Despite having one of the best Edge Guards in the game with fast aerials, needles, and attacks, Sheik recovering to the stage is possibly the easiest time to kill Sheik herself because of how vulnerable she is to attacks while recovering. The reason why it is easy to Edge Guard Sheik is because her up-special, which is also called Vanish, does not give as much vertical and horizontal distance as compared to other top characters such as Fox’s, Falco’s, and Marth’s recovery. It also leaves Sheik wide open after recovering because of the long ending animation which won’t allow Sheik to do an action until it is over.

Finally, Sheik’s Vanish does not allow her to move left or right even though she still may be air born and in free fall, making her linear recovery even more linear. Sheik has small tricks she can use to combat this such as attacking and air dodging; however, they are still easy to circumvent by knowing when to get up from the ledge and when to time your ledge grab.

Sheik’s Vanish has three parts to her recovery:

The first is the initial activation where Sheik rises into the air a bit and animates to transition to her second phase.

During this first phase, she does not gain any invincibility.

The second phase of Sheik’s Vanish first makes Sheik invincible, then she will create an explosive hitbox where she once was, and finally will then disappear. Once she disappears, the player has full control of to where Sheik is able to travel to with the directional stick which also controls where she will reappear.

Sheik is able to travel in as many directions as Fox and Falco can in their Fire Fox and Fire Bird recovery.

The final phase of Sheik’s Vanish is her reappearance. In this phase, she is out of her disappearance and invincibility. She is able to grab the ledge because she is in Free Fall or she is able to appear on the stage with a significant amount of lag.

This is her most vulnerable state because she cannot move, throw out an attack, or shield.

Just from explaining Sheik’s recovery there are numerous weaknesses that we can exploit.

The first way to Edge Guard Sheik and possibly the easiest and most optimal is to grab the ledge and time your get up animation. Sheik cannot possibly recover to the ledge or on stage because you will have covered all those options with you holding the ledge. If Sheik goes to the ledge while you are holding onto it, then she will fall to her death because the get up animation will be slow enough so that Sheik cannot take the ledge from you. Grabbing the ledge and getting up also works well against her Vanishing to the stage or to the platform. When Sheik shows up onto the stage, you are most likely finished with your get up animation and Sheik will still be in her animation from the third part of her Vanish. This lets you get a free punish to kill her or reset the situation by hitting her off the stage. Repeat this until she dies or she drops to her death.

This may sound easy, and if this worked every time it would make Sheik bottom tier. However, she has some tricks to play against this. A possibility to combat this from Sheik is to use the beginning part of her second phase of Vanish to try and hit you with the explosion. This works if the player is too slow at getting up from the ledge, but it is easily combatted with refreshing invincibility at the ledge or just not messing up when getting up from the ledge. Refreshing invincibility can be as easy as to jump down and jump back to grab the ledge or to “Fire Stalling” with Fox and Falco. Sheik is not able to hit the player any longer with her Vanish because the invincibility at the ledge is refreshed. The below image is showing Fox getting up at the correct time to avoid the explosion.

Another trick Sheik can use with her Vanish is what many competitive players call a “double poof.” Sheik’s Vanish has a hitbox, however, when Sheik double poofs, she creates two hitboxes slightly delayed from one another. This allows Sheik to hit you off of the ledge and is a recovery mix up. Double poofing is achieved by Sheik rising to the apex of her recovery and going onto the stage with her first phase of her Vanish. By landing on the stage before the explosion happens, the game thinks that there are two Vanishings happening at the same time and so there are two explosions instead on one. These hitboxes are delayed enough to catch a player holding onto the ledge for too long which results in Sheik coming back to the stage. The below images show Sheik catching Fox with her double poof because Fox failed to get up earlier than usual. Fox is normally getting up at the correct time, however, since there are two hitboxes Fox gets hit off of the ledge.

To combat this is to get up earlier than if Sheik were to Vanish regularly towards the ledge or onto the stage without double poofing. A big weakness to double poofing is that it will let you know for sure that she will appear on the stage. With this in mind, you will be able to punish with a quick smash attack or reset the situation again. In the below images, Fox is getting up earlier than usual which extends the invincibility given by the ledge and animation, this lets Fox punish Sheik with a Down Smash. This is just an example as a punish, normally people would want to Up Smash or Back Air. The big difference between these two is the timing in which Fox gets up, the first set of images above shows Fox getting hit by double poof because he is holding onto the ledge for so long.

Sheik has more recovery options than Vanish. If Sheik is close enough to the stage, she can air dodge onto the stage, significantly reducing the lag time it would take for her to Vanish onto the stage. You can combat this the same as a double poof, by timing your get up earlier than normal. Another tactic used by Sheik is to hit you off the ledge with an aerial, mainly Forward Air. This can possibly kill you or put you in a terrible position for Sheik to then Edge Guard you, but you can combat this the same way as double poof and air dodge by getting up earlier than usual. Once you get up you can grab her and throw her off stage, smash attack her, combo her to death, or reset the situation again by grabbing the ledge if Sheik has not taken the ledge yet. The below image is showing Sheik attempting to air dodge. However, Fox is occupying the ledge which gives him the option of hitting Sheik after her air dodge or watching her make it on Randel.

A big weakness to Sheik is how she is vulnerable during the first phase of her Vanish, so another optimal Edge Guard is to attack her during this first phase before the hitbox and invincibility from the second phase go through. To Edge Guard Sheik further is to attack her before she can do anything, so a common strategy would be to hold the ledge and then to hit her away from the ledge with one of your moves, all while you yourself are invincible. You can Edge Guard this way against a regular Sheik Vanish to the stage or to the ledge if she is close enough, against double poof because it requires Sheik to be close to the stage and ledge, against an aerial because you will have invincibility from the ledge, and against air dodging because that will require her to be close to the stage.

To recap, to Edge Guard Sheik is to hold the ledge and time your get up as she tries to recover. Once done you either have a free punish on Sheik or you can watch her fall to her death. You are able to do this against all of her mix-ups and win; however, it will require you to time the getup animation either early or refresh the invincibility so that it would allow you to be on the ledge for longer. You can determine when it is appropriate to get up by the distance of where Sheik starts her Vanish. If Sheik recovers close than its better to get up earlier than usual, and if further away its better to get up later than usual. The other way to Edge Guard Sheik is to hit Sheik before she can do anything by hitting her during the first phase of Vanish, hitting her while your invincibility from the ledge is active when she tries to hit you or hitting her right after or before she air dodges.

These are the core mechanics of Edge Guarding Sheik. Once implemented in your gameplay you will find that you will do better against every kind of Sheik player. Good luck to and keep on smashing.

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