The Secret OP Strategies of Smash Bros 

Hopcat: *Mixes up his options* Also Hopcat: OH MY GOD IT’S WORKING

I am a simple man. I see Hopcat Ganondorf, I like and comment ❤

The secret to winning with Ganon is to hope your opponent is dumber than you

I honestly love the option to just hang on ledge. Makes it easier to see your opponent's option and choose the actual best way back

This might not work, but I want to see a video of you doing all of this against poppt. I feel like either you break him in half (mentally) or he wins every game and I'd love to see a higher level to this experiment.

You seem interested in our beloved: walking, I got a tip, use walk to mix up dash movement as ganon, that way when and where you will be will be a lot harder to predict, not good in every situation but it can very much give you an edge where ganon’s predictability becomes an issue, walking is hella slept on in ult in generl

The combo throw wait is definitely a thing as a mix up but there's two things. A. You chose Ganon. You probably know better than me the issue there. B. Most of the time one has to bait a panic option further. Example: Down throw full hop up air. One can short hop fast fall towards them instead to make them think you're going to hit them. Then wait for an air dodge or something else punishable.

I actually love dropping the controller so much, it's been a core part of my gameplay on G&W for years

18:09 he chilled on the ledge himself 😂

Hopcat:plays Ganon knowing he’s the worst character by far Also Hopcat: complains that good characters invalidate everything he does

There are some characters that “chill on ledge” is so effective against. Online ZSS players genuinely do not know what to do against it

To be fair the side b away with Ganondorf doesn't seem that bad because you can get away much faster than running and gain more distance than rolling lol

Can’t wait to see you pull out all these insane mixups against all the other Underdogs, Peter

10:13 ScizorSimp playing Greninj? Unthinkable!!

Doing nothing is often harder than doing anything. -Sun Tzu

"The better weapon is the unexpected" -Leonardo

the idea of playing stupid/playing bad as a bait and then winning makes me speculate that the HopCat victories of 2019-2020 were all part of a long con to be the best Underdog in Smash in 2023

My new favorite combo: walk up -> grab release

Your just dashing back and running in. This is smash 101 in disguise

I love this playstyle, as a Ganon main myself I definitely play like an alien sometime to just catch opponents off guard

Hopcat saying his strat out loud is like a trainer telling their pokemon to do a move

Hopcat's journey to becoming an alien

I'll admit, I do most of these to mess with people. The standing still part works extremely well.

This was hilarious. I would love to see this with more characters/random characters.

The amount of times hop killed someone by charging up smash failing to predict his opponent's moves makes me chuckle.

walking in ult is hella underrated but as ganon its pretty ass but if you know how to use it right its very good

Walking is super op as bowser. You just look super menacing, it's almost intimidating. Then you get outspaced and die but you looked kinda cool doing it.

He's just standing there menacingly

That damn gopher at the beginning scared the daylights outta me and made me chuckle

bud is bagging in the wrong game

Poppt1 used meaningful quotes, philosophies, and battle strategies to improve his playstyle. On the other hand: HopCat used bad gameplay.

Summer is over time for sweats to rise 😢 W video tho man this taught me the importance of patience and how to watch my opponents more

Hopcat’s guide to playing like an Alien… or Jackson. Because he canonically plays like an Alien

"I'm not stuck in the ledge, you're stuck in the stage"

I love nothing combo reacts. Especially if they mash air dodge after every throw. It's very satisfying to just stand there, watch them mash air dodge and then run up and regrab.

I like to call chilling on ledge the "National Geographic" because you do just get to watch people mash at nothing while you chill on the ledge and because it is weirdly effective, Case in Point: FlaccidSnk in the video

Tbh, the "chill on the ledge" and "drop controller" are 2 things I usually do in online matches because, as you witnessed, ppl often times don't know what to do in those situations.

Lets go the wusstunes shoutout. Fire channel

13:00 he was at 33 PERCENT!!!!

The benefit of walking is that you can shield instantly out of it and also have tighter spacing. Dash back is better for just getting in/out, but take the game and watch nairs for example. If you dash in you’re likely to just run into the nair, but walking can let you be more precise. Though this is way better on characters with good walking speed like marcina. Also, you *can* still do smash attacks and tilts out of a run, you just need to pivot cancel (while running, inout an f tilt behind you, then quickly input the move you want. It has the bonus of if you do a pivot cancel and then f tilt forward, it’ll make you slide forward which gives it some more range (most noticeable on mac))

It’s now rare to see HopCat Uploads on RU-vid nowadays. Here’s my theory: After King of Skill beaten him 26 times - He told him to start posting videos less often after HopCat hang up the call but comes back later.

Try this against poppt, he doesn’t get to know what the wheel lands on and see if you can throw him off

A hopcat video ON MY BIRTHDAY What a gift

feel personally attacked over the same subway order analogy

Cant wait to see this type of gameplay in the underdog videos that he is in

I was rooting for you harder than I ever have against that online ness

Sonic 06 AND Kingdom Hearts music? Editor, I love you.

The combo throw/combo do nothing works best when you’re slightly outside the percent for a scary combo to be true. You see peanut often downtilt then wait for an airdodge because they’re slightly out of downtilt ko punch percent. Helps if your character has the speed to chase down panic options though.

"My reasons are beyond your understanding." strategy.

Wolf going ghostbusters into nothing should be good

He is single handedly changing the smash meta Cant wait to see this used in the underdogs

Wrong throw works great when you do have a kill throw. They start believing you don't know you have a kill throw and they don't need to fear being grabbed :D

Ledge hang and combo into nothing are truly amazing tools

"chill on the ledge" should be not on the list, because it's actually good. it is just one of many options and it's the least expected one. with ganons ledge hang animation it's even better. he has one of the best. not sure but maybe even the second best (ridley has the best one)

"Chill on ledge" is actually very good in some matchups if your character has a good ledge hang.

Why does Ganondorf look like he's wearing the rug at my grandpa's house?

Mom HopCat's doing spin the wheel now

Cool, all this time I've been thinking I'm bad, turns out I'm actually optimal.

Excellent idea, I know how to be bad and occasionally win regardless, it’s a real treat

I think all this vid has proved is that hop is just goated at smash

unironically mostly good options the more u can mix up ur tempo, movement n combo trees while still using ur strong options the scarier u are to play n harder u are to adapt to

11:32 Word. I had to introduce my friends to fucking pizza and they only tried it for the pressure of it already being served

It´s so funny how most of these really work out there, maybe that helps me too xD

Pov Peter actually posted

I think side B away is actually good with Ganon. It looks like it’s straight up faster than running

Should do this secretly against the underdogs in 1v1s. Use the wierd strats

This video is amazing

The nothing combo into react works with some charecters just not ganon same with mash aimlessly both those together=Roy

In my pichu Play i actually use some of those strategies. This is why i go 0-4. Tbh, they actually do work sometimes. I tend to use Hang on ledge because in order for someone to hit you there they have to commit with either a dash or smth. then you can choose the correct option. I tend to use the wrong throw one to set up for platform tech chases where Pichu shines. I also like using The nothing combo at high% because i dont know how to actually do Uthrow Thunder so i just wait for my opponents dumb option and then I thunder. It can lead to more damage then normal, because we all know that Dthrow Fsmash is going to do more damage then Dthrow Uair Fair.

Introducing tricky B's to Gannon is always a good idea

4:08 Isn’t that just a HopCat combo?

Downthrow nothing is really good in concept, sacrificing guaranted damage for a potentially better punish is part of what being a top player is like. Ganon isn't really built like that eventhough downthrow fsmash is still usefull sometimes

I actually do downthrow nothing all the time with ganon. I ususally just follow it up with dash attack or another grab if I think theyre gonna shield

The walk, do nothing in Nothing in Neutral, and throw release actually are super fun/useful with Mac and Falco lmao

That's my HopCaterpie

@Hopcat the do nothing in neutral works so well on almost everybody

Actually some Sage advise about short term L vs long term W. Smart.

This is just playing like Cogger.

Hopcat is the new Socrates

👀 This is actually a genius way to find mixups. In isolation all of these techs work 0 to 2 times but when you challenge yourself and experiment with them with that lens… you might find something new. By the end of this video HopCat found a few options that sound stupid but nonetheless work great in certain situations *and* situations in which to use them! I wonder how much of this HopCat realizes. My prediction is that it’s about 75-90% and he’s figured out some stuff I haven’t. 🤔

IIRC Gannon has the best ledgehang in the game by like a lot. A lot of stuff just can't hit him when he's hangin.

Spin the wheeeeeeel

I think dabuz actually said that holding ledge is the most powerful option

I think having a title that contrasts how bad the strategies are to how well they work would improve your click through rate because I never wanted to watch this video until I heard its description in the podcast.

I do something similar to wrong throw with incineroar when on the ledge instead of back throwing which they would expect I up throw so they di it wrong

I actually already do "Chill on Ledge" anyway, so...

5:38 it shouldn’t’ve

He' discovered mind games

The secret to being meta with Ganon is to be stupid.

I hope this one gets a million views and every one of us starts using it, because boy do I sure lose to people mashing A after a laggy option instead of playing defensive, and I'd love for them to stop mashing A (and to use these things to get around it myself)

You should give down throw nothing a new go. You always forced a move after, you gotta give yourself some space and options like with the other prompts

Trash options on a garbage character is the greatest bait I've seen

Im just gonna say walking with mid range characters is one of the better strategies because generally your moves are a bit slower

i get th at you know it’s not that deep but walking is actually a very good option

I do this sometimes. Just do dumb things that aren't obvious safe options as bait.

Makes sense... EDM

Using techniques that work based on speed, frame data, and reaction time. While using 1 of the slowest characters, with the worst frame data, and standard reaction time, might not be a good idea

I was already doing bad options and being patient to bait in people. Real gaming hour for 4 years. My nearly 14million GSP characters are prospering thanks to it.

This strat is just like me fr

I've been 2-4m gsp for 1k hrs of smash and I hit 6m on my main using some of these ideas, I can't tell if I got lucky or like sideb away+ drop controller clears my head enough to not panic option.