Falco living up to his Tier Status? Current Falco Metagame Discussion

[Darxmarth23]

It is their advantage (Falco v. Marth that is.) That said, Falco is still higher tier than Marth.

Oh yeah. Overall stuff.

My bad guys.

 

[J4pu]

wario=falco
wario>mk
Ice climbers<mk
iceclimbers>falco

go wario every time then, since at worst it's even. probability-wise that would be the obvious choice if this list holds true.

 

[Jupz]

hai hylian come to the f5 site sometimes ok

Anyway I use falco as a secondary and I'm hoping to go to a tourney somewhere (vlade ). I'm not the greatest but I think he deserves his position and I personally don't think the top tiers will changer very much except for maybe G&W dropping below diddy. I mean D3's metagame isnt evolving but hes such a good character he can adapt quite well. The only thing letting him down is disadvantages (albeit small ones) to the top tier characters, snake being the exception.

 

[Eggz]

Well prove me wrong then. Seeing as how you are speaking unanimously, I'm expecting results. Actions speak louder than words. That is why I offer proof as to why Falco will certainly drop in the tier rankings if his tournament results are not up to par.



Making me laugh over here Hyo. I don't know what you want to call what Jem did with his reflector/shine in the example I will post AGAIN. You can choose to call it whatever you'd like. However my point still stands; since Jem used theses tactics in the grand finals against one of the best Snakes in the country...it holds merit, period. Before I didn't have any tournament evidence...now I do.

Lol at it eating your double jump. This shows me you didn't even test this at all. If used on the ground it does not eat your double jump. Saying its the same as double jumping is just naive. You have a hitbox in front of you that reflects all projectiles as you approach or recover. Is that the same as double jumping? I think not.

I'm not sure how you can speak for the entire Falco boards. Unless you play as well as Jem's Falco vs. DSF's Snake, you don't have evidence to back up your claims. Maybe you didn't watch Jem's match or accurately examine what he did right in the matchup. (One of the only Falco's to make it to the Grand Finals in major tournament play this year).

Here is what I am talking about again using Shine against Snake.
Grand Finals TourneyPlay! Washington Regional Tournament
Jem vs DieSuperFly
(Starts around 6:54-6:58) Already talked about this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRADYWfIY7s

(8:04-8:08) This time Jem uses a shine and jumps at the same time, then baits Snake with a aerial after double jumping. Oh my goodness! You can double jump after performing this on the ground!

(10:17-10:19) In the same video he uses the shine to reflect Snake's Nikitia which he attempted to edgeguard Falco with.) If he used a normal shine he would have SDed. This ultimately leds to him winning the match.

dont use the word washington when using my avatar and referring to brawl.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Personally, I agree with Falco's position on the tier list. He's the gayest character in the game (a lot gayer than MK imo...at least MK has to approach and doesn't have a 0 - 60% combo) by a considerable amount and he can handle every match-up all by himself ... just like a top tier character should. I still can't see why the ICs are supposed to be a hard match-up. Falco's lasers are a lot better and more flexible than the Ice Blocks and Falco is a lot more mobile than the ICs are. Just laser and run all the time and avoid those Ice Blocks. Remember: You don't have to KO them 3 times to win. If the timer runs out and you have a % lead you'll win. Ftilt is really good against the Ice Climbers. It's fast, can't be Shield Grabbed and tends to seperate them very well. I never considered it a difficult match-up and I never well. It's 5/5 imo but certainly not in the ICs favour.
G&W isn't as bad a match-up as we thought in the beginning. He does have the advantage but as Hylian said it's rather close (I think it's 55/45 G&Ws favour). Falco has lots of tools against G&W, that make the match-up winnable such as quick jabs and ftilts. Just abuse Falcos speed advantage and G&W becomes a lot easier. The lasers are still good despite the bucket ... I don't think G&W can bucket break with a full bucket, can he? And anybody who saw OBM vs D1 the livestream of cataclysm 4 could see that you can avoid the bucket if you're smart (D1 blocked it every time) so lasers are still pretty good (ducking won't help G&W as he still has to approach).
Falco has no match-up that's worse than 45/55 in the opponents favour and his worst match-up is from my experience actually Luigi. You can't CG him, he can utilt combo you to ~40%, you can't run away from him because the tornado makes him faster and it also seems to beat phantasm (his nair also tends to do so). You can't get away from Luigi and he's very strong in the air. Not to mention that he KOs much better than Falco. Luigi might be 6/4 in his favour but he's still very underused and Falco still can win by himself.

There's no way that G&W should ever be higher on the tier list than Falco. Falco does better than G&W against Snake, MK, King Dedede, Marth and Diddy Kong (+ Olimar), which is a huge factor. Falco is easily a tier higher than G&W for that reason but G&W is still pretty good of course (and a pain to fight against....).
I doubt that Diddy will surpass him even though he's top5 to me. Diddy's worst match-up's are similar to Falco (Snake, Luigi, Marth) and all of them are winnable and Diddy does even better against G&W. But Falco still has a slight advantage against Diddy and does a lot better against D3. Both look around evenish vs MK but Falco is a bit better I think.
If any character could surpass Falco it should be Wario. I don't think that Wario is better than Falco tbh but he's more likely to be ranked above Falco than Diddy is. What are Wario's bad match-up's? Marth? Who cares! Marth is still winnable for Wario imo and what other bad match-up's does he have? None of them are worse than 55/45 either so Wario's position in top tier is pretty obvious to me. I still think Falco is better though but Wario is better than Diddy.

So my top tier would look rather like this:

Snake/MK
Falco
Wario
Diddy
Olimar/D3/Kirby

Kirby is really good and underrated. Most people think it's only Chu but Kirby is such a good character...he has little weaknesses and no unwinnable match-up. I think once more people pick him up he'll become a lot better and will end up in top tier. He does fine against MK, Falco, Diddy and D3. His worst match-up's are Snake and G&W (+ Zelda but who cares lol)...

Somebody mentioned that G&W has less weaknesses than Falco and thus should be higher. I disagree. G&W does have his flaws but it's not weight (now that he has bucket breaking). But he's still predictable and has no way to force opponents to approach. His approach options are rather little as an aerial poking move (either nair or bair) is his best option and opponents have enough ways to beat it.
Falco might have a weakness (his bad recovery) but it's not actually exploitable. Being able to gimp Falco is one thing but being able to put him in such a position is something different. Falco's recovery is bad but you still rarely see good Falcos getting gimped (at least it never happened to me and I'm not even good). Just DI so you're in a higher position...problem solved.
Falco has no exploitable weakness, just like MK and Snake do. In fact I'd say that even Diddy and Wario have no exploitable weaknesses (Wario is way too hard to grab).

tl;dr Falco's the 3rd best character

 

[Vlade]

Beautiful post, Gheb.

I'd have to agree that Diddy and Wario are definitely top 5 material, even if Wario has those air release shenanigans because he is so hard to grab in the first place.

IIRC, falco has the best match-up ratio in the entire cast? (excluding MK of course)

 

[cutter]

So my top tier would look rather like this:

Snake/MK

Snake is definately not in the same tier as MK. It is pretty much universally accepted that MK is the best character in the game and it's pretty obvious he deserves his own tier.

 

[SSJ5Goku8932]

I think maybe Wario actually has a chance to put Falco to 4th place.

Wario is getting more Tourney representation than Falco. (I think)

We need more Falco mains D:

 

[Tommy_G]

A tier list isn't who gets more representation or even who gets the highest tournament placing. Marth got the highest placings overall yet Fox was top tier.

It's based on potential and all of their matchups. Falco is one of the very very few characters that you don't really need a counter pick character for. His worst matchups aren't very hard (60-40 at worst.)

(need sleep will continue this post tomorrow.)

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Snake is definately not in the same tier as MK. It is pretty much universally accepted that MK is the best character in the game and it's pretty obvious he deserves his own tier.

Universally accepted? By scrubs maybe or morons who think MK should be banned (I'm not saying that all the people who think MK is the best are scrubs but it's by no means "universally accepted" by good players). I know enough people, who think Snake is the best character in the game and I'm inclined to agree. Snake has no bad match-up's and he might have the advantage over MK (even though there's still no agreement... M2K and Ally say it's even, DSF says MK wins, teh_spamerer says Snake wins =/ ). Snake ***** many characters a lot harder than MK does and he does better against many high or top tiers: Falco, G&W, Kirby, Diddy Kong and Olimar.
Personally, I think that Snake will eventually turn out as the best character because he still has more potential. MK is just easier to play and win with but Snake has better tools and options imo and I'm sure that in the long run he'll be #1.

And no, MK does not deserve his own tier.

But you shouldn't care that much about my opinion anyways.

 

[Jupz]

Dedede is good against snake. People will second him to counter snakes.

 

[Nic64]

Snake has no bad match-up's

DDD, that being said, that's the only one I believe to be against snake, where as I've become more and more doubtful that MK "has no bad matchups", I actually think he may have as many as three against him, even if they are all very slight where as I'm pretty sure DDD ***** snake's ****... idk people say it's closer to even if you play gayer and just run away and bomb him but that doesn't seem to actually help me...much, slight improvement but not good enough, I'm doin it rong. I agree with you that snake tends to **** harder though, you pick snake to **** with the possibility of getting ***** where as MK is more of the safe bet, nothing worse than 45:55 and most people won't even admit he has anything that bad. on topic, I think wario is the main threat to falco as number 3 right now, diddy does better against MK than either and better against snake than falco IMO, but he has more counters where wario seems to only have a few slight disadvantages, much like MK himself. kind of hard to tell I think wario and diddy have been the most evolving top level characters for a while so it could go either way with new discoveries

 

[DemonFart]

I think maybe Wario actually has a chance to put Falco to 4th place.

Wario is getting more Tourney representation than Falco. (I think)

We need more Falco mains D:

no,wario must prevail!
he deserves it!

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

A tier list isn't who gets more representation or even who gets the highest tournament placing. Marth got the highest placings overall yet Fox was top tier.

It's based on potential and all of their matchups. Falco is one of the very very few characters that you don't really need a counter pick character for. His worst matchups aren't very hard (60-40 at worst.)

(need sleep will continue this post tomorrow.)

That is where I think falco falls short. His match-ups might not be that bad, but neither does he have many outstanding match-ups against anyone. Again 60-40 at best and it's not against that many people. Falco pretty much has neutral match-ups with normally a slight favor to him. Plus, his potiential is pretty easy to mess up with counterpicks: Lylat Cruise, Rainbow Cruise, etc. (Anything with cruise in it's name )

Then there is Falco's classical problems with killing and recovery. He has virtually no gimping abilities and racking up damage off stage is the only method he has for edgeguarding. After which you get the person to like 130% and then the other person knows you have to get the KO sometime and knows falco's methods. Recovery is easily dealt with. The person needs to start at a distance so that they can still edgehog quickly or gimp the Firebird, but intercept you on the stage. From there falco is pretty much messed up at that point.

I do know of all of falco's strengths too with offence to defence playstyles, lasers, CG, etc., but the cons falco has really seem to get close to weighing down the pros in my opinion. I find it hard to think that falco is really 3rd best when compared to the very slight faults of MK and Snake. Although, I think I might be putting to much comparison between MK and snake to judge falco's area as I do not really know anything with wario and diddy kong except for that wario = air release; diddy kong = momentum, once lost diddy has a hard time getting it back up again.

 

[cutter]

Universally accepted? By scrubs maybe or morons who think MK should be banned (I'm not saying that all the people who think MK is the best are scrubs but it's by no means "universally accepted" by good players).

Let's see... the SBR gave MK a perfect 15/15. That means every single member in the SBR unanimously agreed that MK is the best character in the game.

Sounds like a bunch of scrubs to me. LMFAO.

Also, I am against MK being banned.

I know enough people, who think Snake is the best character in the game and I'm inclined to agree. Snake has no bad match-up's

No he doesn't. DDD comes to mind.

and he might have the advantage over MK (even though there's still no agreement... M2K and Ally say it's even, DSF says MK wins, teh_spamerer says Snake wins =/ ). Snake ***** many characters a lot harder than MK does and he does better against many high or top tiers: Falco, G&W, Kirby, Diddy Kong and Olimar.

If there is still disagreement in the MK/Snake matchup, you cannot say for certain Snake has the advantage.

Personally, I think that Snake will eventually turn out as the best character because he still has more potential. MK is just easier to play and win with but Snake has better tools and options imo and I'm sure that in the long run he'll be #1.

The thing is, Snake has weaknesses that people have learned to exploit for a long time now. MK's weakness are much less subtle and harder to manipulate. You can still beat MK obviously, but you'll just have to work MUCH harder at doing so.

You may predict that Snake will turn out to be the best character in the game, but that's not how a tier list works. Tier lists reflect current potential; not future potential.

And no, MK does not deserve his own tier.

Despite overwhelming evidence and data showing MK's iron grip on the metagame, you still disagree with MK not getting his own tier?

 

[SSJ5Goku8932]

MK deserves his own tier for right now.
Also ROB beats Snake.
God I hate ROBS MORE THAN MK.



Anyways tourneys kinda do have something on the tier list. Wario with the momentum can open some eyes for the SBR.

 

[Vlade]

Yeah, MK has is own tier for the time being.

Falco's match-ups are underrated though. It is definitely possible to beat IC's.

 

[Llumys]

Falco is definately the second or third best character in the game. I honestly think no discussion is needed. He has a chaingrab, one of the most useful projectiles in the game, quick attacks, great priority, and decent strength.

Of course Falco will live up to his tier placement.

Also, I don't think anyone deserves their own tier. I want top, high, mid, low and bottom back...

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Let's see... the SBR gave MK a perfect 15/15. That means every single member in the SBR unanimously agreed that MK is the best character in the game.

Sounds like a bunch of scrubs to me. LMFAO.

And that means that Snake can't be as good? The quality of a character is not determinded by a bunch of self elected "elite" players (many of them aren't even good players at all) JFYI.

Also, I am against MK being banned.

That's very good for you. I wasn't referring to you with that statement anyways.

No he doesn't. DDD comes to mind.

Dedede doesn't have the advantage over Snake.

If there is still disagreement in the MK/Snake matchup, you cannot say for certain Snake has the advantage.

I never said so. It doesn't matter to me whether Snake has the advantage or goes even with MK.

The thing is, Snake has weaknesses that people have learned to exploit for a long time now.

1.) Name any
2.) MK has weaknesses too
3.) Snake has more strenghts to outweigh those "weakness" (whichever you're referring to).

MK's weakness are much less subtle and harder to manipulate. You can still beat MK obviously, but you'll just have to work MUCH harder at doing so.

Still, as Falco, G&W, Diddy Kong, Kirby and Olimar I'd much rather fight MK than Snake. Many characters need more work to beat MK than to beat Snake? Maybe. But Snake beats many character much easier than MK does.

You may predict that Snake will turn out to be the best character in the game, but that's not how a tier list works. Tier lists reflect current potential; not future potential.

I was never talking about the current tier list in the first place. All I said is that Snake has the most potential and he'll turn out as #1. I was just posting my opinion on how a "perfect" tier list will probably look.

Despite overwhelming evidence and data showing MK's iron grip on the metagame, you still disagree with MK not getting his own tier?

Yes, because that evidence doesn't exist. Marth had 55% of the tourney wins in Melee and never had his own tier. MK isn't even close to that, despite a lot more players using him. Only few players dominate the scene with MK (M2K and DSF but DSF uses Snake a lot now) but he's still the most overplayed character.

What other evidence is there?

People are brainwashed when talking about MK. It's really sad.

 

[Jupz]

The snake and DDD boards both have the matchup as 60:40 in DDD's favor, the snake boards saying maybe even 65:35...

 

[Vlade]

DDD definitely has the advantage against snake. He's the first counter that comes to mind.

 

[FOX16]

i say the falco and snake match is on on snake favor because have just find out that snake his grib relesse grab falco that is infinat i say falco hope being ss tier just went do the drown and the mk match is on mk match a good metakinght wii just camp u but falco can win by playing the most gays way by lazering to side b that close to the ground and do all over again

 

[SSJ5Goku8932]

i say the falco and snake match is on on snake favor because have just find out that snake his grib relesse grab falco that is infinat i say falco hope being ss tier just went do the drown and the mk match is on mk match a good metakinght wii just camp u but falco can win by playing the most gays way by lazering to side b that close to the ground and do all over again

I did not understand a word you said.

 

[dainbramage]

i say the falco and snake match is on on snake favor because have just find out that snake his grib relesse grab falco that is infinat i say falco hope being ss tier just went do the drown and the mk match is on mk match a good metakinght wii just camp u but falco can win by playing the most gays way by lazering to side b that close to the ground and do all over again

I did not understand a word you said.

"I say the Falco and Snake matchup is in Snake's favour, because I have just found out that Snake has a grab release chaingrab on Falco (correct) that is infinite (incorrect). I say Falco's hope of being SS tier (he had one?) just went down the drain [or; just drowned]. Against Meta Knight, a good Meta Knight will just camp, but falco can win by playing the most gay way by lasering to side b close to the ground and repeating. (not entirely sure how this solves planking, but hey)"

 

[Vlade]

In that case, FOX16 doesn't really know what he's talking about.

Snake's grab release chaingrab doesn't really change the match-up, because the damage it racks is pretty minimal compared to falco's or DDD's chaingrab.

 

[DanGR]

Snake ***** many characters a lot harder than MK does and he does better against many high or top tiers: Falco, G&W, Kirby, Diddy Kong and Olimar.

Just to make a correction, MK beats Olimar pretty badly. The better/best Olimar players in the U.S. have agreed with me that it's at least 65-35. We also think Olimar has a slight advantage over Snake- around 55-45 to 60-40.

Snake's grab release chaingrab doesn't really change the match-up, because the damage it racks is pretty minimal compared to falco's or DDD's chaingrab.

I would venture to say that it does help Snake in the matchup, even if only slightly. If nothing else, it helps him tech chase with dthrow by positioning himself and Falco near a ledge after the multiple grab releases. It also allows Snake to fthrow Falco off the stage from the edge of the stage, giving Snake important stage positioning.

Regarding Falco's tier placement, I think he has solidified his 3rd spot in the tier list behind MK and Snake for now. Then followed closely by Wario, Diddy, and DDD in no particular order IMO.

 

[YUNq PHR3$H]

good thread man. I think didddy has the chance ov passing falco simply because of certain mindgames diddy cna do. Usually a falco like myself would think a diddy would thrwo a banana when hes really not which can throw some of you guys off. But falco has mindgames of his own. He has the ability to sh phantasm through the diddy when the diddy is tryna go for something, Reflector IMO , and lasers can screw the diddy over. IDK but it kinda a 50-50 thing for me. Guess we'll have to wait until the next tourney results from each.

 

[Hawks go Caw]

good thread man. I think didddy has the chance ov passing falco simply because of certain mindgames diddy cna do. Usually a falco like myself would think a diddy would thrwo a banana when hes really not which can throw some of you guys off. But falco has mindgames of his own. He has the ability to sh phantasm through the diddy when the diddy is tryna go for something, Reflector IMO , and lasers can screw the diddy over. IDK but it kinda a 50-50 thing for me. Guess we'll have to wait until the next tourney results from each.

Did you say "ov" instead of "of" on purpose?

Also, mind games don't factor in to tier placings (or at least they shouldn't).

 

[Nic64]

Dedede doesn't have the advantage over Snake.

yes he does, snake can outcamp him for a while but DDD doesn't need much to **** him, one opening and snake gets chain grabbed to the edge where DDD can gimp him or wait for him to come back to the stage and reset the situation if he jumps and cyphers up. honestly the CG itself isn't the biggest problem so much as the fact that it takes snake to the edge and forces him into the air where he gets exploited like a catholic school boy, actual damage from the CG can be minimized by staying near the edge but once snake is knocked off it's really easy for someone to keep the advantage on him and not let him get back to camping. if snake goes for the ledge he could potentially be gimped or at least is putting himself in a disadvantageous position, if he cyphers back on stage he's potentially setting himself up to be chain grabbed across it

Just to make a correction, MK beats Olimar pretty badly. The better/best Olimar players in the U.S. have agreed with me that it's at least 65-35. We also think Olimar has a slight advantage over Snake- around 55-45 to 60-40.

seriously? I don't even really play snake a whole lot anymore but I still do much, much better against olimar with snake than MK. I know oli's recovery vs MK's gimping is supposed to be a mismatch but it seems like I can never get him off the edge in a very vulnerable position before he's at the point where a fresh dsmash wouldn't kill him anyway. snake I have a much easier time getting past olimar's camping with and one grab is game over because olimar's roll away is so crappy that just standing there and shielding I can usually regrab regardless of what olimar does. not getting into exact numbers but in my perspective olimar does a lot better against meta knight than snake...

 

[SSJ5Goku8932]

Some of you guys need to use spellcheck or something.

Also, Pikachu is said to have a CG on alot of characters, including falco.

Its 20-70% I believe.

I am guessing Anther is happy.

 

[Nefarious B]

I'm pretty sure that's only on the ledge

 

[Denzi]

Some of you guys need to use spellcheck or something.

Also, Pikachu is said to have a CG on alot of characters, including falco.

Its 20-70% I believe.

I am guessing Anther is happy.

It's actually 20% - 100%

We need to re-examine the Pikachu matchup.

@Nefarious B: No, it works anywhere. It wasn't figured out earlier because Pikas apparently didn't buffer their Dthrows. As long as they buffer correctly, there's no escape.

 

[SSJ5Goku8932]

I'm pretty sure that's only on the ledge

Check the new thread in the Pika boards.
They say they found how to buffer the Dthrow.

 

[The Truth!]

Yeah sorry guys, I was gonna wait for you to find out the news on your own. Actually I wanted it to be a surprise to everyone but someone made a big fuss about it on the pika boards, so we just went ahead and made an official thread.

We found new CG's on MK to 60, snake to 70, DDD to 90 which all need more testing. Theres more but for obvious reasons those along with Falco are the most important to us.

However, the one we're most certain of is the one on Falco that goes to above 100% and finishes with a usmash/utilt. We have to start with a fresh dthrow at 20%, and the throw has to be buffered or hit on the frame, which gives us about an 11 frame window after each throw, obviously not unmanagable. But we can still do our fthrow to 20% then start the dthrow. Fox goes to 99% now and Wolf is also above %100.

 

[Emperor Time]

This is why I 2nd Marth :D

 

[Ussi]

**** Marth he needs to get CG'd so she finally gets a bad match up outside of MK...

 

[SSJ5Goku8932]

**** Marth he needs to get CG'd so she finally gets a bad match up outside of MK...

OBJECTION!
UPB's
"misses Pika"
"gets grabbed when falling down"
O_____-

 

[Ussi]

lol, i can only wish xD

 

[Anther]

OBJECTION!
UPB's
"misses Pika"
THUNDER!!
Epic

 

[:mad:]

OBJECTION!
UPB'S
-misses Pika-
Pika jab.
Talk about mindgames.