you're a lot like me in that we play similar characters (melee roy, PM marth) and that those characters basically hardcore suck at teams in both of those games. however, you've made it pretty clear that you intend to stick to marth for teams, so i'd rather help you overcome that obstacle. you're also a much smarter player than your peers, game effort aside. you can just watch people play and tell these things after a while.
i'd like you to read or re-read my section on teams from this thread first:
http://smashboards.com/threads/drastic-improvement.311129/
the way marth is typically played, he can be very aggressive wit use of DD grab, converting with very simple generic things like upthrow, and even if you don't really have a combo with it you can just wait and let the positional advantage do the work for you. marth basically forfeits all of that in teams because DD is diminished when you have to account for 3 other players rather than 1. like i was telling dr pp at his dorm 2 weeks ago, what it means to have stage position fundamentally changes for teams because you can lose the ability to hold positional advantage once you get it as opposed to singles where you can just hold it for the entire stock until KO. since it changes, we have to redefine what stage position looks like in teams in such a way that you can still make the best use of it- position abuse is still the best strategy in teams, it's just not as powerful as it is in singles. marth's DD in teams is also diminished because DD abuse is just a weaker tactic in PM overall, most of the characters were given something to not lose to it outright. additionally, unlike melee, marth doesn't necessarily win every air exchange unchallenged, so putting your opponents above you don't always mean you "have them". thus, stage control for teams because much less about controlling the stage and much more about only controlling the immediate area around you. this forces you to play to tighter, more restricted play to minimize you giving your opponents more room to take advantage of your actions.
it gets worse from here actually. going back to that article, marth can fill the role of either the aggressor or the bait, depending on your teammate because he sucks at both roles. in your particular case from this last tournament you were with a GAW, so i personally would have kept you outside while doing a 2 vs 1 against GAW, although if you had been with a character with more weight or other built-in defensive properties like say peach, you would have been the ideal 2 vs 1 target. this is because marth's aggression in teams is basically non-existent; it's really hard for him to get in without his movement game to do it. additionally, the way PM marth is built for weaker juggles, weaker DD, less reliable grab set-ups, marth players are encouraged to use fair/dtilt a LOT to fill in for a better conversion. there's nothing particularly wrong with dtilt, but heavy fair use in teams gets you into a lot of trouble because you get into 1 of 2 situations every time:
1. you're "outside of the fray" and you're putting out moves to have some impact on the game, usually fair/dtilt/fsmash. this is bad because you can be walled out into the conservative player position, where your opponents simply block your attacks and continue to 2 vs 1 your teammate. fair spam basically does nothing here.
2. you're inside the fray but marth's moves are too slow to effectively control 2 people, putting you into the aggressor position. because as soon as you do sh fair, you can expect to be hit for it by the player you didn't swing at. this is really bad for marth in particular because his terrible combo weight and slow swings means that you're more likely to get punished more heavily than most characters.
of course, you are still expected to use teamwork yourself, and marth kinda sucks at it. by "teamwork" i mean simple combos, being able to save your teammate, putting yourself in positions to be saved when you need it, breaking up 2 vs 1s against your teammate. however, marth does have one good thing for team strats, which is the ability to attack through your opponent's shield. his longer range and lower shield stun make that a win/win for you and your teammate.
finally, marth is bad in teams because you lose his fun extensive 60% combos. that's not all bad news though, because he can still kill very early with simple 2-3 hit combos that end in dair/fsmash kills.
marth also changes in teams because you generally don't want to shield with marth/roy in singles. if you're doing it right, you end up using shield mechanics a ton, but generally you want to use movement prior to either player making a conversion rather than blocking because their shield options suck.
i want you to change how you approach teams to fit this understanding of how marth as a character plays out in teams by making the following changes to your play:
1. jump a LOT less. hardly ever if you can help it. stick to tight play that operates within your immediate surroundings so you can't over-extend into the opponents. if it helps, force yourself to walk instead of run in your matches until you get a feel for this.
2. break up 2 vs 1s on your teammate with downthrow to separate the match back into a neutral state (2 1 vs 1s basically). if the match is still in a state of 2 vs 2, you're actually the preferred character to be on the inside and to have your teammate hold back while you play out the poking game. this is fine for you because the poke game of fair/dtilt/fsmash is very low risk with marth's range.
3. tell your teammate that you need to be able to fsmash through their shield sometimes and to expect it and possibly practice it prior to the event.
4. unlike singles, shield MORE and move LESS. this is completely counter-intuitive for experienced marth/roy players but it's still the best choice. be willing to just block and wait out bad situations sometimes without necessarily having an OOS option.
5. when you do block, try to WD OOS away from bad situations more often. you're not usually looking for a conversion opportunity out of shield in teams, you generally just want to avoid getting into a clusterf
uck that makes things worse. don't take the risk, it's not worth it. just wait. basically stop doing dair oos completely. even if you have it, just don't do it. choose to not do it.
6. same goes for the edge. don't go for ledge jump aerials when your opponent is on the stage and waiting for you. just look for a way to get back onto the stage so you can reset to neutral. so like let's say from this tournament that GAW is not losing to wario (either beating him or just in neutral, just not losing) and DK is on the stage waiting for you to come up from the edge, you're free to just waste DK's time by ledge jumping over and over to refresh invincibility. or when you get up, you can like fall 2nd jump WD to the lip and stay as close to the edge as possible and not project marth into the ready and waiting opponent. marth's ledge jump is also the right height where you can probably just fall, 2nd jump to the lip, and buffer a roll dodge or a shield and try to react. just don't come up with an aerial or WD directly into the opponent basically. you're not looking for a conversion from a poor position, just reset back to neutral and play it out from there.
7. dumb down marth's combo game to simple combos. this will basically end up being a hilarious amount of things like fthrow > fsmash as fast as you can and just hope the opponent DIs bad, fair > dair kill, fair > fsmash, etc. keep your combo game to match the idea of incremental gain over time and just do simple and solid things that work that also don't expose you to risk.
8. actually try to avoid extensive juggles. this should be an easier concept for you because you're used to melee roy where the horizontal game somewhat prevents them. if you pop the opponent up high with something, you can use that as an opportunity to make yourself the wall character and 2 vs 1 the other teammate that you didn't pop up.
9. literally remove nair and dash attack from your game play. dash attack is strictly worse in teams than dtilt because of the lack of IASA nair is a non-reactive aerial that encourages you to jump in a format where jumping a lot is really bad for marth. even if you have no idea why, just don't use them. you will do strictly better.
10. don't dair unless it's a kill move, or unless you get the super rare situation where you're guaranteed to have it for whatever reason like landing lag and there's 0% chance that you'll be interrupted. even then, you should probably just go for a dair > dair kill lol. but yeah coming down on an opponents shield is bad, bad, bad. recognize that coming down from the air onto an opponent is automatically a bad position and just air dodge away or something instead.
if you've noticed, almost all of these in some way encourage you to AVOID engaging the opponent. this is because it is so very easy to get into a bad position. if you cut down on running into moves, cut down on crappy OOS options, cut down on engaging the opponent in a bad position, etc. you'll eliminate most of marth's major issues in teams.
read all of this and keep in touch with me for a while while you actively practice these things. we can get more specific once you understand why you're playing to these things. it will feel restrictive at first and you'll feel like you're not doing anything a lot of the time, but i promise that your win rate will increase a good amount from the changes.
