How to beat a lame Peach?

[CheekPinch]

Hey everybody. I am a Marth main, and one of the biggest troubles I have is playing against my brother, who is a Peach main. He has minimal tech skill, and I would say that i have decent enough tech skill. However, his play style limits me from even doing any of this. He likes to roll a lot, pull a lot of turnips, and spam downsmash. Whenever i get caught in a downsmash, If I neutral tech it, I get hit by it the second time. If I hold shield, I seem to get poked by it. And whenever I try to go for JC-grabs, the timing on his rolls always seem to be perfect, just missing the grab by a few frames. And I am having lots of trouble trying to get in. I understand that tech skill isn't everything, but why is it so hard for me to play this matchup?

 

[Saint Shaden 009]

I'm not the greatest Marth but I'll tell you right now that trying to get overly aggressive against a turnip pulling and dsmashing Peach is almost certain death.

My belief is that you have to play a slower, more poke and bait oriented game against Peach in general and all that comes from a DASH DANCE. Your DD as Marth is too good not to use as it nets you those pokes and grabs. Specifically, grabs are generally a good goto option, but mix in dtilts and even some fade-away fairs to space and pressure from a safe distance. If he's a MacDsmasher, and you have an idea on his patterns, you can bait it out with said dash dance and get a grab in. Make sure you also stay close enough to him to make turnip pulling a danger without being in dash attack or float cancel Nair range. Your tip is as close as you wanna be so you can constantly threaten Peach to not pull a turnip for risk of a grab or fsmash or first hit of side b into uptilt.

These are just a scrambled mess of all the things I think about before I go up against a Peach, so sorry for the mess of a post lmao. Hopefully someone else can add onto this or correct any blatantly wrong statements.

 

[Twinkles]

Be patient in your dash dance, play precisely to bait the options he likes, then punish after.

Grab -> uthrow at low percents imo. You don't get direct combos, but Peach has a very difficult time getting down.
Dtilt and fair are great poke moves, just don't throw them out in positions to get dash-attacked. Personally, I prefer approaching fair to retreating fair in this MU, you can catch Peach as she's retreating with fair, otherwise it's better use of your space to just dash away from Peach if you're retreating.

If you keep missing the grab, it's because you're not being patient enough. Bait the rolls. Peach really does not have a lot of options out of shield that could possibly threaten you while you're dash-dancing, so just wait him out.

 

[Kriken]

Sounds like he's just outplaying, I'm afraid. If you're the more technical player, you should be more than well equipped to shut him down. Marth generally wins the MU and especially at a low level.

 

[A_Reverie]

Inexperienced players have a tendency to "lean" on what they think is good, and this can be seen in your own play as well as your brother's. The reason he's leaning on the strategy he uses is because it works against you. You have to pull back and examine your fundamentals to try and determine what you are doing to make this simple strategy so effective on you.

One thing I'd like to encourage, mentality wise, is to respect your opponent more. This is me being nitpicky, but it starts with not referring to his play as "lame." While you likely meant it in jest, it's very common for inexperienced players to assume that the person that has more tech skill is the better player. In your matchup against your brother, results speak pretty loudly, and it's okay to recogize that and retreat to reexamine your play.

You most likely feel frustrated because you do not truly feel that you are being "defeated." You're simply "losing," meaning you're giving up a lot of openings, getting yourself punished, and not making him work for them. I feel you may be on autopilot and your focus on executing tech skill is beating out the space in your brain for analyzing and adapting. It sounds like you have a grip on what he likes to do. All that's left now is to focus on beating those choices. Do you know he's going to roll? Meet him with a smash attack or a grab. Down smash coming? Tipper him. Fight back with your own "lame" punishes and bend him to your will. Focus less on fancy movement and more on not getting hit and not losing stocks. Incoming turnip? Swat it with F-air. Or you could catch it even. Is he pulling another? Run in and hit him/grab him.

Melee is a patient game, despite how fast it looks.

 

[CheekPinch]

Thank you so much everybody for the responses. After taking in all the information from you guys and as well as playing other peach players, I am winning almost 70-30 over my brother. I feel like fair works wonders in this matchup as well as baiting out the downsmash with DD

 

[MudkipUniverse]

Learning that Nair is a fantastic move against characters like Peach is very helpful.

 

[DeadPigeon]

Learning that Nair is a fantastic move against characters like Peach is very helpful.

How do you use nair in this matchup? I don't like it in neutral, but I find nair very useful when juggling peach and you want a strong hit to KO or get her off stage.

 

[CheekPinch]

DeadPigeon I'm no expert at this match up, but i feel as if peach is above you, or after chaining multiple fairs, nair is a good follow up from the fair chaining or just peach simply being above you. I realized that Peach has a tough time coming back on to the stage and Nair has a huge hitbox. But again, i'm no expert so maybe my advice isn't 100% true.

 

[MudkipUniverse]

I feel like marth players have a habit of saying everything is "bad" and then do it anyways. I don't think Nair is a bad move at all. Just because you'll get punished for using it sometimes doesn't mean it's bad.

and also What C CheekPinch said.

 

[YoloTango]

nair is pretty good for comboing peach, but it loses super hard to all of peach's grounded moves and is pretty easy to dd grab. I only really nair in neutral when peach is holding a turnip. There are exceptions to this of course so experiment.

also, nair is absolutely not the answer to a "lame" cc downsmash peach

 

[MudkipUniverse]

for cc down smash peach you dash dance in & out and grab them when they attempt to dsmash. It'll prob get them to stop.

also, tomahawking right outside dsmash range maybe?