Help me out with the Zelda MU?

[Olbus]

I am having a hard time against a pretty campy Zelda. Any tips?

 

[-Fatality-]

I am having a hard time against a pretty campy Zelda. Any tips?

Literally never approach her, try to stay just outside her range, and use your blazing fast movement to try and bait her into doing something you can punish. Use very tight, and safe combos to avoid her many ways of screwing you over once hitstun ends, and if something isn't guaranteed, don't force a followup, but instead try to bait her into commiting to something else you can punish. Use quick Aerials to destroy her fireballs, you can easily destroy them quicker than she can make another, and use that time advantage to ensure she can't safely deploy anymore. Try and hold the ledge when she's about to recover so she can't snap-grab it, and force her to recover onstage, which is easy for you to punish, and if she tries to set up fireballs before recovering, you're aerial movement is fast enough to often be able to reach wherever she is and get a hit in before the animation finishes.

Game 1, Ban FD, FOD, and YS. You want there to be platforms for you to escape from her juggle combos, but you also want lots of running space. You should ban the same 3 stages for future games too, since those 3 neutrals are also Falcon's worst stages in this matchup.

Hope that helps.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

The moment she uses Din's, run up and knee her face. Din's isn't a real projectile and doesn't become active for a bit, so you can literally run right at her and start something when she puts Din's out in neutral.

Really, people just respect Zelda a little too much.

 

[TheKmanOfSmash]

Literally never approach her, try to stay just outside her range, and use your blazing fast movement to try and bait her into doing something you can punish. Use very tight, and safe combos to avoid her many ways of screwing you over once hitstun ends, and if something isn't guaranteed, don't force a followup, but instead try to bait her into commiting to something else you can punish. Use quick Aerials to destroy her fireballs, you can easily destroy them quicker than she can make another, and use that time advantage to ensure she can't safely deploy anymore. Try and hold the ledge when she's about to recover so she can't snap-grab it, and force her to recover onstage, which is easy for you to punish, and if she tries to set up fireballs before recovering, you're aerial movement is fast enough to often be able to reach wherever she is and get a hit in before the animation finishes.

Game 1, Ban FD, FOD, and YS. You want there to be platforms for you to escape from her juggle combos, but you also want lots of running space. You should ban the same 3 stages for future games too, since those 3 neutrals are also Falcon's worst stages in this matchup.

Hope that helps.

Basically this, but I don't agree with the idea of never approaching Zelda. Zelda has good, defensive options that can stop a reckless, approaching Falcon in his tracks. However, if you don't approach at all, you will get walled out by Dins and if you play a Zelda player who knows how to control Dins very well like Zhime, you'll be at a serious disadvantage because almost all of your escape options are either covered by Dins, a grab, smash attack, aerial, or Nayru's Love (neutral b).

Since Falcon is a projectile-less character, the way I would try to play this match up is to apply pressure and fear in the form of your presence. Dash dancing mid range vs Zelda is the best way to do this. What this allows you to do is it gives you the ability to punish Din's fire on reaction because there is a lot of cool down associated with that move. This threatens the Zelda to use Dins at a decreased rate and forces her to rely on her defensive options in neutral, which I'll address counter strategies to right now:

Up-Smash: Up-Smash is a move you do not want to get hit by. I think it has an SDI multiplier of 0, meaning that you can't SDI out of it. Which also means that it chains into another up-smash. And perhaps another. Fortunately, this move has some good cool down, so you can punish a wiffed up-smash on reaction. But what I think is worth mentioning is what Falcon can do if up-smash hits on block.

Zelda's up-smash on block pushes Falcon away, far enough for him to miss a grab, but close enough for him to get punished by either Nayru or some other Smash attack. And it can be tricky to hit Zelda OoS with an aerial and you can get punished if you're timing is even slightly off. However, what Falcon is 100% in range for is Up-B OoS. Up-b OoS beats wiffed up-smash 100% of the time and is an effective option in dealing with Zelda's mix-ups on block (which involve Nayru and which I'll get to soon). More people need to do up-B OoS, imo. It does about as much damage as a fresh Knee, it has grab armor, and it has way more range than Falcon's shield grab, especially on the initial frame (frame 13, I think) where the grab box is massive. However, Up-B OoS only really becomes useful at mid-high percents because at lower percents, the knock back won't push Zelda far enough away and she could punish your landing with like an up-smash or something.



Nayru's Love (Neutral-B): This is one of Zelda's best defensive options and it's what every Zelda and their grandmother spam when they're getting comboed because it comes out relatively fast, the hitbox for it is massive and she has a good deal of invincibility on it. What also makes this move amazing is that it's land cancelable, like Fox/Falco's laser. Meaning that when she does Nayru in the air, she can land and immediately follow up with another option. This is where those mix-ups on block I mentioned earlier come into play. Whenever you see Zelda do Nayru in the air, it's extremely important you take notice whether she did it in the air or solely on the ground. If she did it in the air and lands, she's setting you up for a trap. If you attempt to grab her on reaction to her landing, she'll either land cancel into an up-smash, another Nayru, spotdodge (which can punish the wiff grab and set up for up-smash, f-smash, down-smash, Nayru, etc), or an evasive option like a buffered roll. Same thing applies when she Nayru's on your shield. If you attempt to shield grab or do an aerial OoS, you'll eat one of the options mentioned above. Now if she does Nayru on the ground, then she suffers the immense cool down of Nayru and you can easily punish that with anything. My solution to almost all of her mix-up options when she does Nayru on block is to hold shield and punish whatever she'll do after the land-canceled Nayru. The only counter-strategy to this is for her to land-cancel Nayru into a grab, but that's a mix-up you'll usually see after the Zelda has exhausted almost all of her other mix-up options that get beaten by just holding shield or just realizes that you like to hold shield in general. The counter to the grab is to just buffer roll away and reset the situation to neutral. Oh, and up-b OoS is good against grounded Nayru. Did I mention how good Up-B OoS was? xD



F-smash: F-smash is essentially a keep away move. It's main purpose in neutral is to punish bad approaches and make you respect Zelda's defensive zone. It's really hard to punish the cool down of f-smash because if you try to go in as the move is ending, the Zelda will spam grounded Nayru to knock you away and get some dumb conversion. You could just wait and punish the grounded Nayru, but the initial f-smash is almost impossible to punish from afar with a grab and probably pretty tricky even when just outside the hitbox range, which is pretty big because she leans forward to do the attack, then leans back in. Maybe you could get some millage with a well timed YOLO, across-the-stage runing Knee or something, but idk.

F-smash hits in front of her, but not really above her. You can counter f-smash by finding a way to hit her from above (moonwalk ---> full-hop Stomp maybe?) but not only will a smart Zelda's do the f-smash under a platform, a Din will probably be in your way as well. So honestly, I'd just respect the f-smash and try to punish whatever she does after that.



Down-smash: Down-smash from Zelda is most notorious when used out of a crouch cancel and if you get hit with it at the ledge, you can be sent at a pretty unfavorable angle. Well spaced nairs should not make this something you have to worry about, imo. But reckless pressure from like bad gentleman set-ups, badly spaced nairs, etc. could land you a CC down-smash sometime in the future.



Farore's Wind (Up-B): This is usually used as an evasive/movement option in neutral and the initial hitbox on the move can put you into knockdown, which can give Zelda some dumb setups once she reappears (and the reappearance also has a hitbox, which is bigger, I think). If she's spamming this move, I usually just wait it out until she commits to something dumb and just punish that.



Bair/Fair: Not only are they stronger than the Knee (which is sooooo dumb, btw) they can be used as really good zoning tools and a defensive option to protect herself from coming down from a landing. She can do like 2 bair/fairs from a short hop, so don't let Zelda sneak in a low aerial on you. Her other aerials have some good uses, but I don't feel like talking about them in detail because as far as aerials that can be used well defensively, bair/fair are probably her best.


Grab: Don't get grabbed by Zelda. Her grab is slower than most characters, I believe, but pleaaaase don't get grabbed. You'll get up-thrown to up-smash chains and quickly find yourself at 50+ minimum. And if you get back throw offstage (her back throw is a kill move, btw), good luck making it back, man.



As for the approach game, keep in mind all the defensive options she has. Fatality suggested that you not approach, which I interpret as staying relatively far away. If this is the case, I disagree with this and suggest to stay mid-range for the reasons I gave. The general trend you want to follow is to just punish something laggy that Zelda does. She has some tricks to make it look like she's vulnerable when she isn't (almost all of which I explained above), but when you watch out for those things, you can reliably advance onto her with a grab, nair, stomp, knee, etc.



As for the combo game, combo her similar to how you would on any other floaty: Grab ---> down throw ---> up-airs ----> Knee or something along those basic lines. However, you have to respect Nayru because Zelda will spam that move when getting comboed. Similar to how you respect nair-mashing Luigis or nair-mashing Peaches. If she does it high in the air, she won't land when the move ends and you can just continue juggling her. If she does land, be wary of her options out of land-cancel which I described previously. Make sure your combos are on point. This will decrease the ability for her to get Nayru out. She may also nair out of combos or jump out if your timings are slightly off.



As for the edgeguarding game, Zelda has a good recovery, but there are things you can do. When Zelda is sent flying offstage, she can do this technique which is a carry-over from Brawl called a Love Jump. It's where she gets a huge, vertical boost in the air when she uses Nayru right out of hitstun. I THINK she has to use her jump to get that effect, but I'm not 100% sure on that. Let's say that is the case: Now she's jumpless and going for offstage aerials are much more safer and reliable. Also, Zelda is a sitting duck when she's releasing Din's fire from high in the air. Just get on a platform (if you have to), moonwalk out there, and hit her with a back air. Same idea with Farore's wind (when recovering from high). She's actually still tangible for a decent amount of time before she disappears. Moonwalk back air shuts down improperly spaced Farore's wind and probably even a running full hop Knee. As for when she recovers low, just hold edge and when she lands on stage, punish with a ledge hop aerial, or a waveland to grab.



Other aspects on the MU (like how to counter Dins, stage selection, etc) were covered by Fatality. This is just my little extra input that I think everyone should know.



I would say the MU is 60:40 in Zelda's favor, because of her heavy mix-up game with Nayru's Love and Din's Fire strats, very strong defensive options, a combo-breaker technique, very good recovery, Falcon being a fast faller who gets comboed for free, and of course... the option to turn into Sheik


This is how I personally would approach the MU, but do whatever works for you (maybe not approaching is actually the best way to go). I speak from experience in doing moderately well vs Zhime online and at Apex in friendlies and destroying all other Zeldas who aren't Zhime. btw, ily Zhime!!! <3

(Didn't really check for spell/grammar checks because I'm lazy. Respond if something isn't clear, please :3)


P.S. Zelda's transform automatically detonates Din's fire. And I think one of her taunts has a hitbox. If you ever play Zhime, he will abuse these traits vs you and make you look dumb. Also, he'll repeatedly spam Din's fire at the ledge from a low recovering Falcon because he's a meanie pants who laughs at Falcon's misfortune ;o

 

[-Fatality-]

What I meant by never approach was to stay just outside her immediate attack range as much as possible, and to try and scare her into doing something you can punish. I think playing this matchup optimally means you have to play super campy. One of the pluses of having such a simple strategy is that you get plenty of time to pick up on her Movement patterns and attack habits, which once you're sure you know them, feel free to go ham and exploit them.
In hindsight, I definitely should have worded it that way, thanks for pointing it out Kman.

 

[TheKmanOfSmash]

What I meant by never approach was to stay just outside her immediate attack range as much as possible, and to try and scare her into doing something you can punish. I think playing this matchup optimally means you have to play super campy. One of the pluses of having such a simple strategy is that you get plenty of time to pick up on her Movement patterns and attack habits, which once you're sure you know them, feel free to go ham and exploit them.
In hindsight, I definitely should have worded it that way, thanks for pointing it out Kman.

No problem :D

Btw, next time I'm in Georgia, you have to teach me those crazy footstool set-ups!