Your Jr's Worst Matchups

[YSS]

Who do you struggle with the most MU-wise when you play as Jr.? This isn't necessarily geared towards the community average but towards your own experiences. Jr has so many tools I'm curious as to what kind of advice and strategy can be given towards countering and choosing secondaries.

There are two characters in particular that come to mind for me:

: His projectiles can more or less shut down/punish our use of kart dash and mechakoopa (deploys). It requires little to no effort on his part. On top of that, his grab is far superior to our own and he can match our range in certain instances. He can just zone us into oblivion and then move in for mid-range gyro pressure/grabs if we start getting too cautious.

: Though perhaps not as popular, Mewtwo can be a real pain. We DO have the mechakoopa as a means of meat-shielding his neutral B, but unlike Samus, Lucario, and WFT, Mewtwo has a fairly safe, well-ranged reflection move that can be difficult to punish. He's got some range of his own too, and playing defensively can be tough since one misplaced aerial or smash attack can expose us to a neutral B to the face. Not sure the matchup is as bad as R.O.B, but Mewtwo is mobile and crafty enough to be a big nuisance.

Any thoughts on these two characters? And who do you struggle with?

 

[Ridel]

:So many things to look out for and hydrant can screw over mech placements so easily. No impossible since i have little experience in it but I gotta personal vendetta against it.

: Punishes Jr super hard off one hit and can edge-guard with d-air like it ain't no big deal.

: I don't really struggle with Ness but he can be very very annoying to play against.

: I have a hard time understanding what exactly Lucas should be doing so I'm not sure what to look out for sometimes. I can handle it okay now but it can be really confusing to me sometimes.

: Pretty much the same reasons as Pac except instead of being just overwhelmed I am instead irritated but mother effing pellets that can just stop side-b with no effort and almost completely negate its use period. Probably my worst MU by far, i can surprisingly handle top tiers just fine for the most part.

 

[YSS]

Ridel , here are some pointers I can think of:

: Yeah, last night I just barely edged a Pac-Man user out. He seems to have an easier time dealing with our chaos than we do his. Looking back, I think I should have been more patient and did more powershielding to approach. Beyond the grab, which can be easy to punish if he whiffs it, he's more of a zoner than a rundown fighter. Just keep crawling towards him and get mechakoopas out when you can so he can't charge up bells and keys and as easily, and don't fall into freebies with stuff like the fire hydrant drop. Beyond that, he's a nut I haven't completely cracked yet.

: Shield. A lot. She's like us: she doesn't have a lot of great options on shield. Put the pressure on her approaches with the Mechakoopa too and anticipate the evasive jumps into aerial attacks. Picking the mech up for throws is good too since we can hit her in the air with it, and this can make approaches a bit easier on you when she has to concern herself Clown Kart Dash->jump cancel->mech toss (in theory.) Plus, on occasion my kart super armor seems to shoulder her low attacks. Fair can sometimes compete with her aerials too. Finally, lean on your multi-hit moves when you can (fsmash, dtilt, etc.) because their long attack windows can negate and punish Witch Time.

: In my experience, Lucas seems to like zoning with his side-B (it one-hits our mechakoopa) and using his grab to initiate aerial combos. Jump->Kart Dash can punish or at least close the distance on reckless uses of grounded side-B's and whiffed grabs though. Outside of getting juggled, I feel like his aerial approaches are pretty predictable, though I personally tend to eat fairs perhaps more than I should. I'd say keep trying to mix it up so he doesn't get easy reads into grabs or easy punishes from spamming side-B.

: He can't neutralize our mechakoopa as effortlessly as Lucas (side-B is not a guaranteed kill, and his reflection fsmash comes out slower,) but his disjointed DA and fair deserve our attention. In short, know where the range and priority advantages and disadvantages are and play intelligently around that.

: I'm seeing a trend of zoners with more direct projectiles giving us trouble, hm? I'd say he's going to be a lot like Pac-Man: powershield approaches and mechakoopa mixups to keep the pressure on. We do have to be more careful about his grab, but our in-close game can beat his... unless you're giving him easy utilts (pro tip: DON'T.)

********

Anyway, I'm still trying to figure some of this stuff out myself, but hopefully that helps. Personally, these matchups are making look like a very appealing secondary.

 

[krazyzyko]

I think it's probably cloud. He outranges my attacks all day and if I try to camp/ zone him out, he'll charge his limit.

 

[Nemesis561]

Surprised nobody mentioned pikachu yet. He edge guards me super hard. Marth/lucina give me some trouble too especially after the buffs.

 

[YSS]

The sword characters in general have nice zoning aerials that are low risk: Marth and Lucina have nair and fair and Cloud has nair. Our own fair has good radial coverage but not necessarily horizontal. I'm wondering if some short hop RARs into bairs could help alleviate the range discrepancy? Our bair extends a bit farther out than our fair does. Even if it only levels the playing field with the sword wielders, that's a plus.

I was kind of hoping someone would mention Pikachu. The last one I faced I handled pretty soundly. We'll see how my strategy against him holds up in the future, but here's my thoughts:

I think Jr can really frustrate Pikachu's approaches barring maybe Quick Attack. Pikachu can be really wild and unpredictable, but outside of Thunder Jolt and Quick Attack it can more or less be put in the same position that we are: tossing out pressure and baiting the bad moves.

So with that in mind, neutralize Thunder Jolt and Pikachu's life gets a lot harder. How? Throw out those wonderful fsmash and dtilt moves of ours. Their generous attack windows not only give you a great, safe way to clang with Thunder Jolt, but the range neutralizes the projectile quicker than if you'd let it bounce off your shield. This can make it tougher for Pikachu to set up or punish off of it and essentially curtails its grab game significantly. Then just keep using your range, fsmash included, to wall out Pikachu and punish approaches. Also throw down the mechakoopa and play intelligently off of that whenever you can.

 

[Mr Moosebones]

Pika isn't really that hard of a mu tbh. BJr excels at anti aggression and pika needs to work really hard to confirm a kill. Recover high whenever possible and never hug the stage when recovering low.

 

[pikazz]

I have actually problems with and with due they endless projectile walls and camping.

(thats great I also main to kill them 2)

 

[Armistice]

: I struggle a lot against her in general, not just with Jr.

: Too many good ones in my region, this is one of the few MUs I switch for

: I cannot get in on this ******

: More of an honorable mention because she's one of our worst, if not our worst mu in the game, however there are literally zero in my region so I haven't had a problem with her personally

 

[Mr Moosebones]

Yeah rosa and ness are pretty garbage mus. I use Oli for both. Link is weird. Idk i don't hate the mu. The projectile spam isn't impenetrable. If you get to a mid range most links panic and it makes for easy reads.

 

[Ridel]

I use a swordie (Lucina atm) for Ness and Rosa. Seems to be working quite well. Swordies also screw over characters like Villager and Mega Man.

 

[BelieveInParappa]

Ruins Jr. because 1) you get zoned easily and 2) your mechakoopa is in his pocket for the entire game and you can't do anything about it.

Jr. lacks moves that incapacitate Luma, he gets zoned out hard, and mechakoopas are useless.

Good luck getting in on this guy.

Against all of these characters, I just say "f*** it" and I go Cloud. There are other MUs that aren't very good too, like Sheik (obviously), Bayonetta, and Pikachu.

 

[Ridel]

Yay I'm not the only one who hates Pac-Man.

 

[Mr Moosebones]

The best part about mechakoopa being pocketed is that it makes cannonball viable :^)

 

[aircaves]

Question: Does anyone have any tips on the matchup, personally I haven't been able to do much in it. Due to his amazing frame data, down throw combos, and fireball spam it feels a struggle to get practically any hits.

 

[BelieveInParappa]

Question: Does anyone have any tips on the matchup, personally I haven't been able to do much in it. Due to his amazing frame data, down throw combos, and fireball spam it feels a struggle to get practically any hits.

This MU isn't good for Jr. If you're gonna go Jr. against Mario, just make sure your spacing is on point; use your disjointed hitboxes to the best of your ability. And try to remain mobile so that he has a harder time grabbing you.

If you get him into the air, try to hit him with fairs if he's in front of you, but the most optimal thing is to get underneath him and spam uairs.

If he gets a down-throw on you, do what you can to DI out of it. In my experience, I've been able to get down-thrown, but DI upward after 2 uptilts and break free with a jump. You can try to side-b too. Getting uptilted by Mario is just tough because Jr doesn't have any exceedingly fast aerials that he can use to hit Mario out of it.

If he spams fireballs, try to powershield them.

Try to use these tactics. My personal strategy as Jr. in MUs like this: I don't approach much and I try to space my fairs and uairs well in the neutral. I put mechakoopas on the ground to force him to jump over them, then I adapt to how he avoids them. I don't go for grabs unless I can get a guaranteed punish or I'm doing a pivot grab in case he dashes at me. I try to secure kills by getting fsmashes near the ledge or killing him offstage with a fair or maybe a bair.

Ultimately, I recommend you have a secondary for this matchup unless you feel very confident in your ability as a Jr. player. But if you're really good as Jr., it's possible, just difficult.

 

[krazyzyko]

At low % if you hold down and mash A while you're getting up tilted by Mario, Fox, Pikachu , etc you can sneak in a fastfalled dair and combo off of it.

 

[Mr Moosebones]

Mario's uptilt string is scary because its possible to jump before the second uptilt comes out, but you'll get hit anyway and then at that point mario has a legitimate 80% combo on you as long as he follows DI. Like Parappa said, DI up and away after the second one and you should be able to squeeze out a jump at that point. Don't mash jump beforehand unless you feel like losing.

 

[Onoh]

Who do you struggle with the most MU-wise when you play as Jr.? This isn't necessarily geared towards the community average but towards your own experiences. Jr has so many tools I'm curious as to what kind of advice and strategy can be given towards countering and choosing secondaries.

There are two characters in particular that come to mind for me:

: His projectiles can more or less shut down/punish our use of kart dash and mechakoopa (deploys). It requires little to no effort on his part. On top of that, his grab is far superior to our own and he can match our range in certain instances. He can just zone us into oblivion and then move in for mid-range gyro pressure/grabs if we start getting too cautious.

: Though perhaps not as popular, Mewtwo can be a real pain. We DO have the mechakoopa as a means of meat-shielding his neutral B, but unlike Samus, Lucario, and WFT, Mewtwo has a fairly safe, well-ranged reflection move that can be difficult to punish. He's got some range of his own too, and playing defensively can be tough since one misplaced aerial or smash attack can expose us to a neutral B to the face. Not sure the matchup is as bad as R.O.B, but Mewtwo is mobile and crafty enough to be a big nuisance.

Any thoughts on these two characters? And who do you struggle with?

Funny that I also play as both of those other characters.
is a booty matchup IMO. You are never safe setting up while he's on stage because he can literally do anything. Laser, reflect, he can even short hop and punish if he's quick enough. The jab lock is gone but he can still use it as a bait or opener and it's hard to get out of utilt chains. Thankfully his kill moves are pretty obvious, but a good fox can bait you. The only leg up Jr. has is edge guarding.

 

[NintendoGameGuy]

Even though there is no reason why, I have a hard time with Captian Falcon. There is just something about him that makes me feel intimidated and nervous.

 

[Inumi]

and . I have so much trouble dealing with these two. I think they are the worse Jr machup.

 

[VileFC3S]

I'm pretty sure all Junior mains know why.

Almost any rushdown characters. Setting out my mechakoopa just isn't much possible unless they're at a long hitstun, otherwise I'm dead meat. Yes, I unfortunately am one of those Junior mains that almost solely rely on the mechakoopas.