Castle Siege is on of the most unplayed starters (and in some MUs, great counterpicks) in the game.
I'm not going to go into great detail about the stages layout, blast zones, etc etc. If you want that information, Raz has a phenomenal guide here:
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=283652
First Transformation:
[COLLAPSE=" "]Unfortunately, this is one of the few stages where spawn points actually make a difference. If you spawn on the left part of the stage, you're immediately put at a fairly nice advantage. Meanwhile, the right side of the stage means you have a little bit of extra work in store for you, assuming your opponent knows the stage as well as you do.
If you are under the left platform, you are near untouchable:
- You are too low for most projectiles (falco's lasers, ZSS's gun, etc) to hit you. The ones that can hit you (Diddy's popgun, snake's nades, olimar's pikmin) are typically easy to see coming and PS.
- The platform above you makes approaches from above (Moves such as Fox's dair [yes I'm aware Fox shouldn't be approaching you, not the point], DK's nair, etc) and many cross-ups useless as the platform will stop them.
- If they approach with an aerial aimed at your head so that they're coming in at an angle (think Marth's fair, Wolf's bair, Kirby's bair) they are forced to come in at a higher angle than usual making it easier for you to react and ftilt/jab/bair them away from you.
- If they try to approach you in a grounded manner, it would be like a character approaching you "diagonally" on a normal stage. The slope forces them to come "down" towards you letting you jab/ftilt/bair them fairly easily to keep them out.
Marth is able to control a VERY large amount of space very easily. This is largely attributed to:
-Marth's large, arcing hitboxes (see Raz's overview linked to at the beginning).
- The slopes and platform heights.
- And, arguably most importantly, the size of the stage. This part of the stage is small. Really small. Like... incredibly small.
On the subject of how small it is, it seems like a good time to mention that this stage is a PHENOMENAL CP vs MK. I personally CP MK here before I would FD. It is easy to wall out MK on this stage. Additionally, because it is SO SMALL, nado is never a safe option. It doesn't matter if you're on one side of the stage and he nados away from you and lands as far away as possible, while ACing his nado, Marth can still punish nado (assuming you aren't hit ofc) pretty much 99% of the time. Additionally because of how small it is, once you get in on MK it is easy to keep him from getting any breathing room. On the flipside, you can always risk a DS out of his pressure to reset the situation if you feel out of options.
Please be careful and don't let the stage gimp you on the left side via the lip. It's just embarrassing.
Fast Falling aerials works a little differently here than on most stages. In some ways, it works similarly to Brinstar. When you FF an aerial onto a slope you can either, depending on if you are going up or down the slope:
- Give yourself added safety by sliding down the slope
or
- Create a small crossover by sliding past them
Ledge trapping here is not that different from ledge trapping on BF. The platforms on either side of the stage help characters get off the ledge but risk putting themselves in danger of Marth's platform pressure. Utilt/ftilt is really good here for ledge trapping as it covers pretty much all of it (again, see Raz's guide for pictures).
Being under the right platform is not that different from the left. However, characters approaching you have slightly more options going right than going left in this case. Just be patient and wall them out if you want or try to use the slope to your advantage if you want to approach them. Most players don't know this stage that well so it shouldn't be that hard to find a way under the left platform to set up your wall.
Now, while this is all great for Marth, it all still applies to other characters as well. It is more difficult to approach them going left if they know what they're doing and many people may not approach you at all here preferring to wait it out until the second transformation. However, very few characters can abuse the advantages of the stage as well as Marth can leading me to say that this is a VERY powerful part of the stage for Marth overall (and the stage as a whole as well).
[/COLLAPSE]
Second transformation
Most of the time, you can usually just write off this part of the stage. Almost every character can keep away from every other character on this part of the stage. However, there are still a few things to note about it.
[COLLAPSE=" "]You should start out camping characters here and force them to approach you:
- Opponent has a strong air game and a somewhat lacking ground game (ala ZSS)? Well, stay on the main floor and let them jump around and try to hit you while you run back and forth staying safe.
- Do they have a strong ground game an a somewhat lacking air game/low aerial mobility (ala DDD and Falco)? Get up on the overhang and play "the floor is lava" and watch as they either try to catch you in vein or resign to their defeat and wait on the floor for the transformation to end.
- Do they have a decent/strong air and ground game (ala MK)? Well, just abuse your overall amazing mobility and good FF to play keep away.
If they do approach you though, you can net free kills via GR->DS/fair/DB/DA or tipper fsmashes.
At this point, I'm sure you can see why this is a good part of the stage for Marth vs MK as well. He can't approach you out of fear of getting grabbed and you're not going to be approaching him, so, whatever. So, it went from a lack luster 1st transformation for MK to a boring, I-have-to-wait-it-out section for MK.
The taller of the two statues is spaced perfectly for you to DS safely (so long as you do the high vertical DS and not the shorter, horizontal DS). As a result, whiffing DS under that statue isn't that bad of a thing.
If you are near the blast zone (this applies to the transitional parts of the stage too) do NOT techroll or roll in general towards the middle of the stage. Every player ever is looking for that to happen. Instead, walk, cross-up with uair/nair, jump to the overhang (well, not so much vs MK due to SL being ****), whatever. Just so NOT ROLL.
If they're determined to camp you by going back and forth between the overhangs (think Falco phantasming back and forth) just attack a statue to refresh your moveset. I dtilt personally to keep the knockback on it low to allow it to be a string starter until late/high percents, although jab works really well too if you want dtilt to do more damage later on. I recommend hitting the lower of the two statues so you have the safety of the higher one should you need to DS for any reason.[/COLLAPSE]
Third Transformation
Welcome to FD... only tilting. Needless to say, for every reason MK doesn't like FD, he doesn't like this one too. All 3 transformations are not that good for him! Seriously, there is ZERO reason to NOT CP this stage vs MK unless you just don't know it.
[COLLAPSE=" "]Make sure you know how to fight on slants. Fighting like you do on a normal stage on a stage that tilts and slants is asking to get *****. Make sure you know how to fight on tilts! (For example, dtilt goes into the stage while going up the tilt, but stays on the stage when going down it.)
Except for maybe GR-> dair on MK (assuming the stage isn't tilting), you don't have to worry about the mound in the middle messing up your grab releases on characters.
If the stage is tilting at all, GR-> dair won't work, however most of your GRs remain in tact.
You need to watch for if a character's feet that usually don't touch the ground (like MK's) are touching the ground because of the slant. If the opponent notices it too, then you aren't guaranteed an air release.
Likewise, if a character's feet usually don't touch the ground (such as Diddy and Falco) are grabbed there is a chance their feet won't be touching the ground due to the slant. As a result, enjoy your free air release and consequent follow-up.
There's really not much to this part of the stage. It really just plays like FD.[/COLLAPSE]
Now, as for characters on Castle Siege:
[COLLAPSE=" "]CP this stage against:
MK (SERIOUSLY, DO IT), Falco, Wolf, IC, PT (it's really easy to abuse stamina here), and Pit. If you feel like being a ****, it's easy to time out Lucario here.
Ban this stage against:
Well, realistically, nobody except for maybe Olimar since almost nobody plays on this stage and knows how to. BUT, assuming they do you should ban it against Olimar*, Sheik and maybe Ike.
*I'd personally only ban it vs Olimar if I have 2 bans. I HATE fighting Olimar on YI:B
Strike this stage against:
Snake, Pikachu, DDD, and G&W.
Other than that, who to fight here is up to personal preference. Just make sure you know the stage really well![/COLLAPSE]
[COLLAPSE="A vid, kinda."]And, because who doesn't love to laugh at me (everyone should enjoy it at least), here's a vid of me the first time playing after a couple months. I play really badly so don't bother critiquing it. However, you can see me using CS somewhat effectively game 2.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV4oMyYagaw[/COLLAPSE]
DISCUSS!!
(just not my video)
Thank you Raz for looking over this prior to my posting.
I'm not going to go into great detail about the stages layout, blast zones, etc etc. If you want that information, Raz has a phenomenal guide here:
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=283652
First Transformation:
[COLLAPSE=" "]Unfortunately, this is one of the few stages where spawn points actually make a difference. If you spawn on the left part of the stage, you're immediately put at a fairly nice advantage. Meanwhile, the right side of the stage means you have a little bit of extra work in store for you, assuming your opponent knows the stage as well as you do.
If you are under the left platform, you are near untouchable:
- You are too low for most projectiles (falco's lasers, ZSS's gun, etc) to hit you. The ones that can hit you (Diddy's popgun, snake's nades, olimar's pikmin) are typically easy to see coming and PS.
- The platform above you makes approaches from above (Moves such as Fox's dair [yes I'm aware Fox shouldn't be approaching you, not the point], DK's nair, etc) and many cross-ups useless as the platform will stop them.
- If they approach with an aerial aimed at your head so that they're coming in at an angle (think Marth's fair, Wolf's bair, Kirby's bair) they are forced to come in at a higher angle than usual making it easier for you to react and ftilt/jab/bair them away from you.
- If they try to approach you in a grounded manner, it would be like a character approaching you "diagonally" on a normal stage. The slope forces them to come "down" towards you letting you jab/ftilt/bair them fairly easily to keep them out.
Marth is able to control a VERY large amount of space very easily. This is largely attributed to:
-Marth's large, arcing hitboxes (see Raz's overview linked to at the beginning).
- The slopes and platform heights.
- And, arguably most importantly, the size of the stage. This part of the stage is small. Really small. Like... incredibly small.
On the subject of how small it is, it seems like a good time to mention that this stage is a PHENOMENAL CP vs MK. I personally CP MK here before I would FD. It is easy to wall out MK on this stage. Additionally, because it is SO SMALL, nado is never a safe option. It doesn't matter if you're on one side of the stage and he nados away from you and lands as far away as possible, while ACing his nado, Marth can still punish nado (assuming you aren't hit ofc) pretty much 99% of the time. Additionally because of how small it is, once you get in on MK it is easy to keep him from getting any breathing room. On the flipside, you can always risk a DS out of his pressure to reset the situation if you feel out of options.
Please be careful and don't let the stage gimp you on the left side via the lip. It's just embarrassing.
Fast Falling aerials works a little differently here than on most stages. In some ways, it works similarly to Brinstar. When you FF an aerial onto a slope you can either, depending on if you are going up or down the slope:
- Give yourself added safety by sliding down the slope
or
- Create a small crossover by sliding past them
Ledge trapping here is not that different from ledge trapping on BF. The platforms on either side of the stage help characters get off the ledge but risk putting themselves in danger of Marth's platform pressure. Utilt/ftilt is really good here for ledge trapping as it covers pretty much all of it (again, see Raz's guide for pictures).
Being under the right platform is not that different from the left. However, characters approaching you have slightly more options going right than going left in this case. Just be patient and wall them out if you want or try to use the slope to your advantage if you want to approach them. Most players don't know this stage that well so it shouldn't be that hard to find a way under the left platform to set up your wall.
Now, while this is all great for Marth, it all still applies to other characters as well. It is more difficult to approach them going left if they know what they're doing and many people may not approach you at all here preferring to wait it out until the second transformation. However, very few characters can abuse the advantages of the stage as well as Marth can leading me to say that this is a VERY powerful part of the stage for Marth overall (and the stage as a whole as well).
[/COLLAPSE]
Second transformation
Most of the time, you can usually just write off this part of the stage. Almost every character can keep away from every other character on this part of the stage. However, there are still a few things to note about it.
[COLLAPSE=" "]You should start out camping characters here and force them to approach you:
- Opponent has a strong air game and a somewhat lacking ground game (ala ZSS)? Well, stay on the main floor and let them jump around and try to hit you while you run back and forth staying safe.
- Do they have a strong ground game an a somewhat lacking air game/low aerial mobility (ala DDD and Falco)? Get up on the overhang and play "the floor is lava" and watch as they either try to catch you in vein or resign to their defeat and wait on the floor for the transformation to end.
- Do they have a decent/strong air and ground game (ala MK)? Well, just abuse your overall amazing mobility and good FF to play keep away.
If they do approach you though, you can net free kills via GR->DS/fair/DB/DA or tipper fsmashes.
At this point, I'm sure you can see why this is a good part of the stage for Marth vs MK as well. He can't approach you out of fear of getting grabbed and you're not going to be approaching him, so, whatever. So, it went from a lack luster 1st transformation for MK to a boring, I-have-to-wait-it-out section for MK.
The taller of the two statues is spaced perfectly for you to DS safely (so long as you do the high vertical DS and not the shorter, horizontal DS). As a result, whiffing DS under that statue isn't that bad of a thing.
If you are near the blast zone (this applies to the transitional parts of the stage too) do NOT techroll or roll in general towards the middle of the stage. Every player ever is looking for that to happen. Instead, walk, cross-up with uair/nair, jump to the overhang (well, not so much vs MK due to SL being ****), whatever. Just so NOT ROLL.
If they're determined to camp you by going back and forth between the overhangs (think Falco phantasming back and forth) just attack a statue to refresh your moveset. I dtilt personally to keep the knockback on it low to allow it to be a string starter until late/high percents, although jab works really well too if you want dtilt to do more damage later on. I recommend hitting the lower of the two statues so you have the safety of the higher one should you need to DS for any reason.[/COLLAPSE]
Third Transformation
Welcome to FD... only tilting. Needless to say, for every reason MK doesn't like FD, he doesn't like this one too. All 3 transformations are not that good for him! Seriously, there is ZERO reason to NOT CP this stage vs MK unless you just don't know it.
[COLLAPSE=" "]Make sure you know how to fight on slants. Fighting like you do on a normal stage on a stage that tilts and slants is asking to get *****. Make sure you know how to fight on tilts! (For example, dtilt goes into the stage while going up the tilt, but stays on the stage when going down it.)
Except for maybe GR-> dair on MK (assuming the stage isn't tilting), you don't have to worry about the mound in the middle messing up your grab releases on characters.
If the stage is tilting at all, GR-> dair won't work, however most of your GRs remain in tact.
You need to watch for if a character's feet that usually don't touch the ground (like MK's) are touching the ground because of the slant. If the opponent notices it too, then you aren't guaranteed an air release.
Likewise, if a character's feet usually don't touch the ground (such as Diddy and Falco) are grabbed there is a chance their feet won't be touching the ground due to the slant. As a result, enjoy your free air release and consequent follow-up.
There's really not much to this part of the stage. It really just plays like FD.[/COLLAPSE]
Now, as for characters on Castle Siege:
[COLLAPSE=" "]CP this stage against:
MK (SERIOUSLY, DO IT), Falco, Wolf, IC, PT (it's really easy to abuse stamina here), and Pit. If you feel like being a ****, it's easy to time out Lucario here.
Ban this stage against:
Well, realistically, nobody except for maybe Olimar since almost nobody plays on this stage and knows how to. BUT, assuming they do you should ban it against Olimar*, Sheik and maybe Ike.
*I'd personally only ban it vs Olimar if I have 2 bans. I HATE fighting Olimar on YI:B
Strike this stage against:
Snake, Pikachu, DDD, and G&W.
Other than that, who to fight here is up to personal preference. Just make sure you know the stage really well![/COLLAPSE]
[COLLAPSE="A vid, kinda."]And, because who doesn't love to laugh at me (everyone should enjoy it at least), here's a vid of me the first time playing after a couple months. I play really badly so don't bother critiquing it. However, you can see me using CS somewhat effectively game 2.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV4oMyYagaw[/COLLAPSE]
DISCUSS!!
(just not my video)
Thank you Raz for looking over this prior to my posting.
