Falco Matchup #8: Mario

In this thread, post any contribution you have regarding the Mario matchup.

Keep these in mind when posting:
- What do we have against him?
- What to watch out for?
- Certain do's & don'ts
- Any additional information or data necessary.

Go.

6:4 Falco if you don't camp the balls off him. Worse if you do.

Don't carelessly side-b against him, especially near the edge. FLUUD can also stop it dead in it's tracks, giving us a free hit. If you mistime a the chaingrab, you're going to get a fist full of coins. Mario's entire head is invincible during his up-smash, so don't try to challenge it with your dair. Our Nair knocks Fox out of his side-b even without the sweetspot, effectively creating a wall that he runs into which will lead to a gimp offstage. I'm not sure if it does the same to Falco.

Just don't be too predictable with your recovery, and if you DI badly, you're pretty much going to get gimped.

65/35 or 7/3 Falco's favor on neutrals. 6/4 Mario's favor on Brinstar. That's about all that matters.

For the most part if your spacing as Falco is decent, Mario can't get in. He can't really challenge B-air or D-air directly for the most part (U-smash does beat them though, Mario should be looking to juggle with this move for damage purposes for this reason and trying to kill with either D-smash or B-throw). Jabs and F-tilt are also hard for Mario to get past. F-smash is super gay for Mario to deal with if you space it correctly because it outranges everything he does including his reverse F-smash and also can be safe on block. Putting Mario above you is really good because he's floaty and easy for Falco to juggle. Kills can be scored by simply edgetrapping intelligently since F-smash and B-air cover everything. B-air edgeguards are also good against Mario's low recovery since you'll probably trade favorably with his Up-B at minimum and then be in a good position to either continue for the kill or edgehog.

Falco overall shouldn't have much trouble dominating the ground and winning from there. Just don't get too predictable with Jab cancels, since Mario can interrupt Jab cancel -> grab with his Jab. Be cautious with Rapid Jabs in case Mario tries to SDI them for a U-air/Up-B punish.

Don't get U-tilted at 9%. Simple enough to avoid, but Mario basically needs to wait until you have about 9% before his U-tilt chains actually combo (keep in mind, Mario can also start U-tilt juggles with U-air at 0). Just shield when Mario Jab cancels you unless you're worried he's going to B-throw kill you at around 160-170%. The only thing Mario can try to combo into out of Jab cancel is Jab, and the link for that is fairly strict. If Mario insists on using D-throw to start combos, just DI away and D-air. Very hard for Mario to punish. What Mario should actually do to try comboing you at low percents is U-throw at 0 and then reading you with either U-air juggles or U-smash. Alternatively if you don't DI, D-throw -> buffered U-smash at 0 hits Falco (you can airdodge, but if you do anything else it combos).

When recovering Mario has fireballs, N-air, and FLUDD mainly to try to mess up Falco. If the Mario is good at aiming fireballs, they can be a nuisance and occasionally mess up SideB recoveries. N-air also can be fairly decent at catching Falco out of SideB occasionally, and its weak hitbox is fairly good for setting up gimps. Not getting gimped or punished heavily by FLUDD is more about having good reaction time and not wasting your jumps poorly, though it can be difficult to avoid if you are forced to expend your midair jump early to survive.

Mario however DOES win the matchup on Brinstar. The platform layout just sucks for Falco, while it's utterly amazing for Mario. Mario can outcamp Falco pretty easily on Brinstar and wait for the lava to put Falco in silly positions. Falco can't really do much to stop Mario from platform camping on that stage just given his jumps are terrible for positioning himself for platform pressure on that stage.

Chaingrab to spike. If time right

Don't use phantasm much, because it'll get caped and that's a stock.

That's all I got for now; might edit more in.

Phantasm after lasers can be pretty safe. And Mario has to call the phantasm in advance in order to be able to Cape it, and you shouldn't always be in a position where it will be a stock if he Capes it. More likely Mario will want to N-air you out of phantasm.

Forgot something VERY annoying for Mario players.
Shoot them with lasers, it screws up their approaches so badly because it turns you around. Mario's bair and u-air are really good, but his fair is absolute garbage.

Whenever I try to space bairs against a falco, if I get hit by a laser, I become all disoriented and I get punished for it. Soooooo annoying.

Also, the entire screen shakes for some reason when Mario gets hit by a laser.

I don' t know a lot about the MU, except the cape can kill Falco if used at the right time. Lasers and jab help as always, but recover can be difficult against Mario sometimes.

JuxtaposeX said:

Forgot something VERY annoying for Mario players.
Shoot them with lasers, it screws up their approaches so badly because it turns you around. Mario's bair and u-air are really good, but his fair is absolute garbage.

Whenever I try to space bairs against a falco, if I get hit by a laser, I become all disoriented and I get punished for it. Soooooo annoying.

Click to expand...

Lasers are NOT the worst part of this matchup, aside from the fact that they make his phantasm teleports hard to deal with. For the most part, you can duck or Cape to deal with lasers. The worst part of this matchup is that Falco walls and runs away really really well and once he has you in a bad position such as above him or offstage, it's hard to recover.

You guys win this match-up the same way you win basically every match-up that you win. Nothing special here...

Your jab makes CQC really hard, Lasers make mid-range battle and spacing difficult, and Falco wins long range. We can do stuff to your recovery, but nothing reliable or more rewarding than an extra smash or aerial on your landing. Comboing you is difficult cuz ur Falco.

So yeah, +2 or something. Enjoy it.

this match up is about 65-35

Falco racks up damage better and faster, more range, better projectile, and a more reliable way to kill. The reason this match up isn't horrible for Mario is that he can gimp Falco pretty well and doesn't have much problem getting damage on Falco once he gets inside.

You don't think a 65/35 matchup is horrible? You're funny DEHF. You and I should play sometime once I get out of school. Please beat me while I play seriously like you did last time we met in tournament. I think you underestimate how annoying and stupid your character is. =P

And the matchup is horrible in part because Falco is stupid hard for Mario to combo.

If you want me to delude you into thinking the matchup isn't dumb for Mario, then I guess let's play this matchup a lot on Brinstar. =)

i laid mass pipe on xeroxen every time we played, friendlies or MM. i haven't MM'ed him since last year but i understand the character well enough to know that this MU is absolute **** for mario.

Falco's lasers really mess up Mario's when he is trying to approach. Falco's reflector also comes out faster and stays out longer than Mario's cape having him to easily reflect fire balls better than Mario can reflect lasers. Falco's chain grab on Mario ends around 39-46% unless Mario buffers his Super Jump Punch out of him, the chain grab will end around 29-30%. (This is done since his Up B has Invulnerability frames from the start of the move.

I find that Falco needs to become more creative with his recovery against Mario. The FLUDD messes up his phantasm which can lead into either a free up smash at high percents or if done right he can cape him of the ledge to which Falco can't recover. If Falco then changes his recovery to Fire Falco, then Mario can easily just drop down and nair him as a simple gimp. All of Mario's Smash's go through Phantasm.

Falco clearly has an advantage on Mario but I believe the match up is atleast 6:4 in Falco's favor.

Falco just needs to play safe and not let Mario beat him up too much.
(Can a mod please delete this post? My internet ****ed up when submitting)

It's +2 or +3 in Falco's favor ... your call. If you think Mario can legit beat a Falco 4 times out of 10 then I think you're crazy. Falco's jab alone shuts down the vast majority of approach options Mario has, it really just becomes a game of not committing too much against Mario's baits and bair approaches [the only one he has in this match-up] and keep your front clear with laser, ftilt and jab.

Thank you all.

We done here?