Edge guarding is split into two parts (maybe three)
Post 100%, where every character's options from the edge are weaker and considerably more abusable by marth.
Pre-100%, where timing is more strict and you're better off with safer actions on reads/reactions than DAT FSMASH TIPPER OMGIFIHITITIWOULDHAVEWONTHESETFUARAffsffasfsfudge
The third thing is the get up attack happy
losers (Basically every good player while they sandbag you + a legion of baddies at every level). Especially the zero suits and falcos. **** them to hell. There's a reason I have a good tournament record against them. There are some dumb cheesy easy ways to beat nearly every character's get up attack. The cheesiest trollest way is to roll into the ledge, you do this when you want them to realise how bad they are; roll into the ledge, get up attack whiffs, they're standing in front of you facing away. It's glorious. Anyway.... Shield and dolphin slash baby, it's from 2008 and people forgot about it, but it works. Most characters with good get up attacks
do not have good ledge drop or ledge jump actions to really pose much of a threat of you standing just a little bit closer.
Edge guarding is a lot more about FEAR than it is about being 5 frame reaction speed allyeon neko. Although that helps. However, the fear comes from knowing where to stand and be safe; this means a position at your advantage in multiple ways. The fear comes from them knowing they have to think about their action because if you know what they're going to do 100% you have just the punish waiting for them. The fear also comes from not having it easy even to get back on if the Marth messes up his option by maintaining advantageous position. If you have a pattern with laggy gestures good players will get around it with a variety of things, usually air dodges.
Now as I said, things are a lot easier post 100%. You can generally react to everything normal ledge wise (attack, roll, standup), their ledge jumps will not be invincible for long [if much at all] and stuff like ledge drop -> jump -> air dodge seems like most people's best bets for any mix up potential (+the most amount of chained invincibility you can get). This type of situation is what get up attack happy
LOSERS breathe their scummy polluted oxygen for. So many fsmash tippers to the face, oh my god. These times are really where you see fsmash tippers coming out, or that not-so-hard-but-we-all-say-it-does neutral air sweet spot tipper. In fact, both of those things with various degrees of timing cover ledge drop ADs (or aerials), ledge jumps, regular get ups and depending on character/position, get up attacks too. ****ing bogus. You have to try A LOT harder otherwise. Pivot grab does it, back air does it, down tilt does it, basically every move does it for all those get up options when spaced/timed correctly minus get up attacks. People above 100% should NOT be getting off the ledge against Marth without sacrifice.
Pre-100% is about making the least risk as Marth while applying pressure.More characters have more, faster, better, gayer (invincible) options to work with. You need to expect the difference and give due respect.
Patterns are not just giving people free passage back on stage, but are getting punished:
-> lol uair reverse shuttle loop from MK,
EL OH EL
ZERO SUIT CHARGES NEUTRAL B LASER SHOT AND DOWN B SPIKES YOU FOR THE SET
(and by lol I mean MASSIVE SAD FACE
I just kinda posted a little thing on how down tilt's hitbox max range reaches higher than the sword shows, and its probably your best "this is what you need to try to get around, ASSHOLE" pressure fear you apply on people. Why? Because one down tilt doesn't mean anything to you if you're spaced properly. Two instinctively does though, so you shouldn't be doing two. Characters are forced on the ledge by roughly half a second and lose their invincibility not long after. Every time they grab the ledge I pay attention to when their invincibility is coming up/ending. What people want you to do is throw out your flashy glow stick and invincibility through it while they still had natural ledge invincibility. Once they don't have it they need to do something lest *SHOCK*
horror you move forward SLIGHTLY (don't worry, you can walk back and its like nothing happened, except they're PISSING THEIR PANTS). The other key note worthy thing to consider is that when someone gets back on the stage, if you aren't in a disadvantageous position (because you never were in one in the first place) you still have complete stage control and they're backed towards a ledge dealing with fast pokey flashy things. Generally what they do after they get back on stage is also capable of being predicted and punished (like oh they get back on stage and instantly roll, instantly attack, instantly jump).
So in other words, the basics of pre-100% is punish what they do afterwards, stay in a positional advantage that you can abuse. Positional advantage usually involves
crouching, random
small walking distances and maybe a down tilt during the time you know they can't get off the ledge to bait them.
Now for the
LOSER ERADICATION SOCIETY, who's decree is something along the lines of "OH MY ****ING GOD YOU ALWAYS GET UP ATTACK YOU ASSHOLE;
but keikaku doori here comes tournament set final stock of the match ->
I said you always get up attack". The classier you are with destroying, annihilating and embarrassing losers the more love and respect I have for you. Forward Smashing it is only the beginning.
only the beginning
only the beginn
only the beg....
You want something on forward air/nair/bair and uair I'm guessing?
Well this has taken me about half an hour so far...
How about I tell you my new favourite predictable pattern I'm using for edge guarding with forward air that is silly bonkers? (Maybe the rest another time)
Basically, I aim to hit with forward air on the last two (better if its the last) frames of the attack. Reason being is that tippering around there is just fantastic. Jumping is bad and laggy I only do so while I know they can't just **** my ****. I jump, sliding back a little (usually short hop). I steadily drift towards the ground . Here's the gogo-gadget-trick though. People think you're about to land and take this opportunity to get on stage (or do something in general), as I'm coming near the ground I jump again. Most characters have different animations in their double jump for holding backwards or neutral/forward, Marth's backwards DJ is a backflip that flattens the body similar to snake bair, but you're virtually at your "experienced" position vertically/horizontally (as is reflected by cancelling the animation with ANY action without lag super teleport style). This means that just as I'm about to hit the stage I'm suddenly 1.5 meta knight heads above the ground with a forward air that in 7 frames hits at ground height from what was prior a pretty far distance. I time fast falls and fairs on reaction and cheese people's everything.
Everything.
Oh and how I describe forward air in the above paragraph (most notably the last sentence) is
basically how you use forward air in this game to be
OMEGA POWERED alllllllllll the time.
Basically, virtually, realistically I basically overuse these virtually realistically beautiful words that are basically virtually realistically amazing.
*300 hours of editing though
