Hey, I was in a recent tournament here in n the Bahamas. I only got two matches recorded but it was WF and LF.
CCT11 - PM Singles: Abcool (Falcon) vs TK (Charizard) WF
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BIErxHS0Uo
CCT11 - PM Singles: Wing (Fox) vs TK (Charizard) LF
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMupZ-dot6M
I kind of got utterly destroyed by the Falcon. I had no real idea of how to fight him and was just a huge target for his knees.
I felt a little better about the LF match against Fox but dropped the ball at game 4. I know I overused flamethrower way too much and looking back I don't know what possessed me to do so. So obviously I missed out on some potential kills.
That being said, any input on my matches would be appreciated along with tips to fighting Falcon. Oh and I lost to another Fox in the previous tournament. Camping Foxes are a hard match up for me.
Thanks in advance. :D
So for the falcon match, you're making a couple mistakes.
The first one is a really classic mistake. You're staying in shield a lot, and a good falcon player will abuse the crap out of you for doing that. You have to find a way to keep moving, you outrange falcon easily! Make him respect your space! And if he does get too close for comfort, up B OOS! It's an amazing get off me move and is especially good against falcon cause he usually won't crouch cancel tech it. One of the best ways to make him respect you is to to stuff all of his approaches. If he comes at you with a Nair, you can jab him right out of it and then get a huge punish. HOWEVER, don't stand there and try to react to an approach, dash around and make him guess if you're going in, or if he has to go in. Rule of thumb is this, if you're facing him, then jab him out of any of his approaches, if you're facing or dashing away, Nair him out.
The other thing you didn't do was get very solid punishes. Falcon is combo food for Zard as much as Zard is for him. Unfortunately I can't just say do "x" combo in this situation...but I can tell you to tech chase the crap out of him. Best method I found is to Bthrow and then either regrab his tech, or Dsmash right on his tech (fun fact, cause you can hit falcon out of his tech roll, if you Dsmash on top of him right as he techs, you'll always hit him, just takes some getting used to but then it works into a reset into itself). The other thing you want to do if you're near the ledge is just get him offstage, Bthrow or Fthrow will work fine. If he DI's in for the Bthrow, just Ftilt him or something to send him off (btw, Bthrow dash attack is perfect when he's near the ledge, cause if you dash attack into the ledge and hold towards the stage, you'll fall to the ledge after the dash attack ends), Fthrow should send him off fine if you're faced the right way. All of this is because falcon is super easy to gimp, which goes into my next point.
You were not controlling the ledge when you sent him offstage, most times he got back onstage and then proceeded to 0->death you. Zard can easily dominate the ledge against falcon, but you need to do other things besides just trying to Dtilt. Grab the ledge! Force him onstage! Or better yet, grab the ledge and then do a ledge hop Nair to COVER EVERY OPTION. Rule of thumb should be this, if he's going low, try and reverse Nair him back offstage, you should then just be able to ledge hog him to death. If he's going high, get on the ledge and as he gets close to the stage, ledge hop and Nair, you'll either hit him up for a Ftilt/Fair, or knock him back offstage where you can ledge hog/Nair him or something. Now if he goes onstage, this is where you have some fun. During his landing lag you can ledge hop and Dair him, which is a free set up in to a Uair Uair ->up B/glide attack that will probably kill him, or just hit him back off with a heatwave or something. Note that Dtilt works as well, but here's an idea if you want to use it better. Grossly overspace the Dtilt, like, aim to him like 3 character lengths offstage with the flame. This is because, even if you whiff and hit him with the tail portion, it will still pop him up for a Fair or whatever and will convert to a stock, and if you hit him with the flame good job anyways cause he'll die from that easily.
Here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Md9mshsjnpg&list=PL-IETe1am30RrT6XL0be4nbfgWFUCYrL0&index=8
This isn't the best demonstration of how the MU can go, but there's some nice things in here, hopefully you can glean something out of it.
As for the fox MU
THROW HIM OFFSTAGE Dthrow is nice, but spacies are so easy to gimp, take every chance you get to Fthrow him off or something. Much of the edge guarding stuff is the same, except you want to sometimes just jump out at him and Nair to catch a side b. And if you guessed wrong, you can usually get back to the ledge before them.
Also you're still standing there a lot, you need to keep moving, the neutral is very similar to the Falcon MU in that you are looking to stuff one of his approaches, then destroy him for getting knocked down.
And keep up B OOS in mind, it is AMAZING for getting fox off you, specially in shine pressure.
A lot of the stuff I said for the falcon MU applies to the fox MU, just not the hitting him out of his tech roll animation, that's a falcon specific thing.
Unfortunately I don't have a good demonstration of fox gimping, if you have any more questions just repost in this thread (or join the Zard Skype chat #shamelessplug :D)