It's a little frustrating that, after so much time, Marth's MU vs Diddy is still so very difficult.
Marth isn't alone in this. ESAM has never beaten ZeRo in Smash4, for instance - so I'm guessing no Pikachu has either.
So how do you beat Diddy? Is he broken? Well, some say he is not. Some say he is entirely beatable. Some have beaten him, 3-0d him, 0-deathed him.
I'm not going to be able to say how to beat Diddy, because as of now, I'm not a competition Marth. But I will make some observations and I encourage you to consider them and make observations of your own.
I also think it is important to understanding how to play neutral vs Diddy, because I think it carries over to how to play neutral vs other hard MUs for Marth - (Zss, Sonic, ect...)
So to that end...
A modern analysis of Diddy vs Marth - speculated analysis status progress - 30% complete -
Current post - presentation of available data for analysis & initial speculation
After all the time this game has been out, we haven't seen a lot of footage of Diddy vs Marth.
That's because Marth is used by very few players for reasons we needn't get into now.
(In contrast, there is much more Marth vs Sheik footage, and I don't know about you, but I am much better Sheik vs Marth than I am vs Diddy)
The footage we can work with is mostly Mr E vs other Diddys, just because there seem to be no notable Diddy's in Pugwest's local, and no Diddys he commonly uploads videos against - unless I am mistaken.
So yeah - the first set I see of Mr E is from 2014, so I'm not going to use that in a modern analysis of the MU.
Mr E Vs ZeRo
EVO 2016 - July (E wins 2 - 0)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=318NGGaR_Ds
SHINE 2016 - August (E loses game 5)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM0KeuW3NAY
UGC 2016 - December (E loses 3 - 1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP4HoGhW9og
Genesis Saga 2017 - January (E loses 3 - 1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIJDVz3ENcI
Mr E vs Zinoto
Endgame 2016 - August (E loses 3 - 2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYUoSBPjYYA&t=604s
Frostbite 2017 - February (E loses 3 - 1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTVVFfO_HME
I want to say that there's another one of Mr E winning vs ZeRo, and I think they played other times in events and crew battles, but I'm not finding those sets right now.
Pugwest has played against Zinoto also, the set was very close (Zinoto wins game 3 - 2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMszWrHgLrY&t=565s
Pugwest has recked a lot of other Diddy's I will leave you to look up for yourself, unless you are Pugwest reading this, in which case, your call dude. Mr E and Leo also do well vs less well known Diddys, though not in all cases.
And of course we have sets of ZeRo vs MkLeo.
It's important to note that MkLeo's Marth has a losing record vs ZeRo's Diddy.
MkLeo vs ZeRo
Exhibition Match 2016 - November (Leo's Marth loses vs ZeRo Diddy in the last game of 3 games)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foDfWO4lWHs
KTAR XIX 2016 - November (Leo loses 3 - 2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj4Usq4YjHk
ZeRo Saga 2016 - December (Leo wins 3 - 0!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atA0CcUZwqs&t=190s
MkLeo Vs Zinoto
FNSD #26 2016 - December (Leo's Marth loses game 1, his Cloud loses game 2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBU3L3_zSDc
So I post all that to now focus primarily on two sets and make some quick observations and contrasts.
Observations and contrasts
The Leo vs ZeRo - ZeRo saga - set,
and the most recent notable set,
Pugwest vs ZeRo - PAXArena 2017 - March 12th (ZeRo wins 3 - 0)
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/128201061 match starts at 28:57
Both players did good things and bad things, so I will just list them in those categories, because this post is already getting rather long.
1. Movement
GOOD
-
Changing up your movement options at a pace that is FASTER THAN THE DIDDY IS ABLE TO ADAPT TO.
(Examples
-Strategic use/but not over-use/of P.Pivoting, dashing away, full hop fair landing into spotdodge or occasional roll, rolling through monkey flip, spot dodge, shielding monkey flip kick, dashing into shield/spotdodge, nair, fair, dtilt, walk into jab, even a dash attack to catch a landing - ect...)
BAD
-
Linear movement that becomes easy to predict where you will be next
(Examples
-walking steadily forward for half or a quarter's length of the stage
-Using jabs, Dancingblade, and dtilts in quick succession, without dashing away in between attempts
-Unsafe landings and off stage approaches)
2. Defense
GOOD
-
Using Marth's options to shut down monkey flip - VITAL!
If this were a chess game, Diddy automatically gets the first move, all the time, in neutral. Your job is to discourage Diddy from using monkey flip, and punish when he does, because if you take that option away, Diddy becomes considerably easier to deal with - relatively speaking
(Examples
-Run in range to dancing blade to stuff monkey flip
-Nair approaching monkey flip
-Shield flip kick, turn and punish with DB
ect...)
BAD
-Being indecisive. This leads of an opening for Diddy to strike with flip kick.
(Example
-Linear predictable approaches and movement as before stated
3. Offense
Not really my strong suit to be honest. I think once Marth gets an opening, it's usually pretty straight forward what to do next.
The important thing is to make the best of each opening - the hard part is creating the opening through movement, counter-play, and straight up hard-@dollarsigndollersign aggressive reads on fair, grab, jab, Db, and whatever.
-I think a good offensive Marth is a Marth who knows the opponents options and when exactly it is a good idea to be aggressive, either because the opponent is at a disadvantage or because you have a good read on their movement habits...
Or,
Sometimes a good offensive Marth is a lucky idiot who just goes ham and gets a random string because he just blindly went for it.
In my case, sometimes I have to resort to being the second one, because I don't have MU experience vs top level players.
General speculation
-You shouldn't always passive aggressively respond to Diddy's actions in neutral and wait for an opening, just because he gets the first move.
This allows Diddy to manipulate your movements. Sometimes you have to go for somewhat aggressive reads and commitments to applying pressure
(Pug running up to get the initial grab, Leo running into shield)
Even when you seem to be at a disadvantage, just pick an strategy option and commit to it! Don't allow Diddy to pressure you into a corner while you constantly wait for an opening, because you will never find one. You have to create an opening through implied pressure and successfully counter-playing Diddy's Fair and Monkey flips.
Specific cases of note
-In the second match of Leo vs ZeRo, Leo was able to spam shield vs Diddy and made it look pretty viable, at that stage of the set. This is only possible if the Diddy has not overwhelmed the Marth with movement options.
-In the third match of Leo vs ZeRo, ZeRo's first stock was "Camping Diddy". After Camping Diddy got KOd, then ZeRo came back with Aggro Diddy.
I am afraid of Aggro Diddy.
However, Aggro Diddy can take some serious damage from jabs and dancing blade. So there's that.
-
At some point in the set, the announcer, I think it was D1, said "Ahhh ZeRo respected the H*ll out of that jab", and if you pay attention to how Leo used his jab, it's exactly true. ZeRo wanted none of that jab.
Walking jab apparently should still be a thing - used situationally/strategically - to apply pressure.
The monkey fears the jab.
-Dtilt seems to be good for not getting bopped by Diddy's Fair.
That's it for now.
If I left out any notable videos, I will update the list I made here if anyone tells me.
I still think the MU is 60 - 40 at best in Diddy's favor, at best. At worst it's 70 - 30. That's my opinion, and my opinions are unpopular and often wrong.
The amount of work the Marth has to do in order to maintain an even playing field is ridiculous. Marth has to run around like a mad man constantly, making huge hard reads constantly about what to do or not to do next, and only has small windows to punish Diddy, a character he can't hope to catch, so he has to wait until Diddy is within range.
Diddy gets to run his standard offense, with a good probability it will just work anyway, regardless if Marth is playing "correctly" or not, because of small and almost unpredictable variables in timing and spacing.
I think Mr E and Leo beat ZeRo because they applied enough offensive pressure. The problem with that strategy is, it shouldn't work, on paper. But perhaps it works because the Diddy you are playing against is only human after all, even if it does happen to be ZeRo.
Diddy is probably our worst or 2nd worst Mu next to sheik
A quote made before the 1.14 buffs I think. Still true perhaps?