Match-Up Thread Export: Falco

[SpeedyJ]

Falco

DIFFICULTY: 45:55 – Slight Disadvantage​

Summary

• Old Match-Up Thread
  
• G&W can bucket lasers.
  
• Falco can chain grab G&W and virtually destroys him on the ground.
  
• Falco will usually lose in the air to G&W and gets punished hard for poor recovery.

Tips

• Crouch under lasers.
  
• Don’t get grabbed. A full chain grab -> D-Air takes away essentially half of our health. Spacing!
  
• U-Air his D-Air, it stops one of his good moves and prevents staleness of ours.
  
• Standing close to the edges while crouching takes away a lot of his options. It makes lasers miss, standing close to the edges stops him using Side-B, cuts his CG short. Once he gets close, D-Tilt, F-Smash or N-Air out of shield.

Mindset

• Play safe. If you’re not careful, you might end up taking as much as 10% or so from jumping into lasers or losing half of your health from a grab. Spacing is absolutely essential especially because if you get shield grabbed, you’ll lose half your life and are forced to approach. Patience is key!
  
• Don’t spam bucket. Many people probably have a tendency to try to Bucket everything because Oil Panic is such a strong move. Think hard about when and where to bucket. Don’t just do it.
  
• When platforms are present, stay on top and use a mix of slow and fast D-Airs and retreating B-Airs. Also, empty jumps may help.

Strategies

To Bucket, or not to Bucket!

• Don’t burn your shield. Simply crouch under lasers until they get bored and approach. This is even better once you have the lead. Should they be silly enough to fire lasers, fill up your bucket and crouch – (unlikely but still plausible).
  
• Don’t get baited into bucketing lasers at medium distance. G&W will receive around 72 frames lag on the first laser allowing the Falco to follow up with a grab. Try to spot patterns. For example they will shoot opponents after knocking them off the stage. This is pretty much the best time to absorb them.
  
• A good way to judge a safe bucketing distance is how much stage there is in between you. Only bucket when you are over one half of the stage away. But overall, just bucket when you are as far away as possible.
  

Ground Moves: Jab, F-Tilt, F-Smash

• Up close, Falco destroys G&W on the ground. His 2 frame Jab and 6 frame F-Tilt pretty much cover all of our options and the F-Smash has such a large hitbox approaching G&Ws will usually get hit by it. Plus, he has a great 4 frame sex kick B-Air and, short hop Reflector – which can be devastating if played right. Shield grabbing also destroys us.
  
• D-Throw is excellent. Tech chasing will play a major part in winning this match-up if you’re good at it. In extreme cases, G&W can actually chain lots of D-Throws on Falco and kill him as low as 80% with U-Smash.
  
• Juggling also makes this match quite winnable for G&W. You can juggle with U-Tilt and N-Air at low percents to build up some decent damage. Falco can’t do much against B-Air poking either.
  

Recovery and Punishing

• Firebird: If Falco is forced to use this, you just got a free kill. We can Up-B, F-Air, and even D-Air him away. Not turtle (much lower knockback, can SDI out)!
  
• Phantasm: D-Tilt is the best move to use against approaches as its fast, covers some of the air, and is very deceiving (in terms of hixbox size).
  
• General Edge Guarding: Stay close to the edge. If you crouch, you stand a fair chance at dodging lasers. D-Tilt has such a large hitbox that Phantasm will only result in them getting hit back out again and Firebirds are easy to telegraph. Standing close to the ledge also means you will waste little time jumping off and smacking them with a F-Air.
  

That Ain't Dedede!

• Unlike with King Dedede, we are vulnerable to Falco’s chain grab. Should you be unfortunate enough to get grabbed, spam Up-B. Interestingly enough, Up-B is a move we can use a lot throughout the match and when in the lead, use it to run away and telegraph his next moves. Using Up-B a lot helps to avoid getting grabbed as well.

Stages
The fact he can manoeuvre so much better than the rest of the cast on most if not all stages puts G&W in a spot where he has so many at his disposal. Against Falco, this is taken to somewhat of an extreme level as the bird has bad recovery and can’t fly! You may even go as far as to say Falco gets completely destroyed on some G&W stages like Brinstar or Lylat. Its also worth noting that on Battlefield, its dead even.

Play on:

• Pokemon Stadium 1 (you can time him out here)
• Lylat Cruise (mess up his recovery)
• Delfino Plaza
• Frigate Orpheon
• Rainbow Cruise
• Brinstar
• Castle Siege
• Yoshi’s Island

Avoid:

• Final Destination
• Smashville
• Pictochat

Mumbo Jumbo
Once he gets the grab, he must perform a walking chain grab – which stops at 37% although he can follow this up with a D-Air getting us up to 50% (essentially half the damage needed to KO us).

Frame Data

Spoiler

Neutral B: 12 (ground shot) or 10 (air shot)
Side B: 17
Up B: 21
Down B: 4
Fsmash: 16
Dsmash: 7
Usmash: 8
Ftilt: 6
Dtilt: 7
Utilt: 4, 12
Nair: 3
Fair: 6
Bair: 4
Uair: 10
Dair: 5
Jab: 2, 10
Dash Attack: 4
Standing Grab: 6
Dash Grab: 11
Pivot Grab: 9

Videos

None at the moment.


Conclusion!
In the past, this match-up was seen as relatively easy for G&W. However recently, "Falco shuts down G&W" has become common knowledge. Falco can easily control the space with lasers and his normal attacks cripple our ground game, making Falco seemingly unapproachable. In addition, he’s got a nifty chain grab and long ranged Reflector to boot. However G&W can take advantage of his laughable recovery and punish him very hard for mistakes, as well as manage a quick KO if we can land a smash.

In the end it comes down to whoever has more experience in the match-up or plays safer as both players have a good deal of experience against the other character and both players play smart its dead even.


Notes

Spoiler

Useful Quotes:

A2ZOMG

Spoiler

Falco shuts down G&W. A good Falco does EXACTLY what people have theorized Snake does to G&W, except he's easily MUCH better at doing that nonsense than Snake is. So actually playing against Falco isn't like playing against Snake at all. It's worse if they know what they're doing.

Although you can duck lasers, they still are lame to deal with since jumping against them is not wise. Falco's 2 frame Jab that outranges a lot of your ground moves, 6 frame F-tilt that is safe on block, as well as his broken F-smash which may be the longest ranged F-smash in the game after ZSS's and DDD's perhaps make Falco a nightmare to get in on.

Falco is also much harder to edgeguard than Snake. Granted, he gets punished much harder than Snake for screwing up, but his tools for actually controlling the match and picking you apart are by far better.

Spoiler

Yeah as I said, this matchup isn't fun once they realize that their closeup/midrange game is stupid. And that they can punish a lot of your mistakes easily with huge ranged moves.

Also you don't really want to challenge his B-air directly if you can avoid it. **** move is basically disjointed and 4 frames startup.

I'm thinking our D-throw and juggle game makes this matchup winnable, so no worse than 6/4 Falco, but I definitely would rather fight a Snake than a Falco. Except CPing Falco to Brinstar is pretty **** since he just plainly sucks a lot there.

izzy24

Spoiler

idk for falco if you stand close to the edges while crouching you take away a 8unch of his stuff: crouching will make his lasers miss, standing close to the edges will stop him from using side8, and also his cg is cut short. if he starts getting close to you keep him away with dtilt, fsmash or nair out of shield.

DJ Jack

Spoiler

I think the best way to describe the matchup is that Falco's jab clashes with G&W's 9 Hammer.


But no, really, it's not a fun matchup for G&W. I would suggest you guys simply duck under our lasers rather than try to bucket them, because then we could just still camp and you wouldn't have anything to do about it. If you DO choose to bucket it, though, make sure it isn't near the Falco. Since bucket has bad ending lag, you might take a CG at low percent or just a punish. Besides, the Bucket isn't even a one-hit KO move when you absorb our lasers, so whatever >__>

Jabs and CGs really **** game & watch (then again, those **** more than half the cast). Our reflector is super safe against G&W too since he really doesn't have a proper punish for it. That's assuming you space it correctly, of course.Point is, just try to chain as many Dthrows as you can and get an early kill on Falco. I believe your Usmash kills at like 80%, so utilize it. If the Falco ever gets a lead, you're practically done for. He's just gonna have a carnival day just camping you. Your Dair has more priority than our Uair, I believe, so don't be afraid to use it.

I would say ban FD against him and CP him to either Rainbow or Brinstar. I think Yoshi's Island is a good stage for G&W too. Pretty much any stage with platforms is good for G&W lol. Falco practically gets destroyed on Brinstar, so if they don't ban that... well, you know what to do.

6:4 Falco, imo.

YarsRevengerson

Spoiler

A lot of Falco's have a pattern when it comes to them shooting lasers, most times I see Falco's shoot opponents after knocking them off stage, this is pretty much the best time to absorb them.

Also, do not pull out the bucket at the very start of a match, I highly doubt a Falco will start a match against G&W by shooting lasers.

Spoiler

-Get the lead, just chill out. Use jumps and UpB a bunch

-Punish Phantasm, that moves is so easy to punish, so much so, that Falcos only use it in a good way, os make sure you can punish when you can

-Duck. 'nough said

-Don't bucket lasers if there's only half a stage or less inbetween you and Falco unless it's the third laser you're absorbing

-Take him to stages with platforms, and counter pick to Brinstar/Frigate/RC. Avoid SV/FD, also YI is a decent starter stage

Spoiler

Basically, if you're fighting Falco, you want to get a good lead (30-50%) and just stay away from him. On a stage like FD, you really just need to duck and be on the look out for his super fast moves, of course, he has to approach first. If he approaches with phantasm, you should laugh at him, because from the length you're out, you should be able to punish this well. And now to be more serious, this isn't gonna happen. DTilt is the best move to use against approaches (in my opinion) as it's speedy, covers the air a bit, and is very deceiving. UpB in this scenario is godsend because it's also fast and gets you out of a situation very quickly. If the stage has platforms, you want to stay on top and use a mix up of slow Dairs and fast Dairs and retreating bairs. Also, empty jumps help out as well.

Avoiding the chain grab in the beginning is a part of the whole, 'chill out' part of this MU. Remember, UpB is one of the best ways to avoid being grabbed, and should be mashed while being chain grab just in case you get lucky (don't count on this)

Basically, winning this matchup is pure patience and little to no fighting, which is preeeetty boring.

Also, on the YI note, no I'm not saying it's the greatest starter, but it's definitely not Falco friendly, moreso than it is for us.

UTDZac

Spoiler

It's even if both players have a good deal of experience against the other character and both players play smart. Otherwise, it's in the advantage of whoever has more experience / plays safer.

IN THE FUTURE PLEASE AVOID REPEATING WHAT HAS ALREADY BEEN SAID =^_^=

 

[SpeedyJ]

*Post reserved for me*

Individual quotes have been added. In the future, please take the time to look back at older posts to refrain from repeating what has already been said.

Thank you.

 

[Splice]

Nice. idk how i feel about this being 50:50 though

There wasnt much discussion of the actual MU ratio tbh
but im pretty sure people would say it's 60:40 or 55:45

I dont know though.

Nice work JMoney!

 

[Makke]

......................

 

[-Ominous-]

In the discussion it seemed like there wasn't much...discussion...about Falco. It seemed like not too many people knew the matchup. But the thread came out good.

You should link the other matchup threads in these posts.

 

[SFA Smiley]

Even... eh

Not sure how I feel about that. I think he has an advantage

 

[Alphicans]

I agree with even. Timing him out on PS1 is actually pretty easy, and it's possible on BF too. With the 7 starter list, we'll get castle, BF or PS1, with BF being the most likely one. From that we have a free win stage if we lose, and if we win the first game we win the set. Falco KIND OF has this, but I wouldn't say it's a complete free win. Timing out falco on SV is doable if we get a decent lead, so stage wise I'd give GaW the edge.

If you avoid staying on the ground, get a bucket and hold it so he can't cg you, the match-up becomes really weird. I wouldn't say 1 cg = half your health, because I really don't think falco should be landing a usmash on you easily. If you catch falco off the stage at like 70% and windbox him properly, you can get a super low kill with fsmash, and in general our smashes **** him at mid %, because they actually kill him.

Weak hit fair off stage will often force him to firebird, and then we can just punish it how we want. Our offstage and aerial game is so much better than his, I feel it makes up for our non-existent ground game in the match-up.

 

[SpeedyJ]

Thank you for all the support guys!

If you guys feel that strongly about the ratio, debate is always open in this thread. (Please no one take offense at this) Reason is I chose 50:50 is that top Game and Watchers; Alphicans and Zac think its even and its also "4/8" according to the BBR match-up chart.

Sorry if you disagree but yeah, discuss away I guess. ^_^

 

[Alphicans]

I think Vinnie and GIMR think it's in falco's favor, so their are definitely disagreements across the GaWs.

I've mained falco for a very long time, so I'd like to think I know this match-up inside and out as I've played it from both sides quite a bit, and for falco it can seem easy until the GaW starts playing really campy and using run away style of play. I honestly feel that GaWs who think falco wins are the GaWs who don't play to win and run away a lot.

 

[SFA Smiley]

I will camp my *** off if necessary but i just never try it because Falco is DAT CAMPER

I never really attempted and/or felt like i was getting ***** that hard by Falco to where i've wanted to time him out. I'll try playing campier though.

 

[SpeedyJ]

So it seems like majority would agree its in Falco's favor. I think vidoes would really help us just about now so we can have a look at the play styles.

Also, I guess we could ask the Falco boards? I don't think they will agree its even haha.

 

[Alphicans]

Basically everyone thinks it's in falco's favour slightly, except for a few GaW mains and even fewer falco mains.

 

[SpeedyJ]

So it probably seems more fair to change it to 45:55 then eh? =/

 

[SFA Smiley]

I can agree with that. Between everyone else and Alph who seconds Falco slight adantage seems accurate. I've never even considered camping Falco.

 

[SpeedyJ]

Changed. The ratio is still open to debate, but personally, I agree with both 50:50 and 55:45. Just not 60:40.

 

[-Ominous-]

I played a Falco in some friendlies today, and I camped hard. It worked realy well. I ended up 2 stocking him a few times even.

 

[SpeedyJ]

^ That's awesome man. Good these match-up threads are helping!

 

[GimR]

Yeah against Falco you have to camp your *** off and hope he's stupid enough to get frustrated and shoot lasers.

Like, your main goal is to some how get Falco in the air, when he's on the ground he outright beats GW's everything with good spacing. Even a lot of his air moves will beat you out unless you time your ground stuff perfectly. What he does on the ground requires no thinking, but once you get him over you you can setup frame traps since he has almost no horizontal momentum. you can 0-70 Falco pretty easily.


I think it's 6-4 in Falco's favor

 

[Makke]

..................

 

[SpeedyJ]

^ Yeah, I briefly mentioned it.

:D

Still looking for good videos to use as examples.