4% vs Vudujin Analysis

4% vs Vudujin, Invitational
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKaRl0u2DJ8
Notation by in game timer
I am not very familiar with this MU so a lot of what I point out will be conjecture we can talk about later.

Game 1 BF
8:00 neutral start, takes stance outside of then over WD range
vudijin isn’t moving to try to punish lands, he’s trying to confirm an OoS punish
I think that means that you have to stay empty if you see him shield. If you are empty then you can ff and grab/upsmash/fsmash/whatever if you see him WD OoS whereas if you have bair out then you can’t ff or ac safely.
7:53 gets one
you push him back, get grabbed out of a jump punish because of low %
generally puff has to land 2 aerials before they have to respect her
vudujin does not bite at anything on your way back
dairs you for whiffing a jump punish
this happens a lot, important for puffs to remember that it is easier to punish a descent than an ascent
7:44 FH over a punish, take center, luigi shields then nairs another whiffed jump punish
you both misspace for a bit
low nair on shield is +1, you’ll never grab it but it looks like you can WD away after the rising aerial then punish the whiff or fair in between
7:36 what a crouch. Grab is a pretty meager punish on luigi. dthrow would have been better position after.
You shield for fear of ivn smash attack but that also loses to grab. Not a good position.
7:33 haha, you get a clean jump punish but realize it’s unsafe so you jump away. Jump was more than necessary, I think fading back was fine. Or airdodge down maybe.
preemptive nair from inside of WD to prevent it
he FHs instead but you misspace the land punish
7:26 good dj to avoid tech
7:24 WD prevents CC. Don’t fill CC with anything or it won’t work. Bad habit a lot of puffs have.
7:21 unsafe crossup, he’s aware of it
7:18 bair is better at protecting your land than dair is
vudujin is either bad at or doesn’t care to try punishing lands
he’s also playing pretty… bitchy. He’s clearly only waiting for overextensions.
7:14 you guess jump and he WDs instead.
Just based on interactions this stock I think that you shouldn’t try to preemptively punish his jumps. Luigi’s mobility is poor enough that if he jumps you can bully his descent. It is much safer to try to defensively react to his WD. That’s something that we should flowchart based on range and %. Make it a science. Then when he doesn’t WD but jumps instead it’s a pleasant surprise. Would make things much more consistent.
7:10 you bait his jump then fair his fair startup.
He WDes in after and gets baired but had he held shield you could have died.
7:07 grab is telegraphed by the waveland from that far away. Too slow. Should have wavelanded then crouched.
7:05 land punish is slow
lol you read the WD and the waveland but the preemptive dair was too risky. Let him whiff and then punish.
6:48 fair is an overextension. Grab ledge then fair.
6:52 he goes high which we don’t mind. He also messes up which is good but you miss the upair, could have fsmashed or grabbed the fall
he immediately takes a stance a full WD away where he can react to your approach.
you try to bait him down but mess up so have to shield
he shields a bair, doesn’t take the punish, is happy with stage
6:40 you land inside of WD range then bair but he reacts with shield
holy shit that’s an annoying problem
6:38 doesn’t challenge your descent, gets shieldpoked
you preemptively cover a WD, have to buffer spotdodge, can CC from 0-32%. Would have been easy CC jump rest.
I think grab was better than nair out of endlag. Beats shield and is faster.
6:33 you pressure him for jumping really well but misspace the upair, was too high/early
6:29 use bairs to force him up again then misspace the punish again
6:23 read his approach and fsmash
let me look some stuff up before I continue
6:19 miss grabbing the ledge so he gets back
6:16 ok so you read that he’ll WD back for fear of fair so you WD instead
but then you FH fair which whiffs by a lot and isn’t a good punish so it puts you in the corner in your shield
you get a fair after rising dair, that’s good. According to quick math there’s a 7f window to fair between when dair hits and nair starts.
reaction punish the sideB, cool.
6:04 I’m not sure why he does this jump
your pursuit whiffs so you do a second fair to protect your land but that forces you to shield.
I think you should have jumped away to the platform.
Frame advantage on land is a big deal in this MU because of his horizontal speed. Maybe even a bigger deal than fox, actually.
6:00 another preemptive bair is punished
he waits for you to overextend
5:53 preemptive nair. Hmmmmm looks like preemptive nairs would be good if they fade back and end outside of his WD. Then they punish his WD but can’t be punished be a late WD.
5:50 he respects your spacing on reaction to his jump and goes high, good.
nair on shield hits high so you can shieldgrab it. Upthrow is obv best choice.
jumps with upair are slightly too late for punishes
5:44 preemptive fair hits, no reward
5:41 bair his attempt at a land punish
5:40 it looks like he thought your bair was going to poke his head so his gut reaction was to jump
bair vs his ledgegrab was a clear overextension. It couldn’t do anything but put you in a bad position.
5:38 he fakes running away and then dairs your pursuit.
bairs make him give you a way back
5:30 he’s waiting, you scare him into jumping then preemptive bair cuts off his WD back to center
oh gosh really close spacing, you get the dair, could have comboed to grab
5:21 you back a little bit too far off to punish his land
read his shield, fthrow for stage. Would have preferred upthrow, seems much easier to land an additional hit after
5:14 he recognizes you baiting his fall so he WLs back which gives you stage, you think he will WD in after so you preemptive fair, he shields on reaction then tries to jab grab dthrow punish, misses. Would have been bad.
5:12 preemptive fair is clear overextension, he punishes your land
5:03 vudujin is doing inv wavelands, punishing them directly is impossible
See how he waits outside of your jump then WDes in in response to your FH?
driveby dsmashes to eat your shield
4:52 you preemptive nair that one
4:50 wait outside of ledgedash then grab the shield
fthrow, bair his late exit from hitstun
4:40 dair grab at 0 is not a combo but you react faster than he does
fthrow for stage (I don’t like it because he could have snapped to ledge)
bair flubbed movement
4:36 bad falling upair. It has a horrible horrible success rate.
dair or crossup nair
4:33 missed ledgecancel
4:30 can’t tell if he whiffed that dair on purpose
4:23 there’s that weird retreating jump again
4:19 that was a tight window and your shieldgrab was late
he’s fishing super hard but can afford to
4:00 you get a tricky dair, miss the l cancel but funnily that lets you punish the spotdodge
fthrow for stage
ok, in this situation I disagree with your decision. You dash back as if to cover a roll and then dash forward to punish the shield. You have to choose, if you try to cover both then you will cover neither.
(prioritize covering the roll because him shielding in the corner is A-ok with us)
3:37 you preemptive bair to cover WD but don’t space to cover the WD
grab was mistimed by a lot
3:52 you take center, jab to cover a crossup, luigi goes high
you don’t confirm his land so fair whiffs
but you both react a little slow so ledgecancel fair hits
3:48 preemptive fair to stuff WD misses by a lot and luigi sliding forward makes your land unsafe.
I guess you don’t have to land there, you can DJ away but vudujin probably fairs that
3:45 you try to read his jump but he doesn’t so he crosses you up and gets damage
3:39 jumping that far in vs on ledge luigi is an overextension
3:38 that fair was scary too
3:36 reads your spotdodge based on the dash
3:32 unsafe crossup
3”25 guessing the roll was unintentional, keeps you from challenging his land
3:24 preemptive nair catches him off guard
3:17 damage from having luigi on the platforms
he gets down because you try to bait him into moving but he just waits for you to be out of position
3:12 that time you get it
3:09 dash toward ledge was scary puts you in a bad spot
you read the WD but are misspaced
3:04 he misses OoS punish on FH bair, and the read on your roll
3:00 nair doesn’t work vs inv or shielding luigi which is all that he’s done so far
2:57 bair his land
2:55 again
2:52 barely miss
2:48 you do a shallow nair to bait a WD then fsmash him
2:43 he gives you the stage because he wants you to have to approach
you are flirting with the edge of his WD which is good but he moves it by walking a bit so you have to shield
you keep godlike spacing for like 20 seconds but eventually trade with a fair
2:07 the bair is late so it trades. Sort of a hard spot because by the time you saw the need for a bair it was late.

Stocks
fair between dair and nair shield pressure
fthrow bair, high %

Stocks Lost
fair whiffs, is faired
fair whiffs, dsmash land punish
whiffed grab is daired

the way you play this game 95% of your preemptive aerials are high risk low reward.
Vudujin is playing extremmmmmmely passively. He understands that his character has the stronger options as long as he stays grounded and is netting damage almost exclusively by waiting for you to make a mistake in front of him. He is not close to optimized though, he is pretty content just playing super lame and hoping to win at the end.
You are getting decent conversions off of luigi in the air.
I’m going to look some stuff up before I continue because some of the pattern is clear and there’s not much point to describe it more without ideas for solutions.

- - -

Luckily for us, Luigi yells “YAH” when he leaves the ground (incl if he WDes). This reduces the amount of time needed to react. On f20 after jumping (f15 after YAH) of earliest action out of full WD, dsmash, ftilt, and jab are all out at the length of the center purple hexagon on BF (grab is a tiny bit shorter) (this is pretty much exactly the lenght of his full empty WD) This is convenient because it is basically exactly the same as what we can react to. So if we are at or outside of the length of the purple BF hexagon range and we jump on reaction to hearing YAH then we are safe. If we are inside of that range then we have to guess what he’ll do and choose shield or crouch but with a good reaction to the YAH noise we get the mixup.
Crouch always beats jab (CC grab it) and upsmash. It beats grab almost always, ftilt until 90, and dsmash until 33. It loses to upB. This means that under 30 he cannot punish crouch with a WD from any range if you respond correctly.
Shield is weird because you the best you can get consistently is like a dair but if he doesn’t grab and you don’t overextend out of shield then it’s not much harm done and you avoided getting dsmashed (basically the only thing that you’re afraid of).
If he jumped instead of WD and we chose to jump or shield or something defensive it’s no big deal at all. That’s what we want. He is stuck in the air for a minimum of half a second, more likely in that scenario a lot more. Worst case we force him backwards a bit.

Luigi cannot consistently grab crouching puff. His standing grab will get her if she wobbles but only sometimes so it is not worth the risk, like marth. Hist dash grab will never grab crouching puff.

Luigi’s dair is the only rising aerial that can hit crouching puff. It must be out on f1 and the range is the same as strong super jump punch. Meaning that if he can’t strong upB you OoS then he can’t rising aerial your crouch.

shield pushback makes punishing puff’s fsmash OoS very weird for luigi. He can’t grab or aerial, he has to correctly guess the amount of pushback and angle his WD appropriately in order to WD to her and get a smash attack out. This has a surprisingly small window, between 1-6f or so. It would take practice.

I think that you need to optimize what you do preemptively because the risk of the FH aerials that sometimes clip him and sometimes get faired is too dramatic. Work out on paper what you want to do from the ground and from the air vs what options he has from inside and outside of WD length.

Reviewing Hbox vs Vudujin, gonna look at what he does.
Hbox is, as you would expect, not approaching unless vudujin moves backward or is in endlag. But he’s not retreating at all which makes vudujin eager to do those things. Hbox stays exactly outside of that purple hexagon range and hits luigi for making commitments. He’s not going inside without frame adv and keeps very very tight spacing when he is in there. He never crosses luigi up.
When he does preemptive aerials it’s a FH bair, rising one fills the space at the end of luigi’s WD (no closer because that introduces risk if he’s wrong, if he’s wrong and fades back then he can react to what luigi does before he has to land). He is keeping vudijin from walking forward by using dash attack at those moments or if he is in the air threatening a falling bair which vudu is respecting because he’s afraid of Hbox’s WoP accuracy.

- - -

Ok, now that I understand the MU better

Game 2 DL
8:00 non neutral start
vudu runs away then runs back so that you have to tap his shield, jumps away. Hbox would have just landed at the edge of his WD and wated for vudu’s reaction.
you win the aerial spacing battle
7:51 you guess shield, vudu does SH dair
you didn’t have frame adv so grab was high risk
in my head hbox turns his back and shields, then FH bairs back to WD length if luigi doesn’t do anything
7:49 you do a really late bair, he goes to whiff punish, is late, FH bair goes around him, was a good choice
he shields in time to stop the upair, you read his jump/WD but he reacts. You run outside of his fall but bair is slow. 5+9=minimum of 14 which is slower than fsmash. Recurring problem that puffs have is that they use bair for tight punishes like that and it is always shielded.
makes your crossup unsafe but he is nervous about getting shieldgrabbed (you would have missed)
7:42 I think that upthrow is better. More damage, better chances for more hits. Please tell me if you disagree.
7:39 When at frame disadvantage inside of luigi’s WD hbox almost always shields. I think he is weighing the probability that luigi wants to get a hit vs that luigi uses Z. In that case you were under 30 so I would have crouched though.
7:36 sick. That is the exact rising bair that luigi can’t punish and that gives you good opportunities.
mmhhhmmm, you outspace him, grab instead of bair this time, get a backthrow, force out his jump, bair his fall. Better positioning so you got better followup.
No jump luigi so you can go ham
7:21 luigi’s endlag lets you cross up
7:19 you need to immediately SH to clip their feet on the platform
he jumps for fear though, you get an upair trade
7:16 shitty pound. Shouldn’t ever pound without confirmation it’s predictable and hella high risk.
7:12 he fakes you out by not moving. Because you aren’t at the magic spacing don’t challenge him. Just plant your feet and get to the spot where you can bair over the edge of his WD (or you could have just baired anyway like you did to get the last backthrow.
7:11 you recognize the tomahawk but jump isn’t the right option lol. Probs roll behind him?
7:10 almost get the upair
are too close after landing for bair to be safe
7:07 high risk negative reward pound
7:01 this preemptive fair is what made last game so hard. It’s not very good on hit or whiff.
SH nair is better. Dash away is better. FH bair is better.
I don’t know why you DJ bair after the SH.
Had he jumped you would have still been in position to punish. Low bair on shield forces him back a smidge which is perfect. Now you’re just hanging above him in end lag because you guessed wrong.
6:55 turning your back makes him let you take ledge again.
the waveland grab without frame adv is risky. You can bair at him to trigger him to make a decision with endlag.
perfect spacing for next little exchange
dair grab isn’t real until about 60 so most of the time you can crouch next to them and they either jab roll or spotdodge
good punishes on vertical luigi and great spacing to avoid bair then recognizing he had to shield and getting the grab. This is amazing play right now.
woud have preferred upthrow
6:35 you recognize inv WL and shield
dair and nair here are high risk moderate reward
bair would have been low risk moderate reward.
lol what a spotdodge, he does that habitually when you grounded dash at him.
6:31 get in the habit of holding down, L and mashing A and Z when someone jabs you.
good shield, you opt to grab instead of bair (to avoid possibly trading with dair?)
He has good DI vs fthrow
6:26 perfect spacing outside of WD to get reaction bair
snipe him with fair then correct reactions in tangle under the stage
a million times better spacing this game and way fewer FH fairs.
6:17 he takes ledge which is ok ‘cause it gives you stage
6:15 FH bair is a little too close so he gets a land punish. Hard to tell if you input it late on purpose in order to preemptively punish a jump or not. If so there’s no need for you to do that.
You take a lot of damage preemptively covering jumps that don’t happen.
You do the most damage punishing him after the jump.
6:09 dair without frame adv was overly risky. Protect your fall space with bair.
6:02 you force shield with upair. That upair always makes them shield and never has reward. Consider using empty uptilt more often? I mean, esp there, you’re invincible so he can’t punish it.
6:00 misspace upair
5:59 turn your back after the fair.
5:54 bair whiffs because you dashed forward first. Would have been a juicy 2-3 bairs.
you hover out of his WD range, filling it with an aerial then landing outside of it which is pretty safe. Choose the best aerial though. I honestly think it’s bair at this %.
not high enough % for dash attack.
5:47 bair lets you back
he commits to lag which lets you bair in
you drop the WoP thinking he’d go up, misjudging his % a couple times now.
5:40 careful, you don’t have to stick your feet that far in in order to cover WD.
5:40 you guess he’ll shield but he reacts to your forward movement again, looks like.
You can probably mask that better by using WDs instead of dashes. Same speed over that distance, much less conspicuous.
5:38 he fakes you out
you could have covered that option with much less risk via bair
5:35 oh ok, you recognize that he’ll think grab/grounded attack so you wait for him to jump
but you try to fair the jump which we’ve established doesn’t work in this MU lol
if you see luigi jump you need to think “punish the fall”
5:33 ok he’s caught on that you are punishing close land whiffs with grabs so he jumps out
that’s ok though because it just gives you another chance
you react late though
5:29 slightly too slow reaction to spotdodge
gross. From 5:27-5:22 he just sits and waits for you to come in guessing. Eventually you do.
When vudujin does that refuse to play that stupid game with him. It’s deliberate, it’s super lame, and it’s motivated by his not being able to think of anything better to do than rely on you to mess up in neutral. Yes, he has center, but you are a Jigglypuff with no need for stage control and an stock up so you have no incentive to walk into him, at least not right away. Plant yourself at the edge of his WD and safely poke the edge of his range. From rising bair outside of his WD your threat angles are better and more flexible. You have no reason to come in on a risky guess with not reason or endlag confirmation.
5:15 when you see him jump up you can just WD away, he can’t hit crouching/deflated WDing puff on his way up.
can’t shield grab that nair
5:12 super bad pound
good spacing vs his jumps
needed to turn your back, no need to try to preemptive fair
4:57 CC grab
5:54 ooh slick upair
4:47 could have gotten WoP with bair
4:44 amazing spacing to get that grab
backthrow, perfectly spaced bair, perfect luigi edgeguard
retreat to ledge, makes him jump, upair could have clipped him
4:27 you react faster than he does
good spacing gets double bair uptilt rest.

Yeah after watching this carefully idk why you would want to fair instead of bair. Bair is wayyyyyyy safer, has better range combos better, and you can do 2 of them in a FH instead of 1.

Stocks
backthrow gimp
outspace WD, bair, edgeguard
grab his land, backthrow gimp
uptilt rest

Stocks Lost
dair into his fair for no reason
fair into his dair for no reason

Game 3 FD
should be interesting because very explicit ranges and fall punishes without the platforms. It is wide enough that you can abuse spacing outside of his WD pretty darn hard.
8:00 you open with pretty perfect spacing, he chooses to spotdodge rather than shield but you react so it’s fine
hmmmm, you’re right Sh bair DJ bair doesn’t seem very good unless it is at full WD range it just put you at a tough angle
7:55 no descent punish
7:52 you can just CC grab that it’s way easier
yeah good reaction to empty land
same situation
7:47 you’re under 30 so you can just crouch when he WDes
7:45 he keeps jumping when you run at him
good upair string
7:39 bair was badly spaced, couldn’t get there in time, needed to back off
7:34 nair is too far in
he baits the grab. That’s kinda annoying.
7:27 whiff punish
bair was I think the right choice vs walking around luigi you just misspaced slightly
good decision not to press for an unsafe crossup and just take ledge
7:22 fair is an overextension
7:21 wtf is he doing
hmmm I think maybe you should have just let him WL then reacted? You were outside of WL smash attack range. He hasn’t shown WL WD yet that I noticed.
good dair grab though
I still think upthrow is better than throwing him to where he will just snap to ledge.
7:14 aerial OoS was an overextension, can just WD away and punish land
really good descent. Hovered where you could react to a jump then punished when he put himself in endlag.
Could have comboed to upsmash uptilt or grab
7:04 high risk low reward fair
7:01 oh there’s that exact dair I was talking about
you don’t react in time the next iteration though
crazy DI
look at how much stage bair buys you
6:54 he’s just waiting for you to whiff something risky in front of him
weird for that nair to hit you, did you jump and not WD away?
6:46 you force him into the corner so he jumps, you grab his land
pretty risky fair but the angle is good
misjudge his sideB
great empty land grab
backthrow bair. Looks like that is a real combo at high %s.
6:28 FHs prevent him from doing much with his inv
you react to a weird empty jump with fair
second fair isn’t gonna work at 0
no need to roll
6:20 spotdodges instead of shield again
6:18 and again
sucks for him if you do an empty land uptilt
bad pound
6:15 bad DJ bair, don’t preemptively cover his jumps
6:11 FH fair is high risk low reward. Could have covered same option with SH bair away.
6:08 good spacing but he has time to spotdodge.
6:05 hm he baits you with that shield. You were in a good position, just didn’t space out enough.
6:01 aghhh, an upair input too late?
bad FH fair. Turn your back.
5:54 ehhhhh, that’s pretty much exactly why dair isn’t actually good at protecting your fall
5:49 he was never going to sit in shield for that long
good crouch on the jab but no CC grab
5:43 bad fair. Let him shield and reset to WD spacing where you can react to him.
5:41 that FH nair that he does seems really horrible
inner hitbox of bair so easy WoP
5:37 oh wow reacting to the whiff and doing a rising bair after was really good
5:32 you can’t outspace dair with fair. You can with bair though.
5:28 you corner him then jab his crossup. That’s pretty flawless on this stage, right?
he jumps, whiff punish
edgeguard was good until you FF bair too early
5:20 you were ready you just didn’t confirm before you hit Z
lol crouch fsmash
5:08 CC grab was hella late
you FH fair inside of his WD and get land punished
5:00 can’t tell if you read the roll or not, if so you needed to confirm it first. Acting too early is a real thing.
4:57 second jump bair covered 0 options and let him get under you.
5:56 hard to get that grab out of hitstun
4:53 nair was pretty bad. No need to challenge lagless luigi directly with that. Too much warning.
4:45 land punish.
4:42 oh surprise
5:40 FH fair was too close to him
4:38 he was too close for SH bair to be safe
idk about the nair into fsmash either lol
4:28 FH fair is too close
4:24 land punish, fthrow has no reward
4:22 CC grab
4:13 could have punished better
4:08 lol spacing bairs and then running and grabbing is not a real mixup
4:06 spotdodges instead of shield again
3:57 same inv nair jab gets you a land punish
fthrow, he snaps to ledge, was inv for the fair
3:54 if you don’t attack his shield immediately then don’t attack his shield at all. Mixup works better that way. Recurring situation for tons of players.
3:53 good WD
3:50 good bairs they were just started from slightly too close. That’s how you beat him doing nothing from a full WD
3:47 baits with single jab again. Ughhhhhh I hate watching gimmicky low tier players.
3:44 spotdodges instead of shield again. You empty land grab this time. Fthrow snaps to ledge, gets inv uptilt.
3:40 idk why that fair hit him but I think you do
super luigi edgeguard
3:30 wow what a grab
upair the descent, misspaced slightly so nothing more
protect fall with threat of bair, he overextends pretty hard with FH dair, you try to beat it preemptively almost take the dair, miss the whiff punish
you play around outside of his range until you get a dair on his guess
land punish a spammy bair, backthrow, snaps to ledge and situation reverses.
slowly take stage with FH bair threat.
he spotdodge ftils, your spacing is noncommital so you can’t punish or avoid. Gotta make sure that you’re covering options.
3:04 you use his gut reaction to flee running puff to take the rest of stage
3:01 cleanly punish his jump, WoP
2:58 ooh good nair
and the mini dash dance grab! Kreygasm
backthrow, cover some options, he airdodges, should be a regrab
fthrow, cover his jump, goes low, take ledge for inv with perfect timing, I think fallign fair was better than rising nair. Could have SHed to ledge.
2:48 you don’t respect that vudu does inv ledgedashes, scary risk
FH fairs are ineffective vs luigi
good micro reactions goodness
dair upsmash callout on his movement habit doesn’t kill, if you turned your back you could have threatened the ledgegrab
2:31 bairs were well spaced outside of his range but still threatening him until that one
2:24 don’t recognize the opportunity for a land punish until too late
2:23 you do the thing where you cover the roll then stop covering the roll just as he does it again lol
there are really scary crossups
2:17 same situation where you bair his shield during WL. What is the best solution to that?
2:12 land punish
fthrow, oh gosh you spaced so close. Just turn your back and use the disjoint.
some wonky spacing.
he ends up upsmashing you for landing inside of his WD.

Stocks
emptyland grab backthrow bair
crouch under grab fsmash
fair, edgeguard

Stocks Lost
caught to close and get naired
try to beat dair with fair
spotdodges a bair, dsmash
land in his WD, upsmash


Ok I feel like I have identified important patterns. Doing the rest of the set in depth would be redundant and not helpful. I’m just reiterate that you take too much damage from FH fairs lol.