Zelda vs Ike: Mismatch tremendously in our favor?

[Nakayorz]

My sparring buddy recently brought my attention to this here thread:
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=161575&page=2

As many of you prolly already know I frequently play against a fairly fierce Ike. The majority of my footage available is vs him. My friend disagrees with the gist of what that thread says in that he thinks zelda and ike are fairly evenly matched.

My question to you more experienced smashers is this. Are Ike's supposed to be retardedly easy to take down as Zelda? On more than one occasion in that thread ikes have made implications that my Zelda is incompetant (my friend linked footage from our matches to try to back up his argument) If this matchup is so stacked in our favor what am I doing wrong?

I wanted to get in there and back my friend up. but being new to the smash games having only really played much after jp brawl released I felt it would be better to ask around about this before getting in too deep over my head.

P.S. if the Ikes are right and I really do blow I could use some pointers I have my footage up in a couple other threads on this board.

 

[S2]

I don't think they are evenly matched.

Ike poses a threat only when he's very very close to Zelda, otherwise he's cake.

First, Din's makes his life miserable because it ruins all of his approches. On a big stage like FD, you can basically harass the whole match. I've 4-stocked an Ike in a tournement on that stage simply because he couldn't get in close enough.

Zelda's advantage is that she can control space and harass better than Ike. Ike should be getting harassed bad on his way to you. Since Zelda's a better spacer and has quicker attacks, so you should be able to either escape or knock him away if he's getting in close.


The problem for Zelda in that matchup is that any mistake you make is going to screw you bad because Ike KO's at very low percents on Zelda (she's light).

Against most Ike's, your making mistakes or having bad mind games if he's winning. Because Zelda is definitely at an advantage in the matchup. Ike only needs to get a few good hits in and that can be intimidating. But you have all the speed/spacing/projectiles advantages to not let him hit you.

If you link the actual footage of you on this topic, then I'll give you some specific pointers based on the vids. If you just need general Zelda harassing tips, check this thread

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=158672

 

[Lord_Naomasa]

Its all about distance. He is slow and you must take advantage of that. Dins fire destroys Ike and most Ike players will charge to get close so read that and make dins fire go off in front of them. Use teleport to make distance between Ike and zelda. When I am playing Ike, and I see a Zelda teleport I guess where she is going to land because most Zelda players I have played when recovering use her full teleport distance and I take advantage of that. I run to where she is going to end up and continue my attacks. What you have to do is mix up you distances when recovering so Ike cant do that. When teleporting near Ike watch out for the Up A which I use to destroy a teleporting Zelda. It hits on all sids and unless you teleport right into Ike and flame him your going to be in a world of hurt. Up A is the worst enemy to a teleporting Zelda.

 

[Nakayorz]

okay let's start with these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJWRk1c8U4s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbPRhnzbpi8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKdCd1JmOOg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIGhLODgEf4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOaNZlrhkJ4

 

[Lord_Naomasa]

I watched the fourth one and you should of used Dins fire more instead of standing around. Also, At times you seemed to agressive and that led to many of Ike's attacks landing on you. Maybe its just my style but play a little more defensively. You can still have a super agressive Zelda but defense is a big part of Zelda. Very good matches though : )

 

[Nakayorz]

did you see the others? does that hold true with the others as well?

 

[orintemple]

Is there anybody that IS good against Zelda, seriously?

She is like the universal counterpick. Ike doesn't stand a chance...

 

[Lord_Naomasa]

Well, on the final destination two messed up teleports caused you to die. If it wasnt for that you probably would have won. Remember, one wrong move high in the % and your going to be dead fighting an Ike, just one lucky smash can end it. Also, teleporting to the ledge is important. Its where you teleport and instantly grab the edge. That technique would have prevented a few of your deaths in a few of the videos.

 

[Nakayorz]

FYI lord naomasa I did win the Final Destination match posted in this thread. you sure you're paying attention when you watch these?

my opponent has gotten really good at reading when I'm going for the ledge and I've been stuffed with dairs before. often times he just edge hogs with invulnerability so I can't burn him off.

both silven and shadowlink have made implications that I'm just a terrible zelda based off the same footage. now that I'm accepting that there's something I'm doing horribly wrong though I'm at a loss at why I'm having trouble with a matchup that's so stacked in zelda's favor.

I want to know what all these other options that I have that supposedly make Ike have no business ever getting close enough to hit me are that I'm lacking in my gameplay.

 

[Nightmare KoRn Kid]

Play Azen's Ike.

 

[S2]

Okay from what I saw here's a few pointers. Tweak your game a tiny bit and you'll probably be pwning your friend into tommrow (or at least make it a little more in your favor).

-You don't need to be that aggressive. You're friend will probably complain if you overspam, but who cares. Ike is at a massive advantage when he gets in close, so don't let him. Zelda isn't a good approach character and Ike outranges most of her approaches, so make him approach you.

What is happening is your friend is dodging 2 or so of your Din's and then waiting for you to come attack him. If he does this, keep throwing Din's until he attacks you or makes a dodge mistake and gets hit. He'll lose his patience eventually. Remember that if he calls you cheap, that's another way of him saying "stop doing something I'm not good enough to counter".

If you always force him to be aggressive, it'll wear on him if he takes din's damage getting close to you only to be knocked away if he makes a mistake once he gets close.

-Your biggest defense problem is that as soon as Ike gets somewhat close you begin to roll or try to run away. Let him try to attack you and either shield grab him or hit him away with a d-smash/Nayru's while he's open. Zelda's spacing game lets her stand in 1 place and outspace many attacks.


-When you Din's and he's relatively close, jump and Din's so that you travel away from him as your channeling it. Your friend likes to jump in and just barely knock you out of it at medium range with his f-air. If he's too close and your at an edge, then don't Din's.

-Ike's moves and approaches are slow. Counter them with spacing moves (like the F-smash) if he's landing in front of you or use a quick move like Nayru's or the D-smash if he gets too close. Ike's running A leaves him open for a shield grab, and his a combo (fastest ground attack) hits in 1 direction.

-Your friend in particular likes to jump attack a lot. Your missing up-smash opportunities (don't forget hyphen-smashing). Also, Ike's going to outrange/prioritize all of Zelda's air attacks except her up-air. So don't take to the air to fight him.

-You could probably d-smash a little more. It's your fastest smash attack and it sends Ike in a horzontal direction (which is bad for his recovery), also don't forget about your neutral A and the d-tilt.

-Mix up your Farore's a little more on the ground. You can always farore's straight down, into him, or past him. Keep him guessing.

Just in general, Ike has a lot of slow moves that can be punished. Zelda has a prioritized up-smash, an outranging f-smash, and a ultra quick d-smash. Make it hard for Ike to approach you and then simply hit him with either a spaced move or a quick one (if he's too close).

That's why you need to play defensive, because if Ike is camping he outspaces and prioritizes many of your approaches. But since you have Din's and he doesn't, don't ever let him use that advantage.

Also - Smashville highly favors Ike since its a smaller stage with no platforms (the moving one is too high to attack through and isn't static).

 

[Rykoshet]

-You don't need to be that aggressive. You're friend will probably complain if you overspam, but who cares.

I'm the ike player. Actually din's one of the few things about zelda I don't mind, I generally don't even notice it until after rewatching the matches and I'm like "christ on a cracker that's a lot of din's fires". I dunno, dodging them has become second nature to me.

 

[Nakayorz]

last night when I played him I would spot dodge an aerial and go into naryu's love. He would block the whole thing and grab me launching me above him. I believe it was nair or fair I can't remember. under those circumstances what's the correct response to his aerial since dodge into punish failed every time.

As for mindgame quick draw approaches is there some other way? I know that it's not consistent to snuff it with din's fire I use farore's against it when I can but usually I feel like I have to spot dodge it and punish but it leaves me too close to him if I mess up.

 

[sFoster]

I have a lot of problems with ike too, for whatever reason so I probably can't help that much here.

For quickdraw though, jump in the air towards him and THEN use dins to try to cancel it.
If you're in the air, his quickdraw won't hit you.

And because you're traveling towards him, after he quickdraws you will be behind him and he won't be able to follow up with his AAA combo to try to hit you.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Is there anybody that IS good against Zelda, seriously?

She is like the universal counterpick. Ike doesn't stand a chance...

G&W, Ness, and Lucas have the advantage against Zelda. Especially the first one.

G&W is super super aggressive in Brawl because he can approach pretty indiscriminately, and he can't be projectile spammed against by Zelda because that will fill his Bucket for a potential OHKO (yes, Dins Fire Oil kills at 0%). G&W totally destroys Zelda srsly.

Ness is in a way like G&W, except without the amazingly broken B-air. However he can put pressure on Zelda quite well with F-airs, and he can protect himself from spam with PSI magnet.

Lucas is a little bit easier to deal with than the others, but he also nullifies Zelda's projectile game. However Lucas's focus is more about spacing, which Zelda can beat him at if she does things right.

 

[FirebyrdXX]

Ike has not given me trouble thus far. He's easy to gimp with Din's Fire when he's trying to recover because he's charging his Side B instead of air dodging. I also grab him a lot.

 

[Rykoshet]

OK apparently either im doing something right or he's doing something wrong. I'm more than willing to accept the latter but I'd like ot confirm that the claims arent just empty and would like to match some of the zeldas to find out what exactly isnt meshing. I'll throw my FC in my profile, I'd like for any zelda who thinks it's just a severe mismatch and not just due to poor tactics on the ike's parts to message me.

 

[Nakayorz]

S2: following your advice has made things worse btw. just a heads up. and if you look at my other vids on my channel you'll see that my farore's mixup is pretty solid my friend is just too familiar with it so I have to hold back with it more often now than usual.

 

[Luthien]

S2: following your advice has made things worse btw. just a heads up. and if you look at my other vids on my channel you'll see that my farore's mixup is pretty solid my friend is just too familiar with it so I have to hold back with it more often now than usual.

So sad, but so true. Once your opponent has gotten used to FW, it doesn't matter what you do with it, they're pretty safe. Ask Spazn. However, a lot of S2's advice is pretty accurate.

P.S. I'm sorry, but I only watched the first match. What I have to say may not apply, because you may very well have fixed it.

That Ike used a LOT of Fairs. Because the attack time is so slow, you shouldn't have too much trouble with that. I noticed maybe once (I'll watch again later when I have more time) you ran in and shielded, but I'm sure you know as well as I do how poorly shieldgrabbing works on Ike. You then tried a second route, which was to take Ike on in the air. I'm assuming you realised that was a bad idea about 2/3rds through the match. Zelda needs to be a lot more careful in the air than Ike, despite the fact almost all of her arials are faster (the ones that DON'T require sweetspots and perfect spacing don't outrange Ike's sword). But again, you know all this.

I believe the solution to your Fair problem is my addiction... hyphen-smashing and Din's. Both of these counter his Fair approach/defense. You tried hyphen-smashing at 3:58, but the Ike's fair (maybe nair... I can't tell right now) outranged the usmash. THAT was an appropriate time for a Din's Fire counter (you got really creative and baited him with Din's some other time in the match with the momentum switch. I loved that). Use that like you used it at around 1:58.

Hyphen-smashing would have worked 2:05, 2:53, and a lot of other places. It's faster, so don't be afraid to beat that Ike to the punch.You just sometimes mixed up which counter to use for what time. Don't try to take Ike in the air anymore please. You got lucky when you just beat your opponent's fair with Zelda's nair. Oh, and that last KO in the first match wouldn't have happened if you had just waited half a second longer. Basically, if he full-jump fairs, use Din's. If he short-hop fairs, use your hyphen-smash.

As for general strategies with Ike, try to somehow push your opponent towards the ledge. If he's fair happy, he can't use any arials to keep you from continueing your attack, and he's forced to try and grab the ledge. Generally Ike is safeish from the ledge, because he can drop down and use Aether to stall, but he has few options for getting back up to the stage from the ledge outside of Aether.

He Aethers: Roll back/spotdodge and dash attack/fsmash/dsmash (?). I'm not sure, there might be more effective ways to punish this. I don't do so well against Ike myself.

He tries to ledge attack: Fsmash. The multihit beats him to it.

He tries to roll onto the stage: Fsmash/Hyphen-smash/Usmash/Dsmash/Naryu's. Depends on what you want, really.

He can't really try to fair his way onto the stage from the ledge because it has so much starting time. If you've spaced yourself from the ledge correctly, either a hyphen-smash will hit him first or his ledgehopped fair won't reach you. You can pretty easily keep him from getting back onto the stage with Din's, Naryu's, Fsmash, Usmash, Dsmash, and utilt sometimes.

I'm not sure if any of this will work for you, but this is generally how I keep alive against Spazn's Ike. Try it and let me know how it goes, I could use some Ike advice myself.

 

[Nakayorz]

and if he scrapes a quick draw from the ledge? i am also not seeing where a hyphen smash would succeed in the case an nair would fail from below

 

[Rykoshet]

Im watching for missed hyphen smash opportunities (mostly the ones I noticed were just dash attacks) when I went fair happy now and your critique on the first vid was pretty much on point. I've taken to feinting QD distances now to disrupt din's fire but even so I still take to the air a lot on ike in general.

 

[Luthien]

and if he scrapes a quick draw from the ledge?

I don't know. Have you tried yet? I've watched some vids of your Zelda, you're smart enough to come up with an effective counter. I don't plan on playing any time soon, but I suppose that a hyphensmash easily outranges/outprioritizes an arial QD. If that doesn't work, you can come up with an answer.

i am also not seeing where a hyphen smash would succeed in the case an nair would fail from below

Simple, really. The hyphensmash is faster, and the hitbox is somewhat disjointed from Zelda. Why have Zelda stick her neck out when she doesn't need to? Not to mention that usmash has higher priority. Usmash is easier, more rewarding, safer, and faster because you don't have to jump ahead of time. Hope that helped.

Also, your posts are all pretty hostile in this thread. Feel free to say what you want, but if you're just going to snap at us, nobody is going to reply to you anymore. S2 and I were just trying to help, we didn't mean to offend you in any way. You asked for what we thought, we told you, and you seem to think that we've done something wrong. I didn't write all this to have my head bitten off.

Also, I believe that the Ike matchup is pretty even. It's not 50/50, but it's not unbeatable for the Ike. You don't suck horribly or anything, the Ike just knows how to get around Din's Fire. This is what happens when the game is out for more than four weeks. Now we have to come up with something else to give us an advanatge over characters.

 

[Nakayorz]

yeah sorry for losing my cool, that thread on the ike boards in combination with my frustration with ryko's utter endurance and patience in not being baited into approaching kinda did it to me. couple that with the lack of logic in the ike forums and everyone saying Zelda is a defense only character when many before me have proven that incorrect via footage, I was frustrated.

As for ike scraping a qd from the ledge it runs along the ground so I'm guessing if you're fast enough a simple reaction spot dodge into punish will work.

I believe it's a playstyle thing as far as S2's advice failing against ryko though. as it is now ryko is hard pressed to use QD vs me, but following S2's advice to a T and changing over to that allowed him to kick my *** with QD rather consistently. I started focusing on learning an aggressive game about a month ago, and was mainly a full defensive zelda the month before that.

Honestly though my attitude only got out of hand because people can't offer up a super solution on a silver platter for the matchup but all act like it's a omg zelda is overpowered against ike and she owns him for free attitude. Personally I still believe that a patient ike is not that bad off against zelda, he's got lots of tools to approach with which is why it takes so much work to beat a smart one (note I didn't say competant since a competant ike can still fall prey to impatience and frustration)

Also, I believe that the Ike matchup is pretty even. It's not 50/50, but it's not unbeatable for the Ike. You don't suck horribly or anything, the Ike just knows how to get around Din's Fire. This is what happens when the game is out for more than four weeks. Now we have to come up with something else to give us an advanatge over characters.

This is what I've been trying to get at. Because too many people are making claims that don't fit in with what you say right here. And this ike that I'm playing against has been playing for more than 4 weeks (as can be seen from the date stamps of my earliest vids) I feel like keeping just enough pressure to render his quickdraw near worthless is an important aspect of coming up with another advantage in that matchup but apparantly the ike whiners would say otherwise.

 

[Luthien]

yeah sorry for losing my cool, that thread on the ike boards in combination with my frustration with ryko's utter endurance and patience in not being baited into approaching kinda did it to me. couple that with the lack of logic in the ike forums and everyone saying Zelda is a defense only character when many before me have proven that incorrect via footage, I was frustrated.

I just checked the thread out and noticed... meh, it wasn't that bad anyway. I'm just glad that the Zelda boards seem to be missing all (most) of the nonsense that goes on in the other forums.

As for ike scraping a qd from the ledge it runs along the ground so I'm guessing if you're fast enough a simple reaction spot dodge into punish will work.

Probably. Or, even then, fsmash is your friend against an opponent who's trying to get onto the stage. I doubt the Ike would be able to DI out of it due to the momentum he had before hand. At any rate, I guess we'll both mess around and see.

I believe it's a playstyle thing as far as S2's advice failing against ryko though. as it is now ryko is hard pressed to use QD vs me, but following S2's advice to a T and changing over to that allowed him to kick my *** with QD rather consistently. I started focusing on learning an aggressive game about a month ago, and was mainly a full defensive zelda the month before that.

Well, of course trying to change your playstyle made it worse. I tried, and I sucked horribly at the start of my change. But now I'm no longer a fsmash, Naruy's, usmash, Farore's (?) spamming idiot. Granted, a lot of my game focuses around those moves (I'm not gonna lie, I don't use the kicks a lot), but I'm definitely getting better after using. My point is, keep trying S2's advice (well, most of it), and practice until it works out. If you get it right away, you are a freak.

Honestly though my attitude only got out of hand because people can't offer up a super solution on a silver platter for the matchup but all act like it's a omg zelda is overpowered against ike and she owns him for free attitude. Personally I still believe that a patient ike is not that bad off against zelda, he's got lots of tools to approach with which is why it takes so much work to beat a smart one (note I didn't say competant since a competant ike can still fall prey to impatience and frustration)

... yeah, why they say that has me confused too. Between airdodgeing, rolling, shielding, spotdodging and countering Ike shouldn't have an incredibly hard time to punish a Din's spamming Zelda. There are other factors that make the match-up harder for him, but he can overcome them. The matchup definitely isn't like Melee Zelda vs. Melee Fox was though (although, my Melee Zelda has yet to face a good Melee Fox, so I find spacies somewhat easy).

Oh, by the way, I want your friend code. I bet you'd be almost as annoying to fight as Spazn and Drake.

 

[sFoster]

Luthien I wouldn't mind playing you sometime either.
I'm not the greatest at fighting other zeldas, but it would be interesting.

Do you use aim or yahoo ?

 

[Luthien]

Luthien I wouldn't mind playing you sometime either.
I'm not the greatest at fighting other zeldas, but it would be interesting.

Heck yes! Sounds like fun.

Do you use aim or yahoo ?

I use this.

http://z9.invisionfree.com/Hylian_Hellfire/index.php?act=idx

Chatbox is at the bottom of the page. :]

 

[Nakayorz]

meh wifi matches are kinda meh. it'd be interesting since we're both FW enthusiasts and all I guess so I added you. But I'm more interested in seeing how other zeldas handle ryko so if you could play him that would be awesome.

 

[Luthien]

meh wifi matches are kinda meh. it'd be interesting since we're both FW enthusiasts and all I guess so I added you. But I'm more interested in seeing how other zeldas handle ryko so if you could play him that would be awesome.

Okay, I just played Ryko, and...

... he has a very annoying Ike. I fear it like I fear Spazn's. But, just in case you're curious, we went 3 and 3. I've come to a few conlcusions.

1) Usmash. Usmash like you have never usmashed before. He will hate you.
2) Naryu's. Naryu's almost as much as you usmash. You can Naryu's Love out of a lot of stuff and he won't hit you thanks to those blessed invincibility frames. Here's the pattern: a) he rolls b) you NL
3) Get him to the ledge. He has a what predictable defense (no offense meant, of course), so watch for how he rolls, techs, etc. and predict rather than react. He doesn't like being cornered.
4) Din's Fire. He knows how to handle it, sure. But it still should be a huge part of your game. You can punish rolls with it. Short distance DF to punish bad rolls. It'll pop him up right into a usmash.

5) Platforms. He hates them. This makes or breaks the game against him, imo. Never play him on Final Destination or Smashville. He will devour your soul.

6) Dsmash. Self explainitory, really.
7) NEVER try to punish his FAir with an Fsmash. You know this already though, I bet.
8) I can see why you did try to take him in the air. Even if you don't sweetspot the fair/bair, it gets in his way. I wouldn't recommend it wholeheartedly, but if you have no other options, try to get a kick in before he gets an fsmash in.
9) Recover low. Nothing more needs to be said.

And lastly:

10) NO. WAY. He knows how to deal with Farore's Wind! ALL USES OF IT. I was MAD about that. You taught him too well.

Anyway, our matches were even, and I've gotta tell you that the advantages are in Zelda's favour, but not in a broken way. Needless to say, he's got mad skills to make up for that and we tied. Awesome games, Ryko.

 

[Rykoshet]

Man nayru's love had me getting spit out every which way lol, I had a blast.

 

[Nakayorz]

now there's the response I was looking for :D

we have an advantage but not a tremendous advantage.

Sorry about ruining your farore's wind plans he's been adapting to my developing FW game since I dunno.. Japanese release of the game or so? you see why I reacted to S2 in my terrible frame of mind a couple posts ago about that comment now tho lol.

 

[Xigger]

No, Zelda is just a lot better in Brawl than in Melee. :D