SSBU/Sora/Strategy

= Intro =

While everything may not be covered due to a lack of sufficient data or proper theoretical approach to the game, this page will give a general gameplan of what Sora can and should do, as well as counterplay to these options. Gameplay in all game states is determined by the player matchup which in turn is influenced by the character matchup. Strategies will vary, and will be attempted to be covered across this and the matchup page. Nuances will be lost for the sake of communicating clarity for certain topics. Certain nuances have to either be discovered on your own through other resources and individual reflections. This is especially true for universal nuances. This is a character specific page and will focus on character specific nuances.

= Gameplan/Strategy =

Mixing Sora's options is "the key" to being successful with him. All moves have their roles, but some moves are less used (like and  ) due to their inflexible nature.

Understanding why it works
Sora's shares a gameplay mechanic with some of 's aerials, which is that he bounces on hit and on shield with  and. While they are true when chaining them in quick succession, they are not true "blockstrings" on shield. "Blockstrings" in FGC's refers to when you have continuous pressure of successive hits that cannot be countered unless the character has a specific gimmick or if the game has system mechanics that allows to escape blockstrings. The core point being that the one under blockstring cannot interact without risking getting hit, mostly due to trying to read when the opponent has gaps in their pressure, allowing for an escape. Smash has very little of it, but the reason why it is brought up here is because using Sora's and   multihits on shield can feel like a blockstring for the opponent. The keyword is feel because there are significant gaps that are exploitable for most characters in the game depending on how the moves are spaced and so forth. If we take Sora's too  gap for instance, there is atleast a 19f gap between those aerials, but they have very low shieldlag, making the moves effectively f22 to react too. If you have ever experienced a lowlag, but punishable move like  or  you have likely experienced how hard it is to punish those moves based on just their shield safety.

This tangent is very neccessary to understand why Sora's aerial pressure exists in the first place, because if it wasn't hard to react to these aerial options, a lot of his airgame would become obsolete. Furthermore it would also not explain why certain characters like, , (Because of their ) or any character with a "sex kick" are difficult to counter with shields. Sora's and   all have 5-6f of shieldlag, making them hard to react too. For refrence, this is about the same, or better than and  jabbing on your shield!

Note, even with this being very hard-unreactable, the opponent can still react. They have to be prepared however, since and   work differently not just in frame data, but also in the spacing, successrate and reward.

List of mixups?
There is no good list. When attempting to do these mixups, there are a few things you need to be aware of: - Doing and   can be done for an indefinite amount of time. One can do or   on repeat without touching the ground. - There are gaps that will allow pretty much any character in the game to get a punish. At worst, any character can just roll, but not without risk.

So instead of giving a list of mixups, there will be a list of frame advantage so that you can work out which option is more fitting at what time. Stating "-x" at best/worst, means that either with good or bad spacing outcomes, it will leave this much room for the opponent to react with an option. Essentially, this is the timeframe where Sora can be punished between hits.

Spell dynamics and cycling
Understanding this concept is very important, especially if the Sora player uses magic a lot. A part of Sora's overall gameplan is to cycle through his spells for specific needs, either if the character matchup requires you to cycle, or if the opposing player struggles vs a particular spell. The general consensus is that Thundaga is the worst spell due to it's low flexibility, Awkward hitboxes, inconsistencies, high endlag and lots of angles for a counter punish. In most matchups and game states, you want to find room to get rid of this of this spell, but it is not without it's cost. For example, most characters that are fast and have small hurtboxes (for example and ) Can straight up run inbetween the Pillars of Thundaga. That doesn't make it useless. Thundaga is the only spell that can kill by itself, and it is very annoying to navigate as the opponent in certain situations, like when drifting in the air offstage. The final hit of Thundaga is also posetive in frame advantage on shield, and in very rare occurrences can true combo into.

Because of this, having certain spells at the ready will create some interesting dynamics: How these dynamics play into each other in each game state will be covered more below.
 * While having Firaga ready, Sora is the most flexible in terms of dealing with options. He can use it for any part of his gameplay. When he uses it however, he gets Thundaga
 * While Thundaga is ready, Sora is the least flexible, but has a kill option if not given the proper respect. Having this spell makes Sora more vulnerable since he will be playing around getting rid of it and how the opponent will punish him when trying to get rid of it. When used, he will get Blizzaga
 * While Blizzaga is ready, Sora gains a long lasting, coverage tool that gives Sora a variety of mixups. After being used, this allows him to get his flexible Firaga spell back.

Up close/Approach

 * Establishing a characters burst range is also applied for Sora. Albeit very poor mobility in terms of general attributes for ground speed, jump and air speed, he does have very fast, but committal options both in the air and on the ground. In Kameme's guide on Sora's neutral, is probably one of the most important tools he has in neutral, so much so that he has stated that "(WIP Quote from hisYT vid). While it isn't a combo starter, it's fast and does setup good situations for Sora. Hitting this at medium percent will create an advantage state either through juggling, corner situation, ledgetrapping or even edgeguarding. It also kills. With all this in mind, the strongest counter to  is shielding, but because it is unreactable, it will leave them up to Sora's other strong mixup tools as well as his  which helps to deal with shield heavy opponents.  is also decent, while not being safe on shield, it is very hard to react too, while also still contesting other options such as spotdodging, or contesting space with a hitbox.

Similar too, is Sora's aerial burst option, which is very unique for a character to have. 's also shares this characteristic. Where Sora becomes stronger is it's mixup potential, both on hit and on whiff. Not strong if the opponent can see it coming, since it is very committal, and isn't as fast as 's nor as ambigious as. While Sora is grounded, Sora has more access to more options, just like any other character. is generally less used because of this, and is often just used as a mixup when floating around. The opponent must still respect to some degree, if the opposing player does not see it coming, using  can "condition" the opponent to respect your burst options more, which is exactly what Sora wants for him to utilize the rest of his tools.

Sora wants to get close to his opponents, with a few exceptions. Once he is within close-midrange, Sora wants to use his combo starters or other setup tools to get his rewarding options going. This section is mainly for when Sora has to approach his opponents instead of them approaching him, let's look on the flipside.

Long range / Keep away
Sora's magic spells reward Sora for playing long range. Not only in terms of hitting spells at long range, but also for spell cycling to the desired spell at a safer distance. There are certain matchups where you shouldn't use spells at all because of moves like  or where the reward is disproportionately small in certain situations like when  or  are gathering value with their. Nevertheless, there are still openings to use magic whether the purpose is to cycle or to hit the opponent. As mentioned in spell cycling, certain spells give different types of reward. In neutral you generally are stronger when Firaga and Blizzaga are available, and weakest when Thundaga is your option. There is a work around with the spell dynamic, which is doing Firaga in succession of each other, and when the opponent chooses to jump over, use Thundaga, either in anticipation or reaction. Usually it is done in anticipation because reaction is too little time. This gives Sora a quick access to his better neutral spells like Blizzaga and Firaga that have less punish windows and better suited hitboxes for neutral than Thundaga. This dynamic is better against slower characters and worse against fast characters. If Sora is stuck with Thundaga, it's usually better to use it until his opponent cannot reach him. This varies on matchup, even if this is an offstage situation. While cycling Thundaga and not hitting anyone seems silly at first, it is a small win in terms of getting the desired spells to get more options to transition into advantage state and avoiding/minimizing disadvantage

Advantage
(See the advantage page for additional info)


 * Since keeping up advantage state is a win condition, any option that either puts the opponent in disadvantage or extends this period should be considered a part of winning.

Juggling
Sora's is good tool for both starting and extending juggles. If the opponents character lacks proper mobility, Sora can often perpetually keep following them with timing mixups and open them to be affected by his other options such as his powerful  combo starters. Sora does struggle to follow the opponent high in the air for juggles, not because of that he can't gain that height, he can infact reach the top blastzone by himself, but because that he lacks the fall speed to avoid certain reversals. Sora can use to have a fast option to cancel his double jump and return to ground quickly, which can cover the opponents airdodge and extend advantage state.

Edgeguarding
Sora's edgeguarding is very flexible in terms of what options he can use, but he is also committal because of his slow recovery. He usually has to commit to a certain area to cover, and then turn to ledge to keep his advantage state. Some edgeguards are too deep and will risk losing his chance to ledgetrap. It is better to know the opponents character limitations, as well as their player habits before committing to an edgeguard. Sora's ledgetrapping is overall great, so it is a great loss if Sora makes critical edgeguarding mistakes.

Sora's main strength in edgeguarding is he can always recover back to stage. If there is only one path the opponent can recover, and Sora covers all possible reversals, then Sora checkmates the opponent. Sora can also recover from or   suicide attempts with ease. Please check the tech page for additional information on how to recovery further with Sora. Sora's core edgeguarding tools will be and  due to their kill power consistency and hitbox coverage. Because of 's multihit nature, Sora can cover a very large area, and mixup the opponents timing without being much at risk. The only problem is the endlag for whiffing said aerials. It is often better to get hit out of instead of whiffing and letting the opponent back to stage. Certain characters, who allegedly have "subpar" recoveries like have a very fast recovery time once, allowing to punish said whiffs. Not necessarily immediately, but by gaining stage control. Edgeguarding therefore is a better wincondition to rely on either if to cut their recovery paths quickly enough or if they are so limited that can be uses it to deal more damage.

Ledgetrapping
Sora's ledgetrapping falls into either coverage based or read based. It's very difficult for Sora to go for a jump read and then still cover the other options due to his fallspeed. Covering ledge jump is often committal since it unables him to properly cover roll, neutral and attack getup. If Sora does SHR. Sora can also opt to do before he lands to cover rolls.

Corner situation
Sora's and  mixups are great for pressuring the opponent in the corner. Getting a hit confirm with will usually result in a stock with.

Spell cycling
Spell cycling depends a lot on the situation. There are a lot of avenues to use spells for the purpose of getting a direct reward from them, but also cycle at the same time.

Disadvantage
There is also the case of which is allows Sora to move fast downwards with a hitboxes. This hitbox is often not reliable for hitting the opponent, since it has a predictable trajectory and high endlag on landing. The exception is when this move is auto canceled, but Sora has to be very high up for this to happen. The threat of this move is usually stronger than the move itself, since it does kill reasonably early off the top, and does make Sora hurtbox shift slightly upwards before falling down, avoiding some attacks in the process. This is usually more prevalent when the opponent is stringing aerial combos or when the opponent carelessly juggles Sora. The other drawback is because of its rotating hitboxes, most hitboxes can beat this move with proper timing. Some moves like  can contest directly without risk.
 * Sora's disadvantage, other than being offstage, is not great. His floatiness along with slow double jump means he has a very hard time to escape juggles in comparison to other characters. Because of his fallspeed, he has a hard time landing and often has to resort using Aerials like to hope for a reversal rather than Airdodging. This by no means a bad option since  can chain into itself, and covers space with a disjoint. However there is still room to exploit this window.

At ledge
Because of these factors, it is preferable to retreat to the ledge in certain matchups since Sora still has decent planking options. Ledgetrapping is sometimes more beneficial for the opponent than going for juggles, so beware. Sora can plank well with Firaga + Blizzaga as well as his aerials. When his opponent is at a roll distance, he can pressure them with spells, and while they are right by ledge, he can hit them with unreactable and  mixups. These mixups are also helped by his air acceleration, which can make him weave in and out the opponents threat bubbles. Certain bubbles are too great for Sora to contest, like  along with  Aerials, but he also have to guess/read what Sora will be doing, since Sora does have options versus those options. Against most brawler type characters however, these mixups can be very potent because of the brawlers disjointed hitboxes to directly contest Sora mixups. There is also a chance that Sora can kill confirm with from ledge. This can lead into or even  depending on matchup. Does also help to get to ledge because it can give Sora the necessary angle to get to ledge faster than simply drifting to ledge.

Offstage
When offstage, Sora is very good at reversals, not only because his options to hit the opponent and mixup timings, but also because he can recover far, and stall with magic. The main problem for Sora is that his recovery paths are slow, and when predicted can be an easy stock for the opponent. This means that it isn't always practical for Sora to recover far away, but this does heavily depend on the matchup. While Sora's double jump is slow, it does allow him to gain considerable height, and can be cancel his height with airdodge. In tandem, having options to recover with and without a hitbox is a big strength, as well as being able to recover without being put in lag. What is often underappreciated with Sora's counter is that is can function like an airdodge for dodging certain attacks. If fires her  Sora can counter, and drift in while deflecting without wasting any of his other resources. In some scenarios this is way more preferable, but it is better used against predictable attacks, as failing to use it preemptively opens Sora for other options. Using resets his drift and air speed, unless a specific tech is used, but it requires to use Sora's doublejump so it isn't recommended for recovering.

Spell cycling
Spell cycling, while Firaga allows Sora to stall and drift in a slightly nuanced way for certain recoveries, it does get him Thundaga, which does sting for him when he enters other disadvantage states after getting onstage. It is useful against juggles, but it is very niche, often when the opponent either lacks reach or speed. At worst it delays the inevitable, but at best it can be used as a bait, or stall an upcoming attack. Thundaga is great for cycling offstage if the opponent cannot reach Sora due to character limitations. Even if it makes Sora's recovery more linear because of the endlag, it may not matter for the tradeoff. An example is have a hard time finding the proper timing to punish the window between the s as Sora recovers. And stage spiking Sora with from the side with  is often beneficial since if it is techable, Sora effectively trades his disadvantage with the opponents advantage state.



Stages
Sora has no "bad stages". There is strengths and weaknesses for Sora in stages even with slant layouts or no platforms. A lot of official tournaments have ceased to run slant layouts for a number of reasons, in Sora's case, it is mostly just going to hurt his combo game, but it does open some of his other tech options more like the super slide (Link in the tech page). The priority of the stages mainly play into Sora's core strengths where you take into account his overall mobility (base attributes and specials) along with his combo game. There are a lot of cases where you should pick stages based on the matchup instead of Sora's strengths as a character, but that does require research that won't get covered in this page. It will get more covered (WIP) in the matchups page.

= Counter strategies =

Summary of counterplay
(WIP) - Structure paragraphs on all game states - Make counter paragraphs - Weave in statements about magic more naturally, and redo the "spell cycling" paragraph about explaining the dynamic.