Help with marth match-up please.

[Sonic The Hedgedawg]

Hey y'all... some of you might remember me from early on when the zelda board first took off. After a while I switched my main to sonic and have only recently coverted back to zelda... Anyway, I've been trying to work out decent strategies against other characters and, so far, I've managed to get my zelda to what I consider a very good condition i which she's winning 90% of the matches I play.

The problem is, I'm getting stonewalled by marths... I have a terrible win/loss record against them. I find zelda reliant on her range/priority to win normally... but marth's moves can beat her on both of these fronts and are faster... I just have a lot of trouble getting inside of him for the KO. He also has some fantastic ability once he's got zelda off the stage... the main problem with the matchup is that marth controls it... he sets the pace of the battle and my zelda's forced onto the defensive.

I'm not opposed to playing sheik as sheik is one of my secondaries, and is one with which I am normally quite compitent. Nut I have doubts that sheik would be any better in the matchup...

quite simply what I need from you guys are strategies for getting the upper hand, or at least a balanced hand here.

 

[ShengNu]

well I use both zelda and marth so I pretty much know how to avoid.. Let's see if I can put it into words uhm when I play marth its true you are on the defensive at the start but you catch him off guard and he is screwed.. You know you can multiple forward smash without delay? I do it because normally any char will rush in after they saw you just forward smash and to their surprise you hit them with the next cause theres no real delay.. I'd say your best bet is to use din's fire and get him in the air as much as you can. My zelda has only lost to 5 out of countless martha.. One of them being rank number 1 on gamebattles.com for singles.. So iono I hope I helped a little atleast..


But I feel if you really want to get good at fighting marths find a marth main and vs him a lot xD

 

[Doodx]

well i would suggest u try to be less defensive by sheilding less and attacking more. gradualy the marth will lose self confidence and start attacking less which is alot better for you and wen hes trying to recover, use dins fire at the most. if u are trying to recover from high then use dins fire to keep him away from the ledge and if ur trying to recover from low then....ur screwed. zelda's aerials scare me lol

 

[Facet]

My friend has a very good Marth and I usually go 5:5 against him, though Im hoping to improve that. Anyways, it seems Im having a better go of it than you are, so

I find zelda reliant on her range/priority to win normally... but marth's moves can beat her on both of these fronts and are faster... I just have a lot of trouble getting inside of him for the KO. He also has some fantastic ability once he's got zelda off the stage... the main problem with the matchup is that marth controls it... he sets the pace of the battle and my zelda's forced onto the defensive....

Marth has only the tiniest of advantages in both the range and speed attributes, and Im fairly certain that Zelda actually has greater priority (on average). Also, you have a projectile so you can force him to come to you, but as you noticed, most of your Marth opponents will do that anyways.

From Zelda's perspective, thats fine, as she has a really sound defensive countergame. Ground approaches are handled through a variety of means, starting with Shield or Spotdodge + *insert move here*. Against really fast characters you need a Nayru's or DSmash there, but for Marth you have time for an USmash, which is always worth it if its reasonably fresh. If you can trade Fsmash with Marth's Dash attack, thats usually worth it too. To mix it up you can come out to meet him with a Dash attack of your own, which has great priority so it will always at least trade with his, if not go through it entirely. There are even more methods to control air approaches, chief among them Running USmash and shorthopped Lightning Kicks.

I dont think many other players would recommend it, but you can also take the offensive if you elect to. I have a higher opinion of Zelda's approach than most, based mainly on the fact that her Dash attack goes through like, every non-smash in the game... and even some of the smashes too. Thus, a basic offensive strategy would be to use Dash attack until he realizes he cant easily beat it by attacking, and once he starts shielding or dodging mix in grabs and running Usmashes.

 

[Sonic The Hedgedawg]

sounds like a plan.. I was doing that some but here's the problem, it's predictable so you can't do it a lot.

The match basically went like this:
the marth approaced and stopped right ooutside my range and tried to Fsmash me. He was close enough that I couldn't din's fire without him hitting me, but far enoush away that I'd have to get through an Fsmash to hit him... if he missed, I could do some nice damage by means of dash attack since it was all I'd have time for and then I'd add some more damage in the air.

however, if he hit, and it knocked me off the stage, I was forced to recover onto the stage becauseher recovery is easily eten by lips sometimes. If I tried to not use farores wind to recover, he'd come out and fair me, I only managed to airdodge through it half the time... but when farore's wind became necessary for survival, I had to relie on using it offensively against him when I recovered or else he'd be able to Fsmash me before I recovered.... it was so frustrating that he used such few moves, but it was working so well for him.

I mean, that's not all he'd use, he'd U smash if he caught me on a platform above him, and I saw a few of his tilts, his Dsmash or aerials as the situation called for them, so he wasn't totally a n00b, but the Fsmash and Fair made up at lest 90% of his used moves... which is so frustrating.

 

[Facet]

The match basically went like this:
the marth approaced and stopped right ooutside my range and tried to Fsmash me. He was close enough that I couldn't din's fire without him hitting me, but far enoush away that I'd have to get through an Fsmash to hit him...

Well theres the problem. Thats Marth's ideal spacing, and you should be doing everything in your power to avoid it. Run, roll, jump, do whatever you need to do, but dont just let him hover at his ideal range. You need him to be either farther away so you can Dins him, or closer in so you can fight back. The former can be accomplished by simple camping techniques, and the latter can be accomplished by either block+punish or by closing the gap by advancing to meet him. As usual, mind games will determine how successful you are.

I mean, that's not all he'd use, he'd U smash if he caught me on a platform above him, and I saw a few of his tilts, his Dsmash or aerials as the situation called for them, so he wasn't totally a n00b, but the Fsmash and Fair made up at lest 90% of his used moves... which is so frustrating.

Well, I dont know what to say to that other than if you know those moves are coming, you should be able to avoid them most of the time. Those are two of Marth's best attacks and you'll have to be able to deal with them if you expect to win.

 

[Sonic The Hedgedawg]

Well theres the problem. Thats Marth's ideal spacing, and you should be doing everything in your power to avoid it. Run, roll, jump, do whatever you need to do, but dont just let him hover at his ideal range. You need him to be either farther away so you can Dins him, or closer in so you can fight back. The former can be accomplished by simple camping techniques, and the latter can be accomplished by either block+punish or by closing the gap by advancing to meet him. As usual, mind games will determine how successful you are.



Well, I dont know what to say to that other than if you know those moves are coming, you should be able to avoid them most of the time. Those are two of Marth's best attacks and you'll have to be able to deal with them if you expect to win.

the problem is that there are no marths around for me to play against... I mean... none close to me at least, so I was ill prepared when I met him. I guess practicing against one will probably be the best option

 

[IDK]

he has no projectiles. Usually he would make up for this by stopping them with an ftilt, smash, or fair, but he can't cancel your din's fire.