Sage JoWii
Smash Champion
Overview:
Mr. Game & Watch returns from melee, but he’s extremely buffed. His smashes are extremely powerful. All smashes and dtilt have IASA frames, and dtilt is disjointed, hits around his entire body and can cancel into itself so it has a constant hitbox. His dair is now a stall-then-fall aerial, and more moves than most would care to talk about have been buffed.
Pros+Cons:
+Bucket Breaking practically makes him a heavyweight, but can still escape combos like a lightweight.
+Recovery goes extremely high, has invincibility, has a parachute come out at the end that can be used for free horizontal distance, and can be canceled into any aerial. It’s pretty much unstoppable.
+Quick, powerful smash attacks, with the added bonus of having IASA frames, though they can be seen coming.
+Can catch 3 energy-based attacks in his bucket (including the FC shockwave and kirby’s bacon).
+Dtilt can be used to create a continuous hitbox due to the IASA frames.
+Bair goes through our bair.
+Aside from his roll, spotdodge and dash, G&W is faster than Kirby.
-Chef goes in random arcs, making it hard to use effectively.
-Side B is random in attack strength and effects.
Watch out for:
Dtilt- Comes out on frame 6 and can be used into itself with the IASA frames, negating all cooldown and startup. It also cancels your fsmash, is disjointed, hits all around him, and has more range than almost anything you have.
Dair- A powerful stall-then-fall aerial which is slightly aimable. The key has an aerial hit and a hit when crashing into the ground, not to mention it spikes in the beginning. Try to perfect shield the aerial hit and then grab him after he hits the ground.
Bair- A high-priority multi-hit attack that has a grounded hit as well. It beats your bair. The best thing to do against it is predict (as it’s fairly easy to see coming) and shieldgrab before the grounded hit.
Uair – An attack with a windbox high above the hitbox which he can use to juggle you, and, on some stages, kill you by forcing you above the upper blastzone.
How to win:
Use stone on his recovery – One of the few matches you can actually use stone semi-consistently. His recovery is extremely predictable, and the stone’s hitbox stays out long enough to hit through the invincibility most of the time.
Stall offstage- If you’re being edguarded, simply float just out of his reach. You have 5 midair jumps and a pretty good upb, while all he has is one midair jump and his upb. He’ll soon be forced back onstage, while you can recover safely.
Kill him upwards- Bucket breaking is less effective on vertical momentum, so try to use usmash, up-angled and/or sourspotted fsmash or hammer for kills.
Fight more grounded than usual – Your aerials have less priority and range than his horizontally, and he can deal with vertical approaches with uair and dair. His ground game is easy to see coming.
Bait & Punish – Many of G&W's aerials leave him vulnerable if he lands while doing them, so try to bait aerials and punish. Judge also has a large amount of cooldown lag.
Techroll his Dthrow- If you don’t techroll his dthrow, there’s nothing you can do to avoid a dsmash. At higher %’s, it will kill you.
Spit out or Swallow?
This is a matchup where spit is almost always much better than swallowing. Kirby’s bacon can be absorbed by the bucket for some reason, even though a Game & Watch can’t absorb another Game & Watch’s bacon. Swallowing also gives him a free dair to your face, maybe even knocking out the power you just got. One of the only good points for swallowing is tricking them into using their dair when you actually spit them, making them kill themselves.
Stages (in order of priority):
Pokemon Stadium 1 – G&W has nothing really good on any transformations, except for dtilt locks on the fire and rock stages and a jab lock on the fire one (you have locks there too), while you have something good on every single transformation. CP this. However, expect it to be banned.
Battlefield – Top platform allows for moderate % uthrow kills. Use it for your neutral.
Yoshi's Island (B) – Same reason as battlefield, but it's harder to get a good height on the platform and the maximum height isn't even as good as battlefield's. Use it for your neutral if g&w stage strikes it.
Brinstar – Close boundary lines are a minus, but you have more exploitable things here than Game & Watch. Lava can kill him for you at reasonable-high %’s. The bad thing about this is that Brinstar basically cancels your ground game, and you lose to G&W in the air. Something you should know: if he’s positioned right, his dair will break up the entire flesh bridge and he will fall to his doom.
Jungle Japes – The high ceiling (highest in the game) makes killing G&W difficult, and bucket breaking is more effective on horizontal kill moves. Choosing dark blue or black costume makes him almost invisible. He can easily survive going into the water. Dthrow techchasing is easy to do on the small platforms, and he can abuse nair. Don't take him here.
Rainbow Cruise – He has a dtilt lock on the boat, but so do you. Once you get off the boat, he can abuse way more things than you on all the disappearing platforms and carpets. He can get tons of uair and usmash kills on the third (horizontal) part, especially against chars with multijumps. Beware of uthrow->uair as you get back on the boat. Ban this stage.
Synopsis:
If you can get a grab at the beginning of a stock, do a dthrow->utilt. If you know the G&W will dair, then walk in the opposite direction of where he’s facing and regrab or reverse fsmash. Punish him whenever he puts himself in lag, generally with a dthrow (or uthrow when he’s close to death). G&W has a large advantage over you in terms of stages; kirby’s second best stage against him is Brinstar, which is better for him.
Mr. Game & Watch returns from melee, but he’s extremely buffed. His smashes are extremely powerful. All smashes and dtilt have IASA frames, and dtilt is disjointed, hits around his entire body and can cancel into itself so it has a constant hitbox. His dair is now a stall-then-fall aerial, and more moves than most would care to talk about have been buffed.
Pros+Cons:
+Bucket Breaking practically makes him a heavyweight, but can still escape combos like a lightweight.
+Recovery goes extremely high, has invincibility, has a parachute come out at the end that can be used for free horizontal distance, and can be canceled into any aerial. It’s pretty much unstoppable.
+Quick, powerful smash attacks, with the added bonus of having IASA frames, though they can be seen coming.
+Can catch 3 energy-based attacks in his bucket (including the FC shockwave and kirby’s bacon).
+Dtilt can be used to create a continuous hitbox due to the IASA frames.
+Bair goes through our bair.
+Aside from his roll, spotdodge and dash, G&W is faster than Kirby.
-Chef goes in random arcs, making it hard to use effectively.
-Side B is random in attack strength and effects.
Watch out for:
Dtilt- Comes out on frame 6 and can be used into itself with the IASA frames, negating all cooldown and startup. It also cancels your fsmash, is disjointed, hits all around him, and has more range than almost anything you have.
Dair- A powerful stall-then-fall aerial which is slightly aimable. The key has an aerial hit and a hit when crashing into the ground, not to mention it spikes in the beginning. Try to perfect shield the aerial hit and then grab him after he hits the ground.
Bair- A high-priority multi-hit attack that has a grounded hit as well. It beats your bair. The best thing to do against it is predict (as it’s fairly easy to see coming) and shieldgrab before the grounded hit.
Uair – An attack with a windbox high above the hitbox which he can use to juggle you, and, on some stages, kill you by forcing you above the upper blastzone.
How to win:
Use stone on his recovery – One of the few matches you can actually use stone semi-consistently. His recovery is extremely predictable, and the stone’s hitbox stays out long enough to hit through the invincibility most of the time.
Stall offstage- If you’re being edguarded, simply float just out of his reach. You have 5 midair jumps and a pretty good upb, while all he has is one midair jump and his upb. He’ll soon be forced back onstage, while you can recover safely.
Kill him upwards- Bucket breaking is less effective on vertical momentum, so try to use usmash, up-angled and/or sourspotted fsmash or hammer for kills.
Fight more grounded than usual – Your aerials have less priority and range than his horizontally, and he can deal with vertical approaches with uair and dair. His ground game is easy to see coming.
Bait & Punish – Many of G&W's aerials leave him vulnerable if he lands while doing them, so try to bait aerials and punish. Judge also has a large amount of cooldown lag.
Techroll his Dthrow- If you don’t techroll his dthrow, there’s nothing you can do to avoid a dsmash. At higher %’s, it will kill you.
Spit out or Swallow?
This is a matchup where spit is almost always much better than swallowing. Kirby’s bacon can be absorbed by the bucket for some reason, even though a Game & Watch can’t absorb another Game & Watch’s bacon. Swallowing also gives him a free dair to your face, maybe even knocking out the power you just got. One of the only good points for swallowing is tricking them into using their dair when you actually spit them, making them kill themselves.
Stages (in order of priority):
Pokemon Stadium 1 – G&W has nothing really good on any transformations, except for dtilt locks on the fire and rock stages and a jab lock on the fire one (you have locks there too), while you have something good on every single transformation. CP this. However, expect it to be banned.
Battlefield – Top platform allows for moderate % uthrow kills. Use it for your neutral.
Yoshi's Island (B) – Same reason as battlefield, but it's harder to get a good height on the platform and the maximum height isn't even as good as battlefield's. Use it for your neutral if g&w stage strikes it.
Brinstar – Close boundary lines are a minus, but you have more exploitable things here than Game & Watch. Lava can kill him for you at reasonable-high %’s. The bad thing about this is that Brinstar basically cancels your ground game, and you lose to G&W in the air. Something you should know: if he’s positioned right, his dair will break up the entire flesh bridge and he will fall to his doom.
Jungle Japes – The high ceiling (highest in the game) makes killing G&W difficult, and bucket breaking is more effective on horizontal kill moves. Choosing dark blue or black costume makes him almost invisible. He can easily survive going into the water. Dthrow techchasing is easy to do on the small platforms, and he can abuse nair. Don't take him here.
Rainbow Cruise – He has a dtilt lock on the boat, but so do you. Once you get off the boat, he can abuse way more things than you on all the disappearing platforms and carpets. He can get tons of uair and usmash kills on the third (horizontal) part, especially against chars with multijumps. Beware of uthrow->uair as you get back on the boat. Ban this stage.
Synopsis:
If you can get a grab at the beginning of a stock, do a dthrow->utilt. If you know the G&W will dair, then walk in the opposite direction of where he’s facing and regrab or reverse fsmash. Punish him whenever he puts himself in lag, generally with a dthrow (or uthrow when he’s close to death). G&W has a large advantage over you in terms of stages; kirby’s second best stage against him is Brinstar, which is better for him.
), and it's not because he's a terribly limited character. You're talking about G&W as if he was a hard counter against Kirby, when in reality he's not. By your experiences you feel that G&W ***** Kirby, but by mine I feel that Kirby doesn't get ***** by G&W... And my Kirby is quite good and my opponents as well, I truly believe watching how the opposing G&W spaces and which options he chooses to do, then reacting accordingly, makes the MU MUCH easier. Remember that Kirby doesn't need to approach by attacking, we can just shield while edging closer until you run out of ground in which to space bair, then force you to do other things and punish you for them.
