Mario writeup:
First things first, there's two videos I want you to watch, both from the same tourney/set.
Part 1:
Part 2:
In grand finals, I get 3-0'd from winners and the bracket is reset. I then go and 3-0 my opponent under virtually the same circumstances. I make a few adjustments in between sets that drastically change how the match plays out, which I will go into later. If you notice them, feel free to point them out.
Neutral game- Like most matchups, we win or lose the game here. A good Mario will apply a ton of fireball pressure. He has a ton of safety and mixups through wavebounce, b reverses, etc. How you deal with this imo determines how the set plays out.
Ness has a few options, and the three best in my opinion are:
- nair clank- My go to option in neutral. You can use this in a variety of ways. Quick djc nairs will clank and allow you to be grounded again quickly. Sh nair can be used in a variety of ways to approach, even. You'll see a few times in the video, sh nair allows me to first clank the fireball, and the clank extends the nair long enough to where i catch Mario with the weak hit. Sh and djc nair are by far your best options to deal with fireballs. Getting good at clanking them requires practice, timing and a bit of precision. From what I can tell even if you get the nair off it won't always clank if it hits Ness' head at all.
- PKFire- What you'll see in the video is I use fh/sh FF pkfire to clank with fireballs granting me neutral space with their pillars. It's harder than nair clanking but the reward for it is very great. I find it's generally easier to watch where fireballs are going and then throw a pkfire out right where they will bounce. Through this you can transfer into the best way to win this matchup imo, which is with aggressive zoning. Similar to have a good Toon Link plays, through nair clanks and aggressive, sh pkfires that clank fireballs, you can effectively grant yourself superior position in neutral. Basically, yes, it's pkfire spam, lol. Spamming pkfire in a conscious, efficient manner and applying pressure to Mario does wonders for us.
- Magnet- Most people when I used to ask how to deal with fireballs just said "uh you're Ness just mag lel." Magnet only really works in a couple select situations. First being when Mario is fireball camping from far away. Magnet comes out slow and has considerable lag after it absorbs, and Mario has decent enough mobility to punish us for using it too close. You might be able to absorb 2 or more fireballs in this situation. A bit rare. Secondly is when you make a good read as to when he is going to throw out a fireball and use it to approach. Magnet throws out a hitbox right after it absorbs something, so similar to how I was talking about using sh nair aggressively through clanking, you can mag -> absorb -> absorb hitbox -> djc aerial.
Basically utilizing good platform movement and efficient use of pkfire is how you best deal with neutral vs Mario. Having good movement is really important in this mu imo since Ness has so many unique options he can use. Try not to get caught shielding fireballs if you can afford it. Just don't give Mario the whole stage to work with. Try keeping at the range of about the max range of pkfire. That's the ideal space to maintain imo.
If you get grabbed, DI behind him on dthrow as it makes it harder to convert into fair. In most cases I believe we can jump out before he can fair us anywho.
Comboing- Mario is at one of those unfortunate weights for Ness where he as a lot of trouble stringing a lot of hits on him. That said, it's not impossible to combo him. Once I nair/mag/pkfire through fireballs and get a hit in, I'm almost always looking for a way to convert into a grab. Our best options out of dthrow are fair and nair (go figure). A weak hit nair will often convert into a dair -> jab reset or tech chase for us. Fair will string into itself or a nair. At kill %s, always opt for uair even if he DI's up/behind as bair is too slow to sweetspot before he can jump.
Mag dash is particularly effective at low % in this mu as it leads into a grab or any of our many aerial options.
At low/mid % sweet or sourspot bair will convert into another sweetspot bair. If you rise for the second bair I find it often sets up the right angle for a pkfire.
Around 60-80% a low djc fair will convert into a sweetspot bat if they don't smash di away.
Edgeguarding- Mario's recovery is suuuuuper tricky to try and deal with since his upB has invincibility and a huge hitbox on it. There are a couple things I try doing vs him.
In the video you'll see multiple times that I try going deep offstage with rising nairs, and it pays off very often as the most he does to challenge it is a cape which just sends us back on stage.
You want to reallllllllly make use of ledge invulnerability because generally you're not going to beat out Mario's upb without it. ledgedrop nair/rising nair is very effective. Don't hang on the ledge for too long because if you do the Mario will upb -> wall jump and then bair you which will stage spike. When going offstage vs Mario it's a pretty good idea to have a stage tech ready (i often press L when I do my ledge drop nairs just in case).
If you can get him to down B next to the ledge it's free. Just bair him and you're done.
Recovering- As with most any MU, don't recover low. Good Mario's will cape you for recovering low. Your best option is to recover high and sweetspot or onto a plat imo and ledge cancel. I try to avoid recovering into Mario since cape scares the **** out of me.
Stage Choice- I always always always ALWAYS ban dracs (if its legal), Green Hill Zone, and Yoshi's Brawl vs Mario. He is incredibly potent on those stages. Tons of room to run around on dracs + huge wall = never dies because walljump, almost no plats + small space makes it really hard to deal with fireballs on ghz, if you don't kill him outright he will make it back because wall jump, middle plat + ground angles on Yoshi's Brawl make his fireball game extremely potent, plus in general it's a god awful stage for Ness. FD is also questionable imo.
Vs Mario I tend to opt for Skyworld, PS2, and Battlefield. Skyworld is my go to cp vs. most anyone and PS2 and Battlefield are very neutral and give us plats to work with in this mu which is very important imo.
Just don't let Mario go to a stage where he has room to work and camp and give yourself platforms to maneuver around and apply pressure with.
Matchup Spread- We lose this one IMO. Mario basically beats anyone without a sword. 40/60 when played properly.
Extra stuff- So what did I do differently in between sets? It all had to do with how I handled his fireballs. Set 1 I was granting him too much space and passively trying to nair fireballs/magnet which didn't get me very far. This is most noticeable during the match on FD. Set 2 I tried being much more aggressive with how I handled fireballs through leaning heavily on pkfire approaches and applying pressure in general (IM_JK and I play a lot; I know how he reacts to pressure so this played a heavy hand in it too).
