Bowser's Ledgehop Aerial Edgecancel Regrab

Bowser's aerials are really slow and clunky, so if you are able to cancel their lag, you're usually best off doing it. He already has a fairly strong ledge game due to his fairly good ledgedash and amazing low percent ledge getup attack, but pushing that advantage even further is necessary to competing in today's meta. One of his best ways to push the advantage near the edge is to utilize his ability to perform ledgehop aerial edgecancel regrabs.

With this technique, Bowser is able to put out a fully intangible aerial hitbox, then regrab the edge, thus suffering almost no landing lag whatsoever. This can have a myriad of practical applications, like using Fair to push people away who are trying to contest your space at the ledge, putting out a quick intangible Bair hitbox for easy gimps, or covering multiple options with an edgeguard by covering high with a hitbox then covering low with a ledgehog.

Performing the input consistently can be very difficult, and thus finding a setup where you have leniency despite Melee's inherent inconsistencies due to controller polling of analog inputs was vital. The one that I found works with Bair, Fair, and Uair. It can work with Dair as well, but there's less leniency, and there's only one frame where the stick is allowed to be in a neutral position where Nair would be able to be done, so I wouldn't consider it a very humanly-doable option. Luckily this doesn't matter much because Fair and Bair are the attacks on the edge that have the most utility.

The input works very similarly to the Ledgehop Aerial Uspecial Regrab that was described in an earlier blog post. I would recommend having mastered that technique first, as it will let you survive where you would otherwise SD with the edgecancel regrab.

The input works like this: First thing is you have to fall from ledge immediately after the 8 mandatory cliffcatch frames that start any edgehog. This works with a fastfall, a normal fall, or a C stick drop from the ledge, so it's very lenient. Then, doublejump after the first frame of your fall, and make sure you're drifting inwards with the doublejump. After drifting in for exactly 6 frames, you need to switch to drifting fully out. You have a frame of leniency here to account for controller polling of analog inputs being very inconsistent, as long as you're fully drifting in on frame 6 and out on frame 8, it doesn't matter where you are during frame 7 (Theoretically, this is where you could input a Nair if you are perfect). Then, just continue to hold out until you hit the edge, then you can fastfall after the edgecancel to get a quicker regrab if you want.

There's two ways to miss the edgecancel with this technique, by falling off the stage by drifting too far off the stage, or landing on the stage too far to edgecancel the end lag. You should account for both of these by learning to Uspecial regrab if you fall off stage and option select the edgecancel by L-cancelling your aerial no matter what, respectively. Although accounting for mistakes by covering them in-game isn't always the best mentality, as it's usually to just account for tech flubs by practicing the proper execution even further, there's no actual downside to doing either of these inputs just in case you do mess up, so I'd recommend learning them.

Here's the exacts on the frame data for the technique:

Ledgehop Aerial Edgecancel Regrab
1:Mandatory Cliffcatch Frames (8 Frames Total)
2:Mandatory Cliffcatch Frames
3:Mandatory Cliffcatch Frames
4:Mandatory Cliffcatch Frames
5:Mandatory Cliffcatch Frames
6:Mandatory Cliffcatch Frames
7:Mandatory Cliffcatch Frames
8:Mandatory Cliffcatch Frames
9:Fall (1 Frame Total)
10:Doublejump (Begin drifting inwards) (1 Frame Total)
11:Aerial Attack
12:Aerial Attack
13:Aerial Attack
14:Aerial Attack
15:Aerial Attack
16:Aerial Attack (Aerial drift crossover leniency frame)
17:Aerial Attack (Must be holding outwards towards ledge)
18:Aerial Attack (First active frame of Fair)
19:Aerial Attack (First active frame of Bair)
20:Aerial Attack
21:Aerial Attack (Final active frame of Fair)
22:Aerial Attack
23:Aerial Attack
24:Aerial Attack
25:Aerial Attack
26:Aerial Attack
27:Aerial Attack (Final active frame of Bair)
28:Aerial Attack
29:Aerial Attack
30:Aerial Attack
31:Aerial Attack
32:Aerial Attack (First active frame of Uair)
33:Aerial Attack
34:Aerial Attack
35:Aerial Attack (Final active frame of Uair)
36:Aerial Attack
37:Aerial Attack (Last Frame of Intangibility)
38:Aerial Attack
39:Aerial Attack
40:Aerial Attack
41:Aerial Attack (Fair/Bair) / Landing Lag (Uair)
42:Landing Lag
43:Landing Lag
44:Airborne
45:Airborne
46:Fastfall
47:Fastfall
48:Mandatory Cliffcatch Frames (Same as frame 1)