Meta Knight (SSBB): Difference between revisions

Meta Knight does have a few weaknesses, however. Meta Knight is a lightweight character, meaning he is knocked out fairly easily, especially against characters with many high-power attacks such as {{SSBB|Snake}} although he does have strong horizontal [[momentum canceling]]. Meta Knight also lacks any sort of projectile or reflector, which can give him trouble against projectiles although his small size, fast ground speed, multitude of jumps and Mach Tornado give him strong options to play around projectiles, especially if they lack transcendent priority. Meta Knight also has poor [[air speed]] and while he can work around this in numerous situations, there are scenarios where poor air speed limits him, particularly in tight juggle situations. He also has a small [[shield]] which makes him somewhat vulnerable to [[shield stabbing]] from certain characters. Meta Knight's combination of high gravity and air friction also give him a fairly exploitable aerial [[grab release]] animation, which multiple characters can exploit, especially since Meta Knight can be forced into the animation by multiple characters. {{SSBB|Marth}} for example, can put Meta Knight into an aerial grab release and then followup into a variety of guaranteed moves, including forward aerial, dash attack, [[Dancing Blade]], [[short hop]] [[Dolphin Slash]], buffered down aerial, buffered up aerial, or buffered neutral aerial. Although Meta Knight has a great array of recovery options, they all leave him [[helpless]] so when used at the wrong time, they can be exploitable, although this can easily be avoided by strong players. He additionally may have trouble KOing against good [[DI]] and/or [[momentum canceling]], particularly if his best finishers are getting [[stale]]. He also has many multi-hit moves that are susceptible to [[SDI]], which can limit his ability to rack up damage easily, along with most of his moves having unspectacular raw damage output. These weaknesses however are either very difficult to exploit (especially for lower tiered characters) and/or Meta Knight can easily work around them.

As a reflection of this, Meta Knight has an incredible [[matchup]] spread, with Meta Knight arguably winning every single matchup in the game. Meta Knight's attributes and toolset overall give him the tools he needs to overcome or even dominate other members of the cast and while some characters can exploit Meta Knight's weaknesses, he can also exploit their weaknesses to an even greater degree. The only matchup which is arguably considered not winning for Meta Knight is {{SSBB|Ice Climbers}} as a single mistake from Meta Knight should result in a stock loss for him with the Ice Climbers' incredible grab game. Meta Knight however can play around the Ice Climbers well and if Meta Knight separates the Ice Climbers, he can easily KO the partner climber from there, and a solo climber is helpless against Meta Knight. This matchup overall is often considered to be slightly in Meta Knight's favor although the matchup is close and an argument could be made for the Ice Climbers winning or at least going even. {{SSBB|Pikachu}} was also once considered to be a potentially even matchup for Meta Knight (even being listed as such on the [[Character matchup (SSBB)|2013 Smash Back Room matchup chart]]) although by the end of the game's life, this matchup was considered winning for Meta Knight.