So I guess this is a good place for me to talk about Samus and what other Samus players should be doing, or at least experimenting with. This first version is basically a repost of the comment I made on reddit that I will try to update/cleanup at least once a week, that way it once it is completely finished it can be viewed as a full on guide for Samus. DO NOT repost and claim this guide as your own. If I wanted this on smashboards I would have posted it there. For now this is just an infodump that I will organize later so this first post is going to be on some pretty advanced stuff. Im going to omit things like platform cancel missles, rising missles from ledge and Zair(these will be added later on).

One thing I will say about zair is to just use it more. It dominates the neutral. Nobody is going to randomly start shielding when youre not in their face so you should be stuffing those dash dances and wavedashes in neutral. Really. Theyre gonna get hit at least 2 or 3 times before they start to block and thats when you grab them, start your missle spam, or even drop a bomb and SWD behind them.

These are a few things that I always incorporate into my game and have lots of success with. They’re not gimmicks.

Bombs

Alot of people think her bombs only uses are to start a SWD (Super Wavedash) or for bomb jumping on recovery. Bombs are great to drop in the more close quarters neutral game if you feel lost. You can even decide to SWD at the last second. If a bomb explodes with you in top of it, you can waveland out of them. This is really good if the bomb actually hits the opponent because you can followup with dtilt and get something going or even grab them. Mix it up, footstool them/their shield or even multibomb by doing it again and again. Multibomb seems pretty impractical at first, but it actually provides some great shield pressure combined with a charge shot. Also for edgeguarding you can run off and drop a bomb instantly, then shift back onto stage. The bomb trumps some revcoveries, and you can even prepare a SWD if you need to cover something. Oh yeah, down throw>footstool>bomb is a thing I do sometimes.

Experiment with bombs, theyre not useless.

Crawl/Boost attack

Very underused moves. Her crawl is good up close in neutral and really messes with spacing. Things like crawling back and ditlting can really mess up a shffld approach from your opponent. Crawling combined with wavedashing is a tricky spacing tool. Boost attack is better used at mid/higher percents for better chance with followups, but I will admit I need to try and incorporate it more. Ive heard boost attack to grab works but Ive never landed it. You can boost attack at the edge and hold forward to slip off of the edge and nair/dair.

Super Wavedash (SWD) Mixups & potential option selects

Alot of people write SWD off as just being flashy. Its not. Its amazing. With a 2(3?) frame window now, its not hard to have 90% consitencey with this at all. A tip on SWD – You can hold 1 direction for the duration of the bomb drop animation and wait before you tap forward on the last frames to get SWD easier if youre just now learning it. SWD increases your options so much. When you SWD you can even crouch and hold back to stop your forward momentum completely. Learning to control it and getting good at using it for long tech chases has worked out great for me. I often grab/pivot grab or dtilt out of it. Fsmash and Ice Usmash are great as well. Ive even gotten off a few SWDs from the ledge. The options are there. Experiment with it.

Okay I used the word option select. This is something ive been trying to experiment with. This for now is all theory since I dont have my wii with me. An option select is inputting something that will have a different outcome based on what happens next, or what your opponent does. Remember Multibombing/waveland bombs? Well, I believe it is possible to drop a bomb, input a super wavedash and a waveland at the same time (within the last 2 or 3 frames so SWD is possible) this way if the bomb hits, you waveland & if it doesnt, SWD. You may have to press back>down forward for SWD rather than back>forward so the waveland comes out. If SWD is possible by pressing down+forward im confident this can work. I actually think Its very likely if youre good at doing perfectly horizontal wavedashes.

Plink dashing/C-dashing & Crawl dashing

Okay, C dashing is done by holding the attack button(A) and tapping down on the C stick(smash attack) during a characters running animation. It causes the running animation to reset into the initial dash animation (by crouching I believe) so you can basically have an infinite dash dance window. This works with every character, and Samus benefits from it alot. I think everyone should experiment with this. I play claw so its pretty easy for me, but you may have to change controls to do it comfortably. Note the reason I call it plink dash (Plinking = Priority linking) is because I believe that would be the proper term form it. Something about the attack button input messing with the priority of the c stick input causing it to crouch blah blah I really cant think hard about that right now.

Crawl dashing. This is crazy. Its something ESAM taught me a while ago at CEO and im pretty sure he discovered it, so shoutouts to him. Alot of you have probably seen it before. I dont think he had a name for it so I came up with that just now. Basically you get a slight boost when you rise from Samus’ crawl/crouch/morphball-same thing. If you rise and fall at a certain point of her crawl repeatedly while keeping the control stick forward a bit, you move forward really fast. Its probably faster than SWD. It seems impractical at first because you literally have to grab the control stick with two fingers and wiggle it in the down+forward section of the gates on your controller. The strange thing about it, you only go fast when going right not left. After getting really good with it I started using it more in matches, like after Ive knocked the opponent far or even to approach after platform cancelled missles. Again, I play claw so its not as slow or awkward for me to move my hands to that weird of a position on the controller. I find it to be a good alternative to using SWD for closing distances. Its a neat technique.

Charge Shot mixups

Charge shot is amazing combined with the turnaround/b reverse/wavebounce mechanics. Charging it in the air is a great addition as well. I often do things like wavebounce charge in the air and then cancel it into nair if im stuck above an opponent. When you have it fully charged, running away from an opponent and then doing the inputs for a wavebounce charge shot on the ground cancels the running animation into an instant turnaround charge shot. This is one of the main ways I land it. There is a good use for it in her recovery so Ill talk about that next.

Recovery mixups

So, Samus tether can be cancelled before she connects with the ledge up to 3 times before she cant tether again, at this point you have to Up b. Against players who are good at punishing her tether, I often cancel it halfway and the Up B. This means your tether isnt gonna get Up B’d by some Marth or falling Uair’d by Ganon etc. Its a greay recovery mixup(im pretty sure it works in every smash game) and can be done on reaction. Just dont be predictable with the tether cancels.

Samus can wall jump. Samus can charge, and cancel that charge all in the air. If you combine that with wavebouncing her aerial charge shot you can repeatedly wall jump back to the ledge. This is something every Samus should know how to do. You can even use it to edgeguard by walljump>nair or just let the charge shot rip. Ive even done some weird things like walljump and drop a bomb near the ledge at a height where you shift your momentum so you are back onstage and then SWD.

Well, thats it for now I guess. I think Samus mains need to experiment more & stay open minded. I honeslty dont know why there arent tons of Samus players out there because she has so money options and playstyles. There are lots of little things Samus can do that when all pieced together, can create one hell of a Samus player.

I forgot to talk about our shield drop options so I’ll just list a few. We have things like shield drop uair, fair, nair, bair, charge shot, missle, and bombs. Shield drop bomb is super useful and I even do it in melee as well. Combined with all of the bomb stuff talked about earlier, you have tons of options. Shield drop bomb jump> waveland to get out of pressure. There is also a neat trick when you drop a bomb at a certain point while passing through a platform where Samus lays on the platform (looks like she is crawling) and you can then SWD out of that. So basically, you can SWD OoS.

Thats it for now. I will clean up the formatting and everything next time. I just needed a place to put all this text.

-isca hoe