Can Marth become top tier again?

[Dart!]

Is it possible? What do you think must be done? Has his overall game fallen below that of fox and falco? Can he overcome jigglypuff and sheik? discuss

Personally, i think he has the tools to beat every character. it's just hard.

 

[Everlasting Laughter]

I play marth nearly grabs only because sheilds and ccs mess up his whole game in many cases. I just feel that marth isn't as nearly as puff, space animals or sheik when defending or approaching and also lacks in many match ups the same kill power.

If you can't gimp them or f-smash them then they can live to insane percentiles and it's unreasonable for those high percent kills vs puff, peach, pikachu, and anyone else marth can't straight forward edge gaurd right and as far as edge gaurd goes I feel edge grab bair with fox/falco/sheik can cover more options and is much less techable.

We would need more solid means of killing in a number of match ups and a safer way to do it shine up smash anyone?

But playing smart he can be like falcon in some matches and just outplay them. It's just marth isn't that amazing as he is on paper.

 

[Pikaville]

I am going to go with a no.

Marth is too predictable IMO.

Sheik/Falco/Fox all have projectiles to annoy him with too.(Not so much Fox)

 

[Dart!]

But what marth lacks can be made up by the player, the most important variable. We see this with characters like pikachu and MEWTWO from the likes of axe and taj respectively.

 

[Pikaville]

This is very true.

But I think Marth has been figured out too well.

You need amazing spacing to profit with him.

 

[Everlasting Laughter]

But what marth lacks can be made up by the player, the most important variable.

no matter how great a player he won't have better kill power now for pikachu we didn't know about how all his tactics and moves worked till axe. He increased the metagame and our knowledge and made us reliaze wtf pikachu isn't half bad.

A lot of low tiers are unexplored so they are way more up in the air. Marth has had many many more players at all levels and has shown he fits best above falcon below top 4. Also i'm thinking partly of relative metagame so there are few low tiers used and it isn't just top tiers seen but the few sheiks and puffs will push him down as he goes even with like charters (falcon and space animals).


But if someone comes in and shows us we were doing it wrong maybe.



Oh yeah I feel if who you're fighting as marth has better spacing than you, you'll normally lose even if it's against low tiers

 

[stelzig]

as far as edge gaurd goes I feel edge grab bair with fox/falco/sheik can cover more options and is much less techable. .

Marth can edgehog Bair too, if you mean Bair people above the stage then they can't tech there and he can jab spacies below stage for edgeguarding as well. He has plenty of ways to edgeguard off-stage and not have his attacks teched. Next to sheik he has the best edgeguard in the game IMO, and I would be kinda surprised if i'm in the minority on this opinion. Maybe you should try not throwing out moves when edgeguarding and instead "cover options" by just standing in the right position and react.
I don't think he has any outright horrible matchups (even less in PAL). Sheik most people agree on is a losing matchup, and many are starting to say puff as well, but other than that it seems they're either even/debatable or winning so yeh I agree with OP.

 

[Everlasting Laughter]

Just marth's bair doesn't feel like it stays out as long makeing sheik's bair safer

 

[Niko45]

But what marth lacks can be made up by the player, the most important variable. We see this with characters like pikachu and MEWTWO from the likes of axe and taj respectively.

But those aren't top tier characters either. Lots of characters have the tools to win but that doesn't make them top tier.

He's very much viable and I believe he can definitely win major tournaments again but I don't think he's a top tier. He's honestly propped up by the fact that he's very effective at dealing with spacies, which are very difficult for every character besides spacies + marth. His matchups with the floaties have gotten extremely tedious and not free at all while sheik remains an awful matchup, and, while he does relatively well against spacies compared to the rest of the cast, they are still merely even matchups.

 

[Tee ay eye]

yeah i think so
watch me do me

 

[stelzig]

Just marth's bair doesn't feel like it stays out as long makeing sheik's bair safer

Heh as you can see i edited a fair bit in. You generally don't have to throw out moves when edgeguarding.

As for the percentage thing it is hella annoying, but it's not like puff, peach or pikachu are awful matchups for marth anyway (i'd argue at least two of them are winning matchups), and you *can* nail some gimps and quick kills on these floaties with utilt or dsmash too

 

[Beat!]

Yes, it's possible.

Mark my words.

I will quote this post in a few years, when I'm top 5 in the world.

=DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

 

[Niko45]

Sheik's bair is WAY safer/better than Marth's for edgeguarding. Not only can she regrab the ledge from it but the hitbox is jankier and stays out longer, not to mention it hits with power, where as sometimes Marth's bair only gives the opponent height to recover even better.

I agree Sheik has the best edgeguard in melee followed by Marth, although you could argue that puff is in there somewhere above Marth or even both of them.

 

[stelzig]

I'd put puff lower for being kinda slow vertically both up and down.

 

[Everlasting Laughter]

Still marth relies a lot on gimps and having them off the stage and every puff in the world lols at marth when they hit 210% and have taken 2 stocks at least. I just feel marth isn't riskless as space animals or puff or can do the same damage output on their level.



Puff is good at gimping and carring them away say puff just f smashes them off the edge instead of just chaining hits puff can't really stop them if they go onto a platfrom or sweetspot right because they can tech still. She has amazing gimps but not edge guard

 

[Tee ay eye]

every puff in the world lols at marth when they hit 210% and have taken 2 stocks at least. I just feel marth isn't riskless as space animals or puff or can do the same damage output on their level.

how do you let puff live to 210

 

[Niko45]

I'd like to see a list of non-jab moves that do not KO puff at 210. I feel like that would be a very short list.

 

[Beat!]

Y'know, I think he might've been hyperboling.

 

[Everlasting Laughter]

Side b fair dair d tilt throw sourspot up b. To be fair he wasn't that great and it only happened one time. It was on FoD so you know that was funny.

Still marth can't kill right without edge guard or a f smash.

 

[Pi]

marth is not on falco & foxes level, that's for sure

but he certainly has the tools to be a dominant character

 

[Everlasting Laughter]

To be fair any charcter that can hit without getting hit back and not get timed out on more than than 2 stages has enough tools to win if they ban one of those stages.

Idk maybe mh has two winable stages vs most the cast like brinstar or something.

Having great tools is something marth does in fact have

 

[OverLord]

I don't know, actually I don't care.

It just feels good winning with Marth 'cause you have to outplay your opponent to win consistently.

I feel like Marth players are always pushed to the limit in order to win, especially against very good players, so I feel playing him is very fulfilling and really makes you better at this game.

 

[Van.]

Marth will continue to drop; on the tier list. By the end of melee, he should be even with falcon.

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

lol "by the end of melee"

good one

 

[Kal]

In my opinion, Marth is only not top-tier because of the lack of Marths winning tournaments. This is probably coincidental, or a result of Marth being very difficult to play (at a high level). However, a simple match-up analysis tells you that it's not unreasonable to suggest that Marth can return to top-tier: his worst match-up is vs. Sheik, which is close to even. The rest of his match-ups are even or better.

Part of the difficulty of playing Marth is the energy used during matches. Marth requires the player to pay attention to lots of minor details, even against mediocre-ish players. Marth also requires a very large emphasis on spacing, which is exhausting for most players.

 

[Strong Badam]

unless his file on disc is somehow magically changed, his tier placing won't actually change, just our perception of it might.

but IMO he's 5th best and will stay there unless some new strategy with Peach or Falcon or ICs make them better

 

[Kal]

Obviously his "theoretical" placing will not change. Whether that will change is not the question being asked.

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

I've said it before, but I still think its true: to win with Marth (long-term) you have to have a low tier mentality. You have to play him because you love him as a character, and for no other reason. Otherwise, you will continue to look at the other top tiers and think "man, why am I making this so hard for myself?" As great as Marth is (and hes ******** good), his degree of difficulty is off the charts, so every Marth player has to get used to the steep learning curve. This generally frustrates people off Marth over time, because Melee on its own has a ridiculous learning curve as is, and adding Marth to that equation is just too much for people.

So its all about having the heart of a champion.

It should be easier for you Dart, you have a guy like Reneblade who is always cheering you on. Oh and me too. I was totally kicking my chair right there with you when you lost to Tink lol

 

[mers]

Marth's kinda bad, compared to the other top characters.

 

[Strong Badam]

hence why he is not a top tier character

 

[Zivilyn Bane]

Why do some people think Marth vs Sheik is even? Or even close? At it's very best for Marth, it's 40-60. I'll admit though that it's his only BAD matchup. But seriously, if you think it's even...play some better sheiks. It'll frustrate you to suicidal proportions. His only other sub .500 matchups are vs puff and falco, which I believe to be 45-55 so they're definitely winnable if you're the better player and know the matchup.

But to answer the question, there's really no way to tell if Marth will be top tier again. In 2009 we thought we had seen it all, and again in 2011 we have that same thought. If you read Kish's topic, you realize that all it takes is somebody to come along with the genius and work effort to revolutionize the character for us and show us something new.

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

lol Marth beats Falco and Puff. Ya'll don't even know.

Its Falcon whos the second bad matchup. Urrrgh.

 

[Beat!]

I think Marth beats Falco too.











I also think he's top 3 with Fox and Falco in some order, but I generally try to keep my mouth shut about that. :C

 

[Niko45]

Too many really bad matchups (1). Yes, 1 is too many for top tiers.

Too many even matchups or arguably slightly losing matchups.

Too many not free matchups (all of them among tourney viable characters all the way down to the mid tiers).

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

Yeah, Marths matchups don't start reaching "free" status until Zelda down. For comparison, Sheik starts ****ting on the entire roster from Ganon and below lol.

 

[Everlasting Laughter]

Wait is gannon above samus? Wow that's nuts.

Doesn't puff/sheik kind of lose to space animals? In the case of people beating them out a lot i think it's because everyone and their mom plays falco/fox everywhere so people have naturally learned them very well.

 

[Deleted member]

marth can be played much better than the current marth players do. the reason he's undervalued is that players try to do direct comparisons to other characters like falco. of course marth won't perform as well as falco in a direct comparison.

rather, marth is good because he can quickly put the opponent into a situation where that opponent has no effective options. marth is very linear in that his entire game play grinds down to basically DD grab, air to air combat, or edge guarding. marth generally doesn't want to engage the enemy character air to ground, and ground to ground is pretty much only grab, dtilt, dash attack. instead you want to focus on ground to air or air to air. the more time the opponent spends in the air, in or out of your control, the better off marth is pretty much. and honestly i'd cut dash attack and fthrow out of your gameplay too. instead, focus all of your throws toward putting the opponent in a poor position. that is, if you're by an edge, downthrow them off, but generally you just want to throw them up so they're in the air. the more you base your marth game on upthrow and fair, ie the moves that give you the hardest advantage, the better off you'll be.

if you take away all of the opponents options, you can only win. even if you kill with a weak fair > edge hog @ 220, if the opponent couldn't do anything in the process, you still come out ahead.

 

[mers]

I'm pretty sure all that really means is "if you do everything perfectly, you can win with Marth" which is obvious. The issue is that other characters can still win more easily.

 

[Everlasting Laughter]

Well yes marth can shut you down with a well used grab or placement if he can keep it up but again falco does this easier amd starts in control. Puff is like marth but can easily choke you into a corner with higher punishment. Fox can do a lot camp till right percent or pressure or whatever.

However I loved how you explained marth

 

[BigD!!!]

thats not what he means mers

he just means that people nowadays arent playing marth like they need to nowadays, theyre playing him like they used to but that doesnt work so well anymore

they need to adapt to have more patience and play in a way that maximizes the effect of their giant sword, instead of possible tech chases and stuff throw them up and make them try to get down, dont aerial people when theyre on the ground waiting, no matter how well you think youre going to space it, etc.

i think marth can do it