Snake vs. Pokemon Trainer (Charizard)
I wish I could say that it is as easy with Charizard, luckily I’m able to state quite confidently that it is even easier. Now as I’m sure you all know by now Charizard has three jumps, you may wonder how this helps against Snake. The answer SPIKE. With his extra jumps Charizard is in the perfect position to follow Snake off stage and spike him out of his recovery. If Snake recovers too high this is also not a problem as you can easily return to stage before Snake and prepare to punish him in another way (a glide attack is often a good choice as it can kill Snake relatively early). Due to the nature of Charizard’s throws however, specifically forward and back throw you can easily position Snake so you can spike him. The ability to easily spike Snake also removes the problem of his ridiculous resilience to damage. Charizard has many more advantages in this match-up as well however. One of these is flame-thrower. This is the perfect spacing move which if used properly forces snake to approach you. It has the extra advantage of exploding Snake’s grenades!! I find that if Snake is getting in your face with his tilts a quick retreat to a reverse flame thrower will soon have him burning in the fires of hell. Another great tool that Charizard has at his disposal is ROCK SMASH (YEAH). If properly spaced you can quickly build up the damage on Snake with this move. Concentrate on what Snake is likely going to do and try and guess when he will pluck a grenade or lay a mine, it is as this time that you should dash for the rock smash, remember to follow it up with an upsmash is you sweet spot it. You might be thinking that the match-up is now so heavily biased towards Charizard that it should be easy, don’t worry it gets even easier. What few people realise is that Charizard’s forward smash is perfect for killing Snake. If he is recovering and looks like he will land on stage fake like you are going to jump and use a back air or other aerial, this will fool Snake into air dodging and you, instead of performing and aerial will charge a forward smash to punish his foolish air dodge. Charizard’s epic qualities continue with his awesome grab range. As Snake’s moves are often incredibly obvious it is easy to power-shield them and then follow them up with a grab. If you’re near the edge you can then try to spike snake. If not, don’t worry you can do an upthrow and then hopefully chain some up airs, failing that wait for Snake to land and the grab him again during his ending lag. Be careful however because if snake plucks a grenade in the air he has zero lag when he lands, just be cautious. With all this in Charizards favour I can’t see the match up being anything else but 65-35 Charizards way, just be wary of Snake’s respectable kill power and space those moves.
