Best / Worst Matchups for Captain Falcon?

[sgt. fuzz]

Kirby gimps the hell out of me and his limbo champion crouch is also infuriating.

 

[Frostyy]

How is Falcon vs. Olimar looking? Haven't played it too much but it doesn't seem too bad. Camping with pikmin throws is pretty annoying and the white pikmin exploding on you can disrupt things badly. Purple pikmin in general are really bad if you get hit by it. Otherwise Falcon seems to punish and combo much more effectively than Olimar can. The only problem I have is that I have no idea how to edge guard against Olimar.

 

[wiresponge]

doesn't falcon have more losing matchups in pm than winning

 

[Kati]

Welcome to Smashboards. You'll fare much better if you can provide reasons or data when tossing out claims like that.

 

[moobs]

i have trouble against ivysaur, mewtwo, marth, and luigi when i am using captain falcon but its probably because i suck.

 

[-Fatality-]

The only one of those matchups that I think is MAYBE difficult at a high level, is Mewtwo. But I haven't actually played a good Mewtwo before. I honestly think that Falcon vs Ivy might be in the good Captain's favor, for reference, I usually beat Reflex's Ivysaur from the times we've played.

 

[-Key-]

It is important to distinguish between the difficulties that are actually due to inherent matchup characteristics and the difficulties that are simply due to player shortcomings. The problem is that it's easy to fall into the trap of saying "nothing can be done about this" if you don't know what is actually possible.

 

[sgt. fuzz]

I have a lot of bad habits like rolling, but I have a friend who is talented with Ness, and he completely eviscerates my options. Off/on the ledge is horrific, but that's par for the course with Falcon. PK fire racks up huge amounts of damage, his forward air outprioritizes what seems like every move I have, and his up throw, down throw, and dash attack seem to combo into bair every hit regardless of DI. Does anyone have any tips on DI, stage control, or potential punishes vs Ness? Is crouch canceling even worth it with falcon? Nair out of shield also destroys a lot of my followups.

My tech/combo game is generally good, but my spacing and read game are definitely shortcomings.

 

[-Key-]

I have a lot of bad habits like rolling, but I have a friend who is talented with Ness, and he completely eviscerates my options. Off/on the ledge is horrific, but that's par for the course with Falcon. PK fire racks up huge amounts of damage, his forward air outprioritizes what seems like every move I have, and his up throw, down throw, and dash attack seem to combo into bair every hit regardless of DI. Does anyone have any tips on DI, stage control, or potential punishes vs Ness? Is crouch canceling even worth it with falcon? Nair out of shield also destroys a lot of my followups.

My tech/combo game is generally good, but my spacing and read game are definitely shortcomings.

The second part of this may help you deal with PK Fire: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzGFooXC-1U

 

[-Fatality-]

I have a lot of bad habits like rolling, but I have a friend who is talented with Ness, and he completely eviscerates my options. Off/on the ledge is horrific, but that's par for the course with Falcon. PK fire racks up huge amounts of damage, his forward air outprioritizes what seems like every move I have, and his up throw, down throw, and dash attack seem to combo into bair every hit regardless of DI. Does anyone have any tips on DI, stage control, or potential punishes vs Ness? Is crouch canceling even worth it with falcon? Nair out of shield also destroys a lot of my followups.

My tech/combo game is generally good, but my spacing and read game are definitely shortcomings.

Maybe this will give you some ideas? Don't have the time to really elaborate on the matchup.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvQd3anRr1o

 

[sgt. fuzz]

@Fatality, your skills are certainly on another level than mine, but it really looked like that Ness wasn't using a lot of his tools. Maybe it's because you never gave him a chance , but I'm going to guess he doesn't play Ness that frequently.

@Key, yeah I've tried some of that, but I get caught in dash dances a lot. Especially on small stages. I think a lot of it is spacing problems on my part.

Thanks for the input.

 

[-Fatality-]

@Fatality, your skills are certainly on another level than mine, but it really looked like that Ness wasn't using a lot of his tools. Maybe it's because you never gave him a chance , but I'm going to guess he doesn't play Ness that frequently.

He's mostly just interested in the character, and is still pretty inexperienced as a whole. If nothing else, you might have a good idea of how effective Footstools are against Ness.

 

[-Key-]

@Key, yeah I've tried some of that, but I get caught in dash dances a lot. Especially on small stages. I think a lot of it is spacing problems on my part.

Smaller stages definitely limit your ability to stay out of PK Fire range, for sure. However, I would recommend avoiding FD despite its largeness just because it offers no escape from a PK Fire onslaught. Platforms are your friends. As far as spacing is concerned, if you don't have enough room to stay out of range and lack a platform to escape to, then you need to make sure you get up close and personal as soon as possible. If Ness has enough space to get a PK Fire off before you can interrupt him with an attack of your own, you're not close enough. And if you can't reach Ness but are still within PK Fire range, you're not far enough away. Consider all of the space between those two theoretical points to be No Man's Land. If you're in that area, you're going to get PK Fired. It's hard to avoid that space (especially without platforms), but it's critical to practice doing it so that you can maintain spacing discipline throughout matches. Falcon requires a lot of patience in PM, so use his movement to zoom around platforms until you get an opportunity to strike. Ness can't keep up with you and he surely can't cover multiple levels with PK Fire. Pick your spots, and when you decide to move in, capitalize as much as you possibly can. Campy Falcon isn't super fun, but losing with HAM Falcon is less fun than winning with campy Falcon.

I hope this helps. I will try to get some Ness matches in this week and I'll post again if I figure out any matchup strategies.

 

[tan(90]

Damn, I can't do **** against Sonic and Zelda. But I have a friend who seconds falco, and I can take him down without too much trouble with raptor boost to shorthop knee

And I do think Falcon should beat Ike in a matchup, considering how fast Falcon is and how he can just wait for Ike in the air when Ike will QD-cancel

 

[Crescent Monkey]

Losing with Ham Falcon is much more disheartening, and disappointing than winning with campy falcon

 

[-Fatality-]

In the Mario matchup, ban FD, Smashville, and PS2 for Game 1. Mario is much better at controlling your movement/punishing your mistakes when there are less platforms for Falcon to use, and that set of bans guarantees you'll play on a 3 Platform stage to start. for Game 2 and beyond, ban Final Destination, Green Hill Zone, and Skyloft.
Lylat Cruise is probably the ideal place to counterpick Mario too, since it has 3 platforms, good running space, no walls for Mario to jump off of, medium blastzones, and angled floors which typically mess up some of his fireball game. If not Lylat, take Mario to Battlefield, WarioWare, or Yoshi's Story, prioritized in that order.

 

[Crescent Monkey]

Is there a good way to get in on a Mario who camps fireballs well?

 

[-Fatality-]

Is there a good way to get in on a Mario who camps fireballs well?

Try using Nairs to close the space between you and the Mario, as Nair beats fireball, and it's relatively easy to get the correct spacing for it. Afterwards, they will typically approach you with Dair, bait an approach that they'll CC D-Smash, or fish for a grab.
You can reliably beat Dair by Shieldgrabbing it, or by jumping above Mario and Dair'ing him back. If they Dair right behind you, just wavedash OOS and reset the neutral game. You can beat the waiting CC D-Smash by empty-hop grabs, or using evasive maneuvers such as wavedash in place just outside it's range, or empty-hop towards them, then waveland back. At higher percents, you can also just Dair/Knee them and ignore CC.
Also, if you get a read on when they're about to throw a fireball, you can full hop over it and footstool Falcon Kick them, which if correctly executed, is basically impossible to punish at all but the lowest percents, and often leads to strong followups.

 

[Arctic]

What about the meta knight matchup? There are times of brightness but then I find myself constantly being chain grabbed, dthrow tech chased and uair'd to large percentage. How do I get around meta knights annoying combos and spare the damage?

 

[G13_Flux]

i think id say MK is quite tough for falcon. the disjoint provides a big issue.. his CC is pretty good on you too. luckily he doesnt have a projectile, so try to make the most out of things like uair and nair to help in the priority battle.

Roy i think absolutely decimates falcon. Things like fair, ftilt, and dtilt are pretty hard to punish in neutral. you have little you can do about his spacing on your shield, and you are going to die early, very early. again, the disjoint issue is very real with roy.

 

[Frostyy]

So uh, how do we edge guard tether recoveries again? If anyone has any insight on every tether recovery then please tell. The forced jump you can make them do if you take ledge seems different for every character. And for some reason I can't get the knee off of it on Ivysaur anymore, but that could just be me sucking.

 

[Crescent Monkey]

Grab Ledge, Drop off ledge Bair, Double Jump Recover

 

[Drodeka]

Against tethers on stages with walls you can also fast fall from the ledge then wall jump and back air. Since you'll still have your second jump you can sometimes get another back air in or sometimes a down air. This is only for the Falcon's that have pretty good control of their bro, tho.

 

[Kati]

Some character's auto tether ledge jump allow for Falcon to punish with his own ledge-hop knee.

 

[-Fatality-]

Notes on fighting Luigi.
His movement is extremely slippery, and his low traction+ good CC options makes it difficult to get much pressure on him on the ground. His good range and quick, powerful aerials makes little mistakes in your pressure and spacing easy to get punished.
Try using SHFF'ld Nairs with buffered backwards rolls to get extremely safe hits that push Luigi back, that help you to feel out how they like to handle pressure. Falcon has reliable ways to beat all of Luigi's defensive options, it's just a matter of choosing the right one, at the right time. Luigi is by nature very hit and run oriented himself. Try offsetting this somewhat unpredictable attack form with lots of DD'ing, WD OOS while DD'ing, and empty hop jumps into backwards wavelands. Luigi is immensely capable of covering a given option for a brief moment, so forcing him to guess a lot can give you lots of potential openings. Quick jabs into gentleman into well spaced nair is quite safe on his shield, due to his lack of somewhat distanced quick OOS options.

Luigi ultimately wants to catch you in the neutral game to set up his juggle/tech chase game on you. Try to DI upwards when he's grounded to force him to go aerial to continue comboing you. Once he's aerial, try using lots of sideways regular and smash DI to abuse his lack of aerial mobility to escape combos early.

Luigi's recovery preferences are often very ledge oriented. Counteract this preference with lots of Hax-dashing to force him to either come at you and risk getting hit, or what you want the most, for him to come back onstage. Missile ledge grab is easy to stop when you regularly refresh your invinicibility and use it to get free Dairs. His more close recoveries can be stymied with ledge hop Bairs.

Luigi likes using Down-B to catch you in the neutral game when he's grounded, or just about to land on the ground again. Be ready for it with WD OOs and Full Hop Dairs to favorably react to it.

 

[Mr.Random]

Quote me please. What do you guys think of the Mario MU? At least in this game.

 

[-Fatality-]

Quote me please. What do you guys think of the Mario MU? At least in this game.

I think that while it's pretty difficult, it's also very winnable, provided you play extremely patient and smart.
I'm too lazy to write a long explanation right now, but maybe watching this match of me playing it somewhat correctly (I think?) will help you out. Skip to 7:09, it's the only time in the set where I play the Mario Falcon Matchup.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXo8OmTV55o
I need to focus more on running back and forth with the hit and run game across the stage like that, and less on more normal confrontations, but it's a start.

 

[Mr.Random]

I think that while it's pretty difficult, it's also very winnable, provided you play extremely patient and smart.
I'm too lazy to write a long explanation right now, but maybe watching this match of me playing it somewhat correctly (I think?) will help you out. Skip to 7:09, it's the only time in the set where I play the Mario Falcon Matchup.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXo8OmTV55o
I need to focus more on running back and forth with the hit and run game across the stage like that, and less on more normal confrontations, but it's a start.

Who's favor is in? I also need some more opinions too.

 

[-Fatality-]

Who's favor is in? I also need some more opinions too.

It's definitely in Mario's favor. I'm pretty sure it's really only a winnable matchup at a high level when you're either miles better than the Mario, or you play it the way I was playing it.

 

[OrangeJuice]

I don't play Falcon seriously, rather for fun but when I do I always have trouble with small characters like Squirtle, Olimar because they are harder to hit and heavy projectile characters like Ness, and Lucas.

 

[TheKmanOfSmash]

Mario vs Falcon is at least even, imo. What Mario has on us in a really good edgeguard game, powerful grab conversions, and CC game we trump over him with our fast ground speed and momentum (which translate to our aerials being more effective than his in neutral), ability to combo him to infinity and beyond, and ability to nair through fireballs used in the neutral game.

You can help counter-act cape gimps by reverse up-bing the ledge at times (not all the time as this is predictable) so that the cape would make you face the other direction and you'll grab the ledge. If he does a smash attack at Falcon's feet as he's reverse up-bing, practice your ledge techs. When Mario is offstage we can gimp him. Well-timed back-airs go through high-recovery fireballs and can hit Mario. We can moonwalk into back-air and reverse up-air and I think reverse up-air may go through the fireballs, not sure. I'm almost sure that regular up-air works too by getting under him as he's recovering high and the up-air should go through the fireballs and hit Mario. Also with his low recovery, hitting him out of Mario tornado is really easy. Just hold ledge or stand on stage and wait for him to do it and he's a sitting duck for a significant amount of frames. A back air will take care of him really quickly. Look out for cape stall mix-ups, though. Those can screw up your timings and you can end up finding yourself the one getting edgeguarded offstage.

I'll admit, this MU was a bit hard for me at first. In the beginning, I didn't know how to deal with fireballs, I always got CC down smashed (which loses to stomp and well-spaced nairs, btw), I never converted well off of my grabs, I didn't know how to edgeguard him and always let him get back, and every time I was offstage I was almost always dead. After getting busted by some really good P:M Marios online for a while (two of which I think could be ranked in SoCal if they actually went to more tourneys :/), I was able to learn Mario's strengths and weaknesses and exploit them to the best of Falcon's ability.

But remember kids: Online experience doesn't matter

P.S. Oh, and try not to shield too much in this MU. Mario has some nasty pressure set-ups on shield with full hop fireballs if you attempt to block them. Always be navigating around them by using platforms (FD is probably Mario's best stage vs Falcon, imo), and/or canceling the fireballs with nair. Putting a lot of pressure on Mario will decrease the rate at which he spams fireballs and if you can respect Mario's CC ranges, there's not much he can do, imo.

 

[TheKmanOfSmash]

Quote me please. What do you guys think of the Mario MU? At least in this game.

Sorry, forgot to quote you. idk if you'll get notified or not if I just edited it in the OP. Not sure how that works. So forgive double post plz ;_;

 

[steelguttey]

Hey guys! Everyone over at the Olimar Matchup Thread is talking about Olimar vs. Captain Falcon this week. Come join the discussion!

 

[steelguttey]

Spoiler: C. Falcon

Good Stages:

Percent at which flowered purple usmash can kill at: 97%

Matchup Ratio:

Tips:

Falcon is another case of Olimar can combo him til killing percent. U-Smash and U-Air still juggles all day, and his techroll sucks so if you miss or you want him closer to the ground again, you can tech chase him fairly easy.

You won't be killing him with U-Smash too much though because he's heavy and a fast faller so he's fairly resistant to it. Instead you'll want to take him off the stage, pretty much with anything, and use F-Air or B-Air when he's recovering to keep him down. His recovery is both short ranged and predictable, so once he's knocked off he should lose a stock. If he didn't lose the stock with you at the advantage, it really is just a case of you messed up, no excuses.

On the other side of things though, Falcon is fast. His dash-dance is great, and he can punish whiffs from really far away, and he punishes them hard. You have to be patient and you have to make sure that you don't get baited by his dash-dancing or empty hops. If you get caught with a grab, you could take some heavy damage, and if the stage is smaller you could lose a stock early on.

Putting all of that together, and you've got what I'd call a fairly even matchup here. The trick to winning it is to not let Falcon play his game. If he's playing patient and a heavy baiter, you need to be more patient and you need to pay attention to when he's going to go in. If he's playing more aggressive, then you need to be prepared to throw out your F-Airs and stuff his approaches, and when you do stuff them you need to be ready to chase a tech if it's lower to the ground, or react to his next action if it's higher in the air.

Stage choice is hard for me to go into. On one hand you have larger stages which give Falcon a lot of room to move around, and avoid you, but larger stages usually have their blastzones farther from the stage. This is good for Olimar because he lives fairly long, and you might survives knees to higher percents and because he can gimp Falcon to keep him down. He doesn't really need the closer blastzones to kill.

However smaller stages allow Olimar to take up more space with his hitboxes, similar to Marth or Roy, and it limits Falcon's movement making it harder for him to avoid you. Of course the downside for Olimar in this situation is smaller stages tend to come with closer blastzones which means Falcon can kill him much sooner.

Falcon is free. The whole matchup is a contest to see who can get the other person into the air first and then combo based off of that. While Falcon does pretty well in the air, his fall speed makes him a perfect target for juggles from Oli. Olimar can pretty easily 0 to death Falcon while Falcon really doesn't have that easy of a time approaching Oli's disjoints. Up-smash/uair for days. Plus, if Falcon's playing safe (which I don't understand why a Falcon would do that ever), he doesn't really have anything to deal with Pikmin Throw. IMO one of the easiest matchups I've ever dealt with.

heres what we got on the olimar matchup

 

[Taka.]

I would say that it is possible to outplay any MU with falcon. I mean, IT'S CAPTAIN FALCON MAN!

 

[Mono.]

I feel like Captain Falcon is one of the most honest characters in both Melee and P:M. That being said, I feel like when I play this character, I must play against my opponent, not my opponent's character.

 

[-Fatality-]

Spoiler: C. Falcon

Good Stages:

Percent at which flowered purple usmash can kill at: 97%

Matchup Ratio:

Tips:

heres what we got on the olimar matchup

Hmm, I'm a bit doubtful it's that bad of a matchup, if at all, though I haven't played a high level Olimar yet. I feel like in all likelihood, the Falcons they play against are just bad, as the way they described the Falcon player losing didn't sound like something that would consistently happen to me, or other good Falcons.

Moving on, After playing many friendlies with the best Squirtle in the world (Reflex), we've come to the conclusion that Squirtle is not a losing matchup for Falcon, might even be in Falcon's favor, you guys just need to have much tighter punish games, and just play smarter.

 

[Shinryuenjin]

Regarding the Zelda MU:

I play both Zelda/Shiek and Falcon in PM so much that they may as well be my mains too. I watched that video with Strawhat v. Blondie and I don't feel like Blondie's playstyle is very good, at least in that video. Just one example as I won't completely dissect Blondie as a Zelda player, but it seems like Blondie isn't aware of all the things that Zelda can do with Din's Fire in PM, especially to Falcon. Set them up a certain way off stage and its practically a guaranteed Fair(which comes out so quickly, has great hitboxes, and hits so hard that its downright dumb by the way). Try setting one right on the ledge and predict where he'll end up. Free fair if you get it right and Falcon's options are very limited offstage. Fair>Knee and that means bad news for Falcons that love to rush in with Knees. And that is honestly just the beginning of what I do to Falcon as Zelda.

As for when I'm Falcon against Zelda, it definitely feels like more of an uphill battle. And I'm more confident in my Falcon than I am my Zelda. Nayru's Love and Din's Fire covers Zelda so well when used correctly, and though Nayru's Love can be punished, it has its invulnerability buffed from Melee meaning intelligent Zelda players will use it incredibly well and as safely as they can, and against Falcon it can often be easy to be safe as is.

Zelda has arguably some of the best special moves in PM in my opinion. If worst comes to worst, a really skilled Zelda will switch to Shiek(I know I do if I feel like the Falcon is turning the tide). It doesn't really matter that Shiek's dthrow was nerfed, Shiek still has the advantage over Falcon.

I don't think it is hopeless for Falcon as I've triumphed through extensive use of suggestions like -Fatality-'s but I don't think its advantageous for Falcon. At best it is even. At worst it is very bad for Falcon. I could be wrong though I would certainly like any tips against Zelda as Falcon if I am.

 

[DMG]

Hmm, I'm a bit doubtful it's that bad of a matchup, if at all, though I haven't played a high level Olimar yet. I feel like in all likelihood, the Falcons they play against are just bad, as the way they described the Falcon player losing didn't sound like something that would consistently happen to me, or other good Falcons.

Moving on, After playing many friendlies with the best Squirtle in the world (Reflex), we've come to the conclusion that Squirtle is not a losing matchup for Falcon, might even be in Falcon's favor, you guys just need to have much tighter punish games, and just play smarter.

Ya I think it's barely Falcon's Favor (vs Squirtle, no opinion on Oli since most Oli's are **** tbh). We have to respect him more than a usual char for being so short and hard to grab. Reminds me of like a slippery Jiggs, except you don't die to rest for missing grabs lol.

Schelda

I dunno about Zelda. The gut feeling is that it is pretty even: the nerfs to aerial landing lag on her Neutral B make the MU more doable imo since that was an annoying move to bait out (still kind of is). In a lot of situations, she could DI away or down + away and threaten to get out of most situations. You had to either accept that she would land safely, or super duper bait out that move. These days you can actually attempt to bait and punish that with a non sword char lol.

I dunno a ton about this MU, since I usually go Marth and he def 100% wins. Some of the stuff Falcon and Marth have vs Zelda is quite similar, it's just more forgiving to be Marth with the better overall range

 

[yohoos]

I play Zeldas quite often and it seems like its either an even matchup or a slightly positive matchup for Falcon. As always Falcon gets the short end of the stick when its his time to get punished. Zelda can do 0-60 combos easily. However, Zelda is slow and floaty, making it easy for Falcon to avoid attacks and punish whiffed approaches. He can also punish Zelda just as hard with insane grab combos and knee combos or even better grab to knee combos. Dins are useless against falcon in neutral because falcon can jump in and get a free knee or something due to how slow/laggy dins are. If played correctly Falcon should own the air game but probably have more difficulty grounded due to Zelda's myriad of long lasting disjointed hitboxes. So, just don't get baited into anything stupid and falcon should do fine.