Matchup re-discussions

Per common agreement of the Wolf community we're going to rediscuss Wolf's matchups under new conditions: no matchup numbers or ratios are going to be used, instead we're going to use difficulty ratings for matchups:

* = Easy
** = Moderately Easy
*** = Moderately difficult
**** = Difficult
***** = Very difficult

I believe that this approach is more productive and more helpful for people who want to learn about how a matchup is played from Wolf's point of view and what to expect. The point of these discussions is not to find out who is wrong or right about something or which ratio is more accurate but to serve as a guide for people who want to learn about how to improve his or her play in a matchup.


Matchup #1: Metaknight

Discuss tactics, options, common problems, personal problems etc.

Well personally I'd give 4**** for MK, I have a lot of troule with him, but I mean, regular MK's are good to face against, the problem is the people who are really good with him, I have a lot of trouble approaching and feel MK has 75% of winning the hit everytime he closes up on wolf. The only adventage I feel we got is the long survivability we have vs him, but it really depends, I have so much trouble landing on stage after 120% that it makes little diference wether I go up to 180% since Im ricocheting all over the stage.

The things that help me more in the MU are grabs/jabs/blaster and shine. Once we are atacking from below I find it quite hard for MK to dodge effectively our atacks. I dont think tornado is much of a problem, blaster nullifies it as an aproach from afar, but nevertheless MK is likely gonna use it right on our face when he is kind of above.

Im glad we get to discuss this matchup first since we unbanned this guy like 5 months ago and much like in the past, nobody 'cept his brother come close on beating Jason. Im trusting Seagull to shed some light as he supports Wolf having only slight disadventage and he is awesome vs MK

Metaknight: *****

I live in NJ. It is not fun. MK does MK things and Wolf needs to significantly outplay a MK that knows the MU to win. Tornado is really strong in this MU imo, if we don't account for it we can get in some decent hits/approaches/follow-ups, but then one tornado will eat through all of that and make it difficult for us to return to neutral. However, if we account for tornado, we have to play without ever committing which drastically reduces our options and leads to MK commanding the neutral game.

More to come later, but imo this is one of Wolf's most strenuous MUs. I'm also not very good at it, but really, this MU is suuuch a pain :/

assuming that the highest = wolf's hardest matchup and lowest = wolf's easiest,

*****

better range, priority, arguably killing options, and arguably the best character in the game at shutting camping down

the metaknight has to be great for it to be *****

the d3 doesn't have to be great for it to be *****

castorpollux said:

the metaknight has to be great for it to be *****

the d3 doesn't have to be great for it to be *****

Click to expand...

True, but I ****ing take back my 4 stars, MK is damn 5 stars, today I played a bunch of friendlies with Jason, didnt win a single match vs his MK, I beated his marth and even his wario with wolf, which both are pretty good, but heck I dont even know where to start with MK. I need to be lucky to get each of the 3 kills, and, as I stated before I have no idea how to approach MK, I need some light

What do we do when MK is grounded? I mean, just as an example, his Up B beats all of our aereal approaches, the only way to stop it is to predict it by aproaching with a shield or dodge, but that is extremely risky as he can just do any of his 100 options to punish you. Im really frustrated with MK, I did battle MK dittos and I was a lot more close to beating him than with wolf.

Camp and don't approach and be careful about where you shoot lasers from.

I mean, if they just stand there, they can't attack you, either, so it's on you to make an unsafe move.

MK is a 4 star **** matchup, not a 5 star, and I've played M2k before.

Edit: LOL, GRAB HIM!!!!!!!!!!! Grab beats invinciblity frames on up-b.

I'd give *** or **. It depends on the stages we're using.

I expected more.

No salt, bias or trolling in this thread, please. I see what I can do to get MK players in here to give some input from their point of view.

Definitely ***** especially if mk doesent wanna approach camp mk and stay at a distance so you can shield blaster or shine nado, I pretty much just let mk come to me wait for a mistake and just space fairs and bairs when I approach If wolf gets to close to mk you cant really punish his nado. If mk is planking if timed correctly over 60% wolf can spike him. If mk can reverse up b wolf when recovering if timed correctly as well.

MCPP knows what's good. As always. #MCPP4President

Seagull, why would you rate MK so low? Mind telling me why you lost to False's tornado MK 2-0 if it's no worse than "moderately difficult"? but for real, False more or less told me he just nado'd his way to victory (in a joking way, not a disrespectful way), which could mean anything so I'm curious as to your take on how that went. I'll save the rest of my thoughts/comments until you reply.

Don't approach MK. Don't throw out bairs on his shield, only when he's in the air.

Play it like Falco mains do, keep your space in neutral, be ready to react , but if you keep him at bay at neutral and don't stay in your shield there's not much MK can do either, he's just better cause his grab range is better. But yeah you have to try to condition them to play your game by shutting down there nado. If you just try to bair their shield they will start nadoing because nado eats all of our hitboxes hence the don't throw **** out like alot of wolfs do lol

**** or ***** when the MK knows what it's doing.

Honestly think our hardest MU's are MK and DDD. Doesn't necesarrily mean MK has a very good MU against us, it's just very difficult to play it correctly compared to others who have stupid gimmicky **** and are harder than MK still like IMO

DDD- *****
Wario- **** or ***
Pika- ***
MK-**** or *****
Sheik- ** or ***
Snake- ***

MK is better than most those MU's even though he is more difficult for the fact that your required to put alot more work into that MU instead of just camping in the other ones where wolf gets CGed

Also cosign JJ's post lmfao

Ishieymoro said:

MCPP knows what's good. As always. #MCPP4President

Seagull, why would you rate MK so low? Mind telling me why you lost to False's tornado MK 2-0 if it's no worse than "moderately difficult"? but for real, False more or less told me he just nado'd his way to victory (in a joking way, not a disrespectful way), which could mean anything so I'm curious as to your take on how that went. I'll save the rest of my thoughts/comments until you reply.

Click to expand...

I was just playing like garbz.

_Kain_ said:

Don't approach MK. Don't throw out bairs on his shield, only when he's in the air.

Play it like Falco mains do, keep your space in neutral, be ready to react , but if you keep him at bay at neutral and don't stay in your shield there's not much MK can do either, he's just better cause his grab range is better. But yeah you have to try to condition them to play your game by shutting down there nado. If you just try to bair their shield they will start nadoing because nado eats all of our hitboxes hence the don't throw **** out like alot of wolfs do lol

**** or ***** when the MK knows what it's doing.

Honestly think our hardest MU's are MK and DDD. Doesn't necesarrily mean MK has a very good MU against us, it's just very difficult to play it correctly compared to others who have stupid gimmicky **** and are harder than MK still like IMO

DDD- *****
Wario- **** or ***
Pika- ***
MK-**** or *****
Sheik- ** or ***
Snake- ***

MK is better than most those MU's even though he is more difficult for the fact that your required to put alot more work into that MU instead of just camping in the other ones where wolf gets CGed

Also cosign JJ's post lmfao

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I pretty much agree with Kain. I was more or less confused with if this is like a matchup or based on precision play. I change my vote of to ***** if it's based on how much needs to play perfect.

I still don't think any matchup for Wolf other than D3 is more than 4 stars.

I mean, if you look at the matchup chart, it says +1, and yet we are giving it the same/worse grade as characters who have lame **** on us, like Pika and Wario, who previously were considered to be +3/+2 matchups.

There's skill cap involved, and since most of the best players in the world are going to choose to play as MK, it is going to be more difficult due to the skill of the high tier players.

But if we had the same players main D3 their entire lives, and then play vs a Wolf, I think it would be significantly more difficult.

As someone who has grown with the game VS our worst matchup who also secondaries MK, D3 is way, way way way......................(...)....................way more difficult.

perhaps I'm looking at this wrong.

And I just need to give D3 6 stars when it is his turn.

metaknight shouldn't be equal difficulty as D3.

like seriously... how many metaknights actually go into a match vs Kain/Seagull/MCPP/Holmes with utmost confidence? (holmes did beat dojo didn't he?)

I feel like Coney's d3 (or whoever is the best d3) has lower percentage of losing to seagull's wolf than any mk




I suggest we have a difficulty ranking rather than assigning ****


these asterisk ranking system puts a cap on difficulty which can mislead people



**edit*

I agree with MRM's post above

Honestly playing Coney's DDD to me wouldn't be as scary as playing Anti or Ally's MK

I mean I seen where you guys are coming from but MRM lacks experience against any top level MK against Wolf. Playing Anti is one of the most frustrating things ever lmfao. DDD just has a stupid grab. Doesn't seem equal to me getting opened up while I'm being defensive to me getting CGed cause I picked a bad option.

castorpollux said:

metaknight shouldn't be equal difficulty as D3.

like seriously... how many metaknights actually go into a match vs Kain/Seagull/MCPP/Holmes with utmost confidence? (holmes did beat dojo didn't he?)

I feel like Coney's d3 (or whoever is the best d3) has lower percentage of losing to seagull's wolf than any mk

I suggest we have a difficulty ranking rather than assigning ****

these asterisk ranking system puts a cap on difficulty which can mislead people

**edit*

I agree with MRM's post above

Click to expand...

Yea, the asterisk ranking system confuses me greatly.

Which matchup do 's need to know the most? . What's the ratio I'd give it? 40-60. Is it easy to learn? No. Ability to learn affects the difficulty of the matchup. If a matchup is obviously harder to learn, then it will be more difficult if you don't fully grasp it.

you can know everything to do (I know most of what to do), but his simple option select shuts down far easier then . will tack on a good amount of damage in a string, but won't kill you. He's also light. CAN kill you, tacks on 1/3 of the percent needed to take a stock each time, never dies, and his grab range is huge.

Honestly, most things s do is far more predictable then most characters because they usually pick the same options and as players we're used to playing tons of them over the years (Least most of you should be). 's options can be predictable, but harder to avoid/combat. Over the course of 5 years, I have conditioned myself to respond to 's moves accordingly. Only problem is landing, which is also hard vs .

_Kain_ said:

Honestly playing Coney's DDD to me wouldn't be as scary as playing Anti or Ally's MK

I mean I seen where you guys are coming from but MRM lacks experience against any top level MK against Wolf. Playing Anti is one of the most frustrating things ever lmfao. DDD just has a stupid grab. Doesn't seem equal to me getting opened up while I'm being defensive to me getting CGed cause I picked a bad option.

Click to expand...

True...The fearsome three 's aka Anti the punisher, Ally the rapist, and Domo the warrior scare me more then , but that's also because is a far better character.

Gah...This whole thing is weird lol.

Edit: Even though those 3 s scare me more, I'd still rather not face a in tournament (If I only solo'd vs him). I'd rather vs in tournament then any WITH because that matchup is so free to me after playing Coney so long.

_Kain_ said:

Honestly playing Coney's DDD to me wouldn't be as scary as playing Anti or Ally's MK

I mean I seen where you guys are coming from but MRM lacks experience against any top level MK against Wolf. Playing Anti is one of the most frustrating things ever lmfao. DDD just has a stupid grab. Doesn't seem equal to me getting opened up while I'm being defensive to me getting CGed cause I picked a bad option.

Click to expand...

but is the scariness (though scariness is much different from actual difficulty) factor due to Anti/Ally choosing MK? or is it due to Anti/Ally in general?

Hypothetically, if anti had a D3 as good as his MK (I don't know if he does or doesn't)
would you be more afraid of his D3 or his MK?


I just feel like you have to outplay the D3 badly in order to win while you don't necessarily have to with MK. This brings me to another point... Anti/Ally will always outplay any wolf player with their MKs. If their hypothetical D3 outplays you as much as their MK outplays you, how badly do you think you would lose vs that scary hypothetical D3?

I think it's a factor of both because I also didn't like playing Domo when I played him a year ago as MK and I don't think he's nearly as good as either Anti or Ally. Same with Rain when I played him (even though I think I did alot of things wrong, he knew to keep me at neutral alot, which is something I think 80-90% of MKs dont understand when they play Wolf). Most MKs honestly aren't that good at the MU. I just think that MK has options that shut down Wolf a bit harder than DDD, they just have a less reward and more risk than DDD's options, cause they can be avoided/baited, and they don't lead to offstage and possible reset situations.

I do agree DDD is harder than MK, I just think MK is pretty close to the difficulty of DDD at top level. It's just very hard to find openings on an MK who barely commits to the air and stays grounded and at neutral with Wolf

okay because of this, i'm going to study the MK matchup really really hard and money match every MK at genesis.

Lmao hey I support that and I'd be willing to help, just saying at top level MK is a bit more frustrating cause of how he is capable of limiting wolf's options opposed to DDD limiting us to having to play cautious. At least that's how it feels to me

I really don't think any of us lazy wofls have actually put in the effort to really study either the MK matchup or the D3 matchup. We just sort of play and think we know matchups when we really don't (i did this too).

_Kain_ said:

I think it's a factor of both because I also didn't like playing Domo when I played him a year ago as MK and I don't think he's nearly as good as either Anti or Ally. Same with Rain when I played him (even though I think I did alot of things wrong, he knew to keep me at neutral alot, which is something I think 80-90% of MKs dont understand when they play Wolf). Most MKs honestly aren't that good at the MU. I just think that MK has options that shut down Wolf a bit harder than DDD, they just have a less reward and more risk than DDD's options, cause they can be avoided/baited, and they don't lead to offstage and possible reset situations.

I do agree DDD is harder than MK, I just think MK is pretty close to the difficulty of DDD at top level. It's just very hard to find openings on an MK who barely commits to the air and stays grounded and at neutral with Wolf

Click to expand...

Agreed.

castorpollux said:

I really don't think any of us lazy wofls have actually put in the effort to really study either the MK matchup or the D3 matchup. We just sort of play and think we know matchups when we really don't (i did this too).

Click to expand...

If I did play nearly as much as the top players, I might be better against both of those characters, but the players around my region aren't nearly as good (The s) as the ones in Nj/Ny. I'm sure if I played Coney a lot I could beat Atomsk's with , but that's a moot point because what are the chances of playing him compared to the 30-40 s in Nj/Ny.

Edit: Kain, I believe that almost every character has as their hardest matchup at the top level to be honest (Some have ).

castorpollux said:

I really don't think any of us lazy wofls have actually put in the effort to really study either the MK matchup or the D3 matchup. We just sort of play and think we know matchups when we really don't (i did this too).

Click to expand...

That and making stuff habitual. I talked with people about ZSS after losing alot and figured out to just fair after getting dtilted at low % to avoid being Dsmash chained and I still ADed into it against Salem at Apex (prolly cost me the game too cause that was basically my whole stock he took lmao.)

If you just study stuff and put it into play consistently enough that you react accordingly in each situation I think thats all it takes to make MU's better. I feel I stopped doing this after I pretty much stopped actively playing and why I've basically just stagnated these last 2 years.

Being lazy and doing nothing is far easier then working towards something. I'm complacent with beating every region besides Nj/Ny so I will place the same. When I find a reason to practice, I will. Till then it's whatever lol.

So many other things to do then practice these days...Gf, Yugioh, work, tv, cpu, facebook, eat, forum surf, etc...

Basic things I suggests wofls who still play this game do to get better vs MK:

1) Watch every MK vs Wofl match on youtube and take notes on every single approach the metaknight does.
2) Concoct in your head how to counter each of these approaches if you can.
3) Practice reacting to each approach and executing the counter.


I'll give you a couple examples:
Lets take a look at this game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnAk3zopKrs

:04- Kain fires blaster as soon as game starts. Ally runs in as soon as game starts and powershields blaster.

What do you think is going on in their heads?
Kain fired his blaster because it's a no-lose move. He'll either damage the MK or he wont.
Ally runs in because he wants to gain as much space as possible. He also anticipates that kain will fire a lazer because that's what every wofl would do and prepares to powershield it.

:06- Ally powershields lazer and thinks he can punish the lag from the lazer and tries to dash attack Kain.
Kain reads this and shields in time. He punishes with a jab which ends up with Ally taking 3% but it also causes kain to get thrown off the stage.

Things kain could have done better: If Kain was conditioned to Usmash OOS (kain just recently learned how to do this) after an MK's dash attack on shield, he not only would have done 15% more damage, but he would've put the MK in a bad position.


:09- Ally approaches with tornado. Kain reacts correctly and it ends up with him having a good punish.

:15- Ally approaches with a walking -> shield -> ftilt while kain was focused on doing a runaway grounded reverse B.

Things kain could have done to not get punished: He could have run away a little bit further and reverse B'd. Also take note... If an MK is walking towards you, he's probably just looking to shield/ftilt

:20- Ally does an up B and is forced to approach using that glide. Kain powershields glide attack but isn't conditioned to up B OOS to punish (or turnaround grab). This is another execution mistake that should have resulted in favor of kain.

:26- Kain does the run away on ground -> reverse blaster again. Ally powershields again and tries to dash attack punish it from that distance. Ally whiffs and Kain is able to get a good punish on it. This is twice Ally tried to punish kain with dash attack after shielding a blaster from that distance. Perhaps this is an exploitable habit??

:28- Kain mis-times a pivot grab. This is another execution mistake that kain could potentially work on. This whiff allows ally to punish kain


Kain ends up taking the first stock with a pretty big lead despite making a bunch of execution mistakes (not a sign of a difficult matchup)


**edit**

Kain, watched the entire match. This match was winnable for you especially after taking such a big lead after the first stock. Dying from 38%-death probably shouldn't have happened

That was a friendly lol. But yeah he only came back cause he did that stupid double hit dsmash, wtf. i just looked at him super salty when he landed that lmao

Watch this one even though I don't think I played it really well. I still think it shows a better perspective of the MU at top level

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrZOUBgZKCo

Good interpretations JJ. I think if s didn't blaster so much vs when both are at a neutral position then this limits 's punish options because powershielding blaster hurts us so much.

_Kain_ said:

That was a friendly lol. But yeah he only came back cause he did that stupid double hit dsmash, wtf. i just looked at him super salty when he landed that lmao

Watch this one even though I don't think I played it really well. I still think it shows a better perspective of the MU at top level

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrZOUBgZKCo

Click to expand...

you did fine as long as your shield was recharged.

4:33- Also, to counter the MK's from nadoing right above you to make sure your shield pops, you can jumpshine OOS to counter that. Rolling away probably would work too.


It seemed like rain's strategy was to just kill your shield to make sure you cant defend against multiple tornados (he may even have purposely make the first tornado get punished in order to ensure your shield was weak).

Perhaps something to consider would be to figure out what to do as wolf vs mk when your shield is weak. What's a way we can play to buy some time?


Also! you need to use Usmash OOS to punish dash attack!


5:48 - Just noticed you Nair'd out of mk's tornado... did you know you can do that? and in what situations does that work?

castorpollux said:

Perhaps something to consider would be to figure out what to do as wolf vs mk when your shield is weak. What's a way we can play to buy some time?

Click to expand...

One thing that took me FOREVER to learn was that we can safely roll away when is nado'ing our shield. Our back roll is so long...I actually learned this from watching how Ally reacts with nado pressure on his 's shield. He sidesteps everytime. There is timing required of course, but it is the easiest action to commit too.

Out of shield Jumpshine is amazing, but the mess up from that is a spotdodge, which can be awkward. I also don't like jumping above who just ate a jumpshine because he would just nado again.

I think one thing I was talking to Ish about was that instead of just shielding alot we should just learn to jumpshine nados cause honestly punishing nado is becoming more and more unrealistic, all of them are learning the height to autocancel it, and the only time they get punished (well top level ones cause other ones I think just mindlessly nado) is when they get greedy or like you said, purposely do it to destroy your shield

Jumpshining it(SH Shining as they approach with nado) shuts down that option, and possibly conditions them to not use it as a go to move anymore, and it saves us from having to shield and as a result our shield stays intact

And Ally was helping me and coaching before and during the match. I did the Nair on purpose, he told me if you hold up right when the first hit of nado hits you can do a move and hit them out of it cause there vulnerable in the middle at the top and DIing the first hit of nado makes you not go inside of it. I did it with bair too another time

_Kain_ said:

I think one thing I was talking to Ish about was that instead of just shielding alot we should just learn to jumpshine nados cause honestly punishing nado is becoming more and more unrealistic, all of them are learning the height to autocancel it, and the only time they get punished (well top level ones cause other ones I think just mindlessly nado) is when they get greedy or like you said, purposely do it to destroy your shield

Jumpshining it shuts down that option, and possibly conditions to not use it as a go to move anymore, and it saves us from having to shield and as a result our shield stays intact

And Ally was helping me and coaching before and during the match. I did the Nair on purpose, he told me if you hold up right when the first hit of nado hits you can do a move and hit them out of it cause there vulnerable in the middle at the top and DIing the first hit of nado makes you not go inside of it. I did it with bair too another time

Click to expand...

LOL if that works everytime, then why dont we LET MK's tornado us so we can hit them with a nair or bair?

Seriously... I'd trade 3% for 13% ANYDAY

castorpollux said:

LOL if that works everytime, then why dont we LET MK's tornado us so we can hit them with a nair or bair?

Seriously... I'd trade 3% for 13% ANYDAY

Click to expand...

I guess cause it's only the first hit that knocks you up, the rest just suck you into the nado lol. So if they start the nado from faraway and approach you you will just get sucked into the multiple hits instead of bouncing out. Its moreso reliable when there right on you and decide to do it OoS

_Kain_ said:

I think one thing I was talking to Ish about was that instead of just shielding alot we should just learn to jumpshine nados cause honestly punishing nado is becoming more and more unrealistic, all of them are learning the height to autocancel it, and the only time they get punished (well top level ones cause other ones I think just mindlessly nado) is when they get greedy or like you said, purposely do it to destroy your shield

Jumpshining it shuts down that option, and possibly conditions to not use it as a go to move anymore, and it saves us from having to shield and as a result our shield stays intact

And Ally was helping me and coaching before and during the match. I did the Nair on purpose, he told me if you hold up right when the first hit of nado hits you can do a move and hit them out of it cause there vulnerable in the middle at the top and DIing the first hit of nado makes you not go inside of it. I did it with bair too another time

Click to expand...

Yea, the top 's level nado correctly now to avoid a grounded sh laser .

Something Neo has told me a billion times is that shielding vs is one of the worst things to do. The problem is that if we aren't shielding then we need to be reacting quick as ****. I like the idea of jumpshining.

If we start jumpshining a lot to beat out nado then maybe we can get s in the habit of doing what we want through conditioning. Sure would be a nice mixup.

Actually just watched it again seems I DIed out after the first hit lol, I guess it's something we could test, if all we have to do is DI up and punish nado with Nair or Bair that would be pretty gdlk

it wasn't the 1st hit of the nado when you nair'd him out of tornado... was it?


**ninja'd**


This is something wofls should research. Imagine if you can replicate this everytime. Nado = useless?

The middle of nado has 0 hitstun and can be airdodged through, but DI'ing into the middle is hard. I only know this because Meep used to do this to get out of nado and grab 's.

either way... there's a wealth of research and practice wofls can do to get better at this matchup. However, no wofl really seems to want to do this. Instead we make a bunch of matchup threads in hopes some other wofl will do the research and spoonfeed everything to you.

I need to use more jab. Kain's use of jab was so good. I always go for smash attacks or an aerial, but those aren't always quick enough.

@JJ: This talk is actually sparking my interests. I can always go over Neo's house and get training. His is pretty good. I'll pick him up tomorrow and go to Xanadu for practice.