Captain Falcon MU help

[SmashBurner]

Hi all,

I'm Burnerv2. A devoted Ike main since the Brawl days (just joined the discord). I have an achellies heel - playing against Falcons. Granted the ones I play against that give me trouble are usually better players than me, but I fair well against those players' other characters.

His speed and grabs just give me a rough time. I understand I'll have to study Falcon's set ups and baits more on my own, but any general match up, approach, and playstyle knowledge would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Zoramine Fae]

Heya there. Not really all that much of an Ike player (He's a bit too slow for my tastes as a Little Mac player), but I guessI can give what I've figure out so far. Up Throw/Down Throw into Forward Airs are key, although that's what you'd expect out of an Ike game plan. Neutral Air can shut out grounded approaches pretty damn easily as well as dash grabs since it is now more powerful, has a better launching angle, and the Falcon will be hard pressed to get off a grab on an aerial target. Back Air also can smash aggressive Falcons with no understanding of the term 'Shielding'. Reading an air dodge and forward airing also results in an easy stock if they are offstage due to his limited recovery. If you are offstage, overshoot the ledge and land before the recovery famed hit so you can act immediately out of it. If possible.

Hope that helps!

 

[Arrei]

As strange as it sounds, Falcon has unsafe approach options. If you space Nair well, he can have a hard time punishing on shield - his jab and rejab rate are fast for covering failed approaches, but his standing grab and jab are outranged by our own jab and Dtilt, and spacing Nair tends to put us in that awkward deadzone space where trying dash grab leaves him clutching at air. However, you don't want to just throw out random Nairs at nothing while he's dash dancing or something. Goad him into trying an approach and grab or Dtilt him.


Just make sure you DI away after Dthrow and DON'T reflexively air dodge after it, ever. I eat way too many Dairs like that.

 

[Mario766]

Watch some sets, we have Rango and Ryuga vs Fatality, premier Falcon on youtube that you can look up, see how they play the MU. Practice your edgeguarding. You want Falcon off the stage most of the time, it's kinda like the Mac MU only less free. Don't Air Dodge, your best option off-stage is to drift back then DJ into a recovery move. On stage, you'll want to space out his approaches and heavily use jab/d-tilt. This MU you want to play both a good ground and aerial game, as spaced aerials are good in the MU but jab is heavily undervalued by Ike players in Smash 4 as it's still extremely good and leads into more mix-ups than people imagine.

 

[BanGaRanG]

2 things:

1. At 0/low %, don't hold shield because your problem is getting grabbed, and falcons love a scared opponent who happens to be a fastfaller and is fairly large. Use jabs like Mario766 said, abuse jab 1+2, dtilt, and spaced nair. If you don't just shield it's a LOT harder for falcon to grab you and you can just shield his DA mixup/nair/bair approaches or even outright challenge them with tilts/nair.

2. At high %, go ahead and hold shield. Falcon can't kill you with a grab as long as you don't put yourself in a position to be backthrown at the edge. You'll make most falcons really frustrated if you do that.

 

[Arrei]

Ah, yes, that's a good point, forgot to mention Falcon can have problems killing if you don't fall for throw shenanigans or spikes. Falcons hungry for a kill will commonly try to get you offstage and end you out there, or else start trying punishable approach options like Raptor Boost, Falcon Kick, or FSmash - all of which aren't too difficult to avoid provided you don't drop shield early on a mixup or roll right into them.

 

[SmashBurner]

Thanks for all the advice everyone! I'm put all your info to work and it paid off. Didn't beat the person I have trouble with but it was competitive! And I beat all Falcons I played other than him today.

I'll keep learning the mu! Thanks again!

#IkeNation