Kirby
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Kazuya
crouch Matchup Notes by Klutz:
- Kazuya is another character for which Kirby's Inhale --> Footstool combo is true. However, his Up B can prevent this combo from working, so if the Kazuya catches on, this strategy becomes inconsistent.
- When Kirby is crouching, he low profiles Kazuya's EWGF and grab (don't quote me on the grab?). Crouching and Down Tilting in neutral forces Kazuya to choose specific options which are less safe, such as Down Tilt or Aerials.
- Kirby can anti-air all of Kazuya's aerials very effectively with Up-Tilt.
- Kazuya struggles to combo Kirby due to his weight and floatiness. If you do get hit by a combo starter, I have found the most effective default escape option is mashing jump and away.
- Kirby can wall Kazuya out with Fair. While this won't beat EWGF, it will be mostly everything else Kazuya has, making Neutral almost like a game of rock paper scissors: EWGF > Kirby Fair, Kirby Fair > Kazuya grounded attacks, Kazuya grounded attacks > Kirby crouch, Kirby crouch > EWGF.
- Luckily, Kazuya is unlikely to get much damage off of a single neutral win, while Kirby winning neutral can net him a grab, which along with Kirby's Forward Throw combos is almost a guaranteed 60%+.
- If Kazuya goes high when recovering, it is effective to go for a Fair or Up Air to try and catch him from below.
- If Kazuya goes low when recovering, Kirby's Dair can gimp super early vs. Kazuya's linear recovery patterns, but be warned of Kazuya's Up B hitbox. If unprepared, if can stage spike you, outright kill you, or at least put you in disadvantage. Using Kirby's Stone is an effective way of getting through Kazuya's Up B.
- Kazuya can't really threaten Kirby off-stage in disadvantage with anything other than his Neutral Special (which is reactable), but if Kirby is in the air, your best bet is to go to ledge. It's not worth getting hit by Kazuya's Up Air and being unprepared for the DI mixup, or getting hit by EWGF and getting true-combo'd into a kill confirm.
- If Kazuya tries to use his Down Special to kill you early, just know that Kirby has enough jumps and a good enough vertical distance on his Final Cutter to avoid getting suicide-killed by Kazuya. Just mash jump out of it and you should be fine.
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Matchup Notes by Klutz:
- A lot of Little Mac's moves are unsafe on whiff (and some of his grounded moves are also unsafe on shield if unspaced), allowing Kirby to punish with grab, dash attack, f-tilt, Fair, etc.
- Little Mac can be true combo'd by Inhale --> Footstool offstage. This is especially dangerous for Mac given the fact that in many scenarios, Mac is forced to jump otherwise his Up B won't reach ledge.
- Kirby can go offstage vs. Mac very easily to edgeguard. Edgeguarding with Fair, Inhale, or Dair are very effective for when Mac tries to jump, and you can use Stone to challenge Mac's Up and Side Specials. The most dangerous part about edgeguarding Mac is looking for if and when he uses Side Special.
- Kirby can easily 2-frame Little Mac with F-Tilt, Down Smash, and D-Tilt. My personal recommendation is Down Smash, since the angle it sends at is incredibly difficult for Little Mac to recover from, and it is more likely to trade with Little Mac's Up and Side Specials than Kirby's tilts are.
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Matchup Notes by Klutz:
- Ness has trouble dealing with Kirby's Up Tilt if directly above Kirby, since the only options Ness has are Down Air and stalling. If you can exhaust Ness's double jump (which is slow, making it easy to bat Ness out of his double jump animation) then juggling and anti-airing Ness shouldn't be too difficult so long as you stay directly beneath Ness and use Up Tilt and Up Smash's invincibility.
- Ness's recovery is fairly easy to 2-frame, so it's worth practicing that timing with Down Smash or F-Tilt.
- Ness's recovery is also susceptible to Kirby's Dair, although you have to be careful to not get hit by Ness's Up Special 2, which can kill incredibly early.
- Ness's options are ledge are fairly limited, since he gets Fair from ledge (which we can beat with shielding and then punishing Ness with an anti-air) or choosing one of many fairly linear ledge options.
- Just a little note that isn't Kirby specific but is Ness specific: when you get hit by PK Fire, DO NOT USE SDI!!! The fastest way to get out of Ness's PK Fire is by DI'ing away!!!
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Snake
don't let him land Snake
- You can catch Snake landing with Up Tilt, Dash Attack (which will set off grenade), and other similar moves. Kirby's fast ground speed makes this easy if you are paying attention to Snake's drift and B Reverses.
- Kirby can get a true kill confirm at 0% (or any %, really) if he Up Throws Snake while Snake is holding a Grenade, or if he Up Throws Snake right as C4 goes off (regardless of which character it is stickied to).
- Snake + Kirby is a terrifying doubles team because of the above
- Due to Kirby's Down Air being slow, Forward Throw --> Dair is not true on Snake, as Snake will be able to pull out a grenade before Dair connects
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Matchup Notes by Klutz:
- Kirby Nair beats out Villager's Lloid Rocket, as does Kirby's Bair, but Kirby's Fair will not beat Lloid out.
- Kirby can run through Villager's Lloid and get an immediate grab without Lloid going off, so long as Kirby grabs Villager at the very startup of Lloid Rocket.
- Kirby crouch makes it difficult for Villager to hit him. Crouching makes Kirby only vulnerable to Lloid Rocket, Tree, Villager Grab, grounded moves, and Kirby becomes very difficult to hit with any Villager aerials, especially Villager's slingshots, which require VERY precise spacing to hit Kirby while crouching (even Villager Nair may lose frame advantage from crouch cancelling, allowing Kirby to actually punish Villager for hitting him.
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Wolf
Inhale Footstool is TRUE Matchup Notes by Klutz:
- Wolf is one of the handful of characters which can be true combo'd by Inhale --> Footstool offstage, and due to his pretty weak vertical recovery distance, using Inhale to gimp Wolf is a very strong strategy.
- Wolf actually has a hard time dealing with Kirby camping at ledge, since Kirby has enough jumps to not be threatened by the knockback angles of Wolf's D-Tilt and F-Tilt, and Kirby's Up-B can be used to hit a Wolf charging Down Smash.
- If you aren't confident in being able to gimp a Wolf player, or you get an Inhale and can't get offstage with it, take Wolf's Laser. Wolf's Laser is an incredibly strong projectile and can be used to force Wolf to approach you, allowing Kirby's general gameplan of whiff-punishing to be greatly strengthened.
- Wolf's moves can be unsafe if unspaced, allowing Kirby to shield grab or OOS Bair (out-of-shield Back-air) Wolf. At 0%, Wolf can be hit by Forward Throw --> Fair, but this combo won't be true past around 4%. The most consistent combo (I've found) is to do Forward Throw --> Fair --> Dash Attack, but Fair --> Up-Tilt is also very effective (albeit a bit trickier to hit) and nets a massive damage output. Additionally, you can combo Up-Tilt --> Inhale.
- Wolf's moves are very disjointed and he is mobile enough to run circles around Kirby. In particular, Wolf's Nair is much more disjointed than it looks. It is inconsistent for Kirby to anti-air with Up-Tilt against Wolf's Nair, and due to how safe-on-shield Wolf's Nair is, your best bet to beat a Wolf using spaced safe Nairs is either 1.) time a perfectly timed Up-Tilt (very likely to trade with the Nair, but if you are at low percent you may still have frame advantage for a frame trap or combo), or 2.) whiff punish using F-Tilt, Dash Attack, or turnaround-grab.
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Kirby
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