Guard break

A guard break is a set of techniques in the main Super Smash Bros. games and Super Smash Flash games that counters edgeguarding. Guard breaking strategies have developed in response to new ways of edgeguarding opponents. However, if a player is allowing his/her opponent to recover (there is no guard) back to the stage then their is no break. If a recovery is not taking place close to a ledge then is also not considered a break, even if a guard is in place.

Spike guard
A character with a powerful Meteor Smash will often have their guarding strategy centered around meteor smashing, espcially if the character lacks other good guarding strategies, suck as. This guard can be broken by trying to avoid being under the guarder, but certain situations will call for the recoverer to use an up aerial. Dodging to avoid the meteor smash will break the guard, but sometimes mistiming it will have guarded be meteor smashed or leave them in a situation where they are unable to recover.

Grab guard
Characters with strong throws or even air throws such as Chomp will try to guard by grabbing the guarded on the approach. This guard can be broken by dodging at a critical time, sweet spotting the ledge, or perfect timing of a forward aerial. However, a grab guard is not restricted to approaching so the grab guard can be continued if both characters are still positioned near the ledge even after a break was successful.

Smash guard
The most basic and common guard. The preparation of a smash attack upon recovery. It can be broken with an aerial attack, a dodge or sweet spotting the ledge. This guard is often used to score a KO at high percentages because of positioning so the break should be executed with care. If attempted at low damage it is mostly intended to be accompanied by another guarding strategy.

Projectile guard
Characters with strong and directed projectiles such as, and  can use their projectiles to begin a guard when the opponent is positioned far from the ledge. Zelda's Din's Fire is hard to break because the direction the projectile goes in can be controlled and has a lot of range. Perfect dodging followed by a strong aerial or carefully sweet spotting the ledge is required to break this guard. This can be performed with items as well and using the items themselves as projectiles.

Edge-hogging
In order the prevent an opponent from grabbing the ledge, players will grab the ledge themselves to prevent the opponent from recovering. The guarder cannot attack the guarded when doing this guard, but most of the time the guarder won't do this until the guarded has done their third jump or the guarder knows that the guarded only possible recovery option is the ledge. The guarded has a few options to break this guard because of the invincibility frames the guarder receives from grabbing the ledge. The only options left is to use a projectile or pefect time an attack after the invincibility frames are gone.

Off-stage guard
Off-stage guarding is a risky, but sometimes effective method of edge guarding. The guarder leaves the stage to use a powerful aerial attack to finish the guarded off. The best way to break this guard is to dodge or hit the guarder first and hard. However, the guarder will resort to edgehogging if the off-stage guard fails. Sometimes their is chance where the guarded could make it to the ledge and edgehog the guarder.

Sacrificial KO "break"
If a character has a useful Scarificial KO move it can used to break edge guards. In certian situations the guarded will think they have no chance of recovering to the stage or ledge when a guard is in place. So they will try to drag the guarder down with them. At the current moment is the only character with sacrificial KO move with Inhale. For obvious reasons, a player should not do this if they have one or stock and the opponent has more.

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Black Mage is a great edgeguarder with an array of moves at his disposal. He has a strong meteor smash that could become a double meteor smash when sweet spotted, Stop, Haste, Meteor, his fully-charged forward smash  that travels a great distance and in some situations his dash attack. The options to break his guard depends on what the black mage guard does. Black Mage's fully-charged forward smash and meteor can both be reflected or air dodged. Some Black Mage players will use haste on stage or off stage depending on where the guarded is positioned. If the guarded air dodges or if the guarded is not in range when Black Mage does haste in the air Mage will fall into a helpless state. However, if this were to fail most Black Mage players would use the move by the ledge so they would grab it and attempt to edge hog. If he uses it on the stage it's best to air dodge or sweet sport the ledge. The same applies for when he is using his dash attack and stop. Black Mage players might use stop(they will charge it depending on how far the guarded is from the stage) then follow up with meteor, an uncharged forward smash or use his meteor smash. The best way to avoid this is to attack black mage with non-projectile moves, jump over him if possible, air dodge or sweet spot the ledge.

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Mario's guard consists of using Cape, Fireballs and his quick chainable aerials. Mario's guard mostly revovles around using cape to gimp recovering opponents. He can use the Ledge Cape-cancel to aid in gimping opponents who are trying to sweet spot the ledge and Mario can just edge hog the ledge after doing Cape. Mario can also make use of his fireballs for disrupting recoveries and setting up other guards. Mario can use his aerials in quick succession with each other and finish off with his meteor smash. Breaking Mario's guard is difficult due to his great edge guarding options and strategies. However, his guard can broken if the guarded is able to recover over Mario. With Ledge Cape-cancel, Mario has to jump to regrab the ledge so that leaves him open to an attack or someone can edge hog Mario instead. Mario's Fireballs have low priority so they can be canceled out by most moves and they can be reflected.

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Link is an excellent edge guarder thanks to his array of projectiles, strong aerials, the knock back from his Spin Attack, the knockback from his throws and his down tilt meteor smash which he can use to edge guard anyone trying to sweet spot the ledge. Link can use his long reaching grab to catch anyone close to the ledge or in his range and knock them away from the ledge. However, this may not be enough at low percentages and sometimes the guarded can just air dodge his grab, recover above him or try to sweet spot the ledge and use a roll to get back on stage so this breaks his grab guard. Link can use his projectiles to knock opponents away from the ledge to recover, but all of his projectiles can reflected so this breaks his projectile guard. Link could use Spin Attack on the stage or use Floating Spin Attack to guard opponents off stage. However, to get the full power the move needs to be charged and is easy to avoid. For the on stage Spin Attack the guarded just needs to recover above Link or sweet spot the ledge. For Floating Spin Attack the guarded can just go under link and sweet spot the ledge or try to recover over him thus breaking his Spin Attack guard. Link can use aerials to perform an Off-stage guard to KO the opponent. However, this is risky due to the lag of Link's aerials and his poor recovery would lead him to S.D.ing himself so most Link players wouldn't attempt this. Link can use his meteor smash to keep opponents from trying to grab the ledge, but most opponents would anticipat this action so they would try to attack link or recover above him.

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Sora's guard consist of Firaga, Thundaga, Strike Raid, up smash, forward smash, and aerial combo potential. All of these options make Sora a great edge guarder. Firaga allows Sora to move slightly from left to right when used in the air and has good knockback when sweet spotted. This make Firaga a good edge guarding move and KO move, but if sour spotted it gives little knockback which the guarded can retaliate aganist. Also Firaga leaves Sora vulnerable from above so the guarded can meteor smash him if they try to recover above him or air dodge the move thus breaking this guard. Thundaga can be an excellent edge guarder when the guarded is trying to recover above Sora. However, it has limited range, start up lag and leaves Sora vulnerable to an attack if the guarded air dodges the move or go under the range of the attack and sweet spot the ledge. Strike Raid can be used to push enemies away, can hit twice, can be controlled where the projectile is going and can be canceled. However, the projectile can be reflected back at Sora, air dodged and if Sora mis-reads the guarded movements this will leave himself open to an attack. Sora's up smash can push opponents away. This can work if the guarded is in a helpless state and is trying to recover back to the stage. However, the guarded will most likely anticipat this because the guarder will try to charge the move to get the maximum distance it can push enemies away. The move can be air dodged and won't have any effect if the guarded is out of the moves range. Sora's forward smash is fast and deals good knockback. However, it is easy to predict due to the move needing to be charged to have the desired results. Also the guarded can just recover over Sora, sweet spot the ledge or try to attack Sora before he attack. Sora has excellent aerial combo potential which he can use to help him with his off-stage edge guarding options. Sora has fast aerials and good range which makes this a edge guarding option for Sora. However, their is a chance the guarded will keep extending the combo and use all of his recovery options that he will not be able to make it back to the stage. The guarded can try to air dodge his combos or try to attack him to break this guard. This guard is very hard to break from for the guarded, but is also very risky for the guarder.

Wall of pain
This guard can be performed by anyone who has multiple midair jumps, but is mainly used by and to a certain extent. With both Jigglypuff and Kirby it's performed by using their back aerials in quick successions in order to knock the opponent far away from the stage or KO the opponent. It can also be used as a edge guarding technique. Breaking this guard is not difficult, but it is tricky due to Jigglypuff and Kirby's horizontal air speed. However, if timed right their is a possibility to KO the guarded. The guarded has to time the execution of the jumps and back aerials right or they will mess up move. Their is also the possibility that the guarded will use up all their midair jumps and be unable to recover. Air dodging, attacking the the guarded, or trying to recover above them is the best or only ways to break this guard. However, breaking this guard is not possible with every character because some characters have horrible horizontal recoveries or don't have one at all. Characters who have good recoveries, strong and fast aerials have the best chances of breaking this guard.

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Peach has an array of techniques that can be used to effectively block a recovering opponent. Her guard consist of using Turnips, Peach Bomber, Toad (if the opponent's recovery hits Peach), forward smashes and using Auto Float-canceling. Peach turnips do damage and knockback depending on the face and their is a chance Peach can pull out a Bob-omb or another item that can deal enough knockback to prevent the guarded from recovering. However, characters who can reflect projectiles can break this guard very easily and characters who get hit, but are close enough to ledge to recover can use this to their advantage. Peach Bomber does decent knockback and last for the duration of Peach's body moving and can be used to help Peach recover horizontally. However, the move has both start up and ending lag, can be air dodged and the guarded can just recover over Peach or under her to sweet spot the ledge (attacking Peach is not wise because Peach Bomber has enough Priority to cancel out most attacks). Toad has super armor and blows the opponent away when attacked so the guarded has to becareful and try to read the guarded before using their recovery. Peach forward smash has three different forms the Frying Pan (does only vertical knockback), Tennis Racket (which can reflect projectiles and decent knockback) and the Golf Club (which has range and power). However, the guarder never knows which one he/she is going to get and to get the desired results require the smash to be charged. The guarded can anticipat this and try to recover over her, sweet spot the ledge, or attack the guarder. The guarder can use Auto Float-cancel to use Peach's useful aerials to prevent the guarded from recovering to the stage and if used by the ledge after her float time is up she will sweet spot the ledge using this to edge hog. The guarded has to recover over Peach or attack her inorder to break this guard.

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Fox's guard consist of shine spiking, his down throw that can meteor smash opponents when used on the ledge and his down aerial. Fox's guarded options are very limited, but yet are effective when used properly. Shine spiking works on some characters more then others and is effective in gimping opponents recoveries because it has fixed knockback it can used at any percentage on opponents. However, certain characters who have multiple midair jumps, fast and strong aerials can break this guard by attacking Fox or recovering over him. Fox can use his down throw on his opponents who are trying to recover to the stage and meteor smash them over the ledge with the move. The throw has fixed knockback so no matter how low or high damaged the opponent is they will sent the same distance regardless so opponents with bad recoveries are more susceptible to this edge guarding option. However, the guarded can just sweet spot the ledge, attack Fox or recover over him to break this guard. Fox's down aerial meteor smash gives off weak knockback so it's not very useful at low percentages. At high percentages it can gimp most characters. However, it is dangerous for a Fox player to use because if they miss the opponent they might not be able to recover because of Fox's fast falling speed. The guarded can just air dodge, attack or recover over Fox to break this guard.

Din's Fire guard
Is a exclusive guard. A Zelda player will spam Din's Fire to prevent the guarded from returning to the stage. If the guarded was able to make it to the ledge or the stage a skilled Zelda player will have their forward smash, down smash, forward throw, dash attack or any aerial version of Lightning Kick ready to make sure they are knocked back off. After, this the guarder can just spam Din's Fire all over again. Zelda also has her down tilt and aerial to meteor smash the opponent. Din's Fire can also be controlled where it's going thus making it a good edge guarding option. The options to break this guard is to sweet spot the ledge, attack Zelda with a projectile or attack her if she is near the ledge or use a move that is able to reflect Din's Fire.