Important Carefully Ask PPMD about the Tiara Guy

[V]

I definitely understand the game best through him, but I'll still play Sheik for doubles and the occasional easy match up for her.

 

[Purpletuce]

I think M2K is definitely being smart keeping a Shiek. Shiek covers so many options, and makes M2K impossibly solid. For example, if M2K would have been a Marth main exclusively, he would have a bunch more trouble with some other people, and occasionally lose sets that would make him less likely to succeed. (think about people like Axe, aMSa, Hax, (Shroomed?), etc.)

 

[V]

Shout out to Umbreon for his Drastic Improvement thread which helped me solidify that Marth is my natural character and that I should main him regardless of his shortcomings.

Having said that, is he viable in doubles? I've seen PPU use him effectively but besides him I haven't seen a good Marth in doubles in the last 2-3 years.

 

[AppleAppleAZ]

Marth is an excellent support in doubles if you place your moves correctly, but he HAS to be partnered with a character that can kill easily (Puff, Fox, Falcon).

There are better options (peach, sheik), but Marth does just fine from my experience.

 

[V]

Ok, time for new questions.

1. Is there a thread somewhere with a flowchart of Falco's approach/shield pressure options and the appropriate actions to beat them? I don't need frame breakdown, just what beats what.

2. Where can I find Umbreon's info on why nair is bad? It's my favorite move but if it's costing me in some way I'd like to know why.

3. It seems like the ends of the Marth play style spectrum are flashy/creative (M2K, PPU) and tight spacing/situational knowledge (PP). Is one preferable over the other, or do each have their merits in certain situations, and I have to learn when to apply each?

 

[Bones0]

Ok, time for new questions.

1. Is there a thread somewhere with a flowchart of Falco's approach/shield pressure options and the appropriate actions to beat them? I don't need frame breakdown, just what beats what.

2. Where can I find Umbreon's info on why nair is bad? It's my favorite move but if it's costing me in some way I'd like to know why.

3. It seems like the ends of the Marth play style spectrum are flashy/creative (M2K, PPU) and tight spacing/situational knowledge (PP). Is one preferable over the other, or do each have their merits in certain situations, and I have to learn when to apply each?

1. No.
2. I don't think he's ever bothered to type a huge explanation as to why it's bad, but you can just Google his name and nair for posts on SmashBoards.
3. That's an overly simplistic (and frankly, inaccurate) way of looking at the game.

 

[MookieRah]

Bones is right, there isn't really a big write up to why nair is bad, it's scattered throughout the thread. If there was, I would have it in my compilations. In general, there have been bits of advice why one shouldn't use it for the last 20-30 odd pages dating back to early this year.

A lot of why nair is bad isn't so much because nair is a bad move, it's because it is the staple choice for Marth's to use in neutral, and as such is spammed quite a bit. This move gives Marth players the feeling that they are safe when they use it, but they really aren't as there are many holes in it to allow for punishes. Almost every aerial attack from neutral is a bad idea, because nothing will guarantee anything real out of it, and you have a much higher chance for being punished for it. Just watch PewPewU vs Leffen. Rarely, this happens, but almost universally when PPU uses an aerial on a shield he is punished. PPU is an AMAZING player, but it just goes to show how the old meta of Marth shield pressure is largely a bad idea. The only time where it's "sorta" ok to land any aerial on a shielded opponent is if you tip a shield, because at least then it's fairly safe.

The two most common optimal ways to use nairs are when you are fading back with an aerial (hopping backwards with a nair) whenever your opponent is on the offensive, and as a means to end a combo so that your opponent is offstage. It is also ok to use nair as a way to threaten space, but you have to be very much aware of your opponents spacing and what they are capable of at given ranges, so I wouldn't recommend people to do this in anything outside of friendlies before you understand it thoroughly.

 

[V]

I definitely like nair when people are at 50%-60% on platforms as it gets them offstage pretty efficiently, but I definitely need to cut back on the random nairs in the neutral position as I've been getting punished by anybody with fast movement. Part of that habit stems from playing brawl Marth competitively before melee Marth because he relies heavily on aerial zoning since his grabs aren't as effective and he's basically limited to walking for movement.

Regarding a flow chart or a list for what are appropriate actions against Falco's approach/pressure options I think that would be a good idea since Falco is one of the characters holding Marth back at high level play right now. It should cover everything from what we can expect Falco to do from different laser spacings relative to Marth's range, proper responses to rising/falling nair/dair on shield, and the difference in options between letting a laser hit us and shielding them in different situations and when one option is preferable over the other. Something in bullet format that's concise and easy to memorize would be a great tool for Marth players. We could look at PP and Mango matches with Marths and make a list of all the approaches they use and from what spacings they use them.

The same could be said for important situations in other match ups as well. I'd really like to see a match up thread that has situation breakdowns like this. At least for Fox, Falco, Puff, Sheik, Marth, Peach, Falcon, ICs, Ganon, Doc, and Samus.

 

[Deleted member]

the best way to use marth's nair in neutral is to not use marth's nair in neutral. the move is excellent for combos/traps when you already have positional advantage.

2. Where can I find Umbreon's info on why nair is bad? It's my favorite move but if it's costing me in some way I'd like to know why.

it might help to think of it in a relative manner. first, let's establish that marth's swings are relatively slow attacks when compared to the characters you should expect to play against. marth's good moves like fair, uptilt, fsmash, etc are just not that fast, and outside of nair the moves don't stay out. normally this is ok for 2 reasons- 1 the range is huge, the moves all combo into each other forever, and you win priority challenges everywhere forever. so if you're doing it right, your main goal is to get all of the good without the bad. so basically you need to convert into your punishment game without these slow swings. you have basically 2 outs to this as marth with grabbing and movement. grabbing solves both of these problems, you don't have slow swings and your moves don't really need to stay out. similarly to grab, dtilt does the same things for the same reasons with IASA. movement also solves these problems, as you can just attack your opponent's attacks when you know your sword will always trump their non-disjointed limbs. it also turns out that movement remains good whether you're swinging or grabbing, so your neutral game actually ends up being some combination of movement and dtilt/grab.

now look at nair. nair is still slow. it stays out, but the character doesn't need that property because movement is better than direct pressure when all of your other follow-up moves are also too slow to work with. nair foregoes a lot of range that makes the other swings good. it has no reliable frame traps from neutral and can't act as a proper conversion if you get lucky unlike say a random uptilt. you're super open upon landing even when you l cancel into a dash. defensively, it's better to just move than to cover yourself with nair. it's basically the worst of everything with no gain.

marth is ass-terrible in teams.

 

[Niko45]

Nair is rly bad if you suck at it, I definitely agree there.

 

[V]

So it's best use is basically for finishing combos to put people offstage. Is using dtilt preferable out of dash > crouch or wavedash? Or are both useful? What about wavedash back > utilt as an anti air/defensive option? Seems like it could have huge rewards vs fox and falcon (not vs falco because of lasers unless it's good oos).

 

[Kadano]

So it's best use is basically for finishing combos to put people offstage.

It’s also great against recoveries whose landing is hard to pin down, especially Falcon’s. Nair has the strongest knockback out of all of Marth’s aerials and all the hitboxes are the same, so you don’t need to make sure you sweetspot.

Is using dtilt preferable out of dash > crouch or wavedash? Or are both useful? What about wavedash back > utilt as an anti air/defensive option? Seems like it could have huge rewards vs fox and falcon (not vs falco because of lasers unless it's good oos).

Both are useful. Run to crouch is good if you want to go far¹, wd dtilt covers less distance but the hitbox comes out 4 frames earlier.

Wd back → utilt is risky and laggy. Against a perceptive, proactive opponent, it will only put you in a worse position. I’ve heard people call it a counter against CF’s shffl nair, but that’s only true for badly spaced / mindless nairs.

¹Dashing for a few frames before wd is actually always superior to run → crouch speed-wise, but the difference is hardly noticeable.

 

[Divinokage]

Kadano, actually chasing Falcon off-stage its better to weak fair over 100% than nair because then he wont be able to DI away since he'll die. If he DIs inside you have a ken combo.

 

[CyberZixx]

How is weak fair better versus DI away than Nair? It has much weaker knockback. It is better versus DI in for sure which is a bonus for fair. Overall I like nair more as it is out longer, and easy to hit with. It is best to DI it up, but when they come back down you can cover them again. I only use it when they are coming from top platform ish height. Bottom platform I would weak fair for sure.

 

[Divinokage]

How is weak fair better versus DI away than Nair? It has much weaker knockback. It is better versus DI in for sure which is a bonus for fair. Overall I like nair more as it is out longer, and easy to hit with. It is best to DI it up, but when they come back down you can cover them again. I only use it when they are coming from top platform ish height. Bottom platform I would weak fair for sure.

Because if they Nair instead you can just DI it inside and have a chance to survive.

 

[Bones0]

Both are useful. Run to crouch is good if you want to go far¹, wd dtilt covers less distance but the hitbox comes out 4 frames earlier.

Wd back → utilt is risky and laggy. Against a perceptive, proactive opponent, it will only put you in a worse position. I’ve heard people call it a counter against CF’s shffl nair, but that’s only true for badly spaced / mindless nairs.

¹Dashing for a few frames before wd is actually always superior to run → crouch speed-wise, but the difference is hardly noticeable.

Which one is quickest without committing though? Like I can imagine dashing into a WD dtilt being faster if you're rushing to the edge to poke Falcon's recovery, but what about when you're both DDing around in neutral? Am I more likely to catch someone off guard with a run cancelled dtilt or a WD dtilt?

 

[V]

Which one is quickest without committing though? Like I can imagine dashing into a WD dtilt being faster if you're rushing to the edge to poke Falcon's recovery, but what about when you're both DDing around in neutral? Am I more likely to catch someone off guard with a run cancelled dtilt or a WD dtilt?

I'm not experienced but I'd say in that situation WD dtilt is better because Marth's dash > crouch is so long and you can WD at any point in your DD and at any length you want too.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

One reason to hate marth's dash dance length.

Can't make tight DD -> crouch -> dtilts like Sheik can.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Mookie from your question on Wednesday about recovery vs Dsmash:

You can tech if it's Dsmash or space around Dsmash if you're sure she wants to do it and recover farther away from the edge. Unless you're talking about avoiding Dsmash when getting back on the stage.

 

[Deathconsciousness]

PeePee, do you like MF DOOM? I think you'd like MF DOOM.

 

[Deleted member]

mf doom is so good.

kevin you should edge guard falcon with the back tip of dsmash > dair combo because that character is stupid and needs to be disrespected more.

 

[MookieRah]

Mookie from your question on Wednesday about recovery vs Dsmash:

You can tech if it's Dsmash or space around Dsmash if you're sure she wants to do it and recover farther away from the edge. Unless you're talking about avoiding Dsmash when getting back on the stage.

I didn't ask this, or at least not intentionally. If you looked over that info dump against Peach and found a question someone asked in that, my bad xD. I just copied and pasted info of the matchup posted in here, so I don't have a clue who asked it originally. In any case I'll add this info to the guide/compilation.

Also, this is what I have so far if anyone wants to look through it. I started by putting everything in my words and then realized how much of a huge task it was and then just started pasting in stuff and links to posts.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Daf_Dqod1HoMj7L26ITeUM-xKUKhfxh2vJLWOl2N0C8/edit

 

[ShroudedOne]

mf doom is so good.

kevin you should edge guard falcon with the back tip of dsmash > dair combo because that character is stupid and needs to be disrespected more.

I did this once, and almost switched to Marth because of how cool it looked.

 

[Deleted member]

I did this once, and almost switched to Marth because of how cool it looked.

wait until you kill a sleeping jigglypuff with it at 60 on a missed rest. hilarious.

 

[Divinokage]

mf doom is so good.

kevin you should edge guard falcon with the back tip of dsmash > dair combo because that character is stupid and needs to be disrespected more.

Well you can kinda faceroll combo Falcon anyway, with Ganon I did Dair -> one hit Nair -> one hit nair -> uair to fair. DI inside more plz. =P

 

[Niko45]

You guys have it backwards. Weak fair edgeguards really well because you cover both DIs and dont give a lot of height to them on recovery (nair will give them a lot of height, often setting up a better recovery scenario for them). Nair is a combo move that sets up very strong low/mid % punishes that marth can not get any other way.

 

[Divinokage]

You guys have it backwards. Weak fair edgeguards really well because you cover both DIs and dont give a lot of height to them on recovery. Nair is a combo move that sets up very strong low/mid % punishes that marth can not get any other way.

There we go, thank you!!

 

[TKD+ITA+Mar=]

Defensively, it's better to just move than to cover yourself with nair. it's basically the worst of everything with no gain.

So I have been following this philosophy for quite awhile and for a vast majority of match ups it works pretty well. However, I notice that when I try to out move falcon (specifically dash away), I end up being murdered. In that match up (and fox to a lesser extent), I feel like in order to not get trashed I have to throw out defensive zoning aerials. Particularly, nair to beat out overshot Falcon nair. I don't like it, since it seems really preemptive, but it seems like I get messed up if I attempt to out move Falcon.

 

[V]

^^^ I feel the exact same way vs falcon. It seems like there's no easy way to gain advantage in the neutral position vs him since he gets in pretty easily and combos us so hard. I almost feel like dash forward > wd back repeated over and over is better because we're always facing him and have the option to utilt his aerials and dtilt his grab attempts.

 

[Frame Perfect]

remember watching v for vendetta with some homies and there’s this one ******** guy in the mix. after the credits im like ‘that was incredible’ and he says, ‘ i didn’t like it’ so I ask why and he goes ‘You never saw his face.’ Hahahahahahhahahhah

 

[Deleted member]

So I have been following this philosophy for quite awhile and for a vast majority of match ups it works pretty well. However, I notice that when I try to out move falcon (specifically dash away), I end up being murdered. In that match up (and fox to a lesser extent), I feel like in order to not get trashed I have to throw out defensive zoning aerials. Particularly, nair to beat out overshot Falcon nair. I don't like it, since it seems really preemptive, but it seems like I get messed up if I attempt to out move Falcon.

this is a good point. remember that playing to marth's advantages means to set up exchanges where your moves always win because of the sword's properties. by all means, i don't want to give you the impression that you're never swinging for a conversion, it's just that you're never doing it from neutral. if a character jumps at you with a move, it's definitely reasonable to attack their attack under the premise that yours will win out. this is what falcon usually comes down to, where his ground moves are ass so you play the footsie game of falcon's DD grab vs marth's DD grab/dtilt until he jumps at you, and then you're more than welcome to stuff his move with fair/nair whatever have you. the point is that you have a positional advantage when you do this, in that falcon is choosing to dedicate to an aerial where you're playing a character that is highly favored to win aerial vs aerial interaction. of course, if you're not in a position to stuff his aerial, just try to avoid it. the real problem with using aerials to stuff falcon is when he's trying to grab you and the l cancel can actually make that easier for him, but this is mostly solved by landing in fair > dash, and at that point if he runs extra far and still gets you more than a handful of times you're probably being outplayed.

on a side note, i think this is why jigglypuff vs falcon ends up being horrendous too, falcon kinda gets ***** by bair no matter what he's doing for the same reasons, and his ground game sucks too much to do anything about it.

 

[Bones0]

remember watching v for vendetta with some homies and there’s this one ******** guy in the mix. after the credits im like ‘that was incredible’ and he says, ‘ i didn’t like it’ so I ask why and he goes ‘You never saw his face.’ Hahahahahahhahahhah

I just died a little inside.

 

[Sacredtwin11]

^^^ I feel the exact same way vs falcon. It seems like there's no easy way to gain advantage in the neutral position vs him since he gets in pretty easily and combos us so hard. I almost feel like dash forward > wd back repeated over and over is better because we're always facing him and have the option to utilt his aerials and dtilt his grab attempts.

Repeating dash forward/wavedash back feels really slow and sticky, and I don't think it'd be good for actual use. It sounds good and all, but you can't really do much because dashing immediately out of a WD in the opposite direction of your momentum gives you this slow, weird dash, and you lose ground to the WD's if you do it too many times.

 

[MT_]

If you know Falcon is going to overshoot nair then run under him. The beginning of the nair is so high and Marth dashes so low that if Falcon is going in deep with the nair then you'll run right passed him and now Falcon is at the ledge with no room and you have all the stage control you could have ever asked for.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Against Falcon, I have tested some stuff. The best I have come up with is to almost exclusively(moreso than ANY other matchup imo) dash dance. Swinging at all you get chewed up for it generally, even from a greater distance. I like to make him swing first if possible UNLESS it's a Dtilt to force him to respect my DD more and start jumping, which leads to sword.

 

[Mew2King]

Against Falcon, I have tested some stuff. The best I have come up with is to almost exclusively(moreso than ANY other matchup imo) dash dance. Swinging at all you get chewed up for it generally, even from a greater distance. I like to make him swing first if possible UNLESS it's a Dtilt to force him to respect my DD more and start jumping, which leads to sword.

yea i used to get JV5s and 4 stock low %s on falcons by just dash dancing perfectly, and double jump Fair camping mixed with a Fair + dash away or a waveland mixup when they're conditioned to grab my Fair landing lag or when I think they might. And just aerial OOS a lot too and basically just try really hard not to get hit. If you don't get grabbed above like 30 then you're fine.

btw if people ever have specific questions for me, you can just message me on my facebook page (see my sig), or twitter/twitch. I'm on those a lot more than smashboards. I'm almost never on smashboards anymore except for tournament hunting.

 

[Deleted member]

i think you've just played hax too much. hax's platform game is absurd and no one really wants to take him to FD obviously. that kind of play will make anyone afraid to put moves out. or maybe i'm just pulling things out of my ass with assumptions idk

 

[Dr Peepee]

I felt that way playing $mike, who is also very talented but not Hax-refined. It feels more like a matchup thing to me.

 

[Deleted member]

what throw do you go for on grab then? in my experience, dthrow has worked out the best since falcon is a brick and fthrow/upthrow don't really net any advantage at low conversion %. i usually find dthrow at least gives me a pretty big time margin to go for a tech chase and to try to leverage out the early stock better. this is assuming you're throwing him onto the stage still. obv off the stage dthrow is catfish status.

 

[Dr Peepee]

I'm partial to Dthrow until the throw puts him above 10% I believe. After that point, Dthrow goes too far and Fthrow doesn't go very far and puts him on his back.

Occasionally I freak a Falcon out/lazy it up and Fthrow early on because DI in gets me a free regrab.