Weekly Match-up Discussion~ #4: Ice Climbers

[DTP]

Image by ~Forest-Sprite

Ice Climbers​

Week 4!
Trying out two characters at once this time.

IC's are a general pain to deal with for almost all of the characters. But they can also be pretty fun to fight, sometimes.....
First thing that comes to many people's minds is "Don't get grabbed!"
While this is true, it's definitely not all we have to worry about.

Ice Climbers have a lot of options, so hopefully we get a good discussion going on OUR options.


What to think about.

- lololol grabs. What moves should we be using and when. Shield grabbing can be a big issue for us.
- IC's are capable of basically becoming a wall. How can we effectively get around this?
- One weakness of IC's is getting separated. What options do we have to separate them and what should we be doing when they are separated?
- Ledge options. Do we have anything going for us here? Any gimping possibilities?


Here's a great way to discuss match ups if you want to use it. Mentioned by Teneban.

1) First thoughts
2) What followups after a jab do we have ?
3) Approaching
4) Defense & camping
5) Edge game
6) The KO stuff
7)Stage stuff

 

[A2ZOMG]

D-air is amazing on the IC's shield. Fireballs are MAD useful if they camp with Blizzard.

That's all I know about this matchup.

 

[theunabletable]

A few things I can say about this matchup.

Jab is annoying, but can be pivot grabbed by ICs if spaced right.
Little tornado thingie can be pivot grabbed.
Your fireball goes through Blizzard, but I'd say we outcamp with IBs.
Your tornado goes through IB.
Don't go above ICs, you'll likely get UAir'd.
ICs CANNOT shield grab Luigi's jab (afaik anyway); because if we try Luigi can just do another jab and hit us out of the grab.
I don't think any of your throws are fast enough to do without getting punished by the other IC.
And... DON'T GET GRABBED.

I don't think you guys have any ledge options against us if we Blizzard camp you on the edge, as Blizzard will hit you before your fireball goes at us, I think.

Stages: FD and BF are ICs 2 best stages. UAirs **** on BF. They out camp you, so FD is a bad choice for you. I do Fthrow > Bthrow CG so being on platforms doesn't make much difference, but if you notice that your opponent is doing Dthrow > Bthrow CG and ISN'T buffering the Dthrow BF won't be too bad for you, as they'll probably **** up on the platforms.

If you can, strike those two stages.

I rarely play on Yoshi's, but we have some shenanigans when that platform is tilted with IB. Idk much about Yoshi's. For neutrals Yoshi's or SV is probably your best bet.

ICs suck on Rainbow Cruise and Brinstar. So unless Luigi sucks on Brinstar/Rainbow Cruise, CP them to one of those two.

When we CP we're probably gonna pick FD or BF. Idk which is worse for Luigi.

I'm pretty sure you get outcamped, but since your tornado goes through IB you 'can' neutralize our camp game... unless we see it coming. Then we get a free pivot grab (AKA stock)

60-40 ICs, I'd say.
Idk, though... that's just my opinion on the matchup. I suck so take what I say with a grain of salt.

 

[KoRoBeNiKi]

To answer some of your things Signs of Madness,

1) First thoughts
Final destination is much worse than Battelfield. You forget that Ice climbers will win this matchup if we can't space correctly. I like battlefield and our worst stages in this matchup are flat stages, as in Final Destination followed by Smashville. We have more priority with our aerials than your aerials so Battlefield, Yoshi's and PS1 (or Lylat if lylat is the other neutral) are much better. It comes down to the fact that one grab and its done, we have better aerial approach, but we do not have the range to escape grabs easily so we have to space incredibly well.

2) What followups after a jab do we have ?
when we can get them separated, I recommend Jab into down smash. if both of them are there, just do 1 jab and then down air or into a down b (to go back in order to start the process of spacing again)

3) Approaching
Ice climbers have 2 main ways I have seen for approaching for the ground, ice blocks and blizzard. Ice blocks are better than our fireballs (at least when both popo and nana are there especially if they are desynching the ice blocs) but lose to our cyclone. Our fireballs are better than their blizzard but their blizzard is better than our cyclone. It's rock paper scissors in some ways. The good thing is that the blizzard will knock us back pretty heavily if we shield so it is more difficult than with other characters to grab Weegee out of the blizzard. For aerials. don't approach directly from above, a down air is asking for an up air. Approach from the side with a well spaced back air and the bottom (mix up fireballs and down b). for approaching desynching ice blocks Short hop air dodge or short hop into a down b.

4) Defense & camping
It's more approaching than defense. Obviously, space well enough to get away from grabs. approach as above for ice blocks. on stages that aren't the normal platforms or flat, wait for an opportunity to strike.

5) Edge game
Back air the belay or down smash it. Down air the up b. it is possible to fireball gimp nana if popo up b's above the ledge.

6) The KO stuff
As above, stay away from grabs. Get nana alone and quickly titled f-smash her. For popo, back air and fireballs beat single ice climbers. abuse the fact that solo popo doesn't have a realiable kill and kill nana quickly. Don't up b kill...seriously....unless nana or popo are alone. your asking for a 0 to death if you miss

7)Stage stuff
Stay away from flat stages, ill edit this later

40-60 or 45-55...it would be worse for Luigi but we overall have better neutrals.

 

[theunabletable]

1) Smashville? ICs can get camped hard on that platform. And I don't think you have anything that beats UAir.

3) Yeah this is very much a game of Rock Paper Scissors, imo.

For aerials. don't approach directly from above, a down air is asking for an up air. Approach from the side with a well spaced back air and the bottom (mix up fireballs and down b). for approaching desynching ice blocks Short hop air dodge or short hop into a down b.

If I see you jump, I can SH blizzard and probably hit you for a good 4-10 damage. ICs pivot grab has range (like it goes through MKs tornado range ). You have to space crazy well to approach from the air to not get pivot grabbed

4) I don't see how you can approach from above without avoiding a synched (or desynched) SH blizzard. Since the only thing you have that beats it is fireball, by the time you're getting close enough to do an aerial, you're close enough to get hit by blizzard.

5) There's a little trick you can surprise ICs with when they do their side-b to recover that I never see ANYONE talking about. If you are getting hit by the side-b ICs don't rise NEARLY as much. And if it's SoPo he'll immediatly fall. With your crazy recovery, you can jump in front of our side-b (since it's our favorite way to recover) and we'll either 1) keep going straight but no longer rise (you have to mash your *** off) 2) fall straight down because you don't expect to need to mash so hard.

Take that with a grain of salt, however. I never see anyone talking about it and that could just as well be because they know it won't work (as in there could be a way around it, but I myself don't know).

6) The problem is you don't have much that seperates the ICs. Don't forget that SoPo can D-throw CG you from 0 17 times.

7) BF is our best neutral. I still don't see how it's better for you.

I agree 40-60 for you.

 

[A2ZOMG]

BF is NOT the IC's best Neutral. They don't have a very good platform pressure game, and the platforms if anything help characters work around their camping.

It would be more helpful for Luigi if his fireball were like Mario's and was affected by gravity, but still, BF is more or less a hindrance for the ICs when they are trying to force an approach.

 

[hippiedude92]

prolly 45:55 or 5/5 imo. Worst is 4/6.

Nair/tornado = seperation.

input more on later

 

[zhao_guang]

Tornado is AMAZING

on wifi.

Seriously, tornado is risky as f*ck vs. ICs, don't overuse it. In fact, under-use it at best.

 

[TreK]

cycloning through a wall of ice blocks is fun
stupid, too, but that's part of why it's so fun.

Space everything and platform camp like a MK.
Avoid ice blocks. It goes through everything but cyclone, which is punishable. And when you get punished by ICs, you lose :V

Slopes make CGs harder, though no stage make them impossible. Play the first match on Lylat or YI if you can, then CP stages like brinstar or RC.
PS1 makes everyone go into the air for a tenth of a second when it tranforms, which will stop CGs and give you a chance to evade.
Norfair would be a good idea because lava stop CGs, but they are also ungimpable there =/
Corneria is a viable CP vs them, too bad it's not legal often...

Oh, and if the ICs didn't ban RC, 90% of the time it means he seconds gaw, mk or kirbroken.


The best part of this matchup... meh, I'm not spoiling you. Just try to fireball a squall =)

No way it's 4-6, but I may be a bit optimistic lol

 

[momochuu]

BF is NOT the IC's best Neutral. They don't have a very good platform pressure game, and the platforms if anything help characters work around their camping.

It would be more helpful for Luigi if his fireball were like Mario's and was affected by gravity, but still, BF is more or less a hindrance for the ICs when they are trying to force an approach.

....?

UpAir is great for pressure on platforms. Battlefield is probably their best stage after FD.


This matchup is 55-45 or 60-40 in our advantage. I'll do a write-up later, maybe.

 

[Prawn]

Idk if its really that even, I feel like a lot of what ICs can do can shutdown Luigi.

I won't do a write-up of my opinion at the moment but I'd say its at least 60-40 if not worse. Just my opinion though.

 

[theunabletable]

BF is NOT the IC's best Neutral. They don't have a very good platform pressure game, and the platforms if anything help characters work around their camping.

It would be more helpful for Luigi if his fireball were like Mario's and was affected by gravity, but still, BF is more or less a hindrance for the ICs when they are trying to force an approach.

Shows how little you know about ICs. BF is amazing for ICs. Their UAir is their best aerial. BF is great for their UAir.

It might be worse than FD, but it depends on the matchup.

Oh, and if the ICs didn't ban RC, 90% of the time it means he seconds gaw, mk or kirbroken.

Personally I'd rather play on RC than Brinstar, but that's just me.

 

[KoRoBeNiKi]

Just because you have your best aerial on BF doesn't mean our aerials are bad.

Luigi's aerials have more priority overall than Ice Climbers. Our down air, n-air, and back air hit through or clash with IC's up air.

Luigi dominates in the air. It's not that the Ice Climbers are bad but Luigi is that good.

 

[Prawn]

Just because you have your best aerial on BF doesn't mean our aerials are bad.

Luigi's aerials have more priority overall than Ice Climbers. Our down air, n-air, and back air hit through or clash with IC's up air.

Luigi dominates in the air. It's not that the Ice Climbers are bad but Luigi is that good.

Somehow I doubt those moves beat rising Uair unless incredibly well spaced and timed >_<

 

[A2ZOMG]

Shows how little you know about ICs. BF is amazing for ICs. Their UAir is their best aerial. BF is great for their UAir.

It might be worse than FD, but it depends on the matchup. Personally I'd rather play on RC than Brinstar, but that's just me.

Point still remains, it's not their best neutral.

At any rate, the platforms just means you get to shield when they U-air, and they really can't do anything to threaten you since they don't have very many aerial followups. It's better on FD when you KNOW that when your opponent is in the air, they have to come down to the ground. Either they will airdodge, which means you get another opportunity to grab, or they will attack, which means you can U-air and they will eat it. If he slides off the platform and you're still in the air, you have to watch out for him doing an aerial immediately afterwards depending on your position, and the ICs as far as I can tell really can't effectively punish someone for sliding off a platform unless they are stupid enough to like techroll out of it.

BF as far as I'm concerned only helps you juggle if your aerial pressure game is extremely strong and rapid. For the most part, the platforms help you run away otherwise.

 

[momochuu]

Yeah, I can see where this is going. Nevermind about the write-up.

 

[DTP]

Yeah, I can see where this is going. Nevermind about the write-up.

I was looking forward to it too......
Oh well

 

[ScAtt77]

This Match up is probably 55:45 or 60:40 their favor.

-If you ever want to use cyclone as an approach, make sure you ALWAYS rise with it. I'd rather take a potential u-air from them than a cg.
-Full hop B-airs are you're best friend.
-I'm pretty sure their u-air can beat out most of our aerials, if not all of it since they cannot clank.

 

[CR4SH]

Get them apart and plow nana in the ***. She's cake and if you knock her offstage you should feel terrible if you don't kill her.

This is one matchup you can get some practice on in training mode, since nana in training is the same nana anywhere. Getting yourself to the point where nana cannot escape death when she's separated aside from intervention from popo can be huge in this matchup.

Letting nana live through being separated is almost unforgivable, since luigi is IMO the best character at killing her quickly (before popo can react properly). Floaty comboed aerials to either a charged smash, gimp or shoryu shouldn't be a problem once you're used to what she likes to do.

Otherwise? Dsmash separates them. Double jump any time you don't think your short hop aerial will land. If you catch yourself grabbing them, back throw since it'll often knock the other away, and separate the two.

Otherwise? Meh Idunno. I can never get away from trying to plow nana in the butt long enough to actually try and play this matchup right. Nana is too fun.

 

[hippiedude92]

Even if Nana is out, Solo Popo is still hella beast.

I know that Meep's solo Popo is beast lol.

just saying.

 

[Prawn]

CR4SH if you play that aggressively against anyone good you'll get punished real quick. The more I think about this matchup the more I think its in the realm of 70-30 ICs, I just don't think Luigi has very many safe options, a lot of his attacks can be pivot grabbed or PSd during a dash and grabbed.

 

[CR4SH]

I don't think I even mentioned anything about how to play the ics when they're together. I honestly couldn't tell you what the right way to do things is. It seems massively different from one ic main to the next.

The one thing I do know is that luigi is beastly at cleaning up the mess when you do manage to break the two apart. So I wrote about that.

 

[TheMann]

Hey I actually know this match up since I get to play Lain sometimes! Its never fun tho But man this is a dumb match up.... Like ur only safe aerial is Bair and freakin IC's have two chances to grab you anytime. I THINK jab to up b will hit nana since she shields late, but its scary to be that close anyways. So yea spam down smash, go for nana and pray....

 

[elheber]

I'm horrible at fighting the ICs. Desync'd ice blocks just **** me all over town. I can't PS them all!

 

[Jdietz43]

I can't say I know too much about actually fighting the IC's myself. But I've seen Lain go at it, and it seems to me if you ever stop moving for any reason you're probably dead. Maybe super basic... but whatever you do don't stop moving. Nair seems good here if you're feeling particularily ballsy.

(I realize this thread is a bit dead, but hopefully no one will shoot me for chipping in)

 

[BSP]

I don't really have much IC experience. Luigi's is going to have to approach of course, and he's going t ohave to space his aerials really well to avoid getting grabbed. IDK about much else. It's IC's favor, but IDK how much.

 

[$Lil' Gerald Is In Dat Style$]

Omg, I've play this MU b4. U gotta spam soo many fireballs on the ICs player while they do blizzard and ice block. U gotta be unpredictable w/ luigi's cyclone to approach them. U gotta keep jumping over their ice blocks and blizzard as u spam fireballs and approach them w/ luigi's cyclone. U gotta have a lot of spacing in this MU. Once u do the luigi's cyclone to separate them, try very hard to knock off Nana or spam smash to get rid of her. I'll say 60/40 or 55/45 ICs. Spacing and spamming fireballs is the key in this MU.

 

[CR4SH]

I played lain in a tournament. Got him down to sopo on the last life, so I must be doing something right. So my advice is, nana is too fun, **** her up.

 

[$Lil' Gerald Is In Dat Style$]

Man, I don't like play them on Final Destination, but play very gay on there. On Battlefield, have super control on that stage like you own it. Abuse the platforms very well to knock them off their game. I don't about Yoshi's Island and Smashville. CP them on Brinstar, they can't CG u guys on there. The acid can assist you of separating them.

 

[KoRoBeNiKi]

Stay away from FD...its horrible to play IC's there. Pick stages with low vertical sides (Halberd is a good choice, so is Green Greens/Frigate possibly if its allowed. Also pick gimmicky stages as they can mess up the Ice climbers (as in Pictochat or Norfair for example). The last resort (at least for me) and only if they ban these types of stages is Brinstar, as I dislike this stage.

Pick stages that allow you to approach but still camp slightly (as in long stages with platforms, this means Lylat(or PS1 if that's the extra neutral), YI (preferable best stage), and either BF or SV. Try using fireballs and space all aerials correctly. fireball from afar, back air, F-tilt, and Down air, are my favorite tools vs the climbers. Be careful to space vs blizzard since they can grab out of it. Ice blocks can be back aired. I personally like down smash as well to separate them, kinda like melee in that way. Its 60-40 to 70-30 IC's depending on stage.

 

[Yonder]

Stay away from FD...its horrible to play IC's there. Pick stages with low vertical sides (Halberd is a good choice, so is Green Greens/Frigate possibly if its allowed. Also pick gimmicky stages as they can mess up the Ice climbers (as in Pictochat or Norfair for example). The last resort (at least for me) and only if they ban these types of stages is Brinstar, as I dislike this stage.

Pick stages that allow you to approach but still camp slightly (as in long stages with platforms, this means Lylat(or PS1 if that's the extra neutral), YI (preferable best stage), and either BF or SV. Try using fireballs and space all aerials correctly. fireball from afar, back air, F-tilt, and Down air, are my favorite tools vs the climbers. Be careful to space vs blizzard since they can grab out of it. Ice blocks can be back aired. I personally like down smash as well to separate them, kinda like melee in that way. Its 60-40 to 70-30 IC's depending on stage.

I'm just wondering...if it' 70-30, then why does nobody complain about them like they do marth/mk? Granted I agree with everyone else's ratios 60:40...may explain later but pretty much what everyone else said. Then again, Luigi fails on FD against lots of characters.

 

[LSDX]

What a shameful match-up...

 

[holyv]

Luigi have his fireballs, that is more long ranged that the IC's blizzard.
And no i'm not worrying about the ice ****s that they launch, you can reflect them with shield
Luigi has the cyclone that has HUGE priority, and can pass everything that IC's do from long distance
Basically you just go for camping.

Still, luigi needs to get close for finishing.
If IC's get ONE grab, 1 stock is taken away from you

That's basically what happens.

Ic's 60:30 Luigi

 

[Prawn]

Luigi have his fireballs, that is more long ranged that the IC's blizzard.
And no i'm not worrying about the ice ****s that they launch, you can reflect them with shield
Luigi has the cyclone that has HUGE priority, and can pass everything that IC's do from long distance
Basically you just go for camping.

Still, luigi needs to get close for finishing.
If IC's get ONE grab, 1 stock is taken away from you

That's basically what happens.

Ic's 60:30 Luigi

agreed 100%

er... i mean 90%

 

[JuxtaposeX]

Icys bring the best AND the worst out of all players...

As for cyclone, they just shield it and then grab you and then you ragequit.

 

[holyv]

don't use cyclone and camp more then, you have 6% damage dealing projectile O.o

I can't believe i wrote 60:30