amsah hbox

Amsah vs Hbox critique
Times are for game timer
Stock 1
98:49 you immediately start by getting on a side platform which doesn’t make sense b/c of how far he is horizontally as well as the fact that he does an FJ. Thankfully you escape and even get a bair on his landing but this will come to bite you soon
98:41 here’s where it bites you, you disengage and try to come in from a higher angle after you see that he zones with bair in place but Sheik vertical movement (especially on DL) is slow, and Puff can leverage that to get on the same horizontal plane as you and bair. You messed up a shield drop but even given that you already gave him free reads
98:37 good ASDI down dtilt ftilt. After you see the uair miss though you ought to come back down to the ground and either aim for outplay or setup, you can’t hit him with that bair without getting him to burn jumps
98:31 this is so common among Sheiks in the matchup. If you ever run in shield you should reconsider the action that made you do that in the first place, you get nothing off of it. My guess is that you saw her whiff two bairs and you tried to use the fact that she has less mobility + overall options but because of the distance you started to dash at beforehand, you had no real credible mixup. Instead, charge needles (important since he’s below 55), walk forward (this allows you to also reactively deal with him just retreating to side plat), dash then time FJ around his landing (FJ weak bair -> stuff is fun chip damage), or even pre-emptively nair if you want to be really aggressive (do not recommend since he’s at low % rofl)
98:29 crouch is good to force him to change how he engages, but you make use of this poorly by dash ASAP fair
In general this stock you get messed up for trying to start offense from too far away, but remember that puff bair from jumpsquat to startup takes 14f (5 js + 9 bair), and that if you get above her you can crash with fair. Additionally, giving her room allows her time/space to freely turn around as she pleases. Don’t be so afraid to get closer to her – even a little bit of distance counts.
Stock 2
98:09 starting here, this is what I mean by backing off. You are so scared that you charge needles and completely forego challenging his landing when he does an intensely approach-y thing (WL back air fully drift into you). He does a bair that helps him gain height + stops you from randomly FJ’ing into him, then he takes frames to waveland, then he takes frames to bair at you. The first bair is a little scary cuz you couldn’t tell if he was going to SH bair at you, but as soon as you saw him drifting towards you you backed all the way off. Don’t worry so much! It’s not that easy for Puff to hit you; even if you can’t react to everything it’s not the end of the world if you get hit.
97:56 this is a conditioning thing; you didn’t do anything terrible but now’s a good chance to talk about it. There’s a good period of time before where you’re trying to use the top platform to pick a spot to snipe Hbox; this is not effective on DL specifically unless you get him to commit to hang around between the platform edges in the air OR you manage to catch him slipping. So you need to convince him you’ll come down first before you try this; trying to snipe him on the ground is asking for trouble and lends itself to scrambles. You manage to do that but just keep in mind that since you’ve been playing very grounded so far he’s less likely to bite and this was mostly “luck”.
97:55 this is camera stuff maybe but come on, look at this! He’s sooooo far from you that you back all the way to the ledge and he barely had to do anything. Just stay put sometimes, or try to get above him as he’s landing.
97:43 I generally like dthrow nair in this situation since uair won’t kill and who knows if staleness changes anything
97:32 good edgeguard
97:27 much better
97:18 from here until the usmash you stay closer to him and make good use of the Puff direction facing thing for the most part and look what happens :3 if you want me to break down interactions in this time frame let me know
96:39 proper edgeguarding, good
96:36 that was actually pretty clever and something I haven’t seen, just unfortunate due to percentages. Probably not a worthwhile staple though, being so high up and susceptible to bair…
Stock 3
96:11 fair -> ftilt has failed twice now (once in the last stock), this time you didn’t get punished cuz you backed off which is nice. Instead, do fair -> fair. It doesn’t combo but it’s safer + lets you put Hbox more off balance + if he shields gives you a good situation
96:09 this is the danger of spamming bair, especially when you give him the frames to get around you by doing the first bair falling, conditioned him to expect bair since you’ve been using it a lot this stock, and also let him control the center (makes it decent for him to challenge especially b/c he’s only at 37). To proactively defend against this, use the side platform to move around him; if you’re near the edge of the side plat you also have the benefit of being able to fake and use the top platform to disengage.
Tl,dr; study Puff hitboxes + frames so you can play closer to her. Make better use of platforms; if you’re too far away she will exploit her drift + range, especially if she can line herself up to you horizontally at any point.