Match Up Export: Snaaaaaake

Overview:
Snaaaaaaaake. Snake from Metal Gear Solid joins the Brawl! With extremely broken powers of camping and not dying, he’s a tough matchup. Using his beardly awesomeness to aid him in battle Snake is second on the tier list, but by copying his beard, you can achieve a camping power that surpasses even his own.

Kirby’s Pros and Cons:

+ Sexy grab range
+ Great offstage (Gimping, edgegaurding).
+ Excellent 'nade camper.
- Lightness in this matchup means very early death.
- No great approach option.
- Slow airspeed.

Snake's Pros and Cons:

+ Uber strong and heavy
+ Camping legend.
+ Many ways to deal damage (C4, 'nades, mines, tilts, etc.)
+ Fast groundspeed.
- Terrible recovery.
- Slow in air; easy to juggle.
- Lacks approach options.
- Easily gimped.

Watch out for:
Mines and C4 – Any bit of damage taken counts because Kirby dies @ early percents. Mines and C4 can be hard to see on certain stages so be mindful of their placement.

FTilt – 3 hits, 25~% damage. Isn't that stupid? WATCH OUT FOR IT.

UTilt – It's the kill move. If you get near 85~% start watching out for it. It's fast, and deadly.

Camping – Once Snake starts camping, it's going to be a ***** to approach him. He'll already have a C4 in place as well as a mine and he'll be throwing 'nades; if you manage to get close enough watch out for a snakedash OR if you're killable a UTilt.

DThrow Tech Chase – DThrow leaves a Kirby lying there on the ground. If you get upAttack, he'll shield and regrab. If you roll, you're not exactly long so your roll will be a short distance, read as short run for Snake to regrab, and you'll get grabbed. Avoid being predictable.

How to win:
GET THE POWER OF THE BEARD – Get 'nades as soon as possible (without taking high amounts of damage for it). 'Nades in the hands of a Kirby are BETTER than 'nades in the hands of a Snake. Get the percent lead and camp!

Gimp him. – DAir, Kirbicide break> Footstool, Kirbicide break> edgeGaurd, grab out of cypher, etc.; just gimp him.

Grab game is essential – Easiest, and safest, way to rack damage is through grabbing. Snakes can intterupt the FThrow combos with a 'nade so if you see him pull it just UThrow him. Pummel then throw, and avoid taking the 'nade damage.

Save the FSmash – Snake isn't dying early so you want FSmash as fresh as possible. If you use it, refresh it with grab>pummel.

Fight for 4th Port – The person in the “better” port (1<2<3<4) won’t get knocked back after a ‘nade explodes and one person is grabbing the other. Kirby is in a perfect position to be hit after a ‘nade explodes if he’s in an inferior port to Snake.

Spit out or Swallow?
Swallow. Get the power because Kirby is better with it; Or Kirbicide the freak. Snake is one we can footstool out of THE ANSWER break for an early death which in this MU is important. The first his of Snake's DAir hits out of a swallow with DI so accept the damage or spit if you don't feel comfortable with the 'nades.

What NOT to do:
Lose track of the mines/C4 – That's extra damage you don't want. @ higher percent it can kill, likewise though, if Snake forgets he may accept damage that could end up killing him.

Rush in as an approach – You'll eat a FTilt and that's 20+% damage you'll take for nothing.

Approach from above – FTilt or USmash will **** Kirby if he approaches from above.

Forget to Gimp – If you forget to gimp Snake's recovery you're letting slip a valuable kill @ possibly low percents. Snake shouldn't recover.

Stages (in order of priority):
Jungle Japes!!– High ceiling means you live longer and the water current will take Snake to hell after a Kirbycide. Avoid Klaptrap and don't lose track of the C4 and mine.
PS1 – Good for gimps, and the terrain will stop 'nades and snakeDash. Snake's generally don't do well on Ps1.
RC – Small stage, gimp opportunities, mostly in the air as you climb (a place Snake doesn't wanna be is in the air)
Brinstar – Close sides in all directions allow for extremely low % kills, he has a cg on the bridge and the acid can save him from gimps.
Halberd – Snake camps well on this stage and the blastzones are too close. Avoid if possible.


Synopsis:
Snake has camping down to a science. The good thing though is once you get the percent lead and his power, it's smooth sailing. He's heavy, read as easy to juggle, and he has a terrible recovery. With so much against him you may wonder why it's not in your favor. Ask yourself again after you've eaten a tilt to the face and died @ 70%. Gimp, 'nade, and pummel to victory!

Just in case. For more information in the discussion, check out this discussion about Snake VS Kirby

--> http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=260159

You can get some details there

Oh here's my input:

60:40 Snake

Well, Kirby does very well with Snake's grenades. That might be trouble, BUT the main thing in the MU is that Kirby will have a hard time rushing to Snake and he even has to deal with Snake's camping. What makes it worse for Kirby is that Snake has very powerful, long ranged and high priority attacks. His F-tilt is so disjointed, it can safely knock Kirby away from Snake. U-tilt is very dangerous since it acts like F-tilt (Disjointed range D. The worst part for Kirby is his pivot grab which can lead to tech chases. Tech chases are bad for Kirby since Kirby has one of the shorter rolls in the game which makes it easier for Snake to catch.

Despite Snake's advantages, Kirby is not hopeless. Kirby's aerials are WAY better than Snake's obviously. Kirby is also one of the best characters in gimping Snake. If he gets hold of Snake's ability, Snake is outcamped. Kirby can also spike Snake out of his cypher by using any of his aerials or inhaling. Kirby's grabs will also be a threat to Snake since they can rack up damage and lead to follow-ups. Like Snake, you also need to fight for the 4th port advantage (Don't ask why) cause the person in the port 4 won't get knocked back after the nade explodes and one person is grabbing the other.

Overall, it Snake's favor since Kirby has to be forced to approach and usually, his approaches are unsafe against Snake since he might get punished by any of Snake's tilts or grabs.

Stages:

CP:
Yoshi's Island
Japes
RC

Ban:
BF
FD
Brinstar

It sounds like BF is where you take everyone all the time . I personally dislike BF, it's probably my least favorite neutral.

Anyway, I watched some chudat vs candy on livestream saturday. It was gruesomely boring, but what chu did did work. He'd just get snake's nades and then ledgecamp his *** off while throwning nades on the stage. It is a pretty effective strategy, and if we start factoring in things like scrooging we should surely factor this in.

Also, juggling works pretty good, just be sure he doesn't drop a c4 that you didn't notice.

That's about all I can contribute, I don't play against snakes often and I dislike MU discussions in general, so yeah. No ratio from me aswell.

the best way kirby is gonna play snake is to be very very very patient. If he's setting up tent and trying to lure you into traps dont bother just rushing in, you'll probably get ***** and sent back. The best thing to do is just slowly move your way in and bait snake into doing something stupid he'll regret. Kirby can rack up damage fast on snake once he's in the air or from grabs at low percents because he doesn't have very many options to avoid it. IF you ever have a lead, whether its by 1% or by 1 stock, dont even bother approaching just sit back floating around and avoiding his nades, its not that hard. Eventually he's gonna have to come for you and snakes approach game isn't really all that good, you just have to be patient and let him mess up. If snake ever dthrows you, use neutral getup and utilt immediately. Its a good way to stop dthrow happy snakes and it lets you mix it up more often and plus it gets snake into the air easy. If you're worried about snakes nade grab, just crouch and dtilt. His grab goes right over you and depending on if he slid back or forth with it, just dropped and grabbed, or sheilded and grabbed he'll either get hit or you're safe on block to retreat or punish him for attempting an ftilt or something.

the stages I find kirby to do well vs. snake on are BF and frigate obviously. On BF snake has less room to camp and the platforms make juggling him easier. Frigate is just an all around good kirby stage and it works the same way that BF does in a sense.

Some may think that juggling snake is hard, but you just have to wait for him to try one his options in the air and once again, be patient about it to punish. Wait for an airdodge, a b reverse nade, a desperate aerial, etc. spacing yourself the whole time so you'll be able to punish with the move of your choice. Snakes always recover high after being sent off stage (where you can do dumb things to him) so if its possible try to chase after him and stay close so you can try to hit him when he lands with something like a charged fsmash spaced well or maybe just grabbing and throwing him back up there.

You NEED to ban halberd in this matchup because of how ******** it is for snake. The low ceiling, 2nd part giving him huge amounts of room to camp, and the first part works well for shenanigans and such.

Overall I'd say its 55/45 snakes favor if its being played at a high level due to the difference in weight/killing power that can make things difficult sometimes.

(<3 RRR)

Play patient enough taking your time and you probably wont die that early unless you make a silly mistake. Its not like kirby cant get a low percent KO on snake at times either. I'm not just saying this to theorycraft or to make it look good on paper either, thats just how it goes. Its not gonna happen like you said every stock you know >.>

Also, I forgot to mention you should watch out for snakes nair, I mean the fullhopped one that AC's into any of his ****. If you're trying to approach him in the air from that little diagonal above him where he can have issues covering himself, snake might randomly just jump out and bust it out before you can get it, and it does insane damage if you dont SDI out of it or if you just get hit by the last 2 hits or 1 or something it can kill you fairly low.

This is not a pressing matter Kewkky, get back to the GD

I take Snake to Battlefield if possible; it is the best stage to air camp him on.

wow nappy, i feel like you toke everything that I do to you and wrote about it lol. yeah, he pretty much covered anything i would've wrote about. Just be smart and patient.

I still think this matchup is kirby 40:snake 60

Edit: <3 nappy

Kewkky said:

I agree with what you say, Nappy, but no matter how much I wish it, getting killed at exactly 120% from the center of FD due to a fresh utilt and us killing him regularly at 170%~ doesn't make the MU 45:55, more like 40:60.

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This 100x.

I don't think that either Kirby or Snake necessarily have any noteworthy advantages over each other if they both play the matchup correctly, but god **** is it hard to kill Snake.

I often feel that Snake is only in his tier position because of his weight class. I'd guess that just his weight adds like 10% to all of his matchup percentages.

I love when this discussion comes around, because it's one of the matchups where I can do something other than spew facts out. Here's my right-up.

So. Grenades. If you're lucky enough to get an inhale on Snake, grenades are awesome. Kirby can do most of the things Snake can (I believe he can do everything except the weird auto-grab from a shield drop). He's also more agile, so he has the potential use them better than Snake.

Inhale is also very good, mostly because it takes away his cypher. Kirby also has a guaranteed footstool out of a mid-air inhale break.

Throw combos are tricky. When fthrow->uair is thrown out against a good snake, they'll reactively pull out a grenade after the fthrow. If Kirby can predict this, he can instead follow up with something like fthrow->hammer (which sometimes does not detonate grenades). However, if Snake can predict that he can jump away instead of pulling a grenade. It becomes a guessing game between the two players.

While approaching, Kirby does not prefer the air. He literally CAN'T approach from there, because utilt outranges everything he has except Final Cutter. If you can successfully approach with FC against a Snake, you're too good at this game for a matchup to affect whether or not you win.

Approaching from the ground isn't easy either. A good Snake will have a maze of explosives around the stage (C4, mines, grenades, rockets). FC's projectile can detonate mines and grenades, though it's very risky (if your blade hits a grenade it explodes, and there's a ton of lag time throughout the move where Kirby can get exploded). C4's explode ~27 seconds after being deployed, so make sure you take a quick glance at the timer when you see (or hear) it.

When Kirby isn't approaching, he DOES prefer the air. Kirby has large disjoints on his aerials and can juggle many characters with them. Snake's aerials take longer to start up, so he naturally will get hurt from going up. Most Snakes will try to airdodge through you to try to get to the ground. Now is a great time for a stone or inhale! This takes a little bit of prediction, but isn't hard to see coming (if he's falling and not using an aerial, he isn't skydiving).

If taking Snake to the air is a good idea, grabs are too. All of your grabs send Snake flying into the air, and dthrow and uthrow send him fairly straight up. Take this opportunity and rack up some damage!

Being offstage is also beneficial. An offstage Snake risks being cypher-grabbed, inhaled or ***** with aerials. If they're under the stage, stone can either stagespike them or force them to airdodge, neither of which gives Snake a very good chance of recovering.

Kirby has to work for a grab and then play a guessing game with Snake to maybe get some decent % on Snake. Snake can ftilt, which has several times the range of our grab, for more guaranteed damage. That's how most of the rest of the MU goes as well.

This is MU definitely 60:40 in Snake's favor.

Kewkky said:

I know Nappy, dontcha worry. But let's see... He has a guaranteed 26% on us with just his jab>ftilt, 28% with his nair (both ending in kill moves), a dthrow that sets up techchase scenarios and does 10%, lots of ways to camp with projectiles that can kill (downB, dsmash and grenades), and the most broken anti-air/ground kill move in the game (utilt).

Kirby is very good and can gay Snake easily, but Snake just outplays Kirby with ease. It's a 45:55 if the Kirby makes small mistakes, but it's 40:60 when the Snake does the same.

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theory craft yo

like I said, you can SDI nair or just avoid it, dont jump into a snake when you see him full hopping, and if he does just air dodge down and away and you're safe as long as theres no trap, even then you can probably avoid it.

Grabbing kirby is sort of hard because his up close game can be hard to get by if he's using his moves correctly. Like shielding tilts and getting you into the air with a throw, forcing you to switch it up where he can start up his shenanigans and ****. Its not like the close up game is even that bad, and projectiles aren't too much of an issue as long as you're really patient. You have a bunch of jumps and you're a small little guy, stay away and pay close attention. Why do you think this matchup can get so close at higher levels of play? Chu almost beat ally recently, they were very close games. Infern (best MW snake) barely beat chu 2-1, i know ybm also can beat alot of the better snakes out there iirc, but I cant think of too many other "top" kirby's because I'm not all that knowledgable on the character. RRR needs to be more known <3

Triple R said:

wow nappy, i feel like you toke everything that I do to you and wrote about it lol. yeah, he pretty much covered anything i would've wrote about. Just be smart and patient.

I still think this matchup is kirby 40:snake 60

Edit: <3 nappy

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I learned everything about this matchup from you essentially lol, everything from the mistakes kirby can make to the mistakes snake can, as well as what they are capable of doing to each other.

I just think that 6/4 just doesn't feel right for this matchup, but to each his own I guess.

Don't worry nappy.

Everyone has their own experiences.

As a Kirby not a Snake, I dislike BF against Snake for many reasons. Platforms with C4s and landmines are very hard to deal with especially since Kirby has terrible air speed.

I don't count on approaching Kirby. Even though Kirby's ground defense isn't that good, Snake's approach is somewhat highly punishable which leads to Snake getting punished by a grab or U-tilt--> juggle follow up and plus, Kirby can aerial camp/ camp with his disjointed b-air. That's why camping is usually a better option. But, if it's you, it's a different story :|