My 3th mu guide guys this is the Falco mu. I would love some feedback about it and corrections are welcome =)
I will make blogs for all 3 guides I made on AIB so that everyone can find them back if needed.
Next mu is going to be Snake, Marth or IC's.
Falco MU:
Ratio and Why:
This mu is in my opinion +1/-1 in MKs favor. This is basically because of how much damage you can rack once you get Falco off-stage. And I think MK can cause serious trouble to falco once you are in range to properly space tilts on him. This both together make up for a +1 in our favor. However it’s only +1 due to the amount of tricks falco has to quickly rack damage, the fact that he can cause serious trouble once we are forced to approach and the fact that It can be really hard to get yourself in the position where you as MK have the advantage.
General gameplay:
So this Is a mu I don’t know as much about as the former 2. I will still try my best to make a decent and trustable guide for this mu.
As for Falco, This is a mu where you Have to be patient but also want to be a bit more to the aggressive side. The first 40% you want to play really defensive. His chain grab is guaranteed until 32%. However he can do several finish options which can lead to an early 50 to 60%. That’s why in the beginning of the match you should play this mu kind of like how you play the IC mu. At least that’s how I feel. Dair If spaced works great because He doesn’t really has really good options to punish it. His Usmash doesn’t reach you if you space it properly and same goes to utilt. Forcing him to at least eat 1 uair if you manage to get him into shielding while you are in Dair range. You can’t however keep dairing his shield because he still has an amazing jump and bair. I like to Dair to nado him at low% just to eat some parts of his shield and when I know I won’t be able to shield poke it I’ll rethread to an platform(You will always have a platform unless you take this to FD which shouldn’t happen without Japanese Rule set. Ban the stage and strike it a.s.a.p. If this mu goes to FD be extremely careful with landing or using nado. Anyway This strategy makes him want to get some damage in to force you into approach. Don’t spot dodge in front of Falco. He can easily punish this. It’s just bad.
Approaching:
It is very likely that you have to approach in this mu. Approaching over the ground is an option, However people tend to dodge lasers or try any kind of crap to avoid them in which case Falco will punish you. You should never push things over even if he has pressure with lasers. He wants you to overcommit things. Approach him fast and keep it safe. PS his lasers and always consider his sideB if you get closer. If he has habits in this you should punish it every time you recognize it. By simply using tornado. (This is a great option not just because It beats sideB every time. It’s really easy to time it and it will pop Falco in the air. Get into that later on.)
But like I said you will get closer by patiently shielding lasers and walking closer. It’s better to walk because Dashing does limit the options you have. And Falco can easily punish this. So walk in take time and shield lasers. Once you get into let’s say 2x times Dtilt range it gets interesting. Here is where you can start baiting him or forcing him. If you get any closer you obviously have the advantage. Spacing tilts are great vs Falco. So he will try to get away from you. If you have cornered him You can in 90% of the cases guess which move will come. It will come, The hard part is knowing/guessing when. If he has habits in his timing then it’s a simple nado. Let’s say yu as MK are at 2 times Ftilt range. He will try to bait shield or a tilt, While you are trying to bait his sideB. Try to get a bit closer while baiting him to get the advantage in position. He will at some point go for something. Like SideB or he will try to out combat you by getting in jab/grab range. You should try to keep him at tilt range. This is a great position. He has no tools to outrange you, Nor he has any space left to shoot lasers or make proper use of sideB. Being closer to him is bad because he can actually combat you now and being farther is bad because he can camp you, Unless you have a lead or when you try to use any kind of camping strategy.
If you choose to approach him through the air you also have to think about a few things. He can jump higher to shoot lasers at you, He can RAR Bair you, He can use his reflector or just sideB to get to the other side of the stage to reset things. He will not use Fair that much because it sucks. Approaching with glide is an option but I don’t like it that much just because you’re forced to move forward and also because you have less options. I usually like it to use platforms to get closer and then close the last little gap by going in with dair in his front. Not his back because he has bair there. Falco’s bair is a really really good move. It’s imo his best option to punish you when you are dairing at him. This is why dairing in front of him is better imo, He only can hit you with fair and nair if you space it properly and even that is hard for him. Overall the best way to Approach falco is always doing it smart and not too fast. You want to not overcommit because Falco has an amazing punish/damage rack game. You don’t want to get grabbed and then spiked on stage to an follow up if he reads this putting you in a bad position again. Good Falco players can really make live hard if you want to approach him to much or when you do it without thinking very good about what to do.
General poking and General gameplay after cg%
So simple your goal is to get in dair/Tilt range but at the same time you want to space these moves really good as well. This way it will be really hard for falco to punish.
You should not feel forced to approach more than in most other mu’s. You should play this mu patient because Really the only thing Falco can do to you is shooting his lasers. They will close the gap if you have a lead but if you had some kind of good combo and your leading 50% you shouldn’t bother about 3% damage. You can get more aggressive after 40%. That’s when his CG Doesn’t longer work. Once you are above low%(40%) you can start going in less carious. That’s the moment this mu gets fun. You can go for Tilt zoning to grab mix ups or for nice reads.
Falco is for one reason really fun to play against imo. He falls really fast which makes it easy to follow up at low%. Grab>Dthrow is amazing because He will get to the ground really fast which allows you to follow up. This also makes it easier to keep him in nado and makes it easier to juggle him.
Juggling Falco:
Now let’s go into how to juggle this annoying bird. Falco is actually pretty easy to juggle but he still has more options than characters like Mart or Snake. Falco has an good bair to work with as well as an amazing dair. This can be an good mix up with his fast fall which is really fast thus forces you to act fast. Thanks to his fast fall speed he can also kind of use Air dodge legibly to get past you. He also has the option to sideB which is an option even though it can be really punishable.
Regardless to his options Falco is still not hard to juggle at all. The best wait the juggle hem in general is like always to uair him just outside of his dair range. However if you mindlessly spam uair he can easily find the hole to pass you thinks to his fall speed. You should uair him on reaction This way he has to make a read and thus has to make a kind if guess. If you know he will come down With air dodge or arial it’s also really easy to punish m that way because of his bad air speed. Staying grounded and waiting for him to come down is great because he falls fast and his airspeed is BS. This results in 2 good options to juggle him. The thing I like about staying grounded is that he really has no options. All his options are slow , easy to punish or both. Good ways to punish his landings are Grab ftilt or nado. Nado works fantastic because his dair and bair can’t beat it, He can’t really get away with sideB And he falls fast which is coupled with bad airspeed. Only option he has is Airdodge which his easy to predict at this point. Another good concept from nado is that it pops him bad up which gives you another change to juggle him.
When Falco juggles you:
When he is trying to juggle you, You shouldn’t really bother to much. He can’t really uair juggle you because his Uair is slow and coupled with his air mobility not really viable however it’s a pretty good kill move so you should always watch out. Your airspeed is not good so you should just stay a little bit away from him. Once he used it He will most likely not get a second change. The thing you should worry most about is his Bair. He will try to use his amazing jumps to bair you and since Bair is really good and it has pretty good knockback as well he will try to catch you with it. Watch out for this and Uair And you should be fine.
When Falco is off-stage:
Ok so I honestly feel that Falco is harder to gimp than characters like IC,s Diddy or Olimar but It’s still not too hard. It’s easier to get damage on him then some other top tiers when he recovers but it is harder too actually gimp the character as well. At least that’s how I feel. Falco will never go for upB unless he is forced to. His upB sucks. It’s slow, predictable and has a very short range. You should always expect him to use sideB. If he goes for upB simply knock him out of it. Either when it charges or when he Is actually moving. It is really easy to beat it with dair. Even Nair is not hard at all However he can get knocked farther up which might allow him to use his sideB. Just dair it and or edge hog him and it’s a Stock.
So let’s go deeper into how to edge guard him pretending he will use sideB and not upB. Falco’s sideB is much better than his upB but against MK it’s still not that good at all. This is because he doesn’t really has many options with it. He can either sideB to the ledge or on-stage. He can kind of mess with the height but if he uses it to high up it’s a easy punish because of the amount of falling time+ RCO/landing lag he has. So he will most likely go for the ledge or goe on stage(on-stage as low as possible to get less lag).
Every possible way Falco can use his sideB is really punishable or gimp able. Falco likes to go for the stage for a few reasons
1.He will not face the problem to get back on stage from the ledge.
2.He will not get edge hogged and gimped as easily.
3.He will be able to get stage control if you mess up the punishment.
So The best way to cover all of his options in my opinion is staying right on the edge of the stage so not on the ledge and not too far on-stage. You have a great position to both cover the ledge and edge hog him if he goes for that on reaction and you will be able to nado/ Nair him on reaction if he wants to recover on-stage. He can cancel his sideB but this doesn’t really change a lot vs MK. He can only trick you with the short cancel to go to the ledge while you think he will come on-stage. However if your reaction is good and you are able to kind of predict it he will still die. It really is that easy to edge guard Falco. You will have a very easy time to land nado on him which pops him up and leads in juggles. However you can still make mistakes most MK’s tend to go off-stage which doesn’t work vs Falco. He can easily sideB when you get closer and not yet in range to use a move and he will get back on stage without any harm. The best way is to just wait on the edge of the stage(Not the ledge) and punish every sideB on reaction and reads.
When you are off-stage:
When you are recovering Falco will usually not come off-stage. If he does he will go for a dair or a bair. His other arials are to slow or too long. His dair is easy to avoid. You can go really low or just really high. Falco can’t dair you in both cases. Even though his jumps are really good. His bair however is pretty scary. If you start a glide you can clash it with glide attack and then diar him but if not you have to watch out for this move. He will rather shoot lasers at you from the stage. If you are higher than the ground this can be kind of annoying I find this annoying when I want to glide. Gliding is not the best way to recover but it is still good if you stay below stage grounds. If you recover the best way is to use DownB or glide. Drill rush is good but can be baired by him. Nado sucks because you have to get on the stage and he can punish nado really easy. The best way to recover is by flying back patiently and then go for a downB.
How to avoid the kill:
Falco is overall a pretty bad character at getting the kill move. He has a few good moves to kill but all of them are kind of predictable and thus I feel they are pretty easy to avoid. As long as you don’t rush over to much you should be fine. First of all a general way to avoid his kill move overall are Planking and shielding a lot. He does not have any option at all if you plank. He can only wait for you t opass the LGL or come off-stage and Bair. You should never get hit by the bair. It’s really predictable and If he misses he is screwed. Further shielding is also an amazing way to avoid his killing options. He can’t kill with any throw. Just never. So shielding works amazing vs him. Now Falco has several kill tools which are: Usmash, Fsmash, Dsmash, Bair, Uair, Dair or in some cases Utilt. All of those moves can kill even though most of them will probably not kill you at all if you play patient. First of all his most common kill move which is Usmash. This move is pretty good OOS and also has a great dacus coupled with it. Kill set-ups that are really common among falco’s with this move is double lasr or Dthrow to buffered dacus. When he does a Dthrow you want to DI it upward so that it becomes harder to impossible to land the Bdacus right away. Double laser to Bdacus is used a lot to punish shield drops. As example you shield the laser drop the shield while he is coming with a Bdacus. The prevent this at high% just stay in shield or drop it when you are sure you can react before the Bdacus will hit. Another good thing about the Bdacus is for you is that it’s kind of hard to do. Which can lead to the falco player messing up the tech which can give you good positioning. But don’t count on the mistakes Always be aware of the Bdacus/Dacus and know when it comes because a lot of falcos are really predictable with the move.
Usmash without the dacus is actually really useful. It’s pretty fast ooc and a hypen Usmash can punish a bad spaced ftilt and fair. So when at high% be aware of this move and space your moves properly. Do also not attack his shield like a ****** he will eventually hit you for it.
The next move is Fsmash. Well this move is a amazing reading tool and kills you early. To avoid it don’t do stupid rolls or Spot dodges. Also don’t DI into him when you land or when he is Dthrowing you above cg% but below 80%. He will try to read you a lot fith Fsmash if you have this kind of habits and it’s kind of divesting if he gets you a lot with this.
Than his Dsmash. This move is not to bad it just has bad range. You shouldn’t get hit to often by it if your spacing is on point. Just don’t stand next to him and spam spot dodge. He will dsmash you for it If he reads it.
Than we have his Bair. Coupled with Usmash his most dangerous kill move. This move gets staled a lot because Falco’s use this a lot(It’s his best arial) But it’s still kind of strong. If you are grounded shield it and punish him for it. If you are in the air don’t get close to him or right above him because of his amazing jumps. If he gets closer don’t start to air dodge. He will read this. His bair is mostly used to kill you out of an air dodge read. Just use a midair jump>dair if you think he is going to bair you. If you space it properly you will hit him.
Next we have Uair. This is self-explaining imo. This move is kind of slow but pretty strong. Just don’t air dodge into him or something like that. If you have to land, land away from him and make sure he won’t be able to land this. His air speed sucks so you shouldn’t have too much trouble avoiding this.
Next is dair. This move is kind of scary I guess but MK is one of those characters that shouldn’t get hit by this. He will never come off-stage to dair you if he doesn’t notice that you struggle off-stage. If he does just punish him with Uair or avoid it.
Utilt is the last kill move he has. This move kills late but it’s kind of good at 150+%. He can do it OOS or just to read an air dodge or to punish a missed grab. It’s a good punish tool and Anti air tool. However if you space properly and don’t get greedy he will not land this move that much at all.
How to kill Falco:
So now you know how to avoid his kill moves but how do you kill him? Well you kill him like most other characters. Your main kill moves are: GSL, ASL, Dsmash, Nair, or A gimp(mostly dair).
You can kill with Fsmash or Glide attack but Fsmash is mostly a read tool which can lead to early kills if you are able to read him in habits that you can punish with this. And Glide attack is like always a great tool but because of lasers it can be kind of tricky to get closer to him with a glide.
Now let’s go to our main killing tools.
Our first kill move Is GSL(Grounded shuttle loop) this move is like always amazing. You can punish every move he does with this. It’s good to counter: grabs, smashes, arials and tilts basically everything. However don’t spam this since he can shield it and bair you for it. Which at high% can lead to a kill for him. Use this move mainly as a reaction or reading to punish his attacks. This move is good at low% because you can start juggles but it’s also an amazing kill move. Problem is that using it more will stale it but it is great for both purposes.
The next is the same move but now in the air. This move is good for reads to punish arials or air dodges. It can also kind of **** him if you land it off-stage or close to the edge of the stage. I like to use this if I am 100% sure that he will sideB.
Next is Dsmash. This kind of works like every mu tbh. It’s a amazing read tool for landing, dodges or rolls as well as a great gtfo move. This move can also punish him when he misses grabs or stuff like that. Just that 1st hit is a really nice punish tool while the 2nd hit is amazing to punish habits.
Next is Nair. Nair is amazing. It punishes air dodges and can punish moves if you use it out of short hop. The big advantage this move has is that this move is really versatile. You can land it on his sideB if he recovers you can punish his landing with it and you can just read a spot dodge to nair him. It really works in any purpose.
Ending:
All in all this mu can be a very fun one. If you don’t have any experience you will find a hard time playing this mu and you will wonder why this is +1 MK but once you get consistent practice or one you start to understand it this mu will become a lot of fun to play. It’s still one of our hardest mu’s but that makes it more fun imo. As long as you don’t get grabbed below 40% to eat 60+% you should be all right. It can be a pain to get though his defense but it really gives a big reward once you are close to him.
