03-
Link

Jab1 (-12) & Jab2 (-16):
NAir (Frame 7)
GSA (Frame 9)

Jab3 (-23):
NAir (Frame 7)
GSA (Frame 9)
Grab (Frame 16)

FTilt (-12):
GSA (Frame 9)
(This move can be spaced out)

UTilt (-17):
GSA (Frame 9)
Grab (Frame 16)

DTilt (-11):
GSA (Frame 9)
(This move can be spaced out)

Dash Attack (-21):
GSA (Frame 9)
USmash (Frame 10)
Grab (Frame 16)

FSmash1 (-27 Close, -23 Tipper):
GSA (Frame 9)
Grab (Frame 16)
(This move can be spaced out)

Sword Beam (--):
Unpunishable
(Projectile usage)

FSmash2 (-41):
FSmash (Frame 26)

USmash (-28):
FSmash (Frame 26)

DSmash (-33/-24):
GSA (Frame 9)
USmash (Frame 10)

NAir (-2):
Unpunishable
(Safe on shield)

FAir (-7):
NAir (Frame 7)
(This move can be spaced out)

BAir (-3):
Unpunishable
(Safe on shield)

UAir (-9):
NAir (Frame 7)
GSA (Frame 9)

DAir (-13):
USmash (Frame 10)
(This move can bounce on your shield or fast fall through it)

Bow & Arrows (-21 Uncharged, -15 Charged):
Unpunishable
(Projectile usage)

Boomerang (-6):
Unpunishable
(Safe on shield, projectile usage)

Spin Attack (-56):
GSA (Frame 9)
FSmash (Frame 26)
(Can partially charge your attack after shielding)

Remote Bomb (-19):
Unpunishable
(Projectile usage)

• Neutral Moves: NAir, FAir, BAir, FTilt, DTilt, UTilt, Remote Bomb, Boomerang.

• Kill Moves: FAir/UAir/DAir/NAir, FTilt/UTilt, FSmash/USmash, Remote Bomb, GSA/ASA, Bow & Arrows.

• Kill Confirms: ZAC NAir w/ Remote Bomb x2 > Footstool Bomb Explosion > FAir/DAir, FAir1 > GSA, BAir1 > UTilt/USmash.

• Boomerang is used to condition aerial approaches around it or deny airspace preemptively. This ties in to covering Link’s jump-ins, which would otherwise be linear, similar to how Snake uses Grenades to cover otherwise linear grounded approaches. Link’s Boomerang gives him ground and airspace with conditioning, giving him more stage control and better positioning to use landing NAir. Boomerang gets the opponent to jump, which makes Link’s aerials less risky since he can win air-to-air reliably.

• When clanking Boomerang with NAir/BAir, react to the startup of Boomerang and then use NAir/BAir, rather than buffering it.

• Similar to Young Link’s Boomerang, Link’s Boomerang also starts on Frame 27. When hitting NAir on Link’s Boomerang, avoid pre-emptively using NAir. Use the 27 Frame startup to identify when Link is starting Boomerang by keeping a close eye on him, and then start NAir on reaction to it (sizable window with 27 frame startup + travel time).

• Although often times Link isn't in a position to directly convert off of hitting Boomerang/Bomb, still do not give him the space and time to pull Boomerang, Bomb, or get a clean jump in. The purpose of Link’s projectiles are much like Snake’s Grenades, where he uses them for conditioning to help cover an otherwise linear approach. He can’t use projectiles as a win condition from long range.

• NAir is Link’s go-to tool for starting pressure in the air. It's range both in front and behind Link is slightly disjointed, giving him high priority over most interactions in the game with. It can combo into his Grab, set up for tech chases, and outright kill at late %s.

• Since Link’s NAir conditions shield or staying further away from him, Link can use NAir’s conditioning to find opportunities for stage control and Grabs.

• If Link does a full hop rising NAir buffered, he can input a second NAir before landing.

• Link has to full hop to land oppressive landing NAirs from within Young Link’s deadzone. He wants to secure the jump in to find pressure, as once Link begins landing with NAir, it’s awkward for Young Link to contest it. Young Link can only contest with the slight disjoint on FTilt/UTilt/DA/FAir/UAir, which are difficult to time correctly.

• Because of Link’s large hitboxes, Boomerang, and high priority in NAir, avoid scramble situations.

• Remote Bomb is a projectile that Link can detonate at any time with a button press, similar to Snake's C4. It’s an item, so it has a bouncing hitbox and can be grabbed by both players.

• Remote Bomb can be used to deny space around a platform when placed on it. Since Link can control the timing of when the Remote Bomb explodes, he can leave it there as a passive threat. Throwing a Bomb up from under the platform or smash toss from a full hop horizontally can explode the Remote Bomb on the platform. Sometimes a Bomb can be thrown upwards preemptively to cover a Remote Bomb placed on the platform before it falls down.

• If the Remote Bomb is not bouncing, a Fire Arrow or smash toss Bomb throw explosion will blow up the Remote Bomb.

Displacing Remote Bomb:

• Both players can use attacks to displace the Remote Bomb, repositioning it in a more advantageous or neutral state.

• The Remote Bomb has 60 HP and explodes after 30 seconds automatically if it’s not detonated.

• Link can knock around the Remote Bomb with his own attacks to displace it.

• Link doesn’t have any inherent burst options within his kit, as his only one is dash buffered short hop NAir. Playing outside of Link’s unreactable range limits Link as to how he can directly contest an opponent, as he’ll have to full hop and land with an aerial, which is linear.

• To further this weakness, Link’s ground options are none too fast, despite possessing some range. His fastest options on the ground are his Frame 8 Jab and Frame 7 GSA.

• Playing at a set distance outside of the range where Link can threaten his opponent, but not too far away so that he can pull Remote Bomb safely, is ideal vs Link. This is much like Young Link’s deadzone. Although Young Link’s deadzone suffers from range, he can still catch opponents with burst options and quick frame data. Link has the range to cover the dead zone, but not the speed or burst options, which makes his deadzone more pronounced. Because of this, jump-ins from Link are rather linear and can be anticipated.

Boxing

(How do I escape this situation?):

• DI out of Boomerang on hit to avoid Boomerang confirms. DI up on soft NAir to escape tech chase scenarios.

• Link’s FTilt covers a wide area above and in front of Link with range and high killpower that is safe when spaced on shield. Link can use FTilt to callout dashbacks, jump-ins, attacks, or rolls.

• Link’s NAir on hit sets up for tech chases. Link doesn’t have the speed to hard punish roll away sometimes, but he can hard punish other options with FTilt and FSmash.

• Link’s FSmash has deceptively good range with the stepback animation and the lunge forward. Link can use it to anti-air short hops.

• Link’s UTilt starts behind him, which is useful for catching Young Link’s cross-up rolls out of the corner.

• Because Link can cover so much space in corner pressure with his range, Link will stand at a distance from the corner and use FTilt/NAir/FAir to react to Young Link’s movements, and Grab when shield is conditioned. Link can most easily exert this pressure by using repeated short hops.

• Use empty movement to get around Link, or whiff punish him for overextending. Young Link can’t contest Link head-on when cornered, since Link has more range and priority. Attacking Link to escape the corner is risky because of this.

Platform Pressure

(What tools do they have? How can we escape this pressure?)

• On some stages, Link’s FTilt will hit the platform from below.

• Link can cover options on the platform with NAir/BAir/UTilt. The range of these options can cover multiple tech options and a majority of the space on a platform.

• Remote Bomb allows Link to passively threaten the detonation hitbox on the platform without being near it. Grab it or explode it before Link can detonate it. Link can also place it under the platform to encourage the opponent to jump away, which is exactly what he wants.

• Link looks for jumps off of or around the platform. He can shark his opponents with FAir or UAir, two high-killpower options. He conditions opponents to jump with options such as Boomerang, UTilt, Remote Bomb, NAir/BAir from a short hop.

• Use timing mix-ups with platform drops, running off of platforms, and short hopping off of platforms to escape.

Landing
(How do they cover it? What are my best options?):

• Link can contest Young Link in air-to-air situations well with NAir (beats out most of Young Link’s hitboxes) and FAir (high killpower and disjointed).

• FAir is Link’s highest reward in air-to-air situations, as he can use it to catch full hops or short hops out of the corner or fast falls when landing.

• Link’s Boomerang can be used to hard punish movement/lag after landing. If unstaled, Link is safe on shield with Boomerang close up.

• Remote Bomb can be placed on a platform/thrown upwards to deny landing in a certain space or directly challenge Young Link in the air. DI Remote Bomb down and away when hit high up by the Remote Bomb. If it’s on the ground, throwing a Bomb downwards at it will explode the Remote Bomb.

• Link can contest Young Link’s landing on the ground with his disjointed attacks such as FTilt and UTilt. Link himself is rather slow though, so he can’t chase opponents down with normals. Land away from Link if at all possible.

Offstage

(How Do I Escape This Position And What Do I Look Out For?):

• Link can use his Bow & Arrows to hit opponents offstage from onstage. This projectile sends outwards, which is fatal for Young Link’s recovery, since it’ll force Young Link to recover at a more predictable angle. The Arrow travels at a mostly horizontal angle.

• Link can throw Remote Bomb offstage as an edgeguard when detonated. If the Remote Bomb won’t outright kill, DI up to potentially avoid a second Remote Bomb detonation. The explosion has short hit detection, so it can be air dodged. It covers a wide circular area offstage.

• Link can use his own NAir and ASA to beat out Young Link’s ASA when recovering. They have more range than ASA, but spacing the final hit of ASA with air drift will outrange Link’s NAir and the first few hits of his ASA.

• Link can also use NAir to intercept tether recoveries to the ledge.

• When recovering at a low angle, Link can use double jump DAir to land onstage at the ledge with a spike. This outranges and spikes opponents below Link.

Ledge:

• Link can throw the Remote Bomb downwards at ledge to make it bounce multiple times at the ledge. This places a lingering hitbox at the ledge which Link can regrab, combo off of, and deny neutral getup/jump sometimes. This allows Link to cover roll in with an FTilt/FSmash.

• If at any point Link sees that his opponent is hanging too long on the ledge to avoid Bomb Bounces, he can hard punish that with a ledge trump > ASA.

• Link can condition certain timings off of the ledge with the returning hit of Boomerang, since it can pop Young Link up and combo into an FTilt.

• It’s possible to use an aerial off of the ledge to grab the Remote Bomb, or press Grab while using ledge jump to grab the Remote Bomb.

• Link can use reactionary FTilt to cover getup attack and roll when spaced from the ledge. FTilt has high killpower and is safe on Young Link’s shield when spaced. However, Young Link’s neutral getup animation is quick, so Young Link can shield in time when buffered, but any other option will get caught by the FTilt.

• It’s possible to grab the Remote Bomb bouncing at the ledge during a ledge jump by timing a Grab button press, or using an aerial.

Juggling/Boxing:

• Be careful when using DTilt and rising aerials on Link’s shield. Link can punish with GSA out of shield (Frame 7) to take stocks, or retreating NAir as a safer but slower option (Frame 10). Link can read an immediate attack after a safe landing aerial with a GSA out of shield.

• If GSA out of shield is blocked, the opponent won’t get hit by the rest of the spin, which allows Young Link to punish Link hard with a Boomerang/charged GSA combo starter or charged DSmash to send Link offstage at a bad angle.

• Without ample airspeed and burst options, Link struggles to get out of the corner reliably when the opponent isn’t asserting themselves too close to Link. Use stage control to trap Link and play outside of his deadzone.

• Watch for Link’s jumps, roll (which goes deceptively far) and Boomerang usage from the corner.

• A common habit of Link players is to use NAir/BAir out of hitstun to escape tumble mid-air. Young Link can counter NAir out of hitstun after a Fire Arrow by running under Link and parrying the NAir, or by outspacing the NAir and punishing with DSmash/FSmash.

• Link’s fast fall has a 90% modifier instead of the standard 60% to his fall speed. He can land faster than most characters in the game with his fast fall, or use his regular fall speed to throw off timings and give himself more airtime.

• When landing, Link can Z-Drop the Remote Bomb to use it as cover when landing. Link can then hit confirm the Remote Bomb hitting an opponent and detonate it.

• Link can land from high altitudes with DAir, which will autocancel on landing when performed high-enough. Combined with Z-Drop Remote Bomb, Link can cover the space below and to the side of him.

• Most Links will land with NAir out of hitstun combined with the 90% fast fall modifier to return to neutral quickly. Move out of range and catch Link’s landing.

• Link’s disadvantage is weakest when he’s offstage. Aim to send him offstage.

Offstage:

• When Link recovers with ASA, his head and diagonal above front are exposed, like Young Link during his ASA. Using NAir, Young Link can gimp Link from above during his ASA. Be careful getting around the horizontal range of ASA. Link can’t commit to much else offstage due to high endlag mid-air.

• Alternatively, throwing a Bomb downwards or Z-Dropping and then double jumping back onstage can hit Link while he’s recovering with ASA.

• Boomerang allows Link to block opponents from attacking him offstage while recovering, similar to how Young Link uses his Boomerang for recovering.

• What complicates Link's recovery is Remote Bomb. By Z-Dropping the Remote Bomb and then exploding it, Link can launch himself upwards/to the ledge (Link can vary his displacement with DI). By going high, Link can cross-up opponents and skip the ledgetrapping phase.

• Link is difficult to catch after the explosion from the Remote Bomb. When trying to intercept Bomb recoveries, take into account Link’s position when starting to see where he could end up. If he’ll likely go onstage, use UAir as a lingering hitbox to catch Link. Don’t jump offstage to edgeguard a Bomb recovery. Since there’s no ground below, fast falling alone isn’t an option, which means more time spent to get back to the stage and it’s easier for Link to cross-up with a Bomb recovery.

• Throwing a Bomb upwards is useful for covering Remote Bomb recoveries if Link goes too high.

• If the Bomb is onstage, leave it. This will force Link to explode the Bomb before grabbing a new one, giving Link very little time to execute a Bomb recovery. If it’s near Young Link when Link is sent offstage, grab it and use it as a ledgetrap/edgeguard against Link.

• If Young Link has Remote Bomb, he can use Link’s own Remote Bomb bounce ledge trap setup against him. Cover roll with GSA/DTilt/USmash, and cover a ledge jump NAir with UAir.

• Link can use Boomerang or FAir from a double jump off of the ledge.

• Link will most commonly use NAir from a ledge jump just like how Young Link uses ledge jump NAir. This can be punished with a parry USmash out of shield, or dashing in and out from the ledge to bait it. It’s unlikely that Young Link will win a trade with Link’s NAir head on.

• It’s more consistent to ledgetrap Link from roll distance to avoid FAir/NAir from ledge and B-Reverse ASA from a Remote Bomb recovery.

Ledge Info:

XLR8’s Spreadsheet Young Link Ledge Info:

DTilt: Yes, specific

DSmash: Yes, specific

FTilt: Yes

Most Reliable Move: FTilt

Animation Info: N/A

• FD DTilt ASA %s: 118, 107

• FD FThrow Ledge %s: 185, 158

• FD Milkshake %s: 110-151, 98-132

• Link Kill Throws: UThrow

• Due to the hurtbox shifting on Link’s hitstun animation, Link often falls out of BAir.

• Hylian Shield: like Young Link, Toon Link and Hero, Link has a passive shield that is active when he is standing or crouching. He can walk at full speed with it up like Hero. When used, it can block projectiles much quicker than the normal shield, and any attack can be used out of it, rather than the standard out of shield options. It also has much less pushback, and does not risk shield damage at all.

• Battlefield:
  Terrible. The triplat layout without slants not only forces Young Link to ledge more often, but punishes Young Link more for being there against Link. Remote Bomb on a platform limits Young Link’s options, since the center airspace is contained by the top platform.

• Small Battlefield:
  Bad. Preferable to BF with the top platform removed, but there isn’t much space to keep Link out. At the same time, there is only one space Link can land full hop NAirs in reliably, and that’s the center space of the stage.

• Final Destination:
  Good. Without platforms, Young Link can use projectiles to more effectively condition Link’s jumps and trap him around them. No platforms makes it more consistent to whiff punish his landings.

• Smashville:
  Terrible. Link can control the center platform with his superior range comfortably, which can consistently force Young Link into awkward corner pressure situations.

• Town & City:
  Bad. The layout of the stage gives Link platforms to land on after Remote Bomb recoveries, and Link can threaten the airspace around platforms well on Town and City between his aerials, Boomerang, and Remote Bomb.

• Lylat Cruise:
  Great. Similar reasoning as YS, Link can’t full hop NAir in certain positions without landing on the top platform. With stage control, Young Link can trap Link in the corner reliably here.

• Pokémon Stadium 2:
  Indifferent. Overall the most neutral stage in the MU for both characters. Young Link can control Link’s movement around the platforms with Fire Arrows, but at the same time, Link can use them as cover and deny Young Link off of them with Remote Bomb, and use them to make his jump-ins more ambiguous.

• Kalos Pokémon League:
  Good. The side platforms and walls help Young Link recover and get off of the ledge more easily, since the platforms present an alternative option around the Bomb ledgetrap setup. This stage gives plenty of space to whiff punish around Link’s aerials.

• Yoshi’s Story:
  Great. The airspace center stage gives more breathing room against Link’s aerials, and the slants mess with Remote Bomb ledgetraps.

• Young Link vs Link Matchup VOD Playlist: YL vs Link

• Nair Tumble Percents FH/SH

• Upsmash / SH Fair below platforms with Link

• Link moves that hit ledgehang

• J Ftilt reaction ledgetrap

• LINK'S EASIEST LEDGETRAP?? - How To Actually FTilt At Ledge by @JforJonas on YouTube

• (@MrSpuddles on Twitter) Grabbing items during Ledge Jump: MrSpuddles' Tweet