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Game and Watch Matchup Export: Falco

MEOW1337KITTEH

Smash Lord
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daniel7001
Falco



Matchup: 45:55 (-1)

Basic Info:
Falco has many of the tools that he needs to be successful. He can camp well with his lasers, he can also do a chaingrab that leads in to a spike. His main problem is his killing power, which is almost always usmash, bair, and fsmash. His recovery is very bad vertically, due to the slowness of his UpB. His horizontal recovery is good, but he can be edgehogged very easily and on stage he can be easily hit with any lingering hitboxes. Falco has an excellent jab, which is fast and has decent range. His reflector gets kicked out in front of him and can be used as an excellent defense tool.

Videos:
Vex Kasrani vs. DEHF: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HDFJXHRTdY
Penta vs. Nairo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rAXBTyqFJ0

Strategy:
  • Don't bucket lasers recklessly, Falco can phantasm and punish the lag with a chain grab, an usmash, and more.
  • At low percents, uthrow Falco out of a grab. We can juggle quite well. At higher percents, dsmash and go for gimps or try to techchase. Our nair is effective for a Falco that commonly techs, we can also fair a front roll.
  • Falco's jab clanks or beats all of our grounded moves.
  • We can duck under his lasers, unless he shoots them from below the platform, such as a B-Reversed ledge drop laser, which we can just shield anyways.
  • We can gimp or punish all of his recovery options, his UpB is slow and can be edgehogged easily, his sideB can just be hit by lingering hitboxes.
  • If we get a lead, ducking at the ledge can be helpful. Unless the stage is dynamic, we will force an approach. Falco is not known for having a strong approaching game, phantasm is reactable and his other moves are not fantastic for approaching.

Stages:
Assuming the stagelist from Unity 2.1
Strikes
1. Final Destination
2. Smashville
3. Pokemon Stadium 1
Runner-Up - Castle Siege


Counter Pick
1. Rainbow Cruise / Brinstar
2. Frigate Orpheon
Runner-Up - Delphino Plaza


Ban
1. Final Destination
Runner-Up - Smashville

 
Joined
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Plover, WI
In my opinion it's either -1 or Even, Considering Falco has significantly better frame data up close. 4 grabs from the CG that's guarrentied. and Bucketing falco's lazer doesn't kill till about 90-100sih i believe. If there's any stage to avoid it'd FD
 

-LzR-

Smash Hero
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This is one of my most played MUs. I consider it a -1.
On the ground Falco destroys us. We can't really do much about his jab. I would recommend just retreating a bit when he uses it and if he whiffs you should be able to Dtilt him. Another option is to run and shield it and then shieldgrab, but it's risky as he can bait it and then proceed to his amazing grabgame.
At the beginning of the match I suggest crouching near the ledge. This forces him to do the first move which might give you an early lead. Do not bucket at the beginning of the match! He can shoot a laser and phantasm to chaingrab if you do so, not worth it.
When grabbing him I would uthrow him unless you are close to the ledge or a platform, his Froll out of a tech is really long so it's hard to chase it and above you is where you can really hurt Falco.
Something I like to do is when Falco is below the stage and forced to use his upB, I run down the ledge and bair him. As I fall he won't get hit by the last hit and doesn't knock him anywhere. Then he is forced to upB again and I upB to the ledge to stagespike him and if that doesn't hit him I usually just edgehog him. Watch out for techs though. If he is above the stage try to use fair against his sideB. It lasts long so you have more room for error and the weak hitbox can gimp him. If he tries to avoid fair by using sideB above you, just uair to free anything.
His bair is really dumb, don't recover high or you'll have to deal with that things. I am pretty sure it trades with fair but most of the time he can bair before it's out.

That's all I can think of. I am not sure if I have any videos of me playing this MU, but it shouldn't matter too much. Ask me stuff if you want, I'll try to help.
 

MEOW1337KITTEH

Smash Lord
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I know that the chaingrab is very powerful. It leads into a spike and if we miss the tech, we almost always get hit after it.
Does our nair beat his dair? I seem to remember not but I haven't played Falco in a while.
And how does Falco's reflector do against us?

And yeah I would say an easier -1 for us.
 

-LzR-

Smash Hero
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His reflector is pointless. Nair can beat dair but I would use uair or upB since those are safer.
 

MEOW1337KITTEH

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One thing I enjoy doing is ducking and waiting for him to either jump off the stage and shoot a laser (free bucket charge) or phantasm towards me (free dtilt or just PS ad punish)
 

Triforce Of Chozo

Smash Ace
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Retreating bair from above is really good.
Falco's jab clanks with or beats all of our moves. Well-timed utilt goes through our dair. CG spike does ~57, and fresh upsmash kills us at ~100. I just pick MK.
 

MEOW1337KITTEH

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Our bucket will deal 25% of their health if it hits, and it can be used to break chaingrabs.

We can UpB his recovery and get very strong punishes off of it, we can also use our many lingering hitboxes to hit him if he goes to Phantasm on to the stage.

We can duck under the lasers and dtilt when they try to punish with a phantasm as well.

Dthrow>dsmash works on the missed tech is guaranteed, and puts falco in a bad place for his recovery.


Any other notes about the matchup?
 

-LzR-

Smash Hero
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Bucket won't break chaingrabs unless the Falco is bad.
Be careful when bucketing. If you are at something like less than 10% and you bucket a laser, he will phantams next to you and chaingrab you. Happens to me all the time. Falcos advantage kkbye next matchup.
 

MEOW1337KITTEH

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Well, it may be his advantage, but knowing the small parts that help is what these are about, not just who wins it.
Bucket's frame 1 invincibility can break the chaingrab if they don't do it perfectly.

What are good stages and bad stages?
Obviously RC/Brinstar are good, FD is bad.
 

-LzR-

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Bucket isn't invincible AFAIK. It's just goddamn fast. And you shouldn't rely on it, but spamming downB while being chaingrabbed is ok since there is nothing to lose.

For stages... RC/Brinstar are banned almost everywhere so I don't count them.
I like Frigate the most probably. It's a nice G&W stage imo. Another ones could be Lylat and YI.
FD is really bad, like really really bad. SV too but you can't ban both so FD should go.
 

Triforce Of Chozo

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^only while absorbing the projectile

Another thing to note is that when dthrowing even if Falco techrolls away (his best option), we can still hit him with nair. GIMR made like a whole metagame minute episode about it.
 

-LzR-

Smash Hero
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So what if he is invincible? He has 70 goddamn frames of lag. He intentionally shoots a laser at your bucket so he can get near and chaingrab us for over 50%. Not so worth it after all.
 

Damittom

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I would never bucket in this match-up unless im off stage in some extremely safe location that falco can't get to. It doesn't help to have a full bucket at all imo
 

-LzR-

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I think a full bucket is very useful, it's just that it's not safe to build up most of the time. The best I can think of is being at the ledge and Falco is shooting lasers so you can eat them. Just having the bucket is great. I think it has slightly less power than our fsmash, but it comes out in 1 frame and has a godlike hitbox that lasts forever.
 

-LzR-

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DI up will avoid DACUS and BDACUS, but Falco will be able to uair or bair you in that case which still sucks.
 

-LzR-

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Yes, the stick up and he won't usmash you. I rather eat a bair at high % than die you know.
 

SFA Smiley

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I don' understand why fair wouldn't work.

Don't sleep on that option it's really freaking good, it's one my most reliable tech chases
 

-LzR-

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Fair is good but if you miss like 1 or 2 frames it's gonna miss or gonna be powershielded and then you die. Always expect Falco to roll forward out of Dthrow as he has little reason not to. I'd just Uthrow him tbh.
 

Triforce Of Chozo

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He rolls too far. The only truly consistent option IMO is nair, but I think sliding shield grab works a lot and maybe even fair if you're frame-perfect. I'm a little rusty on my dthrow options, but if someone wants to check A2ZOMG's guide or GIMR's Metagame Minute episode we could find out really quick. I can check it later after class.
 

SFA Smiley

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I think you guys are overestimating how frame perfect you have to be for fair, I started doing it after Lee Puff and it didn't take very long to start doing it consistently, considering this game's buffer.
 

MEOW1337KITTEH

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I'll put that up there. And what are some stage strikes that are good? Im thinking Castle Seige is good for us ere, but I never liked the stage. And what about PS1, we can do well there, but we can get camped really easily as well. And yoshis is bad I'd assume, unless we can really screw with his recovery there or something like that.
 

-LzR-

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Why would GW even want to tech? He can just jump and upB and Falco can't do anything about it.
 

MEOW1337KITTEH

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What about the other two?

I would think CS is decent for the first 2 transformations, and then we can just wait out the third. First is really small, so we can keep in our good range. Second's statues interrupt his lasers and help our kill move hitboxes even more.

PS1 I've always liked, so I don't know there.
 

Damittom

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I don't think Castle is good in this matchup. Only the first transformation.

Falco can camp hard on the second transformation and refresh moves and the third transformation is basically fd.

I would go Delfino. Or Frigate depending on the ban
 
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