Official Zero Suit Samus Matchup Thread

Yep. Rematched the guy, same tactic didn't work twice.
I overlooked how useful a turn around jab was against Wolf.

NickRiddle said:

Just fraeking wait until his d-smash hits your shield, then punish it.

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With what? Wolf's Dsmash recovers fairly quickly and pushes back on block.

Dtilt?
Crawl forwards > dtilt?
Dsmash?

Not sure if dsmash OOS is frame positive, but I'd be confident that dtilt is guaranteed.

You could grab if he's infront of you and hits you with 1st hit I'm sure, we can do the same for MK's dsmash.

Short dash -> Pivot Grab if he rolls behind you. It also saves you from his Fsmash if he decides to throw one of those out toward you instead.

Dtilt actually works pretty well too.
OoS, I believe it can hit Wolf quicker than his dsmash cool down time.

Darky-Sama said:

Dtilt actually works pretty well too.
OoS, I believe it can hit Wolf quicker than his dsmash cool down time.

Click to expand...

Yes it can, also if you do a buffered d-tilt, aka slightly tilt down, you shave 2..maybe 3 frames off because you don't go though the crouching animation first. Also if he gets a bit short hop back air happy, you can d-smash him if your good at footies.

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=231077

Link boards wanna talk about ZSS.

also something that catches some wolfs off guard when bair spamming is to crouch the last hit, but then again like all tactics in brawl it is punishable

If you space good against Wolf he has alot of trouble killing you, because Down Smahs is his only reliable kill move on "normal" kill percents.
From that point, he will have to kill with Bair, and with good DI you can survive the Bair to a very long percent, especially if it isn't fresh.
Take advantage of the fact that Wolfs a fastfaller by taking every opurtunity to Upair him.

I would recommend not or barely to use the paralyzer gun in this matchup, because if you do it wrong one time, he will reflect it and he got himself a free DACUS/Fsmash/Grab. Also, he is pretty good in close range, his Down Smash is a great gtfo move, his Jab is good, and his Down B gives 4 frames advantage to Wolf on hit.

@Edit:
Wolf is also one of those chars thats actually good on Yoshi's Island, so you might wanna strike that.
Ofcourse, Lylat is our best stage against Wolf.

can we move on plz

Current Discussion: Fox

...LMAO.

Megan Fox. This thread just got better.
Discuss.

She really is... foxy.

Tech chase dat *** across the stage.
Abuse your down smash on Megan Fox.

LOL

So much win XD

We discussed this MU pretty recently back at the Fox boards.

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=267392

Feel free to disagree with/add on to/read up/agree with anything from that thread. The OP has a pretty decent summary to start with imo.

dont over use dsmash because youll just get driilled and usmahed

If you miss, yeah. Even so, abusing the down smash is decent if you can manage to punish them with it at a lower percent.

I abuse jabs and dtilt here more than anything else for racking up damage, next to the dsmash strings. Fox is moderately easy to KO so I wouldn't rely on abusing any of your kill moves until around 85%+ to make them more reliable.

Punishing Fox's recovery is ridiculously easy. Rather he side+Bs onto the stage or decides to recover from below it with an up+B, they're both easy to punish him for. When he side+Bs and attempts to sweetspot the ledge, run off the stage -> fast fall -> up+B / side+B to grab it before him. If he's too worried about behind punished by a dsmash for side+Bing onto the stage, he'll most likely go for the ledge. Just abuse your speed and punish him for it.

OR if he's at a high percent, run off the stage -> Uair before he comes within range of the ledge.

Yea we did this like 2 months ago.

When Fox recovers, stand on the ledge and then run to the other side, shield, and dsmash his landing lag.

Is foxes side b longer or shorter then falcos? I know falcos by heart but never really payed attention to fox's

^ I don't know about that...

But this as far as it can possibly go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wk3Fg_D1M0

I always thought Falco Phantasm was shorter but had less ending lag than Fox's.

That cancel is sexy, but you could edgeguard that on reaction.

Lightning93 said:

^ I don't know about that...

But this as far as it can possibly go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wk3Fg_D1M0

Click to expand...

Falco's is longer.

Yeah, go for Snakeee's plan. It sounds legit.

And is there a reason why the pages in this thread are messed up? Or is it just me?

Yea why the other two pages there?

lol its a forum paradox!?



EDIT:

so basically you want to keep the hell away when playing fox but at the same time you want to zone him so he cant shoot lazers without getting punnished.your most useful tool will be side B since it has good knock back and good reach.make sure you use this while short hoping to keep him away. i cant stress this enough.

your ground game is not bad against his(with the exception of dsmash) but if he gets his short hop aerials out your kinda stuck to playing defensive, dont let fox control the pace of the match.

your aerial game gets destroyered by fox's so get back to ground as soon as possible. he will get alot of damage while your in the air. offstage however you have the advantage so keep fox offstage for quick kills.

thats all i got for now.

I'm about to win this thread..... I win.

EDIT:KEY POINTS

Advantages
-Speed allows to move in and out of her safe zones.
-Lasers, we outcamp her
-We have combo/strings too
-We beat her on the ground
-But to the same effect our fastfalling speed can help us aviod her combos/strings.


Disadvantages
-ZSS has the mid-range advantages due to her Side-B spacing.
-She has a combos on Fox due to he is fastfalling speed.
-Threat of Dsmash Combo
-She beats us in the air

Summary

Quote:
If you can avoid our d-smash, you are avoiding a 0-death combo.
You kill way earlier, and neither of us gimps each other. (As long as both are recovering smartly.)
You force an approach as long as you are not down a stock.
You wreck us on the ground.
We beat you in the air, but since you fall so fast you get out of the air quickly.

Quote from NickRiddle.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Xonar
pressure the shield, all of zero's approaches are counter-able if you learn to PS her stuff (which you will be able to do in a few matches (at least i was able to do so)) and USE YOUR MOBILITY to keep her on the edge. Eventually she will get hit by that dair>usmash which will seal her fate around 80. nair isnt that hard to hit here and its a good one to just throw in between her aerials/things. I don't like fair that much in this mu, but I'm not really a fair/bair man anyway. Shine is pretty awesome on shield, and as normal Shine>nair is good shield pressure, especially against zero. nair > dtilt beats her grabs and is unpunishable for her. you can get out of juggles easily with falling speed and shine stalls. her sideB is too slow and if she uses it dash and shield and you can punish it.


IN-DEPTH DISCUSSION
Strategy & Match-Up Mentality


Aerial Game: Most of ZSS's Aerials outspace or outpriotize Fox's Aerials so don't challenge ZSS in the air unless you want to end up being juggled.
Ground Game: Fox's speed plays a big factor maybe without it Fox wouldn't beat ZSS on the ground, use your speed to overwhelm her and take advantage of her. (You shouldn't be hit the Dsmash Lock)
Approach: You shouldn't be approaching this MU but if forced to poke her shield with Fairs or Nairs or Cross-up Dairs on her, her grab is slow so you can take advantage of it. STAY CLOSE RANGE IF ENGAGING HER!
Defense: CAMP THE LASERS SON! You outcamp ZSS easily, but be carful of her mid-range dominance. The speed use it to manuver around her attacks.
Camping Game: Camp long range, she is fast but you can do it, just stay out of mid-range.
Edge Game: Any chance of gimping ZSS is slim. Drillshine is your best bet of gimping her, but I stress do not challenge her offstage. You won't die but you have a strong chance of putting yourself in a bad position.
Surviving:Even though ZSS has trouble killing strings such as Dsmash>Bair or just plain Fowarding Bing you can kill around 100%
Killing: Punish missed moves after camping or overwhelming her with your speed. You can kill her around 80-90%
Frame Data:

Stages
Stage Striking
* Possible Fox Strikes
Yoshi's Island
* Possible Zero Suit Samus Strikes
Final Destination
* To Be Classified:


Stage Banning
* Possible Fox Bans
Lylat Cruise, Delfino Plaza
* Possible Zero Suit Samus Bans
Final Destination, Halberd
* To Be Classified:


Stage Counterpicks
* Possible Fox Counterpicks
Final Destination, Halberd
* Possible Zero Suit Samus Counterpicks
Lylat Cruise, Delfino Plaza
* To Be Classified:

Possible Secondaries
None the Match-up is perfectly managable by himself.


EDIT 2: Fox can do some scary stuff on your shield infront and from behind.

Well, you don't win yet. Give people the chance to disagree.

And the summary above is based off of a ratio 60:40 Fox's favor.

Lightning93 said:

Well, you don't win yet. Give people the chance to disagree.

And the summary above is based off of a ratio 60:40 Fox's favor.

Click to expand...

Awwww.

Ok then, check.

Also yea anyways disagreements?

Will there be a page full of Fox mains on a ZSS Board?

Next time on MUSD!

Not going to pretend to know this matchup well, but I can certainly play devil's advocate and generate a bit more discussion.

CloudRain said:

your ground game is not bad against his(with the exception of dsmash) but if he gets his short hop aerials out your kinda stuck to playing defensive, dont let fox control the pace of the match.

your aerial game gets destroyered by fox's so get back to ground as soon as possible. he will get alot of damage while your in the air. offstage however you have the advantage so keep fox offstage for quick kills.

Click to expand...

I'm going to assume most fox mains don't agree here. ZSS's aerial game is brutal, while her ground game is typically quite poor. Fox should never engage ZSS in the air by choice.

xIblisx said:

Advantages
-Speed allows to move in and out of her safe zones.
-Lasers, we outcamp her
-We have combo/strings too
-We beat her on the ground
-But to the same effect our fastfalling speed can help us aviod her combos/strings.


Disadvantages
-ZSS has the mid-range advantages due to her Side-B spacing.
-She has a combos on Fox due to he is fastfalling speed.
-Threat of Dsmash Combo
-She beats us in the air

Click to expand...

This seems reasonable. If I was doing a comparison i'd probably go:

Fox's MU specific advantages:

- Better ground game (+10%)
- Reflector reduces suit piece advantage (+5%)
- Forces approach (+5%)


ZSS's MU specific Advantages:

- Better air game (+10%)
- Dsmash 0-death (+5%)

Which gives a total difference of 5%, making the MU 55/45 in fox's favour.

...

For those that say D-smash chain is irrelevant because it can be avoided is missing the point: that's like saying you can ignore IC's grabs in a MU discussion because "just don't get into grab range". Essentially MU's (and indeed smash in general) is about options. Having a chain against you limits your options by making the punish on some choices potentially lethal. Thus it leads to a MU difference.

....


Finally:

xIblisx said:

Surviving:Even though ZSS has trouble killing strings such as Dsmash>Bair or just plain Fowarding Bing you can kill around 100%

Click to expand...

Keep in mind Dsmash kills at 0% on fox, not 100.

I'd get rid of Fox's reflector game vs ZSS suit piece game as a + for fox, 1 most zss mains throw them out anyways or just have one 2. So many ways to punish reflector 3. we dont throw our items like bananas they have different properties and the zss mains that do use items will know how to get around the reflector no what if moments 4. If your vsing a zss that just glide tosses forward there doing it wrong

So while i haven't figured this matchup out nearly enough, I have played both Light and TKD in friendlies. They had very different styles, with Light trying to combo me and going head on while TKD has a very chip damage oriented style. Honestly, TKD's was much more frustrating, since Fox is so fast that if he mixes it up between lasering and then either airdodge or dairing when we get close, it makes it difficult to keep up. However, if I was to redo those matches once I figured out how he was going to try and play, I would have just grabbed a suit piece and then crawled back against the ledge. This reduces lasers and gives you a very strong punishment (I believe a glide tossed piece combos into a dsmash on Fox at low percents) if the Fox is just sitting there SH lasering.

Fox's recovery is exploitable in this matchup, side b is slower than falcos by a noticable margin which would often give me enough time to setup a fair offstage that would intercept either a on stage or ledge snapped phantasm, and it's a fairly long lasting hitbox so it isn't that difficult to time. You can either take one of those hits or up b, which would give me enough time to tether guard.

I didn't feel like Fox could really gimp me, though honestly he doesn't really need it to kill early. I would probably just try and wrack damage by lasering as the ZS recovers then edgegrab and shine if she tries to recover low, I think going offstage vs her would be very risky for fox.

I did catch him in a dsmash lock once in the 2-3 games we played, ended up doing about 60% and killing. If you foxes think you are just going to avoid this you better be prepared to do nothing but laser. We can't really hit you with a dsmash while you are running and jumping away constantly lasering, but if you go in it is a usable move.

I found Fox really hard to juggle which threw my game off, especially vs Light because he abuses the down b stalling and mixes it up with fast falling and dairs very well. I feel like if I had more time to practice this matchup I would get used to spacing for the shine and this wouldn't be as big of an issue, however.

By any chance do you foxes know how safe dair, nair, and shine are on shield frame advantage wise? That would be really useful to know if we can punish them. I'm pretty sure we punish each of them except for maybe shine, which means that if we can gain a lead and then crawl you are forced to approach, which we can then punish

I didn't find the usmash to be that difficult to avoid since we do know it's coming. It would mostly hit if i was was airdodging to the ground since Fox can cover the ground fast and punish the landing lag. If I were to play again I would just cover any questionable landings with nairs since I'm fairly sure you can't Usmash that OOS. Can someone explain to me how you DI down air so that the usmash can't follow up? That would be immensely helpful.

All in all I feel like neither side is playing the matchup right at the moment. TKD has by far the best style for playing against ZS, just watch his games vs Tyrant and that is literally what you should do, it is very difficult to adopt to. ZSs should not approach, just grab a suit piece and crawl and try and punish in between lasers before he can land laglessly, then edgeguard.

IMO do not or sparringly use reflector against the suit pieces, that is one of the ways you will get dsmashed because if ZS predicts you will do it we can downward glidetoss and then dsmash your ending lag. Shield is better in general

This matchup feels even without the 0-death if both sides play wisely ^^^. I don't feel that the 0-death is enough to push it in ZS's favor though. I'd say 50-50, maybe 45-55 Fox

I won't mind a 50-50 or 55-45 Fox.

Only questions are like. What is ZSS's best options to get out of close range fights?

Yes we can OoS your Nair actually.

To DI the Dair...umm SDI to the side I guess, I still have a hard time seeing how people are saying that it stops the combo cause even then it doesn't hurt to pivot Usmash or take a small step and Usmash.

DI the Fair Down and Away.

DI the Utilt towards the Fox is facing and up.

So how would we DI ZSS's Uair to stop strings? Maybe away and down so our fastfall accel. will make it harder to start strings?


EDIT: Like Pika's CG on us isn't there a precent where it won't even lock us (the Dsmash lock) like 30%? If so I would just eat random attacks so I wouldn't have to worry about it.

ZSS' bestonly options to escape are-

-OOS utilt/dtilt/dash attack
-dash away
-jump out uair
-get hit away

kaleidoRuby said:

ZSS' bestonly options to escape are-

-OOS utilt/dtilt/dash attack
-dash away
-jump out uair
-get hit away

Click to expand...

Oh.

Well yea things Fox can do to ZSS's shield and you can do anything about or just reset.

(Keep in mind that we are AC'ing the Bairs)

Dair>Jab(x2)
Nair>Jab(x2)
Shine>Nair
Shine>Nair>(Jabx2)
Bair>Jab
Bair>Utilt
Bair>Ftilt

So basically your best options are to roll, dash away (that doesn't seem to smart).

Everything in that list has to be buffered and we have to keep in mind the 10 frame reaction rule that the brain has. Most of these wouldn't work if you had better OoS options but Shine>Nair>Jab works on most of the cast anyways.

solecalibur said:

I'd get rid of Fox's reflector game vs ZSS suit piece game as a + for fox, 1 most zss mains throw them out anyways or just have one 2. So many ways to punish reflector 3. we dont throw our items like bananas they have different properties and the zss mains that do use items will know how to get around the reflector no what if moments 4. If your vsing a zss that just glide tosses forward there doing it wrong

Click to expand...

This, pretty much. Don't mindlessly reflector at the beginning of each match. Any good ZSS will expect that, and destroy you for it. We're talking a lead of 20% to a stock.

Do we have any video references where both players are playing the MU correctly?
(I could go online to attempt to do one but it is online lol)