Ness vs. Game and Watch

Discuss the Game and Watch MU here.

60 - 40 in GAW's Favor.

Spacing is the importants thing in this MU.
It will be a battle of spacing..
GAW will space his bair, you as ness player need to space fair real good.
Don't PKT in the air (above the stage) Just don't do it, it's too risky to use, the consequences are pretty astonishing.
GAW also has a nice set of gimping tools against Ness. I think his Sausages can be irritating when you try to recover and he will take his advantage out of that. Don't recover near the ledge he will uair you probs.
It isn't too hard to shield dsmash YOU CAN PUNISH HIM when you shield it perfectly even when you dont you can nair Oos (It will hit probably).
Don't overdo PKF in this fight same counts for PKT he can just put it in his bucket. try not to gimp him.. Just go for other ways of killing. bthrow is the best choice to finish him with. Just use fair the most and nair for punishing and sometimes throw a bair out for variety. Also look out for GAW his dthrow when you're on high percents he will try to techchase you to a usmash. Get-up attack is probably the best option with getting up without attacking.

Pro's:

Ness his fair can "Outpriortize/Outrange" GAW his bair if spaced properly.
GAW is a lightweight and bthrow can kill him pretty fast.

Con's:

He can gimp Ness in multiple ways.
His smashes kill Ness pretty quick or get him in a bad position.
Bair.. <.<

If Mr. Game and Watch tries to eat away your PKT (which most try to do for a full bucket) while your trying to recover, Nair instead, then you PKT
Fair is your friend
Don't use PKF a lot, as S1-14 said =(
Ref should know more, he taught me this MU, along with PeeGeeEn

Well I'm not sure of how to deal with a good G&W, but I'd probably take both advices here. Bartolon fights Kaak and VivaTheSaturn uses Mr. Game & Watch as a secondary, I believe.

G&W destroys Ness worse than Marth I'd say.
Marth>G&W any day.
70-30 blehhhhhhh

^ Never srsly xD

Marth ***** Mr. Game & Watch and Ness. Mr. Game & Watch from experience doesn't have a difficult time killing anybody. Actually let me rephrase that. Mr. Game & Watch has a lot of priority in most of his attacks. His forward dash has a hitbox that stays out a bit. So if you were to hang on the edge, all he has to do is forward dash towards that edge and you could possibly get stage spiked. Overall, his smash attacks come out quick. The G&W boards say it's 70:30, their favor against Ness and the Marth boards say the same thing. But I personally think they're 60:40.

if you're playing a good G&W, this match could be a long and boring one. just play smart, as always. retreat fairs until you have an opening. that's basically all you can do

also, don't try to punish his dair unless you're very close. it has less ending lag than you think...

Some Mr. Game & Watch's like to Up B > dair > d-tilt or something similar to that. A G&W main can be playing predictably and still win because what he's doing is working. So like xoxokev said, play smart and know what your opponent is doing. Last night I was playing a pretty good G&W and I got overconfident because I was thinking that I'd two stock him. I almost lost the match because of that. Anyway, fair is your best friend against G&W. Just play smart and don't fall for obvious traps.

From my experiences with Shaky in mostly lagless wifi matches (as well as teaming with him and making it to AIB doubles playoffs, but we stopped at this point) and playing ColinJF when he still did Wifi, I am pretty confident in my assessment that this matchup is 6:4 in Game & Watch's favor, no worse than such.

You can't outrange or outprioritize the turtle, but you can work around it using your excellent dash attack. I just wanted to say this as someone said you could. I mean, your fair has like the same Bair range when retreating, but you can't space that versus ours to beat us out.

Anyway, it's definitely in our favor, but I have disagreed with the G&W vs Ness ratio for the longest time on our boards. You guys have some solid kill moves that arent too hard to land as well quick startup on moves that can challenge our aerials. Its certainly winnable, and also not as tough as the Snake vs Ness matchup.

You can't outrange or outprioritize the turtle

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Fair can outpriortize bair if spaced right at the right frame and such.

but you can work around it using your excellent dash attack

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Dash attack can be a option but GAW can come down with a nair cancel to dsmash real quick... so it's tricky.

our fair only beats G&W's bair if we retreat the fair, and G&W is approaching with his bair. we can't use fair to approach if G&W is walling us with short hop turtles

xoxokev said:

if you're playing a good G&W, this match could be a long and boring one. just play smart, as always. retreat fairs until you have an opening. that's basically all you can do

also, don't try to punish his dair unless you're very close. it has less ending lag than you think...

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If the GaW is planking, I'd use PKT1 if you're a safe distance, MAYBE PKF but I'd watch out.

I agree with 60:40 and from experience I'd say use fair wisely and it will reward you. It will open up lots of possibilities for other attacks.

6:4, can be worse if the GnW REALLY knows what he's doing.

If Ness is offstage, he's fucked lol.

We have two windboxes with which to royally screw PKT (although they need to be spaced to prevent actually hitting Ness with the hitboxes lol) and potentially a bucket.

Onstage it's fairly even, but probably slightly in Game & Watch's favor.

If for some reason we don't sweetspot the ledge with Up-B, you guys could probably Dash Grab us.

Experience in this matchup is: I second GAW.

Onstage, Fsmash is for some reason not terribly punishable and so is unusually usable in this matchup. GAW's ground moves are characterized by low lag, not fast startup, and that means that it's difficult for GAW to reply before you can get away. It's good because it has a lot of priority and shield stun/pushback.

As pointed out earlier, dash attack is useful because of its transcendant priority and the amazing range of the last spark. Just make sure to space it correctly lest you eat a smash attack at the end.

The Turtle is evil when used for spacing, but Ness can jump and airdodge through it, following up with a bair in my experience (I haven't played good spacing GAW's as Ness though, so don't take my word on this). You can also double-jump over it, and airdodge through his upair wind to follow up afterwards.

Basically, Ness's worst nightmare is GAW's up-B gimp below stage level. Use PKT2 AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, preferably just above the ledge height. Many Ness's are most comfortable PKT2ing from as close as they can get, but that lets GAW push you away from your thunder. PKT2 as soon as you are in range of the stage.

I recover just above stage height because that way I can choose to either sweetspot or land laglessly over the stage at the last second. Make sure not to fall from too far, because there is always the risk of getting hyphen-smashed by GAW (which hurts a lot). If the GAW is dtilt guarding or shorthop nairing (which has the priority to stop PKT2), go for the sweetspot, and if he is planning to edgehog, aim over the stage. He has to commit before you do.

If you're getting upair juggled, just use aerial control to move away; Ness's airspeed is much better than GAW's.

If GAW's above you, watch out for dair. Make sure you remember that it is good at shieldpoking, and has a second, landing, hitbox like the Turtle does.

If for some reason GAW is below stage level and you manage to grab him out of his up-b on the ledge, just keep pummelling and the grab break will leave him offstage with no recovery.

That was very incoherent, but oh well.

also, learn to SDI out of the turtle.

Bartolon said:

Fair can outpriortize bair if spaced right at the right frame and such.

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You can't space it such that it can beat out the Turtle if the G&W is also spacing his Turtle correctly. Sure, your Fair has great range when moving backwards, but with G&W's aircontrol why would he be contesting this?

Dash attack can be a option but GAW can come down with a nair cancel to dsmash real quick... so it's tricky.

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This was a typo on my part. I meant Dash Grab. Ness' Dash Grab is beastly, and is one of the very few moves that can capitalize on Bair's infinitely minimal landing lag. You have to be pretty tight with your timing though. Dash Grab is solid.

Just from my experience i'll say if a G&W is Bair spacing, simply run away and pivot a PKF, it will hit G&W during either the landing lag, or the attack itself.

But otherwise from what i've played,Ness' Fair will generally lose to G&W Bair,
and G&W Uair is a ridiculous gimping tool against us,(the windbox), I suggest recovering as High as we can.
He can stop PKT juggleing.
Can bucket PKF also.

We can however kill him really low. Bthrow works really good, same with Uair.

I think the match-up is 65-35 G&W.

Ness can spike gnw up b if timed right. I mean the timing is beastly. Its been done to me once thats why i say it. I played a good ness not so long ago and i hate how you guys do that mind game pkt2. Also that bthrow kills us pretty good if we dont d.i right. I once survived a 140 bthrow from the edge of battlefield when throw to the other edge. Gotta love bucket braking XD

fraudster111 said:

Ness can spike gnw up b if timed right. I mean the timing is beastly. Its been done to me once thats why i say it. I played a good ness not so long ago and i hate how you guys do that mind game pkt2. Also that bthrow kills us pretty good if we dont d.i right. I once survived a 140 bthrow from the edge of battlefield when throw to the other edge. Gotta love bucket braking XD

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I can understand Bucket Braking will really help you GaW mains against a bthrow, but if it's FRESH it's really hard to survive even with good DI. I just want to point that out.

So.. I played against kaak again a few days ago. We did 11 matches I won 8 of them.
I know how to fight GAW now =).
Fair racks up damage really well. You can pivot grab him out of the dair.
When he was at the edge I used PKT and PKF. PKF for when he was planking with nair. PKT for following.
I also mixed it up with some PKT2 mindgames. Like: at the edge of BF double jump cancel PKT to PKT2 so that you blast on the floor. And it hit =)
Dtilt goes through your fair so don't try to rising fair to much when you're offstage.
He can fill his bucket with our PKT when we are recovering. So try to recover so low as possible or try to recover high... really high XD
And chef can stop our PKT2 launch a bit so look out =O

G+W's biggest weakness is the significant lag on many of his attacks, particularly Bair, Fair, and Fsmash. Thus, the trick to beating him is to properly space and punish, particularly with PKfire and dash grabs.

You forgot Bucket, too.

I agree with 6:4 even 7:3. Most of GaW's attacks our range ness's attacks by a lot. Most of Ness's mind games are created with pk fire and his up b which both can be bucketed, also when ness is recovering GaW can bucket his up b and leave him to fall while GaW will recover, its risky but it happens.

i might say 8:2

Smash DI that turtle up toward g&w if he i moving toward you. up and away if he is going away from you too.

The point is to be behind him or just not to get hit as much.

If you smashDI out of the turtle you get a free uair in.

onionchowder said:

G+W's biggest weakness is the significant lag on many of his attacks, particularly Bair, Fair, and Fsmash. Thus, the trick to beating him is to properly space and punish, particularly with PKfire and dash grabs.

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If the G&W is good, PK Fire does nothing to him if he SDIs out, and furthermore, if he knows how simply use fullhops, that's a useless tactic.

F-air is shut down in this matchup by G&W's B-air, a superior spacing tool by far, and his D-tilt poking is also very gay for Ness to work around.

You won't be landing F-smash period on a player that doesn't suck at the matchup.

His biggest weakness isn't lag, rather that is his strength. He has some of the lowest ending lag in the entire game. He has more problems with startup time than anything.