Data All Aircraft Report! - Fox MU Discussion Thread

[A_Kae]

Hello, Fox players! The Marth and Lucina sub-forum has begun matchup discussion and analysis on the Fox matchup. If you have any input to add, or wish to fight against a Marth/Lucina player for matchup experience, please join us at the following link.

http://smashboards.com/threads/vs-fox-matchup-discussion-and-analysis.418740/

And be sure to check the directory thread for the rules and guidelines.

http://smashboards.com/threads/matchup-discussion-and-analysis-directory.414156/

 

[M@v]

Looks pretty good, though I do agree with what others have said here about Fox losing to Robin, I think Fox wins the MU.

I lean towards Falcon vs Fox being even, but it could go either way. Very volatile mu. Same with MK. Both could go either way. Ness is in Fox's disadvantage imo, 45:55 for Ness. I think Fox beats Kirby 55:45 minimum, it's a patient MU for both sides. I personally think Pits are even vs Fox.

I'm going to update the mu discussion now too.
vs
vs
vs

I put some input on the Falco board when they discussed the mu way back, I put the mu at 55:45 in favor of Fox.

Fujin thinks Fox is Palutena's worst matchup lmao. As for Falco, I feel its either a 55:45 or 6:4 Fox. Falco's my secondary now instead of Mario so I know both characters really well. Abuse your speed vs Falco as there is not much he can do about it. Run in, bait moves, and punish because one of falcos big weaknesses is he has to commit to moves a lot of the time because of his lack of speed. Yes, a lot of his aerials are quick and very good, but he doesn't have the mobility to retreat afterwards in a lot of situations if he whiffs or if forced to do a retreating aerial off your shield. Punish him hard as he tries to come back on stage and don't let him get away with side bing liberally ; falcos does not have a hitbox in the last 3rd or the move or so like fox does, and the hit box is only behind him when its out. Falcos pluses in the matchup are a great combo game on Fox, and edgeguarding. Fair will trade with Firefox and spike you, so try to avoid firefoxing low unless its safe, or it'll probably be a stock vs a good Falco.

Little tidbit things about Falco to know:
-Fair has a hitbox that comes out on the first frame of it touching the ground, regardless how far into the move it is. This is great for Poking shields, and catching early shield drops as many people drop their shield too early forgetting about the last hit. Falco can also simply start his aerial 1 frame before hitting the ground, in theory he has a 1 frame aerial.
-Falco's upthrow combos at almost any percent minus super high ones (rage affects it too). At the higher percents it can straight up kill with its lasers. Hard DI/SDI Left or Right is your best chance to avoid getting combod or KOd, although at certain percents I'm quite sure its guaranteed regardless of DI
-Falco's upsmash has 2 strong hits, and the second one will reach behind him, and is just as strong vertically as the hitbox in front of him.
-Like Fox, Falco can combo into a bunch of stuff from side b, watch it.
-The center of Falcos dsmash has a derpy hitbox that has like no knockback and sends you upwards rather than sideways. This is on his body rather than his legs. I've seen non shield shulk live a 200% hit on Duck Hunt from this hitbox before. At the same time, I've also followed it up with an upair for the kill before; not sure if it was an actual combo though.

 

[Macchiato]

Fujin thinks Fox is Palutena's worst matchup lmao. As for Falco, I feel its either a 55:45 or 6:4 Fox. Falco's my secondary now instead of Mario so I know both characters really well. Abuse your speed vs Falco as there is not much he can do about it. Run in, bait moves, and punish because one of falcos big weaknesses is he has to commit to moves a lot of the time because of his lack of speed. Yes, a lot of his aerials are quick and very good, but he doesn't have the mobility to retreat afterwards in a lot of situations if he whiffs or if forced to do a retreating aerial off your shield. Punish him hard as he tries to come back on stage and don't let him get away with side bing liberally ; falcos does not have a hitbox in the last 3rd or the move or so like fox does, and the hit box is only behind him when its out. Falcos pluses in the matchup are a great combo game on Fox, and edgeguarding. Fair will trade with Firefox and spike you, so try to avoid firefoxing low unless its safe, or it'll probably be a stock vs a good Falco.

Little tidbit things about Falco to know:
-Fair has a hitbox that comes out on the first frame of it touching the ground, regardless how far into the move it is. This is great for Poking shields, and catching early shield drops as many people drop their shield too early forgetting about the last hit. Falco can also simply start his aerial 1 frame before hitting the ground, in theory he has a 1 frame aerial.
-Falco's upthrow combos at almost any percent minus super high ones (rage affects it too). At the higher percents it can straight up kill with its lasers. Hard DI/SDI Left or Right is your best chance to avoid getting combod or KOd, although at certain percents I'm quite sure its guaranteed regardless of DI
-Falco's upsmash has 2 strong hits, and the second one will reach behind him, and is just as strong vertically as the hitbox in front of him.
-Like Fox, Falco can combo into a bunch of stuff from side b, watch it.
-The center of Falcos dsmash has a derpy hitbox that has like no knockback and sends you upwards rather than sideways. This is on his body rather than his legs. I've seen non shield shulk live a 200% hit on Duck Hunt from this hitbox before. At the same time, I've also followed it up with an upair for the kill before; not sure if it was an actual combo though.

omg M@V remember me? 40% Zelda kill

 

[Joaco]

Sup guys, the Sheik boards had opened up a matchup discussion thread for Fox. If you guys could provide any input we'd appreciate it for sure.
Link: http://smashboards.com/threads/sheiks-matchup-discussion-fox.418891/

 

[Maraphy]

Unless your controller is malfunctioning you don't really need much advice to fight Palutena. Our strategy is probably going to rely on slowing the match down and trying to maintain control / distance, but Fox is very well equipped to break through that.

Oh, also don't get hit with U-smash while Illusioning onto the stage ya goofball!

 

[DavemanCozy]

Customs off, Fox wins easily against Palutena. Not sure about customs on.

I've actually played the Palutena mu against IceNinja here in Ontario, back when we were near the same skill level, before he got really good. Things to watch for are her attacks with her shield, such as dash attack and b-air, they're quick but don't offer much range and also protect her. Jab is also disjointed and quick, so there's that to look out for too. She really shouldn't be following up to get KOs as long as you DI away from her. U-smash keeps you in check if you try recovering above the ledge with illusion, she also has N-air which can potentially stage spike offstage. Her attacks are very, very punishable, particularly her smash attacks. Windboxes won't push you if you're shielding.

I welcome discussion with Customs On too, since I imagine this mu becomes less one-sided.

 

[TLTC]

Fox versus Palutena is a very difficult matchup (for Palu) until you get used to it. Palutena's normal tricks and jab setups will not work on Fox if he is ready for him (he can jab out). Instead of jab setups, the Palutena player should use rapid jab to force him back/offstage. Fox has alot of trouble punishing retreating back-airs and fairs without a perfect shield. Fox also has mostly telegraphed kill setups, but Palu cant punish them well due to poor out of shield options so she will try to make space.

What Palutena has in this matchup is the ability to make Fox's life a living hell offstage and on the edge. She has about 3 different ways to catch illusion (nair,bair,upsmash) and recovering low can lead to a nair gimp or a spike (her dair beats out firefox).

While the matchup is definitely in Fox's favor (I would call it a 6:4 for Fox), Palutena has some very strong tools that he needs to look out for.

 

[Foster J.]

Sup guys, the Sheik boards had opened up a matchup discussion thread for Fox. If you guys could provide any input we'd appreciate it for sure.
Link: http://smashboards.com/threads/sheiks-matchup-discussion-fox.418891/

DON'T GIMP US PLEASE NO

 

[DavemanCozy]

Any characters we should re-discuss? It's been a couple months since the jab lock got removed, we have matches that aren't super-one-sided anymore. +nerfs/buffs to other characters too.

We're slowly approaching the end of the character list too. Before I update with the next characters, I think we should prioritize fleshed out discussions of the popular characters too. By "fleshed out," I mean really only focus on that one character matchup. I'm thinking of taking the direction lots of other boards are taking, and start a thread about the matchup. By keeping discussion in comments on that thread, we keep it all in one place so we can make this thread a directory of MUs. I think it keeps things a lot more organized than having to browse through all these pages.

Let me know what you think.

 

[Foster J.]

Well besides Lucario being MEH
Shulk being harder to control
Ganon having more space in close quarters
Ness'n Lucas being floaty "No combo" Boyz

Then it's just to say that Fox is VERY even in almost any matchup he dominated prior to the patch where you would dominate with jabjab setups or force them into shield and going for grabs etc. etc.

The key pointers remain but alas more even MUs

 

[miniada]

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...oMZlbJXqKPtHEBFgA&sig2=S3ByqGRUvROHnQY8mFdCyQ were discussing fox and would love your input on him.

 

[Sir Tundra]

I might be a little late for the discussion but better now then but better



vs (55:45): This is a matchup where fox wins ever so slightly. Although fox can't really do much to falco at low %, and can get edge guarding by falco rather easily because that fair though. Fox can just abuse his speed and force falco to commit due to falco having a terrible neutral. You can also be able to punish falco when he's trying to retreat due to falco having below average mobility.

vs No customs(60:40)Customs(N/A): Without customs this matchup is no doubt in fox's favor. For customs however I'm not sure since I have little experience with custom palutena. Fox being a fast faller(fastest faller in the game mind you) means that palutena can't do her jab to grab setups. Fox's speed/pressure can be very troublesome for our fellow goddess.


I think an interesting character to discuss would be

The 1.11 patch was pretty much a huge buff for our fellow shoto.

As he's pretty much super safe on shields right now.
I'm really interested to see how fairs up against ryu.

Another Character I think we should discuss or rather re discuss is

He got nerfed pretty hard being able to no longer get kill confirms off of down throw which is huge.

 

[DavemanCozy]

I agree Luigi and Ryu, both are common enough in the meta right now. For now, I'm just going to continue with general discussion. I can't do much atm regarding starting in-depth character discussions, by xmas holiday I hope to be less busy.

vs
vs
vs

I'll get to sharing this in the other boards.

 

[meleebrawler]

Most people agree that the Mewtwo matchup is in Fox's favour since he is very fast and strong in close quarters, two traits that Mewtwo dislikes, and his reflector restricts shadow ball zoning somewhat. You'll win easily if the Mewtwo can't keep you out, but Mewtwo's safe spacing tools (mainly dtilt) do allow him to start some fairly damaging combos on Fox, and charged shadow balls allow him to play some serious mindgames, especially since he can reflect them back. This can extend to recovery too, restricting Fox from illusioning to the edge and forcing him to fire leaving him open to a gimp or stage spike.

Overall Fox generally dictates the pace of the match better with his speed but a patient Mewtwo can overcome it.

 

[spiderfreak1011]

As a Shulk main in the past and having fought many good Fox's in the past, I think I know some good things about this match up.

First, lemme say this right off the bat. This Match Up is not in Shulk's favor obviously, but, I think due to some flaws in Fox's character, I feel that the Match Up is still doable if you know how to fight him right. I'll explain why I think this later on.

The Neutral

Fox definitely dominates the neutral over Shulk, no question. He has good throw combos and a superb pressure game (Shulk has a really hard time dealing with Pressure), can easily get Shulk into the high 80s/90s fast. Fox's Up Tilt is great for trapping (as you all probably know) since Shulk can't take pressure and may air dodge early if you try to bait it.

Shulk's Monado Arts aside from Speed and Buster aren't really useful in the neutral, but I personally feel of the two, Buster is definitely the Art Fox NEEDS to be wary of. I've found in my exp. that Buster is more useful than Speed because a few good hits from Shulk gets Fox into killing range very easy. Shulk's only real ace in the neutral I feel are Empty Hops. As most people will try to punish Shulk's landing with aerials, a lot of them will Shield in preparation for the attack. Most times to leads for free grabs and damage on Shulk's end, although it's easier to initiate in Speed than Buster when Shulk approaches. Again, watch out for Buster since it can make things riskier for Fox pretty easily.

I feel the hardest part of the Match Up for Fox is trying to land a kill on Shulk if he starts to play defensive (especially with the likes of Buster and Shield as his best Arts for trying to rack up damage/survive when he's at high percents). I find when fighting Fox that this is the part that makes or breaks the game for them because Fox's best and most reliable kill moves seem to be Uair and U-Smash to me (and Bair and D-Smash to an extent). I feel that it's even harder for Fox now because he lost his Jab 1 Jab 2 U-Smash Kill confirm and has a harder time landing that.

Shulk has the advantage in that he has to force Fox to make a move since none of his attacks chain together anymore, and all Fox can really do is keep beating him in neutral and hoping he gets Shulk to a percent where something kills eventually, or get a hard read on him to get the early kill (or something like Soft Nair or Dair > Up Smash). As I stated earlier, Buster and Shield are Shulk's go to Arts at this point (if he's a good Shulk), Buster to rack up more damage on Fox for challenging him and Shield to stay alive longer and garner more rage. If the player knows what they're doing and are good at playing safe, it's not too hard for Shulk to stay alive and get the kill on Fox before said Pilot does the same to him. I feel that this part is what makes or breaks the Match Up for both players, but this focuses more on Player Meta than Character meta honestly.

I also recommend turning a good Shulk's strategy back on them by using Empty Hops when you're both at kill percents after getting a grab. If he's not in Speed/Jump it's not too hard to catch his landing and bait an air dodge and get a free U-Smash/F-Smash on him.

Edgeguarding

Now I know Fox isn't gonna be edge guarding Shulk too much in the Match Up (unless they wanna be gutsy, but we know Fox isn't really made for that), but I will point on some tips for if Shulk tries to do the same to you. Don't get too predictable with using Side B to recover, a good Shulk can catch on and when they knock you off stage, they can run off stage and do a Double Jump Nair (maybe even in Smash if they're quick enough) to catch Fox's return to the ledge as it covers the whole area around the edge and lasts a long time (lasts long enough to outlast an air dodge when spaced right). Stalling with Reflector and mixing it up with Up B is good to help Fox avoid Shulk's edge guarding if he's in a good position to do attempt doing this to you.

I feel the Match Up is probably 60:40 Fox's Favor, maaaaaybe 55:45 Fox's favor if the player is good at surviving and avoiding Fox's limited KO options. Getting reads in this match up is essential for Fox in my experience. Either way, I still think Fox's wins because of the neutral and good pressure game, but
I feel this is the kind of Match Up where player skill factors heavily into deciding once you both reach High Percents.

Hope this helps~

 

[Foster J.]

"He has good throw combos"
Rejected!

 

[NouveauRétro]

Heyo, I am an alien from the G&W boards.
Soooo, we're basically all in agreement that the Fox matchup isn't in our favor... Here's how we see it.
Pros on our side
Lasers are even worse than usual since we can a) duck them or b)bucket them for a 17% attack
Fire(our Up B) beats Phantasm, and since your other recovery move is so vulnerable we don't have the hardest time gimping Fox
Dtilt and fastfall uair can send aerial approaching Foxes flying
Dthrow unique combos on fastfallers (Dthrow-Down smash works on only Fox afaik lol)
Forgiving toot toot percents on fastfallers
Usmash is a boon in most matchups and this one is no exception. A well timed upsmash ignores all

Cons
Our moves are sooo laggy and we're too floaty, and fast character can easily take advantage of a misspaced aeriel since we can't autocancel.
We lose the neutral horribly due to Fox's approach options being vastly superior to ours, and our frames lose out because they're kind of ass. So he gets in and out pretty easily if the opponent mixes up their approaches, while our options are pretty pnishable if we screw up.
Reaaaally hard to get grabs, the source of G&W's massive damage output
G&W's combo escape options are either situational like uair or leave him vulnerable in the air with few landing options like Fire.
Oh god, that jab is the worst. It's so fast we can't jab-grab because we get jabbed before our 6-frame standing grab activates.
Fox will have an easier time landing the kill onstage, especially with G&W's weight and floatiness.(toot toot kills Fox at the usual percents, despite Fox's lightweight attributes)

I'm pretty proud of myself when I beat a Fox, because G&W has to outplay the opponent pretty consistently in this matchup. Fox definitely has the upper hand, but we can still pull some stuff(mostly when our opponent in unfamiliar with the matchup).

60-40

 

[Folie]

I'll just expand on the last post and add my own stuff. I'll try to page in some other people from the G&W skype group who are better/know more than me to weigh in as well.

Heyo, I am an alien from the G&W boards.
Lasers are even worse than usual since we can a) duck them or b)bucket them for a 17% attack

You guys really shouldnt have to worry about your lasers getting bucketed, if they do, be aware the bucket has a super long amount of endlag and you should be able to get some sort of punish on it, and unlike a lot of bucketable moves, a bucket full of lasers does not really have a huge amount of kill power. Don't let the bucket discourage you from spamming lasers to force approach and gain % lead.

Fire(our Up B) beats Phantasm, and since your other recovery move is so vulnerable we don't have the hardest time gimping Fox

this doesn't really make any sense, if the G&W is somehow up b'ing phantasm every time, you're being way too predictable about your recovery.

Dtilt and fastfall uair can send aerial approaching Foxes flying

doesn't mean much in this MU, reset to neutral, which Fox excels in vs G&W

Dthrow unique combos on fastfallers (Dthrow-Down smash works on only Fox afaik lol)

depending on %, you should be able to shield/jump out of this. Uthrow to Up B or Dthrow to rapid jab is the choice throw option on low % Foxes.

Usmash is a boon in most matchups and this one is no exception. A well timed upsmash ignores all

actually one of the few MU's where usmash will not get a lot of mileage. If you're getting usmashed a lot you're either
1. Really easy to read
2. Overusing and being way too predictable about recovering onstage with Phantasm. Some Foxes I'll literally stand in the center of the stage while they recover and wait for a side B onstage, and they'll do it. Don't be like those Foxes.

Reaaaally hard to get grabs, the source of G&W's massive damage output

To add onto this, you can hard DI out of practically all of our dthrow combos.

Fox's boons are G&W's counters in this MU. His weight/fall speed renders our excellent throw combo game to being mediocre, his OoS options make practically anything unsafe on shield against Fox and can easily result in a stock loss, his ability to mixup his recovery (something I RARELY see Fox mains take advantage of. Stop over-relying on Phantasm to recover onstage. Seriously, stop it) makes our great offstage game not as useful.

Against any regular Fox who doesn't know the MU, the MU is
60-40
but a Fox who knows how to use their strengths to exploit G&W's weaknesses and not fall into G&W traps can make as polarizing as
75-25

Undeniably G&W's worst MU imo

 

[SeanS]

also from G&W boards

Most competitive G&Ws are in full agreement that Fox is G&W's worst matchup, long and by far. Every single thing that makes G&W good against a majority of the cast is completely and utterly nullified by this character.

Begin simply by sitting back and spamming lasers. This gets guaranteed damage, and if we try to bucket it, there is no positive gain off of the bucketing, because we are trapped into getting extra damage on us while we get a non-guaranteed move with no knockback and weak damage enabled.

After that, Fox can literally sit back, wait for G&W to do something, and punish it out of shield.

It's literally that simple for Fox, without any exaggeration.

Fox also has a lot of convenient outs against most of G&W's strengths, including:

- Basically none of his approaches or moves can be reliably upsmashed.
- He has the strongest throw combo DI in the game, making him one of about two or three characters who cannot reliably be neutral air'd out of grab. He is also completely immune to dthrow > uair for this reason.
- Getting that nair to grab is difficult on Fox anyway because he fastfalls so hard that he generally has to be above late twenties in percents before he his hittable. Jabs out of dthrow or up throw to up b is often necessary instead, and aren't great options in comparison.
- In theory, Fox is the most edgeguard immune character in the game, at the very least where G&W is concerned. He has two utterly insane recovery methods that can be mixed up and trajectorily adjusted on a whim, and he can tech any attempt to hit him out of low firefoxes if he is not at very high percents, which would be nearly impossible to get him to in a seriously competitive match anyway. Thus, a major strength of G&W is completely negated in theory (though in practice, a poor Side B can get trapped by lingering hitboxes off of G&W's aerials)
- Seriously, literally every approach can be punished out of shield, and purely off of reaction. The absolute best I can do is hope that you'll let me walk up to you and mix up between jab and grab. I don't know of a single other character who can shield camp G&W even remotely as reliably.

Where can Fox go wrong in this MU? With nothing, theoretically speaking. But in practice, he has the following issues:

- The main one is killing. Fox can keep racking up damage on G&W like no other, but his kill methods are fundamentally unsafe. It is completely possible that G&W can take a **** ton of damage and harass the Fox player by manipulating his desire to score a kill. This all said, if you stick to safe kill setups (which you probably all know about since you main this character), you should be fine.

- If you cannot immediately close the distance out of a throw, up air is unviable against G&W generally, because G&W's down air will outrange it consistently.

- Your tendency to not play the matchup well can and will be manipulated. You need to camp. G&W is a character you do not want to go in on except at kill percents, and you should only use safe kill setups or option cover for bad landings. G&W has a lot of ways to hard punish dumb aerial approaches that some beginner Foxes might want to do because he "feels fast" or something.

- Expanding on the previous one: it is entirely possible that you can be pivot grabbed defensively before you try to dash (something). This never happens against any G&W however, so feel free to ignore this statement completely.


Still, none of this practically means much; and, all in all, Fox can effortlessly win this MU if he plays by the book as he does with most MUs, camping until the opponent is within option coverage range and limiting his opponent's viable moves as much as possible. He only loses if he tries to rush in.

I don't like giving MU numbers, but feel free to shoot this one through the roof if you'd like.

 

[BoxedOccaBerrys]

im surprised no one has mentioned mewtwo, or someone has and im just oblivious, but with fox being one of my pockets, i have gone up a couple mewtwo. they are complete opposites in fall speed, which you can take into account. fox can kill mewtwo super early due to mewtwos stupidly low-weight, and a fully-charged reflected shadow ball is kinda deadly... I've really gone up against maybe 10 or so mewtwos with my fox, but each time, they've had SOME skill... Fox can easily fall from his D-Throw combos, and come back from any sort of move that mewtwo uses, a preeettttttyyyyy good amount of the time... but with some shadow tennis possible, fox's reflector can break, basically throwing a stock away... i also play a bit of mewtwo, and ive fought against alot of foxes, and i find it easier to trap them within his N-Air, which i've had them fast-fall into, which is kinda funny, same with walking slowly following their DI and up-smashing... but im just rambling, i think the Fox Mewtwo match up is:
65-35

dont yell at me if this is bad.

 

[meleebrawler]

im surprised no one has mentioned mewtwo, or someone has and im just oblivious, but with fox being one of my pockets, i have gone up a couple mewtwo. they are complete opposites in fall speed, which you can take into account. fox can kill mewtwo super early due to mewtwos stupidly low-weight, and a fully-charged reflected shadow ball is kinda deadly... I've really gone up against maybe 10 or so mewtwos with my fox, but each time, they've had SOME skill... Fox can easily fall from his D-Throw combos, and come back from any sort of move that mewtwo uses, a preeettttttyyyyy good amount of the time... but with some shadow tennis possible, fox's reflector can break, basically throwing a stock away... i also play a bit of mewtwo, and ive fought against alot of foxes, and i find it easier to trap them within his N-Air, which i've had them fast-fall into, which is kinda funny, same with walking slowly following their DI and up-smashing... but im just rambling, i think the Fox Mewtwo match up is:
65-35

dont yell at me if this is bad.

I'm afraid you're oblivious to me my friend.

Mewtwo never combos anyone with his dthrow. He uses it to set up traps by predicting the opponent's next move (panic airdodges will get disabled easily), or place opponents on platforms where he can get nearly guaranteed usmash followups.

Also Mewtwo doesn't fall as slowly as most think. His fastfall in particular has decent speed.

Oh, and Mewtwo's dsmash is a good tool for stopping or slowing down running approaches with it's transcendent hitbox and low endlag.

 

[NouveauRétro]

also from G&W boards

Most competitive G&Ws are in full agreement that Fox is G&W's worst matchup, long and by far. Every single thing that makes G&W good against a majority of the cast is completely and utterly nullified by this character.

Begin simply by sitting back and spamming lasers. This gets guaranteed damage, and if we try to bucket it, there is no positive gain off of the bucketing, because we are trapped into getting extra damage on us while we get a non-guaranteed move with no knockback and weak damage enabled.

After that, Fox can literally sit back, wait for G&W to do something, and punish it out of shield.

It's literally that simple for Fox, without any exaggeration.

- Your tendency to not play the matchup well can and will be manipulated. You need to camp. G&W is a character you do not want to go in on except at kill percents, and you should only use safe kill setups or option cover for bad landings. G&W has a lot of ways to hard punish dumb aerial approaches that some beginner Foxes might want to do because he "feels fast" or something.

Still, none of this practically means much; and, all in all, Fox can effortlessly win this MU if he plays by the book as he does with most MUs, camping until the opponent is within option coverage range and limiting his opponent's viable moves as much as possible. He only loses if he tries to rush in.

I don't like giving MU numbers, but feel free to shoot this one through the roof if you'd like.

Yeah, this is probabably the best way to play this MU on Fox's side. I called it 60-40, but I should have said that that's against aggressive Foxes. Once it's realized the matchup can be played this way, it's a LOT worse.
2fast5me
I stand by gimping being a possibility though, especially if we manage to steal that double jump for whatever reason.
It we're talking perfect theory, I think the matchup number could be as horrible as 85-15. That's how hard it is for us to do anything effective against this character.
In real life with two equally matched players, it's like Folie's 75-25 or 70-30 because people don't know G&W that well and rush in a lot. I try to avoid this matchup when possible by switching to Pacman. At least in that matchup I can prevent Fox from getting in so darn hard.

 

[Sonicninja115]

I main both Mewtwo and Shulk, so... here we go...

Shulk:

Shulk can punish most of Fox's throws with an aerial, thus making throws unusable on foxes part. They are good for anything but follow-ups/combos. Use them to reposition.
If Shulk uses MALLC correctly, it is very difficult for Fox, however, Foxes speed allows for some MALLC to be punished and MALLC isn't very reliable and is very hard to do consistently/perfectly.

Fox's main problem in this MU is probably Shulk's range. Shulk has a lot of lag, making this sort of a trade off when compared to Fox's speed.

Fox has an easier time killing, giving him another upside.

IMO, 55/45 fox's favor with MALLC, without MALLC, 65/35. MALLC enables Shulk to keep Fox at bay and punish any mistakes or approaches. It is probably the saving grace in this MU.

I just mentioned the normal things, their are other problems but they are a bit more obvious.
​

Mewtwo:

Mewtwo is light and easy to combo, plus, Fox can easily get through Mewtwo's defenses.

Fox has complete control in this MU, except, Mewtwo can hurt Fox.

Mewtwo can Gimp fox pretty easily, and fox is fodder for Mewtwo's punishes. These twofactors make the MU much better for Mewtwo. This is a very back and forth MU, most of it depending on the skill of the Mewtwo player.

60/40 Fox's favor​

 

[DavemanCozy]

Damn, I'm not sure about G&W getting completely anhilated by Fox that much to make it 85:15, that's overkill. I can believe a 70:30.

I would say the bucket is a threat and not something you should ignore. Obviously don't let G&W fill it, since he gets very strong move this way. The advantage is that G&W needs three shots to fill it, and you generally are faster than him.

There are lots of other things you can do as G&W to stop phantasm and Fire Fox, being F-air and F-tilt. Of course, those are laggy moves which Fox can punish reactively. I do agree that G&W's moves have endlag attached that Fox can exploit.

his ability to mixup his recovery (something I RARELY see Fox mains take advantage of. Stop over-relying on Phantasm to recover onstage. Seriously, stop it) makes our great offstage game not as useful.

What can I say... I've been trying to tell this board that same thing for the past months. We have lots of angles to work with Firefox, as well as stalling with shine.

Mav called this mu even in his chart, so I'm curious to know what his thoughts are.

--

spiderfreak1011 I was a Shulk secondary when the game was released. I dropped him in favor of Wario, and left the Shulk boards forever. How are things there?

I posted a long post in that board a while back about the mu, I think Fox wins solidly even without the jab lock as long as you know what his arts do. Firstly, Shulk has atrocious frame data. It's not Dedede bad, but it comes close. One whiff is a free punish for Fox and can be U-smash, F-smash, a grab, a RAR bair, etc. For spacing, Shulk has d-tilt as his ground tool and U-tilt as his anti-air. His jab and F-air are his other moves that can be used to keep Fox away, or at least attempt to keep him away. You can run in with shield and not land near him when he's about to U-tilt. Shulk has terrible landing options as well. You can juggle him all day with U-airs. The only part of the mu Shulk wins is offstage.

Speed is the art that makes him move really fast, but his attacks don't deal as much damage. His approach is still limited because he has horrible frame data, he will usually go for a grab or sh -> n-air as his approach.

Buster makes things nasty if he gets any sort of hit confirm. Most often it'll be d-tilt or a grab, and he can rack like 35% from just three hits. His attacks also gain more shieldstun, which only really helps Shulk if he spaces perfectly and which is much harder for him to do than for you to get in his face. Also, he takes more damage while in Buster, which means this is also bad for him. If Shulk's doing empty hops, hit him with U-tilt or a rising N-air before he even has a chance to throw out an attack or land and grab.

Smash makes him as light as Jiggs and reduces his damage output, but makes his KO power more dangerous. Some Shulks use it at the start of the match since being lighter also means getting combo'd less; against Fox this isn't really too bad since we can still chase him. All I'm gonna say is you're still fighting the same slow Shulk, just watch out for D-throw since it becomes a kill throw in Smash.

Jump gives him springs as shoes, in exchange for faster falling speed and he also receives a bit more damage. His main go to KO moves are B-air, F-air and U-air, the first two work well when he's in jump and the other one mainly used in jump after a U-throw. You can jump out to avoid it.

Shield makes him heavier than Bowser and slower than Dedede, he's harder to kill but even easier to bait.

Vision deserves a mention for being an incredibly stupid counter move. The counter window lasts a lot longer than what it looks and deals stupid damage and kb back. On the other hand, it is still very punishable and him whiffing it means free U-smash KO (he will most likely go for it when he thinks you'll go for the KO). Also, Shulk can't do the Forward vision (where he dashes and slices behind him) in the air. It's not really something that makes the matchup harder, but it is something that can kill you at 50% while he's at 150%, so keep it in mind. Also, D-tilt -> F-air string can kill Fox off the side.

At the end of the day,Fox wins the matchup, 65:35 imo. Shulk has a cool character concept, but unfortunately it was poorly applied and its design came out flawed. It's a shame, I think he's really cool, his monados alter his attributes in crazy ways but they don't really fix his shortcomings (terrible frame data, no landing options, no approach).

--

No experience with Mewtwo

 

[Folie]

Damn, I'm not sure about G&W getting completely anhilated by Fox that much to make it 85:15, that's overkill. I can believe a 70:30.

definitely agree, 75:25/70:30 are accurate numbers, g&w can reasonably win off of reads or a player not knowing the MU so it can't be anything more polarizing than 75:25

I would say the bucket is a threat and not something you should ignore. Obviously don't let G&W fill it, since he gets very strong move this way. The advantage is that G&W needs three shots to fill it, and you generally are faster than him.

It's definitely not pointless, but to put it into perspective, a bucket full of Fox lasers does the same amount of damage as a full G&W nair, but doesn't have any potential followups like nair does, and Fox, unlike a lot of characters, can usually escape dthrow>bucket. It's a tool, but I don't see it as a reliable way to sway a game into g&w's favour

There are lots of other things you can do as G&W to stop phantasm and Fire Fox, being F-air and F-tilt. Of course, those are laggy moves which Fox can punish reactively. I do agree that G&W's moves have endlag attached that Fox can exploit.

I think you've hit the nail on the head, the idea behind Fox being hard to gimp is that g&w's strong disjointed moves are so slow and laggy that g&w more or less has to read Fox's recovery in order to gimp it. So, don't be predictable in your recovery, and you shouldn't have a problem recovering.

 

[Dream Cancel]

Hey everyone, if it's possible, it would be really nice if each MU had it's own thread. Instead of a general discussion, each MU could get specific discussions with relevant information, discussion, and videos on each thread.

This way, both Fox players and other character players could greatly benefit from the organization and clarity it would provide.

Other character boards use this format, and it seems to work well for them. Thanks!

 

[Chalice]

Off topic from the current 3 match ups we're talking about, but anyone got tips for Little Mac? Seems like a good Mac is a hard match up for cuz I can pretty much never punish him and cuz his smashes are so retardedly safe in shield and that effing super armor it makes me want to break my TV

 

[spiderfreak1011]

Damn, I'm not sure about G&W getting completely anhilated by Fox that much to make it 85:15, that's overkill. I can believe a 70:30.

I would say the bucket is a threat and not something you should ignore. Obviously don't let G&W fill it, since he gets very strong move this way. The advantage is that G&W needs three shots to fill it, and you generally are faster than him.

There are lots of other things you can do as G&W to stop phantasm and Fire Fox, being F-air and F-tilt. Of course, those are laggy moves which Fox can punish reactively. I do agree that G&W's moves have endlag attached that Fox can exploit.



What can I say... I've been trying to tell this board that same thing for the past months. We have lots of angles to work with Firefox, as well as stalling with shine.

Mav called this mu even in his chart, so I'm curious to know what his thoughts are.

--

spiderfreak1011 I was a Shulk secondary when the game was released. I dropped him in favor of Wario, and left the Shulk boards forever. How are things there?

I posted a long post in that board a while back about the mu, I think Fox wins solidly even without the jab lock as long as you know what his arts do. Firstly, Shulk has atrocious frame data. It's not Dedede bad, but it comes close. One whiff is a free punish for Fox and can be U-smash, F-smash, a grab, a RAR bair, etc. For spacing, Shulk has d-tilt as his ground tool and U-tilt as his anti-air. His jab and F-air are his other moves that can be used to keep Fox away, or at least attempt to keep him away. You can run in with shield and not land near him when he's about to U-tilt. Shulk has terrible landing options as well. You can juggle him all day with U-airs. The only part of the mu Shulk wins is offstage.

Speed is the art that makes him move really fast, but his attacks don't deal as much damage. His approach is still limited because he has horrible frame data, he will usually go for a grab or sh -> n-air as his approach.

Buster makes things nasty if he gets any sort of hit confirm. Most often it'll be d-tilt or a grab, and he can rack like 35% from just three hits. His attacks also gain more shieldstun, which only really helps Shulk if he spaces perfectly and which is much harder for him to do than for you to get in his face. Also, he takes more damage while in Buster, which means this is also bad for him. If Shulk's doing empty hops, hit him with U-tilt or a rising N-air before he even has a chance to throw out an attack or land and grab.

Smash makes him as light as Jiggs and reduces his damage output, but makes his KO power more dangerous. Some Shulks use it at the start of the match since being lighter also means getting combo'd less; against Fox this isn't really too bad since we can still chase him. All I'm gonna say is you're still fighting the same slow Shulk, just watch out for D-throw since it becomes a kill throw in Smash.

Jump gives him springs as shoes, in exchange for faster falling speed and he also receives a bit more damage. His main go to KO moves are B-air, F-air and U-air, the first two work well when he's in jump and the other one mainly used in jump after a U-throw. You can jump out to avoid it.

Shield makes him heavier than Bowser and slower than Dedede, he's harder to kill but even easier to bait.

Vision deserves a mention for being an incredibly stupid counter move. The counter window lasts a lot longer than what it looks and deals stupid damage and kb back. On the other hand, it is still very punishable and him whiffing it means free U-smash KO (he will most likely go for it when he thinks you'll go for the KO). Also, Shulk can't do the Forward vision (where he dashes and slices behind him) in the air. It's not really something that makes the matchup harder, but it is something that can kill you at 50% while he's at 150%, so keep it in mind. Also, D-tilt -> F-air string can kill Fox off the side.

At the end of the day,Fox wins the matchup, 65:35 imo. Shulk has a cool character concept, but unfortunately it was poorly applied and its design came out flawed. It's a shame, I think he's really cool, his monados alter his attributes in crazy ways but they don't really fix his shortcomings (terrible frame data, no landing options, no approach).

--

No experience with Mewtwo

TBH I haven't been on Shulk boards too often either, I've been using Pit and Peach more prominently lately. : P From what I see, things are going fine on Shulk boards though. Monado boys still closely knit~

Fair enough then. I still think the Match Up goes 60:40 Fox's favor, and I still stand by my statement that it all really depends on if the Fox is skilled enough to land the hard read kill or not to win the match, even if he does win the neutral and most of the match up.

 

[Smashifer]

Hello, I'm from the Mewtwo boards and I think I know some things about vs..
Let's start off by saying the obvious; this MU is in Fox's favor for the fact that Mewtwo's stupidly low weight makes him easy to kill with up smash and his large hitbox = combo food.
Mewtwo's semi-reliable combos that he gets from down tilt are null & void here because of how fast Fox falls, making it easy to escape. Up tilt strings are also useless at lower %s because, again, Fox can fall out of them.
Fox can also DI out of Mewtwo's forward throw, so that's useless as well.
The only things that Mewtwo has against Fox are probably down smash, his areials and his up throw and back throw.
70-30

 

[Blue Banana]

Hi, the Olimar sub-forum is now starting discussion on the Fox matchup. Any input is appreciated.

http://smashboards.com/threads/piklopedia-the-olimar-matchup-thread-fox-falcon.421920/

 

[DavemanCozy]

Hey everyone, if it's possible, it would be really nice if each MU had it's own thread. Instead of a general discussion, each MU could get specific discussions with relevant information, discussion, and videos on each thread.

This way, both Fox players and other character players could greatly benefit from the organization and clarity it would provide.

Other character boards use this format, and it seems to work well for them. Thanks!

I have been talking about doing this with Mav. It's a huge process to move each and every message over to a thread though, but hopefully it'll get done sometime.

We'll move on, time for some DLC characters:




Ryu:
- KO power with confirms from neutral moves puts Fox in danger at as low as ~70%
- His elbow (but who are we to complain when we had a jab-lock before)
- Focus Attack makes him rather unpredictable

What is in our advantage is speed and being able to use his weight against him. Fox also has multi-hit aerials to break his Focus Attack.

I have trouble finding good example videos of high level Fox vs Ryu atm, most Ryus I've seen (Trela, Mr. R, Venom) are on a whole different level than the Foxes so it's hard to really find a good example of the match.

 

[G-Sword]

Small but big tip against ryu. Don't fight him in front and don't try to throw anything unsafe from above that u know they can block. A high level ryu player loves that and will just utilt u for days and just shoryuken (however u spell it) believe it kills around 50%-70%. Don't be careless he wants u to go blow for blow

 

[Top Boss]

I play against a great Ryu pretty often. I don't think the matchup is really that bad. I think, at worst, it's 55:45 in Ryu's favor. He is very helpless when we have positional advantage, and I can always SDI out of the up tilt chains anyway.
ALSO:I think Lucas is a fairly easy matchup. Once we're up to his face, we can go ham. I don't know the Roy matchup though.

 

[EPM]

I play a Ryu main who started off pretty bad but has leveled up a TON since I first played him and actually 2-0'd me in the last tournament set we played...
I now think it's one of Fox's worst matchups. He just hits so hard and can have you at kill percent in two or three combos... Yes his approaches are bad but so are Fox's if the Ryu player is disciplined with his shield and Ryu actually has a fast and surprisingly safe roll too.
We can get a lot of mileage off of grabs and I think it's something Fox players should probably do more often than normal in neutral because our biggest advantage against him is he's really easy to juggle and can't land very safely from above (watch out for the move where he sticks his giant-ass foot out for like 5 seconds though, I think it's nair, I don't even know, but it'll stop your follow ups if you're not under or behind him).
Also laser a lot and reflect the fireballs. His approaches are literally terrible so take all the free damage you can get from afar because you're gonna take 30-50% easy if you mess up while fighting him in close quarters.
It's definitely a negative matchup, he just racks up damage too quickly and can kill at like 80 with a shoryuken confirm off of like 3 different moves, worst of which is the jab-shoryuken true combo.
I think it's one matchup where taking the first stock is very important so that you can make him fish for the kill and get extra credit when he messes up.
I'd suggest Final Destination as a CP to maximize juggle potential.
But I think I'll stick to fighting Ryu with Robin or Villager personally

Edit: if I had to make up a number I'd say at least 60-40 Ryu. Keep in mind that Ryu is an extremely deep character that almost nobody is playing at full potential yet, I think this MU only has room to get worse for Fox in the meta.

 

[Scieric]

70-30 Ryu I 2-stocked an Ontario ranked player in the matchup just 'cause of how good it is for Ryu. Experience always does the talking for me.

 

[Foster J.]

What's there to say


Ryu has a somewhat subpar neutral and stellar approaching options, often depending on dashing out of Focus punch and using Nair, unless he tries to do a fireball then he's somewhat using a Linkish approach with throwing out a projectile and going on.

The real danger about Ryu is his combo game, if anyone ever saw Trela against Larry, then it's evident that this is a very explosive MU, meaning you can combo Ryu, but Ryu can combo you harder.

Fast fallers get juggled by weak Utilt, and Ryu can confirm from Utilt, Dtilt and even Jab 1-2 to true Shoryuken which will kill Fox around 70 and earlier depending on stage and Rage.

The way to play this MU IMO is weaving in and out, and ridding the momentum as much as you can, that one combo string, that ledge trump where you just put him in a bad position and so on. Now Ryu hangs on the ledge just like Ganon so don't expect to hit a Usmash on him on the ledge, but expect try using Utilt to scoop him up and land a Bair.

If Ryu is trying to land using Focus Punch then SH AC Uair's are your best options are they are multi hit, thankfully Focus Punch really only screws with your dash attack, so using Dair, Fair, Uair and Jab are good ways to beat around Focus Punch's ability to absorb 1 hit, and in case of Dair can help you net a kill setup.

60:40 - Ryu kills Fox too early and you have to really be on point in your neutral to be able to run around him, one mistake is a death in most cases. Ryu however doesn't have a kill throw or any great setup throws, so shielding is generally safe against him, but beware of the Focus Punch so get ready to Dair OoS or spot dodge it for a punish.


Oh my gawd muh melee!

Roy's reverse tipper makes him dangerous on any wiffed moves you do, any clash is in general in his favour, with how his tilts will murder you it's important to not just mindlessly approach him, Roy has a different combo game from Marth, as Roy wants to stay on the ground a tad more and SH, you'll see him jump into you using Nair, or space around it with tomahawks

Roy also gets combo'd due to being a fast faller, so you need to take note of his sword and how fast he falls, you should take note of him doing pivot Ftilts and Dtilting to space around you. Roy keeps up in terms of speed, and with that inverted tipper Dash attack kills Fox. You really need to tech properly in this MU.

Dthrow. DO NOT AIR DODGE IF YOU'RE NEAR THE LEDGE, many a man has died to Fsmash, and he has good follow ups out of Dthrow and even Fthrow, with Uthrow killing around 130-140 Roy is a marvel, his real demerit is how he's unable to edge guard Fox efficiently unlike Marth and Lucina as Blazer doesn't help Roy vertically much.

So I'd say Roy is weak to ledge trumps, but this MU can go either way, he keeps up, can confirm off throws, and has an effective ledge trump into Bair too.

50-50
You REALLY have to play the neutral and bait him a lot and look for that finisher before he gets too much rage and Ftilt will kill you early.


No idea.

Seriously, Approaches with Nair, edge guards you to ****, throw combos all days and floaty enough to get out, if Fox loses to Ness he loses to Lucas too.

Unless you REFLECT the PK thunder he gets off scot free, pretty much all of his throws are dangerous, and his PK Fire is better at spacing so his neutral is stronger with spacing and retreating.

65:35 - This is my opinion on wifi, I have no idea how it is due to not having any experience in it, so you can't really take what I say to heart all that much in this case.

 

[Top Boss]

Imo: Fox doesn't come close to losing to Lucas. It's gotta be at least 60:40 Fox's favor.
We win neutral, destroy him in close range, spike his recovery(stock lead) and gimp at very early percents, can avoid his grab and punish pretty easily, etc. I just don't think Lucas has the speed or frame data to really do much to an observant Fox.

 

[SpaceDong]

Imo: Fox doesn't come close to losing to Lucas. It's gotta be at least 60:40 Fox's favor.
We win neutral, destroy him in close range, spike his recovery(stock lead) and gimp at very early percents, can avoid his grab and punish pretty easily, etc. I just don't think Lucas has the speed or frame data to really do much to an observant Fox.

I main both characters and I have to say Fox wins the matchup easy. Fox has the rushdown to compete and its tough for Lucas to get his footing if he has no space.

 

[EPM]

So it's safe to FF Fair Lucas when he's trying to recover? I do it on Ness all the time but Lucas' recovery seemed better and faster to me

 

[Top Boss]

I don't see why not. It's way less risky on Lucas than on Ness.