[#04] Falco MU Discussion Thread 2010

Discuss...

Falco looks awful at first, then looks manageable, and then ultimately becomes horrible again.

The chaingrab is lame but isn't what really should destroy you in this matchup. Provided you avoid getting completely gayed by that, Falco does have trouble outright killing you, so if you can get him to make some mistakes that you can punish and somehow gimp him in the process which can be feasible provided you get that hit in, then things start looking okay.

But the problem is Ganon really doesn't have a real way to punish Falco for laser camping and running away with SideB and other stuff. And then Falco can edgeguard you with lasers and B-air pretty well and that sucks.

so yeah at the very best 70/30 Falco, and it probably is worse overall.

This is awful. I'm personally of the opinion this is at least 90:10, at the absolute best.

He's faster, lasers will gimp the hell out of you, we have to predict the Phantasm if we want to hit him, the CG, pretty decent aerials except FAir.

Stay the hell away from the edge of the stage unless he's also there. One DThrow to a spike is something you do not want happening. Powershield the lasers, and try and get him in the air. In the air, he can't grab you. In fact, you may want to let him hit you with a few lasers, to prevent the CG. I think he has it till about 60-70 on us, iirc, so probably not the best idea.

Ban Japes at all costs. If for some reason Japes isn't legal at the tournament, ditch FD. Probably somewhere better to ban, but FD sticks out immediately.

If he's offstage and you're going to gimp him, remember that Phantasm spikes. Might not be the best spike in the game, but you don't want to get hit by it.

He has a very bad recovery. So do you. Non-fastfalled DAirs could help in this matchup, but I'm pretty sure you'll want a smash stick.

iirc, all we hit him with out of Gerudo is DTilt. We also can't chainchoke him. However, if you gerudo near the edge, I'm pretty sure you can get off another choke, so long as he is closer to the edge i.e. can't roll out.

His USmash is slow and telegraphed. Shieldgrab the *******.If he's running, he's either going for USmash or a grab, and very rarely a DA. You should probably jump away to avoid getting grabbed, but at late percents try to powershield, and if he throws you act accordingly.

We are outgamed so hard here.

Dirt and A2 said pretty much, but I'm going to poke out how we win against Falco.
We can only start playing after 130%. Before that it's a no-no-pew-pew in our faces. Let he do as he pleases 'cept for the spike. YOU CAN'T GET SPIKED. NO MATTER WHAT! Well... after you're on 130% more so, he'll have to kill you. THAT'S Falco's biggest problem in this MU. And THAT'S when we can play.

Thing is... all of his smashes are very laggy, predictable and, with proper DI, don't kill at all. His only aerial killing move is his BAir, which will be, probably, stalled or won't be Sweetspoted to score. WAIT for him do attack your risen shield. He'll have few options other than that at high %s. After he does so, DTilt him... it's the only safe way to rack up damage. You have to remain shielded all the time. If your shield is worn out, you'll have to edge plank, cautiously, until it's fresh again.

One you can get at killing %s, try to get him with an FTilt. It'll be hard, since it's not your fastest and shield saffest attack, but it's a very reliable killing move against falco. One fresh FTilt after 100% near the edge it's pretty much good bye to Falco and his crappy recovery.

It's very risky to play this MU and also requires Buddah's patience. You'll be at constant risk and you con't be able to go all aerial like we like too.

Unfortunately, 80:20~90:10.

Sorry I haven't been keeping up with these threads, guys. I'll be more active in them, I'm just such a perfectionist that whenever I make a write-up, it takes me like two hours.

Luckily there aren't many falcos in my state as i hate falco with a passion.

I don't have heaps of match-up experience but i'll throw in my 2 cents for what it's worth.

DO

- U-air gimps his recovery hard. If he's above the stage, prepare to u-air near the ledge. He has no choice but to Up-B if he's below the ledge-grab point so time the U-air accordingly or edge-hog if he doesn't look like making it back. Gimping him is pretty important in this match-up.

- Take advantage of his poor killing power and punish him severely if he misses any of his smash attacks. Has abit of hitlag after his f-smash and d-smash.

- Play patient (very important) and practice good spacing when you're on 0%. The cg is inevitable and will result in an early stock if you're caught out near the edge. When you're on 0%, he will more then likely just laser you a couple of times in an attempt to bait you to do something stupid in order for him to find a cg opening so play patient, rely on your best friend in this match-up (shield) and slowly zone him.

- Falco has a decent aerial game so it'd be best to fight on the ground with the use of your tilts.

DON'T

- Unneccessarily go off-stage. You will most-likely lose a stock. Watch out particularly for lasers, B-air off ledge and D-air spike.

- Lose your cool. Playing this match-up aggressively is not the right way to go about it, falco has so many get out of jail options if you try to rush him.

Also, i don't think there are any flame-choke follow up options on falco. Someone correct me if i'm wrong here.

I'll add to this later. Match-up is 80 - 20 in falco's favour.

Falco is probably my most hated MU next to D3. There are so many things bad in this match-up, and next to zero good. Everyone seems to think that the chainspike is the worst part about this MU when that's the farthest thing from the truth. While that is a big factor, Falco doesn't even need to chainspike to make this match-up a nightmare from the unholy depths of heaven.

The primary issue being his, yes, you guessed it, lasers. At first glance, these little *******s are just a nuisance used for chip-away damage. But to the contrary, that is probably the least of its uses in this MU. You see, Falco uses his lasers primarily to force approaches and for follow-ups. Here, the issue is follow-ups.

Against a laser > follow-up like DACUS, jab or grab, Ganon has literally no framesafe options at all. So if you're being lasered, you can do absolutely nothing about it but PS approach. But even on PS, you still don't have a frame advantage on Falco is he SHDLs. Thanks to Falco's insane jumping height, it's also impossible to do FH aerial approaches.

But, there are a few exploits in this MU that can at least somewhat help. Here's what I suggest as an overall strategy:

-Do not try to shield lasers at low percents. His lasers HELP you at low percents. They protect you from CG spikes. My advice is to let yourself get lasered (although don't be TOO obvious about it) to around 35%. This way, unless you're directly next to the ledge, you can DI out of the grab.

-We don't really have a choice but to approach in this MU, so here are some things to expect when you do approach. Expect everything Falco does to be done out of a SHDL. Only try to attack when you are extremely close. Don't be fooled into thinking he's open after a SHDL, since it autocancels. Wait for him to do the follow up move, then strike.

-SideB is another big issue in this MU, since it's so fast, that Ganon theoretically cannot punish it. But it is predictable with most Falcos. If they're doing retreating SHDLs, always expect a SideB. The best punishers for this are Nair and Dair to stop the SideB as it goes under/towards you.

Offstage

Offstage Falco is pretty garbage. But he can still recover well with his SideB. IF you don't read it. With linear recoveries like Falco's, it's very easy to put them in a tough spot with mindgames. They have two options: sweetspot the ledge, or go onstage. If you knock them very far offstage, run towards the edge as if you're going to edgeguard them. Jump back, then punish. If they're close, Falcos almost ALWAYS buffer a sideB to get back on, so if you knock a Falco offstage, but only by a little, don't bother going offstage, they'll always sideB immediately.

Another alternative is NAir. NAir shuts down SideB. And if Falco is below you and using upB to recover, it's sometimes best to use NAir instead of tipman to gimp, since Ganon's *** literally gimps him very safely.

Random tips

-DO NOT roll inwards after being daird. Falcos learn to punish inward rolls with Fsmash.
-DO NOT try to punish jabs. Just DI out of them.
-DO NOT try to DAir as an OoS punisher unless the opportunity is obvious.
-DO NOT try to iDA for an outward roll or rechoke. Falco rolls too far.

Counterpicks

Brinstar. Not much needed to explain why. Puts tons of pressure on his recoveries, hinders SHDL autocancels, etc.

BF. Not ideal, but it relieves some of the laser pressure, and Falco isn't too monstrous in the presence of platforms. In fact, they hurt him more than they help.

Lylat. Hurts his recovery due to the inability to safely sweetspot the ledge and the tilting platform makes SHDLing difficult. You won't be using DAir much in this MU anyway.

I honestly give it a 95:5. We have options, but they're so circumstantial and require such perfect reads and reactions that it's insane to consider them enough to stand up to the horrendous things he can do to us. Ganon's third worst MU, in my opinion.

MU wise:
Take falco to Brinstar, and Lylat and BF. EDIT: (LISTEN TO VERMANUBIS!!!!)

Watch out for lazers and the CG....work on SDI'ing towards the stage after being spiked(mash both control/c stick towards the stage)...and if your lucky try and MASH out as quickly as possible when you get grabbed.

On Brinstar: Platform camp until chaingrab no longer works and use the stage against falco(get him off at all costs and bait him into lava)

On Lylat: Same as Brinstar, camp until you can't be cg'd and get him off the stage at all costs since he can't recover at all on Lylat.

On BF: Platform camp the whole time and watch out for nair and when on the 2 bottom platforms ALWAYS stay in the middle of the platform since if u shield and get hit close to the edge of the platform you can get lazer locked or forced to CG

I think deep down we all hate Falco just a bit. Yeah, this match-up sucks - just a few things though I think might help against Falco.

1. Falco's double-hop laser spam can be slightly avoided by crouching under the first laser. However, it can hit Ganondorf with both lasers even when he's crouching, if done on the right timing. Do note that if they go for double low lasers you should be able to short hop air-dodge the first laser and block the second, or possibly double jump over both of them. Can someone confirm the dodge method though?

2. Dash attack has enough lag to hit even out of spot dodges, but they have to cancel the extra attack length if they want to gatling combo you. If you powershield the Dash attack though you can get enough room to roll away, or if you are (extremely lucky) you MIGHT get a grab... not pivoted, just a straight grab.

3. Phantasm on stage is used for spacing and quick get aways. If you can avoid getting hit by it when they try to escape you might be able to punish with Gerudo or Wizkick. It depends on your space relevant to Falco's though, and only really works against an aerial Phantasm.

Unlike Bahamut I honestly think 105-110% is where Ganondorf can start moving against Falco. All of Falco's worrisome tools for Ganon (setting up laser locks, gatling combo, chaingrab-spike) don't work due to knockback or DI and Falco needs to close in for the KO. Other then that everything else I can think of seems to have been said already.

Also, I forgot to say...

Falco players are very impatient (around here, that's it). If you can consistently PS the SHDLs, they will try a close approach or a fake out SHDL approach, trying to catch you off guard. I recommend PS walking (not running). It gives a very heavy pressure on Falco to have his best damage dealing option rendered useless.

However, if you don't stay turned, you may end up being grabbed. We all know what happens then.

Also, if timed right, both Gerudo AND Pivot Grab overprioritizes SideB. It's very hard to do, but it's something to keep in mind in some cases...

Bahamut777 said:

Also, I forgot to say...

Falco players are very impatient (around here, that's it). If you can consistently PS the SHDLs, they will try a close approach or a fake out SHDL approach, trying to catch you off guard. I recommend PS walking (not running). It gives a very heavy pressure on Falco to have his best damage dealing option rendered useless.

However, if you don't stay turned, you may end up being grabbed. We all know what happens then.

Also, if timed right, both Gerudo AND Pivot Grab overprioritizes SideB. It's very hard to do, but it's something to keep in mind in some cases...

Click to expand...

Protip: If you happen to grab Falco on the edge without his second jump (i.e. if he's recovering with Side-B), simply air-release him. Don't throw him, don't pummel him, just let him go. It's a hilarious auto-gimp because once Falco is released, he goes too low for Side-B to bring him to the ledge and Falco's up-B is lol for recovery. It's likely very rare for you to pull this off, but if you do, it's pretty awesome.

I'll add more stuff later, but, you know, this matchup sucks.

05 : 95

I don't have to explain why this Match-up Ratio looks like it does.

Counter Pick:
Tilting stages.

Like Verm stated, it can sometimes mess up his SHDL's,
and some of the tilting stages also puts pressure on his recovery.

It can mess up our Auto-canceling too, but who cares?
Falco's lasers will mess up our Auto-canceling anyway.

¤-¤-¤

Though, my MAIN Reason for choosing tilting stages is:
<!> Garantueed follow-ups after Gerudo <!>

Dtilt is garantueed down-slope, and Jab is garantueed up-slope.
\m/ \m/

(Jab isn't garantueed if the up-slope is too intense, though.)

If you predict him doing side B on you. Wizkick his ***!

Z1GMA said:

05 : 95

Though, my MAIN Reason for choosing tilting stages is:
<!> Garantueed follow-ups after Gerudo <!>

Dtilt is garantueed down-slope, and Jab is garantueed up-slope.
\m/ \m/

(Jab isn't garantueed if the up-slope is too intense, though.)

Click to expand...

thats the pro zig right there

thexsunrosered said:

thats the pro zig right there

Click to expand...

That's the Red8 I love, right there.

yessir
:bigthumbu

My favorite thing to do to a Falco when he's trying to recover on stage with phantasm is wizkick it. If this doesn't kill them or send them too far away to recover, then it will at least condition them to recover to the ledge, which you can easily edgehog. They may even try to recover high with the cancel, which you can then punish with an Fsmash/Ftilt/stomp/usmash, depending on if you're trying to kill or get them offstage or just rack some more damage.

Yeah, Finnz7 popularized that tactic quite a long time ago. I am certain I still have his match saved on youtube.