Shulk main here also whose brother has been a competitive Link since... Smash 64. Note that this has custom movesets involved
Projectiles are your best friend against Shulk. Avoid using the bow though especially against speed. Shulk players are likely to use jump or speed over buster anyway in the match up. Boomerangs and bombs are great. If the Shulk's using enduring back slash, just punish it IF you don't take that much hitsun. If you're % is around... I'm not sure like... 60-80%+? Well, idk. The only retaliation against EBS if you're at a moderately high % is don't
spam projectiles. By spam, I meant don't just throw it out for the **** of keeping Shulk away or putting a wall of spam (Because that's punishable and it's not gonna work). Be smart with them. I
think you can try luring Shulk to use EBS then punish. Not sure how since I haven't seen a proper retaliation yet but I'm sure you guys can think of something. Just be super defensive. Always have a bomb ready if the Shulk you're fighting has dash vision ready because Shulk dashes for the attack when he counters which is effective against campers. He can be hit out of it by throwing out another projectile
DO NOT throw out f-smash or dash attack a lot. If countered, it's gonna suck for you and plus, it's not hard to telegraph so don't risk it. Stick to d-smash or FF n-air. I should also note that if you whiff d-smash (which is stupid), the 2nd hit will leave you vulnerable to back slash (I think but this worked on some characters).
The tricky part in recovering as Link is when Shulk goes on jump. If he properly spaces f-air, you'll be hit out of spin attack. If he just plainly uses b-air, that's probably gonna seal a stock. To be honest, I've only landed f-air on spin attack like 1/16 times. I usually am hit by spin attack whenever I attempt to f-air so I'd just stick to b-air which is a bit harder to land but it's pretty safe. Just prepare your anus when your sent off stage. Shulk's edgeguarding is ridiculous especially with jump. IMO, just use z-air for recovering unless you need vertical height, then use spin attack and hope Shulk doesn't use d-air on it
Edgeguarding Shulk (Not on jump) isn't that hard. Edgeguarding jump Shulk may be tricky but N-air does stuff. I'm talking about Link's n-air. It's probably fast enough to stop Shulk's n-air before it even happens. One trick as a Shulk player I use is full hop nair to air slash. If you're fast enough and close enough (Fast fall m8), you can probably counter this. I think.
Against shield Shulk, well... Just projectile spam. Won't do much but he won't do much either unless he n-airs his way through which can be punished or not depending on how well spaced it is. My brother at first was pretty iffy on this because he was under the notion that I could easily zip through with jump or speed but if you apply enough projectile pressure, it won't be as annoying as it seems. The match up's tricky but it's not hopeless at all (nor even reminiscent of hopeless)
Same goes for TL in this one except it's slightly easier for TL (Plus, he has some differences which either don't help at all or help against Shulk) but still kinda of tricky anyway.
tl;dr: Projectile
spam. Sure, Shulks can SHFF n-air all day but it's pretty punishable imo (This may vary). Just don't be dum. Be smart. Boom. You win. Projectile pressure will be the key for winning here
It sounds difficult but (it kinda isn't) if you keep up projectile pressure very well, you probably wouldn't have to worry about Shulk for the most part
Oh and one mistake everyone makes is that they assume Shulk sucks ass because most of the Shulks online suck. And when they go against an actual good Shulk, they drop their ****. Don't use the tactics you use against Bad shulks be used against good Shulks. >_____>
Seriously, this helps
Nah
