is easily Falcon's best top tier match up. I think Fatality has like a 20(+) to 1 lifetime record in tournament/off stream money matches against Dabuz and as far as I know he hasn't lost to any other Rosas in tournament. Civil War was literally the first and only time that Dabuz has beaten him without switching off of her. In fact the last time they played was at King of the Springs earlier this month and it ended in a swift 3-0 by Fatality.
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Anyways
can absolutely win a major. He doesn't have any relevant matchups that gate keep him from doing so and at top level, Pikachu is probably his only matchup worse than 45-55 (yes, that includes Ryu, Sheik, Bayonetta, and any other character rumored to body Falcon). Unless Fatality gets an unlucky draw and runs into ESAM, he has a realistic shot against anybody and he's shown he's capable of steamrolling multiple top 10 players in one go.
If anything is holding Falcon back from winning a major it's his steep learning curve. Other than maybe Pikachu, he probably has the highest skill ceiling and the most room for development among the high tiers. But because of his unforgiving disadvantaged state, Falcon is the kind of character that—if you want to be successful with him—you
need to come in 100% prepared against every single match up in the game. If you don't know exactly when to pick your spots, what you need to watch out for to minimize damage taken and prevent early edge guards, and how to capitalize on any openings you get to the fullest, you will die a quick and humiliating death against players that you shouldn't be losing to.
Falcon's other issue is that his neutral can be difficult to master. He isn't going to convert a safe tilt into a huge combo or oppress you in neutral until you reach kill percent. He doesn't have that same safety net that the top tiers do. What he thrives on—his crazy punish game—is going to come from grabs, falling aerials, and dash attacks—all of which put him in close range, susceptible to getting hit and eating big punishes himself. However, what he lacks in sheer diversity and number of options, he makes up for with his ability to threaten space with his burst movement. This, in my opinion, is the #1 deciding factor of viability in this game. When you're as fast as Falcon and you combine it with quick rolls and dash dancing, at a certain range his approaches are impossible to react to. Just mixing up the timing on your approaches gives you an infinite amount of options in neutral. Because of his long dash though, mid level Falcon players don't do a very good job of exploiting this and often fall into the habit of approaching too linearly and running directly into projectiles and lingering hit boxes. Which is where the notion that he has a linear neutral comes from.
It's no surprise to me that his player base at a high level is lacking outside of Fatality. It takes an incredible amount of dedication to reach the level that Fatality has with the character. Mid and high level players typically feel like they've hit a wall playing him because of a certain match up or player, character loyalty wanes, and they end up dropping him for someone that can get similar results with considerably less effort. You guys probably remember that for almost a year, from late 2015 to fall 2016, it looked like Falcon's meta had completely stagnated and that the character was doomed to fall off a la Ness. But really, Falcon players had just hit a wall and the meta progressed without them.
It wasn't until around TBH6 that Fatality had started thinking outside the box and breaking down his walls by utilizing Bidou to master his movement and exploring some of Falcon's lesser utilized options like edge guarding with falcon dive and footstool combos. Obviously though, Civil War was his true coming out party and the first time that he showed just how good Falcon can be at his peak. Since then, he's continued to improve his neutral, work on matchups, and explore Falcon's 50/50's with knee and it has really shown these last few tournaments. His mind games and ability to condition his opponent right now are on another level. In fact he's currently projected to make 6th on the PGR if it were to come out today. In 2018, I'm looking forward to him taking that final step and continuing to show this same consistency and the ability to replicate runs like those he had at Civil War and Momocon.
I've always had the feeling that played at his best, Falcon could be as just good as the likes of Mario, Marth, and Mewtwo. I don't think that the majority will ever come around to the idea but after watching Fatality's progress over the last year, I really do think I was right on the money.