Anyway, I suppose if I want us to move on from this topic, I should offer some alternate topic. What about Marth/Lucina? The community and the 4BR's perception is that they're top 12 characters (it seems), although the Marth/Lucina seem to be somewhat pessimistic, with MU charts making them seem like barely top 20. Who is right, and why? Do they really lose as many MUs as MkLeo/NAKAT/Mr. E/Gunblade/Pugwest claim?
Marcina are definitely solid characters, and they do good enough against most characters so they do kind of earn a slightly higher spot like that. However, for Top Tier, their good enough really isn't good enough. I don't know how many of you remember my MU chart for them, but recently I've been talking to some of the more notable Lucina players for my guide and I showed them that MU chart and they seem to agree with a very large portion of it, and when they disagree they usually seem to make it even more pessimistic.
Here's a quick rundown of what Marcina players seem to think of MUs of the more common characters:
- Before MKLeo vs. Salem most consider it a slight disadvantage. I always thought of it as Even, and after that set it seems most think so as well. This MU is not going to, anytime soon, be in any way, shape or form, any kind of advantage for Marcina. With a mix of mixing up SDI and using our two main combo breakers (Up Air and Dolphin Slash), you can kind of healthily escape her ladder combos. Bayoneta's Neutral isn't necessarily bad like we sometimes tend to say, however it is kind of not as good as some of the other characaters in Top 15, and it potentially really shows in this MU in specific. It is a bit harder for Bayo to reliably approach us if we're smart with Walking, Shield and Tilts, we still have pretty good Grab rewards against her so if you grab pretty often (like MKLeo did against Salem) you can still get a lot of damage while avoiding Witch Time, and if Bayonetta whiffs a Witch Time, then she's in the risk of getting FSmashed and killed very early. If you play in a way where you get as much as possible out of Advantage State (because she's kind of combo food and Bat Within doesn't tend to help her a whole lot in this MU if she was in a frame trap) and play Neutral in a safe, specific way so as to minimise the amount of times you get unnecessarily caught in Witch Twist and Witch Time, this MU is entirely manageable. The fact that Marcina is one of the characters that can more easily fight her offstage is also, of course, huge. This is mostly a problem with lower level Bayonettas, but if they keep trying to desperately Side Special you into a combo, that's when you can shield it and then DB or DS her OOS. KO Confirms are reasonably lenient on her, and Jab>Dolphin Slash, even without Lucina's exclusive slide, works the best against her.
- This is a mixed bag. Most think it's a slight loss because, at the end of the day, Cloud is basically like better Marcina. Personally, I think this is an even Matchup in Smashville, Town and City and Battlefield while this is slight disadvantage in Lylat, Final Destination and Dreamland. Cloud's movements are too good in Lylat for us to keep up, especially with Limit, FD for Marcina is iffy in general, especially against character with Advantage States as potentially oppressive as Cloud, and Dreamland is, as always for Marcina, Battlefield without any of the things that makes BF good for us. In a way... Everything Cloud does is a potentially better version of everything we can do. Non-Limit Cross Slash is literally Dancing Blade Down if Dancing Blade Down wasn't crazy unreliable, Falling Up Air starts juggles that can cause mad damage, Limit Cloud has such amazing movement far outclassing us and everything he does requires much less of a commit than anything we do. He's better Marcina in every sense of the word. I was talking about this in the Marcina Discord yesterday and it's the sad reality: There's no MU in this game (aside from maybe Pikachu) where going Marcina is a better choice than going Cloud. Despite all of this, I'd still argue this MU is probably Even despite probably not being far from a loss. Neutral, although Cloud is probably better in this regard than us and definitely way better with Limit, is still entirely manageable from our side, and we blow up each other really hard when either of us is in Disadvantage. Cloud is great at juggles and tacking on damage, while Marcina is great at swatting people around in the air, punishing bad whiffs or lack of safety around their shield, doing short combos that deal great damage (of which Cloud is perfect for falling into because he's big, somewhat heavy, potentially fastfaller with Limit and has basically no escape options out of disadvantage aside from Airdodging) and executing kill confirms (of which he's prone to falling into because of the aforementioned reasons. He can even fall into Lucina's SHDB1>Nair 1>FSmash and sometimes even Jab>SHDB1>Nair 1>FSmash, things that hardly work on anyone else, which is a thing that gives certain edge in the MU, although nothing super game changing)
- Same deal as Cloud. Likely Even, closer to slight loss for us. Marcina banks a lot on Neutral, with mixing up movement with Walk, Dash and many kinds of Pivots and aerial drifts to get safer pokes, condition the opponent and bait them into making mistakes so we can extend lead and KO as early as possible.
These are the "Marcina things" I mentioned a while ago Marcina needs to do for them to succeed in any matchup. Diddy just blatantly out-neutral us as long as he has Banana, so it's very hard for you to get this going. Marcina also capitalises a lot on catching landings, and the good Diddys are amazing and not letting their landings be caught so easily, so you either need to have a lot of both MU experience
and player-vs-player experience (the latter is something you don't have the luxury of when fighting some stranger in a tournament) to know how to catch his landings or resort to catching Monkey Flip instead, which definitely isn't as easy as just "doing it". What definitely potentially saves this MU is our own Banana conversions and keeping Diddy in Disadvantage as long as possible to kill him as early as possible because he's both not too heavy and prone to falling to nearly all of our KO conversions with very high lineancy. Edgeguarding also helps in the MU, but as much as there's a lot of potential in this area for the MU, again, this sadly isn't just as simple as just going there and doing it. Diddys rarely just Up on a straight line to the ledge, and as good as Edgeguarders Marcina are in this game, Edgeguarding in general in this game is very risky, and they have trouble covering certain angles of recoveries (namely, going really low and close to the stage, or just going super low in general) something people who play against Marcina often have grasped very well.
- This is yet another MU that's very complicated and is arguably slight loss. Marcina's Disadvantage State against Fox is
bad. Very bad. Fox is amazing at juggling, has a 16% Up Air that juggles and kills and Marcina are prone to getting juggled without much option to get out of said juggles. That's already a miserable combination right there. If you go into Disadvantage against a good Fox at mid percents it's likely you will not leave until you're deep into Kill Percent or just dead outright. He's very fast in movement and in frame data, so Neutral is annoying against him, it's easy to get overwhelmed and lose stage control fast, but it's manageable and not nearly as bad as Diddy, Sheik or Limit Cloud. Marcina excels if they have a lead against their opponent so they can force the approach, since they're not very good at approaching themselves. Sure, Marcina is one of those characters that can turn the tides of the game in a second and do amazing comebacks, but that's far from their comfort zone. If Fox wins Neutral once or twice against you, it's hard for you close the gap. Even harder if he has a stock lead, which is not very hard when we potentially get hit for 30-70% every neutral loss and his KO confirms are so lenient on us. But, the saviour in this MU is how much Fox tends to get damaged when
he gets in Disadvantage against us. He's even more combo food than Diddy so he also tends to get hit for a lot when he loses Neutral, confirms are even more lineent than on Diddy and KO him way earlier (Intercept Fox Illusion with Jab>DB Forward against Fox KOing him at 80% with either Marth or Lucina, hmmm), and edgeguarding him is often lethal because Illusion and Fire Fox make him a sitting duck for us to just easily swat away. Though it should be of note that because his recovery goes a decent distance and because he has a sex kick, he can also edgeguard us pretty well. Any kind of long lasting hitbox always trades with Dolphin Slash and that trade never ends well for Marcina.
- You can look at this MU, in a sense, as a bit like the Fox MU except the weakness here is potential difficulty at killing rather ease of getting edgeguarded. Playing Neutral against her is difficult, because Speed+Frame Data+Needles. The Needles here make it difficult for you to do the aforementioned
Marcina things and might force you to play less to those strengths, and when Marcina can't play to those strengths, they're far more predictable and easy to intercept. In a bit of a similar note to the Mario MU, she can potentially combo us into oblivion - however not a whole lot she does against us is air-tight 100% true, which means Dolphin Slash is almost always an option for us to escape her combos... but Sheiks know this, and missing a Dolphin Slash often ends terribly for us, so it's not like it's a guaranteed, sweet get out of jail free card out of Disadvantage for us, so we can't really use it all the time. Disadvantage against her is terrible, then, Neutral isn't great, and our Advantage against her is really good but not nearly as good as against Diddy or Fox because she has more escape options and not being nearly as heavy (Diddy) or as Fastfalling (Fox) makes some combos not work as great, and kill confirms slightly less lenient. Because it's very hard/borderline impossible to edgeguard Sheik, that's also one of our biggest strengths just, poof, gone, like Sheik teleporting safely back into the ledge. If she mounts a stock lead against us, it's a nightmare. She can just continuously keep us out while we're forced to use our subpar approach options against her, which she can intercept time and time again. The reason this MU is still manageable is if you end up surviving for very long in your first stock. If Sheik starts taking too long to KO you, and you start living to 150+, suddenly all of her options are a whole lot less threatening while yours are stupid at this point thanks to Rage. Marth's tippers start KOing her out of random stray hits anywhere on stage, while Lucina's sword basically becomes a really long tipper. It gets to the point where Sheik getting Back Aired at 70% makes her lose all stage control or just die outright, against either character. Lucina's Slide Jab>Up Tilt starts KOing her at 75-80%, so against Lucina Sheik just can't get Jabbed at all past that percent, since she'll die anywhere on stage. Obviously all of this applies to Fox as well, but Fox very rarely lets us live this much. If
Marcina gets the stock lead against her, then this MU gets a whole lot more comfortable. It's arguably more comfortable for Sheik to have a stock lead against Marcina than the opposite, but still. It's something.
- I feel like there are a lot of misconceptions about this MU floating around.
Is this MU Advantage for Marcina? Arguably yes.
Is this in any way guaranteed or easy? No. Mario is definitely fighting a bit of an uphill battle, here, but it's by no means unmanageable to him. I've fought this MU a lot from both sides, and there's a definite way he can fight here. Marcina have a lot of Endlag in all of their moves, even stuff that has no business lagging as much as it does. Mario, then, has to play very movement and bait heavy, trying his best to force a mispaced aerial, a bad landing or to push Marcina to the corner, because he can't really directly fight against them because of his range compared to Marcina's massive range. Marcina's Jab, FTilt, Up Tilt, Fair and RAR Bair go a long way in walling him out, and bad attempts at baiting from Mario will result into him getting PP Jabbed/Pivot FTilted/Pivot DB'd/Pivot Grabbed over and over again, effectively keeping him out. It is hard for him to get in, however once he gets in, he can really hurt Marcina. Like I said with Sheik, a lot of his stuff isn't actually true, which means Marcina can almost always DS out of those combos. A Mario that doesn't know this or doesn't compensate for this properly (Ally tends to fit into this) will have a much harder time tacking on damage against Marcina, making this MU way harder than it should be in the process. However Marcinas are also reluctant to try to DS out of stuff because if it goes wrong, it goes very wrong. If the Mario compensates for it right, by making them not want to DS or by shielding their attempts at it, then he can get some massive damage, almost as much as Fox if not more. Outside of early percents, Mario's combos work very well on Marcina, including potentially lethal footstool combos which Marios recently have been doing a good job at optimising. Mario banks on this advantage state of his to survive this MU. His Disadvantage against Marcina isn't great, and Neutral is a very hard time for him. Sadly, if he doesn't KO them in the advantage state and is forced to play neutral with them at high percents, he starts to struggle once again, as now not only will he have to win neutral again, but now he doesn't get much out of his Advantage anymore, since grabs don't do much. He has to kill with Pivot Back Throw near the edge or an Up Smash - if Marcina plays a much more grounded and shield heavy neutral they're just not getting Up Smashed at all. This does mean they can get grabbed more, but like I said before, he doesn't get much out of Grab at such an elevated percent unless it's Pivot Back Throw for the kill, and if he does something unsafe on Shield he's prone to rough retaliation, like a Jab conversion or worse, Rage FSmash. This
is manageable, and very close to even. Far from the blowout some people make it out to be. It's still likely in Marcina's favour even if not by much.
- Pretty much the only universally agreed MU Marcina loses. The "so fast Marcina can't reliably space" problem is taken to a whole new level here. Marcina isn't particularly fast on startup - compared to other swordies, they are - but not really in the grand picture. It's very hard to have stage control against him because of how fast he is in comparison to us and what we can do, and keeping Stage Control is part of the
Marcina things they try to achieve, and this is yet another MU where it's hard for them to do this gameplan. He takes very good advantage of our arse disadvantage state, and he can edgeguard us super well (Spring isn't his only tool to edgeguard us, it's just the one most people default to. It's still pretty good at limiting our options). He's similar to Sheik in the sense that he has some things to kill us early and it's hell if he gets a stock lead, but if he doesn't get those things then we can live very long, however the difference here is that it's way harder to ever get anything substantial going against Sonic, considering we hardly have kill confirms on him and he weights way more than Sheik so he dies far more rarely to random stray max rage hits. Marcina has to play way less commital than usual, considering how much we really don't want to have to go to disadvantage against him, and how terrible it is to be down a stock versus him. What makes this MU just bad instead of the worst MU any character in the Top 20 has are his airspeed, landings and disadvantage in general. Sonic has it pretty bad in those 3 areas, and those are the areas Marcina abuses the most. He's very easy for us to intercept when he's in the air, so he has to be really thoughtful about how he's gonna use his jumps. Most of the time Sonic loses Neutral against, a badly thought-out commit to Jump is almost always the reason why. His landings are all pretty predictable and easy to catch, and he doesn't have many ways to escape disadvantage without putting himself in a position where he's easy to intercept in the air or forcing himself to hastily land on the ground, where we can get more damage. Taking advantage of this
really goes miles into helping us in the MU. Pugwest and Mr. E are great at taking advantage of these weaknesses when they pop up when they play this MU. Even when they do their absolute best to take advantage of these weaknesses, a lot of times it ends up not being enough. It probably gives perspective of just how bad and grating this MU is sometimes.
- I feel like this plays a little bit like the Bayonetta MU with some of the strengths switched around and some different things you need to watch out for. So, Even. Similar to her, we can out-neutral her pretty consistently and get a lot just out of pokes, and our advantage state against her often traps her around in the air getting caught in landings and hit for combos and traps, suffering high damage and then having very high leniency to get hit by our KO confirms because tall frame+fastfaller. I've literally said this to like 4 or 5 of the previous characters I think. Also like Bayonetta, she has a pretty explosive Advantage state where she either kills outright at any percent or at least gets a lot of damage and then puts you in a bad spot. I think what changes here is that the threat of Witch Time and Witch Twist are substituted, respectively, for Paralyser combos out of Neutral B/Down Smash alongside the threat of dying to spikes pretty early thanks to them or the situations they put you in and her own Up B out of Shield which is so strong and often kills even midstage. Unlike Bayonetta, she can also space out a little better thanks to her Zair, which actually does give us a bit of trouble since it reaches so far (I'm not sure but it feels like it reaches farther than any of our moves). She's also much harder to edgeguard because of how great her recovery is and how obscenely dangerous and explosively wrong it can go to challenge it especially if she's during Flip Kick. In a way, I feel like this gives ZSS distinct advantages over Bayonetta in this MU. If anything I'd say this MU is harder than Bayonetta, it's just that we've been fighting ZSS in general way longer than Bayonetta, and some people seem to refuse to properly learn how to fight Bayo, so I'd say the potential for this to be harder is there.
These are the MUs I feel comfortable talking at length about. The rest of the Top 15 MUs I do know, but I can't speak about them in as great detail.
