How To Charizard-Smash 4

#1. The Neutral

Charizard is a weird dilemma. See his neutral is all really dependant on these main points
1. Can they beat your jab
2.Can they deal with flame thrower well enough
3. Can they prevent you from getting a grab
4. Can they beat Nair
5. Can they abuse your size

See, Zards neutral is theoretically great, if it is optimized and managed well, it can be great. You throw in jab and Nair, two of his fastest moves, you have an ok neutral, you space and manage flamethrower well, it's decent. If flamethrower didn't run out, in my opinion charizard's neutral would be amazing, it spaces so well if positioned right. His tilts are situational in the neutral, such as ftilt, it's a great hit box to throw of the ledge, but it's very abusable in the Duck hunt Stage because you dont need to space it at all, the plain is 2D so it dosnt go into the 3D plain, and therefore the strong hit box is always active(creds go to Esam for finding that), while up tilt is only a good anti air for opponent's deciding not to go to the ledge, and down tilt is in my opinion, is his least useful tilt as it has no real purpose besides a possible follow up to down throw to Fair. The thing that amazes me about what ties his neutral together is his Nair, it leads to a grab to very high percents on the weak hit, and there for can lead to an up throw kill or his dair to fair "combo". Charizards neutral isn't the greatest though, disjoint, overall big hit boxes and projectiles deal with Nair very well, and jab can be dealt with by faster moves or well spaced disjoint hit boxes, that and his flamethrower can just be overall ignored and punished if you over use it and use it at the wrong time. That and overall a lot of his neutral can just be ignored.

This leaves us with approach options in the neutral, these would be
1. Dash attack
2. B-Reverse flamethrower
3. A well spaced Nair or Fair
4. A raw grab

This is overall one of charizard's weaknesses just like meta knight, he has very weak, predictable and punishable approach options, dash attack if it dosnt hit, leaves you in decent amount of end lag, the same goes with B-Reversed flamethrower and fair un-autocancelled, that leaves him with Nair, which again, can be dealt with by disjoints, well placed hit boxes or projectiles. Grabs in the neutral are pretty hard to come by, it all comes down to making big predictions on what your opponent is doing(rolls, spot dodges and air dodge to the stage), it is used on punishes or knowing your opponent loves to shield a lot, which can get easier after learning your opponent's habits, but even then charizard is so big it can be dealt with very easily, unless the grab is to punish a hugely laggy move.

And overall if Zards neutral is played right, it can do well enough, but it isnt his strongest attribute