ok, your dk section is very off and i'm going to try to fix it.
as of right now
large advantages : Jiggs, C. Falcon, Samus, Sonic, metaknight, lucas, ness if infinites are kept as legal (cargo trap by ledge is inescapable)
disadvantage: wario, luigi, fox, kirby (maybe on kirby, need to play him more, he dies quick, might be neutral)
Large disadvantage: IC, DDD
if you have any questions tell me, and since every person who mains a character i put in large disadvantage will question this, i'll explain my reasoning behind those characters now
samus - offline dk has a great approach that can get around samus's weak projectile spam, samus is also floaty, which is not good vs dk
sonic - downb forces him into the air, in which case sonic is not much faster than dk. dk lives forever, and will not die until very late (170-230) bair, fair, and nair do not go through dk's upb, so you'd have to get off a spring gimp, which is very difficult vs a relatively fast horizontal recovery
Sigh....
First off let me state that I'm one of the proud few who mains both Samus and DK (original and underrated FTW). I've posted on both boards, albeit not very much, as I spend most of my time on SWF elsewhere. I like to consider myself has having a 'good' (not great) DK
and Samus. I know you're quite the benefactor of the DK scene and have earned yourself quite a reputation for your skills; you've definitely got my respect on that front. But here's a little side point: When did you actually play Hugs? From his vids prior to May (for the most part), I can soundly say I really wasn't that impressed, and if I had to I would list Hylian as currently the better Samus competitor (although apparently he's in IC and Pika La La Land now). Hugs was ****ing awesome in Melee, but I have a feeling your using his Samus as the personifcation of all that a Samus could be and that you've mastered your game to beat
his Samus, a character of which he has been playing for about 4 months, assuming he still mains her. I know I don't have any reputation or a name for myself that I could use to seemingly justify my opinion, but your free to receive my claims or dismiss them. If Hugs (or you, for that matter) wants to play my Samus for some odd reason, fine, I really don't care either way, and will backup my 'talkin' of sh*t' as much as possible...even though I really don't think my oratory is fecal in nature.
With that in mind, I'm going to assume you do not play Samus frequently, if at all aside from Hugs. I'm basing this on your two-lined 'explanation' (although you do go into detail later when people start challenging you). Unlike many others, I acknowledge the effectiveness of DK's approach. UpB is amazing. DownB is amazing. Ftilt and dtilt are amazing. Aerial DK punch is amazing. And bair, above all, is godliness. Against many characters, DK players can rest assured that their approach will be relatively safe and worth it.
But I believe you're severely underestimating Samus.
Although it is far too early to tell, IMO ISJR will become a pivotal ascept of Samus's aerial game, as she can successfully link dairs, fairs, uairs and nairs (not to mention the ISJR'ed zair, which is even
better than normal autocancelling) with one another for major comboage. In addition, she is now capable of utilizing her bair
regularly; it is no longer a situational kill move. In comparison, so far I have only found DK's bair to be truly useful on a regularly basis, and even still, it's improvement from normal autocanceling is menial as far as I can tell. Although he can technically apply this for almost all his aerials, their extensive animation and limited usability continues to designate them as a situational role in DKs arsenal. Please keep this in mind when evaluating DK vs Samus.
Unless Samus is in close quarters with DK (a good Samus is a defensive Samus), DK's approach is in no way unquestionably superior to Samus's 'weak' projectile game. The power of the super missles may have been lost, but she now has new alternatives to relying on them. For the sake of brevity I'm not going to go into great detail on every one of her long distance options, but I will summarize it by saying that Missle Canceling, when done efficiently, persistently, and consistantly, will always put DK on the defensive before he can utilize his approach methods. Whether super or homing, missiles are still pivotal to Samus. As I'm sure you're well aware, zairing is glorious for Samus/horrible for DK as a means of both interrupting his approach and approaching safely with her. But I noticed you simply dismissed this as effective by stating that 'DK can just roll and punish' when she zairs. This is too much of a generalization, not to mention Samus is almost NEVER going to be spamming zair when she's in range of DK; god forbid she actually did, it still has NO lag on landing whatsoever, or she could even just SJR and do it again. Samus isn't going to confront DK as a means of victory, for she WILL be absolutely destroyed if DK lands the big guns. In sum on distanced fighting, Samus has MCing, zair, charge shot (set up perfectly by a landing zair), dash grabbing, and laying bombs between herself and DK to control the pace of the match. You may claim this can be countered by using timely Spinning Kongs and approaching DK Punches, but the vast majority of the time her ranged attacks WILL go through.
Up front and personal is of course going to be a different story. In addition to his anti-air game, hand to hand combat is DK's bread and butter. But with Samus keeping defensive, DK's AMAZING spacing abilities (ftilt dtilt, bairs upB downB etc) are now only situational. With DK forced to approach instead of waiting to counter another's approach and punishing them, this matchup is going to be much different from the rest of the cast for both characters. With the obvious exception of bair, Samus will win in the air, and zair is a great response to a DK who spams bair (unfortunately most do, and with good reason). But if DK's on the ground, Samus's safe options are limited. Here's where ISJR comes into play and can potentially become her godsend for these hairy close quarters situations. A good Samus who can consistently ISJR will force you to confront a wall of high priority fairs and uairs. Her number one priority should be getting DK into the air as much as humanely possible, and this is accomplished with fair, dair, uair, and upB (more on that in a bit). DK simply does not have a reliable answer to quick characters approaching from below, and Samus is no exception. There's a popular misconception that Samus's attacks are slow to come out and she's sluggish in the air. Although she is floaty, she can chase an aerial opponent with relative ease, compliments of her aerial range and priority. If you've fought a Samus who did not get you into the air very often, you got off easy. And should Samus still find herself on the ground face to face with DK, she should always seek to change that status ASAP. Unless the DK is a rolling spammer, dash grab is an essential tool against DK, as it actually is able to outrange the vast majority of DK's attacks (with the exception of DK's downB, and although I'm not exactly sure about his ftilt, I know a pivot grab definitely gets the job done). Since you answered that her zair can simply be avoided by rolling, I'm going to assume you do this quite often. This is where Samus's greatest defensive response comes into play: UpB out of shield. Extremely fast, very high priority, large hitbox which sucks opponents in and fair knockback at mid to high percents to ensure safe landing. Whenever in this sticky situation, UpB should not just be spamed, it should be
abused to no other degree.
To conclude this rant, I'll say that Samus's largest downfall against DK is his massive weight and her lack of reliable KO moves. But there is still hope for Samus in this matchup when it comes to finishing eachother off. Despite being floaty, she's heavy. Real heavy. With her amazing and virtually ungimpable (yea thats right, I said it) recovery and vast array of options to do so, for DK to get a kill that is
not a Star KO will be extremely difficult. I am fully aware that DK is a superb edgeguarder and that his spikes, multiple bairs, and ledge stalling are absolute godliness. But DK simply is not going to be able to effectively use these on Samus in comparison to the majority of the cast. Concerning that, with good DI, her floatiness, bombs, multiple missles, superb UpB and having the greatest tether in the game, the idea of gimping her is much, MUCH easier said than done. Samus herself is also a magnificent edgeguarder. Specifically for DK, her best options are chased zairing off the stage, landing a spike from above (though it's certainly more difficult than people realize), or even better, a method I'm sure you haven't yet confronted, effectively spaming Bomb Canceling to protect the ledge. DK's best option for return is to use UpB with the intention of sweetspotting the ledge. Samus responds to this by using her bomb tactics (of which includes rolling to the very edge of the stage in morph ball mode, laying a mine WITHOUT jumping in the air AND without leaving morph ball mode, and being able to immediately lay another off the ledge while safely returning to the stage and repeating). Ledge stallers and those who have a tendency to constantly assess their ledge hop options beware: bombs have enough hit stun to let DK fall too far to recover vertically. You'd be surprised at how effective this is.
Wow, that was a bit longer than I had intended. But you get my point (hopefully). Just know that I'm not slamming you or Hugs in anyway and that you both have my respect for being really f*ckin' good at what you do; you're definitely one of the DK community's most prized tournament heroes (what that exactly curtails is up to your interpretation). But basically all I'm seeking is for you to reconsider your stance on Samus before adamantly claiming that DK easily counters Samus. Believe it or not, in actuality this is a very, very close matchup. Samus should never, ever be idle for even a moment. She must make as much space between her and DK as possible and ALWAYS utilize some sort of projectile for shield pressure. Although this ranged game puts DK at a severe disadvantage (especially on stages without key platforms), as long as DK is able to exploit any of Samus's mistakes, his absurd KO ability will always make up for his need to continually approach at Samus's discretion. Whether one character has a slight advantage over the other is hard to tell at this point. Yet even still it would be menial at best and victories/losses between two players of 'equal' skill should almost always go back and forth.
EDIT: Add TL and Sheik to your 'disadvantage' list. I mean, DK does have disadvantages, right?
Regarding DK vs Sonic:
Spinshotting solves the issue concerning aerial speed for Sonic.
And you mean side B which pops him up into the air at first.
I believe itsbigfoot was referring to
DK's downB, Ground Pound, which 'pops' an approaching Sonic into the air. Truth is DK has a lot of options vs Sonic defensively. When Sonic isn't in the air, upB (Spinning Kong, a la SA frames and priority) and downB are a great response to Sonic's ground approach, which is very often. I'm not going to get into detail here, but I will say that matchup is fairly close, although DK still has the slight advantage with the obscene kill power (and gimping DK in this game is much easier said than done).
