Neb
Smash Lord
Game & Watch
Stratagems
Stratagems
WIP
• Upb Section
Introduction
So, here are some strategies I use, and decided to share with the community.
Hopefully they will allow a greater growth, and more planes to analyze.
Also, I might update this every now and then, :/.
• Feel free to contribute/compliment/correct.
• If you already knew about some of the info, that's fine. I'm not claiming to
be the first one to know.
• If you have questions, go for it.
• These strategies aren't going to make you pro, but are good to use,
and may require a little experience.
• Enjoy, and discuss, :}.
Note: tl;dr is for the weak, zip up your man-suit.
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The bread and butter of Mr. Game & Watch, turtle renders a potential advantage at any point in its use-- convenient range, disjointed/lingering hitboxes, high priority, and a great damage delivery. Its what any player wants in a character. But despite all its merit, there are a few chinks in the armor. The universal option against bair is to shield, in fact, in most cases, it’s the only options for some characters, aside from running away. After letting turtle feed on your opponent a bit, see how they respond to its constant pressure. Do they wait it out with shield, and then chase the ending lag? Empty sh, and punish if you spot flinches, be it shield or spotdodge. Or execute your bairs at various points in time, it'll throw them off, allowing windows for other approaches, these are your salt wounds.
Rising Bair - Rising full hopped bairs are good since they leave you in midair, here you can punish any of your opponents reactions from your strong element.
If they _____ you should...
• Shield: DI enough to fine-tune your spacing so that when you FF bair or nair on the way down, you will be safe.
• Run/Roll Away: Pursue them offstage with your air game and further pressure with chef.
• Roll Behind: DI after lag and punish.
• Jump: Punish with your aerials.
• Spot dodge: Dair, FF bair, nair, or FF and grab, dtilt, dsmash, or fsmash.
• Attack: Follow through with a second FF'd bair, considering its priority will usually eat any would-be attack. And if you find yourself in a pitfall, either retreat an upb, or airdodge.
Shield Pressuring - Full Hopped bair is a very effective spacing tool that can be good for chipping away at shields; you can approach tightly with bair, and taper back to your previous position with another bair. In effect, it can leave little space for punishment if you cover your hurtbox with good spacing, considering if they attack, in most cases you will win out. While if they jump, you can follow their DI with your second jump and couple it with an aerial, then retreat to your initial post with bair; wax on, wax off. Its a strong wall that’s easy to shrink and grow, from rising into second jumps, and to narrowing into SH's.
Bair vs Invincibility Frames - If you’re against an opponent with flexible invincible frames, such as Marth and MK, you'll need to condition them. Post condition, you may be able to cross up with empty sh’s, and nair to get behind them. Upb'ing out of SH's can give you backdoor access, and bait them for easy pickets. Another little trick is to full hop, retreat a bair (focusing spacing at the beak), and do nothing (may need to SJ)... They'll often rush, looking for that ending lag, if they attempt a grab, just dtilt them, or if they attack, either bair, or angle your upb into their center of body, this goes for aerials too. Just take advantage of your different hitboxes depending on the situation.
Bair Crossup - Post condition, execute bair while approaching your opponent, facing forward. After, DI through them, and as you land, they will remain in hitstun. With your new inside position, slap them with smashes and tilts. This is a neat mix-up, despite its high risk. A safer option would be to bair, and ff so that you cancel the remaining animation before the landing hitbox appears, they continue to experience hitstun, so follow-up with just about anything.
Nair
Crossup - With your running approaches, after readying your foe, you can nair through them for a crossup, which can lead into anything from cheap grabs, to your ground and air game. FF'd nairs are even better because they pull your opponent down, and flops them to the floor; here your smashes, tilts, and specials are good follow-up, take advantage of the autocancel to pull-off KO's. Dsmash is your best bet since it covers either side of you, otherwise you need to keep watch of your foes DI.
Dthrow
The down throw isn't really that great of a techchase, to be honest, especially compared to Dedede's and Snake's. It generally takes good observation to use the dthrow trap on experienced players. Once you look at G&W's grab game, you'll see its high risk and reward. Its really a gamble, and I like guaranteed damage, even if it requires some elbow grease, such as uthrow. But if you fancy the dthrow, here are some tricks to tighten your trap.
Dthrow has many holes...
• Get-up
• Get-up Attack
• Roll Left
• Roll Right
• Tech
• Tech Left
• Tech Right
1. When you dthrow, pick a direction, and walk forward at a distance that puts you just out of range of your opponents get-up attack, while still in fair reach of a tipper dsmash. You may need to charge, depending on how your foe reacts. This covers get-up, get-up attack, and any roll/tech in your direction. It still remains 50/50.
2. Before you do anything after throwing...jab once. It'll catch your opponent if they try everything but a roll/tech, which reduces about 70% chance. When you nab them with greenhouse, follow suit with your ground game. The good thing is, if G&W jabs forward, and they DI behind him, the hitbox will still catch them, from there you can react and punish without trying your luck. Use this sparingly, or else they'll retaliate.
3. One of my favorite tricks to condition my opponent after dthrow, is to sit in my shield; its safe, and rather than trotting left and right, sticking your neck out, you have better odds. If they lay there, I can spank them with the majority of G&W's moveset, if they roll/tech forward, its easy chase, and if they roll/tech behind me, I let turtle off the chain to eat.
4. Lastly, as you know, dthrow on platforms is camp ****; you have free smashes, tilts, and a mean regrab, yada-yada. Anyway, something you should try next time you grab your foe on a platform, is to dthrow, then slip under said platform, eye your opponents reaction, jump, and follow-up with anything from aerials to specials. Its pretty sexy to surprise your opponent with a fair from under their *** that sends them off-screen.
Bucket
Some of you are under the impression (the lies!), that bucket is something that really shouldn't be exploited as a G&W player, for reasons like- its post lag is horrendous, your asking for punishment, etc. The only reason you should be getting Star KO'd for using bucket is at high percentages, which should never really happen. Try filling the tin at early percentages, not only will you have your bucket full of fresh projectiles, but a bit of damage isn't all that bad to start off with, I mean your not going to get torn by fully charged smashes or anything, and it'll be worth it in the end.
Absorbing Projectiles - If you encounter an approaching projectile and you want to feed the pail, run toward the edge and ledge-boost down-b. You will snag the catch as it enters your absorption radius, and gain a good stretch of spacing; way out of striking distance of your opponents entire moveset, while still in recovery reach.
"Or you could- cover the lag with chef spam, gimp recoveries, ledge drop bucket and let the magnet fetch the projectile (especially with Pika's, since its current follows the shape of the terrain). You can cancel the lag with water, or hop under a floating level, hug the base, and suck the projectile under the stage and into the bucket with the magnet-property, then easily recover with Up-b's sweetspot. You have to think, not just pull it out, and rely on a little hope and a prayer not to get ***** by charged smashes. And even if you soak up weak projectiles, a soft oil panic still does nice damage, a lot better than not using it at all!"
Use bucket INTELLIGENTLY!
Observe your foes patterns, and find windows to fill up.
Releasing -
• OOS
• When being CG'd
• Out of Grab Release
• Out of Jab
• Ledge Camp Mix-up
• Punish Roll/Spotdodge
• Edgeguard
...Etc. Oil Panic comes out on frame 1, and hits on 2, so as you'd expect, it can be utilized in many instances.
Dash Attack
DashA is a hermit-move for most G&W players, its often underused and left alone as a lousy slip-finger attack. However, I’ve grown to use the helmet, it’s just something I happened to carry over from Melee that has fit smoothly with my game. DashA is great at early percentages, if you initiate it ahead of time, and allow the last few, lingering frames to sock your enemy, you have a cut in excess lag, and ample time to follow up with Hyphen Smash, Fmash, Dsmash, Ftilt, Dtilt, or another DashA. To add, at higher damage, it hurls your foe at an elevated diagonal, which sets-up nicely for juggling. It can also buoy up during the act of a juggle; as an opponent is about to land, time DashA to hit at the moment they experience land-lag to lob them back above ground, this also works if they air dodge, allowing for the helmets sluggish hitbox.
When you hit with the ending frames and you make contact with a shield, quickly jab, dtilt, or grab. Since the remaining frames are severed when canceled, its only right to follow-up with your swiftest moves.
Dtilt Tech Chase
A little thing I’ve been looking at carefully for awhile now, is the dtilt techchase. It’s fairly comparable to the dthrow trap, though the diversities between the two are: an on-the-go exploit, small window to tech, and its ease of abuse. The negative aspect is that it is impossible to bring into play at early and mid damage rates. Manholes trap is in exercise at a certain percentage, then wears-off at another. These percentages usually appear at bordering KO damage, so it is perfect for landing fatalities.
The ploy is difficult to tech since your adversary doesn’t have a clue when G&W will dtilt, and if they don’t happen to tech, they enter the grounded animation. Taking advantage of your IASA frames, you can run with a follow-up, while your opponent experiences the frame disadvantage of recovering. Another neat thing is, depending on how long the duration of a tech chase is active (dependent on character/percentage), you can chain consecutive chases into one another without having to regrab. Your entire moveset is at your disposal during the chase, it really makes your foe think at a cluttered tempo. Here is the character info, they are organized by the percentages that the chase becomes equipped, and then how long they last…
• = Short Duration
• = Medium Duration
• = Long Duration
• = Immune
60’s
• Mr. Game & Watch: 60%-80%
• Squirtle: 60%-102%
70%’s
• Marth: 70%’s
• Ivysaur: 70%-82%
• Toon Link: 70%-82%
• Pit: 70%-88%
• Ness: 71%-89%
• Mario: 70%-90%
• Yoshi: 72%-95%
• Ice Climbers: 70%-100%
• Lucas: 70%-106%
• Metaknight: 70%-106%
• ZSS- 70%-106%
• Pikachu: 70%-108%
• Diddy Kong: 70%-118%
• Shiek: 70%-130%
• Fox: 70%-140%
• Falco: 70%-148%
80’s
• Luigi: 80%’s
• Robert: 80%-86%
• Sonic: 80%-108%
• Ike: 80%-110%
• Snake: 80%-110%
• Charizard: 80%-110%
• Donkey Kong: 80%-110%
• King Dedede: 80%-116%
• Link: 80%-122%
• Wario: 80%-122%
• Ganondorf: 80%-140%
• Bowser: 80%-140%
• Captain Falcon: 80%-150%
• Wolf: 80%-176%
Impervious
• Samus
• Kirby
• Peach
• Lucario
• Olimar
• Jigglypuff
Note:
If you can’t remember all this, just know to start throwing out some manhole at 60 and up.
Jab
Jab Set Up - Greenhouse is a hot steaming pile of garbage by itself, on the other hand, it is excellent when married with G&W's moveset. Being closely related to Fox and Kirby's, its initially your everyday jab until it gets going. If you're in spitting distance of your opponent, jab will temporarily lock them in a short radius, washing them in a quick rinse cycle; from hit stun, to standing position, to landing lag. Your foe has no idea when they can attack or escape, they are entirely reliant on SDI, this gives you an advantage, albeit small. At this time, you have a Swiss Army knife of punish options, subject to HOW they DI.
When an opponent is caught in a 'Jab Combo', notice when and where they DI. The instant you see them begin to escape, release the A button ASAP, this is so you have time to punish, rather than sitting in the buffer lag. This requires a hell of a reaction time, if you aren't quick on the draw, your foe has a chance at getting off scot-free. The following are your opponents options, and the appropriate counters.
Opponent SDI's behind G&W - As soon as you can, catch them with smashes for cheap KO's, utilt and dashA for a juggle set-up, or ftilt and dtilt when you need breathing room. You can also pivot grab to chain into dthrow/uthrow traps, and judgment hammer if you're feeling golden. Of course, you also have the privilege of resetting the jab set-up for greedy damage. If your victim is aggressive, walk forward just a little, and pop them with a tipper dsmash.
Opponent SDI's away from G&W - In this scenario, the second you see them fleet, immediately cancel the jab, depending on how this player has been acting prior (ex- teching away, spacing, playing defensively, camping), you may want to avoid holding A. Just tap it, lightly, several times, that way you're free to act quicker. As they DI- either dsmash, ftilt, dtilt, or dashA, these being your longest attacks, you have a better chance at contact, go for the quicker move depending on the character (ex- slow, fast faller, low priority, etc). You can also walk forward a bit for more range. If they enter shield before you can react, let turtle eat it, or run up and grab.
Opponent SDI's upward - Your opponent was stupid enough to DI vertically, now that they are off the ground, your entire air game is at home. Run toward your foe and brutalize with your aerials. You can also upb straight into their body if they try to attack. If they ff, dashA or ftilt to lob them back into the air, dsmash, fsmash for KO'ing, and dtilt for spacing. If they DI upward, and toward you, utilt, usmash, or use any of your aerials, and if you can, use chef for multiple hits. Air dodging is what you want, it allows your entire moveset by punishing the ending frames.
Being the fastest attack in G&W's moveset, coming out frame 4, with a measly damage output of 3%, you can set this up at just about any tight situation, since G&W's smashes frequently lose at very close ranges, this gives him a strength nose-to-nose, rather than upbing away. Also, keep in mind, bucket is accessible in all of these circumstances.
• Walk to Jab- Not very safe.
• Empty SH to Jab- Good post condition.
• Bair to Jab- Great if you spaced closely.
• Jab Oos- Usually wins due to its speed.
• FF'd Nair to Jab- Reliable.
Note: Jumping, crouching, and pressing B are the quickest ways to jab cancel. Also, Neutral A can quickly catch opponents with their pants down, this is most efficient during an aggressive playstyle, the change in tempo can land brief sucker hits.
Single Jab - Another neat aspect of greenhouse, just tapping A once can give you a slight advantage- hits on frame 4 of course, with 9 cool down, which is hard pressed to punish. This is just good to throw in every now and then, it can chain into pretty much anything- jump canceled jab > ff nair/dair, jump canceled jab > fair, jab > dsmash, jab > dtilt, jab > grab, etc. Single jab also has minor shield pressure capabilities.
On Stage Edgeguarding
Spacing - Game & Watch's on stage edgeguard is quite impressive, sharing characteristics of both Marth, and Snake. As you know, opponents occupying the ledge have little, and rather fragile recovery options- roll, get-up, jump, ledge attack, and ledge drop. This in itself is a trap. In order to seriously take advantage of having the higher ground, space yourself at equal distance of a tipped dtilt, and accordingly outside of your foes ledge attack. This alone will rule out the majority of their choices (get-up, roll, ledge jump, ledge attack).
Punishing Get-up, Roll, Ledge Jump, Ledge Attack - If they roll you could, punish the ending lag with your smashes, throw them into one of your grab traps, or flick them back off stage with dtilt and reset the scenario, or go into an off stage edgeguard. Its like an opponent deliberately teching toward you- free damage. If they regular get up, or perform a ledge attack, you're in a dash's distance to shield grab, or punish said ending lag with your disjointed moveset. As you know, most characters wouldn't dare jump out from the ledge considering G&W's air game. But if they attempt an attack after a ledge jump, walk up, and fly into their attack with Upb's i-frames, angling in or out for on stage juggle, or off stage edgeguard.
Punishing Ledge Drop - Your enemies options are now limited to a ledge drop, and depending on said character, this could be their weakest, or strongest choice, even if so, this still remains fairly punishable. If your foe is terrible on the ledge, and has noticed your tight spacing, they just might chance a ledge drop, using their second jump to airdodge onto the stage. Be expecting this, and punish with a dashA, or time another move during the vulnerable frames. If your foe has a excellent ledge game, such as MK and ROB's, spam chef. The foods, having random trajectory, but an all around centered range, will prohibit their flexibility, creating a pressure point, this can aid in setting up follow-ups if need be. Or alternate fsmash and dtilt for a wall that affords long lasting, and quick hitboxes. If the opponent stays on the ledge too long, stage spike with dash attack.
Knowing both your off, and on stage edgeguards can tack on quite a sum of damage, and make these map 'hot spots' very fearful for your opponent. This is an example of conditioning for stage pressure.
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Possible Discussion Topics
• Dtilt Frame Trap (On Slow/Short-ranged/Bad Oos characters)
• Shield Pressure [x]
• Escaping Traps & Breaking Walls
Possible Discussion Topics
• Dtilt Frame Trap (On Slow/Short-ranged/Bad Oos characters)
• Shield Pressure [x]
• Escaping Traps & Breaking Walls
Discuss...