There are many unique and interesting characters in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Their uniqueness shines in many ways through their animations, sound design, and more. It all meshes well together to represent a character’s series and their individual identity in an interesting way. In terms of personality, there aren’t many characters with a moveset more peculiar and interesting than Luigi.
Luigi is a very peculiar character deep down. However, when it comes to facing him in battle, he can be rather polarizing. Read on to see what makes him tick and how you can get the upper hand on him.
Luigi’s Strengths
Luigi’s primary asset is his grab game. His grab is a tether that gives him safety when grabbing his opponents. His throws have good utility all-around, with Back-Throw being a very quick throw and a reliable KO option. The best utility comes out of his Down-Throw, which can lead to several combos and kill confirms, most notably his infamous zero-death combo. Even without his throws, he can get combos out of many of his attacks.
Luigi’s great combo game can be attributed to his great aerial attacks. All of his aerials (as well as most of his moves) have either a very quick startup, low endlag, or both. Thanks to his floaty nature working in tandem, he can get a number of aerial attacks out, even from a short hop. These aerials also assist in his combo game. His Up-Air, for example, can combo into itself several times. There’s also his NAir, which has low vertical knockback that can help him combo many other aerials out of it, or even his Down-B and Up-B specials for kills. Speaking of his Down-B, this move alone aids in his ability to escape combos, thanks to the frames of invincibility on its startup.
Luigi’s Weaknesses
Luigi’s main weakness shows in his awful mobility. While his jump height is impressive, his air speed isn’t. In terms of moving left or right while in the air, he’s the second-slowest character in the game. This isn’t problematic for his combo game due to the angle his moves send his opponents, but it makes escaping disadvantage very difficult, with his only saving grace being the startup invulnerability on his Down-B. His floatiness doesn’t help in that regard either, allowing his landings to be easily read.
The bad mobility hinders Luigi’s already poor recovery. Because he can’t move horizontally very well in the air, he needs to rely on his Side-B to return to the stage if he’s knocked pretty far. This can be very bad, thanks to the linearity of the move, as well as the noticeable endlag and Luigi’s inability to grab the ledge during the attack. His Up-B, while going pretty high in the air, is also linear since it can only go straight upwards. This makes Luigi’s positioning and recovery easy to predict and gimp, respectively.
Luigi also has a very poor range overall. Despite all his quick moves, they don’t have a lot of reach on them. His best approach option range-wise is his BAir, which has a punishable endlag. He can’t make much use of it in the air due to his movement being too slow. This also means he’ll have much more trouble against projectiles. The only way he can contest them is with his Neutral-B, a projectile that not only moves straight ahead of him a little but has very low priority due to the lack of hitstun and knockback on the move.
Strategy & Counterplay
Luigi’s game plan is pretty simple. He will often try to get setups off of you to lead into his grab. The setups will usually be either his Neutral-B, ZAir or aerial grab, or Down-Tilt. Do your best to avoid his grab setups while fighting against him. This can be hard to do, but don’t back yourself into a corner while you’re doing it. If he does get a grab, prepare to DI his throws and aerials properly in hopes that he’ll mess up whatever combo he tried to do on you.
Luigi doesn’t have great tools for contesting ranged attacks because of his poor mobility and reach. Because of this, you’ll get very far by utilizing disjoints and camping him out. This will be a much greater strategy if you can force him to get in the air, where his movement is much worse. Projectiles are the best options for conditioning him to do this. It’s also because of this that you can keep him at a disadvantage really well. You’ll just need to watch out for his Down-B when juggling him. This can be mitigated by spacing him out or feigning your combo extensions to bait him into using it.
Edgeguarding Luigi is pretty simple most of the time. When he’s far away from the stage, it’s a matter of intercepting his Side-B and making him waste his jump early. This can be done by attacking him out of either the charge of the move or the endlag when the move is done. Alternatively, you can body-block him to halt his momentum; just make sure you’re not at high percents, or you could die to a misfire. If he manages to get close to the stage while having a jump, don’t underestimate the speed and height of his recovery. Use a lingering or multi-hit attack that launches him away for an easier time gimping him.
Good/Bad Matchups
Luigi performs great against people that he can combo. This will usually be large or heavy characters that are easier to land a string of moves on, as well as those that need to close the distance against him. Characters like Donkey Kong, Bowser, Piranha Plant, Ryu, and Ridley aren’t great against him. He also performs great against those that need to rely on combos and kill confirms to take stocks due to his ability to break out of them. Fox, Bayonetta, Falco, Meta Knight, and Mii Brawler will usually have their setups broken by Luigi, hindering their ability to rack up damage.
Luigi performs worse against characters with disjointed attacks and projectiles. These attacks do a great job of keeping Luigi away and rendering him unable to pull off his combos. Samus, Mega Man, Lucina, Cloud, and Simon will give him a hard time. He also can’t get his combos easily when fighting characters with higher mobility. Zero Suit Samus, Greninja, Inkling, Pikachu, and Peach are great against Luigi as well.
