By now most people are familiar with the infamous ledge handoff chain into forward-air spike that we see as a staple of Ice Climbers play even at this comparatively unoptimized stage in our meta. Many of you are probably less familiar with the idea of platform handoffs- where Ice Climbers can perform near-identical handoff combos (there are small quirks to prevent Nana dropping through the platform) and threaten massive punishes on platform camping opponents. Platform handoffs are more rarely seen in play because of Ice Climbers' poor ability to navigate platforms, but also because of the large amount of technical execution involved in a guaranteed platform handoff kill. On most stages, even the outer platform edges are recessed from the stage, eliminating the option of an f-throw fair spike finisher if the opponent DIs correctly. Inner platform edges and top platform edges have no possibility for a spike whatsoever. The Ice Climbers player must perfectly perform handoffs until the opponent is at kill percent and then choose a finishing move. This short post will explore various finishing methods to minimize the number of handoffs that the player will need to execute.

I set Yoshi to near-kill percent for all of these gfys for ease of recording, but remember that a grab on a platform should lead to a kill regardless of percent since you can always perform dash grab infinites in a pinch.

D-throw/Reverse Dsmash

Really really easy finisher that sends opponents behind you, making it a decent choice to finish handoffs on the inner platform edge. Wait for a moment for Nana to be actionable and just hit down on the c-stick. Popo will d-throw and Nana's downsmash will knock them out of the throw- providing that Nana's down smash is not staled. Since there is a high probability of Nana's dsmash being staled from a previous exchange and since the singular dsmash only does 6% this is a sub-optimal finisher but one that is very easy to execute.

Upthrow/Reverse Fsmash

A fun and stylish option that hits hard and mixes up your opponent's DI. Hit A while both Climbers are actionable to jab with Nana and pummel with Popo, and start charging an Fsmash while Popo is in lag. Upthrow, let it rip, and watch your opponent DI the complete wrong way into the blastzone. Pretty easy execution with practice but if your opponent is really on their game they might be able to mash out of it.

Dthrow/Upsmash

Fthrow/Upsmash is a bread and butter finisher for midstage grabs but since we have no room at the ledge to run forward and catch them out of the fthrow, we have to use dthrow instead. I wavedash down with Nana to trigger the down-throw input and then upsmash. Tricky on lighter characters frame-wise since they spend a shorter time in dthrow animation. Really good for stages with small ceilings or for top platform handoffs.

Serbian Handoff Reversal

Serbian Film's discovery of a 'platform CuckHold' proved to be pretty susceptible to mashing in practice, but using a single rep of it to face the handoffs towards the nearest blast zone is a solid and fairly easy option. Nana's AI will automatically fthrow back to you on small enough platforms (Yoshi's and PS2) making this a reliable option. On larger platforms it transforms back into a 1-frame input and becomes more dicey, so I'd go for other options. Situational based on your positioning after landing the grab since this is an option to use at the beginning of the handoffs rather than at the end.

Serbian/Upsmash

This is more for fun than anything else. Normally when you perform a Serbian on the other side of the platform, Nana won't throw them back to you until you walk into her control zone. It just so happens that when Popo charges upsmash, his hand passes into that control zone and Nana is compelled to throw back to you. Tacks on a ton of percent with very very little execution difficulty.

thanks 4 reading as always n take care of ur hands