The Diddy matchup is not easy for Ivysaur. He has a lot of high-pressure, low-commitment tools that can keep us out. You have to understand Diddy’s kit extremely well to excel in the matchup against him.



Neutral: I’ll start off by just listing Diddy’s options, then I’ll detail some of our own. Different Diddys like to do different things, but it could be argued that a Diddy playing campy is playing optimally against Ivysaur. Diddy will often start off the game with a banana pull. He can then shoot peanuts to bait an approach, then punish the approach with the banana.



There is a common situation in this matchup that I ‘lovingly’ refer to as “Behind the Banana” (BTB). This setup can be quite tough for us to deal with, especially without matchup experience. How it works is, the monkey will place the banana a character length or two in front of him, with the ledge to his back, also at around two character lengths. From there he will popgun you, or otherwise try to bait an approach. On larger stages you can camp and heal, but if you are behind or on a smaller stage, you have to react somehow. If you jump over the banana/peanuts to try to poke him, be ready for his myriad of options. The peanuts will eat razor leaf, so it’s difficult to pressure with those if he’s behind banana. If you try to cross him up, he can usually punish on reaction. Good Diddys will often punish you for going for the banana as well.



Let it be noted that Diddy has a spectacular shield. Like, I’m pretty sure it was the best shield in Brawl, and it’s pretty much carried over from that. If he’s patient in shield, he can hold it for quite a while and still not be shield poked. In a “Behind the Banana” situation, a LOT of our typical approach options get shut down. You cannot land in front of Diddy or you will trip. Even if you waveland back to catch the banana, he can cover most of your options. You cannot shield poke him with nair > jab > jab; he can roll through the banana to the other side of it, he can bair out of shield, or instant throw OOS if he’s holding the banana. Jab > grab can work, but only if you condition him into holding shield, and it’s a bit slow. If you’re in a situation where you have to pressure his shield, usually nair > jab > move away is optimal, then try to punish his OOS option (which will often be a roll or Bair, especially in a BTB situation.



Diddy can also crouch cancel in neutral to absurd percents. Both Dtilt and Dsmash work on many of our moves past 60-70%. Poking with our own downtilt at max range isn’t bad, but you have to be extra careful when attempting to space fairs, bairs, or nairs in neutral. Razor leaf, too, gets CC’d pretty hard, so you have to be careful not to autopilot after your regular hit confirms.



Diddy can dthrow chaingrab at low percents. Your escape options are to either DI forward then nair out of it, or DI hard behind him, after which you can tech or land. He can Dthrow into fair as a kill setup, so be prepared to Di the fair upwards if you’re at high percent. He can also dthrow > upsmash depending on your percent and DI, so be prepared to potentially SDI the soft hits of upsmash so you can avoid the finisher.



If the banana is in Diddy’s hand, he can still popgun, and he can instantly throw the banana out of shield. He can cover his landings with popgun or banana similarly to what we often do with razor leaf, except it’s much lower commitment for him. Don’t miss techs in general, especially off banana and MIX UP YOUR TECH OPTIONS. When I say ‘in general’ I mean it may not hurt to miss one on purpose once in a while after conditioning the opponent into believing you will nail the tech every time. They’re mixups. Do them.







Alright let’s review: Diddy has an insane shield, good CC, and BTB to shut down our options. On the defense, mixup tech options, camp bigger stages, and apply very careful pokes and shield pressure.





Now on our end, what can we do? First let’s talk about handling the biggest potential shutdown: BTB. If Diddy’s BTB on a stage without platforms, we can apply pressure with high seedbombs. Don’t waste your double jump (you need to be able to land safely). Angle them so they land at his feet, or on the banana. Peanuts won’t cover them since they come from above. Diddy’s options are: Stop shooting and shield, stop shooting and dodge the seed, stop shooting and roll away, or get hit. The important part about all this is that he should stop shooting. This is the opening you want. After he stops shooting during a BTB setup, you finally have options. If you cross him up before the seed lands, you can bait the shield and then grab him. If he rolls, you can poke him to punish or try to land and grab. Alternatively, you can waveland catch the banana without fear of punish, because the seed should cover you.



Once you get an opening, you want to do everything in your power to land a grab. Just about every action you take in neutral should have one of these three goals in mind (in order of highest priority):



1) Grab



You should know as an Ivysaur main that we can get SO much off of a grab. Learn your combos on fast fallers, especially diddy. He feels very similar to comboing Roy. Low percent: DI out leads to fair, or he has to land in which case you can techchase > regrab. DI in should lead to no less than eight sweetspot upairs into solarbeam (really though chain as many as you can). DI in can also lead to dair > techchase > dair or regrab. If you get a grab facing offstage, DI out on downthrow leads to fair > dair (dunk) and DI in leads to dair > (double dip if you need to). Really, grabs are our best conversion.



Upthrow can be used to some success at low-mid percents. If they DI in front of you, you can jab > regrab before they land. It’s a good DI mixup if you’ve conditioned them to always DI away because of downthrow.



Backthrow at ledge can kill or lead to an edgeguard situation. Forward throw is not bad either for the same purpose, but it kills a bit later.





2) Safe pokes



Optimally space fairs, you can waveland out of them to avoid CC moves. Dtilt is good because it can lead to a grab or upairs if it pops diddy up. Nair isn’t great at lower percents because it can be CC’d, but higher percents it can lead to an edgeguard situation or even kill outright. Bair is not usually good in neutral because it can be CC’d or reacted to. It can, however, eat peanuts, so use at your own discretion.



3) Kill setups



This is an extension of safe pokes. Dtilt leads to upair, dash attack leads to solarbeam, downthrow is bae. Upthrow can also convert into solarbeam depending on DI. You can dthrow> vinewhip for a kill above 110 or so need to check percents on that if they DI right for it. Fair is a great edgeguard, sets up into more fairs or dair.







Stages: I mentioned earlier that you can camp healing on larger stages. Generally you want to take diddy to platform stages because it gives him more to work around and makes the banana less of an issue. The addition of a platform strengthens his BTB tactic, because it shuts down aerial approaches and seed bomb. However, if you gain control of the banana, it’s much easier to get it out of play or in your favor. Even though I love GHZ as ivysaur, it can be tough there against diddy: platform isn’t really an issue for the banana, stage itself is small, high ceilings mean he lives a bit longer to uair, and small sides mean we die to fair sooner. He can outcamp us there pretty well, which isn’t fun. However, you can at least rain seedbombs on him there. Battlefield and Smashville are alright, fountain is okay, PS2 is fluid, it depends on the ivy/diddy players in my opinion.



Edgeguarding: After refining your onstage combo game, you need to make sure you can finish the job offstage if need be. Low percent you can cheese hard with a grab near ledge with bthrow > chunky dunk > ledgegrab. As mentioned earlier you can also dthrow > dair > (second dair if needed) if they DI offstage. Once diddy is offstage, he has a pretty simple flow chart. Simple, but effective. Diddy can recover from pretty far away, but I wouldn’t say that makes his recovery amazing. You have to guess his angle then punish accordingly. Wide arcs can be chunky dunked, if you read his side-b you can RAR a backair, and if he misses a sweetspot or tries to go onstage you can dsmash him away. Really good diddys also have AGT as a mixup, but I’ve rarely seen it utilized as a recovery (so far). If you can burn his second jump you should almost never have an excuse not to finish the stock. If he’s deep his flowchart will be: Side-B kick (If you can get deep enough fast enough you can end it here) > jump (if he has it) > charge up B. You can follow his angle somewhat be seeing which way he angles his body before firing the rockets. He can release it whenever he wants, but know that a longer charge = more distance. Ledgegrab > invincible nair is a great punish for rocketbarrel, because it trumps a bunch of timing mixups diddy can try. You can also bait him into shooting for stage by grabbing the ledge, then you can ledgedash > grab in time to punish his landing, if he goes too high for your nair.





This writeup is a fluid work in progress, if you have any insight or suggestions, let me know!