Is captain falcon a good choice for a solo main

[horizons889]

I recently picked up falcon and been having a lot of fun. I was wondering how strong he is in smash 4, will he always remain around top 15ish on the tier list or possibly drop even lower? I'm not sure how his match ups against corrin and bayonetta considering that just came out. I also don't see many Falcons in tournaments on twitch or many falcon players in general. I wonder if this could affect his placement

 

[Jiggswiggs]

No and don't think so you should probably pick up a top tier character or at least high tier too deal with bad matchups

 

[TheSausXL]

There's no way Captain Falcon would drop significantly on the tier list unless they hit him with some BS nerf, so don't worry about that. Captain Falcon can beat anyone else in the game if you are careful, but you also have to get lucky with reads and such. This makes him a little sporadic in fights. I solo main Falcon and I'd say I'm doing pretty well so only solo main him if you want to spend extensive time with the character to really get a good feel of the character. And not to mention it's never a dull moment for a Falcon main.

 

[horizons889]

There's no way Captain Falcon would drop significantly on the tier list unless they hit him with some BS nerf, so don't worry about that. Captain Falcon can beat anyone else in the game if you are careful, but you also have to get lucky with reads and such. This makes him a little sporadic in fights. I solo main Falcon and I'd say I'm doing pretty well so only solo main him if you want to spend extensive time with the character to really get a good feel of the character. And not to mention it's never a dull moment for a Falcon main.

So would you say Falcons viability is the same as someone like yoshi? For some reason I don't see many Falcons at tournaments, but I see plenty of yoshis and ROBs. It seems like no one is really trying to push the character to his limits. And for tier placement, I hope he'll always stay top 15

 

[teluoborg]

Falcon is very easy to be effective with at the beginning, but he gets harder and harder to play as you face stronger opponents.

As long as you can overwhelm your opponent then you'll do good, but after a time people stop airdodging into your stomps and knees, they stop getting dash grabbed and at this moment it gets harder.

IMO there is a way to play Falcon effectively at very high level but it requires a lot more efforts than what you initially put when beginning.
That level hasn't been attained yet from what I can see but it will probably be less effective than picking a safer character.

I can see Falcon dropping a bit in the tier list because of what I said, but he'll stay in the high tiers.

 

[Deleted member 269706]

The thing about Falcon is, he's easy to be good with, but he's hard to be GREAT with. Recently I've been looking into switching mains (right now I have my eyes set on Fox) because Falcon just isn't doing it for me anymore. At my locals I'm going up against high level Cloud, Mario, Ryu, Diddy, and Zero Suit mains and I'm usually able to beat a majority of them but Falcon is so hard to use against these characters because they are better than him in several aspects. No it's not impossible but it can be very difficult and as we grow as players, to keep up with Falcon is difficult. He doesn't have kill confirms, and many of his set-ups can be very risky. Falcon relies on the enemy making a mistake. Now that I'm going to bigger tourneys, I'm running into Sheiks, Pikachus, and Rosalinas and Falcon is just harder and harder to preform with against these characters at higher levels. He's my favorite character to play by far but when it comes to tourney play I don't think he's really ideal. I will definitely keep him as a secondary, but to answer your question...no, he's not solo viable. At least in my eyes. I want more than anything for someone to prove me wrong but this is how I've been feeling lately.

 

[itsSADboy]

A good falcon will never consistently beat someone of equal skill that uses a high tier. His safest moves are aerials and your spacing has to be immaculate to not just get shield grabbed when trying to approach. He has many weaknesses as a character, but I believe a player can make up for them with proper mind games and conditioning. He can punish mistakes extremely hard, but the problem is getting your opponent to make those mistakes. It takes much more mental effort to play Falcon despite his simplicity as many of his options are not safe. Also, and this is just my belief, I think the best thing you can do in bad match ups is utilize his jab/gentleman. He can easily be walled out though, so you have to play patient. Taking some percent won't hurt as you should welcome the benefits of rage.

I've played too many games with Falcon to count, but I picked up Fox for if I truly feel I can't win with Falcon.

All that being said, it depends on what you want to accomplish as a player. ESAM has a good video about this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTXPCgR62_k

 

[Clamhat]

In my experience, Falcon matchups come down to speed more than anything else. Not frame speed, but movement speed. Falcon has a few unique attributes that give him some of the best maneuverability in the game which is a huge advantage over slower moving characters. But when he doesn't have the speed advantage, the balance shifts dramatically.

I've heard it said that Falcon is the "gatekeeper" of the high tiers, and I like that analogy. Falcon matches up really well with most of the roster below him because the lower tiers mostly consist of the slower characters in the game. On the other hand, Falcon struggles against most of the roster above him because most high tier characters can keep up with his movement.

Personally, I think the matchups make CF currently unviable as a competitive solo main. Most of the top tiers are either innately too fast (Sonic, ZSS, Sheik, Fox, etc.), or innately too small (Pikachu, MK, Diddy, Ness) for Falcon to be able to utilize his biggest strengths. Although he's fast enough to get in on characters like Ryu and Mario, the other top tiers pose too much of a threat and running into them in a tournament is still a huge risk.

That said, I think Falcon's movement gives him a lot of potential that we have yet to tap into. The discovery of frame cancelling could turn Falcon's dair into a viable approach option (even without frame cancelling I still think it's an underutilized move in neutral). New movement tech (like the moves in the Bidou tech video) could give Falcon better ways of maneuvering around projectiles and swords. We might get another balance patch. Who knows.

At the end of the day, Captain Falcon is just fast. He's really, really, really fast, y'all. And I think the way Smash 4 is played makes that a bigger advantage than ever. How Falcon fares in this game comes down to how well we learn to use his speed.

 

[RyeSSB]

Falcon does not require a secondary. However, a secondary can be useful in his bad MUs, such as Pikachu and Mario. In my opinion, the best secondaries for Falcon are Sheik, Meta Knight, and Mario.

 

[Captain Farukon]

i suppose if you are into tournaments yeah you should pick a secondary at least for his most difficult match ups or main a A or S rank tier characters, C.falcon is C tier
Im such a fan of Falcon that i ve no interest playing as other characters i mean if he wasnt here i would not even play smash at all also in my country there are no tournaments, nobody cares about smash or the wii u

 

[horizons889]

Falcon does not require a secondary. However, a secondary can be useful in his bad MUs, such as Pikachu and Mario. In my opinion, the best secondaries for Falcon are Sheik, Meta Knight, and Mario.

My primarys are Ness (my MAIN), Fox, and Diddy. I recently picked up Falcon and play him on the side. I just want to know if he's still a character that can pull off success. Would you compare him to Yoshi or Luigi? Or even better? I just enjoy the character; but don't want to invest hours into Falcon if he eventually is going to be a flop on a low mid-tier level in regards to tournament representation.

 

[teluoborg]

I think that if you worry that much about tier placements the character you should invest time in is ZSS or Sheik.

Like it was said above Falcon is a character with which reaching a decent level is easy but takes a lot of time to get really good with, and with less rewards than any of your primary characters. So practice him a little, have a Falcon good enough to be played in friendlies and keep your main for tournament matches.

 

[Jenknee]

If you want to main Falcon at a low/mid level, it's absolutely doable, regardless of matchup spread aslong as you maintain a good level of practice, however, when you start playing against higher level opponents that play characters who may (arguably) be better than yours, this is where you'll find difficulty. Falcon can be incredibly predictable, and almost always has to play on offense, putting you at a disadvantage against many of the top tiers (such as RosaLuma who thrives off of walling you out) and against good players who can consistently read you. If you want to succeed on a tournament level, i'd recommend a secondary like ZSS or Diddy Kong who don't stray too far from a Falcon aggressive playstyle yet still cover a lot of his negative matchups. If you just want to do well at locals or play friendlies Falcon is definitely a good solo main though.

 

[Notramon95]

I recently picked up falcon and been having a lot of fun. I was wondering how strong he is in smash 4, will he always remain around top 15ish on the tier list or possibly drop even lower? I'm not sure how his match ups against corrin and bayonetta considering that just came out. I also don't see many Falcons in tournaments on twitch or many falcon players in general. I wonder if this could affect his placement

H'YES!!!