Matchup Thread

[G13_Flux]

So, like every other character, i think wolf deserves a MU thread.

As a wolf main, Ive found him to be an extremely interesting character, with mixed attributes similar to the likes of the space animals and captain falcon. Hes got the "in your face" pressure that is characteristic of a space animal, coupled with a slew of combo set ups that can completely lock down an opponent and lead into bread and butter kills. However, the biggest thing thats different about wolf from the characters hes derived from, is his amazing mobility coupled with great stage control options. With amazing ground speed, amazing air speed, amazing fast fall speed, ranged gound attacks, a great SHFFL, and a bulky, slow moving projectile that he can WL out of and use in conjunction with a wavebounce, wolfs ability to command space throughout the stages gives him something that really sets him apart from other characters in his archetype.

from my theory on wolf, his worst MUs (ones where hes disadvantaged) are going to come from defensive characters that can turn the tides on him just as quickly as he can produce damage on them. some characters that fit this playstyle are peach (my other main), DDD, and snake. in all three of these MUs, i believe wolf is at least slightly disadvantageous, because they hit him hardest where it hurts (when hes offstage), and they all have the tools to deal with his amazing offensive abilities (all three have some combination of amazing OOS options, stage control options better than wolfs, and the ability to defend themselves when confronted close range by wolf).

I can elaborate on these more, but ill let u guys put some thoughts in first.

 

[yahyakun]

nice thread.

wolf does pretty good against many chars, mainly on chars that u can shield combo a lot. example, charizard, koopa, dk, etc. also they are easier to be hit by side-b and B-air (which are pretty hard to connect against small chars).

i feel pretty confident against these chars
king ddd, koopa, charizard, ganon, donkey kong, rob and maybe snake (havent played against skilled snake but i will feel confident if i do)

now where i feel very unsured is against:
squirtle
jigglypuff
diddy
luigi
pikachu

but overall, wolf is pretty awesome against everyone else, rly easy to combo ppl, i like it a lot. he is not my main but its on my top chars and is the one i use the most (i main peach).

 

[G13_Flux]

nice haha so weve got the same mains. i find that peach is generally a pretty under used character, but i just love her playstyle and the approach to the game that u can take with her. wolf is my secondary who im trying to make surpass my peach. theres just a lot more technical skill involved in wolf so its taking longer for me to get good with him than it did for me with peach.

But yeah many of the heavies generally play pretty defensively, with the exception of charizard and DK sometimes, so i feel that wolfs overwhelming offense just is too much for their defensive skills to handle, making him favored. i usually feel confident against DDD, but i know i havent played many good DDDs, so my speculation on that MU is a lot of theory. That MU consists of one of the best offensive characters versus one of the best defensive characters. In MUs, like that, a lot of it comes down to who makes the most mistakes, and if those mistakes are capitalized on.

I can definitely see squirtle being an issue, just with the light armour hes got on some of his approaches, his overall mobility, and how difficult it is to combo him. however i think squirtle is the character that i know least about in this game, so its difficult to say really. diddy too, he can player either offensively or defensively very well, and his only real weakness is his lack of good killing potential. hes good at shutting down offenses and responding with his own, so i can definitely see him being a threat to wolf.

the thing about jiggs and luigi is that wolf can kill them very early. his vertical killers and set ups really put this MU on their ability to avoid wolfs set ups, which might be easier for jiggs than luigi. luigi doesnt have the air mobility to take on wolf in the air, granted hes got great attacks, but wolf can bait and punish them easily with his quick fastfall, fast jumps, and ranged aerials. luigis main killers on on the ground anyways, and thats where his mobility is anyways. i think that his MU is going to fought almost like a ZSS MU, in which both characters are fighting to get the other one above them. both have good ground mobility, and projectiles that are conducive to stage and space control. both can also edge guard very well. luigi definitely does combo wolf harder than wolf comboes him, so i think luigi has damage racking in his favor. i can definitely see this being a problem for wolf, as luigi has some strong moves. But i also think wolfs overall mobility, quicker projectile, and his abilty to kill luigi early vertically definitely remedy the situation a bit. hard to say with this one, i think it could be close to even, maybe with the wolf player having to work a little bit harder for it though, so maybe its slightly disadvantageous. The jiggs battle will be an extremified version of this, minus the good ground mobility and projectile that luigi had. if fox and falco can take on jiggs, then i think wolf would have an easier time than the two of them, because of his air game and ability to kill vertical better (better than falco at least, not neccesarily fox).

Pikachu i really couldnt say. i dont know a good deal about the MU and ive never played a good Pikachu player. all i know is that this was one of his worst MUs in brawl, but that was due to chain grabs. so who knows.

 

[Scythe]

I go to a lot of tournaments in the chicago area and my hardest matchups seem to fox and falco. Wolf combos are harder to start up due to how fast they fall and both of the can easily combo Wolf to hell and back. But most importantly they have high prioirty aerials that Wolf cannot beat. Those being Fox nair and bair and Falco nair bair and dair. Wolf can't beat those moves in fact hardly any character in the cast can beat those. ( thats why falco and fox are still the best) These two characters can simply pressure Wolf in a way no one else can.

 

[G13_Flux]

ill agree that it makes wolfs life very difficult to deal with their nairs and bairs. u can trade hits with them if u space your aerials, but that doesnt do too much seeing as how none of his aerials are combo breakers. But i will disagree with the fact that its harder to combo them. one hit on them can easily mean the stock. at low percents u can pull a fox and waveshine them, and they will be unable to DI out of it until they gain a little bit more percent, at which case u can follow with uair strings, up smashes, up tilts, dash attacks, dairs, and practically every other move in wolfs arsenal, all of which leads to continuous combos, and even if you lose the combo, go CF on their *** and tech chase! something really useful against the space animals is that sourspot fair > up smash is a guarenteed kill combo, depending on the height at which you fair them (if u fair them too high, they will be able to jump to escape, but if this is the case you just follow up with a uair, fair, or smth else to continue comboing instead of killing). wolf also has a much more versatile edge guard game than either fox or falco, who are much more limited in their ability to go offstage, so if ur good enough with wolf, u can pull off kills at lower percents than they can on you. Their on sheild pressure is definitely a little bit better than yours, but lets not forget wolf still has the infamous shine OOS to help, and with more range than theirs to boot. I think the one other thing thats gonna help wolf out in this MU is his ability to control space. The wavebounce on wolfs laser is much more useful than you think when it comes to having control over your position in relation to your opponent. its also very useful baiting and punishing. his blaster shots are also far better at stage and space control than the other two's lasers, so a skilled wolf should be able to shut down their obnoxious nair approaches, and bait and punish to set up for yourself to get in and start pressuring.

Im definitely not saying this MU is easy for wolf, but i dont think its easy for the other side either. all of them have very reliable kill combos, and extreme pressure options. im still a firm believer that there is still a big hangover effect with the space animals minus wolf, just cuz fox and falco have already been largely developped, and PM wolf hasnt even seen one tenth of the time that fox and falco have had for their metagames to develop. obviously fox and falco are still be the bread winners for a bit, and people will have a lot of trouble with them, but give it a little bit and i think well start to see that change.

 

[yahyakun]

i agree with u g13.

i also agree with scythe, cuz i cant beat falco nor fox. falco its even harder than fox.

i cant beat skilled pikachu cuz of chain graps(up thorw) them boom, u smash>thunder. bye.
and pikachu moves pretty quick, its hard.

i find mario diff also. its not that hard but i hate that cape and that down smash. and what i hate most is that insane reaction.... wth? i am starting to combo when he suddenly wake up and Nair me-_-

ike would have ***** wolf if he wouldnt have been nerfed like that. but still is a lil bit diff also, only good thing is that u can combo him well.

 

[G13_Flux]

ill agree that falco is harder than fox for wolf. his lasers come out quicker, which really hinders your own ability to zone him out and force reactions with yours. he also combos wolf harder than fox combos wolf.

i think with both fox and falco, it comes down to wolfs ability to not fall for baiting games, and to use his superior ground game to get in. once wolf has either of them in a defensive position, he will get more benefit due to his crazy, strung out juggling combos, and his ability to keep them on lock in a tech chase, ending with a kill. he will have an easier time killing them early with them in a disadvantageous position than they will if wolf was in a disadvantageous position, and i attribute this to the fact that wolf has longer combos and chases than fox or falco, and he can get them off the edge easier through using these. with the fast pace of a spacee on spacee game however, this requires the wolf to play close to perfectly, and thats very difficult to do with the developped metagame that fox and falco have. i think wolf could be slightly favored against fox, but slightly disadvantageous to falco, considering they all play at the top of the metagame.

with mario, the biggest thing u can do is to not let urself be put into a defensive position. as in, dont sheild his dumb fireballs. use full hops and ur quick fast fall speed to avoid them. if this means playing hit and run for awhile until u can land a good dair on him, then do that. be patient, because marios priority is balls (except for fair and fsmash) and once u get a hit on him, its ur turn for ur offesnive skills to take effect. this MU is going to come down to who is in the defensive position longer. as in, whoever wins it out more in the neutral game is going to overall claim the victory.

with, ike, blaster all day. u have an amazing bait and punish, as well as a great defensive zoning wall with ur blaster. use those two attributes in conjunction with each other to both prevent ikes approaches, and punish them. just keep ike staying defensive, u dont want to give him any breathing room as he will start at u with fair and nair walls which are hard to avoid as wolf. he can tech chase pretty well and keep u in lock, plus hes powerful. so the biggest thing u wanna worry about is his full hop aerial approaches. make sure to keep urself out of the way of them, then punish them by continuing to zone out with his blaster. this one should be in wolfs favor in my experience.

 

[Sixth-Sense]

I can really see pika being a tough matchup for wolf, seeing as how speedy he is and everything, but there has been another character that i think, given the time to develope, will counter wolf, and that's squirtle. I haven't played any good squirtles since he just came out, but i can clearly see him defeating wolf's crazy offense with his mobility and light armor, not only that he's so small wolf's blaster is kind of (well seems) useless against him, i guess the only thing that could favor wolf is squirtle being pretty light, but that doesn't compared to getting ran over by smaller, more compact, and more deadly luigi.

On the topic of fox/falco, fox to me isn't that bad compared to the crazy pillar combos falco can do to you, then you got his dair to edge-guard, and wolf's recoveries are pretty much gonna crumble under that spike. Wolf still does have a shine and a blaster, i've actually been experimenting with nair->shine on low percents as if it was fox's waveshine-> drill and mixing it up after nair doesn't lock them down to the ground. Just my current thoughts, BTW, has anyone played against a good marth? I'd like to know if the legendary chain-grab is as deadly to him as it is to fox/falco, being a spacie and all.

 

[Scythe]

ill agree that falco is harder than fox for wolf. his lasers come out quicker, which really hinders your own ability to zone him out and force reactions with yours. he also combos wolf harder than fox combos wolf.

i think with both fox and falco, it comes down to wolfs ability to not fall for baiting games, and to use his superior ground game to get in. once wolf has either of them in a defensive position, he will get more benefit due to his crazy, strung out juggling combos, and his ability to keep them on lock in a tech chase, ending with a kill. he will have an easier time killing them early with them in a disadvantageous position than they will if wolf was in a disadvantageous position, and i attribute this to the fact that wolf has longer combos and chases than fox or falco, and he can get them off the edge easier through using these. with the fast pace of a spacee on spacee game however, this requires the wolf to play close to perfectly, and thats very difficult to do with the developped metagame that fox and falco have. i think wolf could be slightly favored against fox, but slightly disadvantageous to falco, considering they all play at the top of the metagame.

.

disagree so hard, both those matchups are like 6-4 wolf's disadvantage. A superior ground(fmash and dsmash?) game doesn't help when fox and falco can shffl wolf to death. He has no answer to those aerials that have hitboxes that stay out forever.
Wolf does not have longer combos at all, have you seen what fox and falco do each other? It's the same for Wolf.
Fox beats Wolf because he matches or probably beats Wolf's speed and his nair and bair crush all of Wolf's moves, trades won't end up in his favor.
Falco beats everyone in this game so I don't need to explain for him.

One of the reasons Wolf is such a great character in PM and is able to beat many characters is shine and that's just a wash against Fox and Falco. They have better overall movesets that Wolf aside from down smash and fmash( think it's equal with Falco and better than Fox)

Also the comment at the end about top of the metagame is silly because Wolf's metagame isn't even close to theirs yet so how could he have advantage on Fox?

 

[BTmoney]

Very Bad Match Up:
Marth

Personally, I feel that Falco is better at the match up than Wolf. They basically get gimped the same way but it comes down to how I feel that falco has a superior laser game when it comes to facing Marth.

If you want to approach with lasers (like SH and laser/jump into marth) he can easily, easily shield grab you with his insane grab range. If you want to play the standard SH laser game, marth can easily crouch under the top of the SH laser and the lasers on the ground he can stop with D-tilt.

He cans stay in that position indefinitely. Wolf is also combo'd easily by Marth.

Marth has no reason to approach you the way I see it. He can camp you all day easily.


(btw am I the only one who thinks chain grabbing spacies with marth is 20x harder than it was in melee?
Yes you can do it, I just think it's harder to do consistently)

Very Good Match Up:
Falcon

Falcon like's to approach with a tricky, and extremely long/fast dash dance. He also like's to approach with nair. Laser's shut down dashdance approach, especially with falcon's height, and Falcon cannot camp you at all. It is also very hard to nair through lasers. You might cancel one but you're gonna get hit.

Wolf can shut down a falcon approach given enough space. Flat out, just from playing that MU from either side. Falcon's beware, I find this extremely tough. However, wolf easily get's comboed by falcon if he can punish you.

Dealing with maximum height SH laser is extremely hard for falcon

disagree so hard, both those matchups are like 6-4 wolf's disadvantage.
A superior ground(fmash and dsmash?)
One of the reasons Wolf is such a great character in PM and is able to beat many characters is shine and that's just a wash against Fox and Falco. They have better overall movesets that Wolf

That's a better and more specific version of what I've been saying in my thread

Also without going into detail Ike vs wolf can't be better than 50:50. Full Hop fair like u said is key and he can edge guard him so easily. Not to mention chain grab (like fox?)

Ike seems to wreck spacies (ie Mango Vs Metroid Big House 2)

 

[Scythe]

For the ike matchup i haven't tried it in 2.5 but I've got to play both Metroid and Vro plenty of times since they are in my area and that matchup was pretty damn hard. Up tilt combo'd into fmash : / It was dumb. He seems to nerfed pretty hard though so maybe now it's 55:45 ike's favor or possibly even? I would need to play it out.

 

[G13_Flux]

i have seen what fox and falco can do, but i dont think have you have seen what wolf is actually capable of. u underestimate his ability to mix between juggling combos and tech chases, and the damage out put that results from it. there is no doubt in my mind that wolf can pull off a more damaging and lengthy combo, and with the directional utility of his side b and up b, he can easily end a juggle of tech chase with a kill. the funny thing is that with characters below marths weight, fox really doesnt even have that many combos longer than a couple hits. but wolf can easily prevent SHFFLs with the use of his blaster. he can then use his superb range as a tool for baiting and punishing. falcos fsmash is better for killing than wolfs, but wolfs is quicker and more ranged, giving it more utility outside of killing. his tilts all have equal or more range that the other two, and aside from ftilt, they even act as set ups. his superior ground game comes from his ability to control space which is better than foxs or falcos, and his quick and ranged moves, many of which are fairly safe on shield (upsmash, dsmash, and ftilt are all safe on shield as long as u space them a tad). when it comes to the nairs and bairs, wolf can easily use blaster to shut down foxes use of them. its easy to bait out and punish it for wolf. for falco, it will be harder to implement his blaster game cuz falcos lasers are quicker, giving falco a better harrassing tool to take advantage of wolfs limited defensive options, which is why i said that MU will be in falcos favor. but the fox one, wolf just controls the stage better than fox does, and he will rack up damage much faster than fox (wolf doesnt get waveshined), so that one i am very confident wil be in wolfs favor.

as far as marth goes, this is my hardest MU personally. marth will play very offensive in this MU so that he can take away wolfs defensive options, namely, shine OOS and blaster. shine OOS does not work at all cuz of spacing, and as long as marth can maintain constant and controlled pressure, then wolf wont even have time to use blaster. wolfs a bit faster than marth, and has better aerial mobility, but the difference isnt a lot, so wolfs best bet is to use his mobilty to escape an overly offensive marth, and create some breathing room so he can zone him out with blaster. overall though, its much easier for the marth to handle this situation than it is for wolf. so i can see this being disadvantageous towards wolf.

also about the chaingrabs, they still exist, but they are much harder to do. im pretty sure its something about the landing detection off of throws so theres a smaller window where u can perform them. u can do it though, u might just need to start off at a slightly higher percent than in melee.

wolfs waveshine works extremely well on fastfallers at 0 percent. it is unescapable, and once they are too damaged to be waveshined, u can start juggling them. very useful against fox, falco, and CF.

wolf can also chaingrab fastfallers for a little bit with uair, and if they get to the point where they can DI away, u can dash attack them into combo.

lets not forget that metroid probably had much more fox experience than mango had ike experience. also, wolf isnt fox, so even if ike wrecks fox, thats not necessarily true for wolf. about full hop to fair, if that is the key for ike, and it is the only key, then a smart wolf will realize that and try to bait it out. the big thing in the wolf ike MU is that wolf can severely limit ikes approach options, while retaining all of his own. and with ledge teching, its a little bit easier for wolf to counter ikes old edge guard tactics. another big thing, is that ike really has no answer to wolfs pressure options and combos. he gets comboed fairly easily, and theres just no way for him to avoid it. i still think its advantageous to wolf in this case. its much easier for the wolf to deal with ike than it is for ike to deal with wolf.

 

[Sixth-Sense]

Very Bad Match Up:
Marth

Personally, I feel that Falco is better at the match up than Wolf. They basically get gimped the same way but it comes down to how I feel that falco has a superior laser game when it comes to facing Marth.

If you want to approach with lasers (like SH and laser/jump into marth) he can easily, easily shield grab you with his insane grab range. If you want to play the standard SH laser game, marth can easily crouch under the top of the SH laser and the lasers on the ground he can stop with D-tilt.

He cans stay in that position indefinitely. Wolf is also combo'd easily by Marth.

Marth has no reason to approach you the way I see it. He can camp you all day easily.


(btw am I the only one who thinks chain grabbing spacies with marth is 20x harder than it was in melee?
Yes you can do it, I just think it's harder to do consistently)

Very Good Match Up:
Falcon

Falcon like's to approach with a tricky, and extremely long/fast dash dance. He also like's to approach with nair. Laser's shut down dashdance approach, especially with falcon's height, and Falcon cannot camp you at all. It is also very hard to nair through lasers. You might cancel one but you're gonna get hit.

Wolf can shut down a falcon approach given enough space. Flat out, just from playing that MU from either side. Falcon's beware, I find this extremely tough. However, wolf easily get's comboed by falcon if he can punish you.

Dealing with maximum height SH laser is extremely hard for falcon




That's a better and more specific version of what I've been saying in my thread

Also without going into detail Ike vs wolf can't be better than 50:50. Full Hop fair like u said is key and he can edge guard him so easily. Not to mention chain grab (like fox?)

Ike seems to wreck spacies (ie Mango Vs Metroid Big House 2)

I agree completely with everything, although i haven't played against my friend with wolf yet (marth main, pretty good) i can visibly see that he's gonna have a horrible time trying to get in on marth, blaster is useless because of his range, and the only thing that could touch him is f-smash, other than that wolf would have to get in his general range/grab range and that's suicide lol.

 

[BTmoney]

Wow, first of all Scythe, props to you because I am assuming you can hang with Vro and metroid. They would absolutely wreck me lol.

• there is no doubt in my mind that wolf can pull off a more damaging and lengthy combo

• his superior ground game comes from his ability to control space which is better than foxs or falcos

• marth will play very offensive in this MU so that he can take away wolfs defensive options

• and with ledge teching

First point, you're just gonna have to show me that lol. I have not seen anything as staple as drillshine or fox's waveshine or a falco pillar. Yes this is a underdeveloped wolf metagame but lack of evidence does not imply existence.


Second, You don't even have time to laser a falco or fox.
For character's with the size and speed of fox/falco, getting in side of the range where you shouldn't laser isn't that hard. They even have reflectors. It's a tad unorthodox but you can waveshine past the lasers.

Reflect laser -> stay in shine -> wave shine -> repeat until you are close enough to wolf where he feels uncomfortable layering
Now that is just a that is just a theory but why wouldn't that work if the wolf somehow had a perfect laser game? Which btw, I have also yet to see lol
Will you eat a few lasers? Yes but can he zone you out completely? Not at all. Character's like Falcon & ZSS (tall) have a much harder time because of their size even though their not slow.
So once they get in that range where "wow they are kind of close I should stop lasering" you can get shffl'd to death. I really don't know what wolf can do about that other than shine OOS but it'll come down to hard reads. Since a good fox won't just shuffle nair's back and forth through your shield.

However I can even concede that point, because I am not sure of wolf's options are agains't getting party shffl'd by fox/falco



Third point, why would marth be aggressive? He has no reason to. Crouch/d-tilt and shield grab basically stops whatever you wan't to do with wolf. You'll be approaching marth from what i've played and seen

Fourth, every character can ledge tech that doesn't add or take away from any MU

Another point, wolf really can't laser falco at all with falco's faster laser game

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVJEWI7To0M

Wobbles @ 1:15
I am settling on I see wolf as a tech-chaser not a combo-er
Shout out to Kels for the falco, that was nice

 

[G13_Flux]

i understand that wolf has a hard time lasering falco, thats why i said the MU would be in falcos favor. but in terms of fox, wolf does have time to use his blaster: the WL out of it is very quick and allows you to keep control of your own position very well. if fox reflects, he cannot JC it and will be stuck in the endlag. wolf will punish him hard for that. if it was as simple as reflector waveshining, then wolf would not have a problem with falco.

if marth lets wolf approach him, then hes gonna eat a blaster > grab and get juggled off the edge, or hell just eat a simple nair > shine combo > again, off the edge. if the wolf can approach marth, then marths offensive options are shut down completely by his zoning capabilities.

in regards to ledge teching, it does affect MUs if one character tends to favor on stage edge guarding (ike) and the other favors offstage (wolf). im not saying its game breaking, but its not something that should be ignored, no matter how minute of a detail.

i currently use the full code set, so replays dont work, and i play on a limited friend basis, but i will try to get the wifi safe version working and will post a couple videos outlining some combo strings i use as well as what im talking about with the wavebounce on wolfs blaster.

 

[DMG]

Did they buff Wolf Laser priority? Because in 2.1, it was actually very verrry easy to Nair through them with most characters. Falcon included. A projectile that was harder to beat was 2.1 Link's Boomerang because idk why, janky hitboxes on it or something.


Wolf MU vs Spacies can be ok, but it means using Bair instead of Nair to space. Nair is pointless to use in some MU's because it's not a true sex kick and will lose range wise to a lot of attacks. Fox Falco will stuff you with their own Nair or Dair if you two collide, which then leads to bad things obviously because Spacies **** other spacies in combos. Your neutral spacing is pretty decent, above average probably. You will have to rely more on that, over "mindless" approaching like Fox or Falco or Nairing around with Falcon.


Marth is definitely a bad MU for Wolf, and the other spacies are likely to be at least 55:45 against him. Besides that, I can't think of any clear characters that would beat him. Old Ike or Lucario, but I have no idea how they fare now. Ganon probably loses, Falcon might go even, maybe Sheik goes even or does ok, etc. Mario's the only other one that comes to mind easily: people like Snake or Dedede will probably have to be flushed out meta wise to really see what they can do.

 

[Scythe]

I think they just made the laser a bit faster but they still lose to pretty much any aerial.

 

[BTmoney]

Well I definitely wouldn't call nair'ing through lasers with falcon easy I don't think it's very easy even doing it against the CPU wolf which has no concept of spacing lol

 

[DMG]

As long as it's not inbetween kicks, it will cleanly beat the laser.

 

[Scythe]

btw anyone here going to apex? maybe we can sneak a friendly or MM in at any PM setups there.

 

[BTmoney]

Nah but I'm wishing I would have given it more thought now.

But then again class is too precious to miss

 

[G13_Flux]

im with ya ive got rough schedule between college and internships. i go to tournaments that happen at my school fairly often, although they are nothing compared to most known tournaments.

i havent noticed a change in wolfs laser priority, although i could be wrong. if wolf WLs backwards, he can usually punish someone that tries to power through his blaster. ill have to test how easy it is for non sex kick characters to beat out projectiles. its a small aspect, but it can definitely affect some MUs to a good extent.

 

[Jorgitis]

Falco's lasers are a b**** to deal with. In my experience, only way I can go on the offensive is to wait until I powershield one

 

[Rat]

For the ike matchup i haven't tried it in 2.5 but I've got to play both Metroid and Vro plenty of times since they are in my area and that matchup was pretty damn hard. Up tilt combo'd into fmash : / It was dumb. He seems to nerfed pretty hard though so maybe now it's 55:45 ike's favor or possibly even? I would need to play it out.

The reason it's hard is because you don't laser. Ike has a hard time dealing with it - stops him from quick drawing and minimizes his DD game. (His jump is also slow and his aerials are slow so he can get locked down.)

I feel like ike:wolf is 40:60 - in wolfs favor.



Edit:
And Yeah I agree with you'all that Fox/Falco are hard match-ups.

Against Falco:
Wolf's much more mobile than him. I feel like with platforms wolf can move around his laser/aerial pressure.
Against lasers I like to mix in DashA. If they space the lasers high you scoop 'em up.
On FD, it's possible to out laser falco - You can FJ FF Laser inbetween his SHL.

 

[RaynEX]

I had my first actual P:M session yesterday with good players. The hardest MUs of the day were easily Marth / Falco. I couldn't get Falco off me, and his combo game is so much more deadly because we've been honing it as a scene for like 6+ years. Marth's aerials (when tipped) don't knock you as far away anymore so the fastfaller combos are even longer now.

One thing that was working vs Fox's nair (and sometimes Falco's dair) for me was SH backwards and fair. If I tipped Wolf's fair it almost always beat their moves clean, and it was more consistent when I was moving backwards.

Also, Marth can fair through Wolf's laser for free. It's such a joke...you can't really use it that much against those characters. Somebody posted earlier that because of the waveland ability he has afterwards, you can SHL and waveland backwards to bait a response (because they'll try to hit the laser). That might be a good idea.

 

[DMG]

That's the best option usually. If the character doesn't have a good way to deal with it, Waveland forwards is also good for moving forward and approaching.

 

[Scythe]

The main issue in the fox/falco matchup is that if you are facing someone who is good they can just take advantage that Wolf's shine is completely crouch cancelable and just shine you when you shine them. : /

 

[G13_Flux]

well if ur able to space it right your reflector will outrange theirs and you can multishine them. the other thing is that CCing in that manor doesnt work off a nair shine combo. i know for a fact that nair cannot be CCed, and attempting to crouch cancel the shine that follows isnt technically a true crouch cancel, its more of an SDI down sort of manuever that just knocks you down. Magus detailed that in the Wolfs Potential and Possible Changes thread. bassically you will only get CCed by shine if you just randomly use it against people with no previous set up. if you use it OOS, in conjunction with nair and dair, or simply on sheild as a pillar (essentially all the ways you should be using it), then you do not run the risk of getting CCed. plus, wolf has other ways to beat out CCing, like grab, fsmash, multishines, ftilt, dair, and nair.

i think the falco MU is harder than the fox MU. the fox MU requires a lot more precision on the wolfs part, and really puts the focus on when you mess up and leave yourself oppened. but wolf can zone out fox pretty well, his speed is slightly less but comparable, but his aerial mobility in ALL directions is better, including the fact that wolf has a tad more range on his aerial attacks. it is the precision with these aerial attacks however, and the accuracy you must attain to be able to work around those clunky nairs and bairs fox has. i must also say that your ground game is better than foxes, wit much more range on smashes, tilts (save for utilt), and better grabs. when it comes to edge guarding, i think wolf also has the advantage. however ill will leave this statement open, as im not sure on how well foxs shine goes through wolfs up b, but i know that wolfs bair and dair (both very effective edge guard moves) go though fire fox. let us not also forget that wolf has the second longest vertical survivability in the game (second only to falcon, and only by a 5% margin too), and he cannot be waveshine, making foxes up smashes and uairs take longer to kill him.

in terms of the falco MU however, its much harder to implement an advantageous ground game with the deterance of his faster lasers. he also has more comparable range to you than fox on the ground (filt, utilt, fsmash, grab), and i think his bair might have more range on it as well. you can use aerial mobility to avoid the lasers pretty well, but the disadvantage is that it forces you in the air much more and your almost forced to play his game more than it is with fox. falcos edge guarding on you is much more reliable than foxes as well, as dair will most certainly go through fire wolf. falco also can actually combo wolf quite reliably and for a long time, something fox cant do.

raynex, i really apreciate your usage of a retreating fair, it definitely is a solid defensive tactic with very good range. gald im not the only only one who resorts to retreating SHFFLs. retreating bairs and auto cancelled bair walls are quite useful as well. the auto cancelled bairs are hard to pull off, but it really puts up a nice wall for you and shuts down most approaches.

 

[RaynEX]

The main issue in the fox/falco matchup is that if you are facing someone who is good they can just take advantage that Wolf's shine is completely crouch cancelable and just shine you when you shine them. : /

Yup, it's super annoying. At mid-high percents it doesn't seem to be CC-able though. I nair -> shined a Falco at around 36% and the shine grounded him. I think I'm going to go test the percents now.

In melee if Fox / Falco hit you with dair, the shine was guaranteed and couldn't be CCed. Is Wolf's shine worse in that regard? Like if I hit with dair at 0% and successfully combo a shine, they can STILL CC it? If so that's dumb and it needs to be changed, because the other two spacies don't suffer from that.

G13: On the topic of edge-guarding in your second paragraph. I actually think Wolf has a terrible recovery. Brawl players have been telling me that's why he wasn't used too much in Brawl. His illusion does silly things sometimes, and his upB is O.K.

Still a great character obviously.

 

[Scythe]

his recovery seems to work for me but that may be because people are unfamiliar with it. He has lots of lag at the end of side b and up b if he lands on the ground.

Be sure to learn all the cancels for side b and you can change the height or your side b to help with sweet spots and kills.

I haven't really tested it but when i last played Kels he just kept CCing the **** out of me.

 

[G13_Flux]

his recovery certainly isnt the best, but its definitely better than falcos, and easily just as good as foxs (i think up b is just a tad shorter than his fire fox, and his flash is better than illusion) maybe a tad more safer since it doesnt have the start up lag. i will say though, wolfs recovery is good enough to allow him to making big leaps off stage and still return, thanks to his awesome aerial mobility and decent recovery moves. leaps that are far longer than whatever fox and falco can do, and his awesome bair and dair just compliment that (considering all of his aerials have extremely little endlag in the air).

and about the CC, read the first paragraph of what i posted before. seriously its fact. in order to CC something that have to actually be crouching, they can just hold down after getting hit by dair or nair or smth, that will just knock them down, even at 0%. trust me just dont use his shine predictably or spontaneously and use it after your set ups like nair and dair, and OOS, and they wont be able to CC it properly.

N-air is more like Jigglypuff's d-air as it has growth. It also has a landing hit, is less SDIable (both in SDI distance and the window), and has less lag than either of theirs. It has enough advantage to combo into shine at around 0-5 or so, and gets enough stun to combo directly into grab as early as around 45 and d-smash at 75. It can't be CCed, and if you keep the number of hits of it you're landing low and also move towards them while doing it (like using it while moving down in a SH, or FFing through them in the air to pull them down) they aren't really going to be able to get enough out of the way unless they SDI multiple times, and with each hit only having a 1 frame window to SDI that is very unlikely.

As for shine being CCable, Falco's shine breaks a CC at 0 because it has just barely enough BKB (a LOT) to knock them down at 0 when crouched, sending floaties super high at low damage as a result, which works out for him because he has huge jumps that go almost twice as high. Fox's is because the trajectory is along the floor or lower (like Wolf's n-air and d-air). Just don't run up and nakedly shine people at neutral on the ground or whatever you're doing where they are able to actually be in a crouch (true CC) until 55-60 or so (or double shine if they don't have a good and fast CC counter attack). The KB is strong enough at least that if you hit them with it any time they are stunned or doing something else it will knock down at 0 if they attempt to DI it down (crouchless 'CC'). You can always safely shine them after a n/d-air or backed up with a laser to knock them out of crouch (lasers are CCable by themselves, but there's about 8 frames of hitlag and landing lag while doing so where they can't re-crouch). N-air (0+), b-air (spaced), d-air (0+), bayonet/laser WL, grab, f-smash (0+), and f-tilt (20+) work particularly well against CCing.

 

[RaynEX]

Awesome response G13, that was exactly the information I was looking for. I should have read your first paragraph more carefully. Now that I know Wolf's dair functions similarly to Fox's (but with even less lag, so it combos into dsmash at higher %s), I'm excited to try out some other things.

What Magus said about bayonette/laser beating CC is pretty cool too. Never thought of using it with the intention of landing the bayonette lol. I always just space and focus on the laser's utility. Great stuff!

 

[G13_Flux]

yeah haha wolfs nair and dair are really an intricate part of his combo game. magus' post cleared up a lot of confusion about some of his attacks and gave a lot of light as to how to utilize shine properly. I usually also use his blaster for things like set ups and baiting. i had never though about it b4 either. turns out the bayonet is actually a semi spike.

 

[DMG]

You can occasionally stuff an aerial approach directed at you with that bayonette part of Laser. Kinda annoying sometimes lol.

 

[GMaster171]

I found that a good way to both use the bayonet and pressure a shield is to WL back while hitting with both the bayonet and laser, then following up with another or a f-tilt. Its very difficult to counter this, as all the moves are so quick, and if they drop their shield at any point until after the f-tilt 2nd hit, they will end up being hit.

That's how I used it a couple times, seemed to work.

 

[Scythe]

is the WL timing different since you are hitting a shield with the bayonet?

 

[G13_Flux]

yeah it would be a tad slower. its like hitting on shield during a SHFFL, where u have to press L/R a tad later than you normally would to get the L cancel. same concept applies, just delay for a tiny instant before air dodging. the ftilt approach afterwards is great though. i love his ftilt. its very hard to shield grab it for most characters (unless your in the top percentile of large grab ranges) and nearly impossible for some who have mid to lower grab ranges. fsmash also works a tad better in the regards of poking through their shield and having insane range and speed, but its obviously much less useful for avoiding shield grabbing unless you cross up with it (which isnt hard to do from close). ive found that many of wolfs attacks are great on shield, meaning theyre pretty safe from punishment. dsmash and upsmash have a ton of range away from his hurtbox, and push characters far enough back that they cant really OOS counter him. he also has his obvious shield pressure with shine and nair. and his bair and fair can be spaced very well to avoid OOS thanks to their great range. now we can also include his blaster > retreating WL, that allows for a variety of follow ups and solid shield pressure in general.

 

[Scythe]

wish i had a Wii so i could practice this stuff, should be at a smashfest tonight and it could be streamed, so maybe i'll post that here later

 

[Scythe]

hmm not much postage happening here, just posting now to say that I believe Wolf does every well against Marth, or at least I have been doing. Past tournament I beat Dart and Tink who are probably some of the best PM Marth players or at least Dart is.

 

[straydoggywog]

So little postatge so little time

Do any of you guys fight some good Dedede's? a friend picked him up and his f-tilt and u-tilt and grabs wreck me in so many ways. approaching is difficult because of grabs, blaster situational because of the Doo's and Dee's shining them doesn't seem to help too much either. Any advice on how to take down a Dedede