Q&A Game and Watch Q&A Thread

[GCS Gaming Customs]

I'd like to see what some of the top G&W players have to say about what I said regarding d-smashing and the edge stalling? Have any of you experimented with this a lot? I have nobody to smash with, so its up to you all to experiment with G&W to see what works and covers the most options.

 

[S7GF]

I had some lucky D-smashes last night.

I mainly didn't use them to edgeguard, but wavedash>d-smash was oddly useful against many of the patient players. When they saw me wavedash away, most of the time they'd drop their shield, but the d-smash disjointed hitbox on the end would hit them and set them up to be comboed with nair.

On a side note, jabs worked really well. I could often get a jab>grab>dthrow>nair, or a jab>grab>dthrow>hammer if I was feeling lucky and they DI'd badly.

 

[GCS Gaming Customs]

I mainly didn't use them to edgeguard, but wavedash>d-smash was oddly useful against many of the patient players. When they saw me wavedash away, most of the time they'd drop their shield, but the d-smash disjointed hitbox on the end would hit them and set them up to be comboed with nair.

Its really a great approach and a very versatile move that is difficult to punish (unless you are playing a spacies or on a platform)

On a side note, jabs worked really well. I could often get a jab>grab>dthrow>nair, or a jab>grab>dthrow>hammer if I was feeling lucky and they DI'd badly.

Remember how much range the jab has, and use this to your advantage. Also, try CCing your jab to make the second jab come out much faster to punish your opponents attempted punish on your Jab -> grab or Jab -> tilt/smash attack

 

[S7GF]

Yeah, I grossly underestimated his jab, but now I know how good it really is. The d-smash takes time to learn, though. It has to be just right or else the knockback and hitstun are terrible, and you will get punished hard.

 

[GCS Gaming Customs]

Yeah, I grossly underestimated his jab, but now I know how good it really is. The d-smash takes time to learn, though. It has to be just right or else the knockback and hitstun are terrible, and you will get punished hard.

G&W's Jab... ITS AMAZIN
Yea, the d-smash is tricky to learn and master, but well worth it. Also it is VERY effective in terms of reading a spacies rolls, and covers many options and sets up for a combo. To avoid getting punished so hard, you could try to slip in a jab after the d-smash animation if you miss to catch slower reacting opponents.

BTW, if you all haven't taken some time to check out the G&W in project m, holy ****. Thats all I need to say, I am probably going to get project m just because of what they did to this guy -> .

 

[S7GF]

I heard he is really good in that game now. A lot of the smashers I play with go tell me to play Project M instead of Melee

 

[ChicknMonkey]

My friend just pulled out two 9 hammers with only one hammer in between. Explanations or is he just a the hammer god's chosen hero?

 

[S7GF]

My friend just pulled out two 9 hammers with only one hammer in between. Explanations or is he just a the hammer god's chosen hero?

A more knowledgeable player can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe in certain versions of the game I don't think the normal hammer rules apply. I know this because my game is one of these versions. I've hit three 9's in a row before.

 

[oliman]

I can confirm that death resets the 9 rules and all
But 3 9's in a row is truly an anomaly. I've had 2 9's in a row 1 time in my life. Usually 9's only reappear after 2 other hammers.
Maybe it's like protect in pokemon where you have like a 1/3000 chance to get another right after

 

[S7GF]

I can confirm that death resets the 9 rules and all
But 3 9's in a row is truly an anomaly. I've had 2 9's in a row 1 time in my life. Usually 9's only reappear after 2 other hammers.
Maybe it's like protect in pokemon where you have like a 1/3000 chance to get another right after

Oh, I'd bet it's something extremely abnormal. Someone a long time ago posted that his friend hit 4 nines in a row - can't remember who. There was a big debate. But I've only hit 3 of any number in a row once, and I rarely ever hit 2 numbers in a row.

 

[LiteralGrill]

Alright, the OP is organized and pretty and now this thread is ready for more questions! Who's up to ask one first?

 

[Jim Morrison]

So who's the best Game and Watch to have played in the recent year that I could watch?

 

[GCS Gaming Customs]

qerb is the *****

but watch out for mine

 

[j00t]

QERB and Phenom are the best dedicated G&W mains (although M2K's G&W is probably better)

good **** against the moon BTW, he had no idea what he was doing lol

and I'm probably throwing in the towel with G&W

 

[QERB]

QERB and Phenom are the best dedicated G&W mains (although M2K's G&W is probably better)

good **** against the moon BTW, he had no idea what he was doing lol

and I'm probably throwing in the towel with G&W

I talked to m2k at collision 9 and he told me that he doesn't play g&w and he only played him that 1 game cuz of random stream character-requests, so he doesn't exactly "have" a g&w. But w/e. I guess it's fair to say that any of the smash gods' x character is better than any non-smash god's x character with perhaps a few exceptional players. It honestly seems redundant to point out to me.

Thanks. Yeah he was unfamiliar with the mu before that set, but it's crazy how quickly he adapted. He 2-0'd me in losers. The games were still tight (1 stocks IIRC) but he didn't let me bully him around with f-airs and such like I was able to do in winners, and he was respecting my recovery more/not giving up center stage. Moon mad good.

Best of luck bro!

 

[GCS Gaming Customs]

I talked to m2k at collision 9 and he told me that he doesn't play g&w and he only played him that 1 game cuz of random stream character-requests, so he doesn't exactly "have" a g&w. But w/e. I guess it's fair to say that any of the smash gods' x character is better than any non-smash god's x character with perhaps a few exceptional players. It honestly seems redundant to point out to me.

Thanks. Yeah he was unfamiliar with the mu before that set, but it's crazy how quickly he adapted. He 2-0'd me in losers. The games were still tight (1 stocks IIRC) but he didn't let me bully him around with f-airs and such like I was able to do in winners, and he was respecting my recovery more/not giving up center stage. Moon mad good.

Best of luck bro!

Who did M2k play you with? Is there a match link? I'd be really interested in seeing the match and Im sure others would be too.

 

[QERB]

Oh I wasn't talking about my own sets with m2k, they were never recorded. Last time I played m2k in tourney I got double 2 stocked by his sheik.

I was talking about the game between m2k and JKJ (the only game where m2k played g&w in melee to my knowledge).

 

[GCS Gaming Customs]

O, I though you said he 2-0ed you, I didn't know what you were talking about.. But nice anyways for taking 4 stocks off Jason

 

[WINK ;)]

Quick question, Is there some tech I need to know to play Game & Watch? Like dedicated G&W tech? He is my favorite character so I want him to be a secondary of mine so I was just curious.


EDIT: Can someone rank the stages for G&W? What is good for him and what is not? I assume FoD is because Qerb ***** on that stage however, it could just be a personal preference for him.

 

[LiteralGrill]

Quick question, Is there some tech I need to know to play Game & Watch? Like dedicated G&W tech? He is my favorite character so I want him to be a secondary of mine so I was just curious.


EDIT: Can someone rank the stages for G&W? What is good for him and what is not? I assume FoD is because Qerb ***** on that stage however, it could just be a personal preference for him.

Check out my guide for stage information, I even have the few stages you only see on rare occasion in there!

Dedicated G&W tech is interesting. You do need to know that certain attacks don't l cancel. Honestly, a lot of good G&W stuff is in this guide. Give it a read and ask anything else you need!

 

[WINK ;)]

Check out my guide for stage information, I even have the few stages you only see on rare occasion in there!

Dedicated G&W tech is interesting. You do need to know that certain attacks don't l cancel. Honestly, a lot of good G&W stuff is in this guide. Give it a read and ask anything else you need!

Yah, I know which ones l cancel and don't. But I will give it a read! Thanks!

 

[shapular]

I'm a Brawl and PM player who just got back into Melee due to netplay and my city having recently developed a scene. Should I even bother with G&W in this game? I think at this point he's still my de facto main and probably my best character, but I got tired of dying to dumb crap like shieldpokes, so I'm trying to pick up Falco and Mario too. I think with a reasonable amount of effort (basically, reading the guide and practicing a little bit) my Falco could easily be better than my G&W, but at the same time I don't take this game as seriously as I do PM, so I might stick with the Watch anyway. I'll probably at least keep him for a few matchups, but either way I'm going to learn another character to deal with stupid matchups like Marth (ugh Marth ugh ugh seriously ridiculous in Brawl and PM too ugh fml ugh and every netplayer seems to have a Marth ugh fml ugh ugh fml) (seriously, I hate that matchup and I die inside a little bit every time someone picks Marth against my G&W) (although I did beat a decent Marth once on netplay last night). I'm probably rambling a little bit, but what do you guys think?

Also, is there any particular way G&W can effectively use turnips? In Brawl I'd just glidetoss to dsmash or something, but unless I'm mistaken that doesn't work in Melee.

 

[GCS Gaming Customs]

Also, is there any particular way G&W can effectively use turnips? In Brawl I'd just glidetoss to dsmash or something, but unless I'm mistaken that doesn't work in Melee.

If you are talking about his sausage pan, then it has a few uses. It can be used as a spike for killing players who are to the bottom left/right of you, but is more commonly used to catch opponents out of there jump from range or to set up a wall of projectiles (it can be pretty hard to get through and you can catch opponents who really want to approach) and can prevent you from getting grabbed.

 

[shapular]

If you are talking about his sausage pan, then it has a few uses. It can be used as a spike for killing players who are to the bottom left/right of you, but is more commonly used to catch opponents out of there jump from range or to set up a wall of projectiles (it can be pretty hard to get through and you can catch opponents who really want to approach) and can prevent you from getting grabbed.

I'm referring to Peach's turnips, actually. I was playing a Peach on netplay the night before I made that post and I caught several of her turnips (including a stichface or two).

 

[GeZ]

Just got back from a local weekly thingy and I was doing pretty well with Game and Watch, managing to keep up with most of the players there (which was weird, but neat) but there's one freaking guy who's godlike. Consistently places well at tournaments with the top tiers, wrecks ****, incredibly technical player, mains fox, etc. Is there anything GnW can do to that kind of player? He messed me up no matter who I played but with GnW it was particularly bad.

GnW can still chaingrab Fox in Melee right? Just Uthrow chains?

 

[LiteralGrill]

Just got back from a local weekly thingy and I was doing pretty well with Game and Watch, managing to keep up with most of the players there (which was weird, but neat) but there's one freaking guy who's godlike. Consistently places well at tournaments with the top tiers, wrecks ****, incredibly technical player, mains fox, etc. Is there anything GnW can do to that kind of player? He messed me up no matter who I played but with GnW it was particularly bad.

GnW can still chaingrab Fox in Melee right? Just Uthrow chains?

Here man, how about our write up in the match up thread here? It describes good ways to beat Fox and talks about the chaingrab

[collapse=Matchup Rating: -3]

(Thanks To QERB For His Writeup)
​

Suggested stages to strike / Ban: Battlefield, Yoshi’s Story / Pokémon Stadium
Suggested counterpicks: Brinstar, FoD, Dream Land

Easily one of G&W’s most difficult matchups. A fox that knows what he’s doing will camp you with lasers and dash dance around, until you approach him, then he’ll punish your approach. You have to play very defensively because Fox can punish nearly every one of G&W’s approaches out of a dash-dance: f-air, d-air, n-air, all of his tilts (YES, he even can punish G&W’s d-tilt, even if they’re nicely “spaced,” which sucks). So unless you’re predicting the fox to approach you, your last option for an approach is using G&W’s jab, which is surprisingly a very, VERY good jab, especially for this matchup. Once you hook fox with a jab, it can lead to a d-tilt or a grab, which we all know will set up for nearly everything G&W has to offer. So the best way to approach fox (if you HAVE to approach him, which is often the case) is to literally wavedash/dash-dance around until you get him with a jab, then work from there, this is especially true for large stages where fox has a lot of room to dash dance away from you (i.e. Dream Land / FD).
If you don’t have to approach Fox, meaning, if you have less % (same # of stock) or more stock than Fox, by all means, do not approach. We have to play as gay as possible, but it’s ok to play gay cuz we’re playing G&W which means no johns whatsoever for the Fox player Fighting an approaching Fox is WAY easier than us approaching him. When you expect fox to approach with an n-air, u-tilt will always rip through it, but this can be difficult to execute because of fox’s quickness and the u-tilts pretty long pre-lag. Other options are: wavedashing back to d-tilt or dash dance to grab after fox misses an n-air. Spacing f-airs against an approaching fox also works well, but IF you miss, be ready to get him with a jab very quickly, because Foxes that know this matchup will always try to punish G&W’s missed aerials with a grab or n-air.


If you grab fox…
then that’s awesome. Now what do you do? Well, it of course depends on your location and stage.

@FD: You can up-throw CG fox starting at 0% 4-5 times before he can shine you out of it which is quite easy to perform since there are no platforms interfering (this is the recommended option if you are near the center of FD). After this CG, you have a few options: You can u-throw --> judgement hammer (or any other aerial), or you can start d-throw cg’ing which works until around 55%. If you grab Fox near the edge (and this goes for ANY stage), throwing them towards the edge is always a good idea. If they survival DI it, you can f-air them EVERY time, which leads to an easy edgeguard. A Fox that sees and recognizes this will tend to DI away from out of the f-air range. However this will force him to up-b towards the stage, making it a fairly easy edgeguard. I use this pretty much every time I have the opportunity to.

@BF/YS/FoD: U-throw CG’ing gets harder on these stages, because fox will probably look to DI onto a platform to stop you from CG’ing or combo-ing out of your U-throw. But hey that’s not necessarily a bad thing, now you just gotta read and chase fox’s tech. N-air is a great choice against a fox at high %’s, because it covers nearly the entire platform which makes it a pretty safe tech-chase choice. At lower %’s, you can either wave-land onto the platform and regrab, read his tech --> judgement hammer, read his tech --> u-air (my favorite because of how fast the u-air comes out and because you can n-air right out of the u-air at low %s, oh, and I did it to mango’s fox heheh), or of course d-air/f-air/n-air if you wanna play it safe and just get a hit in. D-throw CG works on these stages as well.

@DL/PS: Pretty much a combination of FD & the other stages. You can up-throw CG fox in the middle of the stages where there aren’t any platforms, but on the sides the platforms will get in your way, so be ready to chase some techs when you’re on the sides.

Note: Remember, when fox u-throws you into platform, G&W is the only character that can tech it as soon as he is level with the platform (rather than waiting until he comes in contact with a surface). This will most likely stop a fox from being able to u-throw to u-air you on stages like YS, FoD, BF, etc. It’s a difficult tech to master, but even getting it a few times will save your ***. My favorite thing to do when you DO get this tech is to d-tilt immediately after teching. The fox will most likely go immediately for the u-air as fox players are programmed to do, and the d-tilt will almost always trip them before their u-air connects. If you’re playing a fox who waits for this and then u-airs you……..well then that blows. *I hope to get a video of this tech up soon.


Edge-guarding Fox:

There’s so many different ways to edge-guard a fox, yet there’s no guaranteed way to get it every time. There so many different situations that can happen. Let’s start with how foxes usually like to recover. From my experiences, foxes that are up-b’ing looooove to go straight for the edge. C’mon am I right lol? They love that ****. So all you have to do to edge-guard this (if you’re expecting) is to throw an f-tilt or d-tilt right over the edge. BUT, DON’T MAKE IT OBVIOUS. A lot of the time I’ll see G&W’s be crouching over the edge for about 3-4 seconds before the fox is about to up-b. If you’re crouching and waiting there for that long, OF COURSE THE FOX ISN’T GONNA UP-B THERE ANYMORE, and now you’re screwed. Hope that made sense. Basically what I’m saying is. Don’t make it obvious as to how you’re going to edge-guard him, cuz fox players will observe what you’re doing and THEN choose the direction of their up-b. If you can f-air/n-air/pan-spike them before they can leave the “burning-part” of the up-b, by all means, do it. Otherwise, it’s probably best to go for the f-tilt/d-tilt over the edge, a full jumped N-air if you think the fox is gonna up-b/forward b straight ahead, or an edge-hopped n-air if you have time to grab the edge by the time the fox starts recovering.

Another edge-guard that I love to go for against fox is using the weak-fair --> strong f-air. All it requires is predicting when fox will use his jump (if he has one) during his recovery. If you can time/read this well, you can just throw your f-air out until he jumps into it (the f-air lasts pretty dam long). Once you scrape him with the f-air, wait for him to start up-b’ing again. Once he does, bang, f-air again (or D-air if you want). Boom, roasted.

Note: another good thing about using the d-tilt as an edge-guard is: Even if you miss the d-tilt and the fox does NOT up-b/forward-b to the edge, you have time to chase his recovery with another edge guarding attack since the d-tilt’s lag is so short. Good stuff.


Recovering Against Fox:

Once a Fox knocks you off the stage, whether it be from a b-air, shine, etc, a lot of the time they will look to shine your recovery to gimp you/finish you off. Make sure if you see this coming you use G&W’s high-priority aerials to your advantages. I would say just go f-air at the edge if you think he’s gonna come shine you, but if you go for the f-air and the fox waits…he’s gonna shine you immediately afterwards and then you’re dead. One of my favorite ways to stop this is to float under the edge, then jump and use your u-air which has ridiculous priority and will stop a shine-happy fox. And of course always sweet-spot the edge or fox can just d-smash or u-smash. If you think a fox is going to wd / moonwalk / jump / whatever on to the edge to try to edge hog you, up-b early and trip them with it before they get the edge, it’s not that difficult to do. And once you do it, guess who’s edge-guarding now? O yea. This works against a lot of characters.

If you’re recovering from above, use your d-air as a fox u-air shield since it has nice priority. But don’t do it too early or fox will simply wait and then punish during it’s lag.


Some details about the matchup:

Yes, Fox's tech chases hurt. But don't forget: you can tech chase him back. Own his get-up options. If you manage to get him on the ground, jab him (thunders) to grab or just land a strong hit. Get him off the stage and edgeguard with dtilt, fsmash, fair, nair. You can combo him as well as he can combo you..

G&W can chaingrab Fox and Falco with d-throw from around 55% until they DI off the stage. Then you just fsmash. It works.

Against Foxes, you cannot approach him well; you have to wait for an opening while slowing down his pace by either throwing bacons or spacing really well. This means that you have to play defensively, or you will get knocked off easily. Stay off the platforms if there are any on the stage you are playing on against fox since fox can easily u-air you from under.
[/collapse]

 

[GeZ]

That's a damn good write up, but it's such a struggle. As a follow up question, do you guys play P:M? And if not, why?

 

[shapular]

What matchups would you guys say are reasonably good enough for G&W to use him in tournament? I want to play the guy but I also don't want to get knocked out early when I could win with Jigglypuff or Falco or someone instead of losing a hopeless matchup.

 

[GCS Gaming Customs]

What matchups would you guys say are reasonably good enough for G&W to use him in tournament? I want to play the guy but I also don't want to get knocked out early when I could win with Jigglypuff or Falco or someone instead of losing a hopeless matchup.

Honestly, the ones you don't know how to play are the worst. I personally think peach and sheik give him the most problems. Watch players like qerb and phenom take out good spacie/top tier players and observe their techniques in the mu

 

[shapular]

Honestly, the ones you don't know how to play are the worst. I personally think peach and sheik give him the most problems. Watch players like qerb and phenom take out good spacie/top tier players and observe their techniques in the mu

That makes sense. I think I'll use G&W for at least Falcon and a lot of mid/low tiers, maybe spacies and Puff. Defintiely not Marth (screw that guy). Maybe not Dr. Mario. How are Samus and Ganon? I can take out decent Peaches and Sheiks with Puff so that's not a problem.

 

[Crezyte]

Stage talk: What do you all think about the list of stages for GnW? What stages are good for him and which ones feel bad?

Could be matchup specific or an overall thing.



I'll start: Battlefield is probably my least favorite stage because you can't waveland off a side PF and waveland on the top one and there is nothing special about the stage that GnW can really abuse. I used to dislike dreamland because you have to DJ to waveland onto the side PFs but I've recently started liking it again. Still, my top 2 stages are FoD and Yoshi's. So much movement, so much side blast zone kill power

 

[shapular]

Stage talk: What do you all think about the list of stages for GnW? What stages are good for him and which ones feel bad?

Could be matchup specific or an overall thing.



I'll start: Battlefield is probably my least favorite stage because you can't waveland off a side PF and waveland on the top one and there is nothing special about the stage that GnW can really abuse. I used to dislike dreamland because you have to DJ to waveland onto the side PFs but I've recently started liking it again. Still, my top 2 stages are FoD and Yoshi's. So much movement, so much side blast zone kill power

Edit: Lol whoops thought I was in the PM thread. >.> Uhh, Rainbow Cruise ftw!

 

[Crezyte]

I'm a fan of WarioWare. So easy to abuse people from under the platforms (especially since his up B goes all the way to the top platform) and the top platforms make for an easy up B escape from combos.

Wrong game >.> But thanks for the PM input...

 

[shapular]

Wrong game >.> But thanks for the PM input...

They all say G&W! And I'm pretty sure I'm subscribed to all of them. Maybe not the Brawl one anymore, idk. So yeah, you know. >.> I forgot I was still subscribed to this one since I'm re-dropping G&W in Melee (dropped a game to a bad Falcon in tourney ).

 

[QERB]

I like FoD in pretty much every matchup except against fox and falcon.

FD and PS are my best stages against Falco.

YS is my fave, but I don't like it against Luigi.

 

[GCS Gaming Customs]

I like FoD in pretty much every matchup except against fox and falcon.

FD and PS are my best stages against Falco.

YS is my fave, but I don't like it against Luigi.

I've always liked battlefield for some reason too.. especially against falcos. I give most of the top 10 in my state a run for their money G&W vs spacie on BF. Theres a lot of edge tech to your disposal on BF too (and the up B to top platform), even tho the ledge sucks, its still useful to tack on some percent or get a nair kill under the stage, because people don't see it coming.
I also like dreamland and BF against marth, since most don't respect the fair hotbox and it kills them in the spacing war.

 

[Crezyte]

I like FoD in pretty much every matchup except against fox and falcon.

FD and PS are my best stages against Falco.

YS is my fave, but I don't like it against Luigi.

Why no YS against luigi? I tend to find the larger stages harder to beat luigi at because he has so much room to move and i'm not scared enough of f-air/b-air for PF movement to really affect me.


Based BF killing off spacies who try to sweetspot too much.

 

[QERB]

I always die super early on YS to lugi, his d-air is so strong. Also I don't mind bigger stages for him to move since g&w has really good anti-appraoch. d-tilt/jab counters luigi's wd approach pretty hard. Also Luigi doesn't necessarily live longer on larger stages since all you really have to do is get him off stage, and you can just off stage n-air his recovery regardless of stage.

I like Dream Land and YS more than BF against marth. I can't really say why, maybe the side-platform heights. I just generally do worse there against him there.

 

[Crezyte]

I find that all marths try to u-tilt on BF if you are on the platform above them. Leads to a nice shielddrop d-air. Thats the best thing about that stage/matchup.

 

[NTA]

Wow thanks for this. all these years and i just notice his nair can't l cancel lol (only because of the flash when successful l cancel mod thingie)