Q&A -Fox Advice/Questions Topic-

[Silent Wolf]

I just mean you weren't very specific. Someone who doesn't know much about what sheiks gonna do in the first place won't get much out of that.

 

[KirbyKaze]

Fox vs Puff...?

If you ever think, for whatever reason, you are going to be grabbed, immediately DI to the side. Be comfortable doing this during your shield pressure, be comfortable doing this as soon as you see anything whiff in front of her... hold to the side. Doesn't matter which side, but I always prefer DIing behind her if possible because her only follow on that is bair (whereas if you DI in front of her she can do any of fair, uair, and pound legitimately).

You're going to be moving around her back airs for most of the match. Approaching from angles is really important. You ideally want to be beneath her so you can just run around and exert pressure in that position... Puff really has no business challenging Fox when she's around like... between the 50ish and 130ish degrees above him. You basically just want an angle so that she can't drift far enough away from you to defend with her falling bair (sneak under her moves).

In terms of general habit punishment, u-tilting through one of her nairs and such into an uair or bair is a good way to keep a strong position if she's trying to combo break you that way. Otherwise, you can force her off to the side and maybe land a nair or something as she's drifting away from you. You can also get some highly illegitimate punishes this way if you notice they like to attack on their way back down when they're in a bad position. Bair also works against this sort of thing.

Puff's shield game isn't actually that good. Rest OOS is really easy to avoid, and if you DI the up throw you can make it hard to be followed legitimately. I think attacking her shield is actually a really good thing as long as you're smart about it because knocking her over with the shine is a reasonable way to set up a grab or whatever. Even if you just push her to the edge, a lot of Puffs have really bad habits near the edge. They will often try to get back to center stage through force... at which point it's really not too difficult to fish for bairs and such. Watch for desperation pounds, random grabs they'll throw out, f-smashes, etc.

Defensively, you're pretty safe from Puff if she's facing you as long as you're just outside her f-smash range. You can use a mix of dash, shield, WD, and jump movements to hold that space and punish most of the random crap she might throw at you if she's trying to force hits.

You can get more effective the MU by just learning how to u-throw > uair on her various DIs into much higher percents than you can. Linking the uair at 90 makes a huge difference. It's seriously stupid and it doesn't require you be any better at the neutral game or thinking or anything.

Also, being able to do the u-throw > uair at 90%s lets you keep shooting lasers and hit moves on her without fearing that you're disrupting your kill window. Since your bair, u-tilt, etc. kill her at like 120% (before the hit) anyway, the percent range for where Fox has no kill moves (except like up smash) gets shrunk to 30% instead of 70%, which is really, really valuable. It just irons out a ton of problems with killing her or not that shouldn't exist.

Bonus points if you can learn the spacing to hit the 2nd up air exclusively. I know vs FFers Lovage suggests that you make it meaty, but vs Puff this isn't really an option after like 70%, so learning to tip it for the 2nd hit only (and skip the 1st hit altogether) is really powerful. It's not too difficult enough. You just do the up air super early in your DJ and space your DJ a bit differently.

I think most Foxes lose this one because they start trying to force kills with up smashes and similar unsafe moves. Largely because they can't up throw > up air high enough. Or, alternatively, they get up throw rested (or gimped by the edge). Learn to play to avoid those situations without constantly giving up your stage advantage.

I think dash attack is actually really good vs Puff because it sneaks under a ton of her stuff and you can dash dance punish a lot of her aerials with it. It leads to nothing, but it's really easy to hit on her once you get the hang of it. Airborne Puff is pretty vulnerable if she's out of position and sometimes dash attack (late dash attack) combos to up air or bair anyway at high percents, which is kind of sick. Strong dash attack can also do it sometimes. Never use this when she is on the ground or unless you spot a commitment or you will die.

Puff's pressure vs your shield sucks. Be good at shine OOS (or WD OOS, etc) if she tries to gimmick you into a grab or whatever. Be good at WD OOS in general because it's amazing. Don't jump OOS so much if she's jumping around because they all try to catch that. Don't try to counterattack her unless it's obvious you can. Reset your positioning, etc. The gaps between bair and her next attack on shield are huge so exploit that. Make her think (for once).

I feel shine is better than jab in a general sense if you have the choice of the two to hit on Puff. Jab can be CCed and tech crouched (stupid Puff jump) whereas shine cannot. Shine requires you to tech chase or do extra work, but oh well. Safety first as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Eclectic Echo]

KK for Prime Minister.

 

[S l o X]

okay kk now teach me falcon vs falco

 

[JPOBS]

The thing about fox players generally being bad at high percent upthrow->upair is so damn true. It takes away a lot of your game when your window between 50-80% is open and you're afriad to play for damage because you know you can't upthrow->uir at 90+. it sucks.

Some relatively decent things to work on if you're in that position are jab->jc upsmash and nair->jc upsmash.
fishing for upsmashes straight up is really bad and gets you killed easily but a nice jab upsmash at 85% is the bee knees.

 

[~Twitch~]

Major don'ts vs Sheik?

kevin tells everyone as fox to just dash dance in this mu you know, in and out of dash attack.

major don'ts though?... don't run at them when they space a fair. unless you totally predict that junk it is aaalllways a bad idea to run into them when they do it. a better alternative is to bait like you're going to go in when they do it and run in and hit them when they do their second move because it's always like a dsmash or a dumb sh. and if they jump on a platform then they're just trying to get you to back off because their fair will magically reach you if they run off-do it. also sh needles on platform. >_> if you see them jump on platform then dash back and back off but if they start camping that junk then you uair their butt.

if you find the right dash dance spacing this mu is really not very hard and you find that sheik is a limited but incredibly frustrating character to play against. at least in this mu...

but take anything i say with a ton of salt because give me the scrubbiest sheik main and i'll lose to them every time.

oh yeaah but if you know when they're going to dash attack then just sit there and sh dair. idk why but this always works wonders for me.

i got kinda off topic here but if you have anything else to ask just...ask.

 

[unknown522]

don't get hit.

seriously.

unless you're always holding down.

Then it becomes don't get grabbed

 

[DerfMidWest]

I hate fox/marth.
I'm so bad at it.
how do you win?

I have a real problem approaching marth. I'm trying to bait his crap with my dash dance and stuff, but I don't think I'm doing it correctly, because it dun't work.
then I get gimped.

 

[omgwtfToph]

Vs Marth, get better at overshooting.

Also I am a huge proponent of running shine (though your mileage may vary). On hit, you can wavedash forward and grab (or usmash if you're tekkniqual), and if you whiff you can wavedash back, or SH/FJ drill which will hit Marth if he tries to DD grab your running shine. The reason I like the approach is because it's impossible to react to, strictly speaking, so Marths that only win because they can DD grab nair approaches will die to it.

Just something to keep in mind though.


also KK you are a god among men. Let me bring you cookies.

 

[PK Webb]

me and toph on the same page with running shine

 

[DerfMidWest]

ok I guess I'll try that.
thanks for the tip ^^

 

[Lovage]

only noobs like the FC stage list FACT

 

[KirbyKaze]

i'd just say get good at edge guarding and every matchup becomes 70% easier. edge guarding is the biggest, easiest, most obvious flaw every lower level smasher has but no one wants to be really critical on themselves for it for some reason.

i HATE missing easy edge guards (edge guards where their position is so good it might be a toss-up aren't so bad) and really focus on that as the #1 way to force myself to play better if i'm playing bad, just don't let them get back on da stage lol.

just imagine it: if 95% of the falcon community was as good as hax is when it comes to edge guarding sheik, they would say the matchup is even on the boards lol.

I feel similarly about comboing. And what to do after you finish different styles of combos (now that I think about it).

A lot of people are really bad at important strings that make a lot of MUs a lot easier.

Regarding Fox vs Sheik: I usually feel (as Sheik) I just get comboed for like some amount, hit offstage, and then edgeguarded or gimped (which isn't really a cause of getting hit so much as it's what happens after I get hit). For actually getting hit, I usually feel it's because I'll do an f-tilt and the opponent jumps around it with FJ dair or something and does that. So, I get out-timed and/or they position around my priority. Seems like a reasonable plan. Back in the day, Raynex would just dash dance around literally everything I did but I'm not sure I'd recommend anyone here try that because Raynex's dash dance (in its prime) was stupidly good (and I think knowing my habits probably helped him).

Twitch: I think the advice to stay just outside her dash attack range and periodically dip in and out of it is pretty solid. It doesn't work as well vs her as it does vs some characters where you apply a similar strategy (because Sheik is fast on the ground and the dash attack range is similar to the defensive spacing she wants) but I don't think it's a bad start. If nothing else, you'll beat the ones that get antsy and throw out dash attacks to try and force combos and hits (which is, like, all of them).

Slox: I don't pay much attention to the strategy in impossible matchups that I don't play.

 

[Divinokage]

only noobs like the FC stage list FACT

I actually don't mind most of it except MK2 and JJ.

 

[KirbyKaze]

You're a noob though

 

[Divinokage]

I expected that response so I'm not noob. It was a bait.

 

[KirbyKaze]

It doesn't count as a bait if you get hit and die, Kage.

 

[Divinokage]

How about I play Sheik and you play Ganon, would you like that?

 

[KirbyKaze]

I hate fox/marth.
I'm so bad at it.
how do you win?

Ideally, you grab him and up throw him (this can be set up by a variety of moves, including shine). Then recycle generic Fox combos until he's in the air or pinned at the edge (I like up throw into up airs or bairs). From there, you bair him at some point and create an edgeguard opportunity (and it kills him, in a perfect world). In other words, pretty much exactly how Fox wins just about all his MUs.

I have a real problem approaching marth.

You and every Fox ever.

I'm trying to bait his crap with my dash dance and stuff, but I don't think I'm doing it correctly, because it dun't work.

Don't think of it as baiting so much as you're challenging his space. Fox generally wins exchanges (when he's attacking) by out-timing his opponent (hitting the opponent before their move can protect them, going around their attack [which is a form of punishing whiffs], etc). Try to think of attacking with Fox in those terms... rather than just 'baiting'.

For the record, some moves are notoriously hard to punish on whiff anyway (Peach FC, Puff moving away, Sheik retreat fair, etc) so expanding your view of how Fox functions in combat to incorporate him beating things by initiative, going around things, and a generally bigger view of timings will help you more in the long run.

then I get gimped.

Don't whiff in front of him. Don't mess up on shield. Don't do idiotic things against his shield. Don't be afraid to grab his shield.




@ Kage - I hate playing low tiers. Everyone knows this.

 

[Divinokage]

Just like I hate fighting top tiers, no johns, you got baited and I punched you.

 

[Tee ay eye]

fox vs marth is by far my favorite matchup to play as fox (it's probably half the reason i ever play fox)

ask more specific questions

random notes that sorta have to do with fox vs marth

-i think something that's really big in fox vs marth (and i guess every matchup) is learning to do things outside of the traditional dash-dance and bait game. pretty much, learn to play less linearly. everyone and their mother knows how the standard neutral game works (dashdancing, trying to bait, over-extending, and whatnot), so you have to try to push every little trick you can in order to make it that much more complicated for your opponent.

-i think fox's full-hop with mixups on spacing, double jumps, and wavelands are massively underrated. you should be fullhopping with dair and bair, btw. if marth is trying to play a horizontal spacing game, then full-hopping over him will throw a wrench in that by giving him something else to worry about. yes, you're going to get punished hard if he punishes you for it, but punishing it isn't as simple as it seems. whenever i went to oscar's house last year to play with him and S2J, them going high to throw me off was something that gave me a lot of trouble at first. marth can't simply just throw out a u-tilt and hope for it to hit (and if he misses, they get a free, clean hit in), nor should he actually GO UP that high to challenge them in the sky (they'll land and be under him to unleash bad times upon him). to beat a fullhop as marth, i sorta have to do something to beat their horizontal spacing (repositioning and throwing something out like a fair or a forward B) or to get a hard anti-air like a u-air. fullhopping goes over a lot of things marth might try to do. you can try to fullhop just outside of his range to make him think you're going to get hit by his anti-airs, but then he'll miss and you'll get a free bair/dair anyway. on top of this, you've got your empty hops and your double jumps to mix it up even more. it's really kinda bull****. it's not something you should be relying on, but i think you can push way more than enough advantage from this compared to the amount of effort it takes. i honestly think that it takes a fundamentally solid marth to handle fox's air game shenanigans.

-empty hops and empty hops into wavelands. this makes it look like you're gonna shffl a nair like an idiot, which will oftentimes make him run back and fish for a grab or throw out something to try to stuff your nair. usually after this, you can go in with a grab, nair, or dash attack. i very strongly recommend dash attack cuz fox essentially puts up a really fast wall that is decent at pushing into marth's dashdance or pushing under marth's fair.

-keep in mind that marth's sword only sticks out in one place at a time. marth's fair starts at the top and goes down. marth has long range, but he doesn't have absolute DOMINANCE over the area he controls like, say, peach. his fair starts at the top and swings downward, meaning that you're able to slip under it quite easily. his nair, on the other hand, pretty much leaves his head exposed (and you can kinda go under it sometimes. his nair is confusing).

-crouch cancel for the love of god

 

[JPOBS]

> plays ganon
> hates fighting top tiers
> mfw

 

[DerfMidWest]

if you full hop, can't he just walk forward and uptilt?
anyway, thanks for even more tips/advice ^^

how to I control the space between me and marth?
I feel like marth is in control whenever I play against him.
I can't take/hold the center and I get forced above him/near the edge

 

[PGH Carroll]

fox vs marth is my favorite MU with fox as well.

 

[Sinji]

Empty hop>grabs as an approach can be a good mix up against Marth.

 

[KirbyKaze]

if you full hop, can't he just walk forward and uptilt?
anyway, thanks for even more tips/advice ^^

how to I control the space between me and marth?
I feel like marth is in control whenever I play against him.
I can't take/hold the center and I get forced above him/near the edge

FJ > don't commit yet > check for defense > confirm improper defense > nair

If it looks bad, retreat to a top platform or something. No need to attack the character that does 60%+ combos blindfolded recklessly. It is not recommended to play super aggro omg wtf Mango style vs Marth (inb4 Mango vs Taj -_-). The risk-reward simply isn't in your favour (it rarely is, when you're Fox, but this one is particularly skewed).

When you invade Marth's space, you exert pressure because he has to swing early to counter your stuff preemptively (once you're just outside his JC grab range). So, just be aware he has to swing early to beat you and all of a sudden you can play spacing games, reset positioning, troll him with non-committal approaches, etc.

Learn how to jump and not attack right away. Check to make sure it's fine. Obviously if you're really close to him, attacking with initiative is generally better but at that point you've breached the defensive spacing and have 'gotten in'. So going for more aggressive plays is obviously more plausible when you're at advantage. Beware of CC though - spacing, low aerials, and dair haven't gone out of style quite yet.

You can't run pure defense vs Marth (otherwise you don't fully exploit all his unique weaknesses) but the main thought in your mind (because of how ridiculous his punishes are) should be, "Don't get hit."

 

[weon - X]

kage is it really worth hitting DAAAAAT FAIR when you're getting hit 9 out of 10 times for even trying it?

we hate low tiers cus they have no options. they're boring to play. i love fox cus hes so versatile and can do amazing ****. ganon is just like .... fair... flatform wavelandings. tipman spike. Ok i'll admit that ur nair combos **** but if it works like 5 times on the same opponent then shame on him. You're an awesome player but ganon limits you.

 

[Divinokage]

Ganon does not limit me, he's my best character and will always be. There's a level of love with him beyond what I can do with other characters.

 

[Coffeeblack]

Love > everything

 

[KirbyKaze]

You're an awesome player but ganon limits you.

Real talk, Kage is really good (not as good as he used to be relative to everyone else) but he's still someone to be wary of facing.

That said, I still don't think he's at the level where Ganon is his only hindrance. I will admit, however, that Ganon's slow moveset & movement makes it hard to play reactively and in direct response to the opponent... which makes it easy to get stuck flailing for hits or falling into patterns.

 

[Divinokage]

Real talk, Kage is really good (not as good as he used to be relative to everyone else) but he's still someone to be wary of facing.

Everyone else meaning who? As I used to be? That can't really be determined, what can you compare this to? I think I'm getting better and better all the time, it's just that top tier characters/players will always have an edge because I fight hard battles all the time.

 

[KirbyKaze]

I just mean that (aside from teams) you don't really top 8 any longer (I have what you had lol - random ridiculously good placements amidst a sea of decent ones). That said, you're still incredibly good and have been at high level for a very long time (which is difficult, and an accomplishment in and of itself).

I haven't decided if I think the drop in Ganon's performance is to people learning the MU (which is possible - you guys [non-South Americans] have had a lot of time to figure this out) or whether it's more to do with inactivity by the pro Ganons. It's probably a mix (as most things are).



edit:

You are probably one of the only people I will accept MU johns from simply because you're good and sometimes faster characters with comparable punishment are dumb vs slower ones. That said, your post doesn't really counter any of the points I made about you doing worse relatively speaking (going from 5th placements to 17th is a drop). I still have a lot of respect for you as a player and such.

Also, you're not just losing to the tippy top players ;(

 

[Divinokage]

I only Top 5+ at RoMs, I just beat people and usually lose generally to the top 5 players wherever they are so I could get 17th just like I could get 5th because of it, brackets are random.

 

[KirbyKaze]

Random upsets are gay

I still feel bad for sending HBox to Wobbles at APEX

 

[DerfMidWest]

FJ > don't commit yet > check for defense > confirm improper defense > nair

If it looks bad, retreat to a top platform or something. No need to attack the character that does 60%+ combos blindfolded recklessly. It is not recommended to play super aggro omg wtf Mango style vs Marth (inb4 Mango vs Taj -_-). The risk-reward simply isn't in your favour (it rarely is, when you're Fox, but this one is particularly skewed).

When you invade Marth's space, you exert pressure because he has to swing early to counter your stuff preemptively (once you're just outside his JC grab range). So, just be aware he has to swing early to beat you and all of a sudden you can play spacing games, reset positioning, troll him with non-committal approaches, etc.

Learn how to jump and not attack right away. Check to make sure it's fine. Obviously if you're really close to him, attacking with initiative is generally better but at that point you've breached the defensive spacing and have 'gotten in'. So going for more aggressive plays is obviously more plausible when you're at advantage. Beware of CC though - spacing, low aerials, and dair haven't gone out of style quite yet.

You can't run pure defense vs Marth (otherwise you don't fully exploit all his unique weaknesses) but the main thought in your mind (because of how ridiculous his punishes are) should be, "Don't get hit."

but I wanna play like mango .-.
but thanks, that makes a lot of sense ^^

 

[KirbyKaze]

A small trick vs Marths and other grabby characters is that they often are accustomed to l-cancel landing lag and time their punishes for the extra lag (7, 9, etc. rather than 4). So... you can play some funny timing games with empty jumps and AC stuff to acquire shines and then get combos if they try to retreat > grab punish on you. It's kind of cute. Probably too risky to be practical though.

 

[Divinokage]

Random upsets are gay

I still feel bad for sending HBox to Wobbles at APEX

Ya that may be so, the crappier your character is, the harder it is to stay consistent.

 

[Dark Hart]

I'm starting to get to the point where I can safely grounded doubleshine about 80% in game

And was wondering if anyone could point out the places and times where it's most useful, and possibly where you shouldn't aswell

Love > everything

The Transcendent Meta

 

[Silent Wolf]

thanks for the jiggs help kk

 

[unknown522]

fox vs marth is by far my favorite matchup to play as fox (it's probably half the reason i ever play fox)

ask more specific questions

random notes that sorta have to do with fox vs marth

-i think something that's really big in fox vs marth (and i guess every matchup) is learning to do things outside of the traditional dash-dance and bait game. pretty much, learn to play less linearly. everyone and their mother knows how the standard neutral game works (dashdancing, trying to bait, over-extending, and whatnot), so you have to try to push every little trick you can in order to make it that much more complicated for your opponent.

-i think fox's full-hop with mixups on spacing, double jumps, and wavelands are massively underrated. you should be fullhopping with dair and bair, btw. if marth is trying to play a horizontal spacing game, then full-hopping over him will throw a wrench in that by giving him something else to worry about. yes, you're going to get punished hard if he punishes you for it, but punishing it isn't as simple as it seems. whenever i went to oscar's house last year to play with him and S2J, them going high to throw me off was something that gave me a lot of trouble at first. marth can't simply just throw out a u-tilt and hope for it to hit (and if he misses, they get a free, clean hit in), nor should he actually GO UP that high to challenge them in the sky (they'll land and be under him to unleash bad times upon him). to beat a fullhop as marth, i sorta have to do something to beat their horizontal spacing (repositioning and throwing something out like a fair or a forward B) or to get a hard anti-air like a u-air. fullhopping goes over a lot of things marth might try to do. you can try to fullhop just outside of his range to make him think you're going to get hit by his anti-airs, but then he'll miss and you'll get a free bair/dair anyway. on top of this, you've got your empty hops and your double jumps to mix it up even more. it's really kinda bull****. it's not something you should be relying on, but i think you can push way more than enough advantage from this compared to the amount of effort it takes. i honestly think that it takes a fundamentally solid marth to handle fox's air game shenanigans.

-empty hops and empty hops into wavelands. this makes it look like you're gonna shffl a nair like an idiot, which will oftentimes make him run back and fish for a grab or throw out something to try to stuff your nair. usually after this, you can go in with a grab, nair, or dash attack. i very strongly recommend dash attack cuz fox essentially puts up a really fast wall that is decent at pushing into marth's dashdance or pushing under marth's fair.

-keep in mind that marth's sword only sticks out in one place at a time. marth's fair starts at the top and goes down. marth has long range, but he doesn't have absolute DOMINANCE over the area he controls like, say, peach. his fair starts at the top and swings downward, meaning that you're able to slip under it quite easily. his nair, on the other hand, pretty much leaves his head exposed (and you can kinda go under it sometimes. his nair is confusing).

-crouch cancel for the love of god

most of this is pretty good, but the bit about dash attack. Marth can CC it for a very very long time, even when committed to something.

I also disagree with the full-hopping bit. But maybe I just do it wrong?

Ya that may be so, the crappier your character is, the harder it is to stay consistent.

fox isn't a crappy character