Discussion #1: Metaknight's Neutral B - The Mach Tornado
As you might not know, Metaknight’s tornado gets more priority if he presses B while he’s using Mach Tornado. This means that while he’s rising in the air, most attacks that would normally cancel his tornado won’t work. This also means that a grounded tornado has more priority if the Metaknight taps B. Knowing this, I’m going to make 2 sections:
-Grounded tornado without pressing B ( will last shorter )
- Airborne tornado with pressing B
An airborne tornado is obviously the hardest to deal with, since the only way you can hit him out of that is to jump. That’d mean that you can’t shield the nado anymore, since you’re in the air. A Metaknight will get more ending lag if his nado ends in the air though, so don’t expect him to go in the air every time.
- A grounded Tornado without pressing B
Shield it. It sounds very basic, but whenever the MK is using tornado very close to you so have too less time to counter it with an attack, it’s the best option. When you are shielding the attack you may be tempted to try and roll or spot dodge. Don't. There are frames of vulnerability present when letting down your shield and its likely that the nado will hit you during those frames. It's for this same reason that angel ring can't be rolled out of easily. Also if MKs try and shieldpoke you from the top then you can move your shield upwards (or wherever) and cover yourself better. A Grounded tornado has 28 frames of ending lag, that means that you got less then 0.5 seconds to get an attack in. So after shielding, either rush in if he’s not to far away or just stay away from him or you’ll eat a dsmash.
Pit's
pivot grab has great range and is useful for grabbing MK out of tornado. As you probably know you run away from the tornado, and when he’s chasing you, tap back and grab. The timing is hard, and you might take 1% damage if you try doing so, but if you can pull this off then you should go for it. It's totally worth it.
Ftilt will either cancel the tornado or hit Metaknight out of it, it all depends on where you hit him, if you hit him with the tip of your blades then you’ll hit him out of it and if you hit him anywhere else then both attacks will cancel. Ftilt is only a bit slow so a Metaknight might predict it and stay away from it’s range.
Fsmash will cancel the tornado. It’s faster then ftilt but it has less horizontal range, making it harder to hit with it. It’s not a recommended move.
Dsmash will also cancel a nado. But just like the fsmash, it’s so hard to hit with that you shouldn’t use this move to cancel a tornado.
Nair is a great move to
hit a MK out of his tornado, but you need to hit him at a certain spot or the hitboxes will just collide. You need to hit him in the middle, or else you’ll take the damage because a tornado lasts longer. The timing isn’t that hard but I’d recommend to practise it before you use this in battle.
Dair will
hit Metaknight out of his tornado but it’s impossible to pull off. I’ve only done it once, it’s way too hard and it actually shouldn't be mentioned.
Dtilt cancels a tornado. Since it has more horizontal range then a dsmash it’s better but you still got beter alternatives.
Wingdash actually cancels a tornado, but you should practise the timing. It works really well and I’d recommend to use this. It’s the easiest to pull off once you get the timing right, and since you’ll get no or almost no ending lag, you won’t get punished if the Metaknight decides to retreat.
Mirror shield will reverse the attack while your shield is shining. This is one of the better ways to just 'avoid' a tornado but the shield has some start up lag. Don't pull out your shield too soon because you'll get hit once the 'shining animation' is done.
A charged arrow will
hit Metaknight out of his tornado. This is by far the best thing you can do but you probably wont have enough time to charge it. But if you can, charge an arrow and hit him.
It should also be noted that an uncharged arrow can hit Metaknight from above, so if you’re looping an arrow you should go for the hit.
Jumping can be effective against a tornado as well. If you jump while he’s approaching you, he obviously wont be able to hit you. But he’ll be under you if the tornado ends, and you don’t want to be under a Metaknight.
Going offstage is a good alternative since he probably wont chase you there. But make sure that you’re close to the ledge or else you’ll get gimped.
Dash Attack hits Meta knight out of his Tornado, and the timing isn't that hard.
Angel Ring can only collapse with a Tornado if you're doing the move already when Meta Knight is using Tornado. The Meta Knight has to be very stupid to fall for this, so don't use it
Special thanks to Aish for testing this out with me.
- An airborne Tornado
SHNair still works, and Ftilt does too. But your options are limited whenever Meta Knight goes airborne. The best thing to do is to shield it now, or going offstage works as well. Meta Knight will go in freefall mode after he's airborne, so punish him.
If you get caught:
If you somehow get caught in the tornado, the best thing to do is to DI upward. The last hit of the tornado has the most knockback, so try to DI out of the tornado before the tornado ends. If the Tornado ends and you're still pretty close to the Metaknight ( who's in freefall mode), you should use your Wings of Icarus, 'divebomb' and punish him with a dair or fair.
Keep in mind that Metaknight's ending lag is weird.
Quote from the Metaknight boards:
Cooldown: this is interesting. Cooldown will ALWAYS be 29 frames. Landing lag adjusts to this. So if your nado ends in midair and you free fall for 10 frames your landing lag will be 19 frames. The botched up landing is 30 frames.
This makes the Tornado even more broken, but you should try and punish him. The Ending lag isn't much, so don't underestimate it. If you run up to him and you're too late then you'll eat a dsmash, the safest thing to do to punish him is probably to shoot an arrow.
You might think, why should I use put myself at risk if I can just shield the attack? First off all, a tornado ***** your shield, and you need your shield to block all those other nasty attacks. Secondly, while Metaknight is using his tornado he'll be tapping B + left or right. Meaning if you cancel it, he'll drill rush automaticly. I've actually made a Metaknight kill himself because he wasn't expecting me to cancel his tornado so he drill rushed offstage. And yes I'm aware that a drill rush can be pointed upwards to avoid this but this will still put him in freefall mode.
Discussion #2: Game and Watch's Bair - The Turtle
This move has AMAZING priority, it goes through almost anything that Pit has. Your arrows are useless against this move. One of the best options is
Shielding this move, but watch out that your shield doesn't becomes too small, or else he can shield poke you.
If Game and Watch doesn't spaces this move right, you can try and
Shieldgrab him. Any good player would space this move right though, trying to shieldgrab a perfectly spaced bair will get you punished.
Your
Mirror shield can reverse this move, leaving Game and Watch open for any attacks. When you Mirror shield this move, rush in punish him.
Quote from the G&W boards:
GW pulls out a turtle with formidable range behind him. This move multi hits with the last hit knocking away. Also upon landing another hitbox is released.
That's why it's kind of hard to punish this move, you should
short hop fair instead of running into him and then trying to punish. I'd really recommend fair to punish since it has a large horizontal hitbox.
Other then that there isn't much that Pit can do against this broken move. That's why this is a bad matchup for Pit, but it's still possible to win this.
If you get caught in the bair SDI upwards to escape the last few hits and then you should dair to punish him.
Discussion #3: Marth's Side B - The Dancing Blade
This move can be aimed in 3 directions, the first hitbox is on frame 4, and it makes Marth move forward a bit.
Marth will mostly use this move to punish you after a perfect shield. If he perfect shields and uses this move, you probably won’t be able to shield it so you’ll have to DI smart.
How to DI:
If you get hit when you’re close to him, DI to Marth and up. If you’re not close to him, DI away from Marth and up. DI’ing will prevent you from getting hit by the down variant, which does the most damage. Marth can use his up variant to hit you when you’re DIing up though, so be aware of that.
If you manage to shield this move, you can either wait after the 3rd hit and then shieldgrab him or you can wait until all the 4 hits and then punish him (Dtilt, fsmash, basicly anything). Be aware that you can get shieldpoked if you wait for all the 4 hits.
Be careful if the Marth doesnt perform all the sequences or somewhat "Slows Down" the Dancing blade sequences for a chance to break your Shield.
Discussion #4: Olimar's Ground Game
You can’t just stand there and shoot arrows against Olimar, since his Pikmin will stop our arrows. You will be the one doing the approaching in this match up, but that’s harder then you think since Pit has less range than Olimar.
Simple, zone him with minimum lag Fairs and jabs, try to get him above you. SHAD utilt should work, or if theyre mind is set on something take advantage. That was extremely general and ill elaborate.
As you probably know many players have played brawl for hours. They are use to the mechanics and probably moveset and speed of characters. Olimars in the case will see you jump, most likely shield and react to you lag with grabs at low percents, like majority of players. If you jump, theyre thinking okay im going to shield grab, or okay im going to pivot grab. In the event of a shield, if you fast fall utilt, you completely destroy set encoded time patterns the olimar has remembered catching them offguard with an attack 6 frames later when usually you would be in the air. 6 frames because utilt takes 2 and normal landing lag in melee was 4 frames so correct me if im wrong.
This has worked hundreds of times for me adding 16% damage than an applicable followup, preferably uair. The chance of succeeding with this is higher than not succeeding, so its useful to a degree since (1)people havent seen this before. (2)If used at right moments people wont adapt so quickly because it is so out of the ordinary.
This is the same reason, full hop attack, jump WoI, attack works. Basically screws up timing.
O forgot.... If you see them try to pivot grab DI back, if u zone correctly you shouldnt get grabbed.
Rogue is amazing, I just had to quote this since it sums up a lot already. Thanks Rogue!
As he said, you have to change the regular timing to bait or confuse Olimar.
You can also try to approach with a
SHNair, but make sure you land behind Olimar since he can't shieldgrab you that way. Nair can also be a good move to kill the Pikmin that are latched onto you. But beware, Olimar can punish your ending lag if he sees you doing this. You can also jab Pikmin away if you think that SHNair is too risky.
If you get grabbed at a low percent, mash like crazy while the pikmin is pulling you in. You'll buffer a bunch of inputs and probably break free before he can grab combo you.
You can also try to kill his Pikmin with jabs, but that can be risky as well. Whenever Olimar's low on Pikmin you should shoot arrows since he can't pluck more Pikmin that way, or he'll get some damage before he plucks them.
Olimar's tilts aren't a very big threat, just DI out of his utilt, shieldgrab his ftilt and jump out of his dtilt.
Discussion #5: Samus' zairThe Grapple Beam
This move has amazing range and it autocancels on the ground.
