What is your strategy vs characters that are good at spacing?

[Making_Waves]

I've recently found myself having a hard time vs characters that are really good at spacing, ie Marth with his short hop nair, Toon Link with his aresenal, Corrin with his/her aerials, etc.

What is your strategy when playing these types of play styles? And how do you approach?

 

[ParanoidDrone]

For Link and Toon Link, judicious use of Gravitational Pull can make your life much easier. Just be careful and don't use it when you're in range for a punish.

No real experience against Corrin yet, but against Marth I generally resort to shield > punish. Star Bits outranges his sword, I think. He lacks throw followups, and Shield Breaker won't oneshot a healthy shield unless it's charged, so it seems safe enough on paper. Keeping Luma alive is it's own challenge though.

 

[Dream Cancel]

Firstly, learn the MU. Every character's spacing tools are different. You should learn their properties, how they are frequently used, and when/why they are used in the first place.

My short, general answer is to stay mobile. The primary objective of spacing is to keep a player in a specific zone, don't let them do that. Foxtrotting and crouching/crawling can work well because you force your opponent to change their spacing patterns. Even walking can do the trick, especially if they're using retreating aerials.

Rosalina may not have the greatest approach game and zone breaking, but simply advancing into their space can pressure them. Be careful though. This is riskier because you're trading your own spacing and Luma's safety for better stage control and potential mistakes from your opponent.

As for Corrin, his F-Smash and Side B give me the most trouble. Any effort to keep Luma safe (on the ground at least) will be difficult because he can literally impale you and kick Luma away lol. Luma will take a beating, but Corrin has less mobility than Marth so moving around his zone isn't quite as difficult. However, you can still punish Corrin for unsafe moves on shield, just Luma may not always be around to help.

I'm going to watch more Rosa vids to see how people like to zone now lol.

 

[MudkipUniverse]

Crawling against Projectile/Zoning heavy characters is actually quite effective, with Luma. It reduces Rosa´s size so that almost all projectiles will just be tanked by luma. This will weaken luma though, but it doesn't really commit to much.
Also jabbing with luma cancels out a lot of projectiles and its just fun. So there's that.

 

[Zonderion]

If I'm not mistaken, dtilt also clashes with some projectiles which helps when crouching.

 

[ChikoLad]

I out-space them.

There is literally no excuse not to.

You're using the character with the best spacing tools in the game. Literally and figuratively. :V

I mean to mention counters to the problems you have:

-Jump over Marth's short hop N-air and use D-air or your own N-air. I'm pretty sure you can just get through a lot of Marth's moves with F-air too.
-Down-B, Down-B, Down-B against a spammy Toon Link (chances are they aren't even good anyway if they are doing this).
-I don't have any tips for Corrin's aerials since I don't find anything particularly tricky about any of them (I play Corrin myself). They're pretty straight forward and all quite punishable.

And in general, Pivot Extended Luma Aerials, especially B-air, are something you should really use a lot.

And of course, actually using the puppet mechanics and constantly switching things up helps too. Star Bits also shuts down a lot of things.