Meta Knight Match-Up Discussion 5 | Captain Falcon

[Katakiri]

Welcome to our Captain Falcon match-up discussion!

"Show me your moves!"

Discuss character strengths, weaknesses, ground-game, air-game, and all things Falcon vs Bats here.​

Got questions, opinions, or suggestions you want to share about other characters? Head over to the Meta Knight Match-Up Discussion Directory Thread or the Meta Knight Social/General Discussion; we're more than happy to help you.​

Some rules, guidelines, and tips. Some of these are a given since you joined any forums.

1. Be respectful of each other. No insults, no trolling, no flaming, or any of that nonsense.
2. Be aware that some of the discussions can and will be old, so don't call out someone for "wrong" data if that post was referring to say, patch 1.03 stuff.
3. Be impartial; learn to see things from other sides. So, don't boast about all the advantages. Notice weaknesses and strengths from both parties.
4. Stay on topic.
5. Have fun.

Frame Data to expand your mind!:​

|Hit Frames|Hit Frames
Jab | 6, HYAYAYAYAYAYA, 30 | 3-5, 11-13, 20-22 (Repeating), 7-8 (Finish)
Dash Attack | 7-11 | 7-9, 10-16
F-Tilt | 6, 12, 17 | 9-11
U-Tilt | 8-10, 8-14, 11-14 | 17-20
D-Tilt | 3-4 | 11-12
Side Smash | 24 | 19-22
Up Smash | 8, 12, 17 | 22, 28
Down Smash | 4, 9 | 19-20, 29-30
N-Air | 6-7, 8-20 | 7-8, 20-21
F-Air | 9, 12, 15 | 14, 15-30
B-Air | 7-8, 13-14, 20-21 | 10-11, 12-15
U-Air | 6 | 6-10, 11-12
D-Air | 4 | 16-18
Grab | 7-8 | 7-8
Dash Grab | 9-10 | 9-10
Pivot Grab | 9-10 | 12-13

 

[busken]

Pros & Cons
Combined with his amazing ground speed, and deadly aerials Falcon his amazing at applying pressure. Fuse this with his good kill power, and grab setups and you truly have a zone breaker. He has all the tools to dictate the neutral into his favor, and has no problem converting his advantages into a stock. His weaknesses lies in his bad recovery options, as well as his ability to get combo'ed.

In neutral
I think most MK's struggle with Falcon due to the fact that his neutral game is so deadly, and MK doesn't have many safe defensive options to stop him. While in neutral, your biggest focus should be to disrupt his rhythm in order to alleviate pressure. You want to avoid grabs and neutral air most of all. Using side smash his good for stopping his approach options which are usually dash grab and dash attack, and Up-B OOS are great for escaping pressure. As previously said, Falcon's want to get the grab so baiting it out and punishing accordingly is crucial in this MU.

Off-stage
You always want to convert your advantages into an edge guard since his recovery options are so predictable. Once you get him off-stage you should get a stock every time. With fast aerials, and 6 jumps, you will need at most 2 reads to take his stock. Edge guarding will be your primary kill option.

Stages
My 2 favorite places to take Falcon are T&C and Duck Hunt. These stages give me good escape options, and capitalize on Falcon's poor recovery.

Summary
I think this MU is slightly in our favor. Mostly because, Falcon can get combo'ed easily and has non-existent horizontal recovery options only making a gimp more possible. However, he can pressure us well, and with our lightweight and his kill power taking off one of our stocks isn't gonna be too hard if we mess up. I would say 55:45 in our favor.

Most MK's just need to learn how to play the neutral, and not giving falcon what he wants. The MU is basically escape pressure via side smash and Up-B, convert combos into more edge guards then juggles. You need to practice, how you react to pressure and your safest options playing with partner to learn the MU is great too. If you don't know the MU very well, take him to Duck Hunt! You can literally kill him with 2 aerials while he is off-stage and whenever you have the lead you can camp at the tree. Number 1 takeaway is knowing how to deal with his pressure options and destroying as soon as he gets off stage.

 

[gameplayzero]

I agree with buskin. Once falcon is off the stage its pretty much curtains, and the juggle potential on him are endless. As already stated above, with falcon's range and speed, he definitely has a way easier time in the neutral. But I feel metaknight has much better options once he does get in. He is harder to kill up top with the shuttle loop, but since the is heavier he can get caught in more dash attacks + shuttle loops so I think its a fair trade. Just play patiently and once you get in….the rewards should be plentiful.

 

[ItoI6]

if you nair facing forwards onto falcon's upb you usually lose to it and backwards facing nair usually wins, but tbh using nair in general is usually just a waste of a gimp. you need to come down onto him with a well timed dair, and if he has to come from the side then you can just bair repeatedly and he cant really do anything. its tough to get him in that position though.

its incredibly hard to land vs falcon as well as get back on stage as mk man falcons uair is just too much lol. you can avoid the juggles but you need to go to the ledge, but if you go the ledge that just puts you into a different bad spot. down b doesnt work because falcon can run so quick he can get you on reaction wherever you try and land with it. you just gotta jump a lot and come down with dair at the perfect time there isnt much else you can do lol. meanwhile its incredibly difficult to juggle falcon as long as hes smart with fastfalls, if you try and do it just by timing uairs its basically impossible. you need to make some good decisions with tornado to really trap him but if you pull it off well it really is very strong. it is also genuinely very bad for him when getting back on stage from the ledge. just tornado when you predict hes about to use any ledge option and it catches literally everything he can do.

neutral game is also ass for mk vs falcon, falcon is faster and thus a better dash grab, an actual good jab and can space back air into the ground, none of which mk can do. spacing dtilt and ftilt is basically impossible vs such a fast character, and any aerial into the ground gets dash grabbed for free. rising dair is a bad idea. you just gotta outplay him with dash grabs, dash attacks and mixup nados but what else is new lol.

in order to be competitive you need to push your punishes and juggles as hard as falcons ez uairs do. dthrow at low%s below like <20 should be a free tornado if falcon DIs up, and dash attack + follow up from DI away. at below like 20% if you land uair falcon is so heavy and falls so fast its not possible to get another, so you should just fade below him and tornado to catch him if he mashes an attack or airdodges. in the range of like 20-45% you need to fastfall after each uair to connect with the next one and it isnt really a true combo, but its basically inescapable and you can get like 40+% off one combo if you get every uair in and finish with shuttle loop. if you wanna practice the timing with the fastfalls at pre-true combo percents, go to training and set falcon to 10%, then dthrow to dash attack to sh uair, then land 5 uairs in a row and finish with upb. its harder than it sounds to time each fastfall but its very helpful vs basically every character at varying percents and is a definite skill you need to learn as mk.

id put it at about 30-70 falcon or 35-65, its not that bad if mk is very skilled. definitely a tough matchup though.

 

[warionumbah2]

Trust my homehoy itol to rate this mu of all things 70:30 . Busken said everything I would've said so yeah. Dash attack to nado works on falcon below 50% btw which ia really helpful on someone who can tack on damage faster than us.

Edit:No I mean its unsurprising that you rated this mu so high in falcons favor lol. Since you did recently lose to one, God forbid MK wins a MU under your watch lol.

 

[ItoI6]

i meant 70-30 his favor lol my bad

 

[Galactic Knight]

i meant 70-30 his favor lol my bad

I find the average For Glory player enjoys playing as Captain Falcon, perhaps I haven't played anybody who mains him to a suitable skill level to consider him a difficult match up. I tend to play quite well against most Falcon players, the lack of projectiles certainly helps when playing online.

 

[Bonk!]

I find the average For Glory player enjoys playing as Captain Falcon, perhaps I haven't played anybody who mains him to a suitable skill level to consider him a difficult match up. I tend to quite well against most Falcon players, the lack of projectiles certainly helps when playing online.

This is true, but a very skilled Falcon is good at boxing with his jab and approaching with grabs in the neutral. Most for glory players usually just arent solid enough to play smart in the neutral, most Falcons start with a dash attack or try to juke and whiff a dash grab. The factors of Falcon's neutral game give him a very overwhelming edge over Meta Knight since we have no real solid spacing options ourselves with laggy aerials compared to his speed.

 

[Exdeath]

Falcon and MK both have simple, relatively poor approaches A.K.A. dash attack/dash grab/Uair, so it comes down to who gets the bigger punishment game going. Falcon hits MK much harder on a hit-by-hit basis and wins trades/clashes thanks to his damage out-put and jab. With this in mind, MK can and should be taking Falcon from 0-Death by waiting near the ledge. If the clock runs out so be it, but Bthrow leads to a 33/33/33 scenario where Falcon either immediately jumps and you should hit him back out to reset the situation while leaving him with a 50/50, Falcon recovers low, at which point you wait for his Up-B and you should fall into him with Bair, which will trade and semi-spike him -- fall with him and mash jump to foot stool him since there's no risk of Up-B grabbing you -- or finally if Falcon Up-Bs immediately at mid-height at which point you can -- if above him -- hit him with a Dair chain him to tack on a lot of damage and then recover on to the tip of the stage with Down B, Dtilt the Falcon Up-B that should be just behind you and you just reset the situation while adding some damage, taking his jump and leaving him with a 50/50. If you're to the side of him when he Up-Bs then Bair and it should reset the 33/33/33.

Be certain to react to what he's doing. If you're throwing out attacks pre-emptively then he can Up-B you and he'll out-damage you, so it's important to actually secure your gimps. At neutral my go-to flow chart is: Dash attack stops him from dashing everywhere and beats dash grab; dash grab beats shield; shield beats his dash attack; roll away roll into him (spaced pixels from where his jab should be) beats jab, spot dodge and gives frame advantage on his roll away.

 

[warionumbah2]

Looked through my replays just now, @ Exdeath worded the MU perfectly. MK should be converting his kills off stage all it takes is 1 or 2 reads and he's dead, on stage sure we can rack up damage well at early percents using dash attack to nado but Falcon will always get the most out of his throws and win the percent war.

I say the MU is 50:50 or 55:45 in our favor, Falcon has the better neutral game but cannot end our stock below 40% like we can. Falcon can take us all the way to kill percents with fewer hits while we can convert our punishes into an edgeguard.

Trying to kill Falcon up top with our vertical combo's is foolish due to his heavy weight. Back of nair beats his up B all the time and his side B.

 

[Shadow Blitz]

I would like to add that you need to be very careful recovering vs Falcon, a good one can dair you out of both shuttle loop and drill rush. Perhaps dimensional cape is good? Frankly, I been meaning to test its recovery capability more. Due to his space-animal-like physics, Falcon is very vulnerable to up airs. However, we are also vulnerable to his up airs with no real way to challenge them when above.

 

[AmishTechnology]

Dimensional Cape is still risky because its slow windup leaves him vulnerable for Falcon's speed. It is a mix-up option though for when he expects you to use your other options instead.

MK vs Falcon is probably going to consist mainly of MK doing 50% to Falcon, then going exclusively for off-stage play. Killing him off the top is brutal in its difficulty unless you are on Halberd. We flat out lose the neutral of course, so why not take the fight to our turd (edit: meant turf): the off-stage? Falcon's landing isn't the greatest, but he can fall incredibly fast, so we can't just keep pressuring him up in the air as easily like with Rosalina or something. It's tough if he has the stock lead because he can just space you out with b-airs and jabs if he wants to, then go for the dash attack/grab if you show a moment of weakness. When we have the stock lead, it's probably optimal to just position ourselves in a way where we can b-throw him off the stage if he messes up his approach against us, sort of like Lil Mac lol. Edit: For instance, with Sonic on Smashville, once we get a stock lead, we just abuse the ability to camp the moving platform since Sonic's aerial approaches aren't nearly as strong as him being able to spin + run up to you on the ground.

If anything, that's probably our game plan against most non-light characters with mediocre/bad recoveries. Even if the d-throw or f-throw could net you a 20% combo, that b-throw or grab release might flat out net you a kill or even more % through elongated pressure.

 

[Bonk!]

I'm not sharing any turd with you.