After playing him religiously since release, and encountering hundreds of em online...
His meta is literally shadow ball spam for damage and hoping people jump over em so you can get a relatively free grab on those who air dodge and get landing lag, or to do his SH Fair (which doesn't land much due to how much you're forced to telegraph everything).
Also upsmash on unsuspecting enemies coming down from a jump tends to catch people more often than not, but also leaves you insanely open.
His Bair is insanely obvious, almost always gets dodged, unless they don't have that option being thrown far enough off stage that they're forced to focus on their recovery or die for lack there of .
His Uair, same thing^ but worse because M2 jumps so slow and doesn't cover enough distance to get any sort of true combo from it approaching from ground.
His Dair, ffs where are the hitboxes on this thing to begin with?
His Fair, entirely reliable as a kill move due to its speed and unpredictability. SH Fair = viable in a variety of freestyle applications.
Fsmash, Dsmash, both come out slow and don't kill as early as it should, considering how hard it is to land. I almost never use these unless I catch a confusion and the enemy isn't already spamming jump for some reason.
Usmash, basically the meta kill move here, barely ever works while grounded due to, again, ridiculous hitboxes. Hits really damn hard and kills earlier than the rest of his moves AFAIK. Set up unsuspecting enemies coming down from a jump with this. Feigning SH aerials to bait an air dodge is a prime way to land this. Blows that he's so tall, rarely touches shorter grounded characters until late into the animation for about a frame or two worth of grounded hitboxes.
Utilt, pretty fast release, one of his more reliable moves. Combos just like foxes Utilt if the enemy doesn't spam jump and DI away.
Ftilt, just a slower and less reliable Dtilt IMO. Works certainly but don't expect mileage.
Dtilt, ugh 4% damage but one of his most useful tools for spacing and mind games. Easy to land against enemies who can't stop rolling because of its range and speed. Not exactly sure about any good follow ups after landing this but the fact that its easy to land makes it easy to rack up damage over time if you're smart about it. Makes opponents thing twice about rolling towards you because if they don't roll past you, that's basically a guaranteed hit.
Confusion, borderline useless due to the spastic attempts at escape everyone is doing in this sm4sh meta. Can easily be DI'd out of, jumped out of, and literally aerial'd out of depending on the enemy and their aerial range. Have not found a reliable set up for this yet, but SH Fairs do tend to work against spastic escapees. Obv, if they don't try to escape, it's a free smash attack.
Disable, hardest thing to land, excellent troll move at high percents, I often tea bag and then Usmash because ffs I worked for it. Otherwise useless IMO.
Teleport, excellent escape tool, I've escaped lil mac's jab combo with this. Also helps with ledge guarding trolls if you tele above the ledge, onto the stage. Works great overall.
And finally, his grab range is complete ***. He should be able to grab farther than greninja, but has the range of WFT, like really? Grabbing is most of his SAFE damage output if you aren't spamming shadow balls for set ups. His up throw kills around 150% for almost every character. Heavies take a bit more. As said before, feigning aerials to bait aerial dodges/landing lag are a great way to get safe grabs. Works for Usmash as well.
All in all, mid tier spam meta at best. No tech chase game, no footsies (good lord), but his aerials do make him damn formidable in the air. Usually forces air dodges which lead to easy grabs if you can fast fall, AC, then grab.
I don't claim to be an expert, this is just my experienced opinion based on a lot of time spent with him. PLEASE comment back with discovered follow ups for any of these, or even to tell me I'm wrong. Thanks!
