Best Tactics to use vs Projectile Characters

[Darling]

I've been doing the grind with Lucina and I've found that characters with strong projectiles tend to be very difficult for me to beat. Notable mentions are Wolf, Snake, Villager, and Ness. Ness is at least somewhat easy to smother but I've found that trying to play more aggressively against Wolf and Snake is a hard issue to force. Both characters seem to have normals that can compete with Lucina's (Or just somehow out-range them in the case of Wolf, dude's claws are insane) while also being far stronger at playing campy.

What are some common tactics and gameplans that you employ to make these matchups more bearable? Do you feel these are just hard matchups for Lucina/Marth in general?

 

[MG_3989]

I definitely feel like they can be hard matchups. I’d suggest playing on a tri-plat stage if you can so you can sit there and make them come to you (doesn’t work so well with Snake or Ness though, but it works for other zoners). I would just try to get in their face as much as possible and make sure you keep your spacing nice. One of zoners main win conditions is tilting you. If you can oppress them and tilt them first you’ll win. Wolf is a different story because he’s similar to Marth and Lucina but he has a gun. I would focus on getting him off stage and edgeguarding because he doesn’t have the best recovery but he’s a tough one

 

[FartyParty]

General advice:
Practice your neutral dodge
Fast fall aerials are your friend

Snake - catch his grenades and throw them back
Wolf - get close, focus on punishing out of shield, edgeguard the **** out of him

 

[Arcane_]

I lost in my last tournament set due to projectile pressure forcing me to approach. When your opponent uses projectiles and they are smart, they want you to approach them and jump over them and airdodge through them. That’s why the best thing to do is to keep a level head and mixup your approach options. Don’t always use one option to deal with projectiles. You can even try just dancing around them to try and taunt your opponent into moving in. Marcina wins when the enemy makes a bad approach. Marcina loses when they are forced to approach and their own game is played on them. Patience is key. Don’t feel compelled to just run jump over projectiles to get to your opponent. Patience is key.

 

[Flowen231]

ohohoh HO baby my favorite matchups. I know a trick or two that goes a long way vs them, but its all matchup specific.

Ness: Smother, you got it. Once you get close to ness things get much easier. Once you get him offstage, he should not be coming back. Fsmash jump to ledge and air dodge to ledge, if he ever PK thunders offstage swat him away or counter.

Snake: React to what he does and practice good spacing. If snake pulls a grenade face to face with you, he will hold the grenade behind him, most options hit him safely as long as you dont get close enough to tap the grenade to his rear. If snake pulls a grenade with his back facing you, grab or down tilt as they won't hit the grenade, if he jumps you can up tilt his feet. If you ever get a grab on him when he pulls a grenade you can pummel and time the blast with your throw invincibility to stay safe and get extra damage on him (very effective vs snakes that like to do a lot of grenade > shield or any form of grenade pickup). When you get him in disadvantage, keep him there; if your spacing and positional awareness is on point, you should be able to keep him off to the side or in the air for a long time and it wont take much for an up air to kill snake the way lots of people recover with him. The really hard thing to deal with this matchup is up smash at the ledge. Ideally you should be able to avoid this almost entirely if your spacing and positioning are on point, but if you ever get put into the situation, its mixup time. you can get up counter (will knock him away far enough for you to get your feet on the stage unless hes at 0%) you can time a jump and drift back to do a landing mixup, and if you manage to get back to the ledge fast enough, you can get up attack before he fires his first shot.

Wolf: Edgeguard and play defensively afterwards. TL;DR, edgeguarding wolf is fairly undeveloped and unrefined among our main(s) despite being the key to take control of the matchup. I posted an explanation on how to do it in the (Lucina mains, what characters give you the most trouble) thread. Along with said edgeguarding tricks found in the other thread, if you ever get a lead vs wolf dont press on into him. Blaster by itself is easy to dodge and wolf will eventually be forced to approach if he doesn't wanna be timed out, once that happens the game is yours since dealing with wolf defensively is FAR easier than being the one going to him.

Villager: This ones actually similar to ness but with a few extra steps. Essentially, edgeguarding him is harder, and you want to shield more when you're close up to him. Take advantage of your good OOS aerials, shield run into jump to mix up approaches, cut through his fair and bair with your sword whenever you find that right distance, and the matchup gets a lot easier.

Also cant believe I didnt see this thread before lol, just realized how long its been sitting for.