Best / Worst Matchups for Captain Falcon?

[Ogopogo]

How's the Wolf matchup vs Falcon? There's 3 or 4 really good Falcons in TN but I've never had the chance to play vs them, so I have no experience. I imagine it's close to even.

 

[Taytertot]

im curious what you guys think roy should be doing vs falcon? im a roy main who hasnt been playing for too long and i am having trouble in the MU.

 

[DMG]

Do a mixture of Dtilt, Side B, and traditional dash dance gameplay. Lot of Falcon options lose to Dtilt, but he can fly over it with Dair. Side B stuffs aerial approaches, but loses to CC sorta and is usually less safe than Dtilt if you whiff or it gets shielded. Sethlon uses Dtilt threat out of run / end of dash to poke my space and Side B out of Dash Dances to stuff many aerial approaches.

 

[Zmorris94]

What do you guys think of the MU against Snake?

 

[Narelex]

Meta Knight does very well vs Falcon I wrote about the MU over on the MK character Analysis.

Know My Power - A Meta Knight Match Up Thread

 

[Styro]

Anyone have any advice for the ness matchup? I'm pretty sure it is in Falcons favor, but the combination of projectiles, strong aerials, and good throws are giving me a lot of trouble. I tend to approach through the air more, but it can be tough, since Fair stuffs a lot of aerials.

 

[DMG]

Make him do something first by running/threaten to SH at him, bait it, and punish him for it

Problem is you can't always do that, and it's not always easy to brute force Ness if they play certain ways. They can choose options that aren't good for like approaching or maintaining space, but make it a big hassle to encroach heavily into their space or land a hit on them. Theoretically you're supposed to get some edge if they play a bit more passive but obtaining it in practice takes more work than it seems

 

[steelguttey]

yo guys, the olimar matchup thread is doing olimar vs falcon this week. some talk about the mu pls

 

[Skelterai]

Problems with the shiek matchup?
Takenotes.jpg

https://youtu.be/eEgatPCrUS0

 

[DMG]

I don't think half of that would fly if I tried doing it to Umbreon.

 

[Skelterai]

Lol make it fly haha

Twin A is one of the best Melee Sheik players I've played with. He tied for 79th at Evo 2015. It's not that he's a bad player. Filthy Casual is just super insane.

 

[Kneato]

Format- Character: Matchup from

's Perspective (+3 has Captain Falcon winning)

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What do you guys think? Anything wildly inaccurate?

 

[DMG]

(Numbers here mean final rating, not addition or subtraction from your list. IE: Wario at +1 = +1 is final rating, not (your list = +2 and I posted +1 so MU rating = +3. This is not what I intend etc)

Falco: -1
Wolf: -1
Sonic: 0
ROB: +1
ZSS: +1
Olimar: 0
Wario: +1
Yoshi: +2
Snake: +1
IC's: +2
Bowser: 2.5 (if + / - 3 relates to roughly a 70:30 MU, I would consider Bowser around 65:35)

Most of these I've done at a high enough level to be fairly confident. IC's are the only one I have not fought a high/top level player at

@Venom_909 could also give pretty good input on some chars I don't play vs as often (kirby, Ivy, etc)

 

[LordDespoiler]

I was wondering what people thought of the squirtle MU? I play it with one of my friends almost daily, and though we tend to go pretty even I always seem to have trouble with his CC game and low-percent juggles. On the other hand, because of his weight and fall speed, it feels like squirtle struggles to kill falcon a lot of the time with vertical kill options, and even when he edgeguards I can usually just DI up and use kick to recover my jump. I really struggle with killing him at high percent because even with d-throw knee, it can be really hard to land a grab on him. Neutral game seems to be dependent on my patience; as long as I don't get antsy, it feels OK, although I feel it is one of the few matchups where a wider stage doesn't help falcon, because squirtle's mobility is better than falcon's if the opponent has basic character-specific tech. Having platforms also seems to help me as falcon, since it takes away some of the juggle threat. I also have trouble edgeguarding him, since it is difficult to get around his up B

It feels like I can see where opportunities might be in the MU, but it is really difficult to take advantage of them because of the turtle's mobility. I think that the biggest thing I struggle with in the matchup is the CC-dtilt, which feels like it beats a lot of my options when he is at low percent. Also, I would guess that I need to get better at my techchases, which are probably where I need to improve the most, since squirtle's tech options are very slow and punishable; that said, squirtle can also tech chase falcon very well.

I am not the most skilled player, but I would like to think that I am at least decent, and I play the matchup extremely often; outside of falcon-marth, it is likely my most played, and those two are probably even. From my experience, I would tend to say the matchup is very close, either 50-50 or 55-45 in squirtle's favor, but it is what I would consider a "hard" 50-50 for falcon; that is to say, relatively even at high levels of play, but the onus of execution definitely lies with falcon to follow up on every possible opportunity and play a very disciplined neutral game.

 

[DMG]

You're pretty close on everything. I also think this is a very close MU, certainly a very stage dependant MU as well. More room doesn't always help, but the layout matters. FD is miles better than say PS2, because there's no platforms for Squirtle to camp with and nothing to save him from tech chases / carries / juggles. Same could be said for Falcon not getting "saved", but those things rarely end up saving him due to how Squirtle works anyways.

I would get rid of FoD and then judge how the Squirtle plays. Campier / better Squirtles you may be wary of PS2, DP, or similar places where he will be hard to approach. If your neutral isn't patient or is a bit lacking, smaller stages may feel like hell.

Squirtle is a character you get rid of 90% Nair usage, and switch to Stomp, Knee, grab. Stomp is one decent way to deal with predictable ground choices. Knee is just brutal for Squirtle and not a move he wants to trade or deal with. Majority of my kills are setup from stomp or grab to Knee: some basic combo strings ending with Uair to Knee are also very prone to land on Squirtle and they are mega efficient if it pushes him near the ledge or offstage. Juicy Knee kills at 60%-80% are the dream.

I'd rate it 55:45 Falcon favor, but you have to be playing lame enough (don't drop edgeguards, don't drop knee kills, don't play too aggressive in neutral, don't get gimped early or shrekd, etc). Also stages play a huge role in this MU, and it could possibly vary from region to region.

 

[LordDespoiler]

I've noticed that the stages matter a lot, yeah. My friend and I usually play on FD, battlefield, or PS2 and sometimes FoD or melee Yoshis since we both also play melee. Sounds like basically how I perceived it; definitely close, but very stage and execution dependent. I have been trying to work on my neutral for a while, and on capitalizing as hard as I can whenever possible; I guess the answer is just get good, at this point

I think my main problem at this point is that I just don't play with that many different people, usually only my roommates because there aren't any PM tourneys near me. There are about 4-5 of us who play regularly, but the squirtle and I are noticeably better than the others, so I don't have experience in a lot of MUs that I would like to. The only matchups I am really familiar with are Ike, Marth, Charizard, Ivy, Squirtle, bowser, and (not through my own choice) zelda. I have very little experience in general with handling any of the losing matchups; none of my friends play spacies, or at least are very good with them, and I play the other bad MUs even less often. I tend to end up using Uair a lot more than Nair, in part because of who I play against, I think, because even in matchups that I play where it would help I generally don't need it, and I noticed early on against squirtle that Nair tends to not be that useful except occasionally in neutral.

Separately, what is the best way of dealing with Zard's edgeguarding? It feels like the matchup is rocket tag, since zard can edgeguard falcon from 0% and charizard is combo food for falcon if he gets in, and neutral tends to be pretty even.

 

[DMG]

Been awhile since I have done the Zard MU. My gut says there's not much you can do about the edgeguard situation, other than try to ledge tech every time. Massive attacks that linger fare well vs Falcon offstage

 

[QuickRat]

Hi!

I'm sorry if it's too late to post it here :D

I've been in a tourney today, I main C. Falcon and a Zelda guy just won me. It was a pretty tied game, I'd say. 2-3 (in a best of 5 set).

I felt very uncomfortable with all those zoning gimmicks Zelda has. Pretty difficult for me to move easily around the stage as I usually do. Okay, a Dair here and a knee there kind of solved the situation, but I don't know what could be done for the matchup (specially since many website say Zelda is actually easy with C. Falcon).

Also, I would like to know what stages I should pick/ban in order to take some advantage against Zelda.

Thank you, guys!

 

[Taytertot]

Hi!

I'm sorry if it's too late to post it here :D

I've been in a tourney today, I main C. Falcon and a Zelda guy just won me. It was a pretty tied game, I'd say. 2-3 (in a best of 5 set).

I felt very uncomfortable with all those zoning gimmicks Zelda has. Pretty difficult for me to move easily around the stage as I usually do. Okay, a Dair here and a knee there kind of solved the situation, but I don't know what could be done for the matchup (specially since many website say Zelda is actually easy with C. Falcon).

Also, I would like to know what stages I should pick/ban in order to take some advantage against Zelda.

Thank you, guys!

while im not sure exactly what advice to give you without a vod i can talk about some general things that should win you the match.

dins fire actually takes a while to set up and if youre looking for it in neutral (which you should be actively looking for her to try to set it up) you can jump in with a punish cause its kinda laggy and i believe one of the main reasons falcon wins this mu is because falcon can punish dins from pretty far away. that being said you dont want to be too far away because then when you jump in to punish zelda's just gonna throw out some kinda tilt and combo the crap out of you. if she does set up dins then consider trying to hit it with a non-committal move (assuming youre spaced in a way where zelda cant hit you for it) so that dins returns to her and she has to set it back up and you can start looking for her to throw it out and punish. All of this requires that youre dash dancing at the right distance from her so keep that in mind.

another thing to watch for is that most of her tilts and smash attacks have low end lag so they arent very punishable so unless you have a good read on her you dont want to be pushing into her threat zone. she has a decent amount of space around her that she can threaten but she cant adjust that space quickly due to slow run/walk and poor aerial drift. ideally speaking this means that youre gonna want to be patiently dash dancing to try and bait out the din's and she's going to be looking for you to give her a safe spacing to do so. zelda doesnt have the speed to be the aggressor here so if she tries to approach you just threaten to punish by dashing away and then coming back to cover the space you have control of. if she moves away from you then take that extra space shes given up and continue your gameplan.

hope that helps. let me know if you need anything explained better as im not usually a very good writer. also if anyone else has something to add or a correction to make then they probably know best. you might also ask about the mu in the PM falcon discord which you can find on the PM reddit page. PM is kinda dead on the smashboards so id imagine youd get more answers on the discord.

 

[QuickRat]

while im not sure exactly what advice to give you without a vod i can talk about some general things that should win you the match.

dins fire actually takes a while to set up and if youre looking for it in neutral (which you should be actively looking for her to try to set it up) you can jump in with a punish cause its kinda laggy and i believe one of the main reasons falcon wins this mu is because falcon can punish dins from pretty far away. that being said you dont want to be too far away because then when you jump in to punish zelda's just gonna throw out some kinda tilt and combo the crap out of you. if she does set up dins then consider trying to hit it with a non-committal move (assuming youre spaced in a way where zelda cant hit you for it) so that dins returns to her and she has to set it back up and you can start looking for her to throw it out and punish. All of this requires that youre dash dancing at the right distance from her so keep that in mind.

another thing to watch for is that most of her tilts and smash attacks have low end lag so they arent very punishable so unless you have a good read on her you dont want to be pushing into her threat zone. she has a decent amount of space around her that she can threaten but she cant adjust that space quickly due to slow run/walk and poor aerial drift. ideally speaking this means that youre gonna want to be patiently dash dancing to try and bait out the din's and she's going to be looking for you to give her a safe spacing to do so. zelda doesnt have the speed to be the aggressor here so if she tries to approach you just threaten to punish by dashing away and then coming back to cover the space you have control of. if she moves away from you then take that extra space shes given up and continue your gameplan.

hope that helps. let me know if you need anything explained better as im not usually a very good writer. also if anyone else has something to add or a correction to make then they probably know best. you might also ask about the mu in the PM falcon discord which you can find on the PM reddit page. PM is kinda dead on the smashboards so id imagine youd get more answers on the discord.

Thank you very much!

I think you are pretty rite. At least in the sense that Zelda can create somehow a “security space” and that difficults playing as C. Falcon.

On the other hand, it's true that it is quite a little space. We are not talking about people like Samus or Link, who actually create a tremendously big area. That makes Zelda more vulnerable and punishable, too.

As you said, Din's Fire and Nayru's Love can be a pain in the ass, but they are easily punishable. Indeed, Zelda can have very good air attakcs, but she moves slowly and clanky, so she is amazingly easy to get air-comboed by a good C. Falcon.

I would say this is a matchup that relies a lot in the selected stage. While playing at my last tourney, I wrongly chose smaller stages, believing she wouldn't be able to start zoning. However, I didn't realize her zoning abilities are not that similar to Link and Samus's. For example, I found Green Hill Zone quite difficult, because Zelda is able to set Din's Fire quickly due to the stage reduced dimensions. However, Dreamland was actually easier, since she needed more time to set it, time I could have used to punish her.

And also, her recovery is not that good. It has an overwhelming loading lag, which makes it easy to start Uairing her.

 

[YvngFlameHoe]

How's Falcon x Yoshi? even or Falcon favored?

 

[DMG]

Yoshi was probably even or possibly winning back in an older patch. In the current patch, I think Yoshi loses slightly. I think the predominant factors for Yoshi losing are stage list and the shield / invincible changes. Top Yoshi players seem more than capable though so don't take it for granted, you still have to play very well and think about the MU. It's not a lopsided affair

 

[Lil Bucket Hat]

Sick profile pic, fam-o. What should I be looking out for vs Yoshi? can I contest any of his aerials with uair? I would also like Vs Ganon advice, since I keep losing to the same guy at my locals, i'm getting closer and closer tho

 

[DMG]

A lot of Falcon aerials will trade or lose to Yoshi while he's airborne because of DJ armor. The soft spot Yoshi has is directly below him, but you can't often take full advantage of it because it takes awhile for Uthrow to reasonably combo into something (and stomp is kind of hard to land in neutral which would be the other main setup).


You often cannot continue extensive combos on Yoshi (this is particularly apparent at lower %), especially if they have good combo DI + tricky DJ armor timings. Instead of 2-3 Uairs into finisher, or some long string like stomp --> nair --> uair --> knee, usually just settle for a solid 1-2 hits from punishes unless you're absolutely confident and knowledgeable on how much hitstun you will deliver. The exception to this is if you clip Yoshi out of his DJ and he has nowhere to safely land, he's quite vulnerable at that point and can be exploited (rare situation, generally happens if they mess up DJ armor and instead get a trade that's favorable to you)


Playing vs Yoshi in neutral is weird because you generally want to suffocate him, but in a careful planned way. Yoshi pivot grab beats out basically anything you try on the ground, while sloppy aerial approaches often lose to OOS Nair or DJ armor trades (not to mention random nonsense like Utilt or Usmash). The risk to the Yoshi player is that Captain Falcon is fast enough to put a lot of pressure onto him to defend "correctly".


Yoshi obviously can't use pivot grab, nair OOS, or DJ armor all at the same time, nor can he afford to use the same option too often (pivot grab is the safest arguably, but it often loses a bit of space and doesn't put much offensive pressure on Falcon) so picking the wrong option if he misjudges what Falcon is going to do in a split second can often lead to getting punished. Alternatively, if the Yoshi somehow plays Neutral more aggressively, he risks getting approaches grabbed or being whiff punished.


The same can be said about Falcon picking the wrong approach, but it's generally easier to leverage approaches when you're such a fast character. The trifecta mixup of immediate dash grab, patient DD outside of range, or SH aerial (when flowed together seamlessly) create much more pressure if your character is mobile or very fast.


You have to be fluid and dictate your gameplay to best suit what the other person is doing. Because Yoshi has a lot of nuances to learn about and deal with, it can take quite a lot of MU experience before you're relatively comfortable in the MU

 

[Lil Bucket Hat]

Is falcon kick really a thing vs Lucas? I just watched ORLY vs HyperFlame and Orly throws out alot of them to hit HyperFlame with. He landed alot of them and didn't really ever get punished for any of them

 

[bboss]

Is falcon kick really a thing vs Lucas? I just watched ORLY vs HyperFlame and Orly throws out alot of them to hit HyperFlame with. He landed alot of them and didn't really ever get punished for any of them

Not really falcon kick isnt usually safe ORLY just usually uses it for guaranteed punish if he can't get anything else off in time. If you do it on shield you are going to get punished hardcore.

 

[Lil Bucket Hat]

At first I thought he was using it to gain center stage, but then he kept hitting Hyper with it and I didn't know what to believe in anymore