The Official Melee Donkey Kong Matchup Chart

[@IGP]

that's it, I'm maining DK.

[@arJunebugSmash]

LETS GOOOOO

[@UTR465]

IGP??!?!??

[@kennythekid130]

would love to see you make a video about it

[@PringePie]

"nerves are so intrinsic to the human experience" - Monkey Kong

[@protocetid]

become monke and lose the human tendency to get nervous

[@SigSelect]

MONKEY KONG

[@SneeZSmash]

Giant punchin my shit and leading the bunch rn

[@arJunebugSmash]

im over here giant punching my shit got charges on my shit rn

[@Doopliss666]

@@arJunebugSmashI’m rooting for ya one handed

[@ziwuri]

who up firing they coconut gun rn

[@trevor384]

When he can fire in spurts 👀

[@HComfy]

@@arJunebugSmashI’m over here chargin’ my shit, got 9 winds on my shit rn

[@user-et3xn2jm1u]

DK versus Yoshi feels like one of those matchups you see on the back of the box, a fake matchup that's only there for the promo. Can't believe I'm seeing it in tournaments.

[@marquistf1996]

Perfect way to describe this lol

[@lucysnowe9974]

Lmao.

[@minizimi3790]

You forgot an essential factor in your match up analysis. DK's taunt. Arguably the best in the game.

[@Underr4t3d]

*Kirby taunt has entered the chat...* But yeah, Dk's taunt is place 1 together with kirby's, atleast for me.

[@snared_]

Falco's is the best.. DK's is no good. Kirby's is great

[@joemkdd]

ness is at least top 3

[@dillansnow3760]

Mario and YL

[@Thierce]

@@snared_ Falco is basic, not rly that good

[@turndownforwalt]

hey guys its me junebug

[@Gerbungis_1]

money match me

[@JustButton]

I wanted to make a matchup tier list based on my experiences with Donkey Kong in Super Smash Brothers Melee

[@arJunebugSmash]

hey guys we have to talk about this turndownforwalter guy

[@tymunster]

Hi junebug

[@Gammaurai]

⁠@@JustButtonthis is gonna be subjective and based on how me and other donkey kongs have played super smash bros melee

[@ramtheman8044]

Thank god he said it was him, Junebug. Otherwise how could I have known?

[@Ssethtzeentach_enjoyer]

You could always ask the comments section if you're unsure.

[@RisenFromTheAshes0]

oh my gosh its junebug

[@pjdonovan5788]

"you can stuff the peach" -Junebug

[@mattgach1779]

Okay real talk, as an old head melee fan I adore the positive take you have on your character. Growing up I remember people would always talk their character down so wins seemed more impressive and loses seemed more reasonable. I first noticed with aMSa and now also you, but when people talk about your character you actually advocate for them. Maybe also has to do with the fact that ur a big fan of big monkē but it still makes me happy to hear you talk your mans up :^)

[@baseballboytetris]

facts

[@BlueishToad]

But what if it wasn’t you, junebug

[@Phorox]

Hey Junebug it’s me guys

[@hacksignify]

This used to be a joke in the fgc. Spooky always opens with "Hey guys, it's spooky" and the chat would flood with "Hey spooky, it's guys"

[@wettuna1769]

This is the most optimistic matchup chart I have ever seen in my life by far but gotta have faith in your character if you don’t plan on switching. Good luck on your future runs man always love watching you no matter what character you’re playing just a dope player.

[@fuerteva6977]

I was waiting for this.

[@seikluss89]

Best tier list video. Very informative and the editing is amazing. Ty for this video!

[@arJunebugSmash]

Glad you enjoyed!

[@saminateblake5538]

Thank you its me Junebug for making Melee interesting again :)

[@leaffinite2001]

As Reverend once said, "there are two fundamental truths in life. Melee donkey kong jigglypuff is a 50/50, and..."

[@HappyYummmy]

I invited aMSa, Hungrybox, Zain and Mango to my strip club a month ago so I could see how my DK fared against them just from my private coaching lessons from Metafy and unsurprisingly I ended up winning each first to five against each one of them without even my palms getting sweaty. One could argue the uncommon ambiance played a factor or that my beautiful dancers were too much of a distraction, but my point stands. My DK triumphed.

[@pekkanen_sr]

If all this turns out correct then DK is firmly a top 10 character in the game. Hbox sounded really optimistic about DK but he still put DK at 12th in his most recent tier list, below Samus and Pikachu

[@byrne1807]

Yeah if dk genuinely doesn’t lose a matchup worse than 6-4 then I think he’s pretty clearly in yoshi/ics/pika territory. Still kinda skeptical about spacies but June is right in that no matter how bad the matchup actually is nerves + execution mean you won’t lose to them forever

[@owen_tl]

13:05 holy deja vu

[@matth8985]

fr i thought i was going crazy lmao

[@AltoEcho]

Junebug's Donkey Kong sold me fent

[@protocetid]

found Leffen’s account

[@diegodankquixote-wry3242]

How does DK fair against male Wireframe? 🤔

[@wusstunes]

By holding forward in the air and pressing z or a, or by pressing c stick forward in the air

[@sareem8844]

By jumping and inputting a forward aerial

[@ehhorve857]

alright, so I just played a match against wireframe. now, bear in mind, I am not a professional player. in fact, I accidentally forgot to turn off items, but neither of us really grabbed any of 'em, which is surprising since I was playing against a 9 bot, again, not a pro, so take this with a grain of salt. I didnt die once.

[@protocetid]

EZPZ, anyone can see right through him

[@Pleasantries]

One other thing that kinda puts the nail in the coffin for the Samus vs. DK matchup is just how safely DK can shield. Samus has to risk so much to get a grab and gets nothing guaranteed of off it (from my limited experience admittedly). She has to resort to shield pokes and really hard outplays like that which makes the matchup incredibly miserable imo 😅

[@haz9472]

i love how passionate you are about DK, makes me want to improve too. Thanks Junebug

[@soloconnell34]

Having a puff secondary to deal with sheik and ic’s would actually fit dk really well

[@Sunny92809]

Same jump squat and similar game plans too.

[@TheSignPainter500]

Waiting for the Junebug of Game&Watches

[@_Majunior]

I remember watching Bing vs Daniel at gridiron gateway with Carroll and thinking "I don't know if this matchup has been played at this level on both sides before*

[@The_Glitz_King]

You're awesome bro, mad respect for you

[@CursedOutRS]

This is something I’ve always been curious of. Loving the runs June!

[@toolbar12423]

CG COCONUT GUN Give Melee DK his Coconut Gun

[@KRizmaTV]

"mmh monke" - Grand Master Oogway

[@kokirikid817]

This was an excellent video. You have a real knack for explanation

[@Underr4t3d]

"THE OFFICIAL MELEE DONKEY KONG MATCHUP CHART!" *secs into the vid* "This Chart is just mainly based on my and other top Dk's experiences, also I guess there is some recency bias.(or sth. in this direction)" -Junebug But dont worry Junebug im recency biased as well:)

[@mrjohngalenhenry]

Great job with this and out there!

[@Instafail]

June ain't buggin'. This is some solid stuff.

[@the_Dragg]

High quality vid. Nice job man

[@jamiecal11]

That's a very decent matchup spread for a mid tier when you lay it all out like that. Although (and obviously you know more) Falco looks rough to me. Mango is Mango but how he smothers DK makes it look bad.

[@isambo400]

Not a matchup chart A matchup tier list

[@manraylemons]

June I gave up on playing melee after realizing that in 21 years of playing smash I got into the habit of never fast falling my aerials so basically I’m really bad and learning to fast fall was miserable. Anyway I like it when u monkey

[@manraylemons]

Also my brain is smooth

[@Latias38]

29:45 Damn, I never knew DK had a major losing matchup to both Roy and Bowser. 35:65 is rough. Worse than the hard matchups.

[@lukejones7164]

It's the other way around. DK owns Roy in Melee lol

[@itsbmeGaming]

Hey Junebuds it’s me Junebug!

[@Breakingthebane]

holy shit it's you junebug

[@Kade503]

The thing I found the strangest as DK became more common in tournament was commentators talking about how slow Giant Punch was. Which is true if your comparing it to like your average aerial or something, but compare it to most smashes and it's close or slightly slower with the obvious upside of being huge and murdering characters harder than your average smash attack. Obviously having a cargo upthrow confirm on a lot of characters is the best part about it, but was mainly reffering to neutral use. I feel like if DK had the PAL change of retaining the punch when hit during upB that would actually be pretty huge for him.

[@falco642]

Ive always said sheik was DK worst match up but everyone said falco or falcon was the worst feel good to have somebody agreeing with me on this and it noneother than junebug !

[@goon_369]

13:03 CONFIRMED! Classic spacey mix-ups exist!

[@Figgy20000]

Guys it's me, Junebug

[@scrunkykat]

as a G&W player, i feel like DK is pretty decently favored, but not absurdly. g&w actually has good disjoints for dealing with dk and can go toe-to-toe with DK. not as bad of a matchup as bowser/roy but G&W can still persevere with nair+fair to space him out. that being said... g&w's absolutely terrible defensive options with the lack of a proper shield, inability to L-cancel most of his moves, and having a perfect weight for combos does make it even more hellish

[@Nikkerman]

Very supprised that fox and falco are the same tier, I thought falco was worse for DK even with laser counterplay being better now

[@cutlass206]

Well, now that DK is upgradable and has a big F'N gun, i think some of these matchups are outdated

[@horizonleor09]

Holy shit it took me like 4 listens to understand you said out schmooves and not ouch moves

[@rickypachucho4313]

God I loved the DK vs Ganon crew battle. It was so hype

[@h3r01cviii5]

crazy that we are in a timeline where this is useful in a competitive setting

[@FloetryFox88]

I've been playing smash since 2000 and have been a big believer in DK's potential since 2002. It does my heart good to see people finally catching on to good DK actually is! 🦍🙏🏿🔥💯

[@hudberwafdog]

One morning I will wake, only to find that it is no longer Junebug.

[@cestandmuni3849]

Junebug has created some awesome melee hype

[@sambowen7269]

Call it a hunch, but I think this video will get 1 trillion views.

[@charlzthedrummer]

“We need more high level Mario bros” I’m trying 😭

[@catandfishfc]

Donkey Kong wins every match-up

[@theTennisAvatar1]

The junebug top 10 is coming

[@monsterhousecop2082]

Junebug the only other high level doc that you could play... Is you

[@KaitlynBurnellMath]

I mean, Franz exists. Also, Mango did go Doc against Junebug on FD, but Mango's Doc was rusty so that doesn't really count. But Mango did announce that he thought that if his Doc was on-point he could win. So...we might see that matchup again, with a slightly more practiced Mango.

[@monsterhousecop2082]

@@KaitlynBurnellMath franz is on a break fo focus on school. Though I would love to see mang0 lock in doc lee for a whole tournaments

[@swellguitar46]

30:53 omg the dk plush 🥰

[@redwarrior118]

DK has definitely leap frogged over Luigi in the tier list at this point

[@drstclair]

I've said the same thing about the Puff matchup! I say it's even and get lots of puzzled looks

[@TheWholePeter]

I'm gonna need a MewtwoMan vs Junebug money match because I want to see that matchup at a high level.

[@ssaunter9965]

Never played melee but lord knows I’m invested

[@BigDnotimpressed]

It would truly be a beautiful thing if your DK ever ran into a Bowser.

[@kingmeverse5861]

love the vid junebug

[@noobtuber10]

Thats a very very good matchup spread

[@theelectricant98]

This is incredible

[@CYellowan]

I wanna add more details to the Yoshi/DK MU. So how i keep on winning against a DK, is due to how Yoshi have inherent super-abilities over DK. Egglay force you into the air and force me decent start%, and it also remove you from any camping position you want to have. Eggs can and will diminish your shield. Also, with the coming of run-egging which i (i shit you not) pretty much invented, you cannot really deal with yoshi because we move in with the egg or leave as we leave behind an egg. aMSa is decent at doing it for long-range combo-finishers, but i actually use it in neutral as well. For example, if i run-egg in and land infront of you, there's a large chance i use it as grab-bait. The egg fall onto your head and release me as you grab me. If you don't, i still get to attack and make inputs due to how i threw the egg as i jumped. It's honestly pretty damn evil against DK's due to their size. And while a grab-release hurt Yoshi, the egg hitting you damage DK more than me. Thus, it's worth it. Beside other egg-related plays. I think it's a loosing matchup if Yoshi know what he is doing, but it demands some great plays to send it home. And run-egging is insanely hard to do for even great players, it's why i only know of 4 people on earth that can do it. Me, my buddy, one insane young yoshi main in europe, and aMSa.

[@cashwilliams3988]

yo is that junebug

[@Oberon123]

Love u junebug u gave me advice at smashcon for how to fight spacies since it was my first dk bracket then got to see you pop off in bracket

[@MetroAndroid]

27:15 Somebody call a janitor, sooooooo much dust/air puffs in this clip lmao

[@bsbTheFluffyAsian]

good vid, pocket kong acquired

[@resolutist]

Glad to see that as a Roy main, there's a reason DK is kicking my ass lol. CC is real

[@aaronmorefield9573]

The year is 20DK

[@LordFartamor]

Very well thought out video 😊 I'm sure the DK character discord agrees with you 100%....

[@gabrielmonzon3812]

Mewtwo is severely underrated here. The techchase is absolutely brain dead easy and it’s easier for M2 to kill off grab than it is for Sheik. I think not only does M2 win, it’s the third worst matchup

[@ifarted8039]

as a g&w main i can confirm that this is an accurate matchup chart

[@eddiestilll]

THE LEADER OF THE BUNCH HAS SPOKEN!! INSPIRING A NEW WAVE OF MONKE

[@georget4141]

Hey guys its video games donkey kong

[@jrodd13]

Since tier lists are like 80% based on active results, I would unironically put DK above Pika and Samus, maybe inbetween them at like 10th (Yoshi also moved up a few spaces).

[@Sunny92809]

My mindset for a while now is that Yoshi is definitely better than Icies and maybe Peach but is below Falcon.

[@KaitlynBurnellMath]

I think based on recent results right now looks like... #8 Yoshi #9 DK #10 Pikachu #11 Ice Climbers #12 Samus #13 Gannondorf #14 Luigi #15 Doc I don't really buy Yoshi above Peach. There's been pretty consistently two peaches right on the edge of top 10 in the world for a while now (Llod and Trif) and neither of them does all the tech the other one does, and in the case of Llod he's a doctor and can't practice Melee that much and still is a threat to top 8. And then several more peaches in the top 30 including Sirmeris who upset Mango. Whereas the second best Yoshi is...barely top 100 (Egg$ is 95th). It's the old hungrybox conundrum, where the second best representative of the character is much worse. (Except obviously puff is quite a bit better than Yoshi). Obviously no real doubt that Yoshi's results are currently better than DK. DK is definitely outperforming ICs and pikachu at the moment, and definitely not outperforming Yoshi (yet?) It's pretty close between ICs and pikachu, but just looking at the 2023 rankings, both Axe and Swift were ranked higher than any climber player. Even looking at 2022, sure, Slug was ranked higher than Axe, but it was #9 vs #10, so barely higher. 2024 summer once again has Axe above the highest climber, although Nicki was not yet ranked. Nicki shows potential but...hasn't top 8'd anything yet so...yeah. I feel like this ranking could change real fast, though. Samus...is definitely a case for considering theoretical potential. The TAS community figured out a bunch of weird stuff for Samus. Samus is in a position somewhat reminiscent of where Yoshi was before Amsa came on the scene, where the TAS community knew the character had some stuff, but everyone thought "humans will never do that". Results wise with the current player pool Samus is pretty whatever, though. Hasn't top 8'd an offline major in the post-slippi era. Not even when Plup went Samus, RIP. Gannondorf, Luigi, and Doc...look, they each had one dedicated representative in 2023, Mekk, Eddy Mexico, and Franz. The Gannondorf was the highest rated, followed by the Luigi, followed by the Doc. I haven't thought about them too much more deeply than that. And then #16 is like...Roy or Link or something, IDK.

[@LiveTwinReaction]

I really have no idea about Pikachu. He's a good character on his own merit, but in the context of matchups, he has like zero winning matchups in top, high and even mid tiers. He seems even with marth, falcon and luigi, slightly loses to spacies then hard loses to the rest.

[@GrissoAndShade]

Well made list! IMO, You could probably put Kirby in 6:4 good or annoying depending on certain factors, his edge guarding is pretty nasty against DK and with decent dair spikes off of him, it can be possible to do the work but damn if getting hit from this giant gorilla doesn't hurt like hell lol. Hope you're doing well dude

[@thekbx]

Ill be patiently waiting for the day Junebugs DK beats Mangos Falco. I dont care how long it will take.

[@CYellowan]

Playing the shiek matchup, like yoshi have to, might be a part of the solution of dk vs shiek. But not all of it if the shiek know what he is doing. You want to have space but at the same time, trick them and maybe navigate in a way that let you fight them more. Personally, I think that raw-giga punch might help the matchup due to the absurd range and the ability to spam it safely off of platforms if the shiek is on a platform as well. It's gimmicky, but the range is there. SURE, it's not charged. But anything that's busted and relatively safe will yield you a benefit when the M.U is doomed more or less. Fall-off gigapunch, slight driftback into pre-emptively using it, among other situations. People won't expect it and can't counter it even if they want to as well. Look into it, i've only seen 1 decent good DK use it so far and it was actually great on it's own despite his other flaws as a player.

[@szazorkan]

"this is gonna be subjective and based"

[@benstrahan5323]

Wait is this the donkey Kong main guy???

[@chancellorcamel1144]

Lmao

[@silvesta5027]

Yeah

[@wusstunes]

Donkey

[@arJunebugSmash]

Kong

[@RaFaReAcH]

Surprised you didn't bring up your games vs Aklo on the Link matchup

[@arJunebugSmash]

this was recorded a while ago

[@KneeL4D2]

Epic!!

[@milk4you1200]

Great video

[@mr.fauxnie3044]

hey junebug its me, guys

[@classicjones1484]

I had stopped watching melee for a bit but all you DKs pulled me back in with these shenanigans! Thanks for breathing new life into melee! DK def loses to fox/falco at least 6/4 tho 😭

[@CYellowan]

I played 35 games against what i realized was a pretty decent DK main here in Europe. I main Yoshi. He won zero games. I've mained Yoshi for nearly 10 years though.

[@subjectivecomplete]

0:09 This list is what?

[@Dougbert]

Pick up a boulder with relative ease

[@lorenzo77dascenzo70]

Dk when he grab you at 0%

[@TOSBabyBuffalo7023]

JunePOG

[@michaeltallafs7731]

The Swedish Sniper tho

[@dirtsquids9854]

If DK had Yoshi super armor and parries what would happen to the meta