Puss in Boots Matchup Archive and Thread

[RetroGamersGuru]

This is where I'm going to store the discussions and main points for the matchups from the perspective of Puss in Boots.

Matchup Ratio Guide:

10:90 (Unwinnable)

20:80 (Heavy Disadvantage)

30:70 (Disadvantage)

40:60 (Slight Disadvantage)

50:50 (Even)

60:40 (Slight Advantage)  (His matchups don't get better than this.)


Matchups Discussed so far (As of 1/17/2018):

 Puss in Boots vs. Red Riding Hood  
  Puss in Boots vs. Gingerbread Man 
 Puss in Boots vs. Princess Fiona 

[ProviderOfSouls]

Puss In Boots Vs. Cyclops (69:420 no matter what)


I defeated you Vesper. Anti air 360 no scope soup grab into your butthole woosh give em the bop bop it's gg muda muda

Puss has to win neutral several times but Cyclops needs to win it once SeemsGood :kirby:

[RetroGamersGuru]

   Vs.     10:90 (Unwinnable)

Summary: (tl;dr) - Red Riding Hood has faster movement, moveset, and equal or better range than Puss in Boots. Puss in Boots has too low hitstun to convert to high damage or kills for the majority of the matchup. RRH will ideally 5 stock (or just never die depending on the ruleset) the Puss in Boots player even if the RRH is slightly worse.

This matchup is one of the best examples of how skewed the characters are from each other!

Neutral:

Puss in Boots relies on a hit and run neutral since his punishes are limited to hitstun extending, grab release double anti-air, and wall throw to anti-air punishes. Most of his hits do not confirm to any of these punishes since his only real grab confirm is his charged special attack, and every punish of his requires a ground grab. Because of this, he relies on using air dash attacks and aerials to achieve most of his chip damage. His range is not the absolute worst on these moves, but none of them beat RRH's air grab since she is included in the smallest character size category along with him. He technically has the same range on his air grab as RRH, but it never will matter because the lag on his air throw is the longest with 52 frames of lag (Thank you Squeachu for labbing the characters' air throw lag). Because of this, getting an air throw at best is only chip damage and a neutral reset. At worst, RRH could mash out of the OTG state and punish Puss in Boots for even using his air grab. In other words, his moveset can basically be shut down by her air grab alone.

Not only does RRH's air grab shut down Puss's moveset, her other tools can easily beat them or at worst end in a favorable trade. RRH is the only character in the game with 2 aerials, and both are apples that inflict the shield stun animation upon contact. Neither attack require a high commitment since they help cover a large amount of space in front of and below her. They also do not always affect RRH negatively even if Puss in Boots powershields them. She will usually not be in the same range to get hit by the counter-attack, so the likely hood of a powershielded apple to a hitstun extended combo is far too low for Puss in Boots.

This only is counting 3 moves from RRH vs. Puss's entire neutral game. Her air dash attack has the same range as Puss's ADA. This means that the two characters will trade with each other almost guaranteed. Puss in Boots technically has higher stun, but it's only enough to back off and reset neutral. If he goes for an aerial afterwards, RRH has enough time to begin an aerial against Puss. It can possibly trade as well, but she will have enough time to come start an infinite anyways due to the stun animation. In other words, don't always use those aerials in obvious positions, or Puss will potentially lose a life.

Extension from the last paragraph: Even if she just gets hit by an ADA, she has enough time to throw an apple to get a favorable trade. So Puss's ADA to aerial punishes are so risky.

There are other moves to watch out for against RRH with her anti-air and her grounded apples even though both are slightly riskier options. Her anti-air leads to most of her infinites, and her grounded apple(s) give her close to half of her meter fully charged. Her semi-charged apple is an integral part for an infinite too, so don't get too close to get hit and grabbed.

Movement:

Besides the toolkit disadvantage, RRH has greater mobility with a faster crumpet dash and onion boost. Puss's onion boost is so mediocre that it's barely usable. This includes startup and momentum.

Punish:

The worst part about this matchup is the limited situations where Puss could be in the position to take a stock. While RRH can convert to a kill with most of her tools, Puss requires a ground grab or an anti-air to confirm into it. He can't use it in neutral either since the opponent can roll away from the stun animation, wait on a platform, and wait out the animation. His slam range is mediocre too.

The only time that Puss is truely scary is if he's one hit away from a slam. He would ideally fish for his kill confirms since getting a random neutral hit would only just reset neutral, and RRH will have the chance to deplete his meter and nullify his slam opportunities.

This matchup is one of the worst you can play in the game and demonstrates the worst aspects of it. Puss should ideally never kill RRH if they are even remotely close in skill level. An RRH player could be significantly worse than the Puss player and still win the set. Unless the RRH player has never played the game before, Puss will most likely lose.

Overall, never play this matchup as a Puss in Boots player.

Notable Sets of the Matchup:

[RetroGamersGuru]

  Vs.      20:80 (Heavy Disadvantage)


Summary (tl;dr): Similar movement, worse neutral than Gingy, and even worse punishes than Gingy. Not as terrible as the Red Riding Hood matchup, but it's bad enough to be skewed to the Gingerbread Man especially at top level play.

This matchup might not seem terrible on paper with their toolkits being similar in appearance and application, but these two characters have incredible differences in usability in their options. This leads to this matchup being incredibly skewed towards Gingerbread Man in almost every scenario. The reason that it isn't unwinnable is due to a few key aspects of the matchup.

Movement:

Puss in Boots and Gingerbread Man have the same speed on their air dash attacks and also their swooces. Both of them can use onion boosting, but Gingy has a quicker startup even if both can sometimes have similar amounts of momentum. Another problem with Puss's onion boost is that he can't use a high wall attack that is too far up on the wall. If he does, he will have so much endlag eat up the momentum and have nothing left over, so he usually is force to go for as low of a high wall attack as possible to get it to have any momentum that is worthwhile. This problem does not apply to Gingy, so he has a wider range of where he can use the high wall attack to onion boost than Puss and is faster to start. Both have the same number of jumps, and both have decent rolls that can give slight momentum to them. Overall, both characters have similar movement, but it is slightly edged out by Gingy with a better ability to onion boost. This aspect of the matchup is probably the most equal though.

Neutral:

This aspect of the matchup is one of the worst and unfortunately not the worst. Puss in Boots relies on a hit and run neutral game using air dash attack and aerials the majority of the time. He can't use his air grab since he has 52 frames of endlag afterwards. This leads to just a neutral reset or even a counterpunish from Gingy if he mashes out of the OTG state. Since Puss in Boots can't reliably use air grab to his advantage all the time, Gingy can abuse his air grab since it's his main combo starter and has great disjoint. Puss in Boots technically has the same air grab range as Gingy due to the same hurtbox size, but he won't want to use it as much as Gingy because of the endlag. He still will be forced to use it though because his other neutral tools are completely beaten by Gingy's air grab. Combined with incredibly similar movement, the neutral ends up being a game of cat and mouse in favor of Gingerbread Man because of one tool. Besides that, Gingy has the same range on his air dash attack as Puss in Boots, so he will end up trading with Puss's own air dash with the same amount of hitstun. Even though Gingy gets something out of it, it still gives the Puss player a chance to get meter with his hit and run style, so Gingy will be much safer using air grab the majority of the time. If he does use it and doesn't trade, he will combo the move into an air grab, so his air dash can be scarier than Puss's. Another thing to point out, don't use dash attack as Puss. Everything that Gingy has outranges it, and it's not hard to do. So in terms of the neutral game, Gingy wins super hard.

Punish:

Puss loses even harder in this department than the neutral. Gingy's neutral tools all lead into combos. His air dash attack leads to a grab, and his air grab leads to his infinite. The infinite itself is crumpet dash to grab release anti-airs repeatedly. This is only the easiest combo in his arsenal, and he has many more. Puss in Boots doesn't have much in order to start a combo. His only grab confirm is a charged special attack that rarely gets used in the neutral. It can trade with Gingy's air dash and gives Puss enough time to get a grab still, but this is incredibly situational. Without a wall, Puss can only do grab release anti-airs, and with a wall, he has to do a semi-charged throw to the wall and get anti-airs off of it. It is possible to get 3 anti-airs, but it requires accurate positioning and timing. To put it simply, the punish game heavily favors Gingy since he has more combos and easier ones to use. Puss in Boots has very few, all are situational, and usually don't do much damage.

So besides movement, Gingerbread Man is a better character in every situation. The only reason that this matchup is not unwinnable is because Gingerbread Man's main tool for shutting down Puss, which is his air grab, can still be played around with close to equal movement options, and no other moves of Gingerbread Man completely invalidate Puss in Boots. If Puss manages to get a lead, he can still camp out the Gingy decently, but Gingy can even out the stocks pretty quickly. If Gingy has the lead, he will likely not lose it. This is the one matchup with the top tiers that could probably be overcome if the Puss in Boots is a far better player than the Gingerbread Man. At the top level however, this matchup can be close to impossible to overcome.


Notable Sets of Matchup:

[RetroGamersGuru]

Vs.  10:90 (Unwinnable)

Summary (tl;dr):

This matchup is almost as bad as Red Riding Hood. The only difference is that Fiona commits with her tools a bit more. These two characters show just how terrible a low tier is in this game in the 3 main parts of the game: movement, neutral, and punish.


Movement:

Besides an air dodge, Puss technically has the same movement options as Fiona, but all of them are worse than hers. Fiona's crumpet dash and swooce are slightly faster than his, and her onion boost is faster in startup and momentum. She also can onion boost from up high by comparison to Puss who has to use a high wall attack very close to the ground. The use of rolls is about the same too, except Fiona can use hers in the air as already said. So technically Fiona can just run away from Puss forever, and he can barely do anything about it.


Neutral:

The neutral game is even worse than the movement comparison. Puss in Boots, as you should know, is a hit and run based character with air dash attacks, aerials, occasional dash attacks, and occasional grabs. Puss has a smaller hurtbox size which gives him a better air grab, but he can't use it too often due to the endlag. As with most matchups, the air grab only leads to a neutral reset or worse since it depends on how fast the opponent mashes out. This forces him to use his other options, and the problem with that idea is the fact that Fiona's options beat his own. Her air dash attack has greater range than Puss's, and it inflicts the shield stun animation. So she easily walls out Puss in Boots, and she can start a 0-Slam off of it since she has many options for hitstun extending. Even if he lands an air dash attack, Puss can't go for the aerial reliably afterwards. If he does go for an aerial, Fiona can choose three different options. The first one is to air roll away and at worst reset neutral. The second is to shield the aerial and punish Puss's endlag afterwards. The third is to use her own air dash attack to beat or at worst trade with the aerial, but either way, Fiona gets a punish afterwards. Along with the other neutral options, Puss's dash attack is also beaten by everything that Fiona has to offer due to his low range on it. To sum up everything so far, Fiona's options completely invalidate Puss in Boots, so he is forced to play Fiona's game and often lose at it with his mediocrity.


Punish:

Puss loses just as hard in this aspect of the matchup as neutral. Fiona is a combo queen when she lands an air dash attack or a ground grab. She can hitstun extend from an air dash attack with regular dash attacks, full jab combos, and reset with more air dash attacks. If she lands a ground grab, she will grab release to air dash attack to continue the combo, or she will grab release anti-air in order to confirm into her slam. Even if she has to use an air grab occasionally, she can soup grab it into an air dash attack if available or an aerial for better damage than just committing to the throw. Puss on the other hand needs a ground grab to get most of his damage, and he usually won't get one since Fiona loves to be in the first jump range in order to use her crumpet dash or air roll. He relies on throwing onto a wall to get a few anti-airs and possibly an aerial, or he just grab releases to double anti-air. This ultimately leaves Puss in Boots to rarely hold a lead if at all, and Fiona can just leave Puss in Boots open to get 5 stocked (or just perfected depending on the ruleset) consistently.


Overall, Fiona invalidates Puss in Boots just as much as Red Riding Hood because of her neutral tools beating everything Puss wants to do, and he can't just play at Fiona's pace well either because she never gives a chance to retaliate in this matchup. Since Red Riding Hood is usually banned in this game, this matchup is the main one that should never be played as Puss in Boots. There are very few instances where a Puss in Boots player is good enough to outplay a Fiona (actually there are none that exist currently). There will be close to never an instance where a Puss in Boots player will beat a Fiona at top level.


Notable Sets of Matchup:

(There's no set of Puss in Boots vs. Fiona that's been recorded in the history of the scene).

[m2k]

Basically, I just think Puss is underrated as he has the speed to keep up with the meta game as the Puss combo game reminds me off Marth's punish game as f smash,f smash f smash is a classic melee combo which Puss can deliver with ease and not only this but i believe that yes Puss does lose these match ups but you must reconsider the neutral game of the disjointed hit box as i have been studying the frames of each of Puss approaches recently. Thank you.