Falcon v Link MU (In Progress: Started 3/9/15)

[Scruffy_Scoundrel]

Ah Captain Falcon, such an energetic and manly character. When I first picked up Falcon I had so much fun dancing around the stage and comboing my opponent. Then I came across the bane of my existence, Link. The Hero of Time can be a very difficult opponent for The Captain, we have to play much differently against him than we do against other characters. The Ratio of the Match Up isn't quite clear to me but I will say it feels like an up hill battle for Falcon, but nothing is impossible for Justice Incarnate. In this thread I will go over all the things I feel are essential/helpful against Link if you have any advice you think should be in this MU guide please let me know.

NEUTRAL GAME:
It can be very difficult to approach Link in neutral, we can't rush him down because his sword will out prioritize our attacks.
We can't weave in and out to bait out whiffs from him because he can just use his great projectiles to stop our movement and rack up damage very quickly. The keys to beating Link in neutral is being able to move around on the platforms as well camping the top platform when necessary.

From the top platform Link won't be able to pressure you with projectiles as much thus he will be forced to come after you, when Link's feet leave the ground he is at his weakest our aerials come out faster than his and thus we will be able to challenge him in the air. I find that waiting for Link to go for a risky U-air then punishing with a shield drop aerial of our very own is the best course of action. Link is fairly easy to combo once you manage to score a hit and landing a Knee of Justice feels so much more rewarding after working so hard to get it.
UPDATE: 3/11/15 New information I received (Courtesy of HiroProtagonist) Spacing nairs to beat boomerang alongside consistent powershielding is a great way to approach Link in neutral

EDGE GUARDING:
People would have you believe that Link's recovery is poor, those people are very wrong Link's recovery is good (especially compared to ours). Link has many recover tricks but there are 2 main things that are hard to punish, Bomb Jumping and Tether Grabbing. Link's horizontal recovery is hard to punish as falcon, if we miss space even a little bit it could cost us a lot. I find the best way to punish a tether attempt is to hop offstage and B-Air him, for the most part I haven't really discovered how to edge guard link and advice would be appreciated.
UPDATE: 3/11/2015 New information I received (Courtesy of HiroProtagonist), after a tether recovery link is forced to ledge-hop if we are holding ledge, from here it is simply a matter of hitting him with a ledge hop reverse knee.

RECOVERING:
First and foremost, DO NOT ROLL FROM LEDGE!!, Link's Up B will crush you if you roll from ledge and send you at a trajectory you won't comeback from. Invincible ledge aerials can be a good way to get link off of you and give you space to space to get on the stage but again watch out for his Up B if your timing is off prepare to get sent flying. Invincible Ledgedashes are the best option to recover from ledge against Link, you're able to pass through him and gain positional advantage, from there you can punish him with the people's elbow (F-Smash), or grab him if he's at too low of a percent to kill and combo him into a knee. I'm still looking into more recovery options so consider this unfinished.

STAGE PICK:
You're going to want to avoid stages without platforms or platforms that aren't high enough to avoid his ground attacks,Stay away from; Final Destination, Pokemon Stadium 2, and Smashville.
I would say that your best stage against Link is Dream Land, if this is not available then I'd say go for Battlefield or Fountain of dreams, Distant Planet should be good as well.

SHIELD PRESSURE: ( TO BE ADDRESSED )

That's all from me for now, I'll be sure to address more aspects of this Match-up in the future and if you have anything in particular you think should be addressed or any critiques on this thread in general don't hesitate to let me know, This is my first MU guide so I'd like to know how I can improve.

 

[HiroProtagonist]

I've found that the best way to edgeguard Link is to simply follow the same flowchart as you would against Sheik- grab ledge and hit Link when he lands back on stage. This is especially effective if he chooses to tether since you can basically land a free reverse knee during his forced ledgehop, which will kill pretty quickly. If he up-b's on stage, ledgedrop reverse-knee him if he's close enough or WD onstage and grab him if he's too far. You should be able to get some incredibly juicy punishes off of grabs in this matchup and should be able to convert a grab into a knee fairly easily at kill percents.

For what its worth, the Link boards hold that this is one of Link's absolute worst matchups. Falcon can combo the mess out of Link and can nair through a bunch of his projectiles. If you learn how to space the nairs through boomerang, powershield consistently, and optimize your punishes this should be even at worst. Sure, Falcon is pretty much dead offstage against a competent Link, but almost every character in the game can do that to us.

If you're having trouble in neutral I would definitely second camping the top platform as a good strat.

 

[Scruffy_Scoundrel]

Thanks for the advice, I had no Idea tether worked like that, I'll be sure to update the guide.

 

[GrizzyBeer]

Funny enough this is the only matchup I'm comfortable with. Me and my friend just got into smash he plays link and i the capt. so I'm by no means an authority on this matchup but i do play it ALOT, like 60-70% of my games. My friend isn't particularly good (i win 80-90% time) but i find its like you guys have said that link combos falcon a ton but falcon combos link a ton. I always try to bait out grabs because their so easy to punish. Also while edge guarding depending on the angle of links spin attack i found some degree of success of D-tilt> knee/uair. To get around projectiles i just shield and keep approaching.

hopefully my little bit of input can help

 

[Thor]

Fox Falco Sheik are worse MUs for Link for sure [and maybe others], but this MU is won by Falcon. In PAL Melee, some contend it is his worst MU period. Thankfully PM buffed Link some.

In a nutshell, we want to get under you, via uair, utilt, usmash, bombs, dsmash, whatever, and uair you forever, or nair/fair you offstage and edgeguard. That's very simplistic, and there'll be a lot of nair, but if I can get grabs and usmashes and then uair juggles via platform tech-chasing and just staying under him, I'm putting myself in a great position.

Nair through boomerangs. You can technically knee and uair through them as well (or dair or bair if you just want to look cool), but nair lets you beat rang [it might clip you on the way back, but you can space around this]. Link's rang is ok but honestly it's kind of sad how bad it is vs someone consistent at this.

Grabs are ridiculously good vs Link. You can uthrow to whatever [it's a CG until he DIs away], and dthrow to stuff as well. At some percent these stop working, but those are also percents where a solid bair should KO anyway (or even uair).

Don't give Link the space to pull bombs. If you're in the right range you can almost punish on reaction with knee [if there is no rang you should be able to, since bomb pull is I think around 40-50 frames, you react in about 15, run, SH, knee is about 25 more, so yeah]. Often Links will running FH bomb pull to make space to pull a bomb - you can read this and punish it, but it's harder to do if they don't do it frequently.

Our biggest boon in this MU over Melee is the zair being a good onstage tool. It's like -9 on shield if done right, which sounds horrid until you remember that we're too far away to punish with everything [wavedash OoS we can almost get a jab out to punish, but can certainly jab any wavedash OoS jump attempts]. Wavedash back might be better but we can running FH bomb pull or throw rang or advance with nair or whatever. However, if you bait out zair, we have some landing lag on it, and it's almost always started early in the shorthop, which means we're rising zair, which means you can likely fullhop knee or stomp it [can't be positive on the frame data, especially considering reaction time, but it's not impossible.]

We have a spacie nair that lingers forever [FH, delayed fastfall allows a second nair to come out as we land, we can double nair out of fullhop whenever]. Link can attempt to meet you with it, it can often beat out knee by being so fast with good range. Same for stomps and even squeeze it between nair hits.

Link will also enjoy DACUS some [boost underneath you or off hit-confirmed rang], and utilt is a fantastic anti-air for us, but it's a little slow and definitely punishable. If you bait these out, free knees.

We can try to restrain Falcon with jab, and it sorta works [especially with wavedash back] but Link is slow and jab is frame 7 [frame 6 at point blank] so you really shouldn't fear this. SDI jab away from us - we can jab jab grab, jab jab dsmash, or do single jab. I've even gotten jab jab fsmash and jab jab ftilt, but those are eh. Be wary of buffered rolls - if you do too many, jab -> DACUS is an amazing punish from Link. I think jab shenanigans from both sides are powerful in this MU - jab -> grab on Falcon's side is potent because Link's fastest OoS option is up+b (Frame 9), his grab is frame 11, and nair is also frame 9, while his wavedash moves him little distance and starts moving him frame 6 or so. I described what Link has already. No these aren't true shield pressure strings forcing buffered rolls/spotdodges, but Link doesn't want to be in shield vs Falcon unless he's willing to buffer out or commit quickly to an option after any jabs/an aerial. Falcon doesn't love shield either, but I think Falcon is much less threatened sitting in shield than Link is [though if Link has a bomb, him being in shield is actually fine.]

If Link grabs you, you will almost always be uthrown or dthrown. Dthrow above about 130% is a free grounded up+B which almost always spells death, but if you don't DI left or right, uthrow -> dair can KO as well. Uthrow is more frequent at middle percents since we can utilt. usmash, DACUS, nair, or uair (and sometimes dair) as followups (I've even seen zair). We can also pretend to be Sheik and dthrow tech-chase you [slow character but bad tech roll + tether grab is a problem], but it's way more punishing for us to whiff (knee or stomp, maybe fsmash or even if we're super late, Falcon Punch?)

Link's recovery sucks, at least in this MU. Grab ledge, plank a few times until he either tethers [gotta not plank too quick to avoid letting him get fast reel-in] or up+b's. If done right, you can plank through up+B hitboxes and he lands onstage -> free knee [or just dies]. If he tethers, ledgehop knee is gross. Our best bet is to bomb jump onstage or hit you off the ledge so that we can get onstage. You can intercept bomb jump by being hit with up+b [up+b must be fresh] or hitting the bomb.

Our best options getting up from the ledge are uair, fair, dair as a punish, rang if you're far away, zair or bomb. We can invincible ledgedash and get dsmash's first frame hitbox out, but that's frame-perfect. You can also fullhop knee dsmash [might be able to SH dsmash too, I'm not sure though and don't want to spread false information.]

Falcon wins neutral (or neutral is even), Falcon has an easier time punishing but Link's punishes can be just as brutal [it's hard unless we can send you offstage or just get an amazing combo that Link can pull off, something like this (http://gfycat.com/JoyfulThornyIrishterrier)].

I'm far from the best Link, but I have a few matches of me vs a Falcon player who's familiar with me and worked on the MU some.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnfbSHM7Osg [only games 1 and 3]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkdQ29FF3cw&index=3&list=PLmW-ZIxEPEmLYxUEGIZx8zMsnhyUwRsDb [there's another video, but this showcases part of a game I "bring back" and one I lose badly. I lost this set, although if I had better DI game 3 I maaaaay have eeked it out (I have a positive tournament record vs him, but that's partly due to Bowser and partly due to me getting upsets vs him when we first played)]
And for kicks, one of me vs Matt R - I lose momentum with the SD and he takes that to the bank, but it's a somewhat close matchup - watch 14:40 to the end, the only time he plays Falcon in this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYdhWEAgvcM&list=PLmW-ZIxEPEmJLxgK9LesTnu4q7uG2wOfY&index=5

I'm sure I left out tons of stuff and repeated stuff that was said, but I think I probably added insight for some, so whatever.

 

[Scruffy_Scoundrel]

Thank you Thor for such a great amount of Knowledge and Insight from Link's perspective in this Match Up

 

[Rachman]

Yea this MU is pretty good for Falcon. It's not that hard to weave through his projectiles once you have decent mobility/control of your character and chase him down with his incredibly limited mobility compared to yours. It's certainly not free, especially since both punish games are very hard and one mess up on a bomb can lead to a 0-death against a competent Link, but I'd argue that Falcon does very well against Link. You just can't let him pull bombs (always be in a threatening range if at all possible so any time he tries to pull one you just knee him lol) and it feels pretty good. Again, not a free match up but if you're comfortable weaving around projectiles (as any PM player who played in 3.02 should be, especially Falcon players) you should do fine. Any struggles are not due to the MU as it's fairly standard fare for Falcon. But yea, bait out up-b, nair through boomerang, stay too close for Link to pull bombs but don't commit too hard where he can actually hit you unless you're really confident, and just get a grab. Your recovery is fine vs him and some hax dashing will bait out up-bs from most scrubs and generally just allow you to dominate the game when you're at the ledge. Also, don't waste your double jump or get above link. If you manage to get a grab you should be able to pretty much kill Link, or at least put a crap ton of damage onto him.