Sonic Matchup Spread Speculation

[GabPR]

A thread for different players to speculate on the different matchups sonic has across the board. I will post my own list on how he fares against the cast and everyone can speculate with their own. The ones with (?) besides them are the ones I'm not entirely sure.

60:40

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• (?)

50:50

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• (?)

40:60

• 

 

[Mejai]

I disagree that DK is in Sonic's favor, I feel as though Sonic is a good weight for DK combos and he can push out your advances if anything it's 50:50. In that same regard Captain Falcon also combos the **** out of Sonic but Sonic can gimp him quite easily if he ever gets him off stage, otherwise his on-stage presence is very good.

I want to say Marth has an advantage, maybe Roy as well just because of their swords. Marth's reach is enormous and his dash dance is probably better than Sonic's. He's really good at walling Sonic out and combos decently well on him. Probably not exactly 40:60 but around there. Roy has an amazing SHFFL game, he's also quite good at controlling space with grabs, dtilts, and DED it's not 40:60 but I'd put it at like 45:55.

Personally I also think G&W is slightly unfavorable, many might disagree with me. Everything else seems to be alright.

 

[Avro-Arrow]

Hey Gab! I see you went ahead on posting this thread after we talked about it, cool.

Personally, I agree with you on the Ness MU; I have a lot of experience in it to the point where I can firmly state that Ness doesn't really have that much going for him at all. Especially if you know how to SDI the PK Fire, should you ever be caught in one (playing against 3.0 Ness actually got me to use SDI in game, it was such good practice). The edgeguards are pretty easy, and the neutral is far in Sonic's favour as well - Ness has stubby hitboxes, and likes to flaunt at close range, but Sonic is a threat outside of his effective range thanks to his superior movement. Plus, the comboes are pretty simple for us, and we can kill easy. Definitely one of the easier MUs.

I'd like to hear your reasoning behind Zard though, because it's an MU that I'm much more comfortable playing as Marth (which is generally agreed upon to be 50:50 and is another MU I'm very well-versed in, one of my favourites in PM actually). I'd say it's closer to 50:50, with maybe some slight variation either way.

 

[Life]

As a Squirtle player, I was planning on switching to my secondary Zard against our local Sonic, if that means anything.

I could actually see both blue animals having pretty similar matchup spreads, actually: losing mainly to characters high-priority and/or persistent hitboxes (GnW, Marth, Roy, maybe Fox), and being anywhere from fine to great outside those matchups.

 

[GabPR]

I disagree that DK is in Sonic's favor, I feel as though Sonic is a good weight for DK combos and he can push out your advances if anything it's 50:50. In that same regard Captain Falcon also combos the **** out of Sonic but Sonic can gimp him quite easily if he ever gets him off stage, otherwise his on-stage presence is very good.

I want to say Marth has an advantage, maybe Roy as well just because of their swords. Marth's reach is enormous and his dash dance is probably better than Sonic's. He's really good at walling Sonic out and combos decently well on him. Probably not exactly 40:60 but around there. Roy has an amazing SHFFL game, he's also quite good at controlling space with grabs, dtilts, and DED it's not 40:60 but I'd put it at like 45:55.

Personally I also think G&W is slightly unfavorable, many might disagree with me. Everything else seems to be alright.

Let me explain my reasoning behind DK and Falcon.

While Sonic is a good combo weight for DK, he is also combo weight for Sonic as well with most comboes getting DK offstage and in an edgeguard situation, one of Sonic's strongest areas (with the combination of DK having a pretty linear recovery makes it much more easier). DK has a hard time approaching Sonic, given Sonic's ability to punish from really far away, most of DK's options for approach will result in being unsafe because of this, and why DK is FORCED to try and wall out Sonic instead of approaching. That means you, as the Sonic player, are able to pick your battles most of the time. Both characters suffer from being on top of their opponent, BUT Sonic has various tools that can reposition himself in midair while DK only counts on his double jump and up b, leaving him more vulnerable. In terms of raw killing power and reach DK is over Sonic, but I believe the rest of the reasons presented tip the scales towards Sonic.

Falcon is similar to DK in terms of raw killing power, but his weight is wayyy more easy to combo, I even believe due to his weight he gets comboed the hardest compared to all of the other characters, with 0 to deaths being real posible or getting them off the stage for a free edge guard. When being above each other, Sonic has tools to reposition himself while falcon is more limited (like dk). Falcon does not have many tools to wall out Sonic besides his nair, which makes his approaches more predictable as well.

One thing to note about both of these matchups. Both DK and Falcon have really mediocre to bad oos options, making them susceptible to Sonic's good shield pressure. While Sonic also suffers from bad oos options, DK and Falcon have subpar shield pressure, and more often than not Sonic has the better kit to mostly avoid getting in a position in which he will be shielding.

 

[Seagull Joe]

Edit: Wrong character discussion board for . My bad LOL.

 

[jtm94]

Interesting seeing Link, Tink, and GnW being even with Sonic.
I honestly don't think GnW vs Sonic is very much in GnW favor despite my training partner's thoughts, but very interested to know why Sonic vs Link is even?

 

[GabPR]

Interesting seeing Link, Tink, and GnW being even with Sonic.
I honestly don't think GnW vs Sonic is very much in GnW favor despite my training partner's thoughts, but very interested to know why Sonic vs Link is even?

Link has a a good advantage in neutral, his projectiles can help him keep an aggresive Sonic at a distance so as to force him to play more defensively and his nair and chain can stop many aproaches. His punish game on Sonic is also pretty good, having kill moves that can kill sonic as low as 85 (or lower depending on stage).

Sonic has ways to win neutral, he can nair, dair or shield boomerang to mitigate it, he can bait out nairs, etc. Link cannot grab a bomb from the other side of the stage safely since Sonic can actually get to him before he finishes the animation(lol). He can reposition himself quickly so as to not let Link dictate the pace thanks to his kit and has a better punish game. He also has a much better recovery and each guard game than link, which means that link offstage is at much more of a disadvantage and potentially dead.

In summary, Link has the advantage at neutral and can force Sonic to play more defensive game. He can kill sonic early so he needs to capitalize every hit he gets and have as many conversions as posible, as well as get those edge guards. Sonic can get a damaging combo out of any attack he lands, can reposition himself with easy as to avoid being trapped by projectiles and has a really easy time both getting Link offstage and edgeguarding him, which in turn can end stocks early.

I hope I made myself clear.

 

[MWEX]

Sonic wins hard against mew2, he wins against snake, luigi isn't tough by any means, kirby is easy pz; only hard mu is peach

 

[GabPR]

Sonic wins hard against mew2, he wins against snake, luigi isn't tough by any means, kirby is easy pz; only hard mu is peach

Well, what is the reasoning behind your thoughts?

 

[Vultron]

Sonic wins hard against mew2, he wins against snake, luigi isn't tough by any means, kirby is easy pz; only hard mu is peach

Luigi can Nair himself out of anything, Mewtwo has the disjoints to wall out Sonic, if Snake isn't being pressured enough he can set up all of his explosives easily.

 

[MWEX]

Luigi can Nair himself out of anything, Mewtwo has the disjoints to wall out Sonic, if Snake isn't being pressured enough he can set up all of his explosives easily.

Luigi: bait out nair, you know he's gonna do it
Snake: Why aren't you constantly pressuring him?
Mew2: big hurtboxes, your fault for not capitalizing.

 

[Vultron]

Luigi: bait out nair, you know he's gonna do it
Snake: Why aren't you constantly pressuring him?
Mew2: big hurtboxes, your fault for not capitalizing.

Out of curiosity, how often do you frequently play against these matchups?

 

[MWEX]

Very often, because of net play; I've played Eli's luigi, Frozen's Mew2, and Jonny Westsides' snake multiple times

 

[GabPR]

Very often, because of net play; I've played Eli's luigi, Frozen's Mew2, and Jonny Westsides' snake multiple times

Do you have gameplay vids? Would be cool to see other Sonic footage.

 

[JFyst]

@ GabPR How do we do well against jiggs? I find that MU incredibly annoying I'd put it 50-50, as long as the jiggs played camps with backair correctly, it's hard to get in.

I think G&W is 40:60 character, he has strong disjointed hit boxes that are hard to punish because of the little amount of end lag.

It's hard to place Fox because of how volitie the match-up can be but I do feel fox just has an overall easier time then sonic does, Sonic can do nasty things to fox, but the vice versa is true, and it's easier for fox to do it. \

This one is strange but I feel we go even with Bowser. I understand that we can combo the mess out of him, and edge guard his simple recovery, but he has strengths against us that even this out, up b makes things hard to punish, and they'll move to ledge so they don't suffer endlag, first few frames of up b are invincible his bair destroies us if we go off stage, and with the armor on his nair he can use it to get out of combo's. His neutral b makes grounded approach hard and an obvious arial approach could lead to an early stock deficit.

I honestly don't understand everyone's ZSS Placement, I've played against enough to know her stalling tools are annoying and she has strong arials, I don't know anything specific we can do on her so I don't understand the pluses we have on her another that would make this MU is our Favor I thought was 50:50.

I thought Kirby was an even match-up same with m2, my experience against these two isn't much tbh when I played them I won, and didn't get too frustrated. So I can't argue my points on them much.

I feel as if Zard is another 50-50 character has a lot of edgeguards and can chase us high and low, his jab is scary and can lead to some painful combos. Though he is good combo weight and can be very punishable so I understand why he is there. The rest of the list seems ok to me.

 

[Avro-Arrow]

Advantageous


Even


Disadvantageous


Unsure
Zelda kinda sucks so I expect this MU to be in Sonic's favour. Ike I expect to be even, as I do for Wolf and Diddy. No idea for King T!tt!es or Yoshi, but I expect Rob to be disadvantageous cause I hear he's baroque.

I made this list based on my own experience as well as knowledge compiled on the matchup guide (well-known stuff), with a little collaboration from @ _Chrome , who was eating carrots in the background. If you want an explanation for the choices I made, just ask. I have an unsure classification for characters who I have never played against in this MU and have not seen much gameplay of these MUs either. It's worth noting that Sonic doesn't have any advantageous MUs against any of the best characters in the game. He's pretty unremarkable this patch. You have to outplay any opponent who's using a half-decent character to win, unless they royally screw-up.

 

[GabPR]

Advantageous


Even


Disadvantageous


Unsure
Zelda kinda sucks so I expect this MU to be in Sonic's favour. Ike I expect to be even, as I do for Wolf and Diddy. No idea for King T!tt!es or Yoshi, but I expect Rob to be disadvantageous cause I hear he's baroque.

I made this list based on my own experience as well as knowledge compiled on the matchup guide (well-known stuff), with a little collaboration from @ _Chrome , who was eating carrots in the background. If you want an explanation for the choices I made, just ask. I have an unsure classification for characters who I have never played against in this MU and have not seen much gameplay of these MUs either. It's worth noting that Sonic doesn't have any advantageous MUs against any of the best characters in the game. He's pretty unremarkable this patch. You have to outplay any opponent who's using a half-decent character to win, unless they royally screw-up.

I have different inions regarding melee vets and I disagree heavily in your last comment, but atm I would like to ask you about why you feel zard has advantage.

 

[_Chrome]

Advantageous


Even


Disadvantageous


Unsure
Zelda kinda sucks so I expect this MU to be in Sonic's favour. Ike I expect to be even, as I do for Wolf and Diddy. No idea for King T!tt!es or Yoshi, but I expect Rob to be disadvantageous cause I hear he's baroque.

I made this list based on my own experience as well as knowledge compiled on the matchup guide (well-known stuff), with a little collaboration from @ _Chrome , who was eating carrots in the background. If you want an explanation for the choices I made, just ask. I have an unsure classification for characters who I have never played against in this MU and have not seen much gameplay of these MUs either. It's worth noting that Sonic doesn't have any advantageous MUs against any of the best characters in the game. He's pretty unremarkable this patch. You have to outplay any opponent who's using a half-decent character to win, unless they royally screw-up.

I wouldn't go so far to say that he's unremarkable this patch; I find he's neither strong nor weak, just... meh. According to the list, he has some even MUs that thankfully aren't bad MUs (ex. Falcon, Mario, Lucas, Samus). I see him losing at least slightly to Fox and especially Falco, but for sure has a disadvantage against Sheik and, in my own analysis, especially Marth. I'm not a Sonic player, but I don't understand why all of y'all think the Peach MU sucks.


@ GabPR : Avro finds the Charizard-Sonic MU hard because of his experience versus me. I would like to ask what makes you think why Sonic wins the matchup, and what kind of Charizard you play against in your region (i.e. Are they nair-, jab-, or grab-heavy? Do they play the MU fast/aggressive, or slow/defensive?) In this MU, I find myself letting Sonic approach me; since he has no projectiles and has unfavourable hitboxes (compared to Charizard's generous ones), I have many camping options, such as nair camping or wavedashing back into up-angled ftilt or a jab.

 

[Avro-Arrow]

The Zard MU is very difficult unless you can get a read on your opponent's tendencies and exploit them accordingly. I was unable to beat his Zard in serious friendlies of sorts for eight-ish games. Which is odd because we generally go pretty even in sets. You really can't drop neutral in this MU, despite the fact that it's very easy to do so. Zard is quick on the ground and has huge hitboxes to wall out aerial or grounded approaches. You have to play a lot more neutral and cautious as a result. The MU is unusually tedious and tends to burn the timer quite a bit. We rarely get a match done in less than 2:30 (edit: we normally burn around half the clock), would you say that's right @ _Chrome ? And if the MU does finish early, it's likely because of multiple SDs or Zard/ Sonic failing in neutral. Zard's punish game is also more potent than Sonic's unfortunately.


And by unremarkable, I didn't mean he's something to turn your nose up at, but that he's neither noticeably weak nor noticeably strong compared to the rest of the cast. In hindsight, "unremarkable" was poor word choice as it normally connotes a negative meaning.

 

[_Chrome]

The Zard MU is very difficult unless you can get a read on your opponent's tendencies and exploit them accordingly. I was unable to beat his Zard in serious friendlies of sorts for eight-ish games. Which is odd because we generally go pretty even in sets. You really can't drop neutral in this MU, despite the fact that it's very easy to do so. Zard is quick on the ground and has huge hitboxes to wall out aerial or grounded approaches. You have to play a lot more neutral and cautious as a result. The MU is unusually tedious and tends to burn the timer quite a bit. We rarely get a match done in less than 2:30, would you say that's right @ _Chrome ? And if the MU does finish early, it's likely because of multiple SDs or Zard/ Sonic failing in neutral. Zard's punish game is also more potent than Sonic's unfortunately.


And by unremarkable, I didn't mean he's something to turn your nose up at, but that he's neither noticeably weak nor noticeably strong compared to the rest of the cast. In hindsight, "unremarkable" was poor word choice as it normally connotes a negative meaning.

I would say the timer is about correct. Sometimes they even last 3:30 and up. Anyways, yeah zard punishes very well. The tech-chases off of down-throw are free, fair combos into fair, and ftilt into ftilt at low percents for free damage. Getting back on stage is surprisingly not-so-hard, and getting on stage from ledge can be mitigated with a reversed bair to get nice stage coverage and catch the Sonic off-guard.

 

[GabPR]

I cant answer atm due to poor phone battery, but once im able ill give my explanations on the MU.

Edit: In the mean time I would also like, if you are able, to possibly state why you feel Sonic is not strong or AS strong as a lot of the top tiers.

 

[Avro-Arrow]

Hmm, excellent question Gab! Now I did think Sonic was one of the best in the game at the start of this version, but I've come to realize a few things about him since then. My opinion on him is cyclic I've noticed, but that's besides the point. Seriously, you don't have to read the small text, but I couldn't bring myself to delete it :/.

First we'd have to define who the top tier characters are, which in this game, is a little subjective atm. But, popular opinion is that Fox, Falco, Sheik, and Rob are top tiers. This is almost undisputed. To a lesser extent, Roy, Ike, Yoshi, Lucario, Marth, Diddy, Toon Link, Wolf, and Falcon are considered top tiers or at least really good.

Sonic loses the spacies for many reasons. Fox: blaster forces engagements on his terms - he can hang back and force an approach or go in with his spectacular approach. He has arguably better movement across the stage overall, and much better hitboxes across his moveset. He kills earlier. He can crouch cancel many of the casts' moves. Falco is similar in this respect.

Sheik wins neutral against the majority of the cast. She has quick, hard-to-punish tilts and aerials with favourable hitboxes, decent movement, and throws that set up for kills easily. And needles to edgeguard and camp in neutral to force approaches. Sonic doesn't have safe moves like Sheik. Sonic cannot force engagements. He has to bait out punishable moves and then punish because he doesn't have a projectile and his hitboxes are as bad as Ness'. Sonic isn't a vanilla character like Sheik who has such a good kit that works so well against everyone and every situation that he always has options.

I have never played against Rob, so I'm not going to explain this one. Never played a Diddy. :/ Nor do I know how Yoshi matches up in Project M although I understand him in Melee.

Characters like Toon Link are just so defensive that their neutrals force characters like Sonic to approach where they can react accordingly.

There's an underlying trend behind the top tiers: they all have favourable hitboxes (which we don't have), moves to force neutral (mostly, or just the ability to control the stage well from nearly anywhere), varied options, and options that work in many different situations. Unfortunately, Sonic struggles against characters who force him to approach and who are able to switch into reacting to his approach all within a short amount of time. Thus, characters who can exploit this, like those I listed as his disadvantageous MUs, are more likely to win against him.

TL;DR, Top tiers are better at hitting you from more places on the stage. Sure, Sonic moves fast, but an opponent who can react to his speed with a safer move is more likely to break out of neutral and get a conversion off of a hit. Thus, against characters who are able to do this, you're fighting an uphill battle.

 

[GabPR]

Hmm, excellent question Gab! Now I did think Sonic was one of the best in the game at the start of this version, but I've come to realize a few things about him since then. My opinion on him is cyclic I've noticed, but that's besides the point. Seriously, you don't have to read the small text, but I couldn't bring myself to delete it :/.

First we'd have to define who the top tier characters are, which in this game, is a little subjective atm. But, popular opinion is that Fox, Falco, Sheik, and Rob are top tiers. This is almost undisputed. To a lesser extent, Roy, Ike, Yoshi, Lucario, Marth, Diddy, Toon Link, Wolf, and Falcon are considered top tiers or at least really good.

Sonic loses the spacies for many reasons. Fox: blaster forces engagements on his terms - he can hang back and force an approach or go in with his spectacular approach. He has arguably better movement across the stage overall, and much better hitboxes across his moveset. He kills earlier. He can crouch cancel many of the casts' moves. Falco is similar in this respect.

Sheik wins neutral against the majority of the cast. She has quick, hard-to-punish tilts and aerials with favourable hitboxes, decent movement, and throws that set up for kills easily. And needles to edgeguard and camp in neutral to force approaches. Sonic doesn't have safe moves like Sheik. Sonic cannot force engagements. He has to bait out punishable moves and then punish because he doesn't have a projectile and his hitboxes are as bad as Ness'. Sonic isn't a vanilla character like Sheik who has such a good kit that works so well against everyone and every situation that he always has options.

I have never played against Rob, so I'm not going to explain this one. Never played a Diddy. :/ Nor do I know how Yoshi matches up in Project M although I understand him in Melee.

Characters like Toon Link are just so defensive that their neutrals force characters like Sonic to approach where they can react accordingly.

There's an underlying trend behind the top tiers: they all have favourable hitboxes (which we don't have), moves to force neutral (mostly, or just the ability to control the stage well from nearly anywhere), varied options, and options that work in many different situations. Unfortunately, Sonic struggles against characters who force him to approach and who are able to switch into reacting to his approach all within a short amount of time. Thus, characters who can exploit this, like those I listed as his disadvantageous MUs, are more likely to win against him.

TL;DR, Top tiers are better at hitting you from more places on the stage. Sure, Sonic moves fast, but an opponent who can react to his speed with a safer move is more likely to break out of neutral and get a conversion off of a hit. Thus, against characters who are able to do this, you're fighting an uphill battle.

Your evaluation of Sonic is correct, he can struggles against characters that react fast to his moves, have high priority and have good stage control. But as I read your evaluation, I noticed it only touches the neutral stage of the game, and misses the other important ones such as punish game, recovery and edge guard game.

Lets take fox for example, he has the advantage in the neutral vs Sonic, and has an overall good punish game vs him as well in the form of up throw to up air combos, shine up smash, and posible shine gimps.

Sonic on the other hand, he has up throw chain grabs, while you can DI it at later percents, you only need to take him as far as offstage. Once offstage, Homing attack reacts to any fox who wishes to.jump to save himself, but this just kills him, this ONLY leaves the option to stall the jump by going deep down and recovering using up b. This is no use for the optimal HA though, because if you just aim the homing attack to the ledge, the missed lock on will just grab the ledfe, then let go for bair the still charging up b. Considering the ammount of setups for grabs Sonic.has at his disposal, he only needs one grab, posibly one tech chase at most (if the grab was done at a latter percent in the middle of the stage), and its a stock (This is just one of many GUARENTEED punishes Sonic has vs Fox). Sonic has one of the best edgeguard ki r s in the game, but I fail to see many Sonics develop it, and just let the opponent come back to ledge and only use spring to edgeguard.

My belief, is that most Sonic players have underdeveloped edge guard and punish game vs most the cast, taking priority in racking up percent for kills instead of taking them to the ledge. Another thing is that Sonic's neutral, while not being as good as some of the other characters you mentioned, is underrated. And the neutral stage of the game as a whole, while important, is overrated.

 

[_Chrome]

Your evaluation of Sonic is correct, he can struggles against characters that react fast to his moves, have high priority and have good stage control. But as I read your evaluation, I noticed it only touches the neutral stage of the game, and misses the other important ones such as punish game, recovery and edge guard game.

Lets take fox for example, he has the advantage in the neutral vs Sonic, and has an overall good punish game vs him as well in the form of up throw to up air combos, shine up smash, and posible shine gimps.

Sonic on the other hand, he has up throw chain grabs, while you can DI it at later percents, you only need to take him as far as offstage. Once offstage, Homing attack reacts to any fox who wishes to.jump to save himself, but this just kills him, this ONLY leaves the option to stall the jump by going deep down and recovering using up b. This is no use for the optimal HA though, because if you just aim the homing attack to the ledge, the missed lock on will just grab the ledfe, then let go for bair the still charging up b. Considering the ammount of setups for grabs Sonic.has at his disposal, he only needs one grab, posibly one tech chase at most (if the grab was done at a latter percent in the middle of the stage), and its a stock (This is just one of many GUARENTEED punishes Sonic has vs Fox). Sonic has one of the best edgeguard ki r s in the game, but I fail to see many Sonics develop it, and just let the opponent come back to ledge and only use spring to edgeguard.

My belief, is that most Sonic players have underdeveloped edge guard and punish game vs most the cast, taking priority in racking up percent for kills instead of taking them to the ledge. Another thing is that Sonic's neutral, while not being as good as some of the other characters you mentioned, is underrated. And the neutral stage of the game as a whole, while important, is overrated.

I thoroughly agree with you about the neutral game being overrated! Furthermore, when Avro and I watch Sonics play, we always see them drop the edgeguard and end up yelling at the screen like "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!? WHAT THE HECK, GUY?!?"

Furthermore, Sonic has quite the punish game, especially against the spacies. Sonic's up-throw is severely underrated, as you pointed out.

However, does the same logic apply to the other top-tiered characters? It obviously applies to Falco, but what about Sheik for example?

Also, you recognized most Sonics play a "hit-and-run" style, which is more Brawl-esque in gameplay.

For a final note, what do you think of the Charizard match-up?

 

[Avro-Arrow]

Yeah, I never did touch on the other aspects of Sonic's game, did I? I thought I was rambling already and decided to call it a post but here's my interpretation of Sonic's punish game relative to the top tiers. The top tiers, IMO, have better neutral games to the point where Sonic loses against the majority of them head-on. I agree that Sonic can put in quite the amount of work on spacies (although there is some punish left for want against floatier characters), but I'll liken it to the Sheik: Fox MU from Melee.

There's a certain percent threshold that Sheik has to get to before she can get damage safely on Fox. Until 32%, nothing is really safe except for grabs, and possibly perfectly spaced aerials or dsmash if you're like Drephen or fsmash if you're Tafokints. Anyway you can get damage is good. Likewise, with Sonic: Fox, all you've got until X % (haven't tested it) is grab, spaced aerials, and smashes unless you're okay taking a risk or confident you'll catch them off guard. After 32%, Sheik can wreck Fox (with certain limitations on jab resets), not to say that she can't kill Fox with a gimp before then, but her options expand a lot after 32% (you unlock dash attack, and then tilts, and it's all good from then on). The same thing goes for Sonic: Fox. You can gimp at low percentages, but overall, it's a pretty awful MU. So sure, both Sonic and Sheik can wreck Fox, but the low-percent game is just too difficult to call it an even MU. Especially when Fox can kill us just as early as we can kill him. Therefore, while the punish games are relatively equal (I think Sonic wins it slightly at mid-high percents, but at low percents d/uthrow is scary good), Fox has a "head-start" if you will, on each stock: it's like starting a race on the outside lane. But because we're so fast, it shouldn't be a problem, should it? But seriously, it's problems like these that keep Sonic from being a top tier.

And yeah, his edgeguarding game is overlooked by a lot of players. I try to get kills as early as possible, and when I don't have a training partner I try to kill coms at as early a percent as is possible.

 

[jtm94]

I will give my thoughts on what I've experienced versus Sonic.

Zelda:
I used her exclusively for almost a year and learned the game with her. My speculation was that Zelda vs Sonic would have a similar feel to Zelda vs Falcon, which is one of her worst MUs. Zelda is extremely weak to dash dancing and movement in general due to her own limited mobility. Zelda's gameplan should always be to make use of her limited dash dance coupled with wavelands and teleport cancels to pin the opponent and force interaction. It is via these multiple interactions where she can make use of her fast aerials and ability to force advantageous trades. The issue with Sonic is not just his dash dance, but his plethora of movement options that allow him to escape disadvantageous positioning. On tri plat stages smart use of dins can limit his options and increase interaction, but even so he is still hard to manage. I think Zelda can easily best an aggressive Sonic on stages like Warioware, Yoshi's Story, Battlefield, and Green Hill Zone. His movement options are hindered and his strong recovery becomes less beneficial due to closer boundaries. Sonic vs Zelda on Final Destination has come to be one of my least enjoyable MUs because of how tedious it feels. Sonic can barely combo Zelda and if he overextends he eats a lightning kick, and Zelda just can't touch Sonic.

Sheik:
Needles pose a threat to Sonic's movement and if he is flaunting his movement options it can be easy to needle him out of them. Aerial needles are good if you feel comfortable platform camping, but it is extremely dangerous to let him below you and taking that position when Sheik jumps is easily done. Sheik does not have fast options that outright KO Sonic like Zelda, but she can typically play footsies and win once he takes the aggressive stance. Needles often provoke the Sonic into making the first move, but it may not always be easy to wall him out. Nair is very good if he moves using his spins, they can sometimes trade, but nair will usually beat them out. Bair is another good option to cut off paths that the Sonic likes to travel around the stage and will generally beat all of his spin movement. Sheik has the incredible ability to convert into KO/damage options off of her 50/50 throw mixup, but unfortunately getting a grab on Sonic is quite taxing. Being able to time grabs to nab him out of movement is key. Once Sheik can get a hold of Sonic, as long as she can repeatedly force tech chases she can exploit his below average tech rolls and ideally work him to the ledge. This MU is largely defined by the ledge. Ideally sheik should never allow opponents to reach upwards of 100% because she thrives on lower% gimps. Sonic's recovery is easily one of the better recoveries in 3.5, but he took a large hit to his off stage arsenal. Homing attack being high risk leaves Sonic with spinshot, SideB to get closer to stage and UpB. Spinshot is very hard to catch if he's close to you, ideally you want to land needles while he is far away to take his double jump, and then grab ledge to either drop down and bair his UpB or invincible aerial from the ledge. Due to his low aerial mobility after UpB if he doesn't sweetspot he's a sitting duck, bait out the dair panic option then punish accordingly. Overall this MU is a mixed bag. Sonic's recovery being weakened has definitely helped Sheik in this MU, but Sonic himself still has an amazing offstage game and the tools to swat at Sheik when she's recovering before she would want to UpB. I don't think this MU feels strongly in Sheik's favor by any means and would call it 50:50 atm until further development. I believe that Sonic's ability to threaten Sheik's recovery in a potent way is a very volatile aspect in this MU.

Mr. Game and Watch:
This is my current full-time main, and tournament character. He gets a lot of flak and the term "long lasting hitboxes" gets thrown around a lot to try and quantify him winning most of his MUs. While he does have some very meaty hitboxes, I'd hardly say they are both long-lasting and potent. His best lasting move is ftilt because the flub hitbox is still fairly strong at the ledge. While he does have some big strong hitboxes, few of them are fast, but the ones that are define the MU because of the reactive nature needed to incapacitate Sonic. These being, dtilt, jab, utilt, frying pan, uair. Dtilt being frame 6 and pretty large in front of him can reactively stuff any approach from the front. It leads into combos and can break CC fairly early. It is also a monster at the edge, but it is quite hard to catch Sonic with it if he pops just above the ledge and fairs. Jab is another good option (frame 4) and leads into grab. GnW's grab will always net some type of uair string on Sonic, but do not shirk it off as an "autocombo." If you SDI and just plain hard DI perpendicular to the ground a lot of the follow ups like UpB > aerial start to fall apart. Sonic having options like SideB out of hit stun allow him to escape while GnW is airborne. Grabs are still important though, because UpB will go into Nair at KO percents and is a situation that should always be avoided. utilt covers the entire area above GnW and also will lead into uair strings, but this option isn't as fast, used more of as a read if they try to jump over the dtilt. Fying pan is amazing because it is a frame 8 hitbox and projectile. The frying pan being safe on shield isn't as big of a deal against Sonic because he's not the type of character to get locked into shield, but this is GnW's fastest aerial hitbox bar uair and though 1 frame can hit Sonic out of all of his attacks bar fair and bair. The pan has a scary angle and if you hit Sonic out of the air without a jump can leave him off stage and will force premature UpB to which GnW can dtilt or hit him out of. Bacon isn't stunning in this MU because the arc that it travels allows low profile characters to sneak under, but it is very useful much like Zelda's dins fire to control Sonic's movement. Land cancelled bacon is also near unpunishable and is something I see Sonic's trying to punish only to eat a jab or dtilt. Overall GnW's movement isn't very incredible, but with bacon and his strong punish game he manages very well. Facing Sonic is pretty daunting because it's very hard to Dash Dance back at him. It's pretty much just projectile spam to force Sonic into a corner and then catch him going above you using utilt, uair, or bacon and then going directly into a strong punish game. Conversely Sonic has standard throw combos on GnW with uthrow > aerial. On stages with small side blast zones if you DI full out to try and miss the aerial sometimes you DI the aerial out and die, or sometimes you try to DI back in to live the aerial as well and eat another fair/nair. It's very scary stuff. GnW has few options to the ground besides dair, airdodge if he hasn't UpB'd, or b reverse bacon for movement. Being pretty light Sonic's uair is scary to be above, especially with his quick vertical movement it can be hard to juke. I do think that Sonic's will find a hard time edge guarding GnW's recovery because he is not very susceptible to meteors, but he will die earlier than most from nair/bair/uair. I think Sonic's will find it annoying having to repeatedly smack GnW off of the stage, but imo Sonic is a very strong off stage character who should be focused on taking advantage of on stage vs off stage positioning and GnW's strong recovery counters his design. I think the MU is easily winnable by Sonic and actually in his favor ever so slightly if you just dash dance camp and punish laggy options in neutral with grabs, however, against most people that aren't going to full camp you especially if Sonic tries to be the aggressor I would put the MU at something like 55:45 GnW's favor. The MU can easily turn into GnW just throwing out moves until hopefully Sonic runs into them.

My opinions on other characters that I've tinkered with against Sonic.
Fox is very good against Sonic. Fox can nairplane through Sonic's everything and it is very hard to punish when followed by shine. Sonic's HA cannot hit Fox out of anything but the first few frames of UpB. Fox is one of the few characters in this game that can out-neutral Sonic in this game and can mitigate Sonic's off stage strengths by outright KOing him or shine spiking him. Fox's stronger acceleration and tighter movement also give him a strong edge on smaller platform stages.

Charizard does not feel good against Sonic. When his nair was faster maybe, but even with his solid ground speed, he has very few fast options out of it and his jab does have good coverage, but on meh DI it doesn't really covert. Zard is very good at juggling opponents with his fast uair and chasing opponents into the sky, but Sonic's spin movement allows him to escape easily, not to mention his divekick. I do think Zard has some strength in his swift strong fair and can threaten some space with his dtilt, but large characters overall against Sonic feel very meh.

Lastly, started messing with Kirby and he actually feels alright against Sonic. His bair retains essentially the same strength no matter when it hits and just cuts off Sonic's UpB. If he has no double jump and you hit him right at the ledge, it's basically curtains. Fair lasts a while and cuts through Sonic's movement and then things like dtilt and dash attack just add to the cake. I can't say much as I only recently delved into this MU, but I will say it seems promising for Kirby.

 

[GabPR]

I thoroughly agree with you about the neutral game being overrated! Furthermore, when Avro and I watch Sonics play, we always see them drop the edgeguard and end up yelling at the screen like "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!? WHAT THE HECK, GUY?!?"

Furthermore, Sonic has quite the punish game, especially against the spacies. Sonic's up-throw is severely underrated, as you pointed out.

However, does the same logic apply to the other top-tiered characters? It obviously applies to Falco, but what about Sheik for example?

Also, you recognized most Sonics play a "hit-and-run" style, which is more Brawl-esque in gameplay.

For a final note, what do you think of the Charizard match-up?

Let me clear first a major misunderstanding on Sonics neutral game, there are a lot of characters that have tools to try and Wall out Sonic, but you have to ask yourself. Is it that the character has the option totry and wall out Sonic, or is it that that character is FORCED to try and wall out Sonic? Many characters fall on the latter, including charizard.

What this means is that Sonic can start engagements on his own terms on a regular basis, since looking for openings becomes easier when the opponent cannot on many occasions afford to aproach you due to huge riks. Once Sonic does get in it is all down hill from there, his combo game on heavies is brain dead and some things like multiple blast attacks in sucesion, landing the sweetspot dair, etc. Become way easier. His shield pressure is already got by itself, on characters with bad oos options like charizard even pseudo shield pressure options on top of his true shield pressure double in efficiency. His edge guard game vs him is also really good, like against most characters.

 

[Life]

Sonic on the other hand, he has up throw chain grabs, while you can DI it at later percents, you only need to take him as far as offstage. Once offstage, Homing attack reacts to any fox who wishes to.jump to save himself, but this just kills him, this ONLY leaves the option to stall the jump by going deep down and recovering using up b. This is no use for the optimal HA though, because if you just aim the homing attack to the ledge, the missed lock on will just grab the ledfe, then let go for bair the still charging up b. Considering the ammount of setups for grabs Sonic.has at his disposal, he only needs one grab, posibly one tech chase at most (if the grab was done at a latter percent in the middle of the stage), and its a stock (This is just one of many GUARENTEED punishes Sonic has vs Fox). Sonic has one of the best edgeguard ki r s in the game, but I fail to see many Sonics develop it, and just let the opponent come back to ledge and only use spring to edgeguard.

Do you have any gifs of getting this edgeguard on human Foxes? I've been trying to replicate it in training mode with little success. Also, info on the chaingrab? I feel like Fox escapes relatively early if he DI's upward, even if that leaves him vulnerable to uair/utilt/etc.

 

[GabPR]

Do you have any gifs of getting this edgeguard on human Foxes? I've been trying to replicate it in training mode with little success. Also, info on the chaingrab? I feel like Fox escapes relatively early if he DI's upward, even if that leaves him vulnerable to uair/utilt/etc.

To escape chaingrabs onstage fox only option is to DI down and away, a confirmed up air vs fox at any percent proves lethal, since up throw lets you follow up into anything. As far as the edge guard I only have footage of the confirmed hit on HA, the second part either I have no footage or its only on a few tourney on twitch files, which I dont remember if I actually did it in one of the games.

 

[Solharath]

I'm just gonna mention that there is no confirmed regrab on Uthrow at any percent against Fox, Throw SDI and down+Away is enough to get out of it(mid percents notwithstanding), and it's something my opponents have learned to do consistently, due to the slow windup UThrow has. Not to mention, said opponents know how to wait out HA now, and have learned when to save their jumps both in being defensive(by pulling away), or shining to regain control, and coming AT you with a shine(It's risky, but the reward is high). The speed of Fox's double jump and ability to choose whenever they want to stop stalling with shine are horrifying, and on walled stages they've come to like getting hit by HA by maneuvering next to the stage and teching the hit.

 

[_Chrome]

Let me clear first a major misunderstanding on Sonics neutral game, there are a lot of characters that have tools to try and Wall out Sonic, but you have to ask yourself. Is it that the character has the option totry and wall out Sonic, or is it that that character is FORCED to try and wall out Sonic? Many characters fall on the latter, including charizard.

What this means is that Sonic can start engagements on his own terms on a regular basis, since looking for openings becomes easier when the opponent cannot on many occasions afford to aproach you due to huge riks. Once Sonic does get in it is all down hill from there, his combo game on heavies is brain dead and some things like multiple blast attacks in sucesion, landing the sweetspot dair, etc. Become way easier. His shield pressure is already got by itself, on characters with bad oos options like charizard even pseudo shield pressure options on top of his true shield pressure double in efficiency. His edge guard game vs him is also really good, like against most characters.

I don't agree that Sonic controls the match-up. To me, the match-up is a game of cat and mouse, with Sonic scurrying around the stage quickly, with mouse-like hitboxes, and Charizard walling it out with quick snaps of its head and domineering walling and spacing options. Charizard controls the stage against Sonic, who can only get in if an opening is forced. Charizard has no need to approach in this match-up. It's true that he has bad OOS options, but he need never be in his shield in the first place, lest you're playing the match-up incorrectly (as Charizard).

@ jtm94 : While most heavy-weights are very vulnerable and overall clunky against Sonic, Charizard is interesting in that he's much a mix between a heavy-weight, Marth, and his own unique flair. Also, Sonic sometimes is too slow(!) to escape his combos sometimes. Also, his uair combos are really soft against Sonic, working mostly only on faster-fallers. I've strayed away from them in general, using it as a mix-up against my opponent when I know I can either get the kill or follow-up.

 

[jtm94]

You need to shield an incredible amount against Sonic as most characters. Good oos options are needed against Sonic or it can be rough.

 

[_Chrome]

You need to shield an incredible amount against Sonic as most characters. Good oos options are needed against Sonic or it can be rough.

Not in this case. Charizard has enough speed and stage presence to mitigate this. He has some of the best corner camping in the game (against characters without projectiles), and Sonic's terrible hitboxes sometimes aren't enough to save him.

Of course shielding is part of the game though.

 

[Avro-Arrow]

@ GabPR I don't think Sonic's punish game against Zard is very strong at all. A couple nairs in succession is not so bad as a punish against him. Juggles won't work, nor will conversions of off throws due to his floatiness (except of course at low percents). Dair is good in this MU, but it can be hard to set up sometimes. When I get corner camped by Zard, I find it really hard to get out of that position unscathed. And Zard is just content to sit there with his giant hitboxes because he can. He doesn't care if we can run around really fast along the outside of the stage. If he gets control of center stage (which can happen off of one punish) then we are in big trouble. And you mentioned that we can just DI away from the jab. However, on the initial jab used to intercept an aerial approach (you should almost never approach on the ground vs Zard), it is hard to DI away when we are moving towards him. A smart Zard will simply not go for multiple jabs and instead punish differently.

And yeah, @ _Chrome is right, Zard is more like Marth than any other character really (except maybe Roy), as they both rely on spacing and stage control to win. Perhaps that's part of why the Marth:Zard MU is so interesting, as they have similar tools in their kits. The MU is similar to a ditto but it's not, and this is arguably supported by the fact that the MU is generally even (I think Marth slightly wins). At the end of the day, both Marth and Zard approach the MU similarly. Sure, we can spring or dair or spinshot out of Marth's juggles, and it's easy to edgeguard him, but we still lose. Why should we lose to Marth but not Zard then? The fundamentals of the MU are the same. I feel like Marth is still better here, because he has better oos options, but they're really similar.

 

[GabPR]

I don't agree that Sonic controls the match-up. To me, the match-up is a game of cat and mouse, with Sonic scurrying around the stage quickly, with mouse-like hitboxes, and Charizard walling it out with quick snaps of its head and domineering walling and spacing options. Charizard controls the stage against Sonic, who can only get in if an opening is forced. Charizard has no need to approach in this match-up. It's true that he has bad OOS options, but he need never be in his shield in the first place, lest you're playing the match-up incorrectly (as Charizard).

Charizard has the range, but his range is offset by the actual speed in he can throw out hitboxes in sucesion. Not only that, but I feel people presume they can just throw out hitboxes and Sonic cannot do anything, this presumption is wrong in the form of simply doing the option to run and shield. With Sonics running speed he slides foward enough that even if hit by something, Sonic will get into grab range, and we all know how Sonic can punish with grabs. This is of course just a mixup, and a really simple one at that, but effective, especially against people who think they can just throw hitboxes to stop sonic from aproaching. I also believe, even though its an unpopular idea, that Sonic Marth is even, especially since its the matchup I have the most experience in.

 

[Avro-Arrow]

Zard's nair is safe on shield when well-spaced. And it's not his job to just throw hitboxes, but to use those hitboxes to intercept approaches and control space, which they are very effective at doing. Punishing Zard with grabs is difficult. There aren't as many conversions off of uthrow as you'd think. Zard is very floaty.

Edit: and yes, the running shield is a great mix-up. But against Zard it loses its effectiveness somewhat because of his ability to safely put moves on shield, like nair. But if you think Marth : Sonic is even, then I can see how you'd think the same about Zard : Sonic, even if I disagree with it.

 

[_Chrome]

Charizard has the range, but his range is offset by the actual speed in he can throw out hitboxes in sucesion. Not only that, but I feel people presume they can just throw out hitboxes and Sonic cannot do anything, this presumption is wrong in the form of simply doing the option to run and shield. With Sonics running speed he slides foward enough that even if hit by something, Sonic will get into grab range, and we all know how Sonic can punish with grabs. This is of course just a mixup, and a really simple one at that, but effective, especially against people who think they can just throw hitboxes to stop sonic from aproaching. I also believe, even though its an unpopular idea, that Sonic Marth is even, especially since its the matchup I have the most experience in.

As Charizard, I very rarely just throw out moves (except for some nair-camping, of course), as I recognize that's punishable with almost any character. And it's not like Charizard is impossible to get past, especially with Sonic's sliding shielding. However, I don't see Sonic winning the match-up, all of his benefits considered. I believe he simply is put at a disadvantage.

EDIT: He has a similar combo-weight to Samus.

 

[GabPR]

It was interesting to see your points regarding the zard matchup and the character as a whole, and you have made interesting points. I am still unconvinced that zard has the advantage but I guess we can all agree to disagree, at least for the moment. We will see how the matchup develops in the future.

 

[Avro-Arrow]

Yeah, I'm unconvinced too, but am willing to call it off now. I said all my points, I heard yours, and they were valid, but there's nothing really left to say. Do you have any more videos of it on your channel I could watch? I watched a couple already with Royal-X I think.

Edit: Wanna discuss Marth now? Just kidding! Lol. But if there's anything else you wanna discuss about my chart, then I'd be happy to share my thoughts.
And let's see some other lists out there! C'mon!