Toon Link match-ups?

[Deleted member]

What have you guys found to work against certain characters?


Personally, I've been taking notes after playing against at least a few people using the same character, and this is what I have so far (I'm still pretty bad, so take it with a grain of salt):

"Bowser: Should go without saying that utilt is great for comboing against him.

Rosalina: Lots of zairing seems to be good here, but I probably need to play around with it more.

Pit: Don't get above or below him, and throw a bomb at it if you do end up above or below him. Switch between camping, and playing aggressive with zair, bair, and utilt.

Palutena: Bombs seem to work great if you're above her. Dair seems a bit useless. Being aggressive with zair spam seems to be good, and it goes through her mirror thing.

Marth: Be very campy. Uair seems to be useful if he ends up above you, from what I've experienced. Zair is risky, and seems to only barely outrange his fair. He seems very gimpable with the boomerang and bombs.

Ike: Camping and utilt seem to be great here. Uair seems to be very useful if he's above you, from what I've experienced. He seems very gimpable with the boomerang, bombs, and fair.

King DeDeDe: Bombs, zair, utilt.

Little Mac: Camp his ass, stay in the air, and try to get him offstage. Beware of his nair.

Pikachu: Zair is good when he's close to you. The boomerang is useless, his tjolt eats it up. Bombs are great. Approach with zair and bombs, and try to avoid getting tossed out and camped.

Charizard: Camp. If he gets close to you then use zair, bair (seems to combo at lower %s, and he doesn't have much defense against it), and utilt. His flamethrower is annoying, and out-prioritizes arrows and the boomerang.

Captain Falcon: Camp, camp, camp

Pacman: Get him in the air. He hates stages with platforms. He's difficult to camp and difficult to be aggressive against. Spacing with zair is your best friend here. Bombs are also very useful. Don't get below him or he'll throw his hydro thing down on you.

Sonic: Camp, zair, and bair. Bombs seem particularly useful, and outprioritize many of his attacks. Arrows don't seem to be much use here."

 

[Fangblade]

I'll start by saying I'm only a casual player, though I've played a ton of online since picking up the game earlier last week, here's a few of my strategies going in. I've only really play on Omega stages like Final destination, so these may not be ideal for stages with platforms.

(Will update as I find better opponents)

Keep in mind this guy's coming to you. I like to stay near the edge, and rack up damage however. Little Macs don't mind taking a hit. I find that OutOfShield grab makes this MU easier. Though he may end up behind you on the very edge often. If I get him offstage, X grabs later KO. It's best to pressure them into using their Side-special when they return to the stage, by using your boomerangs/bombs, then going for a grab.

Watch out for his lloyd rocket of course, & the tree. Mid/close range projectiles work best. If you're gonna give him something to pocket be it a domb. Then unleash the arrows! Oh yeah don't get directly below/over, or even next to him for more than a second. His Dair beats our Uair.

Spamming works great. Dish out a projectile, then roll backwards. It's a true combo on this guy! lol. If you're in the air, dodge his Uair, and cover your landing. If you're knocked off-stage watch out for his Fair, it'll kill you. Also if you like to randomly Side smashes, you may get punished. If you want, while spamming if you throw a bomb you can usually pull another one right after w/o incident.

Really depends on how good the shiek is, but I know they like to UpThrow>Uair a lot, as well as get ya with her Needles. Shield her needles as much as possible. And stand your ground. (Btw your Hylian shield will defend against both of her projectiles if you're in your neutral stance facing her).

His reflector makes our projectile game harder, but not impossible. Keep in mind he's kind of slow. Short-hop>Angled boomerang throw works wonders. Don't use too many arrows, and watch out for his strong spontaneous aerials.

For one, don't Dair. Unless you manage a footstool. Keep a bomb in hand whenever possible. I manage to land a lot of SH>Nair on dittos. And don't punish everything with a dash attack, there's better options.
Let the best TL win!

[Harder matchups IMO]

Camp, camp, camp. Bowser seems to rack up damage and KO us very quickly. It's best to play it safe and use your projectiles to the max, by circle camping him. Stay out of the air, the chill spot is usually at the other side of the stage, where Bowser will have to approach from the air (not many options for him there) or attempt to power shield (punish with a grab). If you don't space appropriately when landing, odds are you will be grabbed or be sent back into the air.

Camping works great, especially when he uses his sideB a lot. I try not to get too close as it usually results in getting jabbed or grabbed. Can be hard to kill, but don't get flustered. Use your speed to your advantage. One the more boring match-ups.

Focus on Bomb play, and landing aerials where you can. Boomerangs will help but not if you throw them straight ahead. Zair out ranges a lot of her attacks. Her star thing is annoying, but she's still tough without it. Resist beating the living poo out of the thing and focus on damaging Rosalina. Her aerials are killer.

Greninja is a quick hitter, so you'll have to be just as quick. He likes to Uair, Dair>Fspecia(if you're facing him you can Utilt lock him after his special), Dair>Dair(like no ending lag either). Bombs and 'rang are key when you've been launched upwards and are falling down, as his Usmash is a good kill move. Our Fsmash, Jabs, Grabs are often beet out by his quick jabbing. if he's close I usually Usmash or Ftilt. Stay on the stage.

The hardest things about facing Link is his ability to neutralize our spam game, his high knockback low start up lag sword play, his ability to KO us quicker then we to him, and his aerials which have low landing lag (not sure of the official term). It's important to get a read on your opponents habits' so that you know when to punish him.
Things I see Link's doing:

• Rolling behind me>Dsmash
• Dair>Dair Pogo>Jab
• FF>Nair>Jab
• Usmash my landings

The way I beat Links I come across is by punishing them whenever possible. I usually get a grab out of their Dair so long as I don't miss my chance. His jabs/Dash attack can be shielded, that's where you throw in your own Jabs/Stilt. Uair works especially well on link... Because Link has an easier time killing us be sure not to get caught up in a storm of projectiles. If you're just standing still and Link is grounded, NONE of his projectiles can hit you through your Hylian shield. (Links shield only defends against fully charged arrows, and arrows shot in close proximity).

Sonic is VERY quick so our usual camping game doesn't work versus him. In terms of positioning, I stay close to the middle of the stage to avoid being run down and gimped. Sonic has a ton of approach methods, many of which 'clash' with our moveset. With his low lag moves it is very risky to throw boomerangs (even bomb-pulls unless you're far); arrows fire much faster and should be used a ton. Utilt, Ftilt, Jab are you best choices when he's up close. Sonic can kill you with all of his smashes and they come out very fast. DON'T use moves with high ending lag (Dair, grounded Uspecial, Buffered Fsmash) as you will be punished. You have to mix up your recovery's as Sonic can Gimp you with ALL of his Aerials. TL is very susceptible to his Dair Gimp when recovering low(tether chain included). Sonic KO's us easily so establish ground control, and stay out the air playa!

ZSS is very hard to deal with, as she is a character who excels in the air & at punishing laggy moves. You're going to want to be grounded as much as possible so that you can punish her back and spam when it is safe to do so.
Things I see ZSS doing:

• Shield pressuring>Grab>Dthrow>Utilt(combo)/Uspecial/Fair
• SH/Jump>Dair. When approaching
• Laser/Dsmash>Uspecial/Fsmash (Kill move)
• Dspecial when you're not recovering low. (Meteor strike)

Vs. ZSS you do NOT want to be in the air, she dominates. In brawl she was a character who focused on baiting approaches, but she has no problem approaching TL, as she has many ways to do so. If she runs in for a grab you have to either Jump or roll towards her. Good ZSS don't usually use her Dash attack but be prepared to punish if they do. You must DI after being throw or you will be combo'd or killed. Her Dspecial should be watch out for, as it can kill us in the 90% if kicked outward, or bury us if she kicks inward. ZSS players will use it onstage and offstage so be prepared to punish with a grab or any of TL's quicker attacks. If you're paralyzed/buried at kill % ZSS can kill you in a flash, so camp harder when you're in the red. Mix things up when recovering, along with her amazing edgeguard skills she can gimp you. Her jab can take you by surprise, it can be canceled and is faster than all of our moves.
Her main Kill moves are: Fsmash, Uspecial, Dspecial Other Kill moves: Her aerials,











/


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If anyone has any tips on TL harder match ups feel free to share.

 

[Deleted member]

- 60/40 , may even go as to say 65/35 our favor
This MU is very hard for Megaman. Megaman has barely any approach options to our arsenal. All he can do for the most part is try to get his pellets in mid range and then hit his spikes/crash bombs to us. However, boomerang/arrow beat both these, and bombs go through pellets, so as long as we stay out of mid range we can out camp him. Only challenge pellets if you have a bomb because it will take all of the hits and explode on contact with megaman. You can do a BLC arrow to cancel out spike/crash bomb and have your bomb hit him. Thats when you go in. Grabs are also important IMO. If you see him shield your bombs, more likely than not he will be expecting a nair and thats when you can go for a dash grab. I personally like to dthrow, then read their landing and go for another grab but its risky so I wouldn't recommend. Bthrow if you want to keep camping or uthrow if you want to juggle. Beware of Spring+Dair, he can dair multiple times so dont challenge it directly, just throw bombs/boomerangs or read his landing. Bombs collide with Fsmash. BLC Zair is great in this mu because our zair is a great spacing tool even on his shield, not to mention the bomb pressure that comes after. Be wary of megamans weight, he's heavier than he looks. I'd say bomb to fair kills at around 150ish. This is all from the top of my head so if I missed or said anything wrong please let me know
- 50/50 or 55/45 our favor
As you may all know, Ness has gotten a huge buff. However, we have the means to combat Ness. We can cancel out his troublesome PK thunder with any of our projectiles, and we can out camp Ness making it hard for him to approach. Be careful of doing anything punishable on ground because you will get Dthrown to fair x3. If you have a bomb in hand when he Dthrows you, make sure to BLC the bomb towards him (downward). Zair is super good in this mu. Space ZAirs and BLC ZAirs if you can. Ness dies from bomb to fair at a relatively good percent. About 120ish I would say. We can gimp Ness's recovery! Throw a bomb at his PK Thunder when he's recovering and it'll cancel out putting him into freefall. :D Ness's will try to space with fair and get you with PK Thunder but we can maneuver around it. Be careful of PK Fire. Dont challenge it directly. Be careful of being juggled in the air. Zair to NAir is great on Ness because if we retreat after the hit he doesnt really have anything of range to get us with, so we can just retreat and camp again.

I'll be back in a bit with some more MUs

 

[Yackabean]

- when you get the chance amd rosalina isn't near, go for luma. Knocking out luma makes the match up much more manageable and rosalina on her own is not so great. Luma is simple to kill. One hit off stage and he'll die, he can't recover from hitstun unless he hits a floor.

- if there aware of the ultimate down smash of glory, camp em and never go near him whilst he's doing smash attacks. Only go in from projectile comboing. When Mac's got a KO punch keep your range and never go in until you knock it out of him. It only takes like 2 rangs or bombs until he loses it. Grabbing near the ledge is good to if you can bait it.

 

[Deleted member]

- when you get the chance amd rosalina isn't near, go for luma. Knocking out luma makes the match up much more manageable and rosalina on her own is not so great. Luma is simple to kill. One hit off stage and he'll die, he can't recover from hitstun unless he hits a floor.

I don't agree. Go for Rosalina and keep them apart as long as possible. Because every luma has 50% IIRC and so when you kill it another will spawn at 0%. Keep them apart as long as possible and go for rosalina. Bait out her item pull and then go for a SH Nair or quick grab. BLC zair is amazing in this MU but watch out for her dash attack cause it goes through our bomb throws.

 

[Fangblade]

We should definitely work on some Anti-Mario/Anti-Yoshi strategies. Yoshi has some insane approach methods, and I'm not usually able to punish his low lag move-set. The mario match-up is just annoying as every one I've faced just Camps hard until they can lay some juggle/comboing on me. I'm sure we can overcome these though. I found predicting their bombs/fireballs helps immensely. Also I've noticed they both tend to 'chase' you while you're in the air.

 

[Deleted member]

We should definitely work on some Anti-Mario/Anti-Yoshi strategies. Yoshi has some insane approach methods, and I'm not usually able to punish his low lag move-set. The mario match-up is just annoying as every one I've faced just Camps hard until they can lay some juggle/comboing on me. I'm sure we can overcome these though. I found predicting their bombs/fireballs helps immensely. Also I've noticed they both tend to 'chase' you while you're in the air.

These match-ups are annoying. With Mario all I've been able to do is just try to camp harder than them. He may be scary when he's camping, but he's even scarier up close where he can easily combo the crap out of you.
Link is another character I've found to be rather annoying as TL. Trying to camp against him isn't a pleasant experience, and he's even worse if you try to approach him since all of his moves out-range yours. We should probably work on coming up with a strategy for this match-up, too.

 

[Fangblade]

These match-ups are annoying. With Mario all I've been able to do is just try to camp harder than them. He may be scary when he's camping, but he's even scarier up close where he can easily combo the crap out of you.
Link is another character I've found to be rather annoying as TL. Trying to camp against him isn't a pleasant experience, and he's even worse if you try to approach him since all of his moves out-range yours. We should probably work on coming up with a strategy for this match-up, too.

I wrote a bit based on a few heated battles I had with a Link earlier. If you have anything to add lemme know. I will do more research later, TL's new style of camping is exhausting. I'm going back to brawl for awhile lol.

 

[Yackabean]

I have to say Yoshi is one of or most disgusting match ups right now.
This heavily broken glitchy twit just rips through projectiles like no tomorrow, the eggs have such a bs arc that fly over our camping. And don't get me started on that god damn Down B!

The amount of times Yoshi's down B has shield poked me and then hit me on the way down / broke my shield.
Hs eggs are such a good projectile now! He can neutral air out of almost any combo you plan on doing and his air momentum allows him to move out of gimps and combo's with ease. He's almost like a melee Luigi with the ariel momentum of jigglypuff. Barely any hitstun. His jab is also nearly unpunishable OoS unless you really time your grab or something.
Dash attack can almost always be followed up with up airs as well.

Countering Yoshi is going to be difficult and I have a sparring partner who thankfully mains Yoshi and I'm learning the match up a little better now. The best thing to do is bait eggs and run in and powershield em. His egg throw is actually somewhat slow and punishable if you get in close. AVOID pulling bombs out when he can throw eggs. It'll just completely disrupt your momentum. Same goes for throwing out SH Arrows or Rangs. You want to throw poroectiles where yoshi cannot disrupt you. This match up is all about the stage control.

I've been fair spiked by Yoshi quite a bit from trying to pull bombs after being jabbed off stage. Not a nice site and it was more of a habbit on my part. But jab combo is a really good set up for Yoshi. Especially cause fair as well is auto-cancelled (Ewww)

 

[PRGN]

Hello everyone, New TL Main here! Some Yoshis can be pretty annoying indeed. I'll definitely try this out, thanks Yackabean.
I also had a lot of trouble against this Lucario main. He was forcing me to approach by charging his aurasphere,
as soon as i tried to get closer he released uncharged shots to keep me away, it also destroys projectiles,
i was forced to approach by aerial game. But everytime when i had to land somewhere, he either shoots an aurasphere, killing my
projectiles that i use to land safely or it's forcing me to dodge/shield/get hit, sometimes he grabbed me as soon as i landed.
Anyone knows how to deal with this?

 

[Fangblade]

Hello everyone, New TL Main here! Some Yoshis can be pretty annoying indeed. I'll definitely try this out, thanks Yackabean.
I also had a lot of trouble against this Lucario main. He was forcing me to approach by charging his aurasphere,
as soon as i tried to get closer he released uncharged shots to keep me away, it also destroys projectiles,
i was forced to approach by aerial game. But everytime when i had to land somewhere, he either shoots an aurasphere, killing my
projectiles that i use to land safely or it's forcing me to dodge/shield/get hit, sometimes he grabbed me as soon as i landed.
Anyone knows how to deal with this?

If you're haveing trouble landing, you're probably not use to the usual TL shenanigans yet. Tinks is most vulnerable when the enemy is below him (because Dair sucks), I try to always land with a bomb in my hand, using my second bomb to cover any direct approaches, angled boomerang works well too.
TL being a light character who doesn't shine in close combat, spacing correctly is super important. Zair is your best spacing tool so get into practice of using it when you land (Not only does it shorten landing lag but if you land one on an enemy it provides hit-stun long enough for you to make your move).
Bombs are especially helpful in this matchu-up. If Lucarios right on you when you land, BLC will help you set him up for just about any attack. They also go through any level of his aura sphere... Lucario gets stronger the higher his percent rises so be smart and save a Smash attack fresh so you can KO him early on. Hope this helps.

P.S. You'll be happy to know TL's Hylian shield will block any of Lucarios Aura Spheres, as well as his Fspecial, assuming you are standing still or walking with NO item in your hand. Really only reliable if you read a larger Aura Sphere.

 

[PRGN]

Thanks for your reply Fangblade.
I usually try to create a safe landing spot with bombs or zair,
I did noticed that many other lucario players had a lot of trouble dealing with bombs tho.
But this lucario seemed to know exactly what my options are for landing safely.
My bombs were either bouncing off his shield or dodged followed by aurasphere.

This morning i faced some pretty good players on for glory, they weren't that good as the one i mentioned before tho.
I was trying all kinds of different things and noticed that this time it worked out better if i tried to stay close to them,
and made a lot of use of TL's invincibility to it's own bomb explosions (if it hits the target).
I don't think this would always work against higher level players, but I definitely think that the new
bomb invincibility gives TL so many new options on the ground.

 

[Rango the Mercenary]

How do you deal with Ike players? These seem to be effective, but what am I missing?

-Dash-pivot Boomerang
-Bomb. A LOT.
-Grab punishes all landing lag at a range
-Fair beats his

Quote the post when you reply please, so it will go directly to my alerts without me digging through the thread!

 

[Fangblade]

How do you deal with Ike players? These seem to be effective, but what am I missing?

-Dash-pivot Boomerang
-Bomb. A LOT.
-Grab punishes all landing lag at a range
-Fair beats his

Quote the post when you reply please, so it will go directly to my alerts without me digging through the thread!

Where are you having trouble in your matches vs. Ike? Approaching? Recovering? Having only fought a couple of Ike players online I don't have much experience. But keep in mind Ike's move are strong but laggy. Arrows and 'rang stop him in his tracks. Watch for his smash attacks and punish accordingly (Ike's tilts are generally better as they have less lag).

 

[PRGN]

How do you deal with Ike players? These seem to be effective, but what am I missing?

-Dash-pivot Boomerang
-Bomb. A LOT.
-Grab punishes all landing lag at a range
-Fair beats his

Quote the post when you reply please, so it will go directly to my alerts without me digging through the thread!

Ike is one of those characters that will eat you if you're floating around too much without spamming projectiles.
I don't have alot of experience vs Ike, but i'll try to put down my thoughts and hopefully they can be a little help!

I think it's best to wait for ike to approach you and keep throwing arrows and boomerangs horizontally.
Just run away, spam a lot from safe distance, be annoying, and he will eventually lose patience and try to
force his attacks, making it easier to find an opening to attack.

Be careful approaching with Zair, use JCBombtrows alot.
Run -> shield -> grab, can be pretty useful but risky. Try throwing a bomb upward,
or make use of returning boomerangs, they can often lead into nice surprise attacks
and can even save you a stock when you missed a grab :D
Use arrows when they are offstage, Ike doesn't seem to like arrows that much.
Just be creative ^^

 

[Deleted member]

My friend who uses both TL and Greninja wrote this up for me, and I thought it looked pretty good so I decided to post it here for him. What do you guys think?

"

TOONNINJA
(That is the cheesiest name ever)​

Hey! I'm gonna point out some Greninja stuff we need to watch out for now that I'm on a computer and it's so much easier to write here instead of my tiny iPhone.

First off, one big problem Toon Link has against Greninja is being offstage. We can't recover properly because of numerous reasons:

• If you're in the upper corner without your second jump, the ninja can just Hydro Pump you off the stage OR... use U-Air... *shivers* the U-Air... anyways, yeah. It's hard up here.
• If youre in the middle, even at low percentages, F-Air kills, and if not, gimps you.
• If you're down below the ledge, Greninja sees no issue in just Hydro Pumping outwards/downwards.

The Z-Air isn't really doing much to improve our situation either:

• If you're above the ledge when you use it, Greninja can use Up-Smash and hit hard. Fresh sweetspotted Up-Smash deals 20% worth of damage. Ouch.
• If you used it horizontally from the ledge, Water Shuriken says hi.
• If you grabbed it from below (somehow. I NEVER get this to work, lol), a good Greninja player (unlike me ) can gimp you with D-Air, or just Hydro Pump you.

In general, if you're just hanging from the ledge, Greninja can still do well with Shadow Sneak. It uses Shadow Sneak about a character length from the ledge in case you roll. Here is what it does to you:

IF YOU CHOOSE TO ATTACK: Shadow Sneak will "clank" with your sword strike, and the ninja will Jab and deal some damage. And it's back into the air again.
IF YOU CHOOSE TO ROLL: Shadow Sneak will simply make Greninja kick behind it. Though this one is safer than attacking since it will probably knock you into the stage, it makes you take more damage.
IF YOU CHOOSE TO SIMPLY GET UP: Shadow Sneak will hit you and you can wave (or maybe not...) bye-bye to the stage, because you're back in the air.

There is one more alternative:

IF YOU CHOOSE TO JUMP: Shadow Sneak won't hit you, provided you jumped at the right moment. This is maybe the safest alternative.

Alright so now, we'll get into some combos Greninja does very often. Keep in mind all of these are done in Training Mode, so no moves are Stale:

(SS- Sweetspot)
(PP- Additional two Pummels. Possible at lower %'s.)
(PPP- Additional three Pummels. Possible at higher %'s.)
(Red Font - Low % Combo)
(Blue Font - Mid-High % Combo [KO'S])

U-Throw > U-Smash (SS) = 24% (28% PP)
U-Throw > U-Air > U-Air = 23% (27% PPP)
U-Throw > U-Air > U-Air > Hydro Pump = 31% (35% PPP)
U-Tilt > U-Tilt > U-Smash (SS) = 28%Til
D-Tilt > D-Tilt > Dash Attack > U-Smash (SS) = 40%
D-Throw > F-Tilt = 12% (16% PP)
D-Throw > F-Air = 20% (26% PPP)
N-Air > F-Tilt = 17%


Alright so here's another big issue particularly you and I have against Greninja: our stage selection.

As you know, we [my friend and I] commonly pick one out of three stages (Green Hill Zone, PictoChat 2, Balloon Fight) to reduce lag. However, two of these stages (PictoChat 2, Balloon Fight) are a serious issue when fighting Greninja. On these stages, particularly PictoChat 2, the shadow from Shadow Sneak is almost (in the case of PictoChat 2, completely) invisible. This means that every time Greninja walks forward, you have to watch out for a Shadow Sneak. Keep this in mind!

Alright, finally, here's some things a lot of Greninjas will do commonly:

• If it misses a D-Air, it can will be cancelled into a Shadow Sneak.
• Water Shuriken.
• Sometimes Shadow Sneak behind you a fair distance and get away from your projectile insanity.
• It will almost NEVER use Counter.
• It will recover with unpredictability by using Hydro Pump, so don't try to gimp IT. If you miss your attack and end up behind it, you can easily be pushed to the edge of the screen by a shot of Hydro Pump.
• It will wall cling to the side of the stage to wait for you to let your guard downand go onstage and hit you with a B-Air or something. To avoid this, you could pick a stage with an Omega form that has no walls such as Magicant, Rainbow Road, or Prism Tower, BUT this will also cost you your Wall Jump to improve recovery, along with tossing bombs into the wall and hitting yourself to gain height (this can still be done to an extent.).
• If they get the opportunity, they will use U-Air as much as they can. Throw a Bomb down but not always. Mix it up with D-air or just Air Dodge and U-Air THEM.
• After they land a D-Air and they bounce off of you, they will either follow up with another D-Air which CAN be hard to dodge, since you don't see Greninjas doing that very often, or follow up with B-Air if youre behind them."

 

[Fangblade]

My friend wrote this up for me, and I thought it looked pretty good so I decided to post it here for him. What do you guys think?

"

TOONNINJA
(That is the cheesiest name ever)​

Hey! I'm gonna point out some Greninja stuff we need to watch out for now that I'm on a computer and it's so much easier to write here instead of my tiny iPhone.

First off, one big problem Toon Link has against Greninja is being offstage. We can't recover properly because of numerous reasons:

• If you're in the upper corner without your second jump, the ninja can just Hydro Pump you off the stage OR... use U-Air... *shivers* the U-Air... anyways, yeah. It's hard up here.
• If youre in the middle, even at low percentages, F-Air kills, and if not, gimps you.
• If you're down below the ledge, Greninja sees no issue in just Hydro Pumping outwards/downwards.

The Z-Air isn't really doing much to improve our situation either:

• If you're above the ledge when you use it, Greninja can use Up-Smash and hit hard. Fresh sweetspotted Up-Smash deals 20% worth of damage. Ouch.
• If you used it horizontally from the ledge, Water Shuriken says hi.
• If you grabbed it from below (somehow. I NEVER get this to work, lol), a good Greninja player (unlike me ) can gimp you with D-Air, or just Hydro Pump you.

In general, if you're just hanging from the ledge, Greninja can still do well with Shadow Sneak. It uses Shadow Sneak about a character length from the ledge in case you roll. Here is what it does to you:

IF YOU CHOOSE TO ATTACK: Shadow Sneak will "clank" with your sword strike, and the ninja will Jab and deal some damage. And it's back into the air again.
IF YOU CHOOSE TO ROLL: Shadow Sneak will simply make Greninja kick behind it. Though this one is safer than attacking since it will probably knock you into the stage, it makes you take more damage.
IF YOU CHOOSE TO SIMPLY GET UP: Shadow Sneak will hit you and you can wave (or maybe not...) bye-bye to the stage, because you're back in the air.

There is one more alternative:

IF YOU CHOOSE TO JUMP: Shadow Sneak won't hit you, provided you jumped at the right moment. This is maybe the safest alternative.

Alright so now, we'll get into some combos Greninja does very often. Keep in mind all of these are done in Training Mode, so no moves are Stale:

(SS- Sweetspot)
(PP- Additional two Pummels. Possible at lower %'s.)
(PPP- Additional three Pummels. Possible at higher %'s.)
(Red Font - Low % Combo)
(Blue Font - Mid-High % Combo [KO'S])

U-Throw > U-Smash (SS) = 24% (28% PP)
U-Throw > U-Air > U-Air = 23% (27% PPP)
U-Throw > U-Air > U-Air > Hydro Pump = 31% (35% PPP)
U-Tilt > U-Tilt > U-Smash (SS) = 28%Til
D-Tilt > D-Tilt > Dash Attack > U-Smash (SS) = 40%
D-Throw > F-Tilt = 12% (16% PP)
D-Throw > F-Air = 20% (26% PPP)
N-Air > F-Tilt = 17%


Alright so here's another big issue particularly you and I have against Greninja: our stage selection.

As you know, we [my friend and I] commonly pick one out of three stages (Green Hill Zone, PictoChat 2, Balloon Fight) to reduce lag. However, two of these stages (PictoChat 2, Balloon Fight) are a serious issue when fighting Greninja. On these stages, particularly PictoChat 2, the shadow from Shadow Sneak is almost (in the case of PictoChat 2, completely) invisible. This means that every time Greninja walks forward, you have to watch out for a Shadow Sneak. Keep this in mind!

Alright, finally, here's some things a lot of Greninjas will do commonly:

• If it misses a D-Air, it can will be cancelled into a Shadow Sneak.
• Water Shuriken.
• Sometimes Shadow Sneak behind you a fair distance and get away from your projectile insanity.
• It will almost NEVER use Counter.
• It will recover with unpredictability by using Hydro Pump, so don't try to gimp IT. If you miss your attack and end up behind it, you can easily be pushed to the edge of the screen by a shot of Hydro Pump.
• It will wall cling to the side of the stage to wait for you to let your guard downand go onstage and hit you with a B-Air or something. To avoid this, you could pick a stage with an Omega form that has no walls such as Magicant, Rainbow Road, or Prism Tower, BUT this will also cost you your Wall Jump to improve recovery, along with tossing bombs into the wall and hitting yourself to gain height (this can still be done to an extent.).
• If they get the opportunity, they will use U-Air as much as they can. Throw a Bomb down but not always. Mix it up with D-air or just Air Dodge and U-Air THEM.
• After they land a D-Air and they bounce off of you, they will either follow up with another D-Air which CAN be hard to dodge, since you don't see Greninjas doing that very often, or follow up with B-Air if youre behind them."

Good look Dr.A, I don't find this match-up nearly as hard as I did a couple weeks ago now that I know what to look out for. Probably the only thing that catches me by surprise now is how swift his aerials are when I'm recovering.
Like most match-ups having a bomb in hand whenever possible helps you punish every mistake/read on Greninja.

 

[Fangblade]

Who does everyone have more trouble with Yoshi or Mario?

 

[[大神−ド] Ōkameed]

I find Yoshi players when they start Egg spamming to be really difficult. It's hard to get in or play the usual arrow/bomb/rang game from a distance

 

[Deleted member]

My friend wrote this up, and I thought I'd post it here. Grab and do a few pummels at these %s and the opponent should be KO'd. I also tested for myself to make sure this works while the opponent is vectoring properly, and these percentages are correct.

"BACK THROW

As you know, Toon Link's bthrow recieved an EXTREME Buff in Smash 4. Since bthrow is so important in Toon Link's metagame now, I decided I would do a list of percentages where it KO's. This was tested on the very edge of Final Destination while making sure his bthrow wasn't stale.

*Percentages may vary by 3% at the most:

Mario: 120%
Luigi: 121%
Peach: 118%
Bowser: 138%
Bowser Jr.: 130%
Rosalina & Luma: 112%
Dr. Mario: 118%
Donkey Kong: 136%
Diddy Kong: 116%
Yoshi: 124%
Wario: 124%
Mr. Game & Watch: 106%
Link: 123%
Zelda: 114%
Sheik: 111%
Ganondorf: 129%
Toon Link: 119%
Samus: 132%
Zero Suit Samus: 114%
Pit: 121%
Palutena: 118%
Dark Pit: 121%
Kirby: 106%
King Dedede: 132%
Meta Knight: 106%
Marth: 124%
Ike: 126%
Robin: 128%
Lucina: 125%
Little Mac: 116%
Fox: 113%
Falco: 117%
Captain Falcon: 126%
Ness: 120%
Pikachu: 107%
Charizard: 131%
Lucario: 126%
Jigglypuff: 104%
Greninja: 115%
Duck Hunt: 128%
R.O.B.: 130%
Villager: 119%
Olimar: 114%
Wii Fit Trainer: 122%
Shulk (No Arts): 124%
Pac-Man: 121%
Mega Man: 122%
Sonic: 118%
Mii Brawler: 119% - 131%
Mii Swordsman: 118%% - 133%
Mii Gunner: 120% - 134%

So, in general, you should get your opponent to around the 120% mark, grab, pummel, then bthrow."

 

[Cyre]

Who does everyone have more trouble with Yoshi or Mario?

I find mario a lot more trouble to deal with. I faced a really good one recently. Its hard to punish the man when hes so fast. Sometimes I honestly feel like its just me and I'm not reacting fast enough. I'm going to link the fight later. That mario was seriously strong.

 

[warionumbah2]

Mario isn't a threat his combo's may seem big but look at the damage on the bottom screen, his percentage output is the lowest out of all his Smash incarnations so falling into a combo isn't that much of a punish especially when you can dish out more damage with less time/reads/hard work.

 

[Cyre]

Mario isn't a threat his combo's may seem big but look at the damage on the bottom screen, his percentage output is the lowest out of all his Smash incarnations so falling into a combo isn't that much of a punish especially when you can dish out more damage with less time/reads/hard work.

Dude, that honestly doesn't help a bit. That isn't exactly good advice to give. Mario may hit lower per hit but he has the speed to make up for that. Saying he isn't a threat is silly when he has so many tools that are great to counter both links. Magic cape is a great example and it's usage can discourage a link/tink player from using anymore projectiles. You also can't out trade mario when hes faster than you. He will get the first hits and your jab is almost useless in comparison to his. Links has a better chance maybe because of his longer hitbox.

Also, the last thing you want, is to get knocked into a combo and gimped off the stage early game.

 

[warionumbah2]

Dude, that honestly doesn't help a bit. That isn't exactly good advice to give. Mario may hit lower per hit but he has the speed to make up for that. Saying he isn't a threat is silly when he has so many tools that are great to counter both links. Magic cape is a great example and it's usage can discourage a link/tink player from using anymore projectiles. You also can't out trade mario when hes faster than you. He will get the first hits and your jab is almost useless in comparison to his. Links has a better chance maybe because of his longer hitbox.

Also, the last thing you want, is to get knocked into a combo and gimped off the stage early game.

What i posted isn't advice its facts/something to take note on, people across the board talk about his combo game but forget about the actual percentage he dishes out which isn't much. Even with his speed he has to put in some hard reads and work just to hit 50%, Adult Link can use his boomerang and it doesn't do any damage only wind gets reflected so it doesn't 100% discourage projectiles.

 

[Deleted member]

So I took a bunch of notes on the different match-ups. I originally planned on having them as notes I'd just keep for myself, but my friends liked them and the TL boards have been way behind on info compared to other boards, so I decided I'd improve these notes and post them here. So yeah, here are my notes, all 15 pages of them (apologies for any weird errors, it was kind of a hard-to-correct mess since I didn't originally intend to post it here):


Bowser
Pros:
- You can usually combo him with utilt to at least 25%-30% if he's in front of the attack.
- He's very easy to camp.
- Your Hylian shield works perfectly against his fire breath.
Cons:
- He's hard to deal with up-close.
Strategy:
Camp. Avoid using moves that are easy to punish. Utilt if the opportunity arises.
Stages:
Final Destination is great for running away and camping against Bowser.



Bowser Jr.
Pros:
- TL is the better camper.
- Your Hylian shield protects against his projectiles that are moving towards you, which will continue on the path they were going on without doing any damage.
Cons:
- His up-close game is annoying.
- Your Hylian shield won't project you against BJ's exploding toy.



Captain Falcon
Pros:
- He hates campers.
- Zair is an especially useful spacing tool in this match-up.
- You can usually combo him with utilt until at least around 29%-36% if he's in front of the attack.
Cons:
- He can be hard to run from while camping since he's much faster than you.
Strategy:
Camp. Some CFs like to approach campers with their shield, so bait the shield and grab. When running away, make extra sure there are still projectiles flying towards CF to slow him down so you can get away safely.



Charizard
Pros:
- Camping works here.
- He doesn't have much defense against zair or bair.
- Your moves are much faster than his.
Cons:
- His flamethrower out-prioritizes arrows and the boomerang.
- Utilt doesn't work very well on him, unlike other heavy-weights.
- Your Hylian shield doesn't work against flamethrower.
Strategy:
Camp. Zair if he comes close to you, and feel free to punish his mistakes with bair.



Dark Pit
Cons:
- Trying to grab the ledge from the side rather than below will get you spiked by his sliding spike.
- Your Hylian shield won't protect you from Dark Pit's arrows.
I haven't found zair to do very much against him...
Strategy:
They really hate aggressive players. Get in his face and play aggressive. Also, refer to Pit.



Diddy Kong
???



Donkey Kong
Pros:
- DK is near-defenseless against campers.
- He's somewhat easy to juggle.
Cons:
- He's not as easy to combo with utilt as other heavy-weights.
Strategy:
Camp, camp, and camp.



Dr. Mario
Cons:
-Your Hylian shield is useless against him.



Duck Hunt Dog
Pros:
- TL can outcamp him.
Cons:
- DHD is annoying up-close.
- Zair isn't very useful here since a lot of his attacks out-range it.
- Your Hylian shield doesn't protect you from his projectiles enough to be useful.
Strategy:
Camp. DHDs might become aggressive if you win the camping fight, but you're faster than him, so you can run away. Don't try close combat against DHD, he'll always win. Even zair is risky because DHD has long and disjointed smashes.



Falco
Cons:
- Your Hylian shield won't protect you against his lasers.
Strategy:
His bair, dair, side smash, and side b are good for killing, so watch out for them.



Fox
Pros:
- You can usually combo him with utilt until at least around 32%-36% if he's in front of the move.
Cons:
- Fox is difficult and unsafe to gimp since his sideb can spike you, and doesn't leave him vulnerable.
- Your Hylian shield doesn't work against his lasers.
Strategy:
He hates characters that get in his face and combo him, since he's a fast faller, which makes him easy to combo. Switch up between camping and being aggressive with spaced moves. Be extra unpredictable so he won't reflect your projectiles back at you. Use bombs and the boomerang to gimp him. Also, since I couldn't find much on the Fox boards, I asked a friend who mains Fox about the match-up. This is what he had to say:
"I do think Fox has the mobility and tools to break through Tink's projectiles. Fox has a very good follow up game, but Tink's quick aerials can catch him and perhaps punish Fox if the Fox player isn't careful.
Fox is hard to gimp in most circumstances. You need to predict his forward B or where he will use up B... I can go on and on. But I'm thinking the match up is even. Tink forces Fox to get through his projectiles and be more careful than usual with follow ups. Fox can force Tink to fight him up close."
Stages:
I don't have much experience or other evidence to back this up, but stages with lots of platforms like Battlefield don't seem so bad here. I've found Fox to be very easy to combo with utilt then umsashed so he ends up on the platforms, leaving him vulnerable to being sharked after you've combo'd him. The platforms also help with camping in this case since reflected bombs can't hurt you, and he'll have a harder time reflecting the boomerang back at you. The platforms also make it even harder for him to recover above you when you're trying to gimp him, since you can shark him from under the platforms if he lands on one.



Ganondorf
Pros:
- Ganon has a terrible time with campers.
- A lot of TL's moves besides his aerials, fsmash, and dsmash are hard to punish. Ganon relies heavily on punishing the opponent in order to rack up damage.
Cons:
- Getting close to him is dangerous, making him extremely difficult to KO.
- You can rack up massive damage from just a few hits, and he has no trouble KOing you.
- The rage mechanic + him being difficult to kill + TL's poor ability to KO make him beyond terrifying at higher %s.
Strategy:
Camp his ass and stay FAR away, since he can rack up massive damages from just a few hits. Always keep a bomb in hand to punish his mistakes, since you're going to need to get that extra damage on him to make up for the hits you'll be taking. If you have to come close then spam zair, then get away ASAP.



Greninja
Pros:
- You can usually combo him with utilt until at least around 36%-39% if he's in front of the move.
- TL's utilt seems to come out faster than Greninja's. ***This still needs confirmation.*** It seems to be true from my experience, since I've found when Greninja and TL show their utilt animation at the same time that TL's is the one that ends up hitting.
- Your Hylian shield blocks his water shuriken, including when fully charged. Keep this in mind, as Greninja's water shuriken can cause trouble for TL with its good speed and priority.
Cons:
- He can combo you with his utilt just as easily as you can combo him with yours because his utilt has the same range but less knockback. Being close enough to start a utilt combo on him puts you at the very same risk.
- TL's uair doesn't always beat his dair, and Greninja can combo one dair into another if you miss your techs, so uair isn't worth the risk if you see him dair.
- Greninja's recovery is hard to gimp, and attempting to gimp him can put you in a bad position because of hydro pump.
- His air game is much better than yours.
- His water shuriken cancels out your boomerang and arrows, and it comes out faster than them.
- A lot of his moves outrange zair.
Strategy:
Toss bombs and maybe the boomerang is he gets above you. Bombs and the boomerang are your only hopes of trying to gimp him, though you still shouldn't get your hopes up on gimping him. If Greninja keeps recovering above the stage you can gimp him or at least scare him by using the boomerang and tossing a ton of bombs upwards, making it unsafe to recover above the stage. If he safely recovers above the stage despite the projectiles, his landing should be much easier to predict so you can punish. His water shuriken (or however it's spelled) clashes with your arrows and boomerang, so camp him with bombs. He hates bombs. Watch him carefully when you end up above him, as depending on what he does you should either dair if he tries to jump under you and uair you, or make it rain bombs if he stays on the ground. It's very common for Greninjas to jump under you and uair a few times in order to bait you into dairing later on, while they stay on the ground and wait so they can punish your dair. Do not let him bait you into fighting him from the air, since he'll win that every time. Watch out for the shadow of his shadow sneak. Even at low percents he can fast fall and uair you to the bottom of the stage so you can't recover. If you see the shadow from shadow sneak, shield it and dsmash. His water shuriken comes out faster than all of TL's projectiles. He still hates campers, though, so keep trying to camp. Just be unpredictable, don't spend too much time on the ground or in the air. Greninja mains loathe campers. Unfortunately, TL seems to be one of the campers that Greninja has an easier time dealing with.
Stages:
Greninja likes stages with a dark background or floor (especially floor) since it's hard or even impossible to see his shadow sneak. Avoid stages with platforms, since he can easily juggle the crap out of you on them. On Yoshi's Island watch out for Greninja dairing by the edge when you're on there, since it will hit you because of the slanted ground.
My guess on the match-up ratio: 70-30, Greninja's favor


Ike
Pros:
- You can combo him with utilt until around 20%.
- Uair works well when he's above you.
- Bair can be good for punishing his mistakes.
- He's easy to gimp with bombs, the boomerang, and fair.
Cons:
- Zair is a bit risky against him.
- He's hard to run away from.
- He can combo you pretty easily.
Strategy:
Camp. Be very careful when you have to run away from him, since he's harder to escape from than other characters. Ike hates TL's bombs and can't stand campers, so he'll try to get close and keep pressure on you. Ike relies heavily on punishing mistakes, so don't let yourself get punished.


Jigglypuff
Pros:
- She doesn't do well against campers.
- Your bombs and boomerang work great here.
Cons:
- All of her aerials out-prioritize your arrows, plus your arrows are just easy for her to avoid.
Strategy:
She likes to punish with rest, mainly out of shield and to punish laggy moves, so watch out for it. Bair is a major kill move for her. Utilt is another kill move to watch out for, and it comes out fast. Pound KOs if you're high in the air, but you shouldn't be high up against jigglypuff, anyway. She has a very hard time killing, so it's especially important to stay far away from her when you've reached 110%+, which is when her main killing moves start to become a bigger threat to TL. Jigglypuff is much her nair can be scary.
When custom moves are on she can combo into rest very easily.



King DeDeDe
Pros:
- TL's bombs are very annoying for DeDeDe
- All of your moves that can hit his gordos, including your arrows, can send them flying back to DeDeDe.
- His gordos will almost always either go over your head or hit your Hylian shield, and will even go over your head when you're standing up. Actually, after 5 minutes or so of testing this, the only times I got hit by the gordos were when TL was crouching or too close to DeDeDe, except with one that bounced particularly low so it couldn't fly above TL's head when it bounced up. If you're getting overwhelmed by his gordos, standing around and doing nothing might not be such a terrible idea, though still not recommended in tournaments or money matches.
Cons:
- Comboing with utilt won't help you very much here.
- His uair beats your dair.
- His utilt beats your dair and protects him from bombs you throw down on him.
Strategy:
He hates projectile-based characters, presumably like TL (for such a rarely used character, there's a lot of complaining about TL in the DeDeDe boards), so camp him. Space with zair if he comes close, then immediately run away again.


Kirby
Pros:
- If he inhales you can throw a bomb at him so he'll eat it. If he's off-stage he'll fall to his death, and if he's on-stage you now have the perfect opportunity to punish him.
- Your aerials are a good defense against getting gimped.
- Nair is useful here.
- Your Hylian shield protects against his hyper cutter's projectile, and his arrows if he copies your ability.
Cons:
- He can combo the crap out of you if he gets close.
- His dair is good at spiking low recoveries like TL's.
Strategy:
He's changed drastically from how he was in Brawl since his bair has been ultra nerfed, and seems to be much more ground-based now than he was before, though is still good in the air. Camp and stay far away from him or he'll start one of his nasty combos on you. Just run away when you end up close to him, and space with zair if you can't get away. Recover above the stage and carefully space fair against his gimping attempts.



Link
Pros:
- You can out-camp him.
- Your Hylian shield blocks all of his projectiles.
Cons:
- His up-close moves are stronger, faster, have more range, and are overall better than yours in every possible way, so he'll wipe the floor against you if you get close to him.
- His bombs can KO.
Strategy:
Try to outcamp him. Be as unpredictable as possible. Just like with TL, Link likes to cover his landing with bombs, so watch out for them. His dash attack is a surprisingly good kill move.



Little Mac
Pros:
- LM hates campers.
- Your bthrow, good knockback on aerials, and projectiles make it very easy to get him into a situation where he can't recover.
- Your aerials are far better than his.
- Dsmashing by the edge can throw him far enough away from the stage where he can't recover.
Cons:
- His jabs outprioritize your arrows and boomerang.
Strategy:
Camp his ass and stay in the air. Just run away if he gets close, don't try to hit or grab him unless he's at KO %s. Beware of his nair. If he tries to approach you with ftilt, shield it and use your fantastic grab range to grab him. If you're by the edge, which you probably will be, this gives you the perfect opportunity to toss him off the stage and gimp him.



Lucario
Pros:
- Your Hylian shield protects against aura sphere, even when it's fully charged.
Strategy:
Zair and bombs? Keep your kill moves fresh so he won't stick around long enough for his aura to cause problems.



Lucina
Refer to Marth. They're basically the same character, except Lucina doesn't tipper.
Also, Lucina can Ken Combo TL, and you can recover back to the stage with the spin attack.



Luigi
Pros:
- Your Hylian shield can block his fireballs.
Strategy:
Camp?



Mario
Pros:
- You can outcamp him.
Cons:
- His up-close game is scary, and he'll combo the crap out of you if you get near him.
-Your Hylian shield can block his fireballs depending on whether they're bouncing above the shield or not (which they usually do bounce above it), so your H. shield won't be of any use here.
Strategy:
Camp.
Stages:
Taking him to Battlefield or Yoshi's Island seem like veeeeery bad ideas. Your best bet in this match-up is probably going to be Final Destination. In my experience, Mario loves platforms for comboing the crap out of you.



Marth
Pros:
- Your uair is good if he's above you.
- He's easy to gimp with the boomerang and bombs.
Strategy:
Camp hard enough that the stage is a gigantic hazard zone of projectiles. Be very careful when you have to run away from him; he's harder to escape from than other characters. Zair is risky, and seems to only barely out-range his fair.



Megaman
Pros:
-You can outcamp him.
- Your Hylian shield protects against his jab, and sometimes his other projectiles.
Cons:
- His pellets outrange your zair, making it useless.
Strategy:
Camp. Remember to try to shield the timer bomb that he puts on you.



Meta Knight
Strategy:
Camp. The bombs and boomerang are especially good here.



Mii Brawler
???



Mii Gunner
Cons:
- Mii Gunner can easily shut down your camping.
- Ze's hard to approach because of zir insane range on zir A attacks.



Mii Swordfighter
???



Mr. Game & Watch
Pros:
- G&W hates campers.
- Bombs and the boomerang are especially good against G&W for making it difficult for him to approach.
- Besides his grabs, G&W's attacks are generally very easy to shield and punish.
Strategy:
Camp. If he tries approaching with a dash attack, simply shield and punish as you would do to anyone else.



Ness
Pros:
- Bombs are great for gimping him.
- TL's projectiles are extremely annoying for Ness since he can't absorb them.
Cons:
- PK fire can be used to lead into a grab, which can be used to start nasty set-ups.
- Ness is much better in the air than TL.
- Your Hylian shield is useless here.
Strategy:
Camp far enough away so you can avoid his PK fire. Use dair if you're above the ground and Ness tries to juggle you with PK thunder.
Stages:
Ness is terrifying on stages with platforms. Yoshi's Island is probably better than Battlefield because of the stage's walls.



Olimar
Cons:
Your Hylian shield is useless here.



Pacman
Pros:
- You can outcamp Pacman.
- The hydrant can be usmashed or uaired before it hits the ground to send it flying back to Pacman (that's just what a Pacman main I know told me, I haven't gotten the chance to test this).
- Your Hylian shield protects against his fruit.
Strategy:
Be very campy. Get him in the air. He hates stages with platforms, since he doesn't do well when the opponent gets up close. Shark him from under the platforms if he gets on one. Don't get below him or he'll throw his hydrant thing down on you.
You can easily get rid of his hydrant by dtilting it twice. Contrary to what a lot of people say, you cannot get rid of the hydrant with a single ftilt. The hydrant has 12 hit points, and a fresh ftilt only does 9% damage. Dtilt is fast and doesn't need to be as fresh as other moves, so dtilt is perfect to use on the hydrant. His pellet move can be shielded and punished. Zair can also be very annoying for Pacman when spaced perfectly, otherwise he has moves that outrange it. Pacman likes to play aggressive against TL, but keep camping. Also, Pacman's trampoline only has three bounces, so you can steal his third bounce after he's used his second one.
Stages:
Battlefield > Yoshi's Island > Final Destination. TL may hate these stages, but Pacman hates them even more. Also, he hates stages with walls, like Yoshi's Island and omega Green Hill, since his side b can hit the side of the stage and make it harder for him to recover.



Palutena
Pros:
- TL's zair gives Palutena loads of trouble.
Cons:
- Dair is especially risky here because of her usmash.
- She out-camps you.
Strategy:
Play aggressively with well-spaced zairs. Her jab and dthrow combo into all sorts of things, so watch out for them. I'd still say this match-up is in TL's favor because Palutena seems to do even worse with close-combat than TL does.



Peach
Pros:
- TL is one of the characters that Peach can't nair lock.
Cons:
-Arrows aren't much use here.
-Your Hylian shield doesn't defend against her turnips.
Strategy:
Good Peach mains will mix up between ground and air approaches, so pay special attention to the way she approaches.



Pikachu
Pros:
- Zair out-prioritizes Pika's tjolts.
- Your Hylian shield protects against his tjolts, regardless of whether they're aerial or grounded.
Cons:
- Pika's tjolt eats up your arrows and boomerang.
Strategy:
This match-up is going to depend a little more on the opponent than other match-ups, since Pikachu is good at being both campy and aggressive. Arrows should always be used in the air. Bombs are great. Approach with zair and bombs. Pikachu players hate being pressured more than anything, so if camping doesn't work then put as much pressure on him as possible. Beware of his dash attack, since it can kill in this game. Uthrow > thunder can be a legit combo in this game, though it's sometimes possible to DI out of the way or even air dodge it. Pikachu can cancel a quick attack into the ground with a jump or b move on stages with non-flat floors like Yoshi's Island.* Fast fall nair can KO at low %s, especially if you get hit by the sweetspot. Short hop fast fall fair can lead to some nasty combos.
Stages:
Surprisingly, Pikachu's thunder can still connect with him if he's under the middle platform on Battlefield. Yoshi's Island is a much better stage for Pikachu now than it was for him in Brawl, since it's one of the few stages he can use his QAC on* (QAC = quick attack cancel), and other issues he had with the stage in Brawl are mostly no longer present. Brinstar is a fantastic counterpick against Pikachu if it ends up staying legal as one. TL may hate this stage, but Pika hates it even more and has little hope on it.
My guess on the match-up ratio: 55-45, Toon Link's favor
*: I'm just taking some Pika mains' words for it on this one. I tried it and it seemed very hard to pull off, and could only use it to cancel a quick attack into the ground with a thunder or a jump. Quick attack into the ground canceled by thunder was the easier to pull off of the two, and seems like a bigger threat especially since it can be done rather close to the edge for a surprise edge guard.



Pit
Cons:
- Should go without saying, but your Hylian shield won't protect you from Pit's arrows.
Strategy:
Don't get above or below him, and throw a bomb at it if you do end up above or below him. Switch between camping, and playing aggressive with zair, but you should mainly be aggressive since he struggles with aggressive players.



ROB
Pros:
- Your Hylian shield protects against his gyro and causes it to disappear.



Robin
Pros:
- TL out-camps Robin.
Cons:
- His arcfire eats up your arrows and boomerang, and is a combo starter.
- Your Hylian shield won't help you here, but it's possible to duck under Robin's projectiles. Very useless and situational, but it looks funny.
Strategy:
This is a good match-up for TL. TL's better speed and camping ability are huge advantages here. Robin will have a hard time hitting you with levin sword unless you're in the air, though your aerials are still much faster and are overall better, so you have the advantage in the air. His fairs are also annoying combo starters to watch out for. Robin likes to use arcthunder when Toon Link is close to defend himself.
Also, apparently our projectiles can cancel out thoron charge. I haven't tested this to know if it's true or not. I'll try to remember to test this before posting this. If not, then oops.



Rosalina & Luma
Pros:
- Zair is fantastic here.
- She's easy to gimp with projectiles.
Cons:
- Luma + her ability to absorb your projectiles forces you to play aggressive.
- She can easily gimp you.
- Her aerials are much, much better than yours.
Strategy:
Rosalina doesn't like characters that are fast, stay in her face, and pressure her, so be aggressive. As long as you're constantly in her face and putting pressure on her she'll have a hard time using Luma for much of anything. For the most part, Luma should be ignored since she/he/ze/it/whatever just respawns again a few moments after being killed. Approaching with zair is really good here. If you can get behind Rosalina so you're not near Luma then that's also good. She can easily gimp TL, and her item sucking move makes your projectiles useless for camping. If you want to use a bomb, make sure to be especially unpredictable with it. Her utilt and uair moves beat TL's dair, so avoid using it. Her dair also beats TL's uair and all of his other aerials, so just throw bombs at her if she gets above you. Heck, just don't get into the air vs Rosalina. Try to stay in the center of the stage. She seems very easy to gimp with projectiles, or at least get baited into a bad position if they miss.
Stages:
Don't pick Battlefield against her.
My guess on the match-up ratio: 65-35 in Rosalina's favor


Samus
Pros:
- Samus already has a hard time comboing, and TL being light and floaty makes him much harder for Samus to combo.
Cons:
- Her zair is better than yours.
- Your Hylian shield is useless here.



Sheik
Cons:
- Your Hylian shield only protects against the explosion from her rope attack thing, making it near-useless.



Shulk
Pros:
- Shulk hates campers like TL.
Strategy:
Camp. Shulk seems to have trouble approaching here, forcing him to possibly approach by shielding your projectiles, leaving him open to get grabbed. Worse players will roll towards you, which are very easy to punish with a dash attack once they get close enough. Some Shulks like to change to speed against campers like TL, which makes his jumps not go as high. Others will switch to jump then try to space nair or fair on you, which should still be easy enough to avoid or at least shield, then possibly punish with a grab.



Sonic
Pros:
- Bombs are great for punishing here.
Cons:
- His air game is scary.
Strategy:
Camp, and space with zair if he gets close. Don''t get into the air and try to hit him with aerials if he gets above you, just toss bombs at him. If you think he's about to dair, try using arrows and the boomerang. Sonic will try to put pressure on you, but keep camping and play it safe. Don't let him come near you. Stay on the ground, and don't let him get you into the air or he'll juggle you horrifically. Don't let him bait you into doing anything stupid, which Sonic is very good at doing.



Toon Link
Pros:
- Dair beats utilt and usmash.
- If I remember correctly, uair beats dair. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
- Your Hylian shield blocks all of his projectiles.
Cons:
- Utilt and usmash are beaten by dair.
- If I remember correctly, dair is beaten by uair. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
- His Hylian shield blocks all of your projectiles.
Strategy:
Yay, camp fight!



Villager
Pros:
-Your Hylian shield protects against Villager's rockets even at close range, though it causes TL to fly backwards a bit far. I couldn't test any other moves because no matter what I tried, the most I could get the CPU to do was fire rockets at me. The Hylian shield's protection would be super useless even if it exists with other moves of Villager's, anyway.



Wario
???



Wii Fit Trainer
Pros:
- Your speed and range on zair are great advantages here.
Cons:
- Your Hylian shield won't help you here.
Strategy:
You should mainly focus on camping.



Yoshi
Cons:
- His air game is crazy.
- His dash attack can't be punished with a shield grab.
- Going off the stage to try to gimp him will get you spiked by his fair.
Strategy:
Camp? Stay on the ground.



Zelda
Pros:
- Well-spaced zairs seem like they could be very useful here. I haven't gotten the chance to test this, though.
Cons:
- Her aerials are much better than yours.
- She's too floaty for utilt to be of much use.
- The phantom can be used to gimp you, and a charged one can KO you very easily.
Strategy:
Stay on the ground. Only go into the air if you're trying to bait her into using an aerial by the ground, then grab her. Zelda can fire the phantom on the edge to prevent you from coming down and edge guarding her. Also, this should go without saying, but don't dash at her. She'll just fire the phantom at you, which will take the damage from any attack you used.
Stages:
She loves Jungle Japes, so ban it if it's somehow legal.



Zero Suit Samus
Pros:
- ZSS hates campers.
Cons:
- Her up-close game is far better than yours, so she can be scary for TL if she gets up-close.
- Your Hylian shield won't help you here.



Also, I think we should probably start some kind of match-up discussion thing like all the other character boards are doing. I was thinking 2 or 3 characters a week in alphabetical order. What do you guys think?

 

[Yackabean]

So I took a bunch of notes on the different match-ups. I originally planned on having them as notes I'd just keep for myself, but my friends liked them and the TL boards have been way behind on info compared to other boards, so I decided I'd improve these notes and post them here. So yeah, here are my notes, all 15 pages of them (apologies for any weird errors, it was kind of a hard-to-correct mess since I didn't originally intend to post it here):

Bowser
Pros:
- You can usually combo him with utilt to at least 25%-30% if he's in front of the attack.
- He's very easy to camp.
- Your Hylian shield works perfectly against his fire breath.
Cons:
- He's hard to deal with up-close.
Strategy:
Camp. Avoid using moves that are easy to punish. Utilt if the opportunity arises.
Stages:
Final Destination is great for running away and camping against Bowser.



Bowser Jr.
Pros:
- TL is the better camper.
- Your Hylian shield protects against his projectiles that are moving towards you, which will continue on the path they were going on without doing any damage.
Cons:
- His up-close game is annoying.
- Your Hylian shield won't project you against BJ's exploding toy.



Captain Falcon
Pros:
- He hates campers.
- Zair is an especially useful spacing tool in this match-up.
- You can usually combo him with utilt until at least around 29%-36% if he's in front of the attack.
Cons:
- He can be hard to run from while camping since he's much faster than you.
Strategy:
Camp. Some CFs like to approach campers with their shield, so bait the shield and grab. When running away, make extra sure there are still projectiles flying towards CF to slow him down so you can get away safely.



Charizard
Pros:
- Camping works here.
- He doesn't have much defense against zair or bair.
- Your moves are much faster than his.
Cons:
- His flamethrower out-prioritizes arrows and the boomerang.
- Utilt doesn't work very well on him, unlike other heavy-weights.
- Your Hylian shield doesn't work against flamethrower.
Strategy:
Camp. Zair if he comes close to you, and feel free to punish his mistakes with bair.



Dark Pit
Cons:
- Your Hylian shield won't protect you from Dark Pit's arrows.
- Trying to grab the ledge from the side rather than below will get you spiked by his sliding spike.
I haven't found zair to do very much against him...
Strategy:
They really hate aggressive players. Get in his face and play aggressive. Also, refer to Pit.



Diddy Kong
???



Donkey Kong
Pros:
- DK is near-defenseless against campers.
- He's somewhat easy to juggle.
Cons:
- He's not as easy to combo with utilt as other heavy-weights.
Strategy:
Camp, camp, and camp.



Dr. Mario
Cons:
-Your Hylian shield is useless against him.



Duck Hunt Dog
Pros:
- TL can outcamp him.
Cons:
- DHD is annoying up-close.
- Zair isn't very useful here since a lot of his attacks out-range it.
- Your Hylian shield doesn't protect you from his projectiles enough to be useful.
Strategy:
Camp. DHDs might become aggressive if you win the camping fight, but you're fast so you can run away. Don't try close combat against DHD, he'll always win. Even zair is risky because DHD has long and disjointed smashes.



Falco
Cons:
- Your Hylian shield won't protect you against his lasers.
Strategy:
His bair, dair, side smash, and side b are good for killing, so watch out for them.



Fox
Pros:
- You can usually combo him with utilt until at least around 32%-36% if he's in front of the move.
Cons:
- Fox is difficult and unsafe to gimp since his sideb can spike you, and doesn't leave him vulnerable.
- Your Hylian shield doesn't work against his lasers.
Strategy:
He hates characters that get in his face and combo him, since he's a fast faller, which makes him easy to combo. Switch up between camping and being aggressive with spaced moves. Be extra unpredictable so he won't reflect your projectiles back at you. Use bombs and the boomerang to gimp him. Also, since I couldn't find much on the Fox boards, I asked a friend who mains Fox about the match-up. This is what he had to say:
"I do think Fox has the mobility and tools to break through Tink's projectiles. Fox has a very good follow up game, but Tink's quick aerials can catch him and perhaps punish Fox if the Fox player isn't careful.
Fox is hard to gimp in most circumstances. You need to predict his forward B or where he will use up B... I can go on and on. But I'm thinking the match up is even. Tink forces Fox to get through his projectiles and be more careful than usual with follow ups. Fox can force Tink to fight him up close."
Stages:
I don't have much experience or other evidence to back this up, but stages with lots of platforms like Battlefield don't seem so bad here. I've found Fox to be very easy to combo with utilt then umsashed so he ends up on the platforms, leaving him vulnerable to being sharked after you've combo'd him. The platforms also help with camping in this case since reflected bombs can't hurt you, and he'll have a harder time reflecting the boomerang back at you. The platforms also make it even harder for him to recover above you when you're trying to gimp him, since you can shark him from under the platforms if he lands on one.



Ganondorf
Pros:
- Ganon has a terrible time with campers.
- A lot of TL's moves besides his aerials, fsmash, and dsmash are hard to punish. Ganon relies heavily on punishing the opponent in order to rack up damage.
Cons:
- Getting close to him is dangerous, making him extremely difficult to KO.
- You can rack up massive damage from just a few hits, and he has no trouble KOing you.
- The rage mechanic + him being difficult to kill + TL's poor ability to KO make him beyond terrifying at higher %s.
Strategy:
Camp his *** and stay FAR away, since he can rack up massive damages from just a few hits. Always keep a bomb in hand to punish his mistakes, since you're going to need to get that extra damage on him to make up for the hits you'll be taking. If you have to come close then spam zair, then get away ASAP.



Greninja
Pros:
- You can usually combo him with utilt until at least around 36%-39% if he's in front of the move.
- TL's utilt seems to come out faster than Greninja's. ***This still needs confirmation.*** It seems to be true from my experience, since I've found when Greninja and TL show their utilt animation at the same time that TL's is the one that ends up hitting.
- Your Hylian shield blocks his water shuriken, including when fully charged. Keep this in mind, as Greninja's water shuriken can cause trouble for TL with its good speed and priority.
Cons:
- He can combo you with his utilt just as easily as you can combo him with yours because his utilt has the same range but less knockback. Being close enough to start a utilt combo on him puts you at the very same risk.
- TL's uair doesn't always beat his dair, and Greninja can combo one dair into another if you miss your techs, so uair isn't worth the risk if you see him dair.
- Greninja's recovery is hard to gimp, and attempting to gimp him can put you in a bad position because of hydro pump.
- His air game is much better than yours.
- His water shuriken cancels out your boomerang and arrows, and it comes out faster than them.
- A lot of his moves outrange zair.
Strategy:
Toss bombs and maybe the boomerang is he gets above you. Bombs and the boomerang are your only hopes of trying to gimp him, though you still shouldn't get your hopes up on gimping him. If Greninja keeps recovering above the stage you can gimp him or at least scare him by using the boomerang and tossing a ton of bombs upwards, making it unsafe to recover above the stage. If he safely recovers above the stage despite the projectiles, his landing should be much easier to predict so you can punish. His water shuriken (or however it's spelled) clashes with your arrows and boomerang, so camp him with bombs. He hates bombs. Watch him carefully when you end up above him, as depending on what he does you should either dair if he tries to jump under you and uair you, or make it rain bombs if he stays on the ground. It's very common for Greninjas to jump under you and uair a few times in order to bait you into dairing later on, while they stay on the ground and wait so they can punish your dair. Do not let him bait you into fighting him from the air, since he'll win that every time. Watch out for the shadow of his shadow sneak. Even at low percents he can fast fall and uair you to the bottom of the stage so you can't recover. If you see the shadow from shadow sneak, shield it and dsmash. His water shuriken comes out faster than all of TL's projectiles. He still hates campers, though, so keep trying to camp. Just be unpredictable, don't spend too much time on the ground or in the air. Greninja mains loathe campers. Unfortunately, TL seems to be one of the campers that Greninja has an easier time dealing with.
Stages:
Greninja likes stages with a dark background or floor (especially floor) since it's hard or even impossible to see his shadow sneak. Avoid stages with platforms, since he can easily juggle the crap out of you on them. On Yoshi's Island watch out for Greninja dairing by the edge when you're on there, since it will hit you because of the slanted ground.
My guess on the match-up ratio: 70-30, Greninja's favor


Ike
Pros:
- You can combo him with utilt until around 20%.
- Uair works well when he's above you.
- Bair can be good for punishing his mistakes.
- He's easy to gimp with bombs, the boomerang, and fair.
Cons:
- Zair is a bit risky against him.
- He's hard to run away from.
- He can combo you pretty easily.
Strategy:
Camp. Be very careful when you have to run away from him, since he's harder to escape from than other characters. Ike hates TL's bombs and can't stand campers, so he'll try to get close and keep pressure on you. Ike relies heavily on punishing mistakes, so don't let yourself get punished.



Jigglypuff
Pros:
- She doesn't do well against campers.
- Your bombs and boomerang work great here.
Cons:
- All of her aerials out-prioritize your arrows, plus your arrows are just easy for her to avoid.
Strategy:
She likes to punish with rest, mainly out of shield and to punish laggy moves, so watch out for it. Bair is a major kill move for her. Utilt is another kill move to watch out for, and it comes out fast. Pound KOs if you're high in the air, but you shouldn't be high up against jigglypuff, anyway. She has a very hard time killing, so it's especially important to stay far away from her when you've reached 110%+, which is when her main killing moves start to become a bigger threat to TL. Jigglypuff is much her nair can be scary.
When custom moves are on she can combo into rest very easily.



King DeDeDe
Pros:
- TL's bombs are very annoying for DeDeDe
- All of your moves that can hit his gordos, including your arrows, and send them flying back to DeDeDe.
- His gordos will almost always either go over your head or hit your Hylian shield, and will even go over your head when you're standing up. Actually, after 5 minutes or so of testing this, the only times I got hit by the gordos was when TL was crouching or too close to DeDeDe, except with one that bounced particularly low so it couldn't fly above TL's head when it bounced up. If you're getting overwhelmed by his gordos, standing around and doing nothing might not be such a terrible idea, though still not recommended in tournaments or money matches.
Cons:
- Comboing with utilt won't help you very much here.
- His uair being your dair.
- His utilt beats your dair and protects him from bombs you throw down on him.
Strategy:
He hates projectile-based characters, presumably like TL (for such a rarely used character, there's a lot of complaining about TL in the DeDeDe boards), so camp him. Space with zair if he comes close, then immediately run away again.


Kirby
Pros:
- If he inhales you can throw a bomb at him so he'll eat it. If he's off-stage he'll fall to his death, and if he's on-stage you now have the perfect opportunity to punish him.
- Your aerials are a good defense against getting gimped.
- Your Hylian shield protects against his hyper cutter's projectile, and his arrows if he copies your ability.
Cons:
- He can combo the crap out of you if he gets close.
Strategy:
He's changed drastically from how he was in Brawl since his bair has been ultra nerfed, and seems to be much more ground-based now than he was before. Camp and stay far away from him or he'll start one of his nasty combos on you. Your aerials will most likely be an important defense against gimping here.



Link
Pros:
- You can out-camp him.
- Your Hylian shield blocks all of his projectiles.
Cons:
- His up-close moves are stronger, faster, have more range, and are overall better than yours in every possible way, so he'll wipe the floor against you if you get close to him.
- His bombs can KO.
Strategy:
Try to outcamp him. Be as unpredictable as possible. Just like with TL, Link likes to cover his landing with bombs, so watch out for them. His dash attack is a surprisingly good kill move.



Little Mac
Pros:
- LM hates campers.
- Your bthrow, good knockback on aerials, and projectiles make it very easy to get him into a situation where he can't recover.
- Your aerials are far better than his.
- Dsmashing by the edge can throw him far enough away from the stage where he can't recover.
Cons:
- His jabs outprioritize your arrows and boomerang.
Strategy:
Camp his *** and stay in the air. Just run away if he gets close, don't try to hit or grab him unless he's at KO %s. Beware of his nair. If he tries to approach you with ftilt, shield it and use your fantastic grab range to grab him. If you're by the edge, which you probably will be, this gives you the perfect opportunity to toss him off the stage and gimp him.



Lucario
Pros:
- Your Hylian shield protects against aura sphere, even when it's fully charged.
Strategy:
Zair and bombs? Keep your kill moves fresh so he won't stick around long enough for his aura to cause problems.



Lucina
Refer to Marth. They're basically the same character, except Lucina doesn't tipper.
Also, Lucina can Ken Combo TL, and you can recover back to the stage with the spin attack.



Luigi
Pros:
- Your Hylian shield can block his fireballs.
Strategy:
Camp?



Mario
Pros:
- You can outcamp him.
Cons:
- His up-close game is scary, and he'll combo the crap out of you if you get near him.
-Your Hylian shield can block his fireballs depending on whether they're bouncing above the shield or not (which they usually do bounce above it), so your H. shield won't be of any use here.
Strategy:
Camp.
Stages:
Taking him to Battlefield or Yoshi's Island seem like veeeeery bad ideas. Your best bet in this match-up is probably going to be Final Destination. In my experience, Mario loves platforms for comboing the crap out of you.



Marth
Pros:
- Your uair is good if he's above you.
- He's easy to gimp with the boomerang and bombs.
Strategy:
Camp hard enough that the stage is a gigantic hazard zone of projectiles. Be very careful when you have to run away from him; he's harder to escape from than other characters. Zair is risky, and seems to only barely out-range his fair.



Megaman
Pros:
-You can outcamp him.
- Your Hylian shield protects against his jab, and sometimes his other projectiles.
Cons:
- His pellets outrange your zair, making it useless.
Strategy:
Camp. Remember to try to shield the timer bomb that he puts on you.



Meta Knight
Strategy:
Camp. The bombs and boomerang are especially good here.



Mii Brawler
???



Mii Gunner
Cons:
- Mii Gunner can easily shut down your camping.
- Ze's hard to approach because of zir insane range on zir A attacks.



Mii Swordfighter
???



Mr. Game & Watch
Pros:
- G&W hates campers.
- Bombs and the boomerang are especially good against G&W for making it difficult for him to approach.
- Besides his grabs, G&W's attacks are generally very easy to shield and punish.
Strategy:
Camp. If he tries approaching with a dash attack, simply shield and punish as you would do to anyone else.



Ness
Pros:
- Bombs are great for gimping him.
- TL's projectiles are extremely annoying for Ness since he can't absorb them.
Cons:
- PK fire can be used to lead into a grab, which can be used to start nasty set-ups.
- Ness is much better in the air than TL.
- Your Hylian shield is useless here.
Strategy:
Camp far enough away so you can avoid his PK fire. Use dair if you're above the ground and Ness tries to juggle you with PK thunder.
Stages:
Ness is terrifying on stages with platforms. Yoshi's Island is probably better than Battlefield because of the stage's walls.



Olimar
Cons:
Your Hylian shield is useless here.



Pacman
Pros:
- You can outcamp Pacman.
- The hydrant can be usmashed or uaired before it hits the ground to send it flying back to Pacman (that's just what a Pacman main I know told me, I haven't gotten the chance to test this).
- Your Hylian shield protects against his fruit.
Strategy:
Be very campy. Get him in the air. He hates stages with platforms, since he doesn't do well when the opponent gets up close. Shark him from under the platforms if he gets on one. Don't get below him or he'll throw his hydrant thing down on you.
You can easily get rid of his hydrant by dtilting it twice. Contrary to what a lot of people say, you cannot get rid of the hydrant with a single ftilt. The hydrant has 12 hit points, and a fresh ftilt only does 9% damage. Dtilt is fast and doesn't need to be as fresh as other moves, so dtilt is perfect to use on the hydrant. His pellet move can be shielded and punished. Zair can also be very annoying for Pacman when spaced perfectly, otherwise he has moves that outrange it. Pacman likes to play aggressive against TL, but keep camping. Also, Pacman's trampoline only has three bounces, so you can steal his third bounce after he's used his second one.
Stages:
Battlefield > Yoshi's Island > Final Destination. TL may hate these stages, but Pacman hates them even more. Also, he hates stages with walls, like Yoshi's Island and omega Green Hill, since his side b can hit the side of the stage and make it harder for him to recover.



Palutena
Pros:
- TL's zair gives Palutena loads of trouble.
Cons:
- Dair is especially risky here because of her usmash.
- She out-camps you.
Strategy:
Play aggressively with well-spaced zairs. Her jab and dthrow combo into all sorts of things, so watch out for them. I'd still say this match-up is in TL's favor because Palutena seems to do even worse with close-combat than TL does.



Peach
Pros:
- TL is one of the characters that Peach can't nair lock.
Cons:
-Arrows aren't much use here.
-Your Hylian shield doesn't defend against her turnips.
Strategy:
Good Peach mains will mix up between ground and air approaches, so pay special attention to the way she approaches.



Pikachu
Pros:
- Zair out-prioritizes Pika's tjolts.
- Your Hylian shield protects against his tjolts, regardless of whether they're aerial or grounded.
Cons:
- Pika's tjolt eats up your arrows and boomerang.
Strategy:
This match-up is going to depend a little more on the opponent than other match-ups, since Pikachu is good at being both campy and aggressive. Arrows should always be used in the air. Bombs are great. Approach with zair and bombs. Pikachu players hate being pressured more than anything, so if camping doesn't work then put as much pressure on him as possible. Beware of his dash attack, since it can kill in this game. Uthrow > thunder can be a legit combo in this game, though it's sometimes possible to DI out of the way or even air dodge it. Pikachu can cancel a quick attack into the ground with a jump or b move on stages with non-flat floors like Yoshi's Island.* Fast fall nair can KO at low %s, especially if you get hit by the sweetspot. Short hop fast fall fair can lead to some nasty combos.
Stages:
Surprisingly, Pikachu's thunder can still connect with him if he's under the middle platform on Battlefield. Yoshi's Island is a much better stage for Pikachu now than it was for him in Brawl, since it's one of the few stages he can use his QAC on* (QAC = quick attack cancel), and other issues he had with the stage in Brawl are mostly no longer present. Brinstar is a fantastic counterpick against Pikachu if it ends up staying legal as one. TL may hate this stage, but Pika hates it even more and has little hope on it.
My guess on the match-up ratio: 55-45, Toon Link's favor
*: I'm just taking some Pika mains' words for it on this one. I tried it and it seemed very hard to pull off, and could only use it to cancel a quick attack into the ground with a thunder or a jump. Quick attack into the ground canceled by thunder was the easier to pull off of the two, and seems like a bigger threat especially since it can be done rather close to the edge for a surprise edge guard.



Pit
Cons:
- Should go without saying, but your Hylian shield won't protect you from Pit's arrows.
Strategy:
Don't get above or below him, and throw a bomb at it if you do end up above or below him. Switch between camping, and playing aggressive with zair, but you should mainly be aggressive since he struggles with aggressive players.



ROB
Pros:
- Your Hylian shield protects against his gyro and causes it to disappear.



Robin
Pros:
- TL out-camps Robin.
Cons:
- His arcfire eats up your arrows and boomerang, and is a combo starter.
- Your Hylian shield won't help you here, but it's possible to duck under Robin's projectiles. Very useless and situational, but it looks funny.
Strategy:
This is a good match-up for TL. TL's better speed and camping ability are huge advantages here. Robin will have a hard time hitting you with levin sword unless you're in the air, though your aerials are still much faster and are overall better, so you have the advantage in the air. His fairs are also annoying combo starters to watch out for. Robin likes to use arcthunder when Toon Link is close to defend himself.
Also, apparently our projectiles can cancel out thoron charge. I haven't tested this to know if it's true or not. I'll try to remember to test this before posting this. If not, then oops.



Rosalina & Luma
Pros:
- Zair is fantastic here.
- She's easy to gimp with projectiles.
Cons:
- Luma + her ability to absorb your projectiles forces you to play aggressive.
- She can easily gimp you.
- Her aerials are much, much better than yours.
Strategy:
Rosalina doesn't like characters that are fast, stay in her face, and pressure her, so be aggressive. As long as you're constantly in her face and putting pressure on her she'll have a hard time using Luma for much of anything. For the most part, Luma should be ignored since she/he/ze/it/whatever just respawns again a few moments after being killed. Approaching with zair is really good here. If you can get behind Rosalina so you're not near Luma then that's also good. She can easily gimp TL, and her item sucking move makes your projectiles useless for camping. If you want to use a bomb, make sure to be especially unpredictable with it. Her utilt and uair moves beat TL's dair, so avoid using it. Her dair also beats TL's uair and all of his other aerials, so just throw bombs at her if she gets above you. Heck, just don't get into the air vs Rosalina. Try to stay in the center of the stage. She seems very easy to gimp with projectiles, or at least get baited into a bad position if they miss.
Stages:
Don't pick Battlefield against her.
My guess on the match-up ratio: 65-35 in Rosalina's favor


Samus
Pros:
- Samus already has a hard time comboing, and TL being light and floaty makes him much harder for Samus to combo.
Cons:
- Her zair is better than yours.
- Your Hylian shield is useless here.



Sheik
Cons:
- Your Hylian shield only protects against the explosion from her rope attack thing, making it near-useless.



Shulk
Pros:
- Shulk hates campers like TL.
Strategy:
Camp. Shulk seems to have trouble approaching here, forcing him to possibly approach by shielding your projectiles, leaving him open to get grabbed. Worse players will roll towards you, which are very easy to punish with a dash attack once they get close enough. Some Shulks like to change to speed against campers like TL, which makes his jumps not go as high. Others will switch to jump then try to space nair or fair on you, which should still be easy enough to avoid or at least shield, then possibly punish with a grab.



Sonic
Pros:
- Bombs are great for punishing here.
Cons:
- His air game is scary.
Strategy:
Camp, and space with zair if he gets close. Don''t get into the air and try to hit him with aerials if he gets above you, just toss bombs at him. If you think he's about to dair, try using arrows and the boomerang. Sonic will try to put pressure on you, but keep camping and play it safe. Don't let him come near you. Stay on the ground, and don't let him get you into the air or he'll juggle you horrifically. Don't let him bait you into doing anything stupid, which Sonic is very good at doing.



Toon Link
Pros:
- Dair beats utilt and usmash.
- If I remember correctly, uair beats dair. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
- Your Hylian shield blocks all of his projectiles.
Cons:
- Utilt and usmash are beaten by dair.
- If I remember correctly, dair is beaten by uair. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
- His Hylian shield blocks all of your projectiles.
Strategy:
Yay, camp fight!



Villager
Pros:
-Your Hylian shield protects against Villager's rockets even at close range, though it causes TL to fly backwards a bit far. I couldn't test any other moves because no matter what I tried, the most I could get the CPU to do was fire rockets at me. The Hylian shield's protection would be super useless even if it exists with other moves of Villager's, anyway.



Wario
???



Wii Fit Trainer
Pros:
- Your speed and range on zair are great advantages here.
Cons:
- Your Hylian shield won't help you here.
Strategy:
You should mainly focus on camping.



Yoshi
Cons:
- His air game is crazy.
- His dash attack can't be punished with a shield grab.
- Going off the stage to try to gimp him will get you spiked by his fair.
Strategy:
Camp? Stay on the ground.



Zelda
Pros:
- Well-spaced zairs seem like they could be very useful here. I haven't gotten the chance to test this, though.
Cons:
- Her aerials are much better than yours.
- She's too floaty for utilt to be of much use.
- The phantom can be used to gimp you, and a charged one can KO you very easily.
Strategy:
Stay on the ground. Only go into the air if you're trying to bait her into using an aerial by the ground, then grab her. Zelda can fire the phantom on the edge to prevent you from coming down and edge guarding her. Also, this should go without saying, but don't dash at her. She'll just fire the phantom at you, which will take the damage from any attack you used.
Stages:
She loves Jungle Japes, so ban it if it's somehow legal.



Zero Suit Samus
Pros:
- ZSS hates campers.
Cons:
- Her up-close game is far better than yours, so she can be scary for TL if she gets up-close.
- Your Hylian shield won't help you here.



Also, I think we should probably start some kind of match-up discussion thing like all the other character boards are doing. I was thinking 2 or 3 characters a week in alphabetical order. What do you guys think?

Holy, this post deserves a separate thread! Some really good info in here. Must say though DHD camping seems to even out with ours a lot. or I'm not camping hard enough xD

 

[Deleted member]

Holy, this post deserves a separate thread! Some really good info in here. Must say though DHD camping seems to even out with ours a lot. or I'm not camping hard enough xD

Thanks! And maybe the DHDs I've played were just bad, but I've been able to out-camp him when I've tried hard enough. Also, I think I remember reading DHD mains in their forum saying had a special dislike for anyone who could out-camp them (could be mixing them up with another character, though). I can't think of any characters that could give them more trouble with that than TL.

 

[Fangblade]

Plenty of tidbits to help w/ our gameplay, though I think camping is overrated. It's nice to get others points of view on some MU's.

 

[Fangblade]

What challenger should we discuss this week? I haven't been playing TL much so I'm out of my 'groove' but we should be able to compile a nice strategy.

 

[Deleted member]

What challenger should we discuss this week? I haven't been playing TL much so I'm out of my 'groove' but we should be able to compile a nice strategy.

Well first off, I think I'm going to create a separate thread for this some time between when the Wii U version comes out in the US and when it comes out in Europe. I never intended for this thread to have weekly discussions and I think it would be less confusing for others if the thread title specifically said it were about weekly match-up discussions. But yeah, I think we should probably do 2 or 3 at a time, otherwise the discussions will take too long. It would also make thijgs much simpler and more organized if it were done in alphabetical order. What do you think?

 

[The Merc]

So I took a bunch of notes on the different match-ups. I originally planned on having them as notes I'd just keep for myself, but my friends liked them and the TL boards have been way behind on info compared to other boards, so I decided I'd improve these notes and post them here. So yeah, here are my notes, all 15 pages of them (apologies for any weird errors, it was kind of a hard-to-correct mess since I didn't originally intend to post it here):


Bowser
Pros:
- You can usually combo him with utilt to at least 25%-30% if he's in front of the attack.
- He's very easy to camp.
- Your Hylian shield works perfectly against his fire breath.
Cons:
- He's hard to deal with up-close.
Strategy:
Camp. Avoid using moves that are easy to punish. Utilt if the opportunity arises.
Stages:
Final Destination is great for running away and camping against Bowser.



Bowser Jr.
Pros:
- TL is the better camper.
- Your Hylian shield protects against his projectiles that are moving towards you, which will continue on the path they were going on without doing any damage.
Cons:
- His up-close game is annoying.
- Your Hylian shield won't project you against BJ's exploding toy.



Captain Falcon
Pros:
- He hates campers.
- Zair is an especially useful spacing tool in this match-up.
- You can usually combo him with utilt until at least around 29%-36% if he's in front of the attack.
Cons:
- He can be hard to run from while camping since he's much faster than you.
Strategy:
Camp. Some CFs like to approach campers with their shield, so bait the shield and grab. When running away, make extra sure there are still projectiles flying towards CF to slow him down so you can get away safely.



Charizard
Pros:
- Camping works here.
- He doesn't have much defense against zair or bair.
- Your moves are much faster than his.
Cons:
- His flamethrower out-prioritizes arrows and the boomerang.
- Utilt doesn't work very well on him, unlike other heavy-weights.
- Your Hylian shield doesn't work against flamethrower.
Strategy:
Camp. Zair if he comes close to you, and feel free to punish his mistakes with bair.



Dark Pit
Cons:
- Trying to grab the ledge from the side rather than below will get you spiked by his sliding spike.
- Your Hylian shield won't protect you from Dark Pit's arrows.
I haven't found zair to do very much against him...
Strategy:
They really hate aggressive players. Get in his face and play aggressive. Also, refer to Pit.



Diddy Kong
???



Donkey Kong
Pros:
- DK is near-defenseless against campers.
- He's somewhat easy to juggle.
Cons:
- He's not as easy to combo with utilt as other heavy-weights.
Strategy:
Camp, camp, and camp.



Dr. Mario
Cons:
-Your Hylian shield is useless against him.



Duck Hunt Dog
Pros:
- TL can outcamp him.
Cons:
- DHD is annoying up-close.
- Zair isn't very useful here since a lot of his attacks out-range it.
- Your Hylian shield doesn't protect you from his projectiles enough to be useful.
Strategy:
Camp. DHDs might become aggressive if you win the camping fight, but you're faster than him, so you can run away. Don't try close combat against DHD, he'll always win. Even zair is risky because DHD has long and disjointed smashes.



Falco
Cons:
- Your Hylian shield won't protect you against his lasers.
Strategy:
His bair, dair, side smash, and side b are good for killing, so watch out for them.



Fox
Pros:
- You can usually combo him with utilt until at least around 32%-36% if he's in front of the move.
Cons:
- Fox is difficult and unsafe to gimp since his sideb can spike you, and doesn't leave him vulnerable.
- Your Hylian shield doesn't work against his lasers.
Strategy:
He hates characters that get in his face and combo him, since he's a fast faller, which makes him easy to combo. Switch up between camping and being aggressive with spaced moves. Be extra unpredictable so he won't reflect your projectiles back at you. Use bombs and the boomerang to gimp him. Also, since I couldn't find much on the Fox boards, I asked a friend who mains Fox about the match-up. This is what he had to say:
"I do think Fox has the mobility and tools to break through Tink's projectiles. Fox has a very good follow up game, but Tink's quick aerials can catch him and perhaps punish Fox if the Fox player isn't careful.
Fox is hard to gimp in most circumstances. You need to predict his forward B or where he will use up B... I can go on and on. But I'm thinking the match up is even. Tink forces Fox to get through his projectiles and be more careful than usual with follow ups. Fox can force Tink to fight him up close."
Stages:
I don't have much experience or other evidence to back this up, but stages with lots of platforms like Battlefield don't seem so bad here. I've found Fox to be very easy to combo with utilt then umsashed so he ends up on the platforms, leaving him vulnerable to being sharked after you've combo'd him. The platforms also help with camping in this case since reflected bombs can't hurt you, and he'll have a harder time reflecting the boomerang back at you. The platforms also make it even harder for him to recover above you when you're trying to gimp him, since you can shark him from under the platforms if he lands on one.



Ganondorf
Pros:
- Ganon has a terrible time with campers.
- A lot of TL's moves besides his aerials, fsmash, and dsmash are hard to punish. Ganon relies heavily on punishing the opponent in order to rack up damage.
Cons:
- Getting close to him is dangerous, making him extremely difficult to KO.
- You can rack up massive damage from just a few hits, and he has no trouble KOing you.
- The rage mechanic + him being difficult to kill + TL's poor ability to KO make him beyond terrifying at higher %s.
Strategy:
Camp his *** and stay FAR away, since he can rack up massive damages from just a few hits. Always keep a bomb in hand to punish his mistakes, since you're going to need to get that extra damage on him to make up for the hits you'll be taking. If you have to come close then spam zair, then get away ASAP.



Greninja
Pros:
- You can usually combo him with utilt until at least around 36%-39% if he's in front of the move.
- TL's utilt seems to come out faster than Greninja's. ***This still needs confirmation.*** It seems to be true from my experience, since I've found when Greninja and TL show their utilt animation at the same time that TL's is the one that ends up hitting.
- Your Hylian shield blocks his water shuriken, including when fully charged. Keep this in mind, as Greninja's water shuriken can cause trouble for TL with its good speed and priority.
Cons:
- He can combo you with his utilt just as easily as you can combo him with yours because his utilt has the same range but less knockback. Being close enough to start a utilt combo on him puts you at the very same risk.
- TL's uair doesn't always beat his dair, and Greninja can combo one dair into another if you miss your techs, so uair isn't worth the risk if you see him dair.
- Greninja's recovery is hard to gimp, and attempting to gimp him can put you in a bad position because of hydro pump.
- His air game is much better than yours.
- His water shuriken cancels out your boomerang and arrows, and it comes out faster than them.
- A lot of his moves outrange zair.
Strategy:
Toss bombs and maybe the boomerang is he gets above you. Bombs and the boomerang are your only hopes of trying to gimp him, though you still shouldn't get your hopes up on gimping him. If Greninja keeps recovering above the stage you can gimp him or at least scare him by using the boomerang and tossing a ton of bombs upwards, making it unsafe to recover above the stage. If he safely recovers above the stage despite the projectiles, his landing should be much easier to predict so you can punish. His water shuriken (or however it's spelled) clashes with your arrows and boomerang, so camp him with bombs. He hates bombs. Watch him carefully when you end up above him, as depending on what he does you should either dair if he tries to jump under you and uair you, or make it rain bombs if he stays on the ground. It's very common for Greninjas to jump under you and uair a few times in order to bait you into dairing later on, while they stay on the ground and wait so they can punish your dair. Do not let him bait you into fighting him from the air, since he'll win that every time. Watch out for the shadow of his shadow sneak. Even at low percents he can fast fall and uair you to the bottom of the stage so you can't recover. If you see the shadow from shadow sneak, shield it and dsmash. His water shuriken comes out faster than all of TL's projectiles. He still hates campers, though, so keep trying to camp. Just be unpredictable, don't spend too much time on the ground or in the air. Greninja mains loathe campers. Unfortunately, TL seems to be one of the campers that Greninja has an easier time dealing with.
Stages:
Greninja likes stages with a dark background or floor (especially floor) since it's hard or even impossible to see his shadow sneak. Avoid stages with platforms, since he can easily juggle the crap out of you on them. On Yoshi's Island watch out for Greninja dairing by the edge when you're on there, since it will hit you because of the slanted ground.
My guess on the match-up ratio: 70-30, Greninja's favor


Ike
Pros:
- You can combo him with utilt until around 20%.
- Uair works well when he's above you.
- Bair can be good for punishing his mistakes.
- He's easy to gimp with bombs, the boomerang, and fair.
Cons:
- Zair is a bit risky against him.
- He's hard to run away from.
- He can combo you pretty easily.
Strategy:
Camp. Be very careful when you have to run away from him, since he's harder to escape from than other characters. Ike hates TL's bombs and can't stand campers, so he'll try to get close and keep pressure on you. Ike relies heavily on punishing mistakes, so don't let yourself get punished.


Jigglypuff
Pros:
- She doesn't do well against campers.
- Your bombs and boomerang work great here.
Cons:
- All of her aerials out-prioritize your arrows, plus your arrows are just easy for her to avoid.
Strategy:
She likes to punish with rest, mainly out of shield and to punish laggy moves, so watch out for it. Bair is a major kill move for her. Utilt is another kill move to watch out for, and it comes out fast. Pound KOs if you're high in the air, but you shouldn't be high up against jigglypuff, anyway. She has a very hard time killing, so it's especially important to stay far away from her when you've reached 110%+, which is when her main killing moves start to become a bigger threat to TL. Jigglypuff is much her nair can be scary.
When custom moves are on she can combo into rest very easily.



King DeDeDe
Pros:
- TL's bombs are very annoying for DeDeDe
- All of your moves that can hit his gordos, including your arrows, can send them flying back to DeDeDe.
- His gordos will almost always either go over your head or hit your Hylian shield, and will even go over your head when you're standing up. Actually, after 5 minutes or so of testing this, the only times I got hit by the gordos were when TL was crouching or too close to DeDeDe, except with one that bounced particularly low so it couldn't fly above TL's head when it bounced up. If you're getting overwhelmed by his gordos, standing around and doing nothing might not be such a terrible idea, though still not recommended in tournaments or money matches.
Cons:
- Comboing with utilt won't help you very much here.
- His uair beats your dair.
- His utilt beats your dair and protects him from bombs you throw down on him.
Strategy:
He hates projectile-based characters, presumably like TL (for such a rarely used character, there's a lot of complaining about TL in the DeDeDe boards), so camp him. Space with zair if he comes close, then immediately run away again.


Kirby
Pros:
- If he inhales you can throw a bomb at him so he'll eat it. If he's off-stage he'll fall to his death, and if he's on-stage you now have the perfect opportunity to punish him.
- Your aerials are a good defense against getting gimped.
- Nair is useful here.
- Your Hylian shield protects against his hyper cutter's projectile, and his arrows if he copies your ability.
Cons:
- He can combo the crap out of you if he gets close.
- His dair is good at spiking low recoveries like TL's.
Strategy:
He's changed drastically from how he was in Brawl since his bair has been ultra nerfed, and seems to be much more ground-based now than he was before, though is still good in the air. Camp and stay far away from him or he'll start one of his nasty combos on you. Just run away when you end up close to him, and space with zair if you can't get away. Recover above the stage and carefully space fair against his gimping attempts.



Link
Pros:
- You can out-camp him.
- Your Hylian shield blocks all of his projectiles.
Cons:
- His up-close moves are stronger, faster, have more range, and are overall better than yours in every possible way, so he'll wipe the floor against you if you get close to him.
- His bombs can KO.
Strategy:
Try to outcamp him. Be as unpredictable as possible. Just like with TL, Link likes to cover his landing with bombs, so watch out for them. His dash attack is a surprisingly good kill move.



Little Mac
Pros:
- LM hates campers.
- Your bthrow, good knockback on aerials, and projectiles make it very easy to get him into a situation where he can't recover.
- Your aerials are far better than his.
- Dsmashing by the edge can throw him far enough away from the stage where he can't recover.
Cons:
- His jabs outprioritize your arrows and boomerang.
Strategy:
Camp his *** and stay in the air. Just run away if he gets close, don't try to hit or grab him unless he's at KO %s. Beware of his nair. If he tries to approach you with ftilt, shield it and use your fantastic grab range to grab him. If you're by the edge, which you probably will be, this gives you the perfect opportunity to toss him off the stage and gimp him.



Lucario
Pros:
- Your Hylian shield protects against aura sphere, even when it's fully charged.
Strategy:
Zair and bombs? Keep your kill moves fresh so he won't stick around long enough for his aura to cause problems.



Lucina
Refer to Marth. They're basically the same character, except Lucina doesn't tipper.
Also, Lucina can Ken Combo TL, and you can recover back to the stage with the spin attack.



Luigi
Pros:
- Your Hylian shield can block his fireballs.
Strategy:
Camp?



Mario
Pros:
- You can outcamp him.
Cons:
- His up-close game is scary, and he'll combo the crap out of you if you get near him.
-Your Hylian shield can block his fireballs depending on whether they're bouncing above the shield or not (which they usually do bounce above it), so your H. shield won't be of any use here.
Strategy:
Camp.
Stages:
Taking him to Battlefield or Yoshi's Island seem like veeeeery bad ideas. Your best bet in this match-up is probably going to be Final Destination. In my experience, Mario loves platforms for comboing the crap out of you.



Marth
Pros:
- Your uair is good if he's above you.
- He's easy to gimp with the boomerang and bombs.
Strategy:
Camp hard enough that the stage is a gigantic hazard zone of projectiles. Be very careful when you have to run away from him; he's harder to escape from than other characters. Zair is risky, and seems to only barely out-range his fair.



Megaman
Pros:
-You can outcamp him.
- Your Hylian shield protects against his jab, and sometimes his other projectiles.
Cons:
- His pellets outrange your zair, making it useless.
Strategy:
Camp. Remember to try to shield the timer bomb that he puts on you.



Meta Knight
Strategy:
Camp. The bombs and boomerang are especially good here.



Mii Brawler
???



Mii Gunner
Cons:
- Mii Gunner can easily shut down your camping.
- Ze's hard to approach because of zir insane range on zir A attacks.



Mii Swordfighter
???



Mr. Game & Watch
Pros:
- G&W hates campers.
- Bombs and the boomerang are especially good against G&W for making it difficult for him to approach.
- Besides his grabs, G&W's attacks are generally very easy to shield and punish.
Strategy:
Camp. If he tries approaching with a dash attack, simply shield and punish as you would do to anyone else.



Ness
Pros:
- Bombs are great for gimping him.
- TL's projectiles are extremely annoying for Ness since he can't absorb them.
Cons:
- PK fire can be used to lead into a grab, which can be used to start nasty set-ups.
- Ness is much better in the air than TL.
- Your Hylian shield is useless here.
Strategy:
Camp far enough away so you can avoid his PK fire. Use dair if you're above the ground and Ness tries to juggle you with PK thunder.
Stages:
Ness is terrifying on stages with platforms. Yoshi's Island is probably better than Battlefield because of the stage's walls.



Olimar
Cons:
Your Hylian shield is useless here.



Pacman
Pros:
- You can outcamp Pacman.
- The hydrant can be usmashed or uaired before it hits the ground to send it flying back to Pacman (that's just what a Pacman main I know told me, I haven't gotten the chance to test this).
- Your Hylian shield protects against his fruit.
Strategy:
Be very campy. Get him in the air. He hates stages with platforms, since he doesn't do well when the opponent gets up close. Shark him from under the platforms if he gets on one. Don't get below him or he'll throw his hydrant thing down on you.
You can easily get rid of his hydrant by dtilting it twice. Contrary to what a lot of people say, you cannot get rid of the hydrant with a single ftilt. The hydrant has 12 hit points, and a fresh ftilt only does 9% damage. Dtilt is fast and doesn't need to be as fresh as other moves, so dtilt is perfect to use on the hydrant. His pellet move can be shielded and punished. Zair can also be very annoying for Pacman when spaced perfectly, otherwise he has moves that outrange it. Pacman likes to play aggressive against TL, but keep camping. Also, Pacman's trampoline only has three bounces, so you can steal his third bounce after he's used his second one.
Stages:
Battlefield > Yoshi's Island > Final Destination. TL may hate these stages, but Pacman hates them even more. Also, he hates stages with walls, like Yoshi's Island and omega Green Hill, since his side b can hit the side of the stage and make it harder for him to recover.



Palutena
Pros:
- TL's zair gives Palutena loads of trouble.
Cons:
- Dair is especially risky here because of her usmash.
- She out-camps you.
Strategy:
Play aggressively with well-spaced zairs. Her jab and dthrow combo into all sorts of things, so watch out for them. I'd still say this match-up is in TL's favor because Palutena seems to do even worse with close-combat than TL does.



Peach
Pros:
- TL is one of the characters that Peach can't nair lock.
Cons:
-Arrows aren't much use here.
-Your Hylian shield doesn't defend against her turnips.
Strategy:
Good Peach mains will mix up between ground and air approaches, so pay special attention to the way she approaches.



Pikachu
Pros:
- Zair out-prioritizes Pika's tjolts.
- Your Hylian shield protects against his tjolts, regardless of whether they're aerial or grounded.
Cons:
- Pika's tjolt eats up your arrows and boomerang.
Strategy:
This match-up is going to depend a little more on the opponent than other match-ups, since Pikachu is good at being both campy and aggressive. Arrows should always be used in the air. Bombs are great. Approach with zair and bombs. Pikachu players hate being pressured more than anything, so if camping doesn't work then put as much pressure on him as possible. Beware of his dash attack, since it can kill in this game. Uthrow > thunder can be a legit combo in this game, though it's sometimes possible to DI out of the way or even air dodge it. Pikachu can cancel a quick attack into the ground with a jump or b move on stages with non-flat floors like Yoshi's Island.* Fast fall nair can KO at low %s, especially if you get hit by the sweetspot. Short hop fast fall fair can lead to some nasty combos.
Stages:
Surprisingly, Pikachu's thunder can still connect with him if he's under the middle platform on Battlefield. Yoshi's Island is a much better stage for Pikachu now than it was for him in Brawl, since it's one of the few stages he can use his QAC on* (QAC = quick attack cancel), and other issues he had with the stage in Brawl are mostly no longer present. Brinstar is a fantastic counterpick against Pikachu if it ends up staying legal as one. TL may hate this stage, but Pika hates it even more and has little hope on it.
My guess on the match-up ratio: 55-45, Toon Link's favor
*: I'm just taking some Pika mains' words for it on this one. I tried it and it seemed very hard to pull off, and could only use it to cancel a quick attack into the ground with a thunder or a jump. Quick attack into the ground canceled by thunder was the easier to pull off of the two, and seems like a bigger threat especially since it can be done rather close to the edge for a surprise edge guard.



Pit
Cons:
- Should go without saying, but your Hylian shield won't protect you from Pit's arrows.
Strategy:
Don't get above or below him, and throw a bomb at it if you do end up above or below him. Switch between camping, and playing aggressive with zair, but you should mainly be aggressive since he struggles with aggressive players.



ROB
Pros:
- Your Hylian shield protects against his gyro and causes it to disappear.



Robin
Pros:
- TL out-camps Robin.
Cons:
- His arcfire eats up your arrows and boomerang, and is a combo starter.
- Your Hylian shield won't help you here, but it's possible to duck under Robin's projectiles. Very useless and situational, but it looks funny.
Strategy:
This is a good match-up for TL. TL's better speed and camping ability are huge advantages here. Robin will have a hard time hitting you with levin sword unless you're in the air, though your aerials are still much faster and are overall better, so you have the advantage in the air. His fairs are also annoying combo starters to watch out for. Robin likes to use arcthunder when Toon Link is close to defend himself.
Also, apparently our projectiles can cancel out thoron charge. I haven't tested this to know if it's true or not. I'll try to remember to test this before posting this. If not, then oops.



Rosalina & Luma
Pros:
- Zair is fantastic here.
- She's easy to gimp with projectiles.
Cons:
- Luma + her ability to absorb your projectiles forces you to play aggressive.
- She can easily gimp you.
- Her aerials are much, much better than yours.
Strategy:
Rosalina doesn't like characters that are fast, stay in her face, and pressure her, so be aggressive. As long as you're constantly in her face and putting pressure on her she'll have a hard time using Luma for much of anything. For the most part, Luma should be ignored since she/he/ze/it/whatever just respawns again a few moments after being killed. Approaching with zair is really good here. If you can get behind Rosalina so you're not near Luma then that's also good. She can easily gimp TL, and her item sucking move makes your projectiles useless for camping. If you want to use a bomb, make sure to be especially unpredictable with it. Her utilt and uair moves beat TL's dair, so avoid using it. Her dair also beats TL's uair and all of his other aerials, so just throw bombs at her if she gets above you. Heck, just don't get into the air vs Rosalina. Try to stay in the center of the stage. She seems very easy to gimp with projectiles, or at least get baited into a bad position if they miss.
Stages:
Don't pick Battlefield against her.
My guess on the match-up ratio: 65-35 in Rosalina's favor


Samus
Pros:
- Samus already has a hard time comboing, and TL being light and floaty makes him much harder for Samus to combo.
Cons:
- Her zair is better than yours.
- Your Hylian shield is useless here.



Sheik
Cons:
- Your Hylian shield only protects against the explosion from her rope attack thing, making it near-useless.



Shulk
Pros:
- Shulk hates campers like TL.
Strategy:
Camp. Shulk seems to have trouble approaching here, forcing him to possibly approach by shielding your projectiles, leaving him open to get grabbed. Worse players will roll towards you, which are very easy to punish with a dash attack once they get close enough. Some Shulks like to change to speed against campers like TL, which makes his jumps not go as high. Others will switch to jump then try to space nair or fair on you, which should still be easy enough to avoid or at least shield, then possibly punish with a grab.



Sonic
Pros:
- Bombs are great for punishing here.
Cons:
- His air game is scary.
Strategy:
Camp, and space with zair if he gets close. Don''t get into the air and try to hit him with aerials if he gets above you, just toss bombs at him. If you think he's about to dair, try using arrows and the boomerang. Sonic will try to put pressure on you, but keep camping and play it safe. Don't let him come near you. Stay on the ground, and don't let him get you into the air or he'll juggle you horrifically. Don't let him bait you into doing anything stupid, which Sonic is very good at doing.



Toon Link
Pros:
- Dair beats utilt and usmash.
- If I remember correctly, uair beats dair. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
- Your Hylian shield blocks all of his projectiles.
Cons:
- Utilt and usmash are beaten by dair.
- If I remember correctly, dair is beaten by uair. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
- His Hylian shield blocks all of your projectiles.
Strategy:
Yay, camp fight!



Villager
Pros:
-Your Hylian shield protects against Villager's rockets even at close range, though it causes TL to fly backwards a bit far. I couldn't test any other moves because no matter what I tried, the most I could get the CPU to do was fire rockets at me. The Hylian shield's protection would be super useless even if it exists with other moves of Villager's, anyway.



Wario
???



Wii Fit Trainer
Pros:
- Your speed and range on zair are great advantages here.
Cons:
- Your Hylian shield won't help you here.
Strategy:
You should mainly focus on camping.



Yoshi
Cons:
- His air game is crazy.
- His dash attack can't be punished with a shield grab.
- Going off the stage to try to gimp him will get you spiked by his fair.
Strategy:
Camp? Stay on the ground.



Zelda
Pros:
- Well-spaced zairs seem like they could be very useful here. I haven't gotten the chance to test this, though.
Cons:
- Her aerials are much better than yours.
- She's too floaty for utilt to be of much use.
- The phantom can be used to gimp you, and a charged one can KO you very easily.
Strategy:
Stay on the ground. Only go into the air if you're trying to bait her into using an aerial by the ground, then grab her. Zelda can fire the phantom on the edge to prevent you from coming down and edge guarding her. Also, this should go without saying, but don't dash at her. She'll just fire the phantom at you, which will take the damage from any attack you used.
Stages:
She loves Jungle Japes, so ban it if it's somehow legal.



Zero Suit Samus
Pros:
- ZSS hates campers.
Cons:
- Her up-close game is far better than yours, so she can be scary for TL if she gets up-close.
- Your Hylian shield won't help you here.



Also, I think we should probably start some kind of match-up discussion thing like all the other character boards are doing. I was thinking 2 or 3 characters a week in alphabetical order. What do you guys think?

I think you made one mistake with Fox and Falcon in that it's Falco's side b that can spike, not Fox's

 

[Deleted member]

I think you made one mistake with Fox and Falcon in that it's Falco's side b that can spike, not Fox's

Maybe Fox's spike isn't as good? I have a friend who mains Fox and I know his sideb spikes because he's spiked me with it before. It doesn't seem easy to pull off since he's used his sideb on me a bunch of other times without it spiking, but it does spike. I don't know any Falco users, so I know I'm not getting them mixed up.

 

[The Merc]

Maybe Fox's spike isn't as good? I have a friend who mains Fox and I know his sideb spikes because he's spiked me with it before. It doesn't seem easy to pull off since he's used his sideb on me a bunch of other times without it spiking, but it does spike. I don't know any Falco users, so I know I'm not getting them mixed up.

How, well that's interesting. Because in previous smashes, only Falco could spike with his side b (discluding Wolf in Brawl). I have also read a tip that says Falco's side b can spike people. I guess they must have given Fox a spike hitbox on it now. Though i am yet to see it happen.