Editing L-canceling

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'''L-canceling''' (an abbreviation of '''lag canceling''' or '''[[L button]] canceling''', also called '''smooth landing''' on the official ''[[Super Smash Bros.]]'' website) is a technique in ''[[Super Smash Bros.]]'' and ''[[Super Smash Bros. Melee]]'' that allows characters to act faster than usual when landing in the middle of an [[aerial attack]]. L-canceling is done by pressing a shield button 11 [[frame]]s or fewer before landing during an aerial attack in ''[[Smash 64]]'', or by pressing the shield button 7 frames or fewer before landing in ''[[Melee]]''; the grab button also works because of its unique properties.

Better known as '''Z-canceling''' as the [[Z button]] is the shield button, L-canceling in ''Smash 64'' is performed by pressing the Z button 11 or fewer frames before landing. Doing so causes the character's regular landing animation to play instead of the air attack's landing animation, reducing their lag to 4 frames. Compared to lag intervals in the 20-30 range, this can allow incredible attack speed when combined with techniques such as [[double jump cancel]]ing, resulting in [[shield break combo]]s.

L-canceling in ''Melee''  is performed by pressing L, R, or Z up to 7 frames before landing. Doing so causes the aerial attack's landing animation to play at double speed, cutting the lag time in half (rounded down). While not as potent as the previous game, the decrease in lag is still significant enough to make L-canceled aerial attacks better than comparable ground attacks. This is especially true for characters with heavier aerial landing lag, most notably {{SSBM|Bowser}} and {{SSBM|Ganondorf}}.

L-canceling is not present in ''Brawl''. It was removed because, like [[wavedash]]ing, [[Masahiro Sakurai]] felt it made the gap between beginner players and advanced players too large. The lack of L-canceling acts as an indirect [[nerf]] to characters that have aerial attacks with heavier landing lag and/or low jumps (most notably {{SSBB|Ganondorf}}). To compensate for the removal of L cancelling, a lot more aerials can be [[auto cancel]]led in a short hop due to a combination of universally lower fall speeds and decreased auto cancel windows. Every character in the game is capable of short hop auto cancelling at least one of their aerials. Multiple characters also suffer from less landing lag from their aerials with some examples including {{SSBB|Peach}}, {{SSBB|Kirby}} and {{SSBB|Samus}}.

L-canceling continues to be absent from ''[[Super Smash Bros. 4]]''. However, [[equipment]] may have the Smooth Lander effect, which automatically provides a similar result. Depending on the number of times the effect is stacked, landing lag from aerials can be cut to 0.7x, 0.6x, or even 0.5x as in ''Melee''. While some characters had their landing lag from their aerials reduced from ''Brawl'' (most notably {{SSB4|Ganondorf}}), many other characters had their landing lag increased overall. In addition to this, the auto cancel window on multiple aerials was also increased meaning that less aerials could be auto cancelled in a short hop with very few aerials gaining the ability to auto cancel. A character both these changes affected was {{SSB4|Meta Knight}} who went from being able to auto cancel all of his aerials in a short hop to just his up and down aerials which is further exacerbated with the increased landing lag on all his aerials although he wasn't the only character this affected.  

L-canceling is once again absent in ''Ultimate''. However, the landing lag of many aerial attacks has been further reduced from ''Smash 4'', lasting almost half as long overall and even rivaling their L-canceled variants from ''Melee''.

*It is impossible to L-cancel {{SSBM|Mr. Game & Watch}}'s neutral, back, and up aerials due to using a nonstandard landing lag state (as they function as [[special move]]s, which cannot be L-canceled), similarly to how {{SSBM|Ness}}'s up and down smashes act unusually.