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Q&A "Everyone Look At Me!" The Marth Video Critique Thread.

Niko45

Niko45

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Gustav Wind said:
Why is Sheik a particularly good teammate for Marth?
Click to expand...
I'm not really sure why but there's just a ton of chemistry. Particularly against double spacies teams it really does ****. Marth gets launches and pop ups and sheik just fairs/edgeguards everything in sight. Sheik drop down from the ledge bair to up B regrab allows me to fsmash the ledge to my heart's content. They just both in general control zones really well and don't get in each other's way very much somehow.

It's one of the only teams where I feel Marth is not made completely obsolete by another character. In general I think Marth is one of the absolute worst offensive characters in teams, and is no where near one of the best defensive characters. He's an ok tank, he's ok support, but really there are characters like jiggs and peach that just provide everything he does and more plus even more offensive potential imo. As a character he's just built for one on one. He needs the full length of his dash dance to zone some characters, his edgeguards take forever, his combos take forever and leave him extremely vulernable.

Plus he can't "turn off" his range. In teams there are situations outside your control where you're just going to be dealing with characters being in your face, inside the range you want them to be. Marth doesn't have any good way of dealing with this besides running/rolling away and re-spacing, and in teams you rarely have the time and space available to actually do that.

@Wenbo I secondary fox/falco.
 
Wenbobular

Wenbobular

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I never thought Marth was a good tank
His recovery is pretty abusable and whenever he's in the air ... well it's Marth in the air hahaha
 
Niko45

Niko45

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He's a decent tank, but certainly not like a top tier tank. His recovery takes a long time so there's lots of time for your teammate to disrupt an edgeguard. But yea, he does spend a LOT of time getting knocked around and not really doing much good so that certainly compromises whatever tanking he's capable of.
 
Wenbobular

Wenbobular

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I feel the same way about Falcon which is why I gave up on him and play Fox in teams xD
Tanking as Fox is awesome when your opponents have trouble landing kill moves <_<
 
Wenbobular

Wenbobular

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Both of red team dies
One Falcon sticky walks
His partner knees him in the back
Hilarity ensues
 
D1

D1

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Hey there! I main Marth now cuz I'm tired of maining a char that many ppl even the best players can be inconsistent with (Fox.) Please critique me cuz I mainly picked up Marth cuz of my problems w/ the Fox v. Falco matchup...in due time I started loving the char even more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DApFWUu5v8Y

Me vs. Th0rn @ ROM3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL_mzc01Wk4

Me vs. Cam702 @ ROM3

Please critique me on what I can do better, I was nervous and missed something's...but still I'm always open to constructive criticism.
 
ChivalRuse

ChivalRuse

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@D1: Your Marth is awesome.

As far as I'm concerned, you've got all the tools you need to destroy Falcos everywhere. Just at the higher level your execution needs to be on point, and you need to be a little less afraid. It's hard though. But you did pretty well, taking a game off Th0rn.

Edit: Lol.
 
TheCrimsonBlur

TheCrimsonBlur

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D1 said:
Hey there! I main Marth now cuz I'm tired of maining a char that many ppl even the best players can be inconsistent with (Fox.) Please critique me cuz I mainly picked up Marth cuz of my problems w/ the Fox v. Falco matchup...in due time I started loving the char even more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DApFWUu5v8Y

Me vs. Th0rn @ ROM3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL_mzc01Wk4

Me vs. Cam702 @ ROM3

Please critique me on what I can do better, I was nervous and missed something's...but still I'm always open to constructive criticism.
Click to expand...
D, I saw these videos earlier and I was impressed by how good your Marth was despite the fact that I'd never heard of it. Probably on par with your beast Fox already. This switch to Marth could be a great move for you. :)

Imma give you one thing to work on. I only wanna say one because I feel like when I do some of these critiques I give too much and ppl can't implement that many things at once. I feel if I go into detail about the one biggest thing rather than talk vaguely about 20 smaller things, I'll be of better help. Anyway, this one thing is so important that fixing this alone will move you up another level:

OFFENSIVE GRABS: Falco is a tricky character. His lasers make it very awkward to land offensive grabs, but if done properly (see: M2K), Marth can land them at a ferocious consistency. Note that lasers don't do anything to Marth other than take his dashdance away. It is a 100% neutral position. Don't feel that just because you are in your shield he has the advantage. Be calm. But, by lasering, he prohibits you from doing the thing that destroys Falco the most: dashdance grab. You can't let lasers deter you from landing offensive grabs though; its your main offense. So how do you land them? The answer is that you must use a mixture of jumping, WD OOS, and platform movement to gain ground on him until his laser stops being a viable spacing tool. A laser stops being safe somewhere around tipper range. This is when you can fair OOS a laser and **** a Falco up. I don't have much of a problem with your spacing through and around lasers to get within tipper range. I think you have full knowledge of how to get inside a Falco's lasers, and that is not my main point of advice. What I do think you need to work on is landing grabs once you get in that range. Let me point out video evidence to show you what I mean:

G2 vs. Thorn (Battlefield):
5:22: You are within his range here with invincibility. He shields. This is a free offensive grab.

5:28: You downthrow, DD to bait out a roll, he shields but doesn't roll. After two DD fakes you decide to just grab and then he rolls to safety. The problem here is that your DD was too long and a player as good as Thorn just reacted to your approach and rolled. A shorter DD and your grab would have landed. Whenever you do a second DD, make it short. Its OK to make your first one long to try and bait, but the second one is better short because by then you have to make a decision (a 3rd DD is never recommended IMO). Oh and btw, and I think this is simply a nervous mistake, but after the roll, just grab, don't side b.

5:34: After the nair, you should grab. You miss it but he spotdodges. You should grab there too. You go for a delayed fair, which is fine I guess but not optimal. After the fair you jab, but really, you should just grab.

5:40: You jab but should grab. Then you empty hop to tipper (GREAT empty hop btw) but it would have been better to empty hop to grab.

5:42: Exact same scenario as 5:34. Eerily familiar. You go for the dash attack here and get a shield stab to tech chase but again, its a free grab.

5:50: Thorns just giving you grabs now. He lands with a dair, which you can grab. Then he spotdodges when he realizes he ****ed up (third time in 20 seconds! hope you are reading the patterns by now) but instead of grabbing you do some useless DDs and he rolls. Just grab.

5:52: Empty double jump to shield? Just grab it.

6:08: You got this grab but you are making fakes that aren't necessary.

6:15: Unspaced fair to jab to punish the airdodge? You jab shields a lot in other matches but I dunno why...GRAB!

7:32: Free grab at invincibility again.

7:48 and 7:52: Both those side-bs should have been grabs.

I could go on but the point is made. The problem persists in other matches (watch them yourself and try to spot when you should be grabbing but don't--a particularly ridiculous example is 12:20 to 12:40 in the Stadium match v. Thorn). You are denying yourself a bunch of free grabs by either DD too much, prioritizing other moves over grab (delayed fair, side b, jab, etc), or simply not going for a grab when its right in front of you (whether they are in lag, are sitting in shield, etc.). Your grab is deadly. Don't be shy to use it. Learn how much and when you should DD, and don't try to bait something thats not there.
 
D1

D1

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Thanks alot bro! I definitely got hella nervous and accidentally jabbed at times -_-. Good calls though :D
 
Niko45

Niko45

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D1 a few general tips:

recovering - don't ever ever ever recover high like that against falco. That bair is free. Use the space out over the edge to protect yourself and force falco to do something incredibly risky if he wants to try to hit you.

Edgeguarding - if spacies try to up B high and fall onto the ledge use jab or dtilt or really the best thing is to learn the fsmash timing cause you can cover both fastfall and non fastfall with it. Using fair is a pretty laggy commit, and doesn't truly combo to dair like it was. Just saying, you did what you had to do under the circumstances but long term those other options will give you more consistency.

on stage - your on stage game is remarkably good. Personally, I would let lasers hit me more and respond with ftilt/dash attack more cause it just absolutely ***** falco. Trying to do shield stuff works sometimes but it also limits your options, gives falco the opportunity to bait you more easily, and just overall doesn't work as well imo. Even when powershielding. Powershield to wavedash grab is not a true combo btw. They can sidestep. Getting very good with dash attack is the key to beating falco with Marth imo. You could also be taking laser -> dash away grab which I find works amazingly. Shield stuff and powershield stuff is overrated vs Falco.

It's cool you're maining Marth now. Only thing I'll say is if you think that's going to take care of your consistency issues, you've got another thing coming. He may not take as many inputs as fox, but he's got his own problems.
 
Metal Reeper

Metal Reeper

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Niko45 said:
I'm not really sure why but there's just a ton of chemistry. Particularly against double spacies teams it really does ****. Marth gets launches and pop ups and sheik just fairs/edgeguards everything in sight. Sheik drop down from the ledge bair to up B regrab allows me to fsmash the ledge to my heart's content. They just both in general control zones really well and don't get in each other's way very much somehow.

It's one of the only teams where I feel Marth is not made completely obsolete by another character. In general I think Marth is one of the absolute worst offensive characters in teams, and is no where near one of the best defensive characters. He's an ok tank, he's ok support, but really there are characters like jiggs and peach that just provide everything he does and more plus even more offensive potential imo. As a character he's just built for one on one. He needs the full length of his dash dance to zone some characters, his edgeguards take forever, his combos take forever and leave him extremely vulernable.

Plus he can't "turn off" his range. In teams there are situations outside your control where you're just going to be dealing with characters being in your face, inside the range you want them to be. Marth doesn't have any good way of dealing with this besides running/rolling away and re-spacing, and in teams you rarely have the time and space available to actually do that.

@Wenbo I secondary fox/falco.
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Wow, you just ruined my Marth in teams, thanks.
 
MT_

MT_

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Wenbobular - thanks for the critique. Next time I team with him hopefully we'll be able to work some better chemistry out. I found myself really unsure of what to do for a lot of the time during team matches as I can't freely swing my sword around; the best I felt I could was force a 1v1 situation but then my opponent can easily run away from that and doubleteam my partner given the right positioning, where Marth doesn't have as much ease as space animals in doubleteaming.

I'll have to play around with Marth in teams some more. Thanks again for the advice!
 
Tee ay eye

Tee ay eye

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disclaimer: i don't promise that this is good advice. i sorta just watched the matches and began talking out my *** with general impressions/assumptions

hopefully it helps :)

vs fox:
i think you were being a little too passive and predictable with your anti-approaches.

you probably could've benefited from more movement (dashdancing with shields and wavedashes) or aggression since there was a bunch of space between you two, and he was playing sorta patiently, but you were sorta cornered and got punished for swinging your sword a lot. like, instead of waiting for him to come to you, you could've made him run away from you, closed the space, baited him a little more closely, or something along those lines.

you could've had some more aggressive pressure (like, do sorta what you were doing, except when you're closer to him. move around, get closer, and use well-spaced aerials mixed with d-tilts, jabs, forward B's. if he runs into them, great. if he runs away, react or adapt). that sounds wrong. you could have been more aggressive so he couldn't walk all over you, but not aggressive in the sense that you're committing to approaches. like i said, you probably could've benefited from more movement and placing your sword a little better (sorry, i can't explain that)

you seemed to have gotten caught a lot when you jumped in the air. you might have been able to either stop going in the air or began mixing it up when you were in the air (maybe you could've done something to counter how he was punishing you... like, if he would catch you early in your jump, you could throw something out. if he was waiting to get under your fair/nair, you could have daired. alternatively, you could have began using empty shorthops and wavelands to bait)

against patient space animals, it sorta seems like you have to absolutely master baiting (hurr durr) and be able to call when they're not going to act. like, it's not always a matter of making them approach, but you also have to pick the right anti-approach to stuff them :/ like, if they approach with a crouch cancel, you have to grab or dair (or WD back. the standard jabs and fairs don't really work *too* well, unfortunately). if they approach in the air, there's a bunch of other mixups that go into that.

i'm still working on solidifying my game vs patient falcos and foxes, myself, so i'll get back to you on that :)

edit: something that i'm trying to do more is ledgehop -> counter. marth's ledgehop aerials (and even waveland utilt) gets beat a LOTTTTT by fullhop aerials, even if you KNOW it's coming. axe told me to just ledgehop counter in this situation, since marth doesn't have an invincible ledge waveland like all the other good characters.

also, i don't think u-tilt is that great for punishing fullhop/high aerial approaches. it's something i used to do a lot too, but it's just too easy to avoid. you could possibly try to master the mindgames and timing, but i think it's safer to do fairs/uairs against them. like, if unknown did a fullhop dair, you'd u-tilt. i don't think that works very well. alternately, you could counter or dash out of the way, but dashdancing away would probably take more effort to follow up, since that introduces a few other mixups (because even if you avoid the dair, you still have to get the grab), plus he might be able to punish that since the timing on falco's FH dair is sorta awkward. you might be able to back away and fsmash/ftilt/aerial where he lands. i'm not sure. i'm pretty sure there's SOMETHING easy he could do to follow up on you moving out of his way, but it's hard for me to visualize the situations in my head right now.
 
Rubyiris

Rubyiris

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Tee ay eye said:
stuff

i'm still working on solidifying my game vs patient falcos and foxes, myself, so i'll get back to you on that :)

more stuff
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Outside of Sean, you consistently 2 stock the only falco that doesn't throw himself at you at 1000 mph. (me)

You sure your game vs patient spacies is that bad? :)
 
Niko45

Niko45

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Vs Taj:

-I think you should look for dash attacks more. Just look at how Taj is using them against you because he used them really effectively.

-Try to be more patient in your up throw follows. Marth ***** himself from below.

-You might want to look at when you should and shouldn't go for off stage bairs. Like, a couple of times you lightshield edgehogged, which means his recovery was already pretty desperate and linear at that point, so you probably could have just finished with a bair in those spots at least. It doesn't always have to be from a ledgehop, either. You can just float out at him, look for that side B lag, and then punish. If he doesn't side B in front of you and you don't want to risk missing, just jump back to the edge/stage.

-In general just want to say ur amazing and I wish I could land tip fsmashes like you do. :D

Vs Ganon:

-I really like nairing past ganon's shield. You did this some, could probably do it more.

-Again, look for dash attacks. Dash attack is particularly useful at beating out ganon's aerial > jab game which they like to do to stop you from DD grabbing them outright.

-I think in general you're doing a good job of really invading ganon's space when you choose to attack, but you're still caught a little flat footed at times allowing him to pressure you. Being selectively aggressive is really key vs ganon imo, and I think you do a good job of it, but it could be more focused overall.

-Probably not worth mentioning but you could gay him more with grab tech chases and stuff. It looks like you're just in control and intentionally playing around with your punishes a little bit, though.


Keep the Tai vs Taj matches coming!
 
TheCrimsonBlur

TheCrimsonBlur

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vs. Taj

I think the thing that separates you two the most is Taj's unbelievable edgeguard and corner game. On stage, you guys are relatively equal. But once Taj corners you, its very hard to get out. I don't think thats a slight on your part; anyone would have a hard time escaping Taj's control when he has stage position. I think you just have to look at what you do when you have control and emulate his style. Like father like son, ya dig. Overall, your edgeguarding was very spotty in both sets ; easily your major flaw...the edgeguarding doesn't seem systematic but rather you just do whatever moves seem to be available depending on the situation. I'd say concentrate on the corner game if you want to improve, and ask Taj for advice on that because he seems to be the best there is at it.

Smaller points:
-work on making your ledgehop nairs hit people backwards. There is no point in lightshield edgeguarding if you can't do that.

-In general, you seem reluctant to utilt to extend combos, usually go for nair or fair instead (6:20 , 4:49, 11:58 set 2).

-there is no need to DI away at high % on Marth's fthrow by the ledge. You got runoff shieldbreakered a few times because of it. Just DI in and sweetspot regrab ledge.

-While I love it when you hit it, your attempts at fsmashing an aerial opponent miss the vast majority of the time. I wouldn't remove it from your game cause its sexy as ****, but just be more careful with it.

Other than that, fantastic work. Taj is an amazing Marth, and going toe to toe with him is very impressive. Incredible use of ftilt, great dashdance control, and some fantastic baits. Its nice to see you improve in specific areas too (some of which we pointed out! this threads working) though some habits reappeared (getting cornered for long periods of time like in that Okami set).

vs. En1xputed

-you only do this once, but never platform waveland approach a Ganon (2:02).

-5:26 you miss the falling fair dair twice. Booooo. Had another one at 6:10. Would've been sexy! :/

-I've said it before, but shieldbreaker to edgeguard Ganon. Please. 1:40, 1:43, 2:56, 3:51, 3:55, 3:59, 7:07 are all perfect times to use it. If you don't get anything else out of this post, get this. I'm dying here. :urg:

Not much more to say about this one. En1xputed is really good. Good work.

Your Marth is great :)
 
Tee ay eye

Tee ay eye

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TheCrimsonBlur said:
-work on making your ledgehop nairs hit people backwards. There is no point in lightshield edgeguarding if you can't do that.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I'm not sure what to do when to follow up the lightshield edgehog. When I nair, they just hold down and shield, and then I get punished, which is annoying.
 
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