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Jigglypuff is the best character in the game

squible2

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Dec 6, 2013
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Everyone knows that spacies are the best characters in the game. If played perfectly, nothing can stop them. However, humans will never reach TAS levels. I think that for winning tournaments, Jigglypuff is the best character in the game.

First of all, jigglypuff is definitely a top eight character. She has good punishes, an amazing recovery, and a decent neutral game. You can gimp people at low percents, and of course hit them with rest as well. Jigglypuff's main weaknesses are her inability to deal with camping and dying off the top at low percents.

One of jigglypuffs amazing strengths is her survivability. Jigglypuff only needs one opening on a character to rest them or combo them into an edge guard. No character has a guaranteed zero to death combo on puff. Most characters need at least three neutral game openings to kill Puff. This means the jigglypuff only has to win neutral game 1 third as often as other characters to win the game with good punishes.

Jigglypuff is also easy to play. Everyone hates on jiggs for it, but you do not have to move your fingers incredibly quickly to play her well. This makes it much more difficult to make mistakes in play. All top players still make technical flubs. By playing puff, you decrease the amount that are made. Also, since you have an amazing recovery and are unlikely to be comboed to death, these technical flubs are much less punishing for puff when compared to other characters making tech flubs. The only exception to this is rest of course. The solution to that is don't miss rest.

If you get a lead with puff, staying on the ledge is incredibly powerful. Mew2king has shown ledge strength with sheik. I think the same concepts can be applied to puff, but its meta game hasn't been pushed far enough. With enough practice, being on the ledge allows the puff to have a 50% chance to kill the opponent when the opponent charges in, and a 50% chance to take 10 percent. This should make wins nearly guaranteed whenever puff has a lead.

I think Jigglypuff has a future on small stages. Her airial mobility and bair wall allows you to control your enemy from center stage on yoshis, fountain, and pokemon stadium. Although you do die earlier (except fountain), I think the amazing stage control you get on these stages makes them the best stages for jigglypuff. Almost all kill set ups on jigglypuff are avoidable too with good smash di and spacing.

Hungrybox has managed to be a top 5 player in the world using jigglypuff. However, he is nowhere near puff's full potential. You can see him make technical flubs in all his games and he avoids certain punishes that other puffs have mastered. In recent interview hbox has confirmed he no longer practices, so I don't think he will be developing any more puff strategies soon. Hbox has managed to get this far with his imperfect jigglypuff. A new jigglypuff would be able to surpass him and dominate the scene. I think puff has a very bright future.
 

cisyphus

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Are you Rayquaza? There's this dude Rayquaza in my region that literally will trade hits until he has a percent lead and then camp ledge for 7 minutes. Or he'll play until he gets a rest and then play super conservative. It's not really something that happens a lot in melee (we all swear he's a hidden boss brawl player). The problem I see is when your opponent figures your game out and just doesn't let you get the lead: like you said, puff has trouble with camping. Falco would ruin puff on Yoshi's and Pokemon with just two well-placed shines so idk about that one. Fox does fantastic against Puff when he doesn't over commit early (so lasercamping -> JC Up Smash or u-throw -> u-air). Sheik gets by with bair and needle camping. Falcon and Ganon just need raw hits (which they love going for anyway). I dunno, her good Marth and Peach matchups definitely help, but the rest aren't really in puff's favor. It's just not that simple. I think it's more that Melee is still developing to greater extents and people are realizing that spacies don't actually beat everything, but that doesn't mean Puff (or Sheik or Samus or Luigi or any other "spacie killer") is the "best". It's a limiting and poisonous mentality, if anything.
 
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MTL Kyle

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"her good Marth and Peach matchups definitely"

Since when Puff has a good match-up against Marth ?
 

cisyphus

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I mean yeah
- Laggy moves
- crouches under grab
- everything cash said

It's like the Sheik matchup but so much easier for Puff 'cause nothing Marth has is quick and strong like fair/bair/uair are. And no needles.
 

gmBottles

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Jigglypuff is not the best character in the game. Not even close. She's really good, sure, but with more tech comes more options. Fox and Falco just have so many options. With Puff you have plenty of options and different strategies to use, but not nearly as many as the spacies. I think that the spot she is at on the tier list now is where she belongs.
 

squible2

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Needle camping is not too effective on jigglypuff. It is easy to dodge her needles in the air, and if she's not platform camping you, you can duck or shield the needles. Fox laser camping is very difficult to deal with on larger stages. On smaller ones though, if the fox lasers, you can easily take stage control. Now the fox can either keep lasering and risk getting knocked of stage, or throw out a defensive aireal. Once you can start baiting these aerials, it leads to an a punish.

Also a lack of options is not necessarily bad if you have an good option for every situation. You don't need 5 good choices, only one.
 

1MachGO

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@ the people saying Puff beats Marth

The short answer is just no lol. Puff>Marth is a myth that has been perpetuated by the community; namely through commentators and Marth players generally being bad in the MU.

To elaborate a bit, Puff probably has one of the smallest "gameplan deviations" in the entire cast. What I mean by this is that the strategies you need to apply with Puff don't vary drastically from MU to MU. On the other hand, Marth has an extremely high "gameplan deviation" (especially for a character in his tier). A lot of lower and mid level Marths fail because they don't realize how many elements change from MU to MU; Fox/Falco are probably the only MUs they've actually put any practice into (at least in regards to perfecting punishes) and they'll typically get gimmicked to death when they encounter a weird MU.

In other words, Puff has a huge advantage against characters who don't know the MU because her generic **** works most of the time. Marth's generic **** (run around, space, and go for grabs) will get him killed (especially in this MU).

Here is an example of a Marth getting bopped by Hbox because he does typical Marth things: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UyPkPI5DHk

Here is an example of a Marth keeping it close with Hbox (observe the differences in Marth play): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRD4xvaREds

Hungrybox doesn't drop a game in either set (both Bo5s) but its important to note that he is a better player than the Moon and [a 2013] PPU.

Here is an example of a Puff getting bopped by PPMD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg0v2eyacoo

Its almost a role reversal of the Moon vs. Hbox (Though still not as dominant). And before you argue that its just PPMD > Soft, keep in mind that there is a comparable skill gap between the moon/2013 PPU and Hbox (in fact, Soft had probably accomplished more than both of those players at the time of CW6 due to his high Apex 2014 placing). Of course, Soft could just be bad at the MU, but for someone who placed top 8 at a 600 man tournament... its probably more likely that he just lost hard because he was facing a Marth that actually understood the MU.

And this is precisely what I am trying to illustrate here. Marth players don't know the MU; thus giving it the appearance that its good for puff. Yet when you actually look at examples of high level play, it is pretty evident that there are some pretty underutilized strategies in the MU; both defensive (PPU) and aggressive/reactive (PPMD). Factor in some of the Puff killer tech from Kadano's thread, and I think it can be definitively said that the MU is even at least. (Though I personally believe there is enough evidence to suggest its in Marth's favor)

@ squible2 squible2

Your 1-to-3 neutral game thing is a pretty spotty claim since its super MU dependent and glazes over a lot of important factors. For starters, your punish game is only as good as your ability to mobilize it. Take the Falcon/Marth MU for example: Falcon's punish game completely eclipses Marth's, but it isn't going to do **** if he can lose the neutral game at every turn. This is pretty applicable to rest set ups which are sensitive to character, %, DI, how many stocks Jiggs has vs. the opponent, etc. In other words, 1 neutral game win =/= rest. It doesn't mean 1 zero to death edge guard either.

As for Puff ledge stalling, idk too much about it but it isn't the newest concept and I'm pretty sure its beatable. Keep in mind that it isn't invincible, so certain projectiles will counter it. Namely Doc's pills, Pikachu/Pichu's jolt, IC's ice blocks, Link/Young Link's rang/bombs, and probably Peach's turnips or even Yoshi's eggs. Low hitting disjointed/invincible attacks can probably beat it, too. (For instance, Marth/Fox can wait for her to drop, WD in and try to dtilt/dsmash)
 

squible2

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It's true that ledge stalling can be beaten by downward projectiles and marth. Sheik can also shoot needles to hit the puff, and even get a gimp if the puff doesn't jump away from the stage. However, puff wins the mid tier and lower matchups anyway. Marth and sheik matchups are arguably in favor of the non puff character, but it's not more than 60 - 40. I think ledge tech is more of a way to make puff have an even game against spacies.
 

EddyBearr

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It's true that ledge stalling can be beaten by downward projectiles and marth. Sheik can also shoot needles to hit the puff, and even get a gimp if the puff doesn't jump away from the stage. However, puff wins the mid tier and lower matchups anyway. Marth and sheik matchups are arguably in favor of the non puff character, but it's not more than 60 - 40. I think ledge tech is more of a way to make puff have an even game against spacies.
Mid and low-tiers that give puff trouble:
Doc, Luigi, Young Link. Maybe Link, Yoshi, Ganon.
 

squible2

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Ganon is not bad for puff. Sure, you die in 4 hits, but if you play safe, you really have no excuse to get hit by ganondorf. He has a few waveland and fadeback tricks, but that's it. Just wall him with back air. He's also easy to edgeguard and combo into rest.

The links have a problem with killing puff. Dealing with projectiles is annoying, but manageable. They all move slowly in predictable arcs. Jiggs upair also beats link down air, getting rid of his main kill option.

I also think puff beats Doc. Doc has again basically no kill setups on puff. Puff can jump out of doc downthrow and di doc jab outward. These are Doc's main kill set ups. If you avoid getting hit by random smash attacks and fair, doc just can't kill you. Pills can be baired through and spaced so you hit the pill and doc. You can also nair through them. Edgeguarding doc is also a flowchart. Most people don't bother learning it, but you can cover all of docs options.

I'm not too sure about the luigi matchup, but I think puff should win. If you stay in the air, luigi has to jump eventually. Then he can't do anything about bair. Puff can probably only use bair and uair in this matchup realistically to avoid getting naired by luigi, but puff can do fine with this.

I'm not sure why you think Yoshi gives puff trouble, but I haven't played any high level yoshis. Care to elaborate?
 

X WaNtEd X

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what ledge options does puff have to make the space animals matchup nearly even?

Mid and low-tiers that give puff trouble:
Doc, Luigi, Young Link. Maybe Link, Yoshi, Ganon.
none of these characters give puff trouble except maybe young link.

doc and luigi aren't good for the reasons listed above.

young link is a soft counter i think. he's got the projectile camping. but it seems that controlling the top platform is the only effective form of projectile camping in his arsenal. if puff can force young link off that area, he doesn't really have that much of a leg on puff anymore. this strategy seems to counteract young link, as seen from hbox's evo performance. it'll be interesting to see what tricks armada has up his sleeve next time they fight.

the problem with link is that he's just too damn slow. he's like a worse version of young link in regards to the puff matchup.

not really sure about yoshi.

ganon does not give a puff trouble if the puff knows the matchup. in fact, i'd go as far as to say that puff is ganon's second worst matchup next to sheik if both players are playing their characters to the fullest extent. ganon's waveland tricks, incredible ledge options, and ranged hitboxes can beat puff in neutral. but it takes a lot more than four hits to kill puff. unlike every other character in the game, puff just can't be effectively edgeguarded. this is one of ganon's best tools for dealing with the other higher tiers, and it's completely nullified in this matchup. and sure, off grabs you get a guaranteed aerial off pretty much any percent. but that doesn't lead to anything except maybe a kill at high enough percents. against a space animal or sheik, a grab should mean death. so that's another valuable tool ganon can't exploit nearly as well in this matchup. and then factor in puff's insane edgeguards and punishes and it's looking like a very bad matchup for ganon. the only thing he has going for him in this matchup is a near to even neutral game. but in today's meta, that doesn't matter as much as other things.
 

Gunslinger

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Puff is the best character at lower levels of play because she's the easiest to be consistent with, but as the skill cap gets higher and higher she becomes more of a character that relies upon gimmicks (rests, gimps, ledge-camping) and not actually playing in the neutral. Consistent and patient spacies can beat a consistent and patient Puff imo. Smart players will know to get the lead on Puff and force her approach. This is not to say Puff is not viable or that a Puff player can't become the best player in the world, look at my boy Hungrybox. To play her all you really need is fundamentals, but she has weaknesses that can be exploited (like every other character in this game). Any character among the top 8 can be the best if put in the hands of the best player. The more I play and the better I get the more I realize while we can argue about who is "objectively" is the best character in the game, the fact is there's a point in high level play with the top 8 characters where everyone's matchup knowledge, tech skill, and fundamentals is to the level where it's not about how well you know the game (since they all know the matchups extraordinarily well), it's about how well you know the player.
 

cisyphus

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Needle camping is not too effective on jigglypuff. It is easy to dodge her needles in the air, and if she's not platform camping you, you can duck or shield the needles. Fox laser camping is very difficult to deal with on larger stages. On smaller ones though, if the fox lasers, you can easily take stage control. Now the fox can either keep lasering and risk getting knocked of stage, or throw out a defensive aireal. Once you can start baiting these aerials, it leads to an a punish.

Also a lack of options is not necessarily bad if you have an good option for every situation. You don't need 5 good choices, only one.
Yeah but see, (good) Sheiks will ALWAYS platform camp puffs. Even bad Sheiks like me know to do it because it turns a 3 stock loss into a 2-1 victory against players that can't deal with that. It's the best option in a lot of ways. All that said it's not in Sheik's favor. Puff is hard to KO with Sheik because the most consistent KO is up air and the best way to set that up is to grab and grabbing vs. a good puff means death. So you have to rely on poor DI off of a d-tilt or something to KO puff that way. The only other option is a rando fair/bair KO (which again requires bad DI most of the time).

Stages large enough to laser camp as fox:
Final Destination
Pokemon Stadium
Battlefield
Dreamland

Number of Bans Puff gets:
1.

Likelihood of striking to one of these stages game one:
100%

And even on Yoshi's or Fountain fox just has to space his aerials and shine you to restore neutral, and he has to do that a lot less frequently because he gets KOs so much earlier.


As for the Marth comment: I only have some isolated experience first hand in the matchup, considering my Sheik is waaaaaay better than my Marth and I'm more comfortable vs. puff for that, but I think even matchup is a fair thing to say in light of all Mach has said. The problem most definitely is that Marth mains don't spend enough time expanding their metagame. Kadano's stuff though (what like the JC up smash KO on certain DIs of down throw right?) is massive in scope most of the time because the best option is so heavily DI dependent, so I'm hesitant to say Marth wins in any sense.
 
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1MachGO

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The links have a problem with killing puff. Dealing with projectiles is annoying, but manageable. They all move slowly in predictable arcs. Jiggs upair also beats link down air, getting rid of his main kill option.
Y. Link bomb can directly combo into kills though.

I also think puff beats Doc. Doc has again basically no kill setups on puff. Puff can jump out of doc downthrow and di doc jab outward. These are Doc's main kill set ups. If you avoid getting hit by random smash attacks and fair, doc just can't kill you. Pills can be baired through and spaced so you hit the pill and doc. You can also nair through them. Edgeguarding doc is also a flowchart. Most people don't bother learning it, but you can cover all of docs options.
Immediate SH Fair takes 23 frames to hit.
Dthrow has 13 frames of lag where Doc is not actionable

So Doc needs at least 36 frames of hitstun to frame perfect fair Jiggs out of dthrow as a true combo. However, he should have a couple extra frames of leniency since momentum from double jump isn't instant and air dodge doesn't have invulnerability until frame 4. Since I am just playing with numbers here, I can't make a realistic estimate for sure, so we'll just say Doc has 3 extra frames where anything puff does won't help her.

Frames of hitstun from dthrow at 0% > 33 [0 frames of leniency]
Frames of hitstun from dthrow at 10% > 34 [1 frame of leniency]
" " 20% > 35 [2 frames of leniency]
" " 30% > 36 [3 frames of leniency]
" " 40% > 37 [4 frames of leniency]
" " 50% > 37 [4 frames of leniency]
" " 60% > 38 [5 frames of leniency]
" " 70% > 39 [6 frames of leniency]

This is all just guess-timations, so take this with a grain of salt, but I don't think dthrow > fair is out of realm of possibility for Doc. Either way, its probably more likely Doc will just land the raw fair/usmash than actually get a grab to begin with lol.

As for the MU itself, I see it as being Doc's favor in theory but it could be 50-50 in practice. They kind of just nullify each other's options; boiling it down to a non-stop spacing battle until someone messes up more (Brawl?). With that said, I feel like Doc has more options to maintain a lead (pills, mobility, platform camping) whereas Puff is harder to kill.

EDIT:
As for the Marth comment: I only have some isolated experience first hand in the matchup, considering my Sheik is waaaaaay better than my Marth and I'm more comfortable vs. puff for that, but I think even matchup is a fair thing to say in light of all Mach has said. The problem most definitely is that Marth mains don't spend enough time expanding their metagame. Kadano's stuff though (what like the JC up smash KO on certain DIs of down throw right?) is massive in scope most of the time because the best option is so heavily DI dependent, so I'm hesitant to say Marth wins in any sense.
Marth can kill Puff guaranteed at 90% on any stage from fthrow or dthrow. Marth just has to react to Puff's DI correctly (this isn't exclusive to usmash, this includes fsmash/dair/etc.)

Though this isn't the reason why I say Marth > Puff. I just don't see her having any useful ground options vs. Marth (unless you count crouch gimmicks) and it seems like any of her whiffed aerials can potential eat a pivot/grab or SH Fair (and aerial spacing is her bread and butter)

I'm waiting for the day Marths just pivot fsmash Puff whenever she jumps on reaction.
 
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EddyBearr

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Doc: Traditionally, a lot of people have called it 50-50. I think Puff has an advantage, but I don't consider it that strong an advantage. 1MachGO articulated it perfectly: It plays like (Brawl with mini-combos) with Doc having a better neutral and Puff having better punish/kills. He's hard to rest, and he has among the best rest punishes in the game (cape^4 -> F/U-Smash)

Luigi: It's hard to explain, but.. Luigi can actually combo puff and kills her quite easily. This matchup might fall-out at top levels of player, but the metagame here is underdeveloped. Luigi shouldn't be going into an air-based fight with puff, but a rising fbuair to platform / overall grounded kinda game.

Ganon: Wanted articulated this very well, I'd agree with his post.

Yoshi: Yoshi's range, power, and super-armor make huge leaps and bounds. Likewise, higher level Yoshi play is extremely mobile with large momentum swings. It just takes one DJC turnaround nair or shield-drop uair to kill a puff after a few aerials and a few eggs. The weaving nature of Puff really falls flat here because Yoshi has better aerial movement before losing double jump.

Young Link: Young Link is very mobile/fast, way more so than Jigglypuff, and can hit-confirm almost any projectile into a kill starting at like 65%. A proper Young Link thrives on being unpredictable. Likewise, u-air only beats falling down-air, which was a bad option for Young Link to begin with. He is indeed a soft-counter, but it's a very competitive matchup. As for the Armada reference, it's circle camping with the top platform being somewhat pivotal for his routine,Young Link can also circle camp going through the lower part of the stage.

Link: I'm only giving Link the benefit of the doubt here -- he's too slow to do what Young Link can do properly.. but clone status might still make it an interesting matchup. Up-air probably kills at a painful percent for Jigglypuff.


To add on to the overall thread. I think Marth and Puff are about even, and I think Sheik definitely has a disadvantage to Puff (and that she's soft-countered by Puff).
 
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Thor

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EddyBearr said:
Link: I'm only giving Link the benefit of the doubt here -- he's too slow to do what Young Link can do properly.. but clone status might still make it an interesting matchup. Up-air probably kills at a painful percent for Jigglypuff.
Uair indeed KOs at low percents.

Link can camp Puff well enough and he can kill with utilt as well (fairly reliable at about 135% on BF). I don't think Link WINS the matchup but I think a competent Link will give a competent Puff a headache, especially if the Link is patient (my games vs Puff tend to go at least 5 or 6 minutes if I'm playing well, i.e. carefully - and if the Puff is used to fast spacie games, I have the enjoyable role of infuriating a Puff player for playing slowly and not very technically [I don't have to wavedash like crazy or shine pressure or whatever], but winning).

I would definitively say that if a Link player isn't confident in the MU, they are either a spacie-slaying god, have no Puff experience, or they just aren't very competent in general - it's definitely one of his easier ones (alongside Peach and ICs), and a good Link player will probably say yes to hitting most Puff mains (though no one really wants to hit a "god").

OneMachGo said:
I find Brawl very entertaining, and games usually go about 5:30 - 6:00 if the players are good and patient (FOW and Nairo play shorter games because they are very aggressive - I would guestimate they average about 3:50 or less, and they're aggressive but still patient, and way less against non-top players of course). Games with Falco also tend to be shorter if the Falco can land the CG or gets gimped by a good opponent. Brawl also has a lot more strings and airdodge reads from people willing to push their advantage that increase the damage output and thus shorten the match. Meanwhile this is the full 8 minutes (game 3): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4an3V9zk94

I personally vastly prefer Brawl matches to this, but for one special reason (in addition to "I like Brawl and Melee matches in general") - when I watch a Brawl match, I know I'm going to enjoy watching it. When I watch this, I enjoy it, but loud mouthbreathers try to say it's boring or whatever, which is really annoying to listen to (and read if I am dumb enough to try looking at the comments section). It seems petty, but reading a comments section about the gameplay, and not the "This sucks Soft/Hbox/Puff sux go not-Puff-player" is just annoying, and seeing people walk away from a pretty good match at a local because there's a Puff on screen I just find disappointing - but that only happens at ICs-MK battles, and if the ICs player is good enough/the MK is aggressive people will actually stay around (I immensely enjoy watching Nairo and FOW fight ICs or watching 9B and ESAM work their magic, but M2K vs NAKAT is something I will pass on if I'm just watching vids online - would watch it in real life of course, but there are other Brawl and Melee matches that will be more interesting elsewhere)
 
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1MachGO

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Of course
lots of the information still applies
Did you read my post about marth vs puff earlier in this topic?

There honestly isn't any REAL evidence to suggest puff>marth, it's just here-say and Marths being bad at the mu. (Mahone actually says marth>puff is the "actual" mu and even states that marth players being bad has distorted player perceptions)
 

X WaNtEd X

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Yet when you actually look at examples of high level play, it is pretty evident that there are some pretty underutilized strategies in the MU; both defensive (PPU) and aggressive/reactive (PPMD). Factor in some of the Puff killer tech from Kadano's thread, and I think it can be definitively said that the MU is even at least. (Though I personally believe there is enough evidence to suggest its in Marth's favor)
It's a good matchup for Marth because of some underutilized strategies that you aren't listing and puff killer tech from Kadando's thread? While I'm not going to question the legitimacy of the Puff killer tech, I'd like to hear more about these "underutilized strategies".

I also feel as if it's unfair of you to claim this is a matchup in Marth's favor while only considering Marth's pros in this matchup. What about the fact Puff can kill Marth off of a single whiffed grab, dsmash, fsmash and a number of other moves? What about the fact it's incredibly easy for Puff to edgeguard Marth? Perhaps it truly is a bad matchup for Puff. But the general consensus at the moment suggests otherwise and it's more than just some unfounded myth.
 

1MachGO

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It's a good matchup for Marth because of some underutilized strategies that you aren't listing and puff killer tech from Kadando's thread? While I'm not going to question the legitimacy of the Puff killer tech, I'd like to hear more about these "underutilized strategies".

I also feel as if it's unfair of you to claim this is a matchup in Marth's favor while only considering Marth's pros in this matchup. What about the fact Puff can kill Marth off of a single whiffed grab, dsmash, fsmash and a number of other moves? What about the fact it's incredibly easy for Puff to edgeguard Marth? Perhaps it truly is a bad matchup for Puff. But the general consensus at the moment suggests otherwise and it's more than just some unfounded myth.
Watch PPU vs. Hbox/PPMD vs. Soft and then compare it to the Moon vs. Hbox. The "underutilized strategies" are pretty evident. But I'll go into detail about them since you asked.

PPU's strategy revolves around walling and creating a strong defense. He uses shield extremely liberally and wavedashes to re-position himself. This strategy is particular effective because Puff has a lot of linearity as an air based character. For starters, she doesn't have a straight up way to approach with grab (shield then becomes safe). And secondly, the distance created by Marth's wavedash/roll makes Puff's advances extremely predictable since she has to extend herself to reach Marth. PPU then puts up a wall of ready-to-use shffl'd fairs (abusing Marth's superior range) and then reacts to whatever Hbox does. If Hbox empty hopped, he went in an faired (her jump is slow and he outranges her, so what is she going to do? shield in the air?) when she lands, the distance is massive, so PPU can maybe come back in and dtilt/space fair (she doesn't have the range to punish either of these maneuvers or the ground mobility to avoid them). Meanwhile, the spaced aerials and shield will protect him from a lot of her aggression.

PPU was essentially showing that Marth can utilize a lot spacing tactics that aren't too dissimilar from Puff's. However, instead of weaving in the air and using mix ups/gimmicks, he has access to his shield and can do a lot of reactive play now that grabbing, projectiles, and attack range inferiority are either out of the picture or heavily reduced. Patience is extremely key to PPU in this MU, and he rarely (if ever) did something punishable while Jiggs was trying to do any crouching shenanigans (which is probably her best ground "option" vs. Marth; a tactic that's success is entirely dependent on opponent stupidity). Meanwhile, Marth has his own gimmicks in the MU: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRD4xvaREds#t=488

And again, keep in mind that PPU is a worse player than Hbox (particularly in 2013) yet he was up at one point in every single game and essentially lost to choking. Hbox is obviously versed in the Marth MU (as evident by his edge guards/punish game) yet he almost lost 3 games to a Marth who barely travels (again, particularly in 2013). This, to me, seemed to be definitive evidence that most Marths just suck in this MU; distorting mainstream opinion.

As for PPMD, he uses a lot of the same principles PPU uses but takes a far more aggressive approach. He abuses Marth's ground mobility to remain invasive and reacts to Puff jumping with an aerial (again, she can't block in the air, so what can she do about Marth's disjointed attacks?) Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg0v2eyacoo#t=117 . IMO, this method is far more effective and elegant (especially when your situational punish game is as good as PPMD's) but its definitely harder to perform than PPU's.

Another thing that Marth's can utilize in the MU is pivoting. Here are some pivoting related counters Marth can do to Puff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuCCmymFpMU#t=133 . I also believe that pivot>fsmash should be investigated in this MU. I wouldn't be surprised if Marth could just pivot fsmash on reaction to punish ANY aerial/jump puff does.

As for your last paragraph, me focusing on Marth's pros is entirely moot because of the context I'm bring this up is under the presupposition that Marth loses to Puff; Puff's "pros" have already been noted for.

With that said, I believe her pros in the MU are pretty limited. It basically boils down to some aspects of the punish game being in her favor (namely edge guarding and surviving edge guards but she has this advantage in like every MU) and the fact she is easier to play. Other than that, she is legit outranged and outgunned in terms of legitimate options if the Marth is playing on point. Saying that she can punish a "whiffed x" is silly since Marth shouldn't and doesn't have to throw out punishable attacks to win. Such things are entirely dependent on poor play on the Marth's part and aren't nearly as legitimate as Marth actually having concrete, on-reaction answers to Puff's BnB of jumping and spacing aerials. These punishes work NOT because Puff decision was a mistake, but because her best decision is outright counterable.

/end rant
 
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X WaNtEd X

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Watch PPU vs. Hbox/PPMD vs. Soft and then compare it to the Moon vs. Hbox. The "underutilized strategies" are pretty evident. But I'll go into detail about them since you asked.

PPU's strategy revolves around walling and creating a strong defense. He uses shield extremely liberally and wavedashes to re-position himself. This strategy is particular effective because Puff has a lot of linearity as an air based character. For starters, she doesn't have a straight up way to approach with grab (shield then becomes safe). And secondly, the distance created by Marth's wavedash/roll makes Puff's advances extremely predictable since she has to extend herself to reach Marth. PPU then puts up a wall of ready-to-use shffl'd fairs (abusing Marth's superior range) and then reacts to whatever Hbox does. If Hbox empty hopped, he went in an faired (her jump is slow and he outranges her, so what is she going to do? shield in the air?) when she lands, the distance is massive, so PPU can maybe come back in and dtilt/space fair (she doesn't have the range to punish either of these maneuvers or the ground mobility to avoid them). Meanwhile, the spaced aerials and shield will protect him from a lot of her aggression.

PPU was essentially showing that Marth can utilize a lot spacing tactics that aren't too dissimilar from Puff's. However, instead of weaving in the air and using mix ups/gimmicks, he has access to his shield and can do a lot of reactive play now that grabbing, projectiles, and attack range inferiority are either out of the picture or heavily reduced. Patience is extremely key to PPU in this MU, and he rarely (if ever) did something punishable while Jiggs was trying to do any crouching shenanigans (which is probably her best ground "option" vs. Marth; a tactic that's success is entirely dependent on opponent stupidity). Meanwhile, Marth has his own gimmicks in the MU: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRD4xvaREds#t=488

And again, keep in mind that PPU is a worse player than Hbox (particularly in 2013) yet he was up at one point in every single game and essentially lost to choking. Hbox is obviously versed in the Marth MU (as evident by his edge guards/punish game) yet he almost lost 3 games to a Marth who barely travels (again, particularly in 2013). This, to me, seemed to be definitive evidence that most Marths just suck in this MU; distorting mainstream opinion.

As for PPMD, he uses a lot of the same principles PPU uses but takes a far more aggressive approach. He abuses Marth's ground mobility to remain invasive and reacts to Puff jumping with an aerial (again, she can't block in the air, so what can she do about Marth's disjointed attacks?) Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg0v2eyacoo#t=117 . IMO, this method is far more effective and elegant (especially when your situational punish game is as good as PPMD's) but its definitely harder to perform than PPU's.

Another thing that Marth's can utilize in the MU is pivoting. Here are some pivoting related counters Marth can do to Puff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuCCmymFpMU#t=133 . I also believe that pivot>fsmash should be investigated in this MU. I wouldn't be surprised if Marth could just pivot fsmash on reaction to punish ANY aerial/jump puff does.

As for your last paragraph, me focusing on Marth's pros is entirely moot because of the context I'm bring this up is under the presupposition that Marth loses to Puff; Puff's "pros" have already been noted for.

With that said, I believe her pros in the MU are pretty limited. It basically boils down to some aspects of the punish game being in her favor (namely edge guarding and surviving edge guards but she has this advantage in like every MU) and the fact she is easier to play. Other than that, she is legit outranged and outgunned in terms of legitimate options if the Marth is playing on point. Saying that she can punish a "whiffed x" is silly since Marth shouldn't and doesn't have to throw out punishable attacks to win. Such things are entirely dependent on poor play on the Marth's part and aren't nearly as legitimate as Marth actually having concrete, on-reaction answers to Puff's BnB of jumping and spacing aerials. These punishes work NOT because Puff decision was a mistake, but because her best decision is outright counterable.

/end rant
First of all, although PPU is a definitively worse player than HBox, it looked as if HBox almost lost each game due to underestimating PPU. I saw a lot of crouching and baits that would've worked on most Marths. Using the results of this set as evidence of the true nature of this matchup is flawed because then I could go ahead and say that the Pikachu Fox matchup for example is in Pikachu's favor simply because he almost took a set off Mango at Evo 2013. I realize you're providing far more evidence for your argument, but I just don't think these results should be factored in nearly as much as you think, if that makes any sense.

Next, I believe your entire argument here boils down to one thing: Marth has the superior neutral game and can beat out all Puff's options from a neutral position. The problem is the Marth must be playing perfectly the entire game; one mishap and he dies. Just look at the PPU HBox set. PPU outplays HBox for almost the entire last stock. HBox is at 160% but still lives because Marth does not have a way to edgeguard or kill Puff effectively aside from stray hits. All HBox needed was one mistake and it was over. Perhaps in the future (20xx) when the "mistake yielder" strategy is no longer viable will we see Marths rise above Puff. But it's clear we haven't gotten there yet.

In short, I think you place far too much weight on the neutral game and not enough on the punish game. "Aspects of the punish game being her favor" and survivability are are bigger factors here than you're giving them credit for, especially when we're comparing her to a character that is known to have trouble finishing off other characters at higher percents.
 

1MachGO

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First of all, although PPU is a definitively worse player than HBox, it looked as if HBox almost lost each game due to underestimating PPU. I saw a lot of crouching and baits that would've worked on most Marths. Using the results of this set as evidence of the true nature of this matchup is flawed because then I could go ahead and say that the Pikachu Fox matchup for example is in Pikachu's favor simply because he almost took a set off Mango at Evo 2013. I realize you're providing far more evidence for your argument, but I just don't think these results should be factored in nearly as much as you think, if that makes any sense.
Hbox goes for crouch baits vs. Marth because that is basically her best ground option in the MU (despite it being a gimmick). He even utilizes it vs. M2K during their STR set (in addition to roll out and other gimmicky tools). And even if there was evidence to suggest Hbox was underestimating PPU, wouldn't he have changed up his gameplan after such a close call in game two or three?

And your Pikachu/Fox example is just a slippery slope and doesn't discredit any aspects of the Puff/Marth MU I have been pointing out. Furthermore, PPU wasn't the only example I gave. I have compared and contrasted his play with PPMD and the Moon's to reinforce much of the things I have said (which, coupled with M2K vs Hbox as STR, is more or less all of the modern top level examples of this MU lol). Again, my main argument is to show Puff>Marth is just a myth, and when looking at all of the current high level evidence, we see 2 things: 1. Marths who don't understand the MU get wrecked 2. Marths who understand the MU show that Puff is fundamentally flawed in terms of what she can actually do in neutral.

Next, I believe your entire argument here boils down to one thing: Marth has the superior neutral game and can beat out all Puff's options from a neutral position. The problem is the Marth must be playing perfectly the entire game; one mishap and he dies. Just look at the PPU HBox set. PPU outplays HBox for almost the entire last stock. HBox is at 160% but still lives because Marth does not have a way to edgeguard or kill Puff effectively aside from stray hits. All HBox needed was one mistake and it was over. Perhaps in the future (20xx) when the "mistake yielder" strategy is no longer viable will we see Marths rise above Puff. But it's clear we haven't gotten there yet.

In short, I think you place far too much weight on the neutral game and not enough on the punish game. "Aspects of the punish game being her favor" and survivability are are bigger factors here than you're giving them credit for, especially when we're comparing her to a character that is known to have trouble finishing off other characters at higher percents.
Neutral game wholly deserves the weight I am giving it. Your punishes are ultimately only as good as your ability to mobilize them and we see plenty of examples of this throughout the cast. Take DK vs. fastfallers for instance. DK can reliably zero to death them with one grab (which gives him momentum since he'll get up-b charge) but the strength of a punish isn't going to do **** for him if he is too damn slow and too susceptible to pressure to land one. Falcon/Marth is another great example. Falcon is a character who can destroy Marth in one or two openings but Marth can prevent those openings with his superior ground options and range (kind of similar to Marth/Puff, actually). This extends even further to Ice Climbers and Nana's AI limitations. Just tune into an old ban/allow wobbling thread and see how many people cite how hard it actually is for ICs to get a grab at high level.

Bringing it back to Marth/Puff, Marth does not have to play perfect (perfect holds of connotation of inhuman standards), he just has to play on point (i.e. react well, play conservatively with his options, and don't fall for gimmicks). While I am not discrediting Puff doesn't have to work as hard to win (due to the nature of her simple tech and linear combos), Marth doesn't really have to throw out anything punishable in neutral and give Puff the opportunity to work her punish game. Furthermore, Marth's own punish game can actually be rather devastating in the MU (look at some of the stuff PPMD did in his set). Getting her up to death-throw % can happen in a couple openings and utilt will kill on any stage but dreamland after that. Its really just a matter of more Marth players trying to actually understand the MU and implement the strategies PPU/PPMD have been demonstrating.
 

X WaNtEd X

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Neutral game wholly deserves the weight I am giving it. Your punishes are ultimately only as good as your ability to mobilize them and we see plenty of examples of this throughout the cast. Take DK vs. fastfallers for instance. DK can reliably zero to death them with one grab (which gives him momentum since he'll get up-b charge) but the strength of a punish isn't going to do **** for him if he is too damn slow and too susceptible to pressure to land one. Falcon/Marth is another great example. Falcon is a character who can destroy Marth in one or two openings but Marth can prevent those openings with his superior ground options and range (kind of similar to Marth/Puff, actually). This extends even further to Ice Climbers and Nana's AI limitations. Just tune into an old ban/allow wobbling thread and see how many people cite how hard it actually is for ICs to get a grab at high level.

Bringing it back to Marth/Puff, Marth does not have to play perfect (perfect holds of connotation of inhuman standards), he just has to play on point (i.e. react well, play conservatively with his options, and don't fall for gimmicks). While I am not discrediting Puff doesn't have to work as hard to win (due to the nature of her simple tech and linear combos), Marth doesn't really have to throw out anything punishable in neutral and give Puff the opportunity to work her punish game. Furthermore, Marth's own punish game can actually be rather devastating in the MU (look at some of the stuff PPMD did in his set). Getting her up to death-throw % can happen in a couple openings and utilt will kill on any stage but dreamland after that. Its really just a matter of more Marth players trying to actually understand the MU and implement the strategies PPU/PPMD have been demonstrating.
Comparing Puff getting an opening to DK or ICs getting a grab is a little unfair. While Puff is certainly outclassed by Marth in the neutral, she still has the tools to punish an opening. A single whiffed fair from Marth is all it takes. That being said, Marth is going to have to beat Puff out just about every single time in the neutral in order to win the stock. And while that's possible, I do not believe we have gotten to a point where it should be expected yet. Thus, the matchup should still be in Puff's favor as she outclasses Marth heavily in punish game and recovery.

I think our differences just comes down to a fundamental disagreement on the importance of the neutral game. While it is necessary to win in a neutral position in order to punish someone in the first place, I believe Melee has not advanced to the point where the character with the superior neutral game will always win. In other words, people still mess up (and often too). The player that can punish harder without being too disadvantaged in the neutral will usually win.
 

1MachGO

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Comparing Puff getting an opening to DK or ICs getting a grab is a little unfair. While Puff is certainly outclassed by Marth in the neutral, she still has the tools to punish an opening. A single whiffed fair from Marth is all it takes. That being said, Marth is going to have to beat Puff out just about every single time in the neutral in order to win the stock. And while that's possible, I do not believe we have gotten to a point where it should be expected yet. Thus, the matchup should still be in Puff's favor as she outclasses Marth heavily in punish game and recovery.
And I'll reiterate, the sets I have mentioned are essentially all the high level and modern examples of the MU and yet when they're compared they give little credence to Puff>Marth at high level. There is a simply a huge disparagement in knowledge between Marth's who understand and/or have practiced the MU (PPU, PPMD) and those who don't (The Moon, M2K somewhat, and the bulk of most Marth mains). This isn't some "theoretical" proposition like Yoshi is unbeatable with perfect parrying or Mario's recovery is better than Marth's because he can't be edge hogged if you option-select wall jump... this is demonstrated strategy that can obviously be replicated since its already been performed (honestly, the hardest part about PPU's strategy is just having good mental fortitude; his actual approach is pretty conservative and hard to mess up from a technical standpoint). So don't tell me that we're "not there yet". Marth's just need to care about learning the strategies for this MU.

I think our differences just comes down to a fundamental disagreement on the importance of the neutral game. While it is necessary to win in a neutral position in order to punish someone in the first place, I believe Melee has not advanced to the point where the character with the superior neutral game will always win. In other words, people still mess up (and often too). The player that can punish harder without being too disadvantaged in the neutral will usually win.
Is this really the case though? Fox, and [to a lesser extent] Falco have a relatively worse punish games vs. almost every high/top tier character... yet they are at the top of the list. I mean, these are the characters that SHOULD die when they get grabbed by Fox/Sheik/Puff/Peach/ICs/Pikachu/Falcon/Mario Bros. etc. but their bursts of safe, guaranteed damage nickel and time to the point that they get kills just as often if not more often than the aforementioned characters.

Again, your punishes are only as good as your ability to mobilize them. If we lived in a universe where Sakurai gave Falco flinchless lasers and Fox had mediocre dash speed... well... the spacies would probably be the bottom of high tier/top of mid at best; even with their shines. Their approach would be just a predictable as everyone else's and they simple wouldn't have the maneuverability to circumvent all the punishes and gimps coming their way.
 
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Massive

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This thread is funny.

Matchup comparisons are completely subjective.
We do not really have enough data to say anything other than "anecdotally, marth players tend to lose to puff players".

You can argue until 20XX actually happens, but it won't change this. Objectively judging player skill is nearly impossible. How can we ever confidently say that two players are evenly matched to make the comparison? We have almost no reliable data for all but the highest level players (and even that has a pretty low fidelity due to human factors).

Jigglypuff's ranking is very likely inflated by Mango/Hbox's performances throughout the last 5-6 years. With maybe an exception for S0ft and one or two other standouts, there is basically a sea of mid-level puff players and then Hbox, sitting by himself, miles ahead.

Linking matches of hbox vs people can only be used to judge his skill against those people, you can't deduce how the character is matched up at a high level when you only have a single modern (last few years) example.
 

1MachGO

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This thread is funny.

Matchup comparisons are completely subjective.
We do not really have enough data to say anything other than "anecdotally, marth players tend to lose to puff players".

You can argue until 20XX actually happens, but it won't change this. Objectively judging player skill is nearly impossible. How can we ever confidently say that two players are evenly matched to make the comparison? We have almost no reliable data for all but the highest level players (and even that has a pretty low fidelity due to human factors).

Jigglypuff's ranking is very likely inflated by Mango/Hbox's performances throughout the last 5-6 years. With maybe an exception for S0ft and one or two other standouts, there is basically a sea of mid-level puff players and then Hbox, sitting by himself, miles ahead.

Linking matches of hbox vs people can only be used to judge his skill against those people, you can't deduce how the character is matched up at a high level when you only have a single modern (last few years) example.
Are you talking to me?

Because all the stuff I've been linking and explaining finally got realized last weekend at Apex.

PPU finally got good enough to beat Hbox.

PPMD said in his interview that Marth definitely beats Puff and he is hoping to play the MU. I expect commentators will likely stop staying Puff is bad for Marth because of this.

If you're criticizing my examples, well, you're just plain wrong. I didn't just mention PPU vs. Hbox, I cited PPMD vs. Soft (so both of the top puff players), in addition to using Hbox vs. Moon and Hbox vs. M2K to illustrate poor Marth play in the MU.

This evidence wasn't selective; it was out of necessity. These matches basically comprise all of the top/high level Marth vs. Puff play in recent times. Saying that only having high level play isn't significant to determine a MU is moot since that is the only level of play where developed meta is being consistently demonstrated; low level players won't be using all the tools in the MU.

You might as well try and argue that we can't say Puff beats Peach because Armada vs. Hbox isn't good enough evidence.
 

flmo

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While it's true that puff takes less technical skill than the rest of the cast, reads are probably more important with her than with any other character, since you don't have to speed to consistently react to your opponent. So you basically have to be one step ahead of your opponent at all times, which is a huge limitation for puff. As for the Marth match up that is allegedly in Puff's favor (it's not btw, PPMD makes some good insights on a reddit post if you google "marth puff matchup"), as soon as Marths stop just jump cancel grabbing and realize that dash grab can get Puff, maybe their opinions on the match up will change
 
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