand not puffs, and sometimes throw out upsmashes from the shield. Iceblocks to force jumps are good. CC is also good at low % for kills (for example stand on a platform>get baired>KO puff). The timing to kill her with a grabbed smash is kinda strict if you throw before, so make sure to use the grabrelease to fsmash instead to make it even more guarantied.

 

[DerfMidWest]

Puff is not limited to just rest and bair...
She has other tools.

I play the puff matchup a lot and have a decent amount of experience against players like 4%, and I think the mu is really good for ICs.
I was talking to 4% about it awhile ago, and we both kind of agreed that puff's best bet is trying to time ICs out. She has a lot of trouble getting in on them, and while ICs have to be more patient with their approaches, they can actually get through puff's defense pretty well if they are paying attention to what she's doing and don't get greedy.

I like to play pretty noncommital and just poke at puff a lot with uairs and wd OoS ftilts. And when I have a lead I just use a lot of blizzards to keep puff wary of my space. Blizzard outranges everything puff has, so good blizzard placement is really difficult for her. Just be aware of where she is when blizzard cools down.

I also have no problem timing people out these days if I need to, and I can give you some tips for that if that is your goal, but I generally don't need to against puff.

Big things:
1. Don't jab puff. A lot of ICs try to do jab->grab waaay too much. CC rest and SDI up/In->rest (if you jab her in the air) kind of destroy that.

2. Grab less. I don't try to get a grab unless I know I got it. grabs are huge punishes, even with sopo and/or without wobbling, but going for grabs isn't great in matchups where you want to try and not commit to anything unless it's guaranteed.

3. (2.5) be careful with blizzard->grab. It shouldn't ever really work on puff. I usually blizzard fsmash or usmash depending on how puff DIs. Sometimes you get bigger punishes off bair/nair/fair too though, so play around with that. Depending on how blizzards hitboxes come out (they are random), you can get away with blizzard->fair meteor->reset with last hit of blizzard sometimes, but it's really random, so I wouldn't really try to go for it too often. Puff can meteor cancel rest your fair meteor too, but it almost never happens (yet).

4. wd OoS ftilt covers puff's entire fade back before she can do anything else. If she starts doing higher aerials and jumping up you can uair or u/fsmash her.

5. a lot of puff players will do aerial->fade back->fsmash to try and punish you for wd oos or trying to grab. It's really bad if you're ready for it. ftilt hits her before she can even fsmash, but if you try to wd->grab too much she starts doing it. usually I do short wd->hold shield+shield DI in to just bait it out and grab it.

6. dair->rest is guaranteed on nana. You can SDI out of it, but nana is usually dead. I usually let puff take it and get ready to punish her missed rest. charged usmash usually kills at about 60%. at lower percents there are other combos you can do to maximize your damage output a bit. I like a couple like falling iceblock hammer->fair sweetspot or fair->dsmash or dthrow->nair->dash attack or some other weird ones you can do if you react to DI. It's fun to play with. Its ok to let nana die sometimes because sopo still does fine in the mu, you just can't wobble puff.

there was some other stuff I was gonna mention too, but I forgot it. I'll post more if I remember more.

 

[Liam_Butler]

I really appreciate the notes. What if puff is doing jumping bairs above the side platform of a stage? Is there anything that counteracts that? What do you do in that situation?

 

[Smasher89]

Counting jumps, side b upair, or try to trade with dairs, the game is flawed though so some other characters might not be able at all to deal with this kind of stuff with the current stagelist. In general thats a stronger position then under the right wing at corneria, which were one of the reason that stage even got banned (strong position).

 

[DerfMidWest]

I really appreciate the notes. What if puff is doing jumping bairs above the side platform of a stage? Is there anything that counteracts that? What do you do in that situation?

This is actually a terrible thing puff players do. If she goes too high (i.e. above the platform), you can just AC uair her.
Smasher89 mentioned counting her jumps, that's super important too, she only gets 5 once she's in the air, so every time she wastes one, her options become more limited.
I just bait her bair and then backair her when she starts running out of jumps. Then just keep smacking her because he recovery becomes super linear once her jumps are gone.

 

[Liam_Butler]

I never thought of counting jumps. That seems so obvious now. What positions on stages, generally speaking, are best in this match up? Center stage seems like the obvious answer, but I want to know why.

 

[DerfMidWest]

usually center stage, sometime being underneath the side platforms gives puff trouble too.
So like normally, I like to run around and push puff towards the corner and force her to either try to go over me or through me (both are kind of bad for her), and that's when center stage is good.
But sometimes, you just gotta chill and hang back for a sec and let puff deal with blizzard for a sec, and that's when it's good to be under a platform.
usually when I'm center stage I like being synced a little more, desync walls are annoying for puff, but she handles them better when your head is exposed (specifically nana's).

Sometimes puff players try to camp the ledge, and I just use a lot of projectiles when they do that and it hits them and they have to go above it at some point.

It's really weird when puff jumps around above the top platform, I had to deal with that today, which was odd. I like to poke with uairs, but its not always safe to try and challenge puff in the air like that, so I try to sit back and watch their movement and get a read on it.
if they just stand still, you have to kind of threaten them and make them think you're going to come up and watch how you can influence them with your movement.
sweet spot fair is actually pretty nice when you're bellow puff. being horizontal with her is not nearly as good since it starts from the top and comes down so she can usually bair you.
the meteor also sucks because of meteor cancel rest and/or other move, but I don't know any puffs who actually do that, which is a big part of why ICs get away with so many fair combos on puff. I don't like the idea of meteor cancel rest, so i just trade fair meteor for fair sweetspot and trade potentially heavier punish for better position and less risk.

 

[RyseEX]

Also if you get the first stock she is forced to approach so play the game as if it's your last stock then she can't play as campy or she will lose