Matchup Thread Export: Mr. Game & Watch

Game & Watch is another fast, light character who can’t be chaingrabbed and can combo Dedede to hell and back. He also has extremely powerful smashes with little lag afterward that can kill you at very low percentages, often less than 100%. He has very good approaches and you really can’t afford to make any mistakes in this matchup. Fortunately, he’s the second lightest character in the game (after Jigglypuff) and very easy to tech chase, so all hope is not lost.

I mentioned the strength of Game & Watches approaches, but unless you play a Game & Watch on a daily basis you’ll probably only see one approach – the bair, aka. The Turtle. The Turtle is comparable to Metaknight’s tornado in the sense that it does multiple hits that are hard to DI out of and can end up doing a lot of damage if you don’t avoid it somehow. It does 5 hits of 3% each, making 15% total. Because of how long it stays out, spot dodging and air dodging are not good options and due to its fairly large hitbox it may not be easy to roll away. The best thing to do is to shield and then punish the lag. Make sure you shield all 5 hits (it helps me to count them out) before attempting a shield grab or other form of punishment.

If you do get hit, Game & Watch will most likely start juggling you. Dtilt, utilt, nair, uair, he has lots of tricks up his sleeve. He’ll probably finish all this off with a fresh smash attack to kill you at about 100%. As far as edgeguarding goes, G&W has many options in the form of dtilt, dsmash, fsmash, dair, usmash, and his dash attack which spikes if you approach the ledge from the bottom. As cliché as it sounds, the best thing to do is not get hit.

The best way to not get hit in this matchup is, you guessed it, spacing. Ftilt is so good that when you start practicing with the matchup you may want to spam it along with Waddle Dee toss to keep him at bay, though if you toss a Waddle Doo you should get rid of it since a bucket filled with eye beams can kill at around 100%. Staying on the ground is a good idea in this matchup since, as mentioned before, it’s better to shield the turtle than airdodge it. Game & Watch can also do a lot of nasty things to you if you’re above him in general. If you do get above him, your best hope is dair, which outprioritizes most things. If he’s above you though, you won’t have much to worry about since his dair is laggy and easy to see coming. As mentioned before, he’s the second lightest character in the game, so utilt should be able to kill him at under 90%.

I mentioned dthrow tech chasing above, but most good Game & Watches will see this coming and avoid it with their upB. For upB-happy Game & Watches, Fogo has devised a good strategy, so if you want to read it you should check out his post which I quoted below since I personally believe regurgitating what is used in quotes is bad writing (but that’s a different story altogether ). Ultimately though, you shouldn’t be dthrowing Game & Watch. Instead you should opt for bthrow -> Waddle Dee or ftilt/bair if you’re close enough. Even if he airdodges it, he’ll end up in a bad position and have to reset his spacing, giving you a window of opportunity.

A few other miscellaneous things: You can techroll out of Game & Watch’s dthrow -> dsmash combo or just avoid it by hitting left or right during the actual throw. If you grab Game & Watch out of his upB, don’t attack, and wait for him to break free, he will fall helpless. Inhale is not a good move to use in this matchup since it doesn’t break The Turtle and it’ll just pull the smash towards you. Many people have made the latter mistake and suffered the consequences. One new piece of information to keep in mind is Game & Watch's newly discovered AT, Bucket Braking. Bucket Braking allows Game & Watch to cancel all of his momentum, horizontal and vertical, when hit far offstage by an attack. Since Dedede's kill moves have enough knockback that they'll most likely die before getting to use this unless they have incredible DI, it doesn't change things that much, but try to keep in mind that it can happen when you're deciding whether to try and land a kill move or to keep racking damage.

Fogo said:

You cant tech chase a good game and watch, or at least one that knows what up-b is. Trust me i've played against several of the best G-dubs in the nation and my brother plays a good one. If they do it right there's about 1-3 frames between them getting up and up-b'ing and gw is so weird that you can't even tell he's doing it. Not to mention the begining frames of the up-b are invincibility frames and he can just DI up after the Dthrow and up-b instantly.

That can be seen here at 0:50 and again at 1:54 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqdFEp6Id94

But on the bright side, there is a solution for up-b spammy Gdubs! ^_^

I found from my tournament matches against hylian and utd zac, two formidable Gdubs, that you can instantly footstool the up-b and do a Dair when you fly up, i call it the Hylian combo for obvious reasons lol

Also i've found that tech chasing IS NOT the best option against a good GW. If you find yourself landing a grab on a good GW it will most likely be seldom and you need to take advantage of it. I can count on two hands how many times i've landed a grab on Hylian from our whole set, and i'm really good at landing grabs, ask foursaken lol but what i'm saying is that you should Bthrow > jump > waddle throw. If it's fresh then they'll eat 23% and if they airdodge the waddle then the'yll fall into a bad position and you can control the map. You'll note that in the video above the majority of my throws are infact bthrows and for good reason too.

Now for racking up damage i like to use tilts and waddles when i can't get a grab off, but when a doo lands on the screen i quickly get rid of it because a bucket from a doo can kill at around 95-100%

Aside from that i can't think of much besides abusing lag from Dair and bair.

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Big stages to distance yourself from him and stages with not many platforms. Those are really the only criteria you need to think about. And of course, stay off the platforms or you’ll get nair’d like crazy. Small blast zones are also good ways to limit Bucket Braking, so if you're really worried about that then try taking them to Halberd.

Smaller stages and stages with lots of platforms. Game & Watch players like to juggle you on platforms with nair. Most Game & Watches will take you to Rainbow Cruise though, so I’d ban that if Norfair is not legal in your region.

Honestly, GnW is not much of a problem. Whenever he gets you with a bair, SDI upward to avoid the hit with actual knockback and punish with a grab. If he tried to Dthrow techchase you, tech the dthrow and grab him back. When at 95% just Utilt him. If he spams up-b and dair, your outta luck because I flopped over against those kind of GnW

upair beats out his dair

The timing is pretty hard to take, but you can grab him during his UpB, then don't hit him, just grab release, he won't be able to recover, exactly like snake when you grab him during his UpB.

Yea, but a smart GnW will grab the edge when he recovers from offstage.

uhh h-box beat me because i didn't know d3 up air beat gnw's dair lol
abuse it kthnx
there's really nothing hard about this matchup except maybe getting nair'd in your shield.

G&W is also easy to techchase because is rolls are pretty slow.

No, they can up b instantly out of it. You can't tech chase him.

Uh yeah I forgot this >_>

you can predict the upB

lol way to be close minded...

HE UPB'D WE CANT POSSIBLY PUNISH HIM NOW

lol d3 players

We'd just rather Bthrow.

No we can't because of his invincibility frames and prio.
And Sandtru27, if the G&W UpB out of our Dthrow before landing on the ground (he can), no, we can't punish him.
lol trolls

Gmony (Sandtru) hates D3 mains because he doesn't know how to air camp with Wario against them

Yeah this matchup is definitley even lol. D3 can lock GAW out of options pretty solidly, Gaw racks up damage a little faster and the both however can avoid each others kill moves pretty well so they end up dying around the same percent IMO.

Yeah game and watch has a ridiculously easy time killing dedede at a lower percent then he is used to. they both screw each other in so many ways.

G&W boards are also discussing the match-up.

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=244487

I like how the G&W boards have more frame data on our character than we do.

Gates said:

I like how the G&W boards have more frame data on our character than we do.

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I pulled all of the frame data for DDD here:

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=224054

and here for grabs:

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=234915

Not sure how accurate it is.

This matchup isn't even. G&W outcamps DDD with Chef (lol, DDD has no approach. Chef also stops Waddle Dees). It's pretty solidly in G&W's favor due to that alone, and makes this matchup a nightmare for DDD on FD.

This matchup is only even against aggressive meh G&Ws like Hylian lmao.

I don't think chef outprioritize (is it the right term lol?) our Gordo <3

DDD can outcamp gw with F tilt while you're trying to neutral B. :D
I don't see the problem for the penguin, we outrange gw and we can kill him earlier. Don't be like a fat hungry chicken and you'll not eat his smash, and ddd's vertical weight allows him to survive pretty well (=not before 100% on fd at least) against gw's d smash & u smash.

Bair B throw Btilt. It's BBB vs gw (nah I know it's stupid >>)

edit: Well I was a bit wrong about gw's smashes, survive to his d/u at 100-105% on the center of fd is the best you can do constantly.

lol yeah pretty sure ddd can ftilt while gw is doing chef

Chef outranges F-tilt and F-smash. No respectable G&W is going to start up Chef when he's directly in range of F-tilt, and by the time it's out, there is nothing DDD can do about it except hope he gets lucky with a Gordo. Even one piece of bacon is enough to shut down DDD since he's such a huge target.

And anyhow, if you're on the ledge while G&W starts up Chef, you're screwed.

As I was saying, this matchup is 6/4 G&W. G&W has the advantage in options both onstage and offstage and ultimately DDD is a lot more limited in this matchup than G&W is.

I've beaten Mikehaze's DDD pretty convincingly if it makes any difference.

o.o Noob thought of winning? That his D3. Thats just like me using Falco in hopes of beating some random dude. If mHaze's D3 is actually good, send him here and he can comment on it.

This matchup is not truly in GnW's favor. You have Bair to attack. We can Dair out of that and counter with a Dair. You have bucket, we can do the same...

GnW's basic strategy is to build damage and fsmash > GAME! A well-experienced D3 is not going to take the abuse for no longer than a full stock. Eventually you guys are going to get up-b > dair happy and we have uair for that... if you want it in GnW's favor, its 55:45 GnW

well what a2z is saying is that if he gets a percent lead he can shut down ddd's approach game with chef

:O

dunno if i believe it, but i have never faced gw like that so it could be true

choknater said:

well what a2z is saying is that if he gets a percent lead he can shut down ddd's approach game with chef

:O

dunno if i believe it, but i have never faced gw like that so it could be true

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More like Chef can get G&W a lot of free damage not to mention set up into free F-airs and other dumb crap. And DDD doesn't have any reliable counter to a volley of Chef, which outranges him, and stops his waddle dees.

Chef is not commonly used by G&W since most of his opposition is more mobile than DDD, but I'm just saying, every DDD I've faced has always been screwed up massively when I start using Chef. That's why I think this matchup can't be even. Like I'm betting the only reason Hylian thinks this matchup is even because he's super aggressive.

This matchup might be better for DDD on BF thanks to Chef alone. FD punishes predictability and limited options, which is something that Chef can really force out of DDD near the edge.

Have you faced a good DDD?
Chef is to inconsistent and easily shielded because of its low speed.

Whoa whoa whoa? Chef gives no approach for us? Am I reading that right?

lol chef, so biased Azz ;B

Chef is not the answer. I like nair.

I think we can shieldgrab gw's Dair.

And chef is so random, your bacon doesn't outrange ddd's f tilt all the time. But I never saw a gw uses this move, gonna search a gw that does. x)

Serin, no G&W uses upB->Dair. That **** stopped working a year ago.

And if the G&W wants to camp us, they should do it by planking, not by using Chef.

fyi, chef produces the same trajectories every time, they just come out in different patterns. I don't see the inconsistency in that. But anyway, what DDD's options against a camping tactic such as this?

Neb said:

fyi, chef produces the same trajectories every time, they just come out in different patterns. I don't see the inconsistency in that. But anyway, what DDD's options against a camping tactic such as this?

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The same thing we do in every matchup, run and shield grab.

And utilt when at 90% =D

We also can jump over them fairly easy. DDD can fly. DDD isn't nearly as immobile as you make him out to be.

Silly CRASHiC. Penguins don't fly. We create illusions that make them THINK we cant fly =3

The optimal time to use Chef in this matchup is on the edge, giving you no space to deal with it, typically when Dedede is offstage. To deal with chef in this situation, you are forced to use your jumps above it, which puts you in the best placement for G&W to abuse; above himself. Throwing out some food to force Dedede to use his jumps to get above it is a great way to get a free positional advantage + Nair/UpB/Whatever.

Chef is quite good in this matchup, but you obviously can't throw it out and win like it was implied.