How to beat my friend (2nd's best Mario in Brawl in Canada)

[MrDrBrick]

I just recently started playing pm and I'm improving a lot lately with Fox. Where I live, there are many weeklies and I'm having trouble playing my friend who is a Mario main. Whenever I approach, he throws fireballs and if I blocked them he does either forward/down smash and it works so many times! It's annoying.

When he approaches he throws fireballs and does the same thing! If i spot dodge his smash attacks he jumps Oos and attacks me. He also grabs like there is no tomorrow! How can I avoid or reduce being shield grabbed. I SHFFL shine all the time but only when I'm doing a nair>shine or drill > shine. I don't know how to follow up or send him flying after that.

I like Fox but I'm getting easily punished by Mario's cape when I use side-b or firebird. Should I be doing other recoveries like air dodge?

If anyone knows any good tips for Fox I'd appreciate it. A friend of mine gave me a good one (the spot dodge and then shine option).

Here's a list what I can do:
Dash Dance
Short Hop
L-Cancel
Short Hop>Fast Fall
Short Hop>Fast Fall>L-cancel (SHFFL)
Shine Jump Cancelling
Usmash Out of Shield
Shine Out of Shield
Wavedashing
Waveshining

I'm trying to master SHDL but my fingers aren't that fast. Someone told me the best way was to short hop with the Joystick because that's how Mew2king does it. If anyone knows a better way to do it please let me know. I want to beat this freaking Mario!

Also what should I practice more? I can send videos toshow you guys how I play and you can judge what I should improve.

 

[GeZ]

It sounds like you're just getting outplayed duder. Get better fundamentals. Fox should be just as much of a problem for Mario as Mario is for Fox, at least.

But so you can make some improvements against your buddy just remember that fireball isn't omnipowerful, like most people think it is. It's small enough to SH over most of the time, it's reflectable, if you're friend thinks they're safe spacing Fsmash's after you shield fireball, just WD OoS grab. It sounds like your friend is really just pushing buttons and expecting fireball to cover all options and do work. You just gotta play around them and grab all of his sloppy approach.

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

You can nair the fireballs
Learn to jcgrab out of shine
Work on good sheild pressure
Work on the m2k angle
Double shines
Get good at shine spikes
Learn SHDL, best to press x or y then go to B and press as fast as you can
Work on shine follow ups
Make him whiff a grab by using DD well
Watch people play the mu
Post vids of him against him

 

[-Fatality-]

Just become a better player, you don't beat genuinely good players by just memorizing matchup tricks and what have you.