FOLLOW YOUR LLOID! Villagers often make the mistake of shooting a rocket and staying back, trying to maintain a safe distance from the opponent, but this is USUALLY not the best option, especially if you are trying to play aggressivly/ pressure them. Every time you throw out a rocket, its like putting a big question mark on screen. What are they going to do? They can shield it, jump away, jump towards you, roll through it, or clank with it using a strong disjointed hitbox. TAKE MENTAL NOTE OF WHAT THEY DO. This is a very important thing to keep track of with villager, and its fairly easy to do so, as you will be asking this question many times and given plenty time to see their answer.
If they sheild it, you can either 1.) grab them: at low percents do down throw combos, at higher percents throw them off stage, at very high percents kill them with back throw. Or 2.) Continue the shield pressure: if their sheild is small and you want to keep the pressure on, try to GET IN THEIR FACE and pressure their sheild with jabs or other low lag moves. To avoid the potential sheild break or grab mix up, they'll either try to retreat, which you can punish with a fair or bair (or dash attack if they roll away, which can then pop them up for more fairs), or they'll spot dodge, which you can punish with more jabs, or even a grab or forward smash. WAIT AND LOOK AT THEIR REACTION. BE AWARE AND BE READY.
Congratulations, they are now afraid to sheild.
Which meeannss they will probably start trying to jump over it more. Yet again, this is an option that you can react to and punish. They can either take the defensive option of jumping away, trying to reset neutral; or the offensive option of jumping towards you, trying to pressure you back. Ill start with talking about how to cover the offensive jump: If you see them going over with an offensive aerial, sheild it and punish with OoS neutral air or jabs, easy as pie, right? Well, if your opponent is smart theyll mix up their offensive options - sometimes going for the offensive aerial, sometimes going for an empty hop towards you to bait your sheild so they can get the grab. Be aware of whether or not your opponent is good, and if they are, respect the fact. If they are, then how you react to the jump towards you depends on their character.
If the character has aerials that are so SLOW
you can react to them, then no worries, you can do anything you want. Be aware of the space between you, and if you spot it, you can either sheild and punish or throw out a hit box that will hit them before their aerial gets a chance to hit you, like an up-tilt, up-smash, or pivot forward-tilt for example; if your slow-aerialed opponent jumps towards you and you DONT see them winding up one of those massive hit boxes, however, you can bet your buttons that they are probably going to try and grab you as soon as they land. Act preemptively and start charging up an attack right where they are going to land, so you can release it before they get a chance to grab you or sheild. If you dont have time to do a heavier attack you can always at least get some jabs or a SH neutral air out there. HA, TRY AND GRAB THIS FIST!
Now, if the character you are fighting DOESN'T have or constantly throw out super slow aerials that you can react to with a hit box, you have far less leeway. If you see the aerial coming, PLEASE dont try and react with a hit box. Unless your opponent seriously misspaces, you will get smacked in the face long before your hitbox gets a chance to touch them. Just be safe, sheild it, and punish accordingly. This makes sense, right? Like, if their aerials are slow enough to see but still too fast to react to with an attack, DONT TRY TO REACT WITH AN ATTACK. I know sheilds arnt exciting, but youll thank me later, when you get the sick OoS punish. Now, i did say "slow enough to see," so just like the last one, if they are going to land right next to you and you dont see them throwing out an attack, they are probably going to grab you. Dont sit in sheild, throw out some quick jabs or neutral airs. TRY AND GRAB THIS FIST, HAHA!
Okay so thats how to deal with characters that have slow to average aerial games, but what about those rediculously op FAST aerials like shieks fair *shudders*? Well, in situations like that, reaction time begins to matter a bit less and good reads a bit more. She can be just about to land, and while you could safely assume against most characters that they are going to land and grab, because even if they did throw out an aerial now it wouldnt come out in time, she can still throw out that fair and hit you. No fear tho, at worst its a 50/50 - you either shield and punish her aerial or you throw out a hit box to punish her empty hop grab attempt - and with good awareness/reads and reaction time you can put that much more in your favor. You have the advantage, you are making them have to react or get hit. That means you are winning the neutral. High five
Note1: pivot forward tilts and grabs, and perfect pivot jabs and up-tilts are SERIOUSLY your friend in this situation.
Note2: when you are playing against characters that have disjoints or far reaching aerials - or any character, really - and they make the offensive jump over your lloid, a good way to read whether they are going to try and hit you with an aerial or go for the empty hop grab is by looking at their spacing. The range of a characters aerials is typically longer then their grab range, so if it looks like they are going to land right on top of you/ next to you, there is a good chance they are going togo for the grab, but if it looks like they intend to land a certain distance in front of or behind you, there is a good chance they are going to try and space an aerial. Use this knowledge to help you read which option your opponent is going to chose. This is especially important when fighting faster characters where you will more often need to rely on reads.
SPACING IS KEY TO EVERYTHING. Use it, read it, win.
SO, now we have our opponent conditioned so that they are afraid to sheild AND afraid to try and pressure us back. MWAHAHAHA, VILLAGER MIND CONTROL! At this point they are fealing cornered. They have only two options left:
The first is to roll through the lloid (towards you; they cant roll away cuz the lloid will still hit them), pressumably trying to mix you up with a grab or other fast attack, or just panicking and trying to roll to avoid the situation . This you can EASILY punish with just about anything if you have good enough reaction time (f-smash kills like this look sick. jab mixups are free even with slow reaction. If they arnt going to end up right next to you hit them with an f-tilt). Once they do this once or twice and get bodied for it they probably wont do it again.
The second option is a defensive jump to get out of the situation. This is the last option they have left, you've effectively taught them "if you shield this you get bodied; if you attack me you get bodied; if you roll you get bodied; so you better flippin run homie."
When they do this, your goal as villager is essentially to make sure they dont land for free, and idealy, get them off stage to set up for a gimp. A good option is fair/bair right after they jump, that way you arnt putting yourself in danger of getting hit by a retreating aerial, but its good to mix things up and whatever you do just keep the damn pressure on. You have them up in the air away from you, so you are in virtually zero danger. They, however, are still in a fair amount: they are in danger of your fairs, bairs, up smashes, up airs, and just about everything in your arsonal. If they do decide to switch it up and go back to offense, they are in the air, meaning they have acess to none of their ground moves, including grab. The only offensive option they really have left is to throw out an aerial, which again you can sheild and punish, and if you want to you can just pelt them with fair/bair and not even risk getting hit, because they put space in between the two of you by jumping away. They may no longer be practically throwing themselves into your hitboxes like with the other options, but they ARE putting themselves in a severely disadvantaged state, giving you the opportunity to play as aggressive as you want. If you play your cards right, the worst that can happen when they chose this option is they avoid your lloid without taking any damage from the subsequent onslaught, and reset neutral. If this happens, you can just throw another lloid and start the whole situation over again.
On the subject of reseting neutral: BE CAREFUL NOT TO OVER EXTEND YOURSELF WHEN APPLYING PRESSURE. If you play villager correctly, you will very frequently be putting your opponent in this disadvantaged state where they essentially have to run away while you are free to be aggressive - and i urge you to BE AGRESSIVE and PRESS THAT ADVANTAGE for as long as you can - but be aware of the fact that the neutral IS eventually going to reset, and when that happens its ideal for you to be far enough away from you opponent that you can throw another lloid.
The three mistakes i see most often made by villager mains are as follows:
1.) they will throw a lloid, and then not keep up the pressure or press the advantage that lloid gives them.
2.) they will throw a lloid and successfully press that advantage, but theyll be so overzealous about trying to capitalize on their advantage and keep up the pressure that they'll over extend themselves and end up in a situation they dont want to be in, like too close to their opponent to throw a lloid, without stage control, with their back to the ledge (YES VILLAGER CAN LEDGE CAMP BUT IT IS NOT OPTIMAL. YOU WANT TO CONTROL THE STAGE.)
3.) they will over extend themselves and put themselves into a situation where its unsafe to throw lloid, AND THEN THEY'LL THROW LLOID ANYWAY. Dont do that, folks. 9 times out of 10 its going to make the situation worse.
Tips for mixing things up and scoring free punishes:
-Change up the distance you stay behind your lloid. So let's say at first you stay at just the right distance behind it so that if they roll towards you they'll end up right in front of you, where you could jab or even f-smash them. And so they learn from that and stop rolling into you. Well maybe then you can start running really close behind it instead, conditioning them to think you are going to grab, making them feel safe to roll again. They'll think that they are going to mix YOU up by rolling behind you, that they are going to punish what they think will be a wiffed grab, but really you'll be ready for it and hit them with a turn around f-smash or pivot grab. And hey, if they dont take the bait and roll, you still have acess to all your other options.
-Empty hop behind the lloid. So youve properly conditioned them to do the defensive jump? Start jumping behind the lloid as you go, threatening to fair them as soon as they jump up. You are essentially telling them, "dont jump, im ready for it." If they still jump you can either try and get them with the fair or fast fall the empty hop and try and punish their air dodge. If they DO take the bait and stay in sheild instead of running away, thinking you will wiff a fair and planning to punish you for it, fast fall the empty hop and you get free sheild pressure, or if you time it right you can punish them sheilding the lloid with a grab just like i explained earlier.
- run in front of the loid for a second tempting them to try and throw a hit box. Be ready to punish.
MAKE THEM FEEL SAFE WHEN THEY'RE NOT.
Note:
Characters w/ powerful disjoints:
Characters with strong disjointed hit boxes, especially ones that cover a large vertical area like clouds side-B, have another, very effective option against villager that villager mains need to keep in mind during such machups. Instead of having to sheild the lloid in order to hold their ground, they can simply attack it, causing it to explode while they take zero damage. What makes this problematic is that, where we could normally run up and grab our opponent as they sheild the lloid, cloud and some others can simply attack it instead, and if we try to grab them while they are doing this, we will likely get hit by the attack. This completely eliminates one of our punish and approach options. What we can do instead is either wait out the hit box and punish the lag, or jump over the hitbox and down air them as they hit the loid. These alternatives are entirely reasonable and nearly as effective, so these matchups are in no way unwinnable, but it is one more thing to keep in mind as you weigh your options.
Also, disjoints clank with your fair/bair, so keep that in mind too!
Edit: I think it should be said that if you want the most out of your villy you need to be able to powersheild on a fairly consistant basis. In order to get a garunteed punish on faster attacks power sheilding is often times a must. I wouldnt say it necessary to be a good villager, but if you want to be a great villager, the kind that can compete with high placing tournament level sheiks, you need to be able to power sheild.
I hope this helps
