• Welcome to Smashboards, the world's largest Super Smash Brothers community! Over 250,000 Smash Bros. fans from around the world have come to discuss these great games in over 19 million posts!

    You are currently viewing our boards as a visitor. Click here to sign up right now and start on your path in the Smash community!

Falco vs Samus matchup pointers?

Nox_SSBM

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jan 15, 2016
Messages
17
Location
Cold Lake
Hey guys, i'm new too smashboards and melee as a whole. I've been playing smash for 3 months and i've been having troubles against a Samus main in my local scene, and i was hoping for some tips with the matchup. I understand each player plays differently and theres not only 1 option/solution for everything, i'd just like to know the very basics on how to avoid projectiles and approach, ect. I play as Falco, and have most of my basic tech down, like SHFFL, SHL, wavedash, and waveshines.

Thanks in advance! :pikachu:
 

NotAnAdmin

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Jun 21, 2014
Messages
426
I think the best people to ask are actual Samus mains, they main the character and can give you more insight/tips to give yourself the advantage.
 

Michelangelo

Smash Cadet
Joined
Oct 3, 2015
Messages
60
Location
Netherlands
Samus projectiles are pretty good if they actually hit you, but most of them aren't too hard to avoid. You can simply nair through the missiles with your moves. I suggest to do it with aerials (nair is probably best) to stay mobile. Your projectile on the other hand can't be destroyed and is way more usefull. Your laser is very important. It can be used for a lot of things like edgeguarding, approaching, gaining space etc.

When you approach you need to be carefull because you don't want to attack her shield too much. Her Up-B is hella quick and will even beat an L cancelled aerial into shine. Also watch if she crouch cancels. If she does it's better to back up and laser a bit more because if you go in you'll get a down smash in your face. Her little down b bomb can also be usefull to create a small wall when you approach so make there aren't any of those if you approach. Laser grab is very good if the samus shields a lot or even shield grabs. Once you get a hit with your aerial you obviously want to take it as far as possible. It's hard to combo with shine on floaties so i prefer uptilt most of the time but shine will work if you're quick enough. After that you want to hit him with a dair again and *make sure you fastfall after it*. After your second dair you really wanna pay attention because she might be able to get out a nair before you can follow up your combo. A simple wavedash away can get you out of the hitbox and you'll be able to follow up from there. At higher % it's better to combo aerial into aerial like dair to dair or dair to nair. Your kill moves will probably be bair, nair, dair, f smash and d tilt most of time. I really like d tilt since it's fast and kills around 100%.

Moves you need to look out for the most are nair, d smash, up b (already talked about it) and grab. Her nair is one of the best sex kicks in the game. It stays out long and is great for edgeguarding. If you notice the samus always goes in with nair for edgeguarding try to stay further of the ledge. If she uses it for approach you can laser her down shield and then maybe shine oos. You never want to walk into a d smash (like leffen vs duck at dreamhack on FD). It's not as bad as peach but you will get comboed. Most samus players use it after they crouch cancelled something. I don't really know a solution for this but i think it's just about knowing when they're using it and trying to avoid the CC's. Her grab is the longest in the game but also has a long startup time. You can try to bait it with some tricky movement but you gotta really watch your spacing. If you can react to it, don't underestimate the length of it and run back a bit and then you get a free punish. Spot dodge can also work but you need to watch your timing when doing it.

I don't have a lot of experience with samus myself but i know it's very playeble once you understand the matchup.
Some nice vods to watch from the matchup are westballz vs plup at tbh4, ppmd vs hugs at evo and mango vs hugs at mayhem
 
Last edited:

krazyzyko

Smash Champion
Joined
Aug 12, 2005
Messages
2,126
Location
El Carajo, Puerto Rico
I'll try to type the things that haven't already been said. Samus has a great punish and edgeguard game vs spacies but has no safe approach.
Falco is known for having one of the best if not the best neutral game in melee because of his SHL. Meaning that you should always win neutral against her.

It's an unorthodox MU because Falco mains usually tend to go in combo ppl to hell or die trying. But to win this MU you gotta be patient.

Samus' neutral game consists on her baiting a move out by dashing forward and wavedashing backward.
Before going in with an aerial you might want to get her out of her crouch cancel percentage. Grab, shine, dair > uptilt/down tilt/ shine are the moves to go when she is at cc %.

Mix up your approaches as much as you can so u don't get up b'ed OoS. SH > wave land away, shield stop > wd back, SHL > grab and F tilt are good options.

When shielding Samus can safely poke it with jab > cc > jab > cc... so u better roll away asap. If she goes for a grab, listen to the sound cue and roll in on reaction and then punish her with w/e u like.

For edge guarding if you're on stage, laser her until she recovers low. Then dair, down smash or retreat to a distance out of her fairs range. If you're on the edge and she recovers low then shine > bair. Or ledge hop dair.

Kill moves:
SHL > d tilt
Spike
Bair
Down smash
F smash

Stage priority:
FD
PS
BF
YS
DL
FoD
KJ
 

KムエN

Smash Rookie
Joined
Nov 27, 2015
Messages
19
Location
SFL
Step 1: try avoiding PS/FoD
Step 2: don't get hit near the ledge, or up-tilted/missiled/smashed/grabbed
Step 3: spam laser & SHFFL nair combos
Step 4: read and counter crouch-cancel[-ed down smashes] with crossup-dair spam
Step 5: repeat steps 2-4 as needed
Step 6: repeat step 5 until you see a controller fly or you hear "misshun compreet"
 

Klemes

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Jul 4, 2015
Messages
236
Location
France
"misshun compreet" makes me feel so good... I don't like leaving some unfinished work personnally.
 
Top Bottom