Young Link Optimization Project (Current Topic: Edgeguarding Spacies)

[Eclipse.]

So I haven't read the entire thread, (cause I'm tired.) I don't have any real footage due to it being at my home vs the 20XX THP AI/in friendlies and not being recorded. But I have found that if you get Fox/Falco directly under the Battlefield's ledge you can pull a bomb, short hop above the ledge, and throw a bomb down at them and Dair them and get a free stage spike. If they try and tech most of the time they can't get back because of where they end up. And hey if they miss the quick tech they will die to the stage spike if they started at least at 30%. And you can still make it back with a DJ Up-B. One of the reasons this is easy to land is because they try and DI the bomb straight up, (and possibly into the stage.) I'm not 100% sure on how to get the stage spike angle and if it has to do with DI or not, but I have landed this setup a few times.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Random Matchups Dump:

Fox: 80-20. He beats you in every category. You can edgeguard him okay, and tech chases and combos aren't awful, but you'll never keep up in damage with fox. Plus you're losing neutral, too.

Marth: 65-35. Marth dominates neutral with superior range and about equal speed. Like fox, he will punish harder, often capable of taking a full stock from one opening. He edgeguards YL better than anyone else.

Falco: 65-35. Slower of the spacies, but still about equally fast as YL. Because falco is slower than fox, you are more capable of pulling bombs in this matchup. Even still, falco should dominate the neutral and punish harder than YL.

Sheik: 75-25. Only saving grace for YL is that sheik doesn't rush you down as much as the other top tiers. This can give you time to throw boomerang and pull bombs, but thats where the fun ends. Her punish game is unmatched, with chaingrabs and plenty of non-chaingrab options. And really, the neutral game isn't good at all for YL; sheik has plenty of tools to evade and punish YL's bombs and her normals are better. Oh yeah, and she can CC grab all of your aerials besides dair.

Peach: 55-45. A breath of fresh air coming after the above characters. YL doesn't win, but he definitely has tools to threaten peach. Their downb are very similar, but YL's is better in all ways except being on a timer. He can keep up in normals, but peach tends to win in edgeguards and damage racking combos. Once the peach has learned the projectile game, it can be difficult to combo into necessary dairs.

Puff: 55-45. Similar to the peach matchup. It is definitely possible, puff's slowness allows you to set your projectile game up freely. If you don't win neutral, though, you're gonna lose because puff punishes much harder.

Falcon: 60-40. The biggest problem with handling falcon is his speed. In a straight fight, there are plently of advantages YL has. Nair is effective in stuffing most of falcon's game, and YL can edgeguard him as well as any top tier. Even YL's stubby sword is disjointed enough to beat falcon's hitboxes. A good falcon will not fight you head on and instead out maneuver you on the stage, force you to attack defensively with his position, and then punish your lag with a strong combo. Against bad falcon's this matchup feels even, but against a good falcon it could be as bad as 80-20.

ICs: ??-??. Not really sure. Axe chooses this over pikachu often, which leads me to believe its a decent matchup. However, in practice I don't see much YL has going for him. On FoD you can air camp with bair->dj->waveland on platform, but on most stages you can't reach the platform with your DJ. Bombs are good at splitting and initiating a punish, but pulling a bomb can be dangerous. Sure, they can't wobble you when you have a bomb in hand, but they can still f/dsmash you. None of YL's ground moves are safe on shield, and most can be CC'd. His aerials can also be CC'd. Being frame safe on shield is important in this matchup, and YL struggles to be safe here without relying on spacing. I'm lead to believe this matchup is between 55-45 and 60-40.

Samus: 55-45. Slow and projectile heavy, YL tends to end up in a camp war in this matchup. Samus can go tit for tat, so its not free. As mentioned before, YLs stuff is very CC weak, and Samus is great at CC. Her normals, especially ground moves, outrange YL's. I've always enjoyed this matchup, but I can see an in-your-face Samus giving YL a lot of trouble.

Pikachu: 50-50. I don't think pikachu has many threats on YL outside the obvious usmash. He struggles to link it on YL, too, relying on weak nair or a techchase (or randomly throw it in neutral). Instead, pikachu often kills with nairs and edgeguards. Ground speed, these two are evenly matched. Normals vs normals YL usually wins, and I think YL wins the projectile war too. Pika does a little better with comboing and does well edgeguarding YL.

Yoshi: ??-??. No knowledge at all. I speculate that a yoshi of aMSa's quality would have little trouble countering the projectile game. Only plus is that bomb can't be parried. YL shouldn't have many combos, and won't be able to break yoshi's heavy armor until after mid percents (which means chip damage only and avoiding yoshi's counter attacks). I think it would be yoshi favored, 55-45 or 60-40.

Doc: 60-40. He has chaingrabs on you. He has dthrow->fair KO. His projectile is kinda decent, but YL's are better. He has lots of good normals and YL's nair won't get away free. Oh yeah, doc has a great CC game which is bad news for YL. If you camp like a mofo and chip him a ton of damage, you possibly can win. Straight fighting, YL gets bodied.

Luigi: 60-40. Wavedash forward is faster than falcon or fox dashing at you. Boomerang is virtually useless, since he can shield it then WD OoS dsmash before you can defend. Luigi is heavy and floaty, with poor aerial mobility, so YL can do some okay combos and finish with dair. But Luigi's high priority hitboxes give YL tons of trouble when combined with the quick movement of his wavedash. Luigi is surprisingly good at edgeguarding YL too, his dair is excellent at kicking your head when you upb.

Ganon: 50-50. Ganon hits hard, but YL has the speed to out maneuver him and the tools to kill him. As YL, your goal is simply to setup an edgeguard and dsmash/nair him to death. You can often kill him with an edgeguard before your dair would KO off the top. Both characters mess each other up, and find this matchup a welcome release from the woes of fighting top tiers.

Mario: 55-45. Easier than doc, but you still get CC'd and chaingrabbed. No dthrow->fair KOs, and mario's dsmash and bair don't hurt as bad as Docs. Definitely winnable, but Mario has a slight edge still.

YL wins every matchup below here.

 

[ihasabuket]

Peach: 55-45. A breath of fresh air coming after the above characters. YL doesn't win, but he definitely has tools to threaten peach. Their downb are very similar, but YL's is better in all ways except being on a timer. He can keep up in normals, but peach tends to win in edgeguards and damage racking combos. Once the peach has learned the projectile game, it can be difficult to combo into necessary dairs.

I'd argue that young link wins the MU on some stages. Also, dthrow and dtilt both setup kills quite nicely.

ICs: ??-??. Not really sure. Axe chooses this over pikachu often, which leads me to believe its a decent matchup. However, in practice I don't see much YL has going for him. On FoD you can air camp with bair->dj->waveland on platform, but on most stages you can't reach the platform with your DJ. Bombs are good at splitting and initiating a punish, but pulling a bomb can be dangerous. Sure, they can't wobble you when you have a bomb in hand, but they can still f/dsmash you. None of YL's ground moves are safe on shield, and most can be CC'd. His aerials can also be CC'd. Being frame safe on shield is important in this matchup, and YL struggles to be safe here without relying on spacing. I'm lead to believe this matchup is between 55-45 and 60-40.

I've labbed a bunch of young link stuff in the past and have found solutions for most of these problems. For starters, young link can bair-> DJ ->aerial interrupt(bair or nair) to reach yoshi's and PS side platforms; Alternatively you can backwards jump to NIL on said platforms. Young Links jab cannot be CC'd until really high %s because of the nature of sakurai angles coupled with its low BKB and KB growth. Bair cant be CC'd at very low percents but using it to beat CC is very situational. both ftilt and dtilt cant be shieldgrabbed without the worst spacing possible and shield DI in.

Marth: 65-35. Marth dominates neutral with superior range and about equal speed. Like fox, he will punish harder, often capable of taking a full stock from one opening. He edgeguards YL better than anyone else.

I have to disagree with this, especially the last statement. I think falcon edgeguards young link better. Marth cant reach young link when he's too far out, especially when he's high up. This lets young link pull a bomb to cover the edge. Upb can grab ledge without getting hit by fsmash and/or counter. Airdodge tether is really strong recovery mixup that can be used after throwing a projectile. Marth's bair is a commitment and his fair isnt the best edgeguard tool. Imo the MU isnt too bad.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I'd argue that young link wins the MU on some stages. Also, dthrow and dtilt both setup kills quite nicely.

And how do you setup dtilt or dthrow? Both are easily avoided by peach.

I've labbed a bunch of young link stuff in the past and have found solutions for most of these problems. For starters, young link can bair-> DJ ->aerial interrupt(bair or nair) to reach yoshi's and PS side platforms; Alternatively you can backwards jump to NIL on said platforms. Young Links jab cannot be CC'd until really high %s because of the nature of sakurai angles coupled with its low BKB and KB growth. Bair cant be CC'd at very low percents but using it to beat CC is very situational. both ftilt and dtilt cant be shieldgrabbed without the worst spacing possible and shield DI in.

Those "too low to CC" things can all be ASDI'd down. Eg, if ICs do dsmash and you hit them, they can ASDI down and dsmash you again. This is what you'll see in a real match most often, anyways, not true CC.

I have to disagree with this, especially the last statement. I think falcon edgeguards young link better. Marth cant reach young link when he's too far out, especially when he's high up. This lets young link pull a bomb to cover the edge. Upb can grab ledge without getting hit by fsmash and/or counter. Airdodge tether is really strong recovery mixup that can be used after throwing a projectile. Marth's bair is a commitment and his fair isnt the best edgeguard tool. Imo the MU isnt too bad.

Dtilt and fsmash both cover upb sweetspots. Marth is the only character than can reliably edgeguard YL from onstage. And since tether is very short, its often telegraphed when you want to sweetspot zair recover as opposed to upb recovery. Vro started just doing dropzone fair in reaction to me going for tether sweetspots. Marth's combos on YL are also very strong, especially because YL doesn't have the range to break out. From what I remember, anytime Vro landed a grab at 0% he could combo and zone me offstage into a dair, or if I DI'd the combo out then I could simply be edgeguarded. But as I said, Marth edgeguards YL very well too. Playing Dart was a very similar experience, but with a stronger punish game. In any case, YL is no match for Marth in the neutral or punish games.

 

[ihasabuket]

Those "too low to CC" things can all be ASDI'd down. Eg, if ICs do dsmash and you hit them, they can ASDI down and dsmash you again. This is what you'll see in a real match most often, anyways, not true CC.

As I already said, bair is very situational so its not that reliable. Unstaled jab on the other hand is too weak to be ASDI'd down until after 47% and cannot be CC'd until after 118%. Check if you'd like.

And how do you setup dtilt or dthrow? Both are easily avoided by peach.

Shield a down smash using no shield DI and then shieldgrab. CC or shield a dash attack. Get her to whiff CC dsmash by spacing fair or AC bair. If you space a fair on peach's shield (which is 0 on shield) you can dtilt (along with many other faster normals) with very little risk; because of dtilts crouching animation peach's instant nair OoS wont hit young link unless he's pressed up against her shield which means she has to enter float to reach him, giving young link more time to stuff her OoS options. Even then you can simply dashdance whiff punish with grab. Hell, duck can grab armada and mango with samus. Even if you whiff a grab It's not like peach has a crazy punish game on young link.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

As I already said, bair is very situational so its not that reliable. Unstaled jab on the other hand is too weak to be ASDI'd down until after 47% and cannot be CC'd until after 118%. Check if you'd like.

Thanks, I did check. With peach I simply held down and did traditional CC, at 0%. She can CC your jab and has 7 frames to attack before your 2nd jab hitbox comes out. Using only ASDI down at 0%, she has 2 frames actionable before your 2nd jab connects. If she continues holding down after ASDIing the 1st jab, she can CC the 2nd jab giving her 9 frames actionable before your 3rd jab/multijabs come out. She can also try to ASDI down the 1st hit and dsmash, if you 2nd jab immediately it is quicker, then she ASDIs down the 2nd jab and dsmash before your 3rd jab comes out. If YL does multijabs, peach has 5 frames actionable before the hit. If YL does the hard finisher, peach only has 2 actionable frames after ASDIing the 2nd jab. If you do multijabs and she ASDI'd your 2nd hit, peach can still dsmash before your 3rd hit comes out. If you do the strong 3rd and she tries to dsmash before you, YL is quicker. But against she can ASDI down your hit, which gives her the good ASDI down (instantly getting landing animation) and leaves her with 21 frames actionable before you can defend yourself. By the time your 3rd jab breaks ASDI down, the first 2 jabs are in the range to give her instant landing animation with ASDI down which will get you dsmashed before you even get to the 3rd jab.

Keep in mind, this is with frame perfect actions. This assumes YL is jabbing as fast as possible, and that peach is dsmashing ASAP. In real games, you might see peach ASDI down dsmash, but you probably wont see her dsmash between each of your hits while ASDIing down to dsmash the next hit. Some peach players will do this, though. Also remember that doing the next jab in sequence is faster than exiting the jab sequence to try to do another action (eg jump, shield, dsmash) in all circumstances. Against a player who is just ASDIing down and dsmashing, you have no alternate strategy as soon as you've jabbed her; you are at her mercy whether she will punish correctly or not.

Btw the same thing about jabs is generally true across the whole cast. Jabs are defeated by CC/ASDI down.

Shield a down smash using no shield DI and then shieldgrab. CC or shield a dash attack. Get her to whiff CC dsmash by spacing fair or AC bair.

You're assuming the peach will make a mistake, which is likely. But relying on your opponent to make mistakes is a losing strategy. YL has no consistent method to pressure peach into a situation where she will get grabbed.

If you space a fair on peach's shield (which is 0 on shield) you can dtilt (along with many other faster normals) with very little risk; because of dtilts crouching animation peach's instant nair OoS wont hit young link unless he's pressed up against her shield which means she has to enter float to reach him, giving young link more time to stuff her OoS options. Even then you can simply dashdance whiff punish with grab.

Dtilt is frame 14. Even if you get the frame perfect, lowest possible, unstaled fair on shield to get 0 on block, she still has 14 frames to do whatever she wants. FC nair will beat this every time. All you're doing with dtilt is hard reading they will shield grab you, but you don't have the frame advantage to stop a shield grab. So the only time this even could work is if you're outside of her grab range but tricked her into thinking she could grab you. If she rolls, jumps, spotdodges, anything else but grab, your dtilt does nothing.

Hell, duck can grab armada and mango with samus. Even if you whiff a grab It's not like peach has a crazy punish game on young link.

Well duck plays samus. She can shoot a missile and run behind it with grab. She is also 90% ground based, and conditions her opponents into shielding her ftilt and jab, which opens up grab options. YL doesn't have this same mixup, as he spends most of his time in the air.

As for peach's crazy punish game, I have to ask what peaches you are playing with. Watch how Armada combos sheik: most of those combos work on YL too. Dash attack -> fc uair -> fh weak bair -> falling nair does about 60% and sets up an edgeguard. Peach's dair is pretty effective at stopping zair and upb recoveries, though its not perfect. Turnips can be trouble for YL to recover around too, especially when he is struggling to maximize his distance.


edit-
Btw I tested your claims about bair at 0%. Against true CC, 2nd hit bair is exactly 0 in ideal conditions (hit and land next frame). Usually you will be at frame disadvantage. Against 1st hit bair peach is +4 on you. If she is just using ASDI down, then she is +6 against your 2nd hit bair. Your 1st hit bair is +1 in your favor at 0% if she ASDIs, though. She can ASDI down your first hit bair starting around 20%.

These are a lot of numbers, what am i trying to say? I'm saying, don't underestimate how good CCing is and how well players use it. These strats you mention might work on some people, but definitely not all. CC tactics are difficult for YL to deal with, and the only options you have are throwing bombs and spacing well. YL doesn't have a tool to break CC other than grab, unlike many top tiers (fox and falco's dair come to mind). If you know your opponent can only grab to break CC, you can play in a particular way to make it difficult for them to get anything started.

 

[ihasabuket]

Thanks, I did check. With peach I simply held down and did traditional CC, at 0%. She can CC your jab and has 7 frames to attack before your 2nd jab hitbox comes out. Using only ASDI down at 0%, she has 2 frames actionable before your 2nd jab connects. If she continues holding down after ASDIing the 1st jab, she can CC the 2nd jab giving her 9 frames actionable before your 3rd jab/multijabs come out. She can also try to ASDI down the 1st hit and dsmash, if you 2nd jab immediately it is quicker, then she ASDIs down the 2nd jab and dsmash before your 3rd jab comes out. If YL does multijabs, peach has 5 frames actionable before the hit. If YL does the hard finisher, peach only has 2 actionable frames after ASDIing the 2nd jab. If you do multijabs and she ASDI'd your 2nd hit, peach can still dsmash before your 3rd hit comes out. If you do the strong 3rd and she tries to dsmash before you, YL is quicker. But against she can ASDI down your hit, which gives her the good ASDI down (instantly getting landing animation) and leaves her with 21 frames actionable before you can defend yourself. By the time your 3rd jab breaks ASDI down, the first 2 jabs are in the range to give her instant landing animation with ASDI down which will get you dsmashed before you even get to the 3rd jab.

Keep in mind, this is with frame perfect actions. This assumes YL is jabbing as fast as possible, and that peach is dsmashing ASAP. In real games, you might see peach ASDI down dsmash, but you probably wont see her dsmash between each of your hits while ASDIing down to dsmash the next hit. Some peach players will do this, though. Also remember that doing the next jab in sequence is faster than exiting the jab sequence to try to do another action (eg jump, shield, dsmash) in all circumstances. Against a player who is just ASDIing down and dsmashing, you have no alternate strategy as soon as you've jabbed her; you are at her mercy whether she will punish correctly or not.

Btw the same thing about jabs is generally true across the whole cast. Jabs are defeated by CC/ASDI down.

I was talking about IC's here (theyre pretty similar weights anyway), but thats good to know.

You're assuming the peach will make a mistake, which is likely. But relying on your opponent to make mistakes is a losing strategy. YL has no consistent method to pressure peach into a situation where she will get grabbed.

Yeah I mean peach has to rely more on her opponents making mistakes to get punishes. If you can get peach on the edge getting a grab is fairly easy too.

Dtilt is frame 14. Even if you get the frame perfect, lowest possible, unstaled fair on shield to get 0 on block, she still has 14 frames to do whatever she wants. FC nair will beat this every time. All you're doing with dtilt is hard reading they will shield grab you, but you don't have the frame advantage to stop a shield grab. So the only time this even could work is if you're outside of her grab range but tricked her into thinking she could grab you. If she rolls, jumps, spotdodges, anything else but grab, your dtilt does nothing.

I mean you could just jab or dsmash after a spaced fair, FC nair is gonna take at least 10 frames(jump 5 + enter float animation 1 + reset stick to neutral 1 + nair 3). Dtilt is just a timing mixup I use. Also, the way I see it, pressuring someone into shield is all about covering or reading an OoS option. I guess if you wanna play it safe you could dash away and wait for an option, worst case scenario peach wavedashes back to give you stage control so you can throw projectiles.

As for peach's crazy punish game, I have to ask what peaches you are playing with. Watch how Armada combos sheik: most of those combos work on YL too. Dash attack -> fc uair -> fh weak bair -> falling nair does about 60% and sets up an edgeguard. Peach's dair is pretty effective at stopping zair and upb recoveries, though its not perfect. Turnips can be trouble for YL to recover around too, especially when he is struggling to maximize his distance.

Can you link me to a vid im trying to find this. Im pretty sure dash attack and upair only combo young link/sheik if they dont DI away. Im looking through videos but I only find armada doing 2 hit combos on sheiks.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

You've never seen armada punish more than 2 hits? Here dude, this is the kind of thing he does.

The things you are talking about will not work against really good peaches. They will work on your friends and against bad people in tournament, but experts will not fall for these shenanigans. Peach has many tools to combat YL's weaknesses, the only thing really going for him is that he can run away and pull bombs.

 

[ihasabuket]

You've never seen armada punish more than 2 hits? Here dude, this is the kind of thing he does.

The things you are talking about will not work against really good peaches. They will work on your friends and against bad people in tournament, but experts will not fall for these shenanigans. Peach has many tools to combat YL's weaknesses, the only thing really going for him is that he can run away and pull bombs.

What you described was a combo starting with dash attack which I tried and didnt work with DI away. This combo starts with dtilt -> fh rising upair on FD. Bair only combos if peach does a fh drifting forward completely. Whats more is that it starts from CCing a jab which has a worse frame advantage than young links, which i now agree is unsafe. This 63% combo is not common to land especially on a stage thats not FD. The closest thing I've found is Armada vs Plup at Evo 2016 WF where Armada dash attacks plup at around 45% and plup DIs straight up and armada barely gets a FH rising upair which doesnt convert into anything. Theres a 3 hit combo in that same match that Armada gets on plup by landing spaced dtilt, making plup mistech , and converting into dash attack(plup DIs up) -> rising upair(plup DIs in) -> nair. A combo that long needs a good setup from dtilt or upair unless peach is against a fastfaller. Obviously top players still make mistakes that allow a move like that to hit but the majority of Armada's combos on sheik are pretty short from what I've seen. He banks off of stage control and edgeguard setups in that MU. Obviously I've seen armada get crazy long combos and zero to deaths but thats almost always against fastfallers.

Also, how would jabbing a shielding peach after a spaced fair not work? It's a mixup game where peach has a disadvantage.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

How is jabbing peach's shield a mixup? It doesn't stop shield grabs: if she tries to grab after fair before jab1, then she ASDIs down and does grab/dsmash. I outlined how jabbing peach isn't in your favor.

 

[ihasabuket]

How is jabbing peach's shield a mixup? It doesn't stop shield grabs: if she tries to grab after fair before jab1, then she ASDIs down and does grab/dsmash. I outlined how jabbing peach isn't in your favor.

When I say spaced fair i mean landing outside of her grab range. If I hit a late aerial on shield but misspace it I usually just dash away.