Weekly Match-up Discussion~ #3: Marth

Week 3! @__@

Decided to cover Marth this time. Most say he's one of the toughest match ups put there for Luigi. Marth's range (Always an issue for Luigi) and overall air speed make it really tough for him.
But there are some people that feel this match up isn't as bad as people make it out to be.
So let's see where this discussion goes.


What to think about.

- His reach is really annoying. What are the best ways to get in close?
- What moves should we avoid using here?
- Getting past Marth's edge-guarding is a pain in the *** sometimes. Can we effectively get back on stage from the ledge?
- Marth's up b, killer of attack strings. Should we always be cautious of it?


Here's a great way to discuss match ups if you want to use it. Mentioned by Teneban.

1) First thoughts
2) What followups after a jab do we have ?
3) Approaching
4) Defense & camping
5) Edge game
6) The KO stuff
7)Stage stuff

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I dunno if I want to say much about Marth since it's pretty depressing on paper.

Although yeah, his Up-B. he can Up-B out of Jab combos as I recall. Mainly you'll have to learn your opponent and see if they have good reaction time. If they try to Up-B a lot, then of course, you should try to learn to catch on by shielding, and then if he doesn't do anything, then you grab.

DB is his best move, so it's important to know how to punish it. The easiest way to punish it is by waiting until the third hit and shieldgrabbing. You can also Up-B out of shield at this point too provided you are in range.

As for getting in his range...honestly, I dunno. You have to bait him. Tornado of course is a good followup out of bait. F-air's are alright in terms of range and are pretty safe in terms of speed and ending lag. I'd avoid using B-airs for spacing, since they're kinda laggier in the air.

As for Marth's edgeguarding, getting past his offstage game isn't necessarily hard. It's a bit of a prediction/observation war, but there is an option for working around everything he does provided you don't use Tornado or midair jump prematurely. Now...getting up from the ledge...that's a bit harder since he can control a LOT of space. Personally me, I usually find it more reliable to find a way to recover as high as possible. This is more likely to get you back onstage, although you probably will eat something on the way down as you air dodge.

through experience it's 6/4 marth or 55:45 marth

but realistically in high level play, l'd say 65:35 or maybe 6/4.

l only beat bad marths (except minty whose best marth in NY <3) most marths don't know how to play marth right.. except for the known marths (duhlol)..

if you got good powershielding skills, it should be a fun matchup for you. but if it's a marth who is REALLY good, then dont' get cocky. Punishing and staying inside is your goal

Okay, speaking about a Marth player who knows this match-up, you can guarantee you're in for a long hard match.

The gold thing about this match-up is that you only have to find your way through the hellish defenses of Marth twice in a best case scenario. Once to rack up damage to an UpB percent, and again to get the UpB. If you're able to locate noticeable holes in their counter-defense, you don't have to rush the kill moves, since you should be able to get in there more easily.

I think this match-up is 70:30. As stupid as this sounds, the reason I like that number is because when you're going up against a Marth who is playing extremely counter-defensive to your regular bait and counter game, you have roughly a 20% of getting in there for racking up damage. Once the Marth hits 60%, you can GUARANTEE he will lock & load, and go all out in keeping you at bay, so I feel like around this time, you have a 10% of getting in there for the kill.

Now this is where I like to point out that despite my harsh numbers for Luigi on this match-up, I do believe he can win this. Just because you can't get inside Marth 9 times out of 10 doesn't mean you have to take damage for trying. PATIENCE is what gets you inside of him. Luigi players are known for rushing matches and trying to get things over with as quickly as possible, which is why I think Marth can really **** Luigi players. You have to completely slow down your game and be 200 times more cautious. It's like when you're cruising on a highway at +100 mph, then you get in a small town loaded with children running around. You have to almost completely stop and keep your eyes peeled. Punish small mistakes with small moves, then when you see the chance to go in, pick up the pace and do the ****.

STAY AWAY FROM THE LEDGE. A Marth who knows this match-up won't try to gimp you much, he'll zone at the edge and bat your jumps and nado away until he can edgehog, aerial and edgehog again your now weak recovery. Sometimes, I recovery what would normally be stupidly high, but only because I won't eat 60-80%/ 1 stock from being hit on the ledge. Normally, a Marth would love to juggle you, but zoning on the edge in this match-up is much EASIER and much more effective. B-reversing and smart dodging is a must.

There's no set style or set of moves to use in this match-up. It depends on who you're playing and how they adapt. This is a very interesting match-up because both sides have to continuously adapt and change their style to avoid getting destroyed. The bad part is that it's a ton easier for Marth to adapt and shut down Luigi then vice-versa. It is do-able though.

Stage choices: In my experience, any neutral you're good on, Marth is better on. If you do that neutral stage striking thing, don't worry about your favorite stage. Focus on eliminating your opponent's strong points before bringing yours into play. You should already be in a focused, adapting mindset, so the first stage shouldn't matter for you. What SHOULD matter is taking them out of their comfort zone. The more insecure they feel, the easier the match-up becomes.

To sum it up, slow down and stay calm. A Marth will try to rush you down with a fast, counter defensive blockade, and if you can keep your cool and stay slow but ready, the match-up is still winnable. Stay clear of the edges and don't be afraid to overdo your recovery. Use every single hint of knowledge you have to get you through. This is the classic example of 'knowing your opponent and knowing yourself'. If you can know what your weaknesses are and how your opponent can punish them, and you make adjustments to cover those, this match-up is already won.

im officially going MK vs marth! thanks zhao!

Power shield or die. Play donkey kong.

Dumb but winnable match up. Like most characters that **** weegee. He has the option of running away from you the whole match while racking up damage and killing you. His sword is bigger than your whole body and since Luigi is so slow in the air its super easy to sweetspot him with the tip of it.

I think A2ZOMG was saying this but yea bait his Up + B. If you jab and he up + b's you... SHIELD, WAIT FOR HIM TO FALL AND SHORYUKEN HIM U NOOB!! If he is not doing that go straight to up + b. He can't shield up +b after jab most times so IMO its your saving grace in this matchup. But yea this is all if you can ever reach him.

TheMann's match up ratio's

Umm 60:40 Marth

and 90:10 Luigi (If marth doesn't use his sword) Fight me like a man!! LETS A GO!!!

Wow did that seem like a bitter post? Sry still recovering from a party last night XD

just suggestion:

we should do multiple characters at once, like 2 or 3 at a time, so we can get things alot faster.. besides the fact our board usually takes a really long time to get these kind things done... and most of it is sometimes straightforward... like diddy kong and olimar would be nice at the same time lol..

Yo, check out my first post for the wall of text on Marth. It's kind of repeating itself over and over, but eh, hope you guys find it helpful.

u dont even have to do all the work DTP lol, i mean it's not like your in a rush or neither of any of us, you have all the time in the world anyways -_- lolz.

best exp for a luigi to fight marth is...

play a little neo on wifi. kk.

I really wish I had more to add to this matchup than I do. Mostly it's because I don't do this matchup outside of friendlies. I even have the best marth in the region in this state and we're buds. But for real, it's such a bad idea to do this **** that I play my crappy donkey kong instead.

Things I do know.

STAY AWAY FROM THE LEDGE. On paper (theorybrawl that is), grabbing the ledge, with marth at the ready, is a stock. There's no reason, as far as movesets are concerned, that a good marth should EVER let you back on to the stage from this position. Now we all know that this isn't the case in practice, but that's just because everyone is human and can make mistakes and be influenced by faints and switches. If you find yourself in this position you need to be completely unpredictable. Take notice of his position and figure out what he expects of you, and do the thing that makes absolutely the least sense. If you do something completely ridiculous you'll still get hit half the time, but thats an improvement.

In a matchup against a campy, competent marth that knows the matchup well enough it's not uncommon for you to take like half your damage from the ledge.

The way to recover in this matchup is as follows. Do your normal momentum cancel routine, generally fair to missile, then immediately double jump and cyclone. Get as high as possible, because it gives you more options and allows you to be less predictable. Then, spam tapped missiles. Don't charge them. The taps give you a chance for a misfire, and misfires are unpredictable, therefore they throw people off. Throwing people off is what you want the very most since luigi is balls slow and easy to juggle in the air.

If you get a misfire and are still very high, but over the stage, feel free to missle too far, or back or any way you want. Your goal is to be weird and confusing. Once you come back onto the screen your goal is to TOUCH THE STAGE at all costs. You absolutely do not want to be hit to one side or the other before you hit the ground. This would put you in a TERRIBLE pickle, since you'd be off to one side, probably pretty low, with no double jump and NO RISING CYCLONE of any sort. In other words, risk even a SURE hit, maybe even a free KO, just to touch the ground. Because maybe they'll **** up and miss or choose the wrong move. If you get faired out of your recovery at this point you just die.

This, for instance, is the proper (IMO) way to recovery against any character that can shut down your low recovery. Marth, mk, kirby (KIRBY!), clever gws, specific warios, sheik, or a fox who REALLY knows what he's doing. Kirby ***** tornado hard, just about as hard as mk. And the only fox I know that's figured it out is OS', but fox easily has the potential to absolutely force a high recovery. The best fox I know of, zeton, doesn't know about it. But then again he doesn't know the matchup.


Now, the reason I don't like this matchup is because you have to play so much better, work so much harder, and be so much more PRECISE than the marth in question to beat him. And precision is a tough nut to crack, since marth's whole game revolves around that concept. You MUST predict the fairs and powershield them. After that you may enter brawl. Paper rock scissors is the name of this game, and in this matchup you're only allowed to play after you've powershielded one of their aerials. From that point you have a few options that work, a few aerials or moves that beat his aerials for speed, or the option to guess a no-aerial, and attack his landing. Also if you correctly predict a nair, you can just tornado, and it eats everything else. If you're poifectly spaced, and he throws out an empty fair, you can tornado under, either to try and hit him or (better idea) just get to the other side.

The real problem with this game is that after he finds out how to get past your fireballs (and trust me, if you're not getting *****, he'll have time) every aerial you DONT powershield either hits you or pushes you closer to the ledge. You really can't get by him if he's doing his **** right, and you just get closer and closer to massive damage. He crowds you to the small part of the stage wehre you have no reliable options to leave except the edge. Have fun with that one.

Overall at least 70/30 marth. Since all numbers are subjective, I look at 7030 as "a matchup you're better off trying with an inferior secondary with a better matchup". Bad enough that your expertice with your main won't help enough to get the edge back.

I have two tips, things that work.

JUGGLE. Marth is one of the easier characters to juggle, he doesn't fall that fast and his airdodge is bad. On top of that his dair is ****ty and small and slow. Because of this marths are reluctant to use dair and most of the time will airdodge. If you catch one in the air, jump up and growl, they'll airdoge and you get a hit. Just be far enough below them to not get airdodged through.

At all costs, bait the dolphin slash. The first time they dolphin slash you out of a jab cancel, start jab to shielding. Do it half the time if you have to. Get that **** out. If you get lucky and shield one, go for ****ing broke. This is your shot, do not waste it. Keep in mind, they use the same mindgames you do for missed upbs. Don't for a second expect them to land where you want them to. If they have an option to land on a platform or on the stage, hit them out of the air. Also keep in mind that your shoryuken works in the air, just overlap and input, **** does like 26 damage and kills marth at 85ish.

Last tip, if you find yourself forced to recover low (or you just forgot) and the marth actually leaves the stage, waiiiiiiiit. Wait some more, wait until its just about too late. Either they'll chicken out and jump back up or they'll do an aerial out of guessing. If they do the dair, just cyclone up and kill them. It's nearly certain to gimp, just remember to stay on the edge. If you're below 80ish, you can recover from a DS stage spike. It's worth the risk, unless you know that **** really well, then just roll when appropriate.

FOREALS last tip. Play donkey kong. It's way better. Against marths that know the matchup, they hate it. Against marths that don't know the matchup, it blows their mind that someone can consistantly outrange them, then they panic and lose badly.

Holy cow this turned into a wall of text. Well, dtp, if you want any of this for your summary, feel free to pick/choose/chop how it feels right for you. I trust you. If I were you though, I'd ignore it, since I'm a scrub.

tl:dr

The Cyclone can catch him off guard and can be used to give yourself some distance. Also SH dAir/fAir to Fireball works wonders. FFAD is also the name of the game here. Delay your recoveries, since he'll get gimped if he tries to chase you off-stage. But if you're hanging on the ledge, you're pretty much toast if he's any good. Mix in a ledgehop cyclone stall to get back on stage once in a while.

Marth isn't a good matchup for Luigi and there are tons of good Marths out there, but you can still be better than most of them.

EDIT: Oh yeah, video and stage picks...

Boss (Luigi) vs. Kadaj (Marth) @ The Magician's Alliance

My stage CPs (not counting ALL the starter stages that may as well be CPs against Marth): PS2 (the ledge of doom!), and Lylat Cruise (ledge of doom ftw!).

CR4SH said:

FOREALS last tip. Play donkey kong.

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hahah. he is pretty hard ... it all just comes down to observation and reactions. psing his fairs AND being smart about what oos attack you use and your follow through, because ONE psed fair has the potential for ALOT of damage. oh.. and of course taking advantage of his mistakes... but by that time you are already on the ledge :D

Luigi kills really easily, Pick flat stages. For neutrals, everything but Battlefield. I personally recommend Yoshi's or Smashville, unless there is lylat/PS1 where I recommend Yoshi's and Lylat/PS1 first.

I personally like using Frigate and Haliberd vs Marth. Frigate forces Marth to up b onto the stage....(shoryuken/F-smash rage). Haliberd and similar stages have low ceilings. Stay away from multiple platforms outside of Norfair (since Norfair can help Luigi as well. Ban BF and Brinstar.

Back air his recovery or down air spike if you can use them well. I have even f-air'd him/her () twice off ledge into a gimp by just grabbing the ledge. Recover unpredictably. Save down b's and jumps. You can powershield f-air's to F-smash (if your playing like a Boss.)

Marth has much better spacing and better horizontal kills, Marth's f-air and dancing blade will get annoying quickly.

Luigi has better recovery and much better vertical kills and a moderately good projectile.

Luigi can down b vs marth quite well. Throw combos work well if you can get close. Bait him with fireballs and cyclones.

65-35 or 60-40. This matchup seems evener now than it was before. Just space like a god and you'll do fine.

Marth should be able to stand still and win. Also on the ledge marth's jab bats fireballs away and has iasa frames. Marths that know the matchup won't take bait or approach you. They know that you have to aproach them. What they're going to do is pick a half of the stage and own it, then turn that half into 2/3, 3/4 until you're on the ledge. This isn't too difficult because all they have to do to maintain it is walk slowly forward, and luigi has no legitimate options for getting past marth to the bigger part.

I didn't post because I just don't use Luigi vs Marth. You know, winning is cool sometimes xD

I'll have vids of myself (kinda bad though but close) by tomrrow. it's really gay if they know ledge traps lol.

would it help if i posted me vs mcabreact; you seem to have not watched any of the last vids i posted.

those vids won't help anybody yosh ROFL


i would hate for you to lead luigi mains to believe that what your doing vs marth actually works - it doesn't.

not to take away from any of your wins, but your game is EXTREMELY wifi-gimmicky and i suggest you realize what is/isn't applicable otherwise your offline experience will suffer, see: lugi general discussion thread for my other post

you're right, i suck, i won't upload any vids.

yoshq said:

you're right, i suck, i won't upload any vids.

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The only thing that pisses me off about you is whenever someone calls you out on your wifi-abusing bull****, you just proceed to say "i suck, i'm done, blah blah blah cry cry cry". We're not saying you suck whatsoever, we're trying to help you so when the time comes that your usual style doesn't work, you'll at least have a back-up plan.

LOL this is funny. Though to be fair wifi vids don't really help anyone, its true.

And I'm not going to contribute to this matchup thread because I don't know what to do and anything I post would be theory and stupid. =/

I'll say 65/35, Luigi can't even shield grab his aerial attacks since he slides... -__-