#Love that being ''really great at following through on commitments'' is what Luigi considers his biggest bragging point

[pianokantzart]

Luigi, please, we all know you are very capable but there is a time and a place.

[meloncubedradpops]

Repo! The Corona Opera: Final Countdown

This is the third and final installment of Repo: The Corona Opera. In the first piece, I made the argument that the surreal events we are experiencing in 2020 remind me of the world in the movie Repo! the Genetic Opera. My second essay compared the characteristics of fascism with the same movie. Here we will tie together ideas in both works to highlight a dark path that America is on, based on what we know about Repo!, in the hopes that we can reject the evils of those who are sacrificing our health and safety for their own selfish reasons. 

When I began thinking about this movie through the lenses of COVID-19, I saw uncanny patterns that just years ago seemed like an exaggerated storytelling. Millions of people dying from organ failure. Yeah, but how? 

Then 2020 happened. Oh, that's how. Sure the disease doesn't affect everyone in the same way, but its wrath and potential to harm are tremendous. The death toll in the United States alone is, as of today, is 231,000. At least, that is the death toll we are know so far. It will take time when the dust settles and we can analyze the excess death data to truly know how many of our fellow Americans have died. 

And while our world does not currently emulate those opening comic scenes in Repo, the impact from the sudden loss of life will be felt for a long time. There are a lot of really great themes in Repo: the concept of the family, drug addiction, the impact of corporate monopolies, and let's not forget it's a gothic coming-of-age story too. I am going to highlight three concepts that weave together our current reality with the world of Repo: the parallels of the Trump and Largo family, the Graverobber as the symbolic "other", and organ repossessions is genocide.

As mentioned in my previous entry, I highlighted the ways that Rotti Largo is a fascist. I went into detail supporting the argument that his company GeneCo holds tremendous and unyielding power in the city we see in the movie. And despite his efforts to save humanity from extinction, his assumed heirs and blood-related children are nothing short of entitled mediocrity. I will draw many parallels between President Donald Trump and Rotti Largo throughout the duration of this essay, but let's take a few minutes to talk about their children. Believe it or not, this meme was made by myself and my friend FOUR years ago, almost to the day! 

But unlike 2016, I had no idea that I'd find multiple comparisons to draw upon. And frankly, if we all knew how bad this presidency would be, for both America and the rest of the world, we might have made less jokes from our complacency. I ask the the real question though, which Trump and Rotti offspring are most alike?

Now, I've wanted to do this thought exercise since the inception of my essays. The surface level combinations would look something like, Amber and Ivanka (since they're both women, obvs), Donald Trump JR as Luigi (oldest child), and Eric Trump as Pavi ("you're just his useless brother!"). 

However my boyfriend raised a great point that had me rethink this: Donald Trump Jr is ACTUALLY Amber Sweet. When I took out the gender aspect out of the equation, it made so much more sense. In my next point, I will go into drug addiction in a much more dignified manner. But let's just take a moment here to consider the following. 

We know that Amber Sweet is addicted to two things in life: surgery and pain killing drugs to make surgery bearable. Amber Sweet's character provides an incredible insight to the daily life of the people in Repo. If you subtract the Zydrate Anatomy scene, you would hardly even know that zydrate is devastating lives of the people addicted to it. We hear about zydrate in the graveyard as a commercial and the media spends its first opportunity asking Rotti about zydrate's "use and abuses". After Sweet becomes a no-show in the presser, we quickly learn that she runs a support group for fellow addicts, or at least she is supposed to. 

How does this relate to Trump Jr? Quite simply, many are speculating that Trump Jr abuses cocaine. The most compelling evidence is his speech during the Republican National Convention. Now, obviously we don't have solid evidence that he is indeed consuming and abusing cocaine, and quite frankly if he is, that would not be incredibly surprising or even a huge deal. 

But the conversation doesn't end here. President Donald Trump did not hesitate to bring up former vice president Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden and his battle with addiction during the first Presidential Debate. It was a low jab, especially considering that the United States is going through a crippling opioid crisis, which he even admits is exacerbated by covid-19 and related lockdowns. Both Donald Trump and Rotti Largo exploit their own children in this manner. I mean, Donald Trump helped fucked up the Trump Foundation where his children were held prominent positions, which was caught stealing from a charity intended to help children with cancer! Every time we see Donald Trump Jr on our doom-screens, we get another glimpse into Jr's downward spiral. And with every additional crime that all of president Trump's children become implicated in, the more and more we can see that this family is rotten to the core. 

If Trump Jr is Amber Sweet, then Ivanka is Luigi. In Repo, Luigi can be described as nothing short of a homicidal maniac. I am not saying that Ivanka commits murder, at least not directly, but she does hold a lot of power in the White House. Spend any time learning about the machinations of the White House, particularly in the early days, and you will learn Ivanka competed with Melania for a voice in the administration, and still works for the White House today. Even if you exclude all of the shady business ties, such as the dozens of Chinese patents (including for voting machines!!!) Ivanka has filed, clearly the boundaries of nepotism do not exist for this family. Luigi somehow kills multiple people in the movie and faces no consequences for it. How can this be? Obviously corruption, but that is too simple. If there were multiple checks and balances at one point that would have forced Luigi to face justice for his crimes, they have obviously failed to come to roost in the movie. The obvious common denominator between today and the world of Repo is that those who want power will do anything to obtain and maintain it. Does the public know about every murder committed by Luigi? Does the public know about every crime committed by Ivanka (and also by proxy her husband Jared Kushner, who by the way, failed to pass mandatory security clearances but still has access to the intelligence of our government)? Jared intentionally made it difficult for many of the states hit hardest by covid-19 in the early weeks to acquire the necessary medical supplies because the electorate did not vote for Trump in 2016. That. IS. MURDER. Just as Luigi calls the common citizens in Repo "filthy mice", “Jrvanka” (and the Right at greater) frames the nation as two groups: us and THEM. Luigi is much less calculated, but the comparisons are there. If given the chance, the Trump and Largo family will kill because of their sociopathy, greed, and egos. 

Admittedly I don't have as compelling of a comparison for Eric Trump and Pavi. However I will say that both Pavi and Eric do the bidding for their father's empire, and I would also argue that both feel like they have to compete to get a modicum of attention and love from a paternal figure devoid of basic empathy. And at the end of the day, they do not reject their father's tyranny. And honestly that is enough of a comparison for me. 

Last but not least, I can't ignore the fact that the official Republican Party platform for the 2020 election is loyalty to Trump in the absence of any other political or philosophical idea. A majority of the speakers at the Republican National Convention were members of his family. Their pitch to Americans is “Just Trust Us”. However, a quarter million Americans aren't here to agree or disagree with that statement. With each passing day, more and more Americans are getting sick, to the tune of tens of thousands of cases a day on average currently. The Largo family and GeneCo are not much different. Remember that scene in 21st Century Cure where Shilo and Graverobber are in a mass grave where we can see truck loads of humans being added to the pile of corpses? 

The only real thing separating the corpses from the rest of the city is a poorly constructed brick wall and the years of propaganda that normalizes what I imagine would be a terrible pungent smell of death. 

The entire Trump family came into the first presidential debate without masks. The president was literally sick with a virus that statistically speaking, could kill his opponent; and he was on stage shedding this incredibly contagious virus screaming and shouting, spreading his droplets everywhere. The Trump family failed to show up early enough to be tested for covid before the debate. 

This was not an accident. Jared Kushner bragged to journalist Bob Woodward back in April that Trump was going to take the country "back from scientists". As of this past weekend, we learned that Trump is floating around the idea of firing our nation's leading disease expert Anthony Fauci in a time where our cases, deaths, and hospitalizations from covid-19 are surging. It is almost grotesquely poetic how similar this is to GeneCo. GeneCo is a company in the healthcare industry, but they exploit the worst parts of society, which I will go into very soon. And in its effort to achieve maximum quarterly profits, the ends always justify the means, even if that results in fascism and excess death/suffering. Rotti's body guards kill the doctor who gives him his grim diagnosis. Trump didn't kill the doctors treating him during his recovery with covid, but information we got from the White House doctors were straight up WEIRD. We witnessed a Gentern being killed by Luigi in the Mark It Up Scene for no other reason besides existing in the proximity of him. Trump has spread misinformation about how there's more money to be made when a doctor declares a death as a covid death. I am finding it hard to see the difference. I think I've made my point regarding the parallels of the Trump and Largo family quite clearly, but you may see additional points I bring up as the rest of my essay unfolds. 

Society is complex with more nuance than we give it credit to. The different ways that various groups of people interact with are endlessly interesting, and one of the reasons I love Repo so much is because there's an incredible amount of unpacking that you can do, even in the absence of written dialogue about it. 

If you don't know, Repo started out as a story originally penned as "The Necromerchant's Debt", which gave the Graverobber character a more active role in the world crafted by Darren Smith and Terrace Zdunich. When watching the movie Repo! The Genetic Opera, the Graverobber is certainly a character seen in multiple scenes, but in a lot of ways, his importance is left out. An entire scene was cut from the film, see Needle Through a Bug below if you're interested. 

Regardless the parts that we do see are still greatly impactful. Graverobber is essentially the symbolized "other" living in a world that is greatly stratified by social class, and he's doing what he can to survive. 

Now if you have been living on this planet we call Earth and have ever paid attention ever, you probably have noticed that there are a lot of power structures that influence the resources and opportunities that aid in our development and maintenance of our needs. The access to being able to elevate ourselves above basic survival are typically contingent upon a few things, one namely our ability to draw a paycheck. As I mentioned in my last essay, so many things went wrong to have what would equivalently be either a drug trafficking felony in today's terms or maybe theft, result in permissible extra-judicial murder. And I am not saying that Trump's bragging of the extra-judicial murder of an ANTIFA activist is at all related, but look at the way Trump compares his dissidents with the way GeneCo treats Graverobbers.

 We are experiencing the early stages of economic collapse, millions of people are hungry, soon-to-be evicted, jobless. And yet, the Republicans in power just HAD to rush through a Supreme Court justice. When arguing against lockdowns that would have saved lives, the Right spent countless hours arguing about increase suicide, drug use, poverty, domestic abuse, blah blah blah, you know all the things that were there and as equally as important pre-pandemic? And they did NOTHING to help mitigate this disaster beyond the bill that was passed this spring. The house passed the HEROES Act back in May, and senate majority leader Mitch McConnel declined to take a vote on it. 

Never mind the fact that landlords are still expected to pay the banks their mortgages on their investment properties. Never mind the fact that rent wasn't cancelled. Never mind that the Trump administration sought to prevent any oversight into the first bill passed previously to prosecute fraud. So you know, we can make sure the money went to small business owners, and not instead to the many, many crony ties to the administration who were approved for huge amounts of money. Honestly to think about this is kind of sickening, particularly when you relate it back to Repo and my essay I wrote on fascism.

I could probably talk all day about our failure with the "War on Drugs", but I feel like you can probably see based on the efficacy of its policies that drugs still exist and people are still abusing them. I bring this up because the Graverobber's occupation is essentially a drug dealer. However he sells a counterfeit of zydrate derived from the body of a bug who naturally borrow in a corpse's body, which is and also isn't stealing from the corpse / their estate, but is somehow still "bad" enough that you can legally be killed "on site" if a Gene Cop thinks you're harvesting the blue brain goo. I mean this entire concept makes my brain hurt. 

The Graverobber, as a concept, is a perfect example of the enemy who is simultaneously the biggest and the least threat, and the only way to stop them is to kill them before they can appeal before the jury of their peers or go to prison to pay for their crimes. And I am sure the propaganda that justifies this is beautifully orchestrated. It literally mimics Russian propaganda, AKA the biggest foreign intelligence threat since, I don’t know, the Cold War? I can picture authoritarian stump speeches now: 

"Here the Graverobber who comes in the night, tempting your children. They sell the promise of a good time, but did you know they are raping your daughters for this drug?? They can get your husband hooked on zydrate, and you won't know it's coming until he comes home unrecognizable. These thugs are stealing your grandmother's ring off her corpse, and you will find her half-rotted corpse thrown askew across her tombstone when you go to pay your respects."

And yet Graverobber defends himself:

"Industrialization has crippled the globe (Enjoy GeneCo's day and nighttime formula of Zydrate) Nature failed as technology spread (Ask a gentern if Zydrate is right for you) And from this wake a market erected (Buying Zydrate from an unlicensed source is illegal) An entire city built on top of the dead! And you can finance your bones And your kidneys For every market a submarket grows But best you be punctual With making your payments Lest it be you on the concrete below It's quick! It's clean! It's pure! It could change your life! Rest assured! It's the 21st century cure! And it's my job To steal and rob GRAVES!" 

He then goes into detail about how this is just the cost of doing business with his modern world. How many of our current and future stories by those who will not make a single sentence in our history books will be casted as enemies of the state who were ultimately just trying to make end's meet? You can deport the illegal immigrant but neglect to prosecute the American company who hired them to work here? How is that much different? If the people in Repo need this drug to cope with the deaths of their loved ones and their livelihoods, then what does that say about the soul of their nation? 

If you are still with me at this point, I want to thank you so much. I am going to conclude on a fairly heavy topic, but it is one worth having. Organ repossessions in Repo are genocide and in America, we are currently also committing genocide. 

The whole premise of the film is the justification that those who fail to make payments on their surgeries deserve to have their organs repossessed, because what other reality is there with unrelenting end-stage capitalism? People are losing their whole lives as I type this, through no fault of their own. Most Americans cannot afford a $400 emergency expense pre-covid-19. Millions are unable to pay for basic life expenses, such as rent, healthcare or food. Our president specifically shoved a Supreme Court justice because he wants the American Healthcare Act to be deemed too unconstitutional for public policy. Never mind the 100+ million Americans with pre-existing conditions. Never mind the millions who acquire their healthcare through the ACA marketplace. Never mind the fact that we are in a once-in-a-century PANDEMIC. Never mind that we spend more per capital on healthcare than anywhere else in the world. Never mind that the Right does not have ANY sort of plan to replace something in its place. How could MILLIONS die in an organ failure crises in Repo anyways? We already know that the Trump administration already stopped caring about covid deaths when we learned it was hurting people of color disproportionality than the general population. 1 out of 1000 black Americans have died from covid. Reread that sentence. If you don't believe me, go out and seek those facts for yourself. When we think of genocide we think of Hitler killing thousands of people via gas chambers. But there are SO many other steps that lead to the normalization of that. 

Undesirables, aka the "others", are easy to discard. Is it a surprise to anyone that ICE gynecologists are removing the uteruses of detainees? I almost made my whole essay about that one controversy alone. Genocide is insidious like that. 

"Oh but if she didn't want that hysterectomy, she shouldn't have tried to come to America for a better life, even if that's what my ancestors did." 

Of course not, she's the "other", and you're the law-abiding citizen. You were able to afford the extra $30 a month for the upgraded booby package that gave an otherwise unremarkable kidney transplant a fun twist by including breast implants. The orphan who works the streets because his parents died during the plague who needed a new pancreas because insulin became too expensive is threatening your suburbs. Bonus points if the orphan has a hint of melanin in his skin or if your daughter shows favor towards his antics, completely ignoring the fact that his mommy and daddy were killed by preventable disease. I have no idea if this was intentional or not, but look at the makeup of people who get their organs repossessed in Repo and try not to tell me there's a trend. Yes it could have been the coincidence of casting, but nevertheless it is worth mentioning. We don't see many people of color in this movie, but of the few we see, they get murdered by GeneCo/Wallace. And I don't care how stupid coincidences are because that is exactly what is happening with covid-19. The so-called essential, working class citizens (who are disproportionally POC) are putting their whole life on the line to serve everyone else who works at home. 

The ends justifies the means, kill enough elderly and the federal government won't have to pay out on social security. Force everyone to get back to work and fuck you if you think you deserve money for the hours you weren't allowed to work (oh and by the way we want to make it so you can't sue for covid-19 related liabilities). Oh you lost your job, "try something new", as told by Ivanka Trump earlier this summer. 

My main point is if you let fascism get control, they will normalize genocide and put you in jail for even making the connections of corruption. "Millions of people dead from organ failure, what's adding a few more to the pile in the name of law and order?" "The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat". Once again, I am failing to see the difference. 

Okay I threw a lot at you just now, and the fact you made it to the end is a miracle. If you skip around because you have a squirrel brain like me, I thank you as well. The fact we get out of bed everyday and do anything right now is a miracle and I know attention can be finite. 

I am writing this on the eve of the United States General election after having wanting to write this since June of this year. I am tired. We are ALL Shiloh right now. Our lives have been on pause. "I must be brave", "I'll capture it", "Run back inside". Yeah girl, same! I haven't talked about her much throughout any of my essays, but I have to give credit where credit is due. 

Humans are a resilient creature. We have millions of years of experience on this Earth, and much of our survival has been based on pure dumb luck. But we have blown so many other species out of the water in one way alone, and that is our ability to communicate. 

We don't have to let people who exploit our weaknesses control us. The sociopaths who try and run our society did not historically aid in our survival. They didn't care if we ate the mushroom that killed us or would have protected us when threatened by wildlife, it was our tribe. The Right has successfully hijacked that bond between the self and the tribe so that it can fit the needs of sociopathy and greed. It is not normal for a president to tell a nation that "it is what it is" when over 100k citizens die from a preventable disease. Do not let the sociopaths throw us in that tiny pine box in a mighty small drop in a mighty dark plot, hastening the trip to our epilogue. Because every inch you give, they will take a mile and charge you by the hour. Never forget that.

[foxmain]

Anything for luigi players? Besides "l2wavedash" ofc. Also, where do you think he stands in a less competitive scene? In a tournament setting? Last question, do you think an aerial based playstyle can suit him well in spite of his aerial mobility? Considering how many moves auto cancel and just how quickly they come out, I think it can be okay. Thanks for your time. I love this blog! Great tech information for players just picking up the game ^_^ keep it up

thanks and i’m so glad you’re enjoying it! it’s really fun to do and i love when people ask questions. my response got pretty long so i put it under a break:

so yeah, luigi’s aerial mobility is really bad. i think you definitely still need his ground movement (ie wavedash) to find your spots, if you know what i mean? like if you stay in the air all the time you’ll get completely overwhelmed in the neutral game, just due to your limited movement. also, going into the air to begin with is usually a very big commitment for luigi, just because he takes so long to get back down (make sure to make good use of fast fall because his ff isn’t that bad). this isn’t as much of a problem on stages with platforms because you can move between platforms and the ground faster than you can get back to the ground after jumping, and platforms provide a lot of different ways of fighting across vertical space in general, allowing luigi to stay slippery above the ground. another difficulty with an aerial-based playstyle is that luigi’s recovery is pretty bad, and it becomes much worse when he loses his double jump. if you spend a lot of time in the air, you’re more likely to end up offstage without a jump.

that being said, his aerials do have pretty nice frame data (including generous autocancel windows on ~all~ of them) and decent hitboxes, which i would invite anyone to explore here. you can use auto-cancelled aerials to cover your landings pretty effectively. i think jab is a pretty good option (in part because it’s luigi’s fastest attack from standing) if you think they’ll try to run in and punish your landing.

luigi’s jabs are actually really good. both his first and second jabs have very little cooldown, making jab->grab a good option. the knockback is 83° for both hits, so without crouch or asdi down, you’ll knock your opponent into the air and force them to go through normal landing lag before they can act, which actually gives you frame advantage against some characters–a lot of characters can double jump out if they’re ready, though. this works really well if you hit them when they’re just above the ground. luigi’s first and second jabs also have very low, set knockback so he can jab reset at literally any percent. his third jab is kind of like a weaker but much easier version of captain falcon’s gentleman. if they have to tech after the third jab, you can wavedash forward and jab reset if they miss it, or tech chase if they get the tech.

anyways, you wanted to know about aerials! i think luigi can benefit a lot from an aerial playstayle–in the right situations. for example, many people will platform camp against luigi because they’re afraid of his wavedash. they’ll shield a lot because they don’t think luigi can apply good shield pressure. luigi’s slow fall speed is often a disadvantage because he can’t always get to the ground when he wants to, however, because he stays in the air for longer than people are accustomed to, he can often surprise his opponents by getting an extra aerial out before landing. many top-tier characters will be forced to land after hitting a high aerial on shield, so many players have the automatic reaction of acting out of shield as soon as that happens. luigi will almost always be able to do another aerial after a high aerial on shield.

the best way to do this is dair->nair. because nair comes out early and dair comes out late with a lot of shieldstun, this gives your opponent the smallest window to counterattack–about 13 frames. that might still seem like a lot, but unless they’ve practiced reacting against this combination (unlikely since it’s luigi), your opponent will probably spend most of that time making up their mind to attack. additionally, you can place yourself in an out-of-shield blindspot, where they can’t easily counterattack. dair’s low hitbox is good for this. depending on how you’re positioned, you may want to use a different aerial before nair, or a different aerial after dair, or a completely different combination of aerials altogether.

luigi’s slow air speed also allows you to be more precise when attempting to shield stab. this is especially good if your opponent starts holding their shield for longer in response to your multiple aerials, or if they’re just bad at angling their shield. you can shield stab from above with falling aerials or from below with rising aerials without even really having to try. luigi can also do very effective platform shield pressure with jabs and platform-cancelled nairs. to do a platform-cancelled nair, quickly press down while standing on a platform then immediately release the control stick to neutral and press A. if done correctly, you should land on the platform again after doing your nair. keep in mind that you have to hit your opponent or their shield for this to work, and don’t forget to l-cancel! if they don’t angle their shield down, you can delay the nair a bit to shield stab. if they do angle their shield down, you can shield stab with a sh fair.

a lot of luigi’s aerials have good combo potential. his nair has completely vertical knockback, with a knockback angle of 90°. the lower hitbox of his dair has priority and is a good kill move, hitting at the sakurai angle, which is 45° at medium to high knockback (>32), and 0° at low knockback. dair also has a higher hitbox around luigi’s waist that is a meteor smash. it isn’t usually a good kill move, but you can use it to hit your opponent back into a platform or the ground after sending them up. they’ll usually miss the tech, but tech chasing on a platform is pretty easy either way. you can hit them with an aerial of your choosing on the way down. luigi’s up air hits at 55°, which is a little more vertical than the standard 45° sakurai angle aerial, making follow ups a little easier. additionally, because it isn’t the sakurai angle, it still has the same knockback angle at low percent. fair and bair both hit at the sakurai angle. here’s a graph of knockback vs damage for luigi’s sakurai angle aerials + up air:

basically, up air is the best combo move out of these (higher knockback angles and lower knockback are usually good for combos–not always though). fair is the best horizontal aerial kill move below 50% (for if you’re edge guarding or near the edge of the stage) and dair is the best horizontal aerial kill move above 50%. luigi’s fsmash might be his best overall horizontal kill move, while his grounded up B is his strongest vertical kill move (it does about 4/5 the knockback in the air). luigi’s fsmash actually hits at a different angle depending on how you angle it: upward is 65°, forward is 55°, and downward is 45°. the higher-angled hits have slightly more knockback because upward deals 1% more damge than forward, which deals 1% more damage than downward. i think a downward-angled fsmash is overall the best horizontal kill move, because the angle makes a bigger difference than the slight change in knockback. however, if your opponent’s DI is really good, you can use upward-angled fsmash as a DI mix-up to get vertical kills.

luigi is kind of like sheik in that he has a lot of moves with mostly vertical knockback, including upsmash, dsmash, uptilt, dtilt, and nair. here’s a graph of knockback vs damage for those moves:

angles > 90° hit slightly behind, angles

a few other miscellaneous things: if you want to do the down B mash in your recovery, you have to set it up earlier in the stock by doing an aerial up B and landing before it ends. many luigis will do this when they start a stock. misfires randomly occur 1/8 of the time, and the reason why it seems like many luigi mains “know” it’s going to happen is that they prepare for both possibilites, for example, aiming for their opponent with the misfire while also aiming for a safe spot to continue their recovery if they get a regular side B. also, here’s the first hit frame of luigi’s dair (you have to hit with only the top hitbox to get the meteor smash):

i don’t play luigi so that’s about all i can think of. i know wavedashing is very important, so “l2wavedash” is always good advice. beyond consistent technical execution, you need to know when to wavedash, how far to wavedash, and how to control the length of your wavedash. learning to use wavedash more effectively is actually one of the ways top luigi players are trying to push the meta (the theoretical highest level of luigi’s tech chases only comes when you can choose the direction of your wavedash halfway through the input, immediately before the shoulder button press). without wavedash, luigi is painfully slow, and honestly a significantly worse character. the problem with wavedash is that it’s 15 frames where you have no control at all over your character and you’re completely vulnerable. luigi’s wavedash can be overwhelming at first, but once your opponents realize its weaknesses and how to exploit them, you’ll need to do a lot more than spam wavedash dsmash to get by in neutral (which is honestly a good option, don’t get me wrong–the two hits and the amount that luigi slides after hitting a shield with dsmash can make it a very tricky move, and of course it can lead to big combos). so keep thinking about your wavedashes, when they work and when they don’t, and how you can make them better. luigis’ dashdance is also pretty good, so make sure you use that as well.

I think luigi can do well at the top level and sometimes extremely well against mid-level players. a lot of people really hate playing against luigi in tournament because they’re not used to his wavedashes, auto cancels, combos, and nair combo breaks. i think luigi has a deep combo game and a deep neutral, but he doesn’t have quite as many options as most top-tier characters. i think he has to make good use of his aerials, but his limited aerial mobility puts him in danger every time he goes into the air. if you’re focused more on fun than competition, i think luigi is an excellent character. while he may lack some of the versatility in movement required to keep up at the highest level, he still has interesting combos and enough tools to keep the neutral game fresh even when he’s outmatched.

as usual, sorry for taking an eternity to respond, and i hope this was helpful!