Thoughts on Ganon vs Zelda

I used to play this MU a bunch against Face (Zelda who used to be PR'd in NY) with moderate success, so I held onto Ganon as a pocket CP for Zelda on small stages.  I personally believe Ganon:Zelda is very, very close to even, if not just straight-up even.  I can understand that Zelda may have a slight advantage due to stagelist (Ganon excels on smaller stages while Zelda excels on larger ones), but I don't think that even this really tips the MU much in any direction because I believe that they perform equally well on the medium-ish stages (SV, PS2, BF, etc).  Both of these characters actually have a hard time approaching each other at neutral, but they both have outstanding punish and edgeguarding games on each other.

At neutral, Ganon can actually challenge Zelda's range (his fair is disjointed), and he can quite easily shield a kick and then immediately punish OoS with uair or bair.  His shield pressure is also pretty good and he has a ton of in-fighting mix-ups that can lead to combos on Zelda.  However, Zelda does generally have faster aerial options, so he can be stuffed by good kicks.  If Ganon stays at mid-range against Zelda, he can punish Din's placements pretty handily, and he has good moves for taking them out easily once they're placed.  Another really nice thing going for Ganon is that trades almost always go his way.  Many of Zelda's moves are multi-hit magic moves that don't apply notable KB until the last hit.  In contrast, Ganon's moves hit hard with every hit (even his nair does a lot of damage with each hit), so a trade (between Ganon's fair and Zelda's fsmash for example) almost always results in Zelda flying with Ganon going nowhere with minimal damage.  Ganon also has much better mobility than Zelda.  If Zelda tries to teleport around Ganon, Ganon can easily cover that with a hard hit.  At neutral, I would actually give a slight edge to Ganon.

When it comes to platform pressure, I would give the edge to Zelda, although both have good forms of platform pressure.  Zelda's nair and LC Nayru's are too good and pretty much impossible to punish OoS.  Ganon has decent sharking aerials and his nair is plus on block and ACs, but I don't think they're as powerful as Zelda's pressure options.

For combos and edgeguards, they're fairly even.  Zelda has really stupid early % nair, usmash, and kick combos, but her grab game should only net her tech-chases.  DI for fthrow and react to any other throw.  Ganon always gets really hard hits off of his throws and his nair and uair can extend combos on floaties fairly well.  He can also always directly combo off of his FC.  I know for sure he can definitely connect downB and some other moves off of FC, and I believe he can even get a regrab off it.  Zelda's also pretty easy to tech-chase if you get a stomp.  Ganon also has the better juggling game with his uair.

For edgeguarding, Zelda has the edge, and this is honestly the only reason why I think Zelda has enough strength in this MU to keep it even (or very slightly win).  Ganon can easily edgeguard Zelda whenever she tries to teleport or Din's from too close if he makes sure to go out there.  He can easily hit her out of the start-up with uair or bair or anything so Zelda has to teleport/Din's from further away (if she's truly forced to teleport/Din's).  From far away things do get a little trickier...  Ganon can grab ledge and then cover the onstage recovery, of course.  If you have a hard read on onstage recovery (maybe you pretend to go for ledge with a fake-out), you can even kill her at, like, 70 with a partially charged smash.  The problem is that Zelda can drift with a Din's placement and make things complicated.  If she places it by the ledge while you're hanging on it, she can choose to outwait your invincibility and then go for ledge while you get hit or get off.  If she places it onstage while you're on the ledge, she can use it as coverage for an on-stage teleport.  If she places it in front of Ganon while he's onstage, she can go to ledge while he deals with it.  This is the main reason why I feel large stages benefit Zelda, even though I think Ganon slightly wins neutral.  She has space to DI high and always recover from above, allowing her to spend time placing a Din's and making her recovery harder to cover.  On smaller stages, Zelda will usually just die or be forced into positions where Ganon can actually cover and punish Din's or teleport startup.  Now if Ganon's hit any notable distance offstage, he's pretty much dead unless he can make it back to stage without using his up or sideB.  Din's offstage is a nightmare to deal with and if you're forced to not sweetspot, you will be killed by dtilt/dsmash.  She can also get pretty free set-ups into dair or kicks, although you may be able to tech some of those.

On the ledge, the advantage evens out.  Zelda's off-the-ledge options are somewhat lacking, so as long as you respect the kicks from the ledge, you're pretty much golden.  Invincible ledgejump into LC Nayru's is pretty annoying, but from what I've seen, this option is underused and Ganon can still play around it anyway.  Ganon has much better off-the-ledge options (waveland, NIL, AFC, a high ledgejump), but Zelda can cut off options with Din's.

So yeah, in a nutshell, I personally feel this MU is dead even, but depending on the stagelist, I could see it swinging to a slight Zelda advantage (+1 or 55:45 or w/e).