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Fox matchup 2015

ihasabuket

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Mar 17, 2015
Messages
321
After seeing Schlimm shady in Ossom play against Ice I thought I'd check out smashboards to see how mario should hold up. After seeing outdated guides I decided to make a thread to help mario mains in this dark, fox infested era. The two main issues that need to be addressed are neutral and edgeguarding.


Neutral

Mario movement options arent half bad with his good WD, decent dash speed, and decent aerial mobility. If you use his dash in tendem with WDs you have a pretty mobile character on the ground. Platform movement and shield drops are necessary to close distance while threatening fox with shield drop punishes.

The great thing about mario is that you can do a running jump approach but still pull back to space your aerials.
Late fair is a decent approach even on shield because of it's range, reward, and mario's air mobility. Late fair is -2 on shield which isnt bad. If you misspace it you can still dash away to avoid grab, though you'll have to shield to defend against shine. Assuming youre a good player and you space your fairs and land em you cant be punished.
Nair, upair, bair are safe on hit and shield if you fade away or cross up. They lack the range fair does so you can't really space them if you try to go for a late hit. Even then these moves are easily countered at early %s by CC thats why you have to fade or crossup to avoid a punish. If you're gonna go for a late aerial you might as well go for a fair though.
Dair isn't a good approach but it's a hell of a punish/combo starter at low %s as seen here.

Mario also has some good tilts for neutral. His ftilt has similar frame data to Samus's but just a bit less range. You can use it just as samus does with WD to poke around in neutral.
Uptilt is a godlike antiair but im sure everyone knows and gets the gist of it.
Dsmash comes out a frame faster than samus's. This with mario's similar weight means you should be abusing CC dsmash just like samus. Fox's nair is CC'able until something like 60%. Once fox starts dairing to counter CC you can shieldgrab it or ASDI/SDI away to get a punish.

Fireballs can be used as a situational mixup. The safest way to use this is to do a rising SH fireball and then fade back during the animation. Shield stops are particularly useful to stop your momentum mid dash and do a fading fireball. You can also do a full hop rising fireball and land on a platform drifting away as the situation demands. Once youre on the platform you can wait since you can shield drop punish or fireball from that position. Theyre also good to preemptively stop a fox from lasering but id try to minimize using it.



Edgeguarding

This part is crucial because as you all know it's hard to setup kills with mario and you usually setup an edgeguard situation instead. Remember M2K's words "expect the side b and react to the upb. Also remember to keep track of Fox's DJ and remember that side b and upb(after startup) burn Fox's DJ.

When fox is recovering from high up he has too many mixups so your best bet is to wait and try to get a grab when he lands to setup a kill move. If they happen to up b close enough to punish throw cape directly in front of Fox. The reason for this is that the firefox moving hitbox has little disjoint making it much easier to beat out than the firefox startup hitbox. If you throw the attack right in front of him it's easier to reach, safer, and forces him to go straight up or down which in most cases will kill him. Even if he goes straight up and can drift back to stage you should be able to hit him after caping.

When fox recovers from below the ledge its much easier though. If he has his DJ you can cover side b sweetspot preemptively with fireball. You have to do this BEFORE he starts to side b as youre only covering an option, not reacting to him. If he ends up below the ledge without a DJ you dont even have to react just get down there and hit/cape him.

Sometimes he'll be in a position where you cant do much and he gets the ledge. When he's on the ledge wait him out and look for the grab.
 
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a rookie

Smash Ace
Joined
Jan 10, 2009
Messages
613
Location
Long Beach, Ca
Not bad advice! That side b usually gets me. It's just so fast and there's no move to really stuff it if you react to it. Interesting fact, your uptilt will always(if not always) beat side b if they try to regain center stage. I see it as a last second decision and at least you get something out of a pure reaction. I need to do this more as well.
 

ihasabuket

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Mar 17, 2015
Messages
321
HOLY **** IT'S A ROOKIE! Dude you're the reason I realized approaching with spaced fairs is good.
Lately I've been using rising fair in neutral more as I've found that you can buffer a DJ(for 3 frames) using tap jump before you land. Besides being able to throw out another aerial or wavelanding on a platform, mario also has the option to do a DJ waveland out of a rising upair.
If you dont know how side b works, basically fox/falco will move a set distance without any hitbox, meaning any attack will beat it. After they travel said distance a projectile follows behind them which is why you can clank without hitting them. Basically if you clanked but didnt hit them you threw out the attack too late.
I also came up with a really interesting counter to jab ->upsmash. I got the idea from Axe. The problem is that had leffen been aware he might have noticed Axe crouching to set this up. What i did is simply optimized this setup by making it less telegraphed. So as many of you may know you can use the cstick to overide ASDI inputs from the control stick; this mechanic is used for the Amsah tech(double stick DI). I exploited this and the fact that cstick doesnt do anything during your dash to optimize this counter maneuver. Basically during your dash you hold cstick down which lets you ASDI the jab down. It's basically CC without having to crouch but you dont get crouch armor. However, jab has such low KBG you can still ASDI it until stupid high %s(something like 130%). The advantage to this is that you can basically CC while you dash dance. After you take the jab youre free to hit him with a smash attack or grab him.
 

a rookie

Smash Ace
Joined
Jan 10, 2009
Messages
613
Location
Long Beach, Ca
HOLY **** IT'S A ROOKIE! Dude you're the reason I realized approaching with spaced fairs is good.
Lately I've been using rising fair in neutral more as I've found that you can buffer a DJ(for 3 frames) using tap jump before you land. Besides being able to throw out another aerial or wavelanding on a platform, mario also has the option to do a DJ waveland out of a rising upair.
If you dont know how side b works, basically fox/falco will move a set distance without any hitbox, meaning any attack will beat it. After they travel said distance a projectile follows behind them which is why you can clank without hitting them. Basically if you clanked but didnt hit them you threw out the attack too late.
I also came up with a really interesting counter to jab ->upsmash. I got the idea from Axe. The problem is that had leffen been aware he might have noticed Axe crouching to set this up. What i did is simply optimized this setup by making it less telegraphed. So as many of you may know you can use the cstick to overide ASDI inputs from the control stick; this mechanic is used for the Amsah tech(double stick DI). I exploited this and the fact that cstick doesnt do anything during your dash to optimize this counter maneuver. Basically during your dash you hold cstick down which lets you ASDI the jab down. It's basically CC without having to crouch but you dont get crouch armor. However, jab has such low KBG you can still ASDI it until stupid high %s(something like 130%). The advantage to this is that you can basically CC while you dash dance. After you take the jab youre free to hit him with a smash attack or grab him.
Wow, that's an interesting find. I don't ASDI at all. I'm just not used to it. I smash DI with pure control stick, same as when I Amsah tech. But just holding down the C-Stick? That's pretty nice and effective. I'd have to practice with that. I still can't shield drop to save Mario's fat, but plumber life. Nice to know that these boards still have interesting finds. I haven't been on here since I haven't had a laptop for over 6 months. But I have access to one finally, so I'm gonna be on here as much as possible now (:
 

ihasabuket

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Mar 17, 2015
Messages
321
Shield dropping and Shai drops are so useful against spacies, particularly falco. If you can shield drop you can dash around on the platform above them, threatning to hit them with a shai drop -> aerial or baiting an attack so that you can shield drop punish. It's something I came up with against falco. The reason it's so good against him is because he has a hard time lasering at that height and he has to commit to a full jump or an upair/upsmash to hit you while your on the platform.
 

a rookie

Smash Ace
Joined
Jan 10, 2009
Messages
613
Location
Long Beach, Ca
Eh idk about that. It's 3technical5me. Falco's lasers are annoying at times, haha. What is shai dropping? I heard of Isai Drop, but not Shai Drop 0__0
 

ihasabuket

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Mar 17, 2015
Messages
321
It's just a shield drop mid dash. It's a great movement option to use if you wanna dashdance bait without the risk of getting grabbed.
 

ihasabuket

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Mar 17, 2015
Messages
321
Yup thats exactly what im talking about. A great example of how a shai drop can be used.
 
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