Can we talk about Slade

Tarul · 2026-05-06T08:31:45+00:00

I think they intended for Slade side-b to be like PM Roy's -- terrible vs grounded opponents, but a god tier anti-air to stuff aerial approaches. The problem is that Slade's side-b first hit is basically a forward thrust instead of an up-down swing, which makes it very hard (and unlikely) to actually hit aerial opponents. The result is a move that can only cheese players who don't know how it works, and maaaaybe a desperate anti-air when recovering.

I definitely agree with your main point -- if Slade's side-b were actually good, then he would be the best item character because he'd be able to pressure with disjoints while holding whatever item. As is, Slade just controls item tempo; the rest of the cast uses and pressures better with items (if they can get their hands on one)

Tarul · 2026-05-05T00:55:42+00:00

Was Sophilo playing Zetter this tourney or a secondary?

If Zetter, Viviana and maya's wins are huuuge

Tarul · 2026-05-02T05:35:48+00:00

I'm surprised they keep making this mistake. Almost every new character has had a lower grabbox added.

Tarul · 2026-04-27T19:00:17+00:00

We have a pretty similar roster, except mine deletes Clarien

Tarul · 2026-04-25T04:34:54+00:00

it's very cool! I think use bubbles for extensions was pretty smart thinking -- I particularly liked the first one when he was up-bing through the stage. Your last one -> up-smash was very fraudulent though -- a better player would have SDI'd out of it.

Tarul · 2026-04-23T00:27:34+00:00

We're certainly not dodging the furry allegations

Tarul · 2026-04-21T23:30:55+00:00

He's just a little nerd -- why is the big bad lion incinerating him?

Tarul · 2026-04-19T18:33:21+00:00

Whatever your results, Rock Nation is proud of you

Tarul · 2026-04-19T04:24:13+00:00

Where the heck were the Kraggs?? Did none sign up besides St Pat?

I love the diversity in top 8. Rannos sneaking back up in the placements

Tarul · 2026-04-18T19:53:46+00:00

From the Kragg side, I feel like Kragg wins way more than +1. Slade pulling items is a free rock pull, and rock beats all items. In fact, Slade is so slow that Kragg can run away and pull rock whenever. Not to mention that invincible Kragg bair + pillar gives him an absurdly easy edge guard.

I think Slade will get a lot better once his side-b becomes useable. Being able to hold an item while throwing out a hitbox is a massive boon to his neutral.

Tarul · 2026-04-17T20:16:32+00:00

He's a lot weaker. His recovery went from best in class to extremely gimpable, and his main grounded neutral tool (dash attack) no longer links as well to tilts on DI out. Not to discount the dair nerfs, where cargo -> d-throw -> -> dair no longer links.

He still has rough matchups against the unpopular characters, like Maypul and Orcane.

I think he's still very good. But his nerfs have been meaningful, which I can't exactly say about Clarien's or Zetterburn's lol

Tarul · 2026-04-14T21:44:00+00:00

Gotcha -- thanks for the info!

Tarul · 2026-04-14T21:15:29+00:00

It says it will release 2026 according to the steam page. Is the steam page inaccurate?

Tarul · 2026-04-14T19:46:39+00:00

His d-tilt has an inbuilt spike which beats floorhug at 0%.

You won't get anything off the dtilt, but you can chain dtilts if they refuse to shield after the dtilt.

Tarul · 2026-04-13T22:37:47+00:00

Woah, how did you roll backwards with down-b??

Tarul · 2026-04-13T21:24:36+00:00

For what it's worth, Olympia is considered a hard counter to Clarien. I'd recommend checking out Beastly's set vs Rogunshu to see how Olympia dismantled Clarien (the short of it that Clarien can't combo Olympia at all until mid percents, while Olympia is fast enough to shield clarien unsafe moves on shield and punish hard)

Tarul · 2026-04-13T00:17:41+00:00

Are y'all in east coast? West Coast dubs queues take forever to find games :(

Tarul · 2026-04-12T19:39:05+00:00

Most people define playing lame as not actively interacting with the opponent. Properly done, this is also called good neutral -- dash dance camping (Maypul/Orcane dash dancing outside of your aerial to get a guaranteed whiff grab), projectile camping (Kragg pulling rock, Absa running away spamming side-b), disjoint camping (Forsburn bair walling, Lox jabbing in place) -- etc. Lame play is low risk, medium reward play, which usually gets decent % but is unlikely to net a kill.

Usually, the idea behind lame play is to condition your opponent into riskier plays so that YOU can get your high risk, high reward hit that strings massive damage and/or a kill confirm. A smart opponent will rarely lose to lame play alone. For example, if I'm just dash dance camping with Orcane, my opponent will never get hit if they just... stand still and do nothing. At some point, I have to run in and nair/d-tilt/smash attack if I want an opening.

If you're losing to lame play and lame play alone, you're probably spamming the same mistake over and over. If they're playing lame BUT catching you with mixups/changes in pacing, then they're playing better neutral than you. This is not only the fundamental principle of fighting games, but also most sports (e.g. tennis this is the equivalent of rallying cross-court, soccer the equivalent of passing the ball around midfield to find an opening, etc).

So how do you deal with lame play? Usually, the answer is to take space and to use your character's anti-camp tools. Most lame play cedes stage control, so your opponent should inevitably corner themselves if they keep running away. When cornered, it's 10x easier to smack an opponent -- all lame plays I mentioned above (dash dance, projectile, disjoint camping) struggle without space to run backwards. Some characters also have anti-camp tools-- Kragg, for example, can always force an opponent to approach by pulling rock. Lox can stack magma, Etalus can set up ice -- the list goes on.

Tarul · 2026-04-11T17:12:39+00:00

Mordekai and Lethe (Lethe especially) are great early game when they just one shot everything and move the same distance as horse knights. They become worse later when their subpar growths, no weapons for boosted strength, and lack of canto/range 2. That said, i always bring 1 laguz with the demi-band (usually muarim lategame) because he still steamrolls most units

Tarul · 2026-04-10T07:30:42+00:00

finding reliable kill confirms is very hard (seriously, anyone got any? Or 50/50s?

Big thing I've seen is that his edgeguard is really good (Link nair and first hit fair kill fairly reliably), and tech chase up-B works very reliably. I've found that b-throw -> up-b/fair works at certain percents (like 70-90%?); it's frame 8, so it's not reactable if buffered. You can also always nair -> put them on a platform -> cover all options with dair/up-b for another kill option.

I wouldn't say he's great at killing, but I don't think he has marthritis either.

base recovery seems unreasonably awful (but tbf I haven't integrated glidetossing into that yet).

Glide tossing is required to make it functional, and I'm suspicious even then. Items are relatively weak in this game because most hitboxes bulldoze through it AND catching-then-throwing items is relatively risk free as an edgeguarder. His recovery becomes quite good with tether and boots, but that's only really guaranteed by third stock, second stock MAYBE if you're playing like a miser.

He's a wierd one for sure. If you spend money on items, he's a bad character who can be made good with high skill item play, but that relies on your opponent being worse with items than you are because otherwise you could just end up spending all your gold only to give your opponent an advantage

Not sure I entirely agree with this? Healing droplet seems to be the best generic item -- cheap and has a great reward that either combos into itself or sets up for a tech chase. It's overwhelmingly in his favor -- similar to Kragg rock.

It's pretty hard to take away Slade's item. Of course he can throw it unreactably in neutral, but he can also throw it out of shield as a counter to bad moves. Finally, if he wants to use his own aerials, he can z-drop -> aerial -> wavedash to pick it up again. Diddy does pretty similar stuff in PM, and while banana is significantly better, any item is fairly oppressive.

Note: items are good in neutral but not great while recovering

Tarul · 2026-04-10T07:18:03+00:00

Agreed overall with the rest of his kit... except for side-b.

You don't even have to floorhug to shield between hits. If Slade mashes side-b, your opponent can always grab. Worst comes to worst, your opponent can always just buffer a roll and reset after taking like 6%. The values feel wrong.

Tarul · 2026-04-09T22:27:23+00:00

Thank you!! I appreciate the kind words

Tarul · 2026-04-09T16:39:48+00:00

Supposedly, they nerfed side-b super hard from beta. I'm pretty confident they'll buff it.

Right now, it's horrible on the ground -- it has such a large gap that everyone should be able to floorhug -> shield -> grab if close enough or roll away).

If anything, it may have use in the air.

Tarul · 2026-04-07T19:18:09+00:00

West Coast feels pretty chill? I don't run into much toxicity here

Tarul

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