Guide In my opinion, puff vs shiek and puff vs marth

[T^2]

T^2 submitted a new guide:

In my opinion, puff vs shiek and puff vs marth - What puff has to do to keep the mu in her favor

Marth: you need to be cognisant of the fact that his strkngest ko option (fsmash) is going to hit you raw or off of a di/tech trap from throws. Spacing back airs and platform play is the best way to shut him down. If he does grab you, tech away from his body at higher percents and tech in and towards the ground at lower percents. If he is trying to chain grab with forward throw,arial out of it or di away from his body in the direction of fthrow.
Shiek: tilts are brutal in this matchup....

Read more about this guide...

 

[T^2]

I just found a sweet video thats about seven minutes of hbox explaining the marth matchup a while ago, I personally found It really good to see just what he capitalizes on to make the matchup look unwinnable and his thoughts.
video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7IkCDl9Fqg

 

[AKIR4]

Great stuff! Checking this out.
Marth has been the bane of my existence.

 

[Trezz]

For the Marth guide, what exactly do you mean by "platform play?" Being on a platform above Marth is one of the worst places to be for any character, but especially so for Puff who has zero priority underneath her. The only thing you'd maybe get from that position is a shield drop rest, but even that is pretty risky unless you're super consistent/confident with it.

For Sheik, it might be worth emphasizing just how good crouching/resting is in this MU. Sheik doesn't really have any great rest punish options, so in general it's safer to rest more on her compared to other characters. Also the number of things that lead into rest on her is ridiculous:

• Crouch under her grab
• CC her dash attack
• Crouch under/CC her jab
• Crouch under poorly spaced f-tilt (same spacing as crouching a jab, good Sheiks will probably not space f-tilts like this)
• Crouch under up-tilt (before the second downward sweeping hit, good Sheiks would never do this vs a horizontal opponent)
• Shield properly spaced f-tilt (not 100% sure of this one, but I think it's possible on reaction if the Puff's expecting
• Whiffed up-smash
• Shield d-smash->WD oos->rest (relatively wide timing window but still requires precision)
  
• Grab ledge->punish up-b landing lag
• Basically any random up-tilt or falling up-air

And even more situational set-ups dependent on percentages/DI/etc.

 

[T^2]

For the Marth guide, what exactly do you mean by "platform play?" Being on a platform above Marth is one of the worst places to be for any character, but especially so for Puff who has zero priority underneath her. The only thing you'd maybe get from that position is a shield drop rest, but even that is pretty risky unless you're super consistent/confident with it.

For Sheik, it might be worth emphasizing just how good crouching/resting is in this MU. Sheik doesn't really have any great rest punish options, so in general it's safer to rest more on her compared to other characters. Also the number of things that lead into rest on her is ridiculous:

• Crouch under her grab
• CC her dash attack
• Crouch under/CC her jab
• Crouch under poorly spaced f-tilt (same spacing as crouching a jab, good Sheiks will probably not space f-tilts like this)
• Crouch under up-tilt (before the second downward sweeping hit, good Sheiks would never do this vs a horizontal opponent)
• Shield properly spaced f-tilt (not 100% sure of this one, but I think it's possible on reaction if the Puff's expecting
• Whiffed up-smash
• Shield d-smash->WD oos->rest (relatively wide timing window but still requires precision)
  
• Grab ledge->punish up-b landing lag
• Basically any random up-tilt or falling up-air

And even more situational set-ups dependent on percentages/DI/etc.

For marth I'm talking about going top platform and trying to bait out an option so you can shield drop an arial to punish him with a massive combo. Using the platforms to move as puff is huge. without it, marth can just outrange and wall you out to the point of you not being able to approach. using them to reset your jumps and try to sneak in an arial when they go to attack you since its an advantageous position for them is one of the things that can turn the matchup to your favor if you do it correctly. Other than that, you need to have the 50/50 read on whether hes going for a grab or attack by either shielding the attack or crouching the grabs. I was just putting up a general guide, I'm glad to explain stuff like this in more detail when it gets asked.

 

[T^2]

For the Marth guide, what exactly do you mean by "platform play?" Being on a platform above Marth is one of the worst places to be for any character, but especially so for Puff who has zero priority underneath her. The only thing you'd maybe get from that position is a shield drop rest, but even that is pretty risky unless you're super consistent/confident with it.

For Sheik, it might be worth emphasizing just how good crouching/resting is in this MU. Sheik doesn't really have any great rest punish options, so in general it's safer to rest more on her compared to other characters. Also the number of things that lead into rest on her is ridiculous:

• Crouch under her grab
• CC her dash attack
• Crouch under/CC her jab
• Crouch under poorly spaced f-tilt (same spacing as crouching a jab, good Sheiks will probably not space f-tilts like this)
• Crouch under up-tilt (before the second downward sweeping hit, good Sheiks would never do this vs a horizontal opponent)
• Shield properly spaced f-tilt (not 100% sure of this one, but I think it's possible on reaction if the Puff's expecting
• Whiffed up-smash
• Shield d-smash->WD oos->rest (relatively wide timing window but still requires precision)
  
• Grab ledge->punish up-b landing lag
• Basically any random up-tilt or falling up-air

And even more situational set-ups dependent on percentages/DI/etc.

And the easiest rest on shiek in my opinion is definitely recovery. She has so much lag on landing if you force her to the stage and she can't up b far enough away its almost guaranteed to land, you just gotta be confident in yourself. the other ones you can mess up pretty easily without practice or you can go for it and be miss spaced like an oos setup and just miss is completely. It's still worth it though, since shiek has a really hard time punishing rest. On marth, missing is almost a guaranteed lost stock, so you need to have your setups down or don't go for rests unless you KNOW it's going to land.

 

[T^2]

Great stuff! Checking this out.
Marth has been the bane of my existence.

No problem, it's my worst matchup too lol.

 

[Trezz]

For marth I'm talking about going top platform and trying to bait out an option so you can shield drop an arial to punish him with a massive combo. Using the platforms to move as puff is huge. without it, marth can just outrange and wall you out to the point of you not being able to approach. using them to reset your jumps and try to sneak in an arial when they go to attack you since its an advantageous position for them is one of the things that can turn the matchup to your favor if you do it correctly. Other than that, you need to have the 50/50 read on whether hes going for a grab or attack by either shielding the attack or crouching the grabs. I was just putting up a general guide, I'm glad to explain stuff like this in more detail when it gets asked.

Yeah platforms are helpful for Puff to reset jumps and stuff, but I think it's still very possible for Marth to wall you out even on a platform and is more than happy to do so. Marth's best position is at center stage, so if he knows what he's doing he'll just throw rising fairs or up-tilts at you on a side platform or uair you on the top platform. If he tries to chase you down on a platform then you can usually take advantage of that, but a good Marth wouldn't really be doing that often. Your best method of approach is to bait him into throwing a laggy smash attack by sitting just outside of his range and then jumping in with an aerial/grab. You want to try to steal his stage control, your best spot against him is to be center stage and keeping him at the edge.

 

[T^2]

Yeah platforms are helpful for Puff to reset jumps and stuff, but I think it's still very possible for Marth to wall you out even on a platform and is more than happy to do so. Marth's best position is at center stage, so if he knows what he's doing he'll just throw rising fairs or up-tilts at you on a side platform or uair you on the top platform. If he tries to chase you down on a platform then you can usually take advantage of that, but a good Marth wouldn't really be doing that often. Your best method of approach is to bait him into throwing a laggy smash attack by sitting just outside of his range and then jumping in with an aerial/grab. You want to try to steal his stage control, your best spot against him is to be center stage and keeping him at the edge.

Yep, and if you can bait out an aerial you can punish that too, it's just a bit harder. Puff has a 50/50 mixup on whether marth is going to come in for the grab or whether he's going to attack. It's similar to shiek, but you can't duck as much as you can in that matchup so its not the most favorable mixup to crouch for. What I do personally is shield and let the marth get a grab or two and see how strong of a punish they get off of it. If it's a really hard punish, like 60 percent or landing a di trap fsmash, I'll respect that and start crouching if I think the grab is coming. Otherwise, just shield everything because they don't deserve the respect you give when you crouch.