Official G&W Stage Discussion #16: RAINBOW CRUISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YAY! Rainbow Cruise!


This stage is wayyyy tooo good.

If this stage were a woman, I'd stalk it obsessively.

The best stage for G&W, without a doubt. If the opponent doesn't ban this, they clearly have no idea what they're doing.

Rainbow Cruise is K_2's favorite stage it seems.

Anyway, I counterpicked this stage against a Link once and got destroyed as he made the stage into an obstacle course of death. I've not been a fan of this stage since, but it's obviously pretty good for Mr. Game & Watch in most matchups.

The stage is best thought of in three phases. On the boat, you're crammed into a bit of close quarters which makes running away from you hard for them. I really don't like the shape of the boat, but the size is nice at least. It also doesn't actually matter, but the ledges on this boat are far and away the most obnoxious in the game. Why people complain about the ledges on Lylat Cruise and Final Destination instead of these ones I will never understand...

The second part is the awesome part where there is less stable ground and more jumping around. If you know where all the offscreen objects are, you can pull some really silly (almost suicidal) maneuvers here and get some free damage. Most people I play just run away from me during this part of the stage which makes it kinda hard, but this is the time to strike.

The third part is the part where it's scrolling to the right. I really don't like this part of the stage until we reach the end of it since everyone else's back throw is more dangerous than mine, but it has some cool stuff with the scrolling forcing them to approach you if you can get to the right of them. Abusing your lengthy throws on the donut blocks is something that will happen very seldom, but when it does happen, it's amazing. If you're smart with the part where it falls quickly down onto the boat, you can usually get a free hit in with one of your aerials. I really like it when my opponents try to wait for the fall to the last moment trying to force me to die to it; I think Mr. Game & Watch is very good at winning that game and having them die instead.

So yeah, on a personal level I'm not a fan of this course, but I can see how it's powerful. More conservative stage lists like to remove the other awesome stages for Mr. Game & Watch so this one may be your best stage by elimination. I'm sure people who are bigger fans of this stage than I am have more to add.

You can Dtilt lock someone on the boat.

The low blastzones and the great mobility required obviously make it one of GW's best stages.

I reeeealy do love Corneria though.

I don't do well here for some reason...shrug

Yes, I personnally love this stage, and its my number 1 counterpick if not banned. The only character that can hang with G&W on this stage is MK.

On the boat, G&W can dtilt lock. I usually stay in the middle and push my opponents towards the edge. That's a fairly effective strategy on most stages, but on this stage, its amazing. The small size allows G&W to put huge pressure on his opponents and to get kills extremely early.

I love the second part. G&W's amazing vertical recovery and the fact that he doesn't enter fall special afterwards gives him the edge over most characters. While your opponent is busy jumping and fighting against the stage, you can nair and bair him for free damage. The flying carpets are also good for dthrow techchasing. This transformation always gimps my opponents. Nothings funnier than seeing your opponent try to recover onto a platform, only to have the platform disappear! I've roughly memorized when everything appears and disappears, so I often use that to my advantage. Throwing your opponent as the pendulum disappears will often gimp your opponent, since G&W will almost always make it back.

The third part has a place for dtilt locking, but it doesn't last very long. Usmash kills at like 40-50% here...lol. Dthrowing on the dropblocks are also fun. As this part ends and it begins to transition back to the ship, use your uair to try to stall them enough to get the kill. If you can't, nair on your way down for some free damage.

I love this stage. This and norfair are my favorite counterpicks.

You can take just about anyone here and do very well. Uair can kill people off the top sometimes (like on Corneria) depending on where you are in the level. You can also Uair your opponent when the stage forces you down, back onto the boat.

You should be a little careful on the third transformation, you can die at REALLY low percentages here from an Usmash/Uthrow/Utilt. Also, on the left, it's a....walkoff....kind of? This isn't a huge issue for GW though, but it's still something to watch out for. Chef is a little more useful than normal here, esp. on the second transformation a little before you hit the third transformation. I woudln't get too close to the left edge of the level on transformation 2 and 3, this level is too good to accidentally get killed off the side at low percents.

I would take any opponent besides MK and maybe ROB (though he has enough problems against GW as it is) here. It is great against Snake, Falco, IC's, Diddy, Olimar, ZSS, and anyone else with a lackluster recovery or not particularly good aerials. The good thing about this level also is that it's always legal - I've never been to a tournament where it was banned. 9.5/10, only because you can (but shouldn't) accidentally suicide.

Yes!!! G&W's stage!
We should rename this stage to Game and Cruise or something like that.

So happy its not banned.
If this stage is banned...what other stages would be similarly banned

So if the only stages that was allowed was:
FD
Smashville
Yoshi's Island (Brawl)
BF

which one should G&W should go on...(this was my scenario T_T)

Good stage usually unless vs Wario or MK. They like it a bit more.

When you are forced to drop to the boat, and you grab your opponent, Uthrow into Uair is pretty much guaranteed to kill.

Ironboots33 said:

I would take any opponent besides MK and maybe ROB (though he has enough problems against GW as it is) here. It is great against Snake, Falco, IC's, Diddy, Olimar, ZSS, and anyone else with a lackluster recovery or not particularly good aerials. The good thing about this level also is that it's always legal - I've never been to a tournament where it was banned. 9.5/10, only because you can (but shouldn't) accidentally suicide.

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don't take zss here. she actually does pretty well here.

How? she's a tether and she will be constantly trying to not get gimped by the ledgeless stage that she won't be able to fight you.

K 2 said:

2. Rainbow Cruise - This is the one that I'm going to get the most "WTF" responses about. Of course people are going to say things like "she's a tether character, she'll get gimped there" However even when there is no ledge, ZSS' extremely high jumps (especially while boosting them with Up-B) and down B will still recover her almost as well if you're careful enough. This stage makes great use of both ZSS' aerial game and camping ablility. A lot of characters will have trouble moving when the stage requires them too when they have Forward B's in their faces . Don't use this stage against characters that have a lot of jumps (except DDD)/can fly/can float.

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this is taken from snakeee's thread here: http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=155975

Fino tells me Olimar secretly does well here, and our games were pretty convincing. Olimar likes the blast zones more than you, and this stage has so much ground that he's pretty hard to gimp here. Of course, this is a personally good stage for Fino while it's one of my lesser stages...

i think that's just fino...

LouBega said:

don't take zss here. she actually does pretty well here.

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I'm going to argue this with you Jordan. Sorry

ZSS, while she wouldn't have an easy time recovering here with no ledges, is going to have a harder time in the air against GW because she isn't very good in the air, especially on a stage that forces her into the air.

****Originally Posted by Overswarm
Synopsis:

ZSS is a character with a horrible and predictable aerial approach, a horrible grab, and very poor OOS options. Despite this, ZSS does very well when she has her opponent in a poor position

It's also important to note that ZSS recovery, while tether-based, isn't that bad. She can be gimped incredibly easy if her player doesn't know what they are doing, but in the hands of a ZSS veteran she has enough options to continually be one step ahead of the opposition. ***

There you have it, from the SBR themselves. ZSS does not have the awesome aerial game that GW does. I assume this stage would limit her up B combos as well, and her reach would be less of an issue because you're not going to be on the ground with her very often. The only thing you'd really have to watch out for is her over B, and you should always be watching out for that anyway. She is not going to have GW in a poor position very often on this level.

(Sorry about the crappy posting of OS's post, I wish I could do cool html things)

Ironboots33 said:

I'm going to argue this with you Jordan. Sorry

ZSS, while she wouldn't have an easy time recovering here with no ledges, is going to have a harder time in the air against GW because she isn't very good in the air, especially on a stage that forces her into the air.

****Originally Posted by Overswarm
Synopsis:

ZSS is a character with a horrible and predictable aerial approach, a horrible grab, and very poor OOS options. Despite this, ZSS does very well when she has her opponent in a poor position

It's also important to note that ZSS recovery, while tether-based, isn't that bad. She can be gimped incredibly easy if her player doesn't know what they are doing, but in the hands of a ZSS veteran she has enough options to continually be one step ahead of the opposition. ***

There you have it, from the SBR themselves. ZSS does not have the awesome aerial game that GW does. I assume this stage would limit her up B combos as well, and her reach would be less of an issue because you're not going to be on the ground with her very often. The only thing you'd really have to watch out for is her over B, and you should always be watching out for that anyway. She is not going to have GW in a poor position very often on this level.

(Sorry about the crappy posting of OS's post, I wish I could do cool html things)

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ZSS ***** on RC. you don't want to take a good one there

slikvik said:

ZSS ***** on RC. you don't want to take a good one there

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...well i won't argue against 2 people who probably know more than i do. i will definitely test this out though (should i ever encounter a good ZSS), i'm very curious about it now.

I'll take your word that ZSS does well here. Anything you guys want to add before I type up the summary?

K2...how about lol at omegablackmage beating azen with a gust of wind on the stage

Yeah, I love uair on this stage. It's especially good against characters with multiple jumps (Kirby, MK, Pit, etc).

Slik, do you have a video of that? I don't believe I've seen that yet.

Sorry it was at Cot4 on the live feed. I did commentary for it...Azen most likely going to win...then he dies at like zero or something from uair

edit: azen used kirby...