Zelda’s Neutral Air is a weak, strange, and chaotic move in her kit that can counter your opponent mid air, juggle, or do “pop ups” with it’s first hit. Zelda’s “Magic Spin” rotates approximately 5 and a half times. The first two active frames begin at frame 6, and hits every other two frames for a total of 6 hits. However, the hitbox is strange; per fightcore the visual hitboxes display that not only are the hits on her hands but also within her body, and on her head with different launch directions.
The first hit of NAir is important. With a short hop, you can perform a falling NAir and get a single hit that can be converted into a dash attack, uptilt, grab, and more. It’s also useful as a follow up to a sourspot kick, keeping your opponent airborne and giving you the opportunity to kick again. The most experienced Zelda players have used this aerial as a powerful tool to string together these moves to net a kill.
NAir is also useful for shield pressure. Locking your opponent in shield can sometimes reduce the shield size just enough to give you room to poke with the NAir itself, or cross up safely to grab, or tilt. Maybe even shield break!
Rising NAir is useful when your are underneath plat and your opponent has missed a tech, or can be used as a tool tech chase. It’s possible to juggle fast fallers more than once this way.
Center NAir is when Zelda’s center body hitbox connects with your opponent and launches them straight up above you, giving little to no room for reaction or SDI. You can immediately convert this to upsmash on fast fallers, and players who don’t SDI or act out of tumble.
NAir is also useful for reversals. If you are hit off of a platform at lower percents, or end up slightly above your opponent from a weak hit, you can interrupt them and convert to kicks, tilts, and dash attacks. If you have a stored double jump and are recovering close to stage, you can quickly execute a NAir, drifting into your opponent. With bad SDI and a good first hit, you can launch them the opposite direction and catch them off guard, confirming a kill at ledge.
The Shinzou NAir, named after Norway’s best Zelda player, is used as a conversion tool after a DAir connects mid air. Most commonly seen on Final Destination, this is a “chump check” scenario, where your opponent could be actionable and could also tech, but a noteworthy gamble and flashy combo. Since the opponent fails to tech the meteor, they bounce into an early hit falling NAir, get popped up, and immediately kicked, grabbed, or even NAir’d again.
Counter NAir. Surprisingly, NAir can directly counter some character special moves. Examples provided include Ganondorf’s dragon kick (DownB), and Falco’s firefox (UpB). ((It’s assumed this would also work on the first few frames of Falcon and Fox, respectively.))
Similar to Marth, Zelda can also NAir while recovering from a ledge hang. As seen with other examples, NAir will likely “pop up” your opponent, which can combo into upsmash. Again, it’s also valuable as a tool for shield pressure, and cross ups here.
Special thanks to Quicksilver, one of melees most passionate and greatest Zelda players, for the montage of fantastic clip examples granting the ability to author this page.
Featured players: Quicksilver, Seedos, Pine, Rienne, Shinzou(Equinox), anna(Azote).
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