Choosing Your Starter: IKE take TWO

New Discussion: Game & Watch

sorry for the couple day delay guys. Thanks for your patience. Anyway, this is the marker for the G&W discussion. Whom do you think is the best starter.

Tonight I can not participate in this discussion but I will do so in a day or two.

Let the discussion begin!

Ivysuar definately and you should try to get ivy out as maxinum possible

With Game & Watch I chose Ivysaur exclusively.

Ivysaur makes the most sense against Game & Watch for a number of reasons. First, he's one of the few characters whose back air wall can successfully fend off Game & Watch's own back air wall. This alone makes him work using. Although Game & Watch is very light and therefore not as susceptible to BS things, it can still be used to scare him off of his pressure game. In addition, Razor Leaf is good for spacing in this match-up, and (contrarily to what amateur G&W's seem to keep thinking) cannot be absorbed with Oil Panic.

This isn't to say that Game & Watch is a total breeze for Ivy, however. G&W's back air and neutral air are still major factors in this matchup, as are his other amazing abilities that are spammable even on higher levels of competition.

I would highly recommend AGAINST starting Charizard in this match-up. Game & Watch's aerials can eat him for breakfast in the early going, and Charizard's Flamethrower is taken out of the equation in most cases because of the threat of Oil Panic (which can be DEVASTATING to Charizard). It's better to bring Charizard in later and stock tank with him.

Squirtle is hardest-hit by Game & Watch. His aerials and pokes (his best feature, in other words) are completely eradicated by G&W's. He doesn't even have that much more maneuverability than Game & Watch. Squirtle has been making a strong case for most-improved Pokemon of the three, but he still gets trumped by Game & Watch at this point in the match (and most others). He's NOT recommended.

I play this guy every tournament and he is a G&W player. He recently got 9th on our power rankings, it's odd because of the 3, Squirtle did best against his G&W, Charizard got *****, Ivy, I think I had the usual problem with spacing. However, when it comes right down to it, seeing as Ivy is not a half bad killer and can keep the pressure on with razor leaf and other good moves like that. However I hate how he spams turtle on me. However in recent months I have realized a great potential of using water gun, it comes in handy for putting pressure on G&W, however despite the fact that Squirtle is my best and helps me not get 2 stocked my his G&W and only 1 stocks, I would not suggest starting squirtle. Ironically, squirtle will get ***** by his cousin which G&W uses for an aerial and also because of squirtle's light weight and G&W hit boxes and knock back, like with f-smash, squirtle will get owned. As much as I'd love to have squirtle as an option to start, I have to face the basic facts that unless you are highly skilled with him, squirtle is not a suitable choice against G&W.

*as a note, wireless is back on my laptop so as you can see I can make a post tonight.

honestly just start as your best pokemon because all three have their problems. they all do equally well (or poorly idk) in this matchup. imo. and with gw's immense KO potential, it's more difficult to get your switching strategies in sync.

squirtle is not *** in this matchup btw.

Steeler said:

honestly just start as your best pokemon because all three have their problems. they all do equally well (or poorly idk) in this matchup. imo. and with gw's immense KO potential, it's more difficult to get your switching strategies in sync.

squirtle is not *** in this matchup btw.

Click to expand...

I agree with Steeler here. Charizard gets juggled since he's so big, Squirtle's aerials actually get outprioritized, and Ivysaur gets completely wrecked by Game and Watch's super-effective fire-based fsmash. Charizard and Squirtle, on the other hand, aren't affected as much by that fsmash; however, G&W has so many other kills moves that even a decent G&W will be tough. It basically comes down to whether or not you can outmindgame the enemy. Squirtle's Shell Shifting works wonders if you predict properly, as does Charizard's grab release (Rock Smash can be a quick kill on the light G&W, too.), and Ivysaur can counter G&W's aerials with bair and sometimes nair, as Orion already stated.

Zigsta said:

Ivysaur gets completely wrecked by Game and Watch's super-effective fire-based fsmash.

Click to expand...

Not in the early going. He'd be stupid to spam forward smash at the beginning of the match, since it'll have increased knockback and let Ivysaur do what he needs to: space Game & Watch.

Sir 0rion said:

Not in the early going. He'd be stupid to spam forward smash at the beginning of the match, since it'll have increased knockback and let Ivysaur do what he needs to: space Game & Watch.

Click to expand...

True. G&W won't have to get Ivysaur that high, though, to get that fsmash kill. It's been a little while since I've played my friend's G&W, but I think it's something like 50-70 percent depending on the stage.

Squirtle actually does well, I have outmanuvered them, Hitting a well placed Fair from above that beats GW's Bair.

Steeler said:

honestly just start as your best pokemon because all three have their problems. they all do equally well (or poorly idk) in this matchup. imo. and with gw's immense KO potential, it's more difficult to get your switching strategies in sync.

squirtle is not *** in this matchup btw.

Click to expand...

I was wondering if someone was going to say that. Despite what I said, I was leaning more towards what I had said but in my mind I was thinking that a little bit but still didn't convince me enough.

Squirtle- gets ***** by amazing hit boxes up close and has to deal with early deaths from most of amazing knock back moves

Ivy- can probably do decently up close however F-smash could kill at early %, after all it is a fire based move and didn't we have a thread that analyzed the resistances and supper effective types of moves for each pokemon? so here ivy would get creamed by f-smash at the right % otherwise, i don't think there is much of a problem here with starting Ivy.

Charz- G&W would just own that slow boy, however it doesnt take much for charizard to rack % on him, all it takes is a few attacks. though flame thrower can fill up G&W trash can and since they improved it to where, as long as it gets filled to max, you will get max results, it no longer is like in meele where it absorbs the knock back of the 3 moves plus the damage. so flamethrower is a dangerous thing to use.

For a starter, I would say that Ivysaur is your best bet.

Squirtle: Range and priority are much lower than G&W's. Any approach you make can easily be knocked back by any of his moves. Your small hitboxes and lack of sustained damage outside of aerial strings (which won't be very effective for obvious reasons) combined with his small size make it difficult to land hits on him. You'll have a hard time racking up damage while he'll be skipping around beating your face in with various aquatic creatures.

Ivysaur: Ivy has less disadvantages against G&W than your other two choices. B-air has great range and is a good method of keeping G&W out of your face. Razor Leaf cannot be absorbed by his bucket for some reason, so you have the option of spamming that until he is forced to approach. And being able to switch to Charizard for either finishers or stock tanking is more effective than going from Squirtle to Ivy or Charizard to Squirtle, in my opinion.

Charizard: I think Zard is your second best choice. His ground attacks have very good range, so if you avoid getting into the air, you can keep a fair amount of control. You may also be able to achieve a F-air gimp early in the game and gain a stock advantage. If you can keep him near the ground and avoid turtle and fishies, I think one could possibly pick Charizard as a starter.
(EDIT) Oh also, don't use flamethrower foolishly, if at all. Don't let him get a full bucket. D-throw to bucket = dizzy eyes followed by a good rest.

Ivysaur is certainly the superior starter here. Squirtle can't deal with G&W's aerials, and he can't string anything. Charizard will be turtled to death, because he is an easy target for it. Ivysaur has an early death from F-smash, but it really doesn't matter since G&W kills so early anyway. Luckily, Ivy has an advantage here, which is range; spam your razor leaf, and spam your b-air. He won't be able to get past Ivy's defense, and you can just rack up damage until you want to either switch to Charizard or just get the kill.

Game and watch can easily cancel out razor leaf using dtilt.

With the turtle his spacing game is better than ivysaur, and any character with an above average approach game can get past ivysaur's bair wall.

I don't think it matters who you start with very much here. None of the pokemon do that great.

tcranter said:

Game and watch can easily cancel out razor leaf using dtilt.

Click to expand...

yop. grounded razor leaf isn't very good. aerial is ok, it can travel above dtilt and hit gw i think, but every single aerial of his can cancel it out. still a useful tool though.

[/quote]With the turtle his spacing game is better than ivysaur, and any character with an above average approach game can get past ivysaur's bair wall.[/quote]

yop. don't forget people, gw's aerial speed far exceeds that of ivysaur's, because ivysaur's is plain awful. gw's aerial spacing is therefore superior. plus you are only doing something like 3% a pop per bair.

I don't think it matters who you start with very much here. None of the pokemon do that great.

Click to expand...

yop. just use your best in order to give yourself the best chance of a stock lead (gw's weight helps), so you can switch after the kill to get your best out there again as soon as possible.

just listen to toby.

tcranter said:

Game and watch can easily cancel out razor leaf using dtilt.

Click to expand...

Difference: Ivysaur can move and Razor Leaf at the same time. If G&W's down-tilting, he's not moving, and even better, he's not in the air.

tcranter said:

With the turtle his spacing game is better than ivysaur, and any character with an above average approach game can get past ivysaur's bair wall.

Click to expand...

Ivysaur's back air beats the turtle in terms of the range of disjointed hitbox. It's one of the few that actually does. Even if you're in the hardcore "No Ivysaur under any circumstances" camp (as you clearly are), it's still readily apparent.

I'm not saying Ivysaur has all of the answers against Game & Watch and neither of the other two have any. I'm saying that Ivysaur makes the most sense at the beginning of the match. Which he does. This isn't a MATCHUP discussion, it's a STARTER discussion. There's a subtle but very important distinction.

I want to agree with starting with anyone because no matter what, G&W will own PT, even if you do switch during the stock, however I want to agree that Ivy, of the three can do the most of the three, because well, he has the longest range of the three. plus is has good tilts and decent aerials to help him to rack up damage on G&W and if you decide to kill G&W you can use Ivy there too. Also his physical composition is probably the best against G&W, he isn't too heavy to comboed to death nor is he too light to be seriously killed early.

this is really hard for me to decide. both arguments are simple and very convincing because of their simplicity and logic.

Remember again, Bomber, this ISN'T a match-up thread. Picking a starter adds in the factor of who you're switching to, as well.

Game & Watch's forward smash seems to be the biggest concern. But think of this: if you start Ivy, you can stock tank when you switch to Charizard.

However, if you start Squirtle, you'll either have to switch to Ivysaur later on, making him a target for the forward smash, or stay as Squirtle until you're KOed.

And if you start as Charizard, you get the worst of BOTH worlds. Easily juggled at the beginning, easily KOed when he's switched out. Squirtle is strong against fire, but G&W's forward smash still KOs him fairly quickly.

At least with starting Ivysaur, you minimize your risks from that standpoint as well.

hmm you make a good point. Ivy does look like the best here.

Orion, I'd appreciate it if you didn't say that I'm in the "no ivy in any circumstances" group when I've never said anything of the sort. In fact I've explicitly stated in the past that ivysaur is my favourite of the three pokemon.

The fact of the matter is in the real world people can get past ivysaurs bair. Its actually quite easy to get past, especially when they have better general manouvreability than ivysaur. Game and watch has this. And if we manage to outspace him a couple times with it, so what? We'll need to hit a ludicrous amount of times to make any substantial gains, and the moment we attempt to use a move that deals more damage we find that we are outranged and overpowered. If you could somehow play on a level that extends infinitely to the sides so that we can constantly run away in a single direction it MIGHT be ok, but the fact of the matter is eventually ivysaur has to reach an edge, which is perfect for G&W because his fsmash will kill even earlier.

Razor leaf doesn't matter because even though you are forcing him to do an attack to cancel it out (oh noes!) ivysaur still suffers the lag from the move anyway. Theres no reason to be using razor leaf anyway if you are spacing with bair. The two characters will always be right near each other for gods sake!

I just wish people would see that bair walling is an outdated strategy that died the moment we realised that almost everyone could get through it simply by running and pressing the shield button.

If you intend on starting with ivysaur and keeping them away with bair, how to do you intend on lauching GW far enough to KO him or switch pokemon? Since you seemed to suggest that starting with ivysaur would save her from mid % kills, you're going to need a plan for this. To be honest I cant think of one that doesn't involve sacrificing the miniscule spacing advantage of bair.

And again, please don't label me as a non ivy player simply because I don't believe that ivy is some sort of god tier spacing machine. It's frustrating.

Tcr makes a very good point. On paper it sounds good, but in practice it is not as effective as we'd like. I will admit to being wrong on this one.

I mean, take a look at this video here of Typh vs. Lee: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyVQfheTCYk

He starts with Ivy, and gets to 70% before he gains any momentum whatsoever. He does manage to get a kill (lol, he was like "I'mma u-ai-PSYCHE NOW IMMA DO EET), but he definitely did not have a great start. Then he swaps to Charizard for Lee's 2nd stock, and gets a great amount of momentum just from a quick grab release->jab cancel->d-tilt. Lee has a lot of trouble recovering from this and Typh gets the kill, still at 3 stocks. When he is forced to swap to Squirtle, he goes like, neck to neck with Lee but ends up getting killed.

Just from assessing this match (I couldn't really find other good ones, but I think this one serves as a great example), I would like change my previous statement and would say that your best starters prioritize as Charizard>Squirtle>Ivysaur.

As I said before, Charizard is better than G&W on the ground. Typh stayed close to the stage and got lots of damage and a kill in, only taking 20% damage as Zard before death. Had he started as Zard he could possibly have gotten a whole 'nother stock on Lee.

Squirtle is best in the air, which is also the case for G&W, so it really all comes down to who is better at spacing and predicting moves.

Ivysaur can do well against G&W, but it is less likely and will probably be preceded by a severe beating. Which is why Ivy is not a good starter, and is best saved for a surprise kill after Squirtle racks up damage or when you are near death as Squirtle and want to get Zard out sooner.

Hopefully that is a better assessment than my first one.

bair walling is a bit out dated, I've done it many times and it's pretty much useless to me. that's why I'd rather a good nair spam.

Megapants: On that macth, charizard came out at 95%, which solves juggling problems, thats one of the reasons why typh's charizard did so well.... and the most important, ivy was able to regain the momentum AND even kill g&w ...
So i think that what typh did was the best, start with ivy and then switch to zard...

tcranter said:

Orion, I'd appreciate it if you didn't say that I'm in the "no ivy in any circumstances" group when I've never said anything of the sort.

Click to expand...

You certainly gave that impression. I withdraw the statement, at any rate.

tcranter said:

The fact of the matter is in the real world

Click to expand...

Dude, I almost wanted to just ignore you right here. Don't start trying to belittle my experience on this game just because it's different from yours. That really irritates me, and for very good reason.

tcranter said:

people can get past ivysaurs bair. Its actually quite easy to get past, especially when they have better general manouvreability than ivysaur.

Click to expand...

I never even came CLOSE to saying that Ivysaur's back air is unbeatable, or even hard to beat. I said that Ivysaur's back air beats Game & Watch's in terms of the range of his hitbox. Everything else beyond that, you just threw out assumptions so you could rush to strawman me.

tcranter said:

If you intend on starting with ivysaur and keeping them away with bair, how to do you intend on lauching GW far enough to KO him or switch pokemon? Since you seemed to suggest that starting with ivysaur would save her from mid % kills, you're going to need a plan for this. To be honest I cant think of one that doesn't involve sacrificing the miniscule spacing advantage of bair.

Click to expand...

This question is simply too context and stage-dependent for me to give an honest answer just like that.

tcranter said:

And again, please don't label me as a non ivy player simply because I don't believe that ivy is some sort of god tier spacing machine. It's frustrating.

Click to expand...

Good, because I've NEVER told you that, so I'll continue to NOT tell you that. In the meantime, you might try backing off of the whole assumptions angle, yourself.

Alright, my two cents...

Squirtle can be struck off almost immediately, due to his weight and Ivysaur's weakness to fire. G&W can keep Squirtle at a distance while racking up damage, and when the damage gets high, what will Squirtle do? He gets killed early by G&W's powerful attacks, and Ivysaur at high % is just begging for G&W's f-smash. Basically, starting as Squirtle means you'll lose your first stock early, which you obviously don't want.

Charizard is a better option, but being better than awful doesn't make you good. Charizard's percentage will go up faster than a Ninjask, until high %. At high %, he does OK against G&W, and Squirtle is available as a sacrifice for when the damage or fatigue gets particularily significant - as established earlier, you don't want to start as Squirtle, especially not when you already have a stock lost. However, bringing out Charizard just so you can get him to high damage is a questionable strategy.

Then there's Ivysaur. Ivysaur is effectively the best option by elimination of the other two. He can fight G&W off to extent at low damage, and when the damage gets into the danger zone, Charizard is available. As said earlier, Charizard does OK at high %, and Ivysaur will have had some hits on G&W, leaving an easier time for his successor.

Ironically, the best starter isn't necessarily the best match-up.

So, in summary:
Start as Ivysaur.
Switch to Charizard at 50~70%.
Switch to Sacrifice Squirtle at very high damage or significant fatigue.
As Squirtle, play highly defensive - evasive, almost, so that Charizard can recover from fatigue.
Once Squirtle dies, you'll have a fresh Ivysaur.
Repeat until either of you runs out of stocks.

ill think of a summary soon. I'll try to get to it tonight or tomorrow. Without doubt Ivysaur is our pick.

Orion I said that because the last couple discussions I've had with you have all revolved around you claiming Ivysaur can do things that we as a competetive community simply do not see. I certainly believe that the real world applications are important. We can't go talking about the range advantage of bair when in an actual match its next to useless.

In the past you've insisted that ivysaur can go even with marths spacing, even though marth outranges ivysaur, is faster, and does more damage at max range. I went overboard with 'god tier spacing machine' but it was indicative of how frustrating it is to see you taking elements of ivysaurs moveset and making unrealistic assumptions that tournament players simply don't agree with.

You say that you never claimed that ivysaurs bair was hard to get past, but if you understood that its not a useful move against game and watch (and most of the caste) why did you feel the need to point out that we have the spacing advantage there? What was the point of saying that even a 100% anti ivysaur player like myself must acknowledge that we can outrange GW, if you understood that this advantage is virtually useless for ivysaur anyway?

I also believe that since you believe so strongly that ivysaur can avoid getting owned by switching to zard at decent percentages, you should probably have a decent way of doing this. Saying that this question is too "Context and stage dependent" is just an easy way to get past discussing it. Lets assume that we're playing on smashville and go from there.

I apologize for being so harsh. Honestly. But you're going to actually have to justify your argument before I see it as valid. At the moment it just doesn't seem like you're being realistic.

Let me just emphasise that I'm not saying ivysaur is the worst starter here. I just think all the arguments for starting with ivysaur are extremely weak.

And finally why the hell am I getting worked up over a GW discussion? Ugh.

EDIT:

Bomber7 said:

Without doubt Ivysaur is our pick.

Click to expand...

tcranter said:

Orion I said that because the last couple discussions I've had with you have all revolved around you claiming Ivysaur can do things that we as a competetive community simply do not see.

Click to expand...

No.

And stop trying to distinguish "me" from "the competitive community which includes TCranter, but not 0rion." That's not how this works. I've done tournament matches, too. I'm certainly not the best IRL player in the world, but I'm nowhere near the worst. And in case you haven't realized, a great deal of the people here aren't agreeing with you.

tcranter said:

You say that you never claimed that ivysaurs bair was hard to get past, but if you understood that its not a useful move against game and watch

Click to expand...

I said if Ivysaur back airs and Game & Watch back airs meet, Ivy's back air can get past Game & Watch's. I'm talking about two specific moves together. Game & Watch's back air is dangerous, so it's useful to have something to poke him out of it.

tcranter said:

Saying that this question is too "Context and stage dependent" is just an easy way to get past discussing it. Lets assume that we're playing on smashville and go from there.

Click to expand...

Alright; what has the Game & Watch been doing? What is the positioning? What are the percentages? You say that I'm trying to take an easy way out of discussing it. I say that you're asking me a trick question.

tcranter said:

I apologize for being so harsh. Honestly. But you're going to actually have to justify your argument before I see it as valid.

Click to expand...

I was about to say the exact same thing to you, actually.

tcranter said:

And finally why the hell am I getting worked up over a GW discussion. Ugh.

Click to expand...

I notice you say this AFTER making this entire post. I think at BEST we'll have to agree to disagree, and at WORST end up tearing each other's throats out.

*sigh*

Yes, you've played tournament matches. But go ask people who place well in tournaments and have experience whether ivysaur can go even with marth in terms of spacing. Ask them whether its realistic to bring up the advantage of bair when GW has better aerial movement capabilities. So what if it pokes GW out? More often that not he'll beat us to the punch and he wont be stuck doing 3%. I'm sorry for sounding elitist, but I'm just trying to point out that ivysaurs bair is something that the competetive community stopped worrying about a long time ago.

Lets get back to basics.

The entire point of my argument is that you started out by saying:

1.) Ivysuar's bair has more range than GW.
2.) Ivysaur can switch out once she gets to a dangerous %, allowing zard to stock tank.

Therefore we should start with ivysaur.

I said:

1.) The range advantage doesn't have any meaningful effect on the matchup or ivysaurs ability to space GW, due to his better movement speed. Ivy's bair also lacks the shield stun, damage or knockback to make landed hits useful.

2.) Given that GW can generally outspace ivysaur and has the advantage, what makes us think that ivysaur is going to be able to reliably make the switch to stock tank with charizard?

Therefore we have no reason to start with ivysaur over the other two.

The only way you've replied to this is to admit that ivy's bair isn't that hard to get past anyway (thereby defeating that first point), and saying that the question of switching is a trick question, which relies on too many factors. Given that you yourself gave us the percentage (before ivy is in danger of an early kill, so that zard can come in at higher %), we already have a good foundation. Realistically, ivysaur only has a couple moves that are going to send GW far enough away at such a low %. These are a fresh fair, uair and bthrow. Fsmash and upsmash are too unreliable to consider in my opinion, due to their slow speed and punishable end lag.

So we've got three moves, all of which require significant risks to land. If GW bucket brakes then we're going to have to launch him a long way to stop him punishing the switch, but we can't afford to spend that time raising his % because ivysaur is at a significant disadvantage. What do we do?

I don't know. So far nobody has an answer to this, even though the entire argument for starting with ivysaur revolves around the assumption that we can make the switch. I'm happy with you guys choosing to start with ivysaur despite this, because I'll be using my own methods regardless of what the thread suggests. But I just want you to realise that so far you haven't managed to justify the decision to start with ivysaur at all.

Bomber I suggest you consider that before reccommending to new players that they begin in this way. It could end up doing them a disservice.

The best starter in this Matchup is MK.

See, like I said, we're just going to go around and around with this. And if you weren't so infuriating with your maddening assumptions, patronizing attitude, and strawman arguments, I would be MORE than happy to go through this with you point for point. But it's obvious you've pretty much set yourself to believing one thing and using selective hearing to drown out the rest.

You have some valid observations. You really do. But the fact of the matter is that they're buried inside a lot of whitewash, and maybe I'm just getting too burnt out, but I just simply don't have it in me to sit here and pick these things apart while I'm being less-than-subtly insulted. It's just too irritating to do.

So, like I said, we'll have to agree to disagree here. I'm not going to sit here and try to stop you from believing what you want. I'll sit back and sort of sigh a little, but that's about it.

I haven't drowned out anything with selective hearing. I made a point to make my last post very clear as to the entirety of the argument. I tried to be polite and attempted to focus on why my references to "the competetive community" and other such things were justified. I even apologized for being harsh before.

I don't believe that my arguments are buried in whitewash or anything of the sort.

If you want to stop this conversation thats fine. But this entire time all ive done is refute your points. You never supported your case at all. If me saying this is me being "set to believeing one thing and using selective hearing to drown out the rest" then I dont know what to say.

I responded to exaclty what you said. I didn't drown out anything. I'm sure you can't even point to the 'whitewash' of my argument. To be honest I don't even know what you are trying to say there.

I'm not trying to insult you. If I was, I wouldn't have apoligized.

We aren't going in circles. You just aren't backing up your point. I am, and whenever I ask you to justify yourself you dont. Instead you saying I'm making assumptions, or being patronizing. You're still pulling out the straw man argument response even though it's not relevent.

*sigh.

The "maddening assumptions, strawman arguments and patronizing attitude" ended a long time ago.

Oh well.

I'll leave you guys to your thread.

*Growl*

Okay, the ONLY reason I doing this again is because someone told me to do so. They didn't like what you had to say and thought I should say something. But I'm serious - REALLY ****ING SERIOUS - one more crack about me not knowing the competitive scene... just one more... and we are SO done.

Ivysaur makes the most sense to begin with. He DOESN'T have the all-purpose answers to everything Game & Watch can throw at him, and as you should have been able to tell, I never implied that he did. He doesn't even have a MAJORITY of the answers. None of them do. What he DOES have are the MOST solutions for the early going out of the three pokemon, and the best standing for advancing the match as early damage builds up.

Let's take this turtle discussion, for instance. Whereas - you're right - Ivysaur can only hope to poke Game & Watch out of the turtle, Squirtle and Charizard can't even do THAT. Charizard's forward air comes close, but is simply not going to be a reasonable answer in a serious match-up. And meanwhile, he's just going to absorb more and more damage while he's doing it. Ivysaur can at least hold ground and push forward a tiny bit with his back air, which will get him in forward tilt and neutral air territory.

The Razor Leaf retreating is only used to get Game & Watch to move forward. It's very touch-and-go from there. Game and Watch moves forward and Ivysair uses his pokes as best as he can to keep himself relatively safe against him.

The idea here is - once again - NOT that Ivysaur is going to kick all kinds of *** and get away without a scratch. That's just not realistic. But at this point in the match, he's the only one with anything that even remotely RESEMBLES an action against Game & Watch. Ivysaur is in a HORRIBLE position. But Charizard and Squirtle are in it even worse.

Think about it. We've established that our hypothetical Game & Watch is smart enough to put Ivysaur out of his game and pressure him out of his spacing. So, what's the alternative? Start Charizard? What's Charizard going to do? Forward air? Shield grab? Rock Smash? ALL or Charizard's tools are unrealistic in this match, and meanwhile, he's just a gigantic punching bag. Sure, you can stock tank him, but if you do that from the start, he's going to be fatigued by the time Game & Watch is in danger. And factoring in the bucket brake, this is really not the time for even Charizard to be fighting against his exhaustion.

And Squirtle? Like I said, the worst of BOTH worlds. He's beat out by Game & Watch AND he leads into a character that's weak to one of his most powerful KO moves. I will say that Squirtle has some hope with his aerial movement and hydroplaning, but those should be saved for later on, and meanwhile, fatigue is just around the corner.

Which again brings us to Ivysaur. On a stage with platforms, whoever is lowest is going to hold up the best. Sadly, this is usually Game & Watch, with all THREE pokemon. But assuming we're fighting on level ground, Ivysaur really has to play extremely patiently and pick at him a little bit at a time. This means back air, neutral air, OCCASIONAL Razor Leafs, and his forward tilt. NONE of these things - and I can't stress this enough - are supposed to answer everything or even MOST of the things Game & Watch can throw at you. What they DO is move him slowly but surely out of his comfort zone and get him to do different things.

So, regarding switching. First of all, if Game & Watch has to use the bucket break, he's NOT going to make it back in time to punish a switch reasonably, except in one case. I know because I play a G&W that has that down to a science. It takes him too long to put the bucket away, then fast-fall back to the stage. The exception is if you pop him straight up and don't immediately move. He can bucket break into a fast-falled down air. Because Ivysaur has two KO moves that go straight up, this CAN be a nuisance I admit, but hardly a lethal one, as his down air only KOs at EXTREME percents, even at the best part of the move. And again, neither of the other two can do any better switching.

So, that leaves back air, dash attack, and forward smash as the only foolproof ways of buying switching time. And this is where I said that it depends on a lot of things. If Ivy can scare Game & Watch even BRIEFLY off of his back air, he's got a shot at grabbing him. This is where the poking comes in. TOTALLY not lethal on its own, but it'll get him to do other things. Which means that if he's GOOD, he'll probably startusing neutral air a lot more often. Still extremely dangerous, but you've got a shot at it him with it. And of course, if he's less good, he'll probably either push further with the [edit: I meant back] air, which can be answered on the extreme inside by neutral air (THOUGH THIS DOES NOT BEAT IT, AND I'M NOT IMPLYING IT DOES... BECAUSE STRICTLY SPEAKING ALMOST NOTHING BEATS HIS BACK AIR), which could also set him up for a throw or dash attack. If he's even worse, he'll spam down air, which is DEFINITELY what you want him to do. If you get Game & Watch on a platform above you, you've got more options for buying switch time, including Vine Whip. Like I said, though, platform stages are NOT PT-friendly on this one, so it's not something to consider when choosing CPs.

Now, then. Like I said, I will listen to your response, but only if you take a step back, climb down off of your high horse, and treat me as an equal with a very valid point to make. Like I said, ONE SINGLE CRACK about who's doing what competitively, and we are FINISHED.

Good post.

Rather than go through your paragraphs one by one I think I'll start by raising a couple points that I think are crucial here.

Firstly, Charizard actually has some decent options against GW spacing. His upward angled ftilt beats out a short hopped turtle, and if the GW full hops it it gives us the chance to get off a quick dashing up smash. Charizard can also flamethrower the turtle, which results in them clanking with each other until the turtle finishes. Note that if GW DIs away from the flame his exchange is unpunishable for both parties, which means that you can only really use it to hopfeully discourage the turtle.

Secondly, its far easier for GW to break through ivysaurs spacing than it is to do the opposite, because he has the manouvreability to do aerial fakeouts and retreating bairs. All GW has to do is one fakeout (such as an empty SH) to force our bair, and he can easily begin his attack shortly after to punish us. I suppose what I'm trying to say here is that in many ways Ivysaur's spaced bair only actually serves its purpose if we land it. If it misses we are put at a distinct disadvantage, even if GW is initally out of range. GW doesn't need to worry about this nearly as much.

I agree that our only shot with ivysaur is to trick GW into not using bair. What ivysaur lacks is the ability to do this at early percentages. What I'd like to see is an ivysaur coming in at mid to high percents, where the GW is going to want to get a Fsmash off or some other killing move. Here we can actually attempt to utilise our stronger moves, albiet in a risky way. Thats probably a bit unclear, so I'll try wording it another way.

**2nd Try**

...If we accept that ivysaur will probably get the sharp end of the stick in terms of spacing, we're probably better off starting with squirtle, since he at least has the movement capabilities required to force GW into different positions and situations. If we can then switch to Ivy at mid percents, we can use the promise of a fsmash lure GW into a position where we can actually space him more effectively since he will be in range of ftilt, dtilt, nair, and grabs (which lead to uair etc).

Given that I'm advocating using Ivy at dangerous percentages, you might be wondering why I don't think we should start with her anyway. My argument is that if GW is turtling well and utilising fakeouts to create openings, we might as well start at a high % because theres only a very slim chance of us doing anything do GW during that time anyway, because we lack punishing options. We might as well start with squirtle who at least has a chance of getting inside that range and forcing GW into situations other than retreating turtles.

** **

In my mind, a decent switch order could be: starting with squirtle, then switching to ivy as soon as possible, then switching to charizard as soon as possible to tank it. In this way we cover the difficult early percents with squirtle, who can actually create openings and is hard to bait. We still get to use ivysaur in what is probably the most useful percentage for ivy to be at, because we haven't had to worry about somehow linking our bair into an attack to get GW to a damage higher enough to switch. Because of this all we need is one hole from GW to let us punish and switch to zard for the tank. If we started with ivysaur we would have needed many holes to get first get past and do damage, and then finally to make the switch.

Phew, that was tough. I'm sorry I think I missed a number of your points, but I think I've responded to the basic gist of your argument. Unfortunately I have a lot of trouble putting into words the precise relationship between both characters b-airs and their ability to get past time, so that bit is probably quite unclear.

Thoughts?

Well, I have to say that your post makes some very valid points. I would say that the only real cause for concern I had with it was that I think that it's somewhat overcomplicated to start Squirtle with a plan of not only switching to Ivy, but then switching again to Charizard for the purpose of tanking, all in the span of the first stock.

Remember that if the Game & Watch is spacing and using the turtle well, he'll likely be going it to all three pokemon, not just Ivysaur. Which means that Squirtle isn't likely to push past him, unless the (actually relatively likely) scenario occurs in which the G&W isn't used to fighting PT, and Squirtle can sneak in attacks and pokes above or below G&W's aerials. However, if we're making that assumption, we'd also have to assume that G&W doesn't know how to fight the other two, either. Therefore, it makes more sense to assume that the Game & Watch player is extremely experienced in this specific match-up and knows just what to expect.

In my estimation, the numbers are going to be against us no matter what at the outset of this match-up, so starting Ivysaur is the way to minimize the significant risks. This way, we have a handful of options on the inside, the middle, and the far outside, and can play a balanced, careful game. Starting Squirtle and then switching to Ivy could work, but the percentages look very grim in that scenario, and as you said, you'd have to do that with a plan of possibly switching twice all in one stock. It's not that it couldn't happen, it's just that it seems more logical from a strategic point of view to go with the theory with the fewest "moving parts." Remember that if Ivysaur switching to Charizard gets punished, the chances are better that you'll survive than if Squirtle switching to Ivy does. Naturally, most PTs virtually never get punished for a switch, but it's something worth noting as well.

I'm glad we were able to clear the air a bit and talk about this in a more upbeat sort of way. I definitely look forward to hearing your response soon.

As for punishing Ivy's back air, I don't think that's as huge of a risk as all of that. I certainly concede that thenumbers are in Game & Watch's favor in terms of risk/reward, but I do so while saying that this is pretty much the case across the board.

Hmm fair enough. Whilst I think that at low percents squirtle is going to be slightly safer than ivysaur, I can definitely see where you're coming from. I'm happy to agree on Ivysaur as a starter, even though I would probably alternate between starting with Squirtle and Ivy in my own matches. Given that the gains squirtle makes would only be reliant on mind gaming and looking for mistakes (as you mentioned) I'm happy to stay with Ivysaur as a starter.

That having been said I look forward to the day when Charizard makes a triumphant return vs G&W =D
Ftilting that turtle is sooooo satisfying.

Well I think that about wraps it up. Good (/stressful!) stuff.

I'm convinced that Game and Watch isn't that big of a deal.

Ivysaur doesn't have THAT much trouble killing him, even if it's a pain. If he starts chasing you (which he won't, because G&W players are boring and stupid [YES, ALL OF THEM]) a pivot grab will help you get the grab. It doesn't take too much percentage to get the U-Throw KO if you have to resort to that. The main reason why a short-hopped F-Air would be dangerous to use is because his F-Air comes out more quickly, but that's really a matter of bad luck/prediction. B-Air does enough to keep most G&W out when you're good at mixing it up, and depending on the stage, it's not too difficult to get the switch into Charizard.

HOWEVER

I dislike Charizard vs. G&W, because all of G&W's good moves are designed to hit bigger targets. That limits his use as a stock tank and makes him more of a finisher if you need it. Granted, outranging G&W in various places is cool, but it doesn't really add up in terms of damage; it's mostly nice knockback.

I think Squirtle would make a good starter here. It's relatively easy to stay in and rack up damage if you pester him with tilts and jabs. A KO with a F-Air or D-Throw's easier than it is on most characters, and when you KO, you can switch to Ivysaur and attempt to rack up damage before you're KO'd...because Ivysaur does have the most trouble KO'ing out of the three, it seems like a good way to use her here. Problem is, if you're not confident in doing a lot of damage with Ivysaur before dying, Charizard's going to incur a lot of damage, so it might be best to stay Squirtle even after the KO, depending on your percent and confidence in the matchup. Mainly, with Squirtle, watch out for that stupid out-of-nowhere F-Air, and remember that powershielding a D-Tilt means a free jab or grab (as Squirtle and Charizard) or D-Tilt (all three I think, but most important for Ivysaur).

hmmm. Interesting points guys. Shame, I was sick last night, bad head ache, sore throat(like I do now still) and shaking like hell so I missed all this action lol. I've recovered and feel great with the exception for my throat but I'm ok.

On topic: I guess that does wrap it up, however, I don't know what to do for the summary. Did we estable that Ivy is our best change? Squirtle? or both?

Just let me know, because I got lost in all of y'alls big posts and all the very valid points and have no idea who to write the summary on. ^^'

I think that ivy stater is the best, but squirtle starter may have a chance.... anyway ivyzard stocks are longer than squirtivy stocks.... specially if ivy is weak to fire

fsmash ***** .

I don't play many good GWs on a regular basis so I wouldn't know much about this matchup but, I feel Squirtle is a better starter since him and GW are both light and Squirtle shouldn't have much of a problem getting hits in. Also, GW can't really juggle Squirtle as good as he can Charizard.
But I know GW will kill Squirtle first.

Bomber7 said:

hmmm. Interesting points guys. Shame, I was sick last night, bad head ache, sore throat(like I do now still) and shaking like hell so I missed all this action lol. I've recovered and feel great with the exception for my throat but I'm ok.

On topic: I guess that does wrap it up, however, I don't know what to do for the summary. Did we estable that Ivy is our best change? Squirtle? or both?

Just let me know, because I got lost in all of y'alls big posts and all the very valid points and have no idea who to write the summary on. ^^'

Click to expand...

I think most of us are agreeing that Ivysaur is the most reliable from a strategic standpoint, though Squirtle is also used on occasion. Squirtle is a really close second, but Ivysaur is generally considered the most appropriate way to start.