Neutral

Welcome to the area where every K. Rool slips up, the neutral section! This is an area that particularly aggravates me with the playerbase as they have a fundamental misunderstanding of how to play it.

To play neutral, you must first understand the situation you are in. Neutral requires a lot of situational awareness: you must have your eyes on the opponent, and the stage itself. This matters a lot more for K. Rool than other characters, as his projectiles hinge on you knowing this. You need to know where your opponent is primarily, your threat range, and how you can abuse these two factors together.

Neutral relies a lot on safety. Thus, you must play defensively by nature. This is why the bait and punish fundamental is so important in Ultimate’s meta, because to bait you must take a defensive maneuver that looks unsafe. However, many players fail to understand the knowledge you require to harness this fundamental technique correctly. There are many steps that must be taken before you get to perform a bait and punish. Neutral isn't about hitting the opponent, but getting into a situation where you can hit them. You win neutral through positioning.

Firstly, you must condition opponents. They have to know your tells. For those of you who haven’t played Poker, allow me to explain from the mouth of an ex-poker addict. A “tell” is the concept of an opponent subconsciously giving the opponent clues on what they’re about to do. Such as smiling at getting a straight flush, in which everyone folds. However, this can also be a junk hand, and everyone just folded for nothing and lost a bunch of money. See what I mean?

We can apply this to Ultimate quite easily: moves in Smash are unreactable, but the movement beforehand tells us what’s actually going to happen. What, you think moves are reactable? Human reaction time is ~16 frames at the absolute best of times buddy, you’re reacting to some slight movement beforehand. GimR has an incredible video on this, which you will watch right now. You’ve been harnessing tells this whole time, you just haven’t realized it yet. So has your opponent.

So now, you know what tells are and what in context they help you and your opponent. How do we find them? Let’s give some common examples.

• Lucina short hops, and begins approaching. Most of the time, she will FAir or NAir. You can react to her jumping, as she will usually delay the FAir/NAir to fast fall it for maximum safety. However, you’re only reacting to the jump, not the move, enabling her to bait you. This is unavoidable.

• Mario turns around and short hops. Most of the time, Mario will go for Double BAir here. You’re reacting to the short hop if you shield here. Once again, unavoidable.

• Little Mac begins dashing towards you. He will either Dash Attack, or go for a Dash Grab mixup. You’re reacting to the dash, enabling this 50/50 to work. This, of course, is only avoidable through clicking the right button. Shieldjumping can work, though.

• Ridley jumps towards you. Given that he has multiple jumps, he can sometimes go for unreactable mixups with them and punish you with BAir. You will always fall into this, because you are reacting to the jumps. This is another 50/50.

• Wolf rolls from ledge every time, and then FTilts behind him to cover it. You will react to the ledgeroll and punish accordingly. The Wolf can only avoid this through fixing his gameplay.

All of these have movement beforehand, which you have been exploiting - or perhaps falling into - already. The movement beforehand is how you react in Smash, and this is where mindgames truly begin to become important. This is how neutral forms.

So now you understand tells and how you act towards them in the context of Smash, we can move on to conditioning. Conditioning is purposefully giving the opponent tells so they try to punish something they think you will do. Then, you can punish it. This is the usual way to bait and punish in Smash, and thus one of the most common ways to harness this fundamental technique. There isn’t really much else to conditioning, the only limit is your creativity. Exploit how unreactable moves are, and you will soon find it’s easy to pull off.

Now, due to this, you can now understand that movement is far more important in neutral than attacks.This is why I believe a lot of K. Rool players slip up, as almost every move you use is a commitment. Movement however, is not a commitment unless you make it one. If it is a commitment, then it is the least committal thing in the game. You can also play in a way that makes your moves noncommittal, but this is difficult as K. Rool, it’s usually using projectiles at range and specific forms of SHFF FAir.

It is important however to realize that covering up your movement with attacks without a purpose is one of the worst things you can do. I see this constantly, all the time. Every time, the player doing it loses. Mashing buttons is a massive no-no in neutral, because you’re placing yourself in lag. You’re literally putting yourself in a form of hitfreeze if your moves are whiffing. You lose shield, you lose jump, you lose all your options when you push that button. Landing lag is 2 frames soft, 6 frames heavy. Landing lag from any of K. Rool’s aerials is above 10. Accept the landing lag, it won’t hurt you. Don’t just throw out moves, it will hurt you in the long run. Nothing K. Rool has, except FAir - and maybe Jab or UTilt - is safe on whiff.

I find myself more scared of someone using movement than someone blindly attacking me. Because, well, I don’t know what’s going to happen at first. Moves, as I said, are completely unreactable. However, once you devise the purpose behind the movement, you can really start to understand them. You always need a purpose behind your movement, which is why some players have difficulty with neutral. You can blindly throw out attacks, but cannot blindly move around. You have instincts preventing it, and rightfully so. Once you figure out your own - and the opponent’s - purpose, this is where you can begin to dissect each other’s mindgames and begin to systematically break it down.

The aim in neutral is to dissect the opponent’s thought process, wait for them to falter, exploit their consistent issues, and beat them down. However, much needs to go into this if you plan on being successful.

Holding neutral is important with King K. Rool, as in many MUs he is consistently better there. The Incineroar and Ganondorf MUs live and die by how well you can hold neutral, for example. It also helps to shake the opponent up so that they fall apart more easily. Neutral is mentally exhausting and requires huge mental attention, as we should all know.

Kannonballs and Crownerang are most commonly used for this, as they provide stage control once they’re out: they control space. By maintaining space, you are holding aspects of neutral hostage for the opponent. In the right situations, Kannonballs executed from a full hop for example can completely shut off jump-ins, which are used for not only winning neutral but essential baits (retreating aerials, jump-in-jump-out, etc).

However, while they are extremely strong, projectiles cannot be used unless any or all of these conditions have been met:

• The opponent is at a certain range that makes it difficult or, ideally, impossible to punish.

  • In the context of King K. Rool, his projectiles should be used from long-range. They are very slow and thus very easily punished if you use them wrong.

  • Crownerang can be used from midrange if you jump back while using it, but you need to mix it up so not to create a tell.

• The opponent has committed or has been forced to take a hit

  • Both of these imply the opponent will be unable to move and is thus unable to counterplay against the projectiles

  • Another way to do this is to know the opponent’s tells and habits, allowing you to interrupt this habit and shake them up. Do they jump in a lot? Catch the landing with Crownerang.

However, projectiles alone get you nowhere. This is why projectile spam doesn’t get people anywhere: there is significant counterplay to them. So much so that there is often the term “The Fireball Game” in the FGC.

You must also understand that, projectiles - especially King K. Rool’s - are not inherently neutral tools. K. Rool’s neutral morphs and contrasts based on the matchup; he operates on knowledge. Crownerang for example is your main tool against Ganondorf, but against Roy you will literally never use it. Keep this in mind, know your projectile interactions.

The best counterplay to projectile counterplay, is to not spam projectiles. Use them with a brain. This is where you play “Normal Neutral”. As in, exploit K. Rool’s powerful normals and use them together with your projectiles. This is how he’s meant to be played, but I digress.

Once you throw out a projectile, you get an Option Select. What you do after that projectile is thrown out, determines the course of the game thereafter. The projectile is just there to control space. Many players often don’t think about this, and they crumble as a result. Exploit this. The key to using the After-Projectile Option Select, as I call it, is to look around the stage while you’re using your projectile. Where’s your opponent? How much space will the projectile cover? You can gather these facts very, very quickly. Don’t underestimate the human brain’s power to collect information.

The next step is to understand what options you have. I call this Option Awareness. I put in that long moveset analysis beforehand to make this work. You know what your moves do, and how to use them. This is where Option Awareness comes into play. You can exploit people trying to play The Fireball Game through this. For example, if someone jumps in, FAir catches jumps supremely well. Or, you have UTilt. I highly suggest experimenting with the concept of Option Awareness with Option Selects, as you see immediate improvement with holding down neutral as King K. Rool.

Stage control is central to neutral and plays heavily into knowing it, as it determines what game state you’re in. Identifying what game state you’re in is paramount, because the quicker you identify it the quicker you can exploit it. However, I believe “neutral, advantage, disadvantage” is a touch too vague when describing it. I like to consider there to be positive and negative neutral situations, which lead to the next state of the game. I’m sure many will agree that neutral varies drastically in situation depending on contexts such as positioning, and whether you’ve been hit. Remember, being hit doesn’t inherently mean game state has changed.

So with this idea in mind, allow me to repeat myself: you do not have to hit someone to gain advantage, either. You can win neutral by positioning. Winning neutral by positioning is extremely helpful, as you have essentially won neutral without committing.

All this comes down to, is controlling enough stage to get yourself the most options. The more of the stage you control, the more movement you have available to you. You can retreat space without losing your advantageous neutral situation, you can even spark a ledgetrap situation simply because your opponent had to retreat to the ledge. The opponent will eventually corner themselves without knowing it: this is where winning neutral by positioning really comes into play.

In the context of King K. Rool, stage control comes primarily from having his projectiles patrol the stage. Kannonballs do this best, as Crown usually forces you to commit to get it back. Crownerang also comes back after a 65 frames every time, while Kannonballs stay out for 120 frames and disappear, with the ability to be extended via Reshoots to stop jump-ins while being only -2 on shield up close.

However, stage control is also gained through knockback. This is where F/BThrow, FAir, DA, FTilt and Jab 123 come into play. They all send horizontally, which is prime time to start throwing out a Kannonball. Remember, they can’t counterplay versus projectiles after you knock them back due to being in hitfreeze. Thus, you not only gain control, but you also have something to lock down options as they get back up, enabling you to control even more. It compounds the threat. It’s even better if they miss a tech, as Crown is borderline guaranteed to hit, which usually means advantage state can begin. There’s a lot more to stage control than just this, but I want you to do some legwork on this yourself to come to your own conclusions on how to play with it.

Some hints for you to use here when learning about holding neutral:

• Combo with your projectiles when punishing players for going in

• Remember to grab

• Don’t forsake movement after a projectile, you can do that.

• Maintain an open mind

• Don’t just read, react as well.

Stage control breeds pressure. The less options an opponent has, and the natural desire to be in control and win, will breed frustration in the opponent. This leads to pressure. K. Rool himself is also kind of terrifying at times, which further compounds the pressure the opponent will feel. So, how do we best apply and exploit this? Firstly, identify pressure situations as “positive neutral”, as I mentioned earlier.

When the opponent shows signs of being pressured, this is where attacks become more important. This is where you can start pushing buttons. At this point, movement likely won’t pressure them enough anymore, so we have to start dialing it up.

Using retreating FAir without the intention of it actually hitting can create a very large amount of pressure, as the opponent will generally try to get away from it. Remember that it’s -6 on shield landing, and with a huge amount of range, so you can always get away with it. FHDJ FAir has a similar effect when the opponent is in the air when trying to land.

NAir is amazing now, thanks to 6.0.0. You can approach with a SHFF NAir quite easily, and it’s very safe on shield too due to the landing lag reduction. This move is huge for K. Rool’s pressure game now, and as a result is important to discuss. GimR’s video sums it up quite well, but he does miss stuff such as being able to jump and use basically any option from there. Retreating Crown for example.

Usually tomahawking can also spark a lot of pressure on the opponent. However, I usually dislike going for tomahawks immediately, a jump-in-jump-out can tell you the opponent’s usual panic option beforehand to tell you it’s safe. K. Rool’s tomahawk is amazing as it only induces soft landing lag (2 frames), making it much better for sneaking in grabs and such. This is one of the best ways to apply pressure as you can do things like dash back after, turning the pressure on and off on a whim. This can really screw with the opponent’s head and allow you to become increasingly unpredictable.

Applying pressure becomes much easier in advantage, but since we’re not on about that, it’s better I end this section off a bit early. It’s a good idea to experiment with this, as there is no true way to apply pressure. It’s also player-specific, so you’ll need to learn general player archetypes as well. There’s lots of stuff on this, and I want you to do the legwork on this on your own. It’s easy to generalize based on stuff a single person says, and that’s how player archetypes as a concept fall apart for some people. By getting this down, you can get the download super easily.

King K. Rool’s positive neutral situations come down to where the opponent is at a specific time, and how they’re going about their assaults. Well, that’s how it is for virtually any character, but it means a lot more here.

Applying pressure and getting reactions are inherently positive neutral situations. FAir and NAir on shield, are positive neutral situations. This is because their shield advantage is enough for you to profit off of it. GimR’s video on K. Rool’s NAir is a solid example of this, if you remember that from the pressure section. What he displays here is positive neutral. You’re still in a neutral situation, but it is very much in K. Rool’s favor, no? Land these on an opponent, and you’re in business. High pressure situations for the opponent are positive situations for you. If the opponent is simply mashing options, K. Rool profits really hard. DA and NAir are both amazing armored approach options as of 6.0.0, and you can abuse them to simply hit the opponent through their mashing. If you’re using NAir, that’s a combo right there as they'll run headfirst into the late hit. You can make them think.

Remember, neutral can be won through positioning, thereby forcing the opponent to retreat space or camp. Thus, these can be taken as positive neutral situations. Camping and retreat spacing inherently mean giving up stage control. This is the flaw in both of those fundamentals. This, usually, means giving you an advantage state. You have won neutral through these factors, and the next step is pushing your advantage properly so that it clicks for the opponent that they have made a mistake. If the opponent is retreat spacing, f.Crown and FAir are usually enough to put the opponent into disadvantage through their sheer coverage. Camping, well...Kannonballs usually cover enough space to make this less of an issue, K. Rool usually has good enough anti-camping measures to interrupt it. It varies a lot and is MU-specific though, so it’s hard to cover in a general guide like this.

A key position for you to be in is when the opponent falls into your unreactable burst range. GimR did a video on this in the context of WiFi Sonic, but we can apply this to any character, and K. Rool is an excellent example. I suggest watching this video right now. Contextualising this, K. Rool has many strong burst options: his dash grab, his dash attack, his pivot cancelled tilts, and his FAir. You can react to the opponent being in range, and they can't. K. Rool can blitz in and blow the opponent up for doing as much as breathe in his burst range. It's difficult to bait these burst options due to how long they can be; K. Rool's boost grab and dash attack have incredibly long range, which opponents are often very unprepared for. You only need a small window of opportunity to smack them.

If the opponent is going about horizontal approaches, K. Rool tends to profit heavily. This is because he has a form of disproportionate character design, where he is disproportionately good at horizontal combat, but kind of sucks when it comes to vertical or diagonal stuff. You’ll notice this more now that I’ve pointed this out. This is also why some of his MUs are disproportionately better than others. This form of character design provides you with incredible benefits and heavy downsides, which I have explained before. So, back to horizontal approaches. It is virtually impossible for an opponent to approach K. Rool horizontally without at least some difficulty. If he’s positioned afar, Kannonballs and Crown can even confirm grabs on shield. K. Rool’s range also helps with this. He can turn aggressive at any moment should he wish to do so, piling on even more horizontal pressure. FAir, FTilt and PCF UTilt help with this immensely.

This all comes down to forcing the opponent into making poor approaches. FH Kannonballs facilitate this, as it usually forces the opponent into using their likely poorly optimized ground game or FHDJ approaches. This is monumentally effective against even high level players, as they simply aren’t prepared for such a game plan. They can definitely adapt, but during this you can teach them what you can do with them.

Kannonballs being in place in general, is a big benefit to K. Rool and almost inherently mean there’s a positive situation. FH Kannonballs moving past opponents mean you can combo into them, through UTilt and FTilt. Thus, opponents have to shield almost all the time. Remember, you can confirm off the Kannonball hits, throw Crown, and turn the game state into advantage instantly. This is a favorable situation as a result, as it usually means you can land a grab into UThrow. Once you’ve shown the opponent how you can combo them into the Kannonballs, they are forced to respect you much more.

This, most of the time, comes down to making the opponent afraid of your heavy-hitting options. Kannonballs deal 15.6% fresh in 1v1 keep in mind, and due to K. Rool’s own damage output you’re usually getting at least 30% per interaction. Rule by fear and you should be getting the hang of K. Rool neutral. Treat the Kannonball like a minion, a resource, something to work alongside. Then, you soon get the hang of K. Rool’s ability to box opponents in.

Then, we suddenly realize: hey, that’s K. Rool’s niche. He boxes opponents in, and profits off the pressure resulting from it. He’s a vortex character! Exactamundo, kid. That, my dear apprentice, is how you get those favorable neutral situations.

Thus, we can devise that positive situations include:

• Fear

• The opponent falling into your unreactable burst range

• Opponents making poor approach options

• Kannonballs are in the air and either being respected or leaving the opponent open

• Boxing the opponent in

• Horizontal approaches being done by your opponent

However, as disproportionate character design may tell you, K. Rool has...issues in neutral. By only really having options in cardinal directions, characters who go diagonally tend to be pretty good against him. Hell, “death from above” stuff is kinda spooky too if UAir and UTilt don’t work.

The biggest negative neutral situations are if Kannonballs and/or Crownerang aren’t working for you, or if the opponent has better frame data. There are many reasons why this can occur.

Fast characters tend to exploit both of these issues, due to simply being able to cover more distance per frame than you can get your projectile out. This can be avoided by not playing the fireball game, and instead working with your normals, but this can be difficult against characters like Pichu who are hard to hit.

The key to fighting off this specific archetype is understanding how fast your opponent is, how they’re playing with their speed, and their habits. Many fast opponents really aren’t that scary, such as Chrom players coming in guns blazing with endless FAirs and NAirs. You have options against that, as you can react to their jump-ins with FAir.

Understanding Crownerang and Kannonball counterplay is also important. Look up how to fight projectiles, and devise how to counterplay this counterplay. Remember, not all counterplay is concrete: adapting to it is a cornerstone of meta advancement. Shield-dashing isn’t a concrete way to deal with Kannonballs, in fact it often allows for grabs to true combo from the Kannonball hitting shield. Parrying Kannonballs also often leaves people open to FTilt. See what I mean?

If the opponent is coming in from above, move out of the way. Don’t forsake movement, you don’t have to challenge everything. Typically an opponent coming in from above is about to make an even bigger commitment than going up there in the first place. You still have stage control in this situation, so try baiting out their terrible choice. Short hop, delay a fast fall, and move away. That usually does it. You’ll still have center stage, so chuck out a Kannonball while you have the chance and laugh at them.

I don’t want to hand-hold people too much in regards to negative neutral situations, as this is an aspect of neutral where you need in-bracket experience to understand them properly. There’s tons of them out there - same with positive actually - and you need to play a lot to understand them. They’re also MU-specific.

This is a very common, very simple question that is answered with an equally simple answer: winning neutral comes down to taking an action that gives you formidable stage control, from center-stage onwards.

To fulfill this, simply advance your positive neutral situations. Profit off of them; pick your actions accordingly. Once the opponent has been knocked back as a result of those small situations, you have successfully won neutral: it's that easy. The next step, is pushing your advantage state. There are many times where you have won neutral and haven't even realized it yet.

And with that, that’s my neutral guide concluded. Make sure you do your homework.