Neutral:

• The general gist is smart & calculated play. Patience is key.
  • Push your way in carefully by staying grounded or as close to the ground as possible, & utilize Kirby’s crouch to make yourself harder to hit.
  • Use your tilts to clank their disjoints & look to bait them into whiffing something & punishing them.
• Lots of dash dancing/universal movement to bait & punish.
  • Get them to pre-emptively whiff an aerial or something within close range & punish them for it.
  • You won’t always be able to do this if your opponent spaces correctly. The best you can do is be mindful of you & your opponent’s positioning to get a better idea for when you can act.
• Get a feel for their playstyle. Hyper-aggressive swordies can get punished pretty hard by use, passive swordies is where Kirby may struggle.
  • Shield utilization is CRUCIAL! Just don’t use it too much, especially against characters w/ shield breaking moves.
• Swordies are in the air a ton. Being able to anti-air them is key.
• Mix them up w/ an occasional Final Cutter.
  • It’s even better when you’re on a platform since you can mix them up by either landing on stage or on the platform.

Advantage:

• If they get launched out, you have enough jumps to be pretty aggressive offstage, any single hit can kill them.
  • This is character dependent, of course. For instance, you can 100% apply this advice towards characters like Roy or Aegis, but against Sora or Ike, not so much.
  • Additionally, they also won’t be likely to attack you when you chase them offstage, otherwise they may not be able to recover.
• Ledgetrap them hard. Don’t forget about this & just go for edgeguards all the time.