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Good secondary to cover bad matchups?

Cam61

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Mar 12, 2019
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So I know for the most part Fox tends to have close to 50-50 matchups with most characters however i struggle against characters that either have safe spammy moves like sonic or amazing out of shield options like yoshi. Any ideas on a great secondary to cover those matchups and others that most fox players have a hard time with?
 

DavemanCozy

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Fox arguably has advantageous matchups against both of those characters.

It's true that Yoshi has a fast n-air OoS but so does Fox. What it comes down to sometimes is baiting it out, running in and out from a shielding Yoshi for e.g.

Regarding Sonic; You mean his spindash? That move shouldn't really be spammed... I beat a lot of Sonics that go on autopilot with it using Fox. You can stop it on reaction with tilts or neutral air, you can opt to avoid it completely too and punish whatever comes after it (if he does nothing, then Sonic ends up suffering endlag). It ends up being annoying, but spamming spindash is as good of a strategy as spamming Zelda's Farore's Wind.

But if you really want another character, try someone like Chrom or Pokemon Trainer. Both characters have ranged answers (PT more specifically with Ivysaur) that are helpful against those two.
 
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Cam61

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Mar 12, 2019
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15
Thanks for the info that helps a lot! I'll have to put it to practice next time I fight a sonic or yoshi. With sonic I should have been more specific of the type of spam I'm having issues with. I have issue with this one that cancels spin dash with homing attack then runs away and repeats. Should I just throw out constant nair? Or just run from the homing attack and use lasers till he comes at me with spin dash? The sonic player is a friend of a friend so unfortunately the only way to avoid him is to avoid a friend and i don't want to do that.
 

DavemanCozy

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Homing attack has 26 frames of lag, for Fox that's plenty of time to punish after it hits shield or if it misses. If you block the homing attack with shield, you can OoS N-air or F-air at him to punish. If you get the dragdown f-air you can force a tech situation. You can also go for reverse B-air if he's at decently high percent to be put in a bad spot offstage.
 
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Leap of Faith

Smash Cadet
Joined
Jan 13, 2014
Messages
50
I think anyone who can kill and edge guard easily is a good secondary. Lucina comes to mind also roy does even though his edge game is weaker the lucina but he hits like a truck. I also like Bowser since hes pretty much the exact opposite of fox and to me is being slept on. Also Olimar covers both your problems so he is a nice secondary.
 
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DavemanCozy

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When it comes to Fox's matcups, the only true bad one almost everyone pretty much agrees on, is Pichu. After that, there's a lot more disagreement on who's bad and who's even and who's good. So Lucina would be handy to deal with the little rat; she may not win the MU but she definitely has a better MU.

I've always been a fan of just playing character that I like, not worrying about counterpicking. Secondaries come more naturally to me that way. I play Snake as well, who isn't really complementing Fox other than giving me a safer matchup against heavies like Ganon or Bowser, without worrying of dying at 55%
 
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Cam61

Smash Rookie
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Mar 12, 2019
Messages
15
I haven't really found a secondary yet. Mine also just come from trying other characters and picking who I like. This game though im having a hard time because i like Roy, Falco, and Wolf and can play them all at a similar level which is only slightly worse than my Fox. I know this will change more over time though since i finally got past the phase of picking my main.

I made a joke with my buddies on day 2 after playing fox in a day 1 tournament with them (my college buddies had a huge release day party that had tons of different tournaments) that I didn't like the feel of fox compared to 4 so I'd probably switch to roy but eventually go back to fox since I did the same in 4 but switched to Lucario and back to fox. Well turns out I did lol.

Now I just need to go through the secondary phase and I have too many characters I like lol.
 

Shacknu

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When it comes to Fox's matcups, the only true bad one almost everyone pretty much agrees on, is Pichu. After that, there's a lot more disagreement on who's bad and who's even and who's good. So Lucina would be handy to deal with the little rat; she may not win the MU but she definitely has a better MU.

I've always been a fan of just playing character that I like, not worrying about counterpicking. Secondaries come more naturally to me that way. I play Snake as well, who isn't really complementing Fox other than giving me a safer matchup against heavies like Ganon or Bowser, without worrying of dying at 55%
Why is Pichu considered a bad MU against Fox?
 

Nutty Sponge

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I'm unsure about this honestly. Fox seems like a really damn good character that could beat these two with not much effort. I just use my Co-main, Wolf in bad situations like these.
 

DavemanCozy

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Why is Pichu considered a bad MU against Fox?
I think it comes down to Pichu being very small and difficult to kill as a result, with equally dangerous kill power against Fox and reliable setups against him. A small and situational, but noneteless an advantage Pichu also has, is his ability to fire thunderjolts or other electric moves in neutral. The self damage can work in his favor and push him out of % ranges that will deny Fox true combos into his U-smash or U-air.

The matchup is totally do-able imo, I don't really think Fox has any matchups he can't win. This is just the one matchup that most Fox mains will agree to be bad though.
 
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