Im a new Marth who needs a lot of help

[KfP1995]

A friend recently got me into the competitive side and will be attending a small UK event in the next week or so and i've found marth to be my strongest char and i was wondering if anyone has any basic tips or help for me to get better? I've been practising my ken combos (which im awful at and hit 1 in 50) and my spacing for tippers but any help and tips would be massively appreciated whether its match ups, stages techs whatever it's all help!

 

[djmath]

General:
Marth is all about spacing; when attacking, retreating, baiting, or defending. When your spacing is good, you can out zone your opponent, apply shield pressure, get tippers needed for kills, and occupy vital stage space. Movement (made of dash dances, wavedashes, and pivots) is crucial to spacing. If your movement is bad or sloppy, no matter how good you are otherwise, you will be punished. When playing high level players, don't forget that they are watching and learning all of your habits and will punish their overuse. Don't fall for dumb things; don't approach if they're baiting you in. Mindgames are real.

Specific:
Marth's grab is insane. Get grabs, make sure you capitalize on them either with a regrab, follow up (up air or up tilt), or techchase read
You don't have to be crazy awesome to edgeguard, sometimes all you need to do is grab the ledge. Other good options are dtilt, fsmash, and if appropriate ledge-hop dair
Tippered downsmash is a very clutch KO; comes out faster than fsmash and kills off the top. Make sure you tipper it though because it has a lot of end lag and is very punishable
An easy solution to aggro space animals is just to counter if you know they're going to approach with an attack (more risky on fox because getting grabbed by him is brutal).
A falcon offstage should be a dead falcon
one stock is not a lead
Don't get hit

super specific:
CrimsonBlur has some really good tips in this thread, read up
http://smashboards.com/threads/technical-things.283211/#post-10954335

I'm sure other smashers have more to say

 

[ChivalRuse]

First step to playing smash period is getting comfortable moving around, using your characters moveset, and learning tech skill. Practice dash dancing until you can position yourself with absolute precision. Drill l-cancelling and fast falling until you never miss them. Practice wavedashing back and forth, out of shield, from the ledge, wavelanding on platforms. And practice jump cancelled grabs.

Once you get this stuff down, you will hit that Ken combo 49/50 times.

 

[burntfish44]

Whether anyone has referred this to you or not, Ken's marth guide:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFCQIAnYUMM
Starts at 19:25ish. I would say don't necessarily watch the whole thing and get overwhelmed by new info, and he kinda says random points as he goes but the main concepts are good.

My main tips:
-just run around and get used to movement
-everyone says learn tech stuff but imo it will hurt more than help if you rush learning tech stuff. If you're focusing more on your tech skill than what's happening in the game it'll screw you over. Work tech into your play definitely - but don't super-rush it. However, i would learn wavedashing as soon as possible, it's so nice to know - simplest application being wavedash back > fsmash
-do your best to get people to practice with over CPUs, the game is so different and CPU's make you build bad habits

 

[KfP1995]

Thanks a lot this is a lot of help! i dont get some of the tech words like whats the difference between up air and uptilt? and im getting the hang of dashdance/wavedashing and landing im just struggling with l-canceling a bit and getting my short hops right but i suppose thats just practice :') If you have any other advice it would be loads of help!

 

[AirFair]

wow! I didn't even know Ken himself made a tutorial. Thanks so much!

 

[Brave]

the diffrence between up air and up tilt is that up air is performed by being in the air and hitting up and a or just up on the c stick. up tilt is when you slightly tilt the control stick up and hit a. also a tip is practice your l cancels 1000 times more than paracticing your wavedashing. l canceling needs to be done all the time while wavdashing is used alot but is not as important as making all of your moves faster. make sure you work on your dash dance as well. practice just dashing back and forth on fd from one side of the stage to the other useing marths LARGEST dash dance.

 

[$alsa]

A friend recently got me into the competitive side and will be attending a small UK event in the next week or so and i've found marth to be my strongest char and i was wondering if anyone has any basic tips or help for me to get better? I've been practising my ken combos (which im awful at and hit 1 in 50) and my spacing for tippers but any help and tips would be massively appreciated whether its match ups, stages techs whatever it's all help!

to fight as marth just short hop, nair, chase, dair, done.
I joke, but marth's nair can KO at >%70 and his f-smash as a tipper will KO at around %50-60 on the close side of the screen.
Marth vs sheik? nah brah switch to your secondary, marth vs sheik fights are terrible for marth. Go either with a top tier or make it a ditto fight if you're good with sheik.

 

[Darth_Nova32]

I'm a new marth too, I really struggled with shorthopping until I realized that you will get it 99 times out of 100 if you press x or y without your finger already on the button. If you are tense or nervous and have your finger resting on x or y (whatever you use) before you press it, it will almost always come out as a fullhop, so try just hovering your thumb above the button until you are ready to use it. Not sure if that's useful to you at all, but it reaaally helped me when I figured that out

 

[20YY SS | Saiblade]

Definitely check out Ken's Marth guide.