How to punish Spacies Side B

[Shinigami Steve]

So my friend and I play Melee a lot together, and he mains Marth and Falco. He refuses to learn any tech skill involved with the game (Wave Dashing, L-Cancelling, Short Hopping, DI, etc.) and always spams all of the smash attacks, but whenever he is off the stage with Falco, he always Side Bs above the ledge for recovery. I main Falco as well and I can pretty much always punish his reckless smash attacks, but I can never seem to find just the right edge guard to punish the scrubby side bs consistently. The fact that he refuses to learn any tech skill or take any of my advice for how to get better already makes it impossible for me to get better, but I want to at least push him into changing things up a little bit.

 

[Sinn0h]

Falco's F tilt or up tilt should do the job.

Up tilt is probably better though. Make sure your back is facing towards him.

A short hop laser will interrupt his Side b forcing him to Up B (If he has no jump) Which you can then punish with Dair.

A short hop Nair could work too but you wouldn't get much off of it.

Needless to say, there are a ton of ways to punish a scrubby Side B.
(I recommend SHL into Dair or Up-tilt into strong Bair as those are two of the strongest options Falco has.)

Oh wait almost forgot one of my favorites, if he ever learns how to sweet spot the ledge:
Stand by the ledge and down angle F-tilt to knock him out of Side B, then punish his Up B with Dair.

Basically just knock him out of Side B, get him below the ledge of the stage forcing him to Up B, and then punish with Dair (A suicide Dair if really wanna give it to him lol)

Anyway hope this helps, go give your friend a good smacking for me.

 

[Bones0]

Watch what top players do when their opponents Phantasm and copy them. Covering Phantasm on reaction has been fleshed out a ton and is a major part of the game vs. both spacies. There's no shortage of videos where top players demonstrate how to do it. Only tip I would give off hand is that reacting to the sound of side-B's startup is much easier than reacting to the visual cue.

 

[iAmMatt]

If they're far enough off the stage, you can grab ledge forcing them to side b onto stage, then you can regular get up from ledge and dsmash.

 

[Freduardo]

If they’re not going for the ledge grab, jump over the side b and hit them with a back air on your way down.

If they’re going for the ledge, ledge hog.

 

[Thwallace]

maybe try to uptilt (with ur back facing behind), f-tilt, or you could short hop laser and try to gimp him.