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Falco vs Marth Matchup

ruhtraeel

Smash Ace
Joined
May 30, 2010
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707
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Calgary, Alberta, Canada
WHAT DO I DO

I just get CG'ed and the second I mess up I get gimped. He is the only one (other than Mario/Doc) where I almost 100% will switch to Fox. (Or G&W lol I probably actually could do better)


Playing him on small stages leaves no room for error, big stages means CG, I can't combo him well, etc. I basically end up lasering a lot until he gets close and then I get destroyed.



I think I just have to be more patient and bait some stuff then punish, since half the time Marth feeds off your mistakes if you are a FF'er. Right?
 

EthereaL

Smash Journeyman
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Sep 10, 2011
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Marth has a favorable MU with Falco.

The things you described as your disadvantages (being chain-grabbed and getting gimped) are primarily why Marth has said advantage. It sounds to me as if your issue doesn't lie in those two concepts, but in your handling of Marth's approach.

Should I assume you're a campier player? (in Marth v Falco MU)

:phone:
 

ruhtraeel

Smash Ace
Joined
May 30, 2010
Messages
707
Location
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Marth has a favorable MU with Falco.

The things you described as your disadvantages (being chain-grabbed and getting gimped) are primarily why Marth has said advantage. It sounds to me as if your issue doesn't lie in those two concepts, but in your handling of Marth's approach.

Should I assume you're a campier player? (in Marth v Falco MU)

:phone:
Well I haven't really figured it out yet, but I usually end up camping because I don't know how to safely approach and I am scared to go offensive. Which is why I switch to Fox, because it feels like approaching is easier.

I don't think my matchup against Marth will ever be as good as if I switch Fox than if I stayed with Falco.
 

bolt.

Smash Ace
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Nov 10, 2008
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When playing against marth its really bad to just stand in one place and shoot your gun. You need to constantly be reacting to his movement and adjusting your positioning so you can attack at any time. If you feel like you're getting hit too much out when your shooting lasers that means you're probably not watching marth and reacting. That's a huge part of the match up.
Some things you might want to take note of is marth dash attacking you while lasering. If this happens a lot try shooting lasers low to stuff that option. Sometimes marth mains like to walk through your lasers and ftilt or fsmash, try to shield and wd oos to grab or shine. It sometimes helps to run forward and then shield in that situation because you can get a shffled dair or nair oos if you're close enough.

On small stages(or any stage really), if you get marth to the edge you can wait around a bit and usually they will do something dumb to escape your pressure. Just stay at a safe distance and wait for them to whiff attacks, jump, move forward, or roll. Jumping at marth carelessly will often times get you killed if he is by the edge. Make sure your shield pressure is solid too. Mix you're pressure up, and remember shinegrab is your best friend.

These are just a few things I came up with off the top of head. I hope they help! =D
 

Bones0

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I'm a Marth vs. Falco beast, so I'll drop some knowledge on common things.

Lasers:

Lasers are mad important in this matchup, but important doesn't mean to spam. You usually will want to stick with only 1-2 lasers in a row before mixing in a dash dance. Marths love to use power shield gimmicks (like power shield fsmash or WD OoS grab), and even if they don't power shield they often aren't afraid to just trade an fsmash with a laser. When you are lasering, you have to have hyper-acuity of how close they are to tipper range. If you are within tipper range, you absolutely MUST be approaching them hard. Dash dancing or lasering within WD -> tipper range is bad enough, but you can at least react if they try to WD in on you. Lasers should basically be serving as your spacing tool to make sure they can not maintain this tipper spacing. Dashing back with a quick reverse laser can frequently get you out of his tipper range, but obviously you can't dash backwards all day because you'll get cornered. Instead you will either want to approach immediately after connecting with the reverse laser or try and go above them onto the top plat. You may also want to mix in one or two more lasers after the reverse laser just so they don't start anticipating you jumping above them or approaching immediately. On an overall note, your laser heights are very important to keep track of. Low lasers will prevent him from dash dancing under them, but every once in a while when you expect them to approach with a SHFFL you should pop out a quick high laser. Lasering Marth out of a SHFFL is just a free nair approach, or even a laser-fsmash kill at higher percents. These high lasers also apply to a Marth drifting downward from a recovery or combo on stage. A last thing to be careful about is getting dash attacked when you retreating laser. Do not fall for this because dash attack tends to lead to huge combos for Marth. Mixing in dash dances between lasers helps this a lot because they can't rely on you to be lasering every time you dash back. As soon as you see them going for it, a simple SHFFL will usually shut it down. Marth landing a dash attack is almost entirely prediction based, meaning they will only land it if you dash back and laser when they think you will.


The Approach:

Branching from the lasers section is appropriate because lasers are extremely helpful for setting up a safe approach, but you should NOT rely on them to approach. It is tempting to want to just SHL 2-3 times as you run towards them and aerial, but it will almost never work. Instead, like I said above, mixing in the dash dance is one of the most important elements of the approach. PP does this incredibly in his sets with Mew2King at RoM3 and Pound 5. Marth can throw out fairs, utilts, WD back grab, counter, and use his huge dash dance to completely destroy any approach that isn't perfect. Using a laser or two followed by a dash dance can absolutely CRIPPLE a Marth who relies the Falco to run into these attacks/traps (you'd be surprised how often even good Falco players do). The dash dance baits all of those, and then it is simply a matter of reacting accordingly. If they throw out an attack, obviously you can just rush in and punish the lag. Marth's attacks come out pretty quickly, but most of them do not have lingering hitboxes which means rushing in on reaction is possible. If they WD back or dash dance back, it means they are less hesitant to assume you will approach, which is why this is much more common among higher skilled Marths. The way I view this is just them giving up space.

Just because you are dash dancing to bait a reaction does not mean you must approach as soon as they do something. Many players will actually take a dash dance as a sign that you ARE approaching, so make sure you mix in lasers before as well as after your dash dances to keep them guessing. This way if they expect the approach and are WDing/dash dancing you can just laser them to throw them off and approach from there, or dash dance to bait another reaction. Because of lasers, I like to think of neutral in this matchup as almost being in Falco's favor, but it often depends on how aggressive the Marth is (I believe aggressive Marths can shut down Falco's neutral game, but it is definitely difficult and more risky than just playing passively and waiting for them to make a mistake). So unless the Marth decides to approach, you have almost full control, and you just have to be patient with your laser dash dance game, approaching only when you are confident you can do safely.


The Pressure:

So you've outspaced Marth and are committing to an approach. Now what? A first thing that can make or break your approach is the actual spacing of your attack. If you go in for a laser, you have to make sure you can reach him with a shine or grab. Jab can work, but Marth can usually aerial you out of it and it's really just asking to get shield grabbed. Most often, you'll want to approach with a nair or dair. I typically go for a dair if I think I can get the hit because it has a higher reward on punishment, but if I think at all they may shield I will nair. You have to be careful to overshoot your aerials to cover those dash dance back and WD back options, but you also can't overdo the spacing because Marth CAN dash under you, which can **** you pretty hard if he is able to reverse the situation and pin you by the ledge. So space your aerial, and also make sure you won't get grabbed by using a late aerial-shine. From here, you enter shield mixup games.

If they are 70%ish or above, I love just shine grabbing and uthrow dairing them. The only way out of it is a spot dodge which will get them destroyed if you do anything other than grab. If you aren't grabbing, the number one thing you want to watch for is the WD OoS. This is by far Marth's strongest OoS option, and sloppy shield pressure will get you hit by WD OoS fsmash ALL DAY by a Marth who knows what he's doing. Even proper shield pressure leaves frames where they can WD OoS, and Marth can usually slip through almost anything with his WD because of how far it goes. This means even if he is pinned at the ledge he could easily cross you up with a WD OoS, and that often leads to your death. I prefer to time my pressure so that they have to WD after the shine. This makes it so you can do that pseudo-reacting/predicting combination to reverse SHL out of your shine. Mango uses this flawlessly in his match with Mew2King at Genesis. When you laser their WD OoS (or roll for that matter), you can immediately follow up with another aerial-shine to keep the pressure on them. Marth's shield is pretty horrible, so after 2 iterations of aerial-shine pressure, I am almost always going for a shield poke to combo off of. The other main option to cover their OoS stuff is an instant fade away aerial. It's very effective at baiting grabs, and it doubles as a cover for WD OoS if they are trapped at the ledge and try to cross you up (Ahhh, ****).


The Punishment:

Falco combos the balls off of Marth, so it's important to make every hit worth your while. One of the most frustrating parts of this matchup is it feels like it takes ages for you to even get a hit, and there's nothing more frustrating then dropping a combo once you do. If you grab at low percent, uthrow fair ends up doing 30%+, so it is a reliable damage builder, and used near the ledge it can do a decent job of forcing an edge guard (they will want to DI in so you are almost always guaranteed 30% near the ledge). Most of the time, however, you will be punishing after landing a shine. Falco's classic double jump dair pillar works spectacularly on Marth. I suggest practicing on FD to get this combo down. After you dair, you have to fast fall to make sure you get to the ground first, and from there you will either shine again or utilt. There isn't a large difference between whichever, but I don't like staling my shine so I will usually only shine when they are at low %s and they are close to the ground so I can get them quickly. Utilt tends to be easier to hit, and once they've been pillared to a high enough percent, the dair will send them into the ground. If you are going to drop a combo, this is usually when it happens. On FD I tend to just tech chase them with a laser into aerial (or aerial-shine if they get their shield up in time). Dair is usually best at this portion of the stock because they will be at good %s to double dair spike or dair to bair/uair. Nair will get them off stage, but unless they were really high (like 150%), you'll risk dropping the edge guard.

On all of the other stages, you'll typically be dairing them onto platforms. If they are still pretty low percent, you can continue shining/utilting them before they hit the ground just like you would on FD (though it's harder because the distance is smaller). As soon as they reach the percent where they will land on the platform before you can hit them, you just need to react and punish accordingly. Expect them to miss the tech or tech in place. You can dsmash both on reaction, or if they are high enough to kill with a dtilt that is better because it takes ground teching out of the equation. Even if they do ground tech, however, you should be able to just dsmash again/fsmash (if they tech rolled) or lead into an edge guard (if they teched in place and slid off). Because of the tech in place slide-off, I try to always be on the inside portion of the platform so that it doesn't send them sliding in the other direction where they could live. If they DON'T miss the tech or tech in place, they have tech rolled, which you can react to for a free fsmash. If you ever get into this tech situation when they are not at a high enough percent to KO, you can always punish with a longer string to tack on a bit more damage before sending them off stage. Utilt -> uair/bair, double dair spike, or even a grab into uthrow uair/dair/bair will effectively punish Marth, getting him decently far off stage, if not KO'd.


The Edgeguard:

A lot of people let Marth grab the ledge, but this doesn't cut it in close matches when you need every combo to lead to a KO. The main way you will be dealing with Marth's off stage side-B, fair, and up-B is to simply learn to abuse the ledge invincibility. It's almost helpful to think up a list of rules that you will follow to consistently edge guard Marth no matter what. Mine would be something like:
1. If Marth up-Bs when he CANNOT make it back to the stage, roll from the ledge. (simple enough)
2. If Marth up-Bs when he CAN make it back to the stage (though might still go for the ledge), wait on the ledge and LH an attack to send him back off. If you mistimed grabbing the ledge for invincibility and cannot wait on the ledge to react, regular get-up into dsmash will usually work, or if he is pretty close to the stage so that his up-B would land him far on stage, you can roll from the ledge and fsmash.
3. If you LH an attack from rule 2, it should be a dair or bair. You can double dair spike them until they start DI'ing away from the stage to prevent it, at which point you can bair them and kill them at low percents. It becomes very RPS like, but you can typically cover all of the options regardless of whether or not you guess right. Even if they guess the dair/bair and DI correctly, they will still be far enough off stage where you can simply "reset" the edge guarding mini game and repeat.
4. If Marth is high enough that he can jump onto the ledge or stage, simply grab the ledge for invincibility and drop into a quick rising bair or shine bair off the ledge.
5. In a situation where you cannot get to the ledge quickly enough to do any of the above options, walk up dsmash will connect (even through a large portion of the ledge because of Marth's up-B hurtbox).

That is mostly just the basics for edgeguarding Marth. There is a lot of nuance for certain situations (such as reacting to their ledge techs or the best way to get invincibility without getting hit by up-B), but most of it becomes obvious with some practice and experience, and I would be typing all day if I decided to explain it all. Hopefully I helped someone. I honestly didn't plan on typing this much when I started. lol
 

Winston

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I don't have the theory for this matchup worked out very well, so non-rhetorical question: Do you guys really think spamming lasers is dangerous if the opponent can't powershield?

I'm a Marth vs. Falco beast, so I'll drop some knowledge on common things.
Bones do you think you can beat my Marth consistently with Falco?

Serious question. I haven't played you in so long

oh and back on topic...

To add to your section about approaching and laser + dd...

I think approaching with a sh laser at spacings that make it look like you're approaching with an aerial is really good. What I mean is if they're spaced approximately one advancing SH aerial from you, or slightly closer. You sh towards them like you are going to aerial like normal but you laser instead.

If you land on top of them, the laser safely links into shine on their shield, so you get to start pressuring. If they WDed back or similar the laser covers you while you close the ground and get into a position that's uncomfortable for them.
 

Bones0

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I don't have the theory for this matchup worked out very well, so non-rhetorical question: Do you guys really think spamming lasers is dangerous if the opponent can't powershield?



Bones do you think you can beat my Marth consistently with Falco?

Serious question. I haven't played you in so long

oh and back on topic...

To add to your section about approaching and laser + dd...

I think approaching with a sh laser at spacings that make it look like you're approaching with an aerial is really good. What I mean is if they're spaced approximately one advancing SH aerial from you, or slightly closer. You sh towards them like you are going to aerial like normal but you laser instead.

If you land on top of them, the laser safely links into shine on their shield, so you get to start pressuring. If they WDed back or similar the laser covers you while you close the ground and get into a position that's uncomfortable for them.
I don't think I've played your Marth more than a few times tbh. I have mostly played your Fox. I would say I'm like 65-70% confident I could beat it, but a lot of it would depend on how confident you are playing at the time. I've seen you beast on people as well as hesitate a lot and sort of just crumble based on however you are feeling. If you were at peak confidence, it would definitely be mad close. Can you power shield lasers well?

As far as spamming lasers vs. Marths who can't power shield, I think you definitely have a lot more leeway in terms of how much you can laser, but I'm not sure it makes all that big of a difference offensively. Defensively, you can sort of get away with spamming for a little (as long as you shoot low lasers to cover dash attack), but if they are smart they will approach and once you start to lose space in the matchup, you lose a lot of the flexibility in your lasers, which SUCKS. Against DJ who powershields like mad, I usually only laser 1-2 times; against someone who never power shields I would probably be shooting 3-4 between dash dances just for the extra damage + it ****s with their head when they can't move without getting hit. 5+ starts to lead to them getting an ftilt in, or they will jump over one of your low lasers and fair you real quick. You can't cover dash attack and SHFFLs at the same time, so you really can't just sit there shooting for long. Outside of that, I don't really find that I can approach Marth any easier without power shielding. The only thing I change when they don't power shield is approaching with closer lasers, which is actually what you were talking about. Power shielding tends to be much easier when the Falco is landing right in front of you because the timing is the same as the aerial.

This actually links into what you were saying about landing with lasers really close, and it's why I prefer not to do it that often. If I come in with a close laser and it gets power shielded, I'm basically guaranteed to get grabbed. Even without a power shield, it's pretty easy for them to shield grab you. If I approach with a delayed aerial, they usually can't grab me even if they power shielded it. Aerials have more shield stun, do more shield damage, make them worry about shield pokes, and have a higher reward (subjective I guess; only things that would really be better with a closer laser is if they are at KO percent and you want to laser -> usmash/dsmash). Mostly it's the grab fear. I space my lasers A LOT differently vs. the rest of the cast than vs. Marth. I basically try to never be standing in his grab range. When you're playing Foxes or Falcons or w/e, they aren't looking for grabs 90% of the time like Marths, and even if they are, the lack of a massive grab makes it much riskier to commit to shield grabbing an approaching Falco than a Marth.

I don't see that much point in laser -> grabbing (only talking about when I'm spaced right on top of them; I really like to space lasers out of their grab range then run up and grab them out of their shield or laser stun; the frame difference between the two is small, but noticeable). If they are low % I'd rather just aerial-shine-grab (I'm not sure how comfortable other people are with hit-confirming this, but I've gotten used to it) where I have more potential for follow up damage. If they nearing KO percent, dair-shine-grab makes it so they either get hit by the dair/shine (both lead to double jump dair/bair/uair KOs) or best case scenario they get grabbed and have a slightly larger chance of getting away (still likely to end with FHed dair/bair/uair KO).



Rereading your post, I am not sure where I should add this in to mine, but if they WD back or dash dance back when you laser close, it can turn out good, but if the Marth is used to dealing with lasers you just have to approach again because rushing in after that laser can lead to them landing an utilt. I must have literally been punished by that at least 100 times before. He WDs back and gets hit, then as soon as you rush in he utilts, you didn't DI it so he FH reverse dairs you do your death. That **** sucksssss cause getting the DI that quickly without messing up your approach feels impossible (Marth's utilt hits on frame 6). So yeah, lasering close if you are anticipating the move back can be good to further cut down on their space, but I just find it too risky, especially if they get the power shield and/or grab.
 

JPOBS

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I don't have the theory for this matchup worked out very well, so non-rhetorical question: Do you guys really think spamming lasers is dangerous if the opponent can't powershield?
I haven't read bones' post yet so maybe he covered this:

IMO, when it comes to lasers vs pretty much everyone, less is more. Powershielding isn't necessary to beat lasers. There are a *lot* of things the opponent can do to punish you for lasering that don't require powershielding, and with some of those things don't even require you to avoid getting hit by the laser.

shooting lasers is really dangerous. Proceed with caution.
 

Bones0

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I haven't read bones' post yet so maybe he covered this:

IMO, when it comes to lasers vs pretty much everyone, less is more. Powershielding isn't necessary to beat lasers. There are a *lot* of things the opponent can do to punish you for lasering that don't require powershielding, and with some of those things don't even require you to avoid getting hit by the laser.

shooting lasers is really dangerous. Proceed with caution.
Basically the tl;dr version of half my post. lol
 

Winston

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Good point about the powershielding punshing the thing I was talking about, Bones. But if they WD back and get hit by it that's a good thing for you. You don't have to approach in that case. You just gained space and pressure on them. They're still too far away to hit you directly out of their new shielding position, but you are closer to them and they are closer to the edge.

I haven't read bones' post yet so maybe he covered this:

IMO, when it comes to lasers vs pretty much everyone, less is more. Powershielding isn't necessary to beat lasers. There are a *lot* of things the opponent can do to punish you for lasering that don't require powershielding, and with some of those things don't even require you to avoid getting hit by the laser.

shooting lasers is really dangerous. Proceed with caution.
Right, people say this all the time, but they don't exactly say why.

How is Marth going to punish you for lasering without powershielding? Or take the laser and hit you if you are spaced reasonably?

He can really gradually get closer to you while shielding, but I don't see why Marth being closer (but still out of immediate sword range) is necessarily a more dangerous thing than you trying to approach him.
 

Bones0

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Good point about the powershielding punshing the thing I was talking about, Bones. But if they WD back and get hit by it that's a good thing for you. You don't have to approach in that case. You just gained space and pressure on them. They're still too far away to hit you directly out of their new shielding position, but you are closer to them and they are closer to the edge.
If they do end up WDing/dashing back and they get hit, that is definitely valuable space, but like it has been said before, even if they get hit by the laser, there isn't enough stun to stop them from just utilting you out of it. Even if you outspace an utilt, they will still be close enough to ftilt or fsmash and Marth's full WD goes the perfect distance for tippers.

I think the difference between what we're thinking is you are assuming the Marth will WD back and hold shield, but usually they either shield or space themselves backwards, not both. If they WD back to avoid an aerial, they have no reason to also shield after they do so. They are simply waiting for you to land so they can grab, utilt, or if they spaced it too far, fsmash. Lasering close CAN still be good because people don't react perfectly to attacking out of lasers, but on average, the benefits outweigh the reward. Too many things can go wrong, and when they do they are horrible, but even if you get away with it, you've only pushed them back a little and have to approach again. It's also important to note that you can usually bait these WDes/dashes back without jumping on top of them. Simply laser dash dancing unpredictably will often push them back efficiently enough on its own.



Right, people say this all the time, but they don't exactly say why.

How is Marth going to punish you for lasering without powershielding? Or take the laser and hit you if you are spaced reasonably?

He can really gradually get closer to you while shielding, but I don't see why Marth being closer (but still out of immediate sword range) is necessarily a more dangerous thing than you trying to approach him.
The thing about Marth punishing lasers is that he has so much range that if you actually spaced the laser out of his range, you're not going to be anywhere near him. I think part of the range discrepancy might be you being more used to Fox. When I play Fox I am much more capable of doing things like slipping in and out of Marth's range because he is just so much faster. Falco's dash is so slow and short that if Marth decides to fsmash and you are in tipper range, you really won't be able to get out of his range in time. His slower dash also means Marth feels much safer throwing out something like a utilt because Falco can't dash back and dash in again in time to punish. If Marth whiffs a utilt vs. Fox, he's almost guaranteed to get grabbed, but vs. Falco he will often only take another laser as the Falco retreats because he's too slow to be within fsmash range but outside of utilt range. It basically goes back to my first section in lasers where I stress the importance of NEVER being in tipper range unless you're SHFFLing at their face.
 

JPOBS

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Right, people say this all the time, but they don't exactly say why.

How is Marth going to punish you for lasering without powershielding? Or take the laser and hit you if you are spaced reasonably?

He can really gradually get closer to you while shielding, but I don't see why Marth being closer (but still out of immediate sword range) is necessarily a more dangerous thing than you trying to approach him.
Generally, Marth can close space really easily with waveshields. Which means if you are trying to shoot him from across the stage, its no problem for him to just waveshield into whatever range he wants to and then start to ****. Or he could just not, depends on the player (and we arent talking about the cae where marth doesn;t bother to challenge lasers anyway)

once he's in the range where he's threatening you by being close, he can:

-dash attack under high lasers and hit you while still airborn. ggs

- run under high lasers and dtilt you because he crouchs when he runs. ggs

- if you start to shoot lower lasers so he can't run under them, he can short hop over those and nair/fair you

- he can run at you, shield a laser then immediately nair or fair oos. This doesn't require the laser to be powershielded to work, and it also doesn't even require him to worry about the height.

- he can jump into a laser on purpose (or accident) and immediately fair->grab->ggs

- Falcos love to use lasers to approach. Marth (and any fast character) can take the laser, and immediately do a dash dd/pivot grab to beat your approaching aerial.

- Counter. I don't recommend it or anything cause of its obvious huge faults, but it is an option nonetheless.

the biggest thing with lasers is that you're airborn for a predictable amount of time while doing them. and being airborn means you have less defensive options. When you're grounded, you can defend yourself with CC, shield, attacks, dashing away, jumping etc. When you're lasering, the ONLY thing defending you from the marth is the laser itself, which means you are weaker defensively while lasering than at any other point in the match. Which means that the more lasers you shoot in any given match, increases the proportion on time spent at your absolute weakest state, even if you individually only spend intervals of half a second at a time in that phase.
 

ruhtraeel

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Alright so I read some posts, and they are quite helpful.

But from a tournament standpoint, is it really worth it to go Falco vs Marth? I feel like no matter how well I play the matchup, Marth still has autocounters to a lot of stuff, and switching to Fox is a much better option. Ex. It's hard to combo Marth and hard to space against that grab range when shield pressuring. Also it is hard(er) to run and bait attacks or attack in openings vs. using Fox.

What advantages does Falco have when fighting Marth vs Fox?
 

Veetaak

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Alright so I read some posts, and they are quite helpful.

But from a tournament standpoint, is it really worth it to go Falco vs Marth? I feel like no matter how well I play the matchup, Marth still has autocounters to a lot of stuff, and switching to Fox is a much better option. Ex. It's hard to combo Marth and hard to space against that grab range when shield pressuring. Also it is hard(er) to run and bait attacks or attack in openings vs. using Fox.

What advantages does Falco have when fighting Marth vs Fox?
I don't think falco's combo game on Marth is bad, it's pretty good imo as long as you get inside of him ;) but that's usually the tricky part from my experience
 

FrootLoop

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with fox there's a point where both fox and marth are dashdancing 1/3 to 1/2 a stage apart from one another and both players and everyone watching feels stupid for being involved in such nonsense.
with falco that doesn't really happen because he prefers the air.
 

Winston

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Falco's combo game on Marth is really good, as Bones said.

I think he gets more on average from a shine than Fox gets from a grab

@ JPOBS - I feel like you're exaggerating how good waveshield approaching is. I know Marth can get closer, but I don't think he can wavedash oos after a laser AND then get a move out before the next one hits him. (Both from personal experience and thinking about the frame data - Falco's sh ff airtime is 17 frames, + 5 frames of startup, vs. Marth's 4 frames of jump startup, 10 frames of wd lag, ~2 frames of shield hitlag + hitstun, and ~7 frames for his ftilt to come out. Fsmash and dash attack take even longer.) (If he can... I've been playing this matchup all wrong...)

So the range he can threaten you from a shielding position is usually his fair oos range, not his wd forward -> attack range. His fair oos range is smaller than Falco's sh aerial range, so it's not too bad if he's closing space with waveshielding.

And yea I know there's the high/low mixups, but he's still taking a risk to do those. It's a mixup, just like you approaching him would be a mixup.

Basically I'm not saying mindlessly spamming lasers works vs Marth. I just think that laser camping him and having him approach you and playing that mixup game isn't necessarily worse than you approaching him.

Of course if he can powershield with any consistency that all goes out the window

(and no Bones I can't powershield AT ALL)

(I'm looking forward to the next time we get to play =) though I hope it's not in tournament)
 

JPOBS

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Yea I wasn't trying to imply marth can shield a laser, WD oos AND get a move out in time, thats not possible.

i meant he can get into whatever range he wants to relatively unhindered by the lasers (waveshield) and from there try to execute whatever plan of attack/mixup he has.
 

crush

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Use lotsa lasers and try to use shinegrabs/doubleshine when shield pressuring. Also when marth d throws you off the ledge you can dj wj waveland which is pretty cool sometimes since marth will usually try to jab you and you can get cc shine


Also winston do you think im good at falco vs marth matchup or no?
:phone:
 

ruhtraeel

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Also when marth d throws you off the ledge you can dj wj waveland which is pretty cool sometimes since marth will usually try to jab you and you can get cc shine
:phone:
LOL if that works that would be so cool cause Marth is a dam good edgeguarder

Also, what would I double shine into? I'm guessing SH d-air or JC grab



And yeah comboing Marth can be really easy but getting into combo position is harder and if you drop your combo then you get punished -_-

I would probably just play as lame as possible with Fox and go for guaranteed stuff


I guess I play Falco mainly for stage control, but against Marth it always feels like I'm on the defensive

With Fox I can actually pull some offence out
 

Bones0

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Fox feels a lot easier to play vs. Marth when you aren't experienced against him, but the gap between Fox and Falco closes a LOT when you start to get the matchup down. Here's a few differences that might help you decide who you want to use (keep in mind my Fox is significantly worse than my Falco, though I have tons of Fox vs. Marth experience).

Fox Pros:
- Harder to combo at high %s
- Speed boost will help you space safely more consistently
- Combos are more reliable (less reads/reactions needed for stuff like drill shine to grab and uthrow uair)
- More potential for low % kills; usmash and uair kill earlier than pretty much everything Falco has except double dair; shine spike gimps can destroy stocks
- Edge guarding is easier because of his shine
- Better recovery/harder to gimp his up-B

Fox Cons:
- Easier to combo at low percents
- Easier to chain grab
- Combos pale in comparison to Falco's (a lot of quick bursts of 3 aerials and maybe ending with a grab, whereas if you are on point Falco can pretty much 0-100/death every stock)
- KOing straight out of combos is more difficult (sort of with the above point; once Falco starts pillaring Marth he can combo it into any of his kill moves, but Fox can only really combo into KOs if he ends a quick string with a JC usmash or grab into uthrow uair)


So just looking at those, it's important to keep in mind how many of them are only things that are harder or easier. Most of it is not actually "better." Fox is easier to chain grab, but a good Marth will chain grab both of them fine anyway. Fox can edgeguard Marth easier, but when I'm on point I can edge guard Marth with Falco every time anyway. Fox's recovery is better, but a good Marth will still be able to make sure you die any time you're off stage. So overall, I would just recommend you practice both matchups, and if you become experienced at Falco vs. Marth but still prefer Fox's style, you can develop that matchup. The deal breaker of who you use will probably come down to Falco's punishment game being more solid vs. Fox getting first hits much more easily.
 

ruhtraeel

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Fox feels a lot easier to play vs. Marth when you aren't experienced against him, but the gap between Fox and Falco closes a LOT when you start to get the matchup down. Here's a few differences that might help you decide who you want to use (keep in mind my Fox is significantly worse than my Falco, though I have tons of Fox vs. Marth experience).

Fox Pros:
- Harder to combo at high %s
- Speed boost will help you space safely more consistently
- Combos are more reliable (less reads/reactions needed for stuff like drill shine to grab and uthrow uair)
- More potential for low % kills; usmash and uair kill earlier than pretty much everything Falco has except double dair; shine spike gimps can destroy stocks
- Edge guarding is easier because of his shine
- Better recovery/harder to gimp his up-B

Fox Cons:
- Easier to combo at low percents
- Easier to chain grab
- Combos pale in comparison to Falco's (a lot of quick bursts of 3 aerials and maybe ending with a grab, whereas if you are on point Falco can pretty much 0-100/death every stock)
- KOing straight out of combos is more difficult (sort of with the above point; once Falco starts pillaring Marth he can combo it into any of his kill moves, but Fox can only really combo into KOs if he ends a quick string with a JC usmash or grab into uthrow uair)


So just looking at those, it's important to keep in mind how many of them are only things that are harder or easier. Most of it is not actually "better." Fox is easier to chain grab, but a good Marth will chain grab both of them fine anyway. Fox can edgeguard Marth easier, but when I'm on point I can edge guard Marth with Falco every time anyway. Fox's recovery is better, but a good Marth will still be able to make sure you die any time you're off stage. So overall, I would just recommend you practice both matchups, and if you become experienced at Falco vs. Marth but still prefer Fox's style, you can develop that matchup. The deal breaker of who you use will probably come down to Falco's punishment game being more solid vs. Fox getting first hits much more easily.
I think Fox is more forgiving in terms of spacing definitely, and IMO it's easier/safer to get a few random hits to rack up damage rather than one big combo against Marth. I have been practicing both matchups, and so far I'm finding Fox a lot easier to use against him, due to the guaranteed stuff he has.

Recently I've started to get better naturally at the F v M matchup due to general improvement in spacing. AKA throwing in dashdances, grabbing more, baiting, and turning around to fire one or two lasers instead of trying to camp the entire match. Still however, if someone simply outplays me as Marth then Falco seems quite helpless at times, moreso than if they outplayed my Fox.


And I think the only really guaranteed thing Falco has is u-throw f-air, shine JC grab, both of which you need to approach well with.

Fox's guarantees are much easier to pull off cause he approaches easier IMO, like waveshine grab, or waveshine-jab-SH dair-shine-jab-fsmash when I feel silly
 

Niko45

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I don't really think wavedashing from shield to shield is a very good way to approach Falco. You really do not get to setup whatever spacing you want from that because you are confining yourself to moving at incremental length, with lag, and at Falco's laser's dictation. The best way to approach, or at least the best way to control spacing while being lasered is to take lasers and walk forward because laser stun is really kinda inconsequential at most spacings and you tend to have time to react with dash away or an attack to stuff a Falco approach.

For this same reason you really can't just stationary laser Marth cause he'll just walk up to you and eventually dash attack you and you are now dead. If you mixup your lasers between two spots away from marth and really away from marth you can bait him to whiff dash attacks, BUT, if you actually hit him with a laser after/as he whiffs dash attack you are actually helping him by cancelling his lag which he can then push an advantage with by either dashing away or attacking immediately.

This kinda makes dash attack almost spammable against a lot of Falcos but really good ones can outspace dash attack (either by overshooting a dair at the correct time or staying away and not lasering the whiff and then punishing).

But honestly I don't think Falcos have much choice but to get really good at approaching and pressuring Marth because you can't just sit back forever and hope that the marth player will be terrible at dealing with lasers anymore than Marth can sit there hoping for missed L cancels.

Powershielding is not a deal breaker for Marth in this matchup (can easily win without them) but they certainly...****. Falcos should keep in mind that getting their lasers power shielded is often a consequence of very predictable lasering so if you are getting PS'd a lot try switching up your attack/laser patterns. Use empty hops and grabs to keep Marth off balance.
 

Bones0

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Powershielding is not a deal breaker for Marth in this matchup (can easily win without them) but they certainly...****. Falcos should keep in mind that getting their lasers power shielded is often a consequence of very predictable lasering so if you are getting PS'd a lot try switching up your attack/laser patterns. Use empty hops and grabs to keep Marth off balance.
OMG yes, my Marth opponent learned to power shield and it is basically PERFECT for conditioning you to stop lasering predictably. Random question, but what do you typically do when you do get a power shield? I'm assuming people don't react to power shielding something because it seems so fast, but I could be wrong.

Also, shout outs to Marths who wait for you to miss L-cancels. Breakin' dem shields! haha
 

Vaccine

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I prefer to time my pressure so that they have to WD after the shine. This makes it so you can do that pseudo-reacting/predicting combination to reverse SHL out of your shine. Mango uses this flawlessly in his match with Mew2King at Genesis.
whenever i try to do something cool like this i get shield grabbed. could someone break this down for me? i just dont get it. all i do is nair/dair -> shine -> fadeaway nair and nair/dair -> shinegrab :(
 

Bones0

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whenever i try to do something cool like this i get shield grabbed. could someone break this down for me? i just dont get it. all i do is nair/dair -> shine -> fadeaway nair and nair/dair -> shinegrab :(
Shield pressure is all about the mixups. Nothing is going to work 100% of the time. If you get shield grabbed, it's simply because you did the aerial too early, which is why you will typically want to fade away on early aerials. You can sometimes get away with doing an aerial in the middle timing. By that I mean you can aerial as soon as you leave the ground, or right before you land, but you can also aerial right before you reach the apex of your jump and then fast fall to shine as soon as possible (a common misconception is that you can aerial after beginning a fast fall, but it's not possible).

So my general game plan as soon as I initiate shield pressure is to look at things in a sort of list of priorities of which pressures are the best/safest.

1. Late Aerials
Late aerials are the best option because they link into shines without leaving any frames for the opponent to do anything in between. As long as I am confident my opponent isn't going to move out of the pressure, I will just late aerial-shine on his shield over and over (like I've mentioned before, Marth's shield is so bad that after two aerial-shines, a third aerial is a virtual guarantee shield poke).

2. Early Aerials
Like late aerials, they are frame safe, but on the other side of the shine. However, you pretty much have to fade away early aerials every time because they have a good window in which to realize that you attacked and shield grab. These thwart any attempts to shield grab after the shine or

3. Medium Aerials
They aren't as frame safe as late aerials (you will get hit by Up-Bs and Shines OoS), but because the timing can be adjusted slightly towards late or early, people usually won't try to shield grab it. They are at a great risk to get hit out of their grab both before and after the shine, so this is a great way of forcing them to roll or WD OoS.


With those three types of pressure, you should just spend time experimenting and seeing what you can get to work. Keep in mind that early aerials need to be faded away, which means that using an early aerial is going to end the shield pressure regardless of whether or not you land a hit with it. Because of that, you will probably find yourself sticking more with late and medium aerials unless you are specifically trying to bait a shield grab or cross up WD OoS. To work in lasers, you simply find their patterns of reactions to each time of pressure, then laser them when they move. So for instance, if they try to cross you up with a WD OoS, you aerial shine and immediately reverse SHL. The laser is very hard to expect and deal with, so you will usually have free reign to just jump right on top of them again. Lasers are a great way of dealing with Marth's WD back OoS because it is usually his safest option, but just be careful to get the laser off fast because you can sometimes just get tipped before the laser hits (I honestly just prefer to grab if WDing back OoS is even an option for him, but that might just be me).
 

tarheeljks

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hiv, on the first attack he catches m2k w/his back to him so he doesn't have to worry about being shieldgrabbed and once m2k spotdodges seems like he decided to go to town. looks like m2k tried to do something after mango baired-->shined and landed in front of him, maybe wd oos, but mango daired as soon as he got out of shine resulting in a hit. maybe you aren't mixing it up enough or your spacing/timing is a little off. any vids?

edit: left out spot dodge
 

oliman

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spending quite a lot of time with level nines, i think that theres quite a bit of counter-powershielding a falco can do. i've noticed that you can fire lasers either low or high and jump over them or jumping really fast under the high one. you can also powershield the powershielded laser, which isn't very hard to do if you know how to powershield regular lasers. also like fh dl but thats meh.
 

sad_day

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learn to recover properly LOL. if he downthrows u just do a sweet spot jump grab the ledge or if he forward throws u, shine stall then sweet spot jump grab the ledge lol ezzzz
 

Winston

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The best way to approach, or at least the best way to control spacing while being lasered is to take lasers and walk forward because laser stun is really kinda inconsequential at most spacings and you tend to have time to react with dash away or an attack to stuff a Falco approach.
Thanks Niko. I think this'll help me out a lot in the Marth vs. Falco matchup.

I've always thought waveshielding without powershielding was really overrated. I'll have to remember to try walking more.
 
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