Fabio the Great
Smash Rookie
Basically the title. Give me all knowledge of Falco vs Marth, one of my worst match-ups. Optimal ways to DI throws, good follow ups, anything you know.
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Flaco vs Marth match-up; Give me your knowledge
- Thread starter Fabio the Great
- Start date
20YY SS | Saiblade
Obviously not biased towards Falco
Same here, I hate the match-up, but it gets A LOT easier if you SHL ALL THE TIME, literally, if you can laser without getting hit, do it. Throw DI should always be slightly mixed up, but I usually always DI behind marth during Uthrows to try and avoid the regrab, though being chaingrabbed is a battle you shouldn't be expecting to win. I'll edit this post more in a little, because I have to go do something.
Fabio the Great
Smash Rookie
Yeah, my lasers are usually too predictable, lately i've changed my mentality and realized a lot of errors in my play thoough, and practiced with a friend of mine from NC who is really good with that kind of thing. I'm just trying to further my knowledge of the deeper crevices of the match-up
20YY SS | Saiblade
Obviously not biased towards Falco
Well, that's good, good luck as a fellow Spacie main.
Mywhy
Smash Cadet
Slightly di-ing is the key to ending a chaingrab when you mix up the di. If he misses the regrab from it there are a few frames you can shine without him getting to hit you again.
Dolla Pills
Smash Ace
Probably the biggest thing is to be very careful when approaching a Marth, which is much easier said than done. I usually try to bait my opponent into doing something, then I see how he reacts so I can find out his habits and punish him.
Mix up the lasers, if all you do is laser then the Marth will find a way to interrupt your rhythm and punish you hard.
You can combo Marth well but he is at a weird fall speed and weight class so make sure to practice combos (watch YouTube videos for what comboing Marth looks like at high level play).
Learn how to edgeguard Marth. It seems tricky, but especially at lower levels of play there are holes in his recovery that a Falco can easily take advantage of (drop down invincible bair after a bad side b stall for example).
If the Marth spams counter don't keep running into him.
Idk how to give advice for DI, try to avoid tipper fsmash at all costs obviously as they will kill you very very early.
I may come back to edit this but these are my thoughts, feel free to add more or point out the holes in my thinking.
Mix up the lasers, if all you do is laser then the Marth will find a way to interrupt your rhythm and punish you hard.
You can combo Marth well but he is at a weird fall speed and weight class so make sure to practice combos (watch YouTube videos for what comboing Marth looks like at high level play).
Learn how to edgeguard Marth. It seems tricky, but especially at lower levels of play there are holes in his recovery that a Falco can easily take advantage of (drop down invincible bair after a bad side b stall for example).
If the Marth spams counter don't keep running into him.
Idk how to give advice for DI, try to avoid tipper fsmash at all costs obviously as they will kill you very very early.
I may come back to edit this but these are my thoughts, feel free to add more or point out the holes in my thinking.
Lumi.
Smash Rookie
I just got through the wall that is the Marth MU for newer Falco's. My tips are as follows:
Sorry for the wall of text but I just went through hell figuring this out on my own. Good luck!
- Lasers are amazing for getting in on Marth, you can't challenge his range, but he's a very easily punished character. You said previously that you're unpredictable. PPMD has said a good way to practice on your own is shadow boxing. Launch of 20xx or go into training mode and just practice different approaches. Mix up SHL into nair/dair shine shield pressure or SHL twice then retreat slightly and mix up the timing. Like I said, marth is very punishable when he whiffs an attack. If you weave in and out of his range with DDing or SHL's he is bound to throw out something punishable.
- If I need to get stage control or just to tack on %, you can laser grab (SHL to force shield and immediately grab). Upthrow is usually best, depending on their DI, a bair or nair should be a good follow up. The marth I play against predicts the bair/nair so he shields. In that case I try to waveland on the platform and grab to repeat the cycle. If there's no platform you can wait out an airdodge and punish accordingly however you see fit. Another option is to JC shine into an aerial. If the marth is at a highish percent, bair is your best bet to get him off stage.
- Most Marth players have strong punish games so work on your combo DI and never missing a tech. In addition to this, mix up your tech options. Don't always roll into the stage since you think the middle is safer. He will catch on quickly and punish you for it.
- Make good use of Spotdodges. Like I said earlier, a huge weakness of Marth is giving huge openings when whiffing on attacks. If you can predict Marth's laggy sword swings, you can spotdodge and punish. A good example of this is on BF or Yoshi's where marth will be under a platform and will either uptilt you, or fmash you. You can predict these attacks and spotdodge into punishes.
- When Pillaring Marth (and other floaties for that matter) Don't always assume you can land a shine after landing a dair. Falco's uptilt is amazing and (I believe) has a taller hitbox than your shine. Use this to continue the combo. To add onto this, try to be consistent with your waveshines and practice attaining a farther distance with your wavedash in general.
- Falco's Fair is very good vs marth. If you can get the hitboxes right, it keeps marth uncomfortably close to you while tacking on a good amount of damage. Watch PPMD vods against M2K for good use of this.
- Edgeguarding marth can be tricky at times. My first goal is to spam him with lasers to hopefully interrupt a jump and to generally keep him farther offstage. If this fails, timing invincible ledge hogs is incredibly important. You can do this by hitting L/R right before his up-b would hit you, or ledgestall with Firebird. The latter is a bit more difficult, but is very handy for general use. Another option is that with really good spacing, you can time a down smash so that when he uses his up-b, he will get knocked far away. At low %, you can ignore the spacing issue and crouch cancel his up-b for the same result. Lastly, the fancy and sometimes useful option is to time a Jump Canceled Shine into either a bair or a turn around shine into dair (better hitbox for the situation). Keep in mind the timing on this is very strict and if you mess it up, you will most likely get stage spiked if you miss the tech, and even if you hit the tech, you will probably die since marth edge guarding Falco is easy. The very last option I can think of is a lot of marth players will use their neutral-b to get closer to stage, or they will use their second jump for the same purpose. If you notice this from the player, you can fast fall from ledge, land a Jump Canceled Shine into a bair or turn around dair. A really hype example of this can be seen here . Landing this makes you feel like a god.
Sorry for the wall of text but I just went through hell figuring this out on my own. Good luck!
1000g2g3g4g800999
Smash Journeyman
Some other stuff:
While laser grab is good, it's not really guaranteed, and if you're jumping close enough to laser grab, Marth can hit you before the laser is out, so try mixing in some dash dance after lasers.
When you get Marth in the air and pillaring doesn't seem practical at the time, just keep juggling him with nair uair or fair depending on which has the most appropriate hitbox, and either try to combo for percent, or get him into an edgeguard position. If Marth's coming down from the air, and on net, you're moving towards eachother horizontally, you can shield and cover anything he's coming down with, unless he's already charging neutral B. You can also often just keep knocking him back up, and if he's trying to time things against you going up in the air, then if you were say fullhopping, you could short hop and fastfall back down and uptilt or double jump to mix up his timing.
In the neutral, depending on percent, Marth's going to be very dependent on down tilt and grab. He can only really safely use fsmash as an anti-air, jab is potentially punishable on hit depending on positions, and side-b suffers a similar problem at lower percents. To cover aerial approaches over d-tilt, he's going to have to use autocancel nair, or really low fair. If he's approaching with either, you can shield and punish, or usually dash dance punish. If he does them retreating, he's giving up space, and you can likely either ftilt or fsmash him. Between auto-cancel bair and later bairs, you cover most of Marth's approach options, but be wary of run up shield. While lasering a lot is good, Marth can dash under and potentially grab or dash attack. SH dair generally stuffs both. Laser -> aerial should be used sparingly against better Marths, as they can aerial out of shield and not have to give up stage control, wavedash forward at certain ranges and go under anything but dair (and you shouldn't be doing super early aerials unless it's part of a punish), or wavedash back and punish, and that's all if he chooses to shield: he doesn't have to, and can gain significant ground safely if he CCs lasers.
When pressuring a lost of character's shields, your short hop moves your hurtbox out of the way or a shield grab. This isn't the case with Marth. If you cross him up on shield, you're usually in the clear as his out of shield options from behind are not the fastest and very punishable. Be ready to shield, and watchout for wavedash fsmashes. While I wouldn't really recommend this, you can use jabs to force royzones in his grabs from very close up, but he can counter this with appropriate shield DI.
Most Marths love dash dance grab, and just walking forward with a move, even a grab of your own can be hard for them to work against if they don't have consistent pivots or if you can adjust speed to properly deal with them needing to fox trot or not. Jab can also work wonders, but it's still not the safest move on hit at lower percents. Generally, retreating quick aerials and shine grab are very good, especially when you're closer to center stage. Also, be aware that lower limbs can not be grabbed in this game. After you've hit Marth's shield with an aerial and a shine, a sh nair at max height can poke, and if he angles his shield to prevent this, he can be dtilted. Hit it a few more times, and you can go for aerial doubleshine usmash, which isn't as hard as it sounds, and can break shields. Spaced ftilts are also really good.
If the Marth spaces grabs and other moves with shield stopping, spotdodge shine isn't going to work as well, but you could try to dash dance away, grab him first, jab, or downsmash. Downsmash can also counter downtilt without going into the air since your legs are invincible until the hitbox is out, but it doesn't really challenge too many options. Rolling can also be done in situations where you don't think you could spotdodge towards (please don't roll at Marth unless he's doing something fairly laggy, or it's akward for him to properly cover either because of moderate lag and royzone postitioning, or he's moving towards you and committing to it).
When Marth has to recover low, Marth killer will usually allow you to cover most options, and if he lands on stage, assuming he didn't ledge cancel or get assisted by a stage hazard (wispy's wind), you can bair him back off and try again, or dair him into another aerial if he's DIing for the bair. If Marth is close enough horizontally to the stage that his sword would pretty much have to hit through it, you can jump backwards over the up-b, before or when it's coming out, and grab ledge before Marth can do anything. If he's recovering high, treat it kind of like any situation where he's in the air, don't be afraid to wait, and if you know you can, hit him back.
When recovering, higher phantasms aren't properly covered on the ground generally if he tries to intercept, and if you can mix between that and shortened ones to then you have much better odds of getting back. With that said, phantasm does have a lot of endlag, so if he doesn't get hit or try to hit it, he can punish fairly easily.
While uthrow is usually the best throw, bthrow and fthrow have followups of some sort if you respond appropriately. If it doesn't setup for an advantageous situation to approach with an aerial (ideally nair) you can do a tilt that isn't dtilt, or a smash that isn't dsmash usually, just go for what visually looks like it should connect at the time. If you aren't confident in any of those, you can simply laser, or go for a regrab.
For covering techs, dsmash to cover missed tech or tech in place is good, fsmash to cover techroll through is also great. Techroll away, unless you started very close, tends to be harder to cover on reaction with things like this. You could pivot fsmash or wavedash after it, but you can also just go for a nair at higher percents. At lower percents, to extend a combo you can replace instances of dsmash with utilt, shine, or dtilt, and fsmash with dair. You can always land the smashes on platforms though, can space to hit dsmash for all options.
A bit of advice I have for all matchups in smash. Try not to do things that make it hard to cover options in neutral that would be easy to cover if you simply did nothing.
While laser grab is good, it's not really guaranteed, and if you're jumping close enough to laser grab, Marth can hit you before the laser is out, so try mixing in some dash dance after lasers.
When you get Marth in the air and pillaring doesn't seem practical at the time, just keep juggling him with nair uair or fair depending on which has the most appropriate hitbox, and either try to combo for percent, or get him into an edgeguard position. If Marth's coming down from the air, and on net, you're moving towards eachother horizontally, you can shield and cover anything he's coming down with, unless he's already charging neutral B. You can also often just keep knocking him back up, and if he's trying to time things against you going up in the air, then if you were say fullhopping, you could short hop and fastfall back down and uptilt or double jump to mix up his timing.
In the neutral, depending on percent, Marth's going to be very dependent on down tilt and grab. He can only really safely use fsmash as an anti-air, jab is potentially punishable on hit depending on positions, and side-b suffers a similar problem at lower percents. To cover aerial approaches over d-tilt, he's going to have to use autocancel nair, or really low fair. If he's approaching with either, you can shield and punish, or usually dash dance punish. If he does them retreating, he's giving up space, and you can likely either ftilt or fsmash him. Between auto-cancel bair and later bairs, you cover most of Marth's approach options, but be wary of run up shield. While lasering a lot is good, Marth can dash under and potentially grab or dash attack. SH dair generally stuffs both. Laser -> aerial should be used sparingly against better Marths, as they can aerial out of shield and not have to give up stage control, wavedash forward at certain ranges and go under anything but dair (and you shouldn't be doing super early aerials unless it's part of a punish), or wavedash back and punish, and that's all if he chooses to shield: he doesn't have to, and can gain significant ground safely if he CCs lasers.
When pressuring a lost of character's shields, your short hop moves your hurtbox out of the way or a shield grab. This isn't the case with Marth. If you cross him up on shield, you're usually in the clear as his out of shield options from behind are not the fastest and very punishable. Be ready to shield, and watchout for wavedash fsmashes. While I wouldn't really recommend this, you can use jabs to force royzones in his grabs from very close up, but he can counter this with appropriate shield DI.
Most Marths love dash dance grab, and just walking forward with a move, even a grab of your own can be hard for them to work against if they don't have consistent pivots or if you can adjust speed to properly deal with them needing to fox trot or not. Jab can also work wonders, but it's still not the safest move on hit at lower percents. Generally, retreating quick aerials and shine grab are very good, especially when you're closer to center stage. Also, be aware that lower limbs can not be grabbed in this game. After you've hit Marth's shield with an aerial and a shine, a sh nair at max height can poke, and if he angles his shield to prevent this, he can be dtilted. Hit it a few more times, and you can go for aerial doubleshine usmash, which isn't as hard as it sounds, and can break shields. Spaced ftilts are also really good.
If the Marth spaces grabs and other moves with shield stopping, spotdodge shine isn't going to work as well, but you could try to dash dance away, grab him first, jab, or downsmash. Downsmash can also counter downtilt without going into the air since your legs are invincible until the hitbox is out, but it doesn't really challenge too many options. Rolling can also be done in situations where you don't think you could spotdodge towards (please don't roll at Marth unless he's doing something fairly laggy, or it's akward for him to properly cover either because of moderate lag and royzone postitioning, or he's moving towards you and committing to it).
When Marth has to recover low, Marth killer will usually allow you to cover most options, and if he lands on stage, assuming he didn't ledge cancel or get assisted by a stage hazard (wispy's wind), you can bair him back off and try again, or dair him into another aerial if he's DIing for the bair. If Marth is close enough horizontally to the stage that his sword would pretty much have to hit through it, you can jump backwards over the up-b, before or when it's coming out, and grab ledge before Marth can do anything. If he's recovering high, treat it kind of like any situation where he's in the air, don't be afraid to wait, and if you know you can, hit him back.
When recovering, higher phantasms aren't properly covered on the ground generally if he tries to intercept, and if you can mix between that and shortened ones to then you have much better odds of getting back. With that said, phantasm does have a lot of endlag, so if he doesn't get hit or try to hit it, he can punish fairly easily.
While uthrow is usually the best throw, bthrow and fthrow have followups of some sort if you respond appropriately. If it doesn't setup for an advantageous situation to approach with an aerial (ideally nair) you can do a tilt that isn't dtilt, or a smash that isn't dsmash usually, just go for what visually looks like it should connect at the time. If you aren't confident in any of those, you can simply laser, or go for a regrab.
For covering techs, dsmash to cover missed tech or tech in place is good, fsmash to cover techroll through is also great. Techroll away, unless you started very close, tends to be harder to cover on reaction with things like this. You could pivot fsmash or wavedash after it, but you can also just go for a nair at higher percents. At lower percents, to extend a combo you can replace instances of dsmash with utilt, shine, or dtilt, and fsmash with dair. You can always land the smashes on platforms though, can space to hit dsmash for all options.
A bit of advice I have for all matchups in smash. Try not to do things that make it hard to cover options in neutral that would be easy to cover if you simply did nothing.
Fabio the Great
Smash Rookie
Thanks guys, went to a tourney yesterday, tested the things I thought would work against marths, worked like a charm. keep posting though, us Flacos gotta stick together against these dumb sword guys.
TrustyBag
Smash Rookie
As someone who plays both Marth and Falco, I know this matchup pretty well. And I think Falco has the advantage in it. I think for Falco to get the advantage is in Neutral. I usually use lasers against Marth but spacing it properly is key, you also shouldn't always approach, you can try mixing up with just going in with lasers or going in wavedashing back then SHL. Also be mindful that your opponent might think he is Ken at MLG Dallas in 2006 and try using counter to throw you off you game. If he tries doing that just try and bait out the counter and punish him.