Marth Match-Up Discussion (Update: ZSS!)

[Jiggly]

And these are true combos, not strings?

yes Although, they can be strings at lower percents if the opponent makes a wrong move, making it crucial for people to pay attention to jigg's moves. :D

 

[Grass]

yes Although, they can be strings at lower percents if the opponent makes a wrong move, making it crucial for people to pay attention to jigg's moves. :D

Rest kills at 60 :3 I enjoy playing puff too much.

 

[CanadianCourage]

Sorry Iocuan128 for the double post on my computer it was a single post, so IDK what happened. Sorry if this double posts as well.

 

[Locuan]

Sorry Iocuan128 for the double post on my computer it was a single post, so IDK what happened. Sorry if this double posts as well.

It's not, also don't worry about it.

 

[Random4811]

Huh. That is something to note, I've got a pocket Jiggs. I guess I need to check the Puff boards more often. XD

Eh, even with rest being scary, at its earliest kill percents it is still relatively hard to land. Marth can kill Puff pretty early.

Aerial SB is pretty scary for puff, since its transcendent and has a deceptive amount of range, and really good base KB even uncharged. If puff shields in the wrong spot, SB or b reversal SB (which breaks shields even earlier) is a free K.O.

 

[Zethoro]

Huh. That is something to note, I've got a pocket Jiggs. I guess I need to check the Puff boards more often. XD

Eh, even with rest being scary, at its earliest kill percents it is still relatively hard to land. Marth can kill Puff pretty early.

Aerial SB is pretty scary for puff, since its transcendent and has a deceptive amount of range, and really good base KB even uncharged. If puff shields in the wrong spot, SB or b reversal SB (which breaks shields even earlier) is a free K.O.

On the contrary, Rest is very easy to land, easier than ever in fact. That said, the only way Jiggs is landing it against a great Marth is after a whiffed Shield Breaker if Jiggs is already nearby, or by crouching under a grab.

 

[Random4811]

How is it easier than ever to land? The hitbox is worse than it was in Melee, now exactly in the center of Puff.

 

[JarOfPlasma]

How is it easier than ever to land? The hitbox is worse than it was in Melee, now exactly in the center of Puff.

It's easier than Brawl, that's for sure. Jiggs has at least 4 combos into Rest from what I know.

 

[Random4811]

It's easier than Brawl, that's for sure. Jiggs has at least 4 combos into Rest from what I know.

Its def easier than in Brawl. And yeah, Combos into it help out. But you whiff rest and its a free kill.

 

[CHOVI]

Guys I know that this is a dumb question but can we counter rest, or not?

By the way I did the calcs and the average % up throw kills the rest of the cast is 162%, some over some under but I find that this is a good guideline.

Yes you can

 

[Random4811]

Uthrow with rage can kill as early as 100 on Marth, depending on how close to the ceiling you are. Sometimes earlier. I've gotten a kill at 50 with it off of the top of Skyloft

 

[Locuan]

Hey everyone! Thanks for the discussion on the Jigglypuff match-up. We will come back to this at a later date as I believe we could cover way more as well as custom moves for both characters. This discussion period we focus on the Palutena match-up. Let's get started!

 

[Brinzy]

Can Counter KO Lightweight Palutena when she chases you to the ceiling and tries to uair?

Very specific question, I know.

 

[Random4811]

Can Counter KO Lightweight Palutena when she chases you to the ceiling and tries to uair?

Very specific question, I know.

Probably

 

[CanadianCourage]

Without customs I think that we have the advantage in the matchup. We have better range, Her attacks are kind of slow, and her smashes are easy to dodge. With customs its a bit more even because with light weight she moves faster then sonic(no one should be that fast) and that helps her set up opportunities with grabs. But at the same time hitting her in light weight with tipper fsmash kills at like 60%. So if you can handle her rushdown we have the advantage.

 

[Brinzy]

I'm not so sure if Marth beats customs Palutena. It's true that he has superior range overall and attacks a lot faster in general, but Palutena should be trying to bait attacks from Marth and simply punishing the lag because of how stupidly fast she gets. It can backfire on her and get her killed early, sure, but that requires you to make a hard prediction thanks to her speed... that or get lucky. Otherwise you're just asking to be punished.

Palutena has a few options to chase Marth when she throws him, and based on your DI she can follow up with fair/uair at low %s. At higher %s it's not a true combo, but you still have to be wary. The problem is... when she does this with Lightweight, she gets many more options and can follow up a lot easier at higher percents. Personally, I see a lot of Palutena players train their opponents to fear her uair follow ups until they condition the opponent to dodge on instinct... then they start following up with Usmash, which is even deadlier.

My point in all this is customs Palutena is similar in a lot of ways to characters like Sonic. ZSS and Sheik - three good characters that beat Marth IMO - in that she doesn't have a problem getting past Marth's comfort range, and I imagine that a lot of Marth matchups boil down to just how well the Marth can keep his opponent trapped. Palutena's dumb speed level just means she isn't easily trapped, which I think is bad news for Marth.

Furthermore, Marth excels at keeping his opponents off stage or at least pressuring their recoveries when they make it back. As a Zelda main, the only thing I have to be sure not to do is port directly into Marth, since it can be punished easily with a smash attack or Counter. Otherwise I generally don't have problems thanks to the range of it. Now... imagine a teleport with a faster startup on a character who moves 20x faster... yeah.

I don't think he has an advantage there at all. If I said anything that I have no business saying, feel free to point it out. I'm neither a Marth nor Palutena player, but I'm an FE geek so I lurk here.

 

[CanadianCourage]

I agree with everything you say, I even said that Marth vs Customs Palutina was more even. I'd agree that with customs its probably closer to 50-50 to who will win. If we let ourselves get grabbed and combed a lot we lose but at the same time we can take a life at low percent with tipper f-smashes. I also agree that with light weight its hard to edge guard, so I just take stage control and play the waiting game. If they teleport to the ledge every time good for them we are back in the neutral but if they start taking advantage of their extra jump height to get back to stage surprise then with a back or forward air.So in conclusion if we get our attacks baited out we lose and if the Palutina doesn't respect our tippers then she loses. That's just my opinion and I'm new here so feel free to disagree.
Edit* forgot to say that as with sonic you just have to make them play our game and see if they favor grabs or attacks when they rush us down.

 

[Brinzy]

Nothing wrong with being new to the forums, because you're probably not new to Smash. Welcome!

 

[Rewrite]

Ah... the dicussion supposedly ceased on the 26th... I'm a few hours late. Please forgive me.

IMO Marth vs. Palutena is in Marth's favour. It becomes more even with customs on, but A lot of people will point at Palutena's special options and cite moves such as Lightweight as well as her combo game, but I don't feel that these are adequate enough to signify an advantage.

Let's talk tilts and aerials. Both on the ground and in the air, Palutena's attacks are outclassed by Marth's. She suffers from having inferior range on all of her attacks as well as really long durations for most of them. With the exception of her jab, all of her grounded moves have a really long duration and come out relatively slowly. Even though they have a hit box for the majority of the animation, Marth can just trade with or out-range it, especially towards the end if he waits. She fairs a bit better in the air since most of her moves have less landing lag than Marth's, but she still gets out-ranged by everything. They'll come out a bit faster as well, but not my much with her fastest hit-box being the start of up-air and n-air which are really close to her body. her f-air and b-air are decent though, but the range difference is still really big. Even with Lightweight active her aerials still fall a bit short of Marth's. It's not as bad for Palutena as some other characters since as most of her power comes from her specials. It's still a prominent disadvantage though.

Let's go to specials. I'm going to go a really in depth on these. I believe it's important to do so with special moves in particular since they can alter the dynamic of the match-up. I'm going to specifically talk about Palutena's specials and outline what they mean for Marth. I apologize if it comes off as more of a guide to fighting Marth for Palutena. I just like to go really in-depth, okay?

Palutena's neutral special is where a lot of her spacing power comes from. Heavenly Light is almost negligible as move right now, so I'll just skip past it. A lot of people will cite Explosive Flame as a really powerful move, and while it can be I feel it's overrated. It may stuff Marth's approaches for a while, but it has no use once he closes in since his optimal range is well within the dead zone. For all the good it does her it has an equally heavy amount of setbacks and weaknesses which must be taken into consideration. I feel Auto-reticle is a move that's pretty on-par with Explosive Flame in this match-up. It comes out just a bit faster than Explosive Flame and technically covers a greater area, as well as in front of her which is the area Marth will be aroundmostly. It doesn't have the strengths as Explosive Flame, but it doesn't have as great weaknesses either. marth's lack of a projectile can make it somewhat painful.

Side specials. Reflect Barrier is pretty negligible against Marth. It doesn't really push him back far enough and the hit-box is only on Palutena's shield as she thrusts her arm out. The reflect property is also worthless (unless it reflects the wind on Marth's neutral-special 2. Someone tell me if it does.) The tipper on almost anything can out-range it if done early enough. Angelic Missile also doesn't really do anything for Palutena against Marth, but that's because it's a pretty shoddy move that doesn't really help against anyone. Super Speed is the best option against Marth because it's pretty much a worse Spin Dash that can't be turned around. Marth doesn't have a projectile that can be used to snuff it so it can be a bit of a nuisance, especially since Marth doesn't like really fast things. It's still much easier to deal with than a Spin Dash since it isn't as fast and doesn't have as many mix-up opportunities, as well as having a larger hitbox. A solid f-tilt will knock her out of it.

I feel Palutena's up specials aren't worth going into since they general way to deal with them is universal for all characters.

Down specials... AKA pretty much just Lightweight. Palutena's Counter is a counter so there isn't much to say about it. Celestial Firework is balls against pretty much everyone. As I said, a lot of people will point to Lightweight as one of the main reasons Palutena may have a positive match-up against Marth. It makes her super fast which is bad for Marth since he hates really fast things. Being faster means you can approach more quickly, makes it easier to pressure and mix-up, makes it easier to run away, and makes it harder for Marth to keep you at the perfect distance.While it`s a really good move it still has it`s massive downsides that plague it in every match-up. Lightweight doesn't last forever and once it runs out it goes on cool-down. There`s also a short period where Palutena is slower than normal once it`s worn-off, however it`s not too bad against Marth since she can run away before the speed boost runs out and try to zone for a bit with neutral special. Super Speed also isn't affected by the slowing de-buff which can help for either approach or run away from Marth (it has it's own cool-down however). I do agree that Lightweight evens the match-up considerably for Palutena, but I don't feel it merits enough of an advantage to notably tip it into her favour.

I feel it`s a pretty even match-up overall, but I believe if a character had any advantage at all it's Marth. Lightweight doesn't affect her attacks or other specials at all. When coupled with Super Speed it may enable Palutena to run away every once in a while, but if she fails to get away she`s gonna have a bad time. Marth can control the stage better than Palutena can as well as push his momentum a bit harder, especially when Marth is at his ideal range. While I make it sound like Palutena struggles, I do agree that it's a relatively even match-up. She doesn't trail behind, but it doesn't feel like she has any solid enough advantages that a patient and level-headed Marth cannot contest.

I'd say it's 60 - 40 in Marth's favour.

This was a lot longer than I intended it to be. I'm worried that I've made it seem like more of a general guide to Palutena than actually discuss the match-up between her and Marth. It doesn't help that a lot of Palutena's weaknesses are more of a general thing that a majority of the cast can take advantage of. (I also trimmed like a third of it after I wrote it.) Feedback and criticism are more than welcome, especially if anyone disagrees with anything.

 

[Wintropy]

Technically over, but I'll contribute something anyway as a Palutena main.

This matchup is a bit tricky for us in neutral, simply because Marth, by definition, has better range than we do. His moves are all adept at spacing and he can keep us at bay just by swingin' his sword around, so we have to get creative to approach. You'll seldom see a Palutena rushing in: it's just not safe for us, as we have very little moves that will come out quickly enough or whose reward outweighs its risk. Dash attack is useful when thrown out sparingly, as it does good knockback and has invincibility frames, but the endlag and small range mean we'll only use it when we're confident of it hitting. There's no way we'll challenge your territory with our own moves, so you've got the upper hand when it comes to approaching and setting the stage in neutral.

Our best move is by far our jab, as it opens up a myriad of follow-up opportunities. Its range is pretty poor, though, so we have to get right up to use it effectively. This is where Marth's spacing comes in handy, as there's very little room to maneuver in and jab when there's two feet of steel being waved about in our faces. Palutena will seldom approach normally, we'll usually wait for the opponent to come to us or wait for an opening to strike - so focus on keeping us at arm's length and don't let us get in.

If you get jabbed, you're screwed. It's pretty much a free grab for us, and from there, we can d-throw into f-air (quick execution and can lead into another throw combo), b-air (riskier, but a decent kill move with invincibility frames) or u-air (juggles, kills at high percents). At high percents, we can also follow up a u-smash, which is almost certainly a definite KO. So yeah, I can't stress how imperative it is that you not get jabbed. Most of Palutena's kill combos stem from that jab.

Palutena's smashes are incredibly slow, and this is where you've got the upper hand as well. All of them have immense endlag and are extremely punishable, not to mention they're super-easy to read - just keep an eye out for the wings or the staff and you'll know exactly what's coming. None of them are even remotely safe on shield and you can easily spotdodge or shield-grab if you're in range. A good Palutena will prefer to wait until the opponent is open to strike with their smashes, as they're only really useful for punishment. Covering distance by rolling, for example, is extremely punishable by d-smash, and if you happen to try veering into our space in mid-air, we'll catch you with our u-smash. U-smash is most powerful at the bottom of the beam, and it does immense damage and knockback if it hits from there - so if you want to be anywhere, it's at the top of the beam. Still not a good idea to let Palutena get any opportunities to strike or read any openings, just as a general rule of thumb.

Marth is incredibly fast on his feet, and this is tricky for us. We rely on solid reads and punishing predictable tactics for maximum efficacy, so being able to move freely in and out of our range is a huge advantage for you. We're not totally helpless, though: jab will stop any momentum you have, and d-tilt is also a strong move with decent range and knockback. Autoreticle can pressure you into moving and can stop your approaches, forcing you to try and find another way to approach. We can pretty much stop your entire ground approach with Autoreticle if you let us, and if you're trying to go into the air, we'll challenge you with our aerials or, if we're very lucky indeed, u-smash. So even though Marth has naturally better range and is a good spacer, we'll try to even things out by pressuring you to move and forcing you to play into our hand. Once we've got a read on your tactics and can trace your movements, we've got you in a good position, and we'll try to force you into the position we want you to be in. Be wary of a Palutena who's keeping their cool and zoning you: chances are they know exactly what they're doing and are trying to force you to make a rash move and punish you for it.

Airgame is interesting. Marth, again, has superior range and can dominate if he applies pressure well: Palutena's aerials, with the exception of f-air, are pretty slow and all have pathetic range. Your f-air can really keep us at bay and force us off-stage, and we can't really challenge it at all, and your u-air is a decent juggle in its own right. Our b-air just about beats yours, though, if only because of its invincibility frames and immense knockback. It can be used to get a surprise hit in, particularly if we're being chased down, and can KO at high percents, so be cautious of it. Our n-air is only useful if we can get you in the full cycle, otherwise it's easy to swoop out of and it only does noteworthy knockback on the last hit. We can spike with d-air, but it only has one frame of damage and it notoriously difficult to sweetspot with. We'll almost never use it unless we're extremely confident or trying to style - and anyway, u-air and b-air are much better kill moves with much less risk. We'll seldom challenge you in the air - unless we can get a u-air or b-air in, in which case we'll fight back hard and fast - and will most often try to escape, such as with Warp to ground or a surprise n-air to get you away from us. Palutena has no real safe options coming down except for Warping to safety, so if you get the chance to jugg;le us, work away - when we're falling, all we want to do is get out of there and get back to terra firma.

You've got some interesting specials, too. Shield Breaker can space well and can be the bane of any defensive Palutena's existence, and Dancing Blade is fast enough to catch us off-guard and deal some decent damage - if you can space the up-combo especially, it's a powerful move that can put some serious hurt on us. Dolphin Slash's near-instant startup can be useful to get a clean hit in and finish off a combo, but the freefall it puts you in is a pretty big risk to take and doesn't really mitigate not using a safer move. Your Counter is superior to ours in pretty much every way, especially in terms of endlag and knockback: Palutena's Counter is only really useful for negating damage, and we'll seldom if ever use to get a KO. The lack of projectiles means our Reflect is pretty much useless, except for maybe gimping Dolphin Slash's recovery, but there are so many better options that we'll seldom bother with it.

Your edgeguarding game also beats ours hands down. You can chase off-stage with f-air and n-air and dissuade us from ledgesnapping with d-tilt; and since Palutena will almost invariably try to ledgesnap with Warp to minimise landing risk, this can be a useful technique indeed. By comparison, we can try for a n-air or f-air and hope that Warp will bring us safely back to the ledge, but the majority of our kills are best served on-stage with a smash, u-air, b-air or d-tilt. Our grab beats yours, though, as most of our best kill options are lead into from it. Since you've got the advantage with range and speed anyway, it's hardly worth trying for a grab, unless Palutena is being particularly shield-happy or trying to play a defensive game.

All in all, I'm putting this quite definitively in Marth's favour. Your spacing makes it difficult for us to approach conventionally and you've got some pretty solid kill options in your smashes, which not only out-range ours (with the exception of u-smash), but are also much faster and can tipper for that extra wham factor. We rely heavily on our jab -> grab combos to setup and KO, and since it's difficult to get into your space in the first place, that makes things much more difficult for us. We have to play defensively and try to force you to play into our hand, and we'll do our best to read you and formulate a battle plan to make sure we hit you when the opportunity arises without risking leaving ourselves open. We can definitely kill pretty comfortably at high percents, but actually getting that damage in can be tricky, and you're good at forcing us to play a defensive game and pressure us into moving as you want us to. Your combination of range, speed, strength and versatility makes this a pretty tough matchup overall - not unbeatable, certainly, but definitely one to watch out for.

60 : 40 ​

 

[Brinzy]

Well, you are the Palutena player, not me, so I cannot comment much on how difficult it is to set up jab follow-ups on Marth... but does it particularly matter if, for example, her smash attacks are slow? Say her jab was the easiest thing to land ever and Marth couldn't do anything about it - why would you do anything other than jab to begin with? I guess my point is... just because his Fsmash is better than Palutena's Fsmash in many ways doesn't necessarily mean Palutena loses there. It just means you shouldn't Fsmash nearly as often.

You also compare aerials directly, like most everything else in your analysis. Like fair to fair, bair to bair, etc. But, if the only safe approach for Palutena would be to bair in a certain situation, would it really matter if her fair is worse than Marth's fair?

 

[Leojm]

Great points guys but I think What would really help us here to both Marth and Palutena mains is a good video of a fight of great players smashing it out!!!! Then we could study the video and comment on whatever aspects we might see worth mentioning.

 

[adamlon1]

Great points guys but I think What would really help us here to both Marth and Palutena mains is a good video of a fight of great players smashing it out!!!! Then we could study the video and comment on whatever aspects we might see worth mentioning.

The thing is there is so little high level competitive gameplay of them fighting as they are both underutilized and underrated characters so you barely even see them play let alone playing against each other

 

[Rewrite]

Well, you are the Palutena player, not me, so I cannot comment much on how difficult it is to set up jab follow-ups on Marth... but does it particularly matter if, for example, her smash attacks are slow? Say her jab was the easiest thing to land ever and Marth couldn't do anything about it - why would you do anything other than jab to begin with? I guess my point is... just because his Fsmash is better than Palutena's Fsmash in many ways doesn't necessarily mean Palutena loses there. It just means you shouldn't Fsmash nearly as often.

You also compare aerials directly, like most everything else in your analysis. Like fair to fair, bair to bair, etc. But, if the only safe approach for Palutena would be to bair in a certain situation, would it really matter if her fair is worse than Marth's fair?

I've actually fought a surprising number of Palutena's as Marth in my time. I have fought them in for glory, in tournaments and against friend who used to main her. All of my points come from experience.

@ Brinzy I know you weren't referring to me about your statement of aerials, but I'll respond to it anyways. It's not so muc about whether Palutena can trade specific moves like f-airs with Marth as much as if she actually has anything that can trade with Marth's f-air.

 

[Brinzy]

That's a fair point.

I still think if we're talking about if Palutena can trade with Marth's fair, then one could reference her bair. With all that being said, I would also think Lightweight Palutena wouldn't have to actually trade and could punish the lag with her obscene speed.

I definitely agree that Marth has an advantage on standard Palutena. I just think that a lot of what gives him an advantage against her gets thrown out the window when she literally has the speed to not have to worry about trading to begin with.

I only focus on this point because the trend of Marth matchups in this game (and in Brawl, actually) depends almost entirely on how well the Marth can keep the opponent out at a range where Marth can constantly trap his opponent by forcing approaches and forcing certain actions to punish. Huge opinion here, but I think Marth loses to anyone that has no problem closing the gap and is actually faster right next to him (like, Jab or nair range for most characters).

I don't think Palutena's as bad as Sheik, ZSS or Sonic, three characters that I think straight up beat him, but I do think it's enough to not give Marth an advantage.

Of course, all of what I say is basically worthless because I don't play either character. This is just theorycraft for me at this point, which is worth a lot less than your experience.

 

[Rewrite]

That's a fair point.

I still think if we're talking about if Palutena can trade with Marth's fair, then one could reference her bair. With all that being said, I would also think Lightweight Palutena wouldn't have to actually trade and could punish the lag with her obscene speed.

I definitely agree that Marth has an advantage on standard Palutena. I just think that a lot of what gives him an advantage against her gets thrown out the window when she literally has the speed to not have to worry about trading to begin with.

I only focus on this point because the trend of Marth matchups in this game (and in Brawl, actually) depends almost entirely on how well the Marth can keep the opponent out at a range where Marth can constantly trap his opponent by forcing approaches and forcing certain actions to punish. Huge opinion here, but I think Marth loses to anyone that has no problem closing the gap and is actually faster right next to him (like, Jab or nair range for most characters).

I don't think Palutena's as bad as Sheik, ZSS or Sonic, three characters that I think straight up beat him, but I do think it's enough to not give Marth an advantage.

Of course, all of what I say is basically worthless because I don't play either character. This is just theorycraft for me at this point, which is worth a lot less than your experience.

I've already said all of this, but I honestly believe lightweight to be an incredibly over-valued move. Palutena moves faster, but her attack's don't gain any additional benefits or change in any way. Of course she as the additional benefits of being much faster, but it's nothing a well timed and spaced attack can't stuff.

Customs definitely makes it more even, but I still believe Marth has a more distinct advantage.

 

[Wintropy]

Well, you are the Palutena player, not me, so I cannot comment much on how difficult it is to set up jab follow-ups on Marth... but does it particularly matter if, for example, her smash attacks are slow? Say her jab was the easiest thing to land ever and Marth couldn't do anything about it - why would you do anything other than jab to begin with? I guess my point is... just because his Fsmash is better than Palutena's Fsmash in many ways doesn't necessarily mean Palutena loses there. It just means you shouldn't Fsmash nearly as often.

You also compare aerials directly, like most everything else in your analysis. Like fair to fair, bair to bair, etc. But, if the only safe approach for Palutena would be to bair in a certain situation, would it really matter if her fair is worse than Marth's fair?

I should add that it was 2 AM and I was running on sugar and a distinct lack of sleep when I wrote this. It's more of a general overview than a hard-and-fast analysis.

I'm not saying that, anyway. What I'm saying is, side-by-side, there is an empirical difference between the two. Doesn't mean you have to challenge Marth's f-smash with Palutena's f-smash; just that, when compared with one-another, there is a marked contrast and one is more universally applicable than the other. You answered your own question:

...just because his Fsmash is better than Palutena's Fsmash in many ways doesn't necessarily mean Palutena loses there. It just means you shouldn't Fsmash nearly as often.

And you're right, it doesn't matter, but that's not the point I was making. I'm just comparing their respective moves to see how they match up, then detailing what's the best thing to do overall. I did point out that b-air is one of her most useful aerials because of its invincibility frames and strong KO potential, I never said that it's the only answer if Marth tries a b-air himself. There's no one universal application for what works best, merely what I would do in that particular context and what I've seen others most frequently do. At the end of the day, it's all just conjecture based on empirical data: there's no substitute for actually trying it out yourself, because you won't know for sure what you'll do until you're trying it out for yourself. The issue here is that there are so few Palutena players relative to Marth players, at least in the competitive scene. So we're really reduced to grasping at straws and thinking about what we could do rather than what we should do.

I agree, though, it would be better to have a video analysis so we can actually see what we're talking about - theory is fine in theory, but nothing beats good, hard practice. I can try and organise some matches with my brother, a competitive Marth player, and share the results if you'd like? It's hardly high-level play, but it may be of some use to you fine folk. It'll at least put some meat on the bones of what I'm saying, y'know?

 

[Brinzy]

Well when worded that way, it makes a lot more sense.

I really wish I had experience with this matchup, but sadly I'll just have to sit the gameplay out.

 

[Locuan]

Alright everyone! Thanks for the lengthy discussion. This discussion period we focus on the Meta Knight match-up. Let's get started. Additionally, I increased the discussion period for a few days since things have gotten a bit hectic for the past couple of weeks at work and will probably be maintained for a few months.

 

[JingleJangleJamil]

I wonder what things are going to be like when we get to the Lucina discussion period. I can see it now...

Sorry for going off topic I just had to let that out lol. I know they are usually just joking, but it will still be funny anyways, and I do know that there will be THOSE people who will come just to troll or maybe actually be serious about it lol.

 

[adamlon1]

The meta knight matchup I think is in Marth's favor due to Meta Knight's lack of range and "Eh" disjoints it's easy for Marth to out space meta knight with tilts and aerial's to get an edgeguard however Meta Knight has his neutral B and side B which is a multi hit move so it's hard for Marth to really counter it with down B so he either has to avoid it or take the hit but due to how slow and how much endlag there is on tornado and side B you wouldn't see it being used often as it has alot of endlag and can be easily punished with a quick move such as Down tilt or down smash. I would rate this Matchup 55-45 in Marth's favor since he can out-space Meta Knight with his Disjoints and punish him if he goes for one of his multi-hit special's however Marth can be easily juggled with up-airs and if Marth whiffs anything he will get a dash attack which can lead to an up-air juggle but if Marth just continues to out space Meta Knight and get fair and down tilt tippers he can get an edgeguard and we all know what happens there.

 

[roymustang1990-]

Marth's lack of range

More like lack of speed IMO as well as guaranteed combo set ups and edgeguard game when compared to mk

 

[AmishTechnology]

MK ambassador here.

First of all, if you're coming from Brawl, you'll probably have a lot of misconceptions about how MK operates and thus give him a bit too much respect or fear in otherwise punishable situations. I'll help you dispel these.

MK's ground-to-ground game is good. His air-to-air is great when he's initiating, awful when he's on the defensive. His air-to-ground game is ABYSMAL! And I'll tell you why:

- He is like the one character in the entire game who has NO autocancel shorthop aerials! If he shorthops and aerials your shield, that's a guaranteed easy punish for you, even if he lands behind you. He has no business throwing out short hop aerials.

- If you see an MK player being cute and camping above you with d-airs, don't be scared. His range on literally everything is halved from his Brawl counterpart (which had invisible outreaching hitboxes); in this game, a lot of the hitboxes are even shorter than what the sword shows! Seriously, this guy has like Mario/Kirby range, sometimes even shorter. Marth has a pretty strong ground-to-air (anti-air) game against us. Swat him away with a u-tilt if he gets cute with d-airs or approaching f-air/n-air (or you can shield grab those too lol). Full hop aerials won't leave him with the terrible lag, but 1.) It's a full hop and 2.) You can just space him out with Marth's super duper dong-long f-airs. Show his air game no respect.

- So what makes his ground game so good? His approach is very linear and basic... but also very effective because he has the foot speed to make it work. His best moves/bread and butter are his dash attack and dash grab. Both pop you up but just barely enough to lead into 30%+ combos or kill moves. Which reminds me... the absolute most important thing to learn in this matchup is DI. Without proper DI, Meta Knight will dash attack or grab you into an auto guaranteed Shuttle Loop kill. With proper DI, you can position yourself far enough to be able to air dodge and have him guess instead of getting guaranteed up Bs on you instead. Sometimes, rage and hitstun/knockback will align with the stars and you'll just get killed no matter what... but DI'ing will go a long way to make him work harder for his shuttle loop kills. Oh, and his dtilt, which is his fastest attack and a great poking tool for him, will start popping you when you're at 100%. You must tech these or he will run up and get a shuttle loop kill on you.

- Back to the dash attack and dash grab... Dash grab beats shield obviously. He also gets boosted in his dash grab much like Captain Falcon and can make great use of pivot grabs. Dash attack is fast, but it also goes THROUGH your shield if he starts it close to you, so it's not necessarily punishable by shield grabs unless he spaces it poorly! Marth isn't exactly the fastest, though he does range. I'm not sure what Marth's best defense against Meta Knight's approach is, I'd guess it's full hop/short hop f-airs with spacing.

- Where Marth's shield breaker normally forces enemies to roll away, Meta Knight can punish you with a Dimensional Cape teleport-behind-you-into-KO-slash. Just be mindful of this, don't give MK a free stock with his teleport Ike F-Smash.

- Meta Knight's main punish move for airdodges, rolls, and bad spot dodges is his Tornado. 22% easy damage for him when fresh. Don't get too predictable with your airdodges when he's juggling you.

- On higher percentages, you'll find that he'll launch you and fish for shuttle loop kills a lot. By all means, air dodge them, but make sure you're moving Marth away from him enough. Otherwise, he'll just wait for the air dodge and shuttle loop you in the lag, and that'll be a stock lost. Sometimes, with some DI and luck, you'll be able to bull**** out of the 2nd hit after getting hit by the first shuttle loop hit. Fast fall and punish his landing HARD!

- I would not advise going for off-stage edge guards against Meta Knight. He is one of the most ungimpable characters in the game. He has 6 jumps (he'll air dodge whatever you throw at him), incredible vertical reach with Up B, incredible side reach with Side B, and an intangiable means of recovery through Down B. Not only that, but if you overextend, whiff, and attempt to recover yourself, he may use the Side B Drill to hit and SPIKE off against the wall of the stage! Yes, his drill is a spike. That, or he may ledge jump -> b-air you, and that is either a kill (b-air is one of his KO moves, becomes 10x stronger off-stage) or a terrible position for Marth. Instead, I'd either let him take the ledge and just edge-guard him there, or go for a ledge trump somehow and work from there. Also be mindful, his shuttle loop can hit through the stage and then sweet spot onto the ledge before the second hit. You must sheld this. If you have a terrible habit of not shielding and being close to the edge, MK may just opt to shuttle loop you one-two for the kill instead. If you ever shield that though, he won't grab the ledge and you can ez-punish him with F-Smash or something lol. If he EVER loses edge invincibility and is about to regrab it, your d-tilt or F-Smash will do wonders assuming he doesn't hit you with that shuttle loop.

- Marth is a lot of fun to off-stage as Meta Knight, hehehe... If MK goes for a stage spike against you with b-air, you absolutely must wall tech it. Thankfully, b-air and f-air are multi-hit moves, so the hitlag will make it a little easier to wall tech. You may just be able to reverse your fortune with a ledge tech -> getting back onto stage and having MK play from the ledge instead. Drop-down nair is also a popular option for off-stage MK. That will either stage spike you or send you flying away at higher percentages, so watch out for that if you recover low (recovering low with a saved double jump is probably your best bet though because it is a bit harder for him to hit you and also his options are more telegraphed).

- So yeah, keep in mind his strengths and weaknesses. His approach is rather limited to dash attack and dash grab, but they are effective. His air game is weak if he isn't edge guarding or comboing you, don't show his air game any respect when he's not doing those two. Your spacing with f-air, tilts, and whatnot are very scary to us Meta Knights. Rather than approaching you, we'd rather sit and bait out your attacks, then punish you in your lag because Marth is indeed quite punishable when he misses. At low percents try to DI away from forward throw, dash attack, and down throw - otherwise, you're handing him an easy u-air string or tornado. His back-throw kills at ~140 I think if you're on the edge, and his up-throw is very telegraphed and kills at like 160% if I'm not mistaken, so your main concern when it comes to DI'ing is not to go lukewarm against D/F-throw into Shuttle Loop.

Edit: Another thing... Tornado is incredibly punishable and doesn't have incredibly stupid priority anymore. He's also very vulnerable from above. If you're facing an MK doing unsafe and unguaranteed Tornados... F-Smash tipper time!

 

[Trunks159]

I agree with much was said.

Metaknight camping with d air isnt trying to hit you. Im merely keeping my opponent in a defensive position, trying to bait out an up tilt, or up air, as ill immediately drop and dash attack or dash grab for 30%.

Metaknight will not short hop aerial you...ever.
However, pursuing him in the air isn't the smartest. He may not have reach, but he has 6 jumps. He controls when he wants to attack and be attacked.

Honestly, Metaknights main strategy is to bait you, and read you. He uses fake approaches to bait out moves, and will often kill you on a read.

If you want to beat him, stay in motion. Metaknights range comes at a disadvantage when his opponents are moving.

Also, di ing him is a must. Metaknight wins this matchup though imo since Marth cant really defend all too well, and taking advantage of MKs bad jab and lack of option in the neutral.
Probably 55-45.

 

[Leojm]

Great analysis guys nothing to say except that I´d like to play against a MK player and practice all that tecnical stuff said in previous post.......Im free these days look at my NNID below my pic and send me a PM.

 

[warionumbah2]

@ adamlon1 I strongly disagree with your ratio and overall reasoning, you literally spoke about MK's specials not his normals.

Marth has more range and kill power but MK has,better frame data,better mobility,stronger disadvantage state and advantage state,tools to escape trap situations,hit confirms,kill setups and better dash grab.

Marths fastest move on the ground is frame 7 which is laughable since MK's fastest is frame 3, mach tornado is only used out DA at low percents or to punish airdodges and drill rush will never be used onstage.

Marth does not get as much reward as MK, he hits you and goes back again or he lands a few strings that do pitiful damage. He's got no guaranteed follow ups out of grab, Marths traps are ineffective on MK since he can always DC(Dimensional Cape). This can also be used as a recovery, you mention edgeguarding which is false Marth may as well stay on stage and wait because he'll only put himself in an unfavorable position.

However MK is the one that can edgeguard you, Nair lingers and beats out dolphin slash and has multiple jumps to give himself more edgeguard options. Marth can counter but MK can simply hover in place then punish with nair.

Marth should never be in the air unless its for empty jumps, his options out of dash is bad so abuse his walk speed. Marth is good at playing footsie's which forces MK to play campy and defensive(how he should be played imo). When we clock 70% we must respect your tippers so take advantage of our fear when it comes.


Marth plays footsies really well which is what keeps him in the game(and tippers), problem is that Marth is easily punishable due to his nerfed frame data. His rewards are low,offstage game gets ignored,he on the other hand can't do the same to us,his traps get ignored most of the time. As others have already said its 55:45 in MK's favor.

 

[Leojm]

Great reasoning warionumbah2, you seen to really know your MK's dynamics and I would like to play with you. When you said that Marth should never be in the air I disagree because dash and F-air is a great approach due to his long range, I know about that move lag time when it hits the ground but do not consider it a great fault in this match because if you try to air dodge there's a ladding lag there too...so if we move first MAYBE we can get the upperhand once we hit the ground at footsies and doing good job at spacing. Also when you said MK's nair beat dolphin slash............if we get hit by nair while b-up we can do it again something that is dangerous if it hits right (probably will since it's a very fast move and in order to not fall off the stage the Marth player have to do it fast like Up-b then hit by nair then up-b again, this second dolphin slash most probably will start just at the end of the "linger" of MK's nair) since in most tournament stages and at relatively high % (not to high for MK) it will make the opponent hit the stage rebound to a KO. When trying to edgeguard maybe for MK players a good neutral special will show handy but again it depends on the habits of the Marth and reads that you can see out of your opponent, cause we all know that move can be punishable by a F-smash or a dash attack to say the least. Really good MKs I seen, sometimes use up-b when the opponent wants to recover, that in a way functions like the dolphin slash making Marth rebound off the stage to a sure KO.

 

[Shaya]

Marth's fastest ground move is jab, frame 5.
For interests sake, dolphin slash is also frame 5, but is invincible after frame 3.
Iai counter is frame 3.

I think Marth's range does give notable issue to MK. MK is a character that get's easily hit into the ground, and untippered fairs do tend to set up/combo well for a lot of things.
MK can't just down-b out of traps, he has to be able to jump completely out of the enemy's range first, it's a long vulnerable start up. I know this, as do you.

Marth advancing off stage is fine. Dimension Cape is short range horizontally compared to Brawl (and you aren't attacking with it off stage, lol), and you're going to be needing to go low for shuttle loop. This isn't Brawl, and even in Brawl Marth's ability to pressure MK off stage was unique to only the two swordsmen. Nothing of Marth's in this regard was nerfed (realistically; aerial mobility is less though), so please; you don't have an easy answer to back air or fair and they're going to kill you excessively early.

 

[Trunks159]

Metaknight could go low, but ive never had a problem using d cape tbh. Also, Metaknights forward b offers solid horizontal recovery. If you're Metaknight and get defeated off stage, you did something very wrong.

If you're going to keep throwing fairs out, MK can easily just run in, shield, dash grab. Marth should stay on the ground.

Im curious, what can untippered fairs follow into, since I'd think they can be punished with nair or dair?

 

[adamlon1]

Metaknight could go low, but ive never had a problem using d cape tbh. Also, Metaknights forward b offers solid horizontal recovery. If you're Metaknight and get defeated off stage, you did something very wrong.

If you're going to keep throwing fairs out, MK can easily just run in, shield, dash grab. Marth should stay on the ground.

Im curious, what can untippered fairs follow into, since I'd think they can be punished with nair or dair?

I do believe that Untippered fairs follow up into more untippered fairs, possibly a dair but that's a bit too risky, an untippered bair follows up to an untippered fair or tippered fair but then you can't get the fair chain to a possible dair and untippered fair can get punished by a Meta Knight Nair but I don't know about dair