Matchup Thread Export: Marth

MARTH

DIFFICULTY: EVEN - 55:45
CHAINGRAB: YES (Normal CG only)​

bschung said:

Observations drawn from personal experience, on a few of the things that've been discussed so far:

Chaingrabbing Marth - Practice it. The timing is harder than it is for other characters but it's absolutely feasible, and certainly not "inhuman." However, you can easily fail if the stage is not perfectly flat. Beware of the downhill of Lylat's tilt. Or parts of Delfino that are sloped or rounded. End your chaingrab when you reach that type of terrain, or you will get dolphin slashed. Do chaingrab him across the stage to a wall where you can dthrow infinite.

Marth's grab game - It's useful in a few situations, whereas DDD's is useful in many situations. 0-30% (fthrow x3 fsmash) and it gets you offstage or on the ledge. Just be careful of it when you're at 0 or low percent. Later on in your stock his grabs are less to worry about except if he tries to use it as one of his options to move you towards a wall, where he can DOWN TILT LOCK you. (costs you your stock, refreshes his moveset, etc)

Marth on the stage, DDD on the ledge - this is the worst position that can occur in this matchup. Never retreat to the ledge just to regenerate your shield, I think that's a terrible idea. Don't ever let him pressure you to the ledge. Shield-grab his dancing blade, waddle toss his fair-zoning. If you retreat and he chases, throw out a bair behind you.

Marth's recovery - gimpable. Sure, be careful of getting hit, but you can do it if you're smart about it. Don't let him live to high percent, this is pretty much DDD's most important advantage (that DDD himself will live to high percent). Send him offstage far and low rather than far and high if you can, so as to limit his return options more.

DDD's recovery - very harrassable. Conserve jumps if you can before using your up-B. Mix it up or else he's going to knock you offstage perpetually. One thing I personally like to use is to perfectly space the up-B such that you land immediately at the apex of your jump. To me this is easiest on Yoshi's Island. He can still punish this if he expects it though.

DDD's bair vs. Marth's fair - use a retreating bair, rather than an approaching bair. Harass him with waddles and ftilt to bait out a chase, kick him in the face as you run. If he's just fair zoning and you're not in its immediate range, just throw a gordo, it's safe.

Shieldbreaker - You may be tempted to punish it, but you probably shouldn't as its ending lag is quite short, and DDD is slow horizontally. Also note that unless it is FULLY charged (in which case your shield breaks) it will always take away 80% of your shield, no matter how much or how little it was charged. So attempting the powershield is somewhat safe if you have a full shield, as long as the marth doesn't charge it all the way. It's a smaller issue than everything else mentioned here, but if you slip up I suppose the results can be disastrous.

Stages - Ban battlefield. I'd strike Lylat just because of the uneven floor. Final Destination is your friend because it is large and therefore less likely you'll have to be pressured to the ledge. Castle Siege if you can manage the chaingrab, but beware of chaingrabbing on part 1 and 3 where it's not perfectly flat. Halberd if you want to abuse a low ceiling. Be careful of walls, you can use them for a free stock, but so can he.

DDD does have the advantage because if you both play it right, DDD lives to higher percent while marth can be gimped. You're forced to play it smart, and patiently, being either overly aggressive or defensive at the wrong times can be punished. And you really have to be careful of stages. There's too little room for mistakes. Because of all that...[...]

hope it helps the discussion. anyone please chime in if you disagree with anything here (except for whether or not you can Chaingrab marth. that one's set in stone.)

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Jupz said:

Ok, well I decided to write a Marth summary in case you wanted to use it. If you don't want to use it thats ok I took it all from what people wrote with the discussion, with a tiny bit of personal experience.

Marth Summary

This matchup can be easy if you know how to handle marths but can be difficult otherwise. Marth has a terrible recovery, and you can abuse this by CGing him to the edge and attempting to gimp him with bairs. Although his UP+B has good priority so watch out for that. Also notice that sometimes his UP+B will hit you if you are standing on the ledge and he UP+B's into the ledge. The marth's spacing has to be near perfect or he will get easily punished by DDD and his large grab range, while he has trouble punishing DDD for moves. Ftilt works great to stop his spaced wall of Fairs and Nairs and his Dancing blade. Shield grab his Dancing Blade. Most of the time if they see they are going to get grabbed they will stop the dancing blade on the 1st or 3rd swing, but it is still possible to grab them, although beware the down (green) version can shield poke if your shield is already low.

Also note that Marth has a chaingrab on DDD with fthrow up to around 150% (not sure, this is what Gates wrote in the Marth discussion but I think you can easily get out of it by then, can someone confirm). At 0% he can Fthrow-> tippered Fsmash and he can spike you out of the chaingrab until around 12% However DDD gets thrown a fair way forward so Marth can only get around 6-8 grabs in on FD assuming he starts at the end, which is around 24%. Although Ftilt is great for stopping his approaches it won't stop all of them so don't rely on it or spam it. You're going to have to SCG well this matchup or marth can Up+B out of it. If you predict it however you can upsmash him while his in his helpless state, or regrab and Dthrow for more mindgames. Marth is the lightest character you can chaingrab so at higher percents if you predict the UP+B, Utilt or Usmash it, or pull out the Jet hammer.

As mentioned before a great way to kill Marth is by gimping him with wall of pain Bairs and then edgehogging to make sure. You don't even have to send him out that far to kill him and the chaingrab gives you an opportunity to get him offstage.

A common move for Marths to pressure shields is SH double Fair -> Dancing Blade down version (green). This will punish you if you attempt to grab after the Double Fair. You can also outcamp Marth but remember that he is fast and if you throw a waddle dee when he his too close he can punish you for it. I doubt marth could get you far enough off the stage to be force you to use your UP+B because of his bad recovery but when you must use it be careful and try to sweetspot the ledge. Marth can easily punish your UP+B with Fair or Nair, Dancing Blade, or Usmash as you're coming down. Alternatively you could occasionally try to land your UP+B on the stage right at the apex of your jump which might be unexpected.

DDD's chaingrab gives him more control over the match as he can either chaingrab the Marth off the edge and attempt a gimp or go into Mindgames and try to predict if the Marth will use UP+B. One of the most dangerous places for DDD in this matchup is the ledge. Marth can cover all his ledge options with ease and it can be difficult for DDD to get back on the stage. If you're on a high percent or winning on stock you can jump -> fastfall inhale from the ledge which most Marths won't be expecting and swallowcide.

Don't always punish shield breaker as its ending lag is quite short. Unless it is fully charged it will always take away 80% of your shield so watch out. Also remember it can be used as a recovery method as he gains a lot of horizontal momentum after it. When using Bair, use a retreating Bair instead of an approaching one as it will clank with Marths Fair.

Good stages: Final Destination, Castle Siege, Halberd, Pokemon Stadium 1
Final Destination gives you good room to chaingrab and lets you slow the match down to the pace you want. The lip makes it good for stage spikes as well. Castle siege is good for walk offs on the second stage but beware of chaingrabs on the first and third stage where it is not flat. Halberd has a low ceiling so its good for killing him early. PS1 is great for DDD as he can chaingrab marth to a wall and infinite him there, though beware that Marth can chaingrab you to a wall and infinite you with Dtilt so beware of that.

Ban: Battlefield, Brinstar, Yoshi's Island, Norfair.
Marth can punish your UP+B with the platforms on these stages and can generally abuse the platforms better then you can.

(Dunno what other stages to ban, need help here )

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CRASHiC said:

My first win in tournament was against a Marth.
I was confused when he counterpicked Pokemon Stadium 1, anyone know why he did this?

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o-Serin-o said:

Marth is easy. We gimp him easy and punish him hard with Fsmash if he thinks we will CG him.

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bschung said:

Fsmash? Do you mean, if he mashes up-B in hopes that you mess up the CG, then up-B's at nothing when you randomly stop CGing?

Marth's walk is fast enough that he can opt to walk away in case you mess up (just tilt the left analog stick away from ddd, instead of mashing up-B). From there he can punish your whiffed grab with things other than up-B. If your Marth holds Walk instead of mashing up-B, he won't fall for the fsmash trick I'd think by now smart Marths aren't going to reliably mash up-B every time you cg.

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Jupz said:

What is it? Fthrow->Dair? I never knew about that

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o-Serin-o said:

That what feigning is. Going in to feign the CG and shield the hit. Then punish with a Fsmash.

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CRASHiC said:

My first win in tournament was against a Marth.
I was confused when he counterpicked Pokemon Stadium 1, anyone know why he did this?

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o-Serin-o said:

If that is the case, Marths would think Up-B would space enough and do enough damage to keep us at bay. Walking off would just give us enough time to regrab if they do nothing but walk off

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o-Serin-o said:

I would like to start a rediscussion to make this matchup 60:40 D3

• We can out-range Marth with most of our moves.

• Offstage, we completely destroy him; if we WoP him, its GG.

• Marth has no surprise kill moves over us. It's a tipped Nair, a tipped Fsmash, or Bair.

• We can mindgame Marths into Fsmash since they typically stay in the air; I've landed quite a few Fsmashes in the past IIRC.

• Stage-wise, we beat him. He has BF, we have Halberd, PS1, FD, SV, Rainbow Cruise

• Necessary bumping was actually necessary.

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• This is true, though many of her moves still outrange our grabs.
• glhf trying to WoP Marth offstage. If you tried to do that you'd probably eat a Dolphin Slash since there's no hitstun in Brawl and she can upB before we can get a second aerial out.
• We have no surprise kill moves on Marth. It's utilt, dsmash, and Dededecide. All our other kill moves (fair, fsmash, usmash, Jet hammer) are less likely to occur since they're slow enough for Marth to predict or they're only good as kill moves if they're fresh (bair) or just random (Gordo).
• You can mindgame anyone into fsmash roughly equally so that's really a non-argument.
• I agree with this.
• I also agree with this.

ZEDD said:

Do you guys know about the whole concept on how Dedede can abuse Marth's landing lag in this match-up?

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CRASHiC said:

Don't worry about it Zedd. Any knowledge at all shared in this thread is helpful, because some DDDs will come up as novices, and might need to know this information. Please, share.

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stingers135 said:

yeah thanks for the post

interesting about the sv 0-death, how situational is it exactly?

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stingers135 said:

yeah thanks for the post

interesting about the sv 0-death, how situational is it exactly?

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Gheb_01 said:

Good post, CPU although I think it's only 55/45 on neutrals. If you take CP stages into account the match-up becomes 6/4 for D3. You can CP him @ Rainbpw Cruise, Frigate Orpheon, Delphino Plaza, PS1 and possibly even Halberd while Marths has no good CP stage against D3 and he can only ban 1 stage.
The match-up is 55/45 ON D3s WORST STAGE but in a realistic scenario aka a tourney that involves CP stages that match-up is 6/4 in my book.

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TlocCPU said:

I feel like I've perfected this matchup so here is my writeup.

The approach:
You outcamp marth! Hurray! So that means you can sit back and throw waddle dees and wait, right?
WRONG. NOT HURRAY.
I feel camping marth is the WORST way to play this matchup. I play with MikeHAZE a lot, and something I have learned is the more time you spend standing in one spot the better chance you have of eating a 50% marth combo. Marth pressures Dedede extremely well, and unless you're facing a random marth, you are NEVER going to get the grab by camping. The BEST way to play this matchup is to approach marth. But what is the best way to go about this?

-Dash to pivot short hop back air
If you have marth in the habit of thinking it's ok to jump and attack your shield, they're about to be in a world of hurt. Dedede's bair COMPLETELY outprioritizes marth's fair, and either trades hits or flat out beats marth's Nair depending on what portion of the hitbox you hit. Bair is the most useful move in this matchup, notice I didn't say the chaingrab.
-Ftilting
This is a great way to approach as well. Walk towards marth, shield his fairs, and throw out ftilts. You outrange him and it makes marth players want to jump over it. Once you have them jumping you get to use your bairs again!
-Going for the grab
You have a very little chance of getting the grab against a perfect marth like Mike or Neo, but this approach is still very important because it makes marth back up towards the ledge. The further back you have pushed marth to the edge of the stage, the higher chance they're going to have to jump, which means you get to bair the crap out of them again. So how exactly does this approach work? Simple. Run forward and stop to shield over and over. It takes practice but you NEED to get in the habit of powershielding marth's fairs. DON'T shieldgrab his Fair or Nair unless he lands it right in front of you without spacing. If marth doesn't space you grab, if he doesn't you keep running. A lot of marths assume that the dedede player is going to shield grab, so they will throw out an fsmash in tipper range after spacing a fair or nair. You can powershield this too, and if you're close enough it's a grab. If not, WATCH OUT BECAUSE THAT MARTH IS SPAMMING UP B I GUARANTEE YOU. If you shield the up B you get a free fsmash . SOMETIMES, Marth will misuse his 2 jumps when too close to the edge, and he has no room to space your grab, this is the ONLY time in the entire matchup it is safe for you to go for the shield grab on marth's aerial.

Marth's approach to beating your bair:
There are a few different things Marth can do about it, he's not completely defenseless. If he is used to you jumping and going for the bair, he can either dodge it, or go for a punish.
-Side B
I LOVE when marths try this. Always remember that you, the dedede main, have multiple jumps. Instead of landing after your bair, jump again and dair! If they go for a side B, or even a grab, they eat a dair. If they know the dair is coming and they shield it, jump and do ANOTHER one, they usually won't have enough shield to outlast a bair AND 2 dairs, it completely ***** the chance of him running in to punish, which leads to his other option.
-Wait and react
The MikeHAZE. He's going to wait and see exactly how many jumps you use, and then he's going to try to hit you as you land. This is a pretty effective way to punish dedede's bair approach for the most part, but around half of the time you WILL be able to powershield whatever he does. Smart marths won't side B you because of the chance of you shield grabbing it. This is why you need to do what I mentioned earlier and mix up your approach so that marth CAN'T wait on the floor for you to jump in fear of getting grabbed or ftilted.

Marth's Chaingrab at 0%:
This is the scariest part of this matchup. You CANNOT let this happen against a good marth. Instead, you can play the same way you would play a falco. Either platform camp until you're above 12% or try the multi-jump approach. Since marth is going to be thinking of the grab you can fight them the same way they fight you. Make them THINk they can grab you then make them eat a dair. Often I'll just run right up to marth on a new stock and full hope dair. You can also pivot a SH bair and use your other jumps to dair much like you would against a marth trying to run in and side B. However, if you do get grabbed, you'e in a world of hurt.
-Tippered fsmash
Not only does this put you offstage but you are now at 30%. As mentioned by other players already, being offstage/on the ledge against marth is the WORST possible place you can be. You will take way more damage than you should.
-Tippered Dair
The first time a marth ever did this to me I was surprised as I never even thought of it. I began to jump back and he came down and spiked me again, I got 0-deathed off of that grab. However, knowing that, I have to take the safe approach and up B back immediately, giving marth a chance to destroy your recovery. You won't get back to the stage till around 70% average. That makes this chaingrab just as deadly as falcos, DO NOT GET GRABBED AT 0!

The offstage game where marth keeps it an even matchup:
It's just as good for both characters in this matchup. If you've been hit offstage, you need to reverse jump! Remember what I told you about dedede's bair completely beating the fair? It applies here. Try to space it appropriately so you don't get hit and you should make it back. If you're recovering from above, DO NOT LAND NEXT TO MARTH EVER. Everything he has beats your swallow and dedede is EXTREMELY easy bait for a tippered fsmash. Do whatever you have to, but space your landing.
As for knocking marth offstage, use your bairs, but exercise caution. I have played Mike an uncountable amount of times, and I have never gimped him. I have ALWAYS taken damage or even been killed myself instead!
55:45 Dedede IMO


Edit: Using my approach to this matchup, BATTLEFIELD is actually your best stage. Surprising right?

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mikeHAZE said:

i
am
going
to
****
you
with
my
sword

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