Overview

The legendary master of espionage action is one of the strongest zoning and camping presences in the game. Snake has a multitude of delayed explosive threats he can layer on-screen, creating waves of explosions and uncertainty in foes about when and where the next blast will come from.

At a time, he can conceivably have either two Hand Grenades bouncing around or two up smash mortar rounds bound for impact. Whenever he gets those going, he can back them up either by rushing in with his slow but powerful aerial moves, or by adding another blast with his slow but devastating side smash RPG launch. Meanwhile, he can have a C4 block set up that whole time, awaiting his command for detonation.

While you’re looking for a spot to play king of the hill with Snake’s explosives, his Cypher up special gives him flexible movement both vertically and horizontally, especially since he’s not helpless at the end of its upward travel. He can fall to a new fighting ground, dropping explosives below along the way, and can even resummon Cypher for another upward escape if he gets hit in midair (a situation he can set up on purpose with C4 or Hand Grenades).

But Snake is far from just a demolition man. He’s expert in CQC—close-quarters combat—with lots of quick and powerful moves on the ground. His dash attack and down tilt both bring him prone to the ground, potentially avoiding incoming attacks. Plus, he hunches during each forward dash, meaning that moving across the stage with repeated dashes (tapping forward over and over) is more avoidant than simply running across the stage (tapping and holding forward).

His air attacks are quite powerful, but they’re all slow in one way or another, sometimes multiple ways. Going into the air against all the more nimble fighters isn’t a winning play unless he’s backed up by explosive threats first, which is probably his biggest weakness. Rely on layering explosive threats and keeping foes at bay first, so you have openings to bait and poke and attack more directly.

Snake Vitals

Movement Options

Movement Ranks