Little Mac matchup!!!

[Maniak]

I noticed we do not have a matchup thread. It would be good if someone would make one. I'm not able to monitor a thread enough to make one.

My question is how are you guys handling the little mac match up? I understand staying away from his dash punches and charge up punches but the spammers are having a field day right now. They cannot be hit out if these punches. You can dash throw but if they release as you approach you get hit and it hurts. I have had to use captain falcon in this matchup.

With fox I noticed short hop nair is good versus him as well as short hop dair. The bad thing is his counter if you pressure to much. Also I shine him a lot up close so he backs the ef up. I take throws when I'm able to but if they dash punch to much you end up with your back turned so I will up tilt. It's a very tough matchup especially on FD.

What are you guys doing in this matchup? I would rather always stay fox rather than switch. Thanks.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Throw him off stage or into the air. Best place to abuse his terrible air game. If he tries to slip counter to avoid follow ups or combos just bait it out and Bair/Uair him. Know where he has super armor and where he doesn't, he is entirely based on his strong ground game. Fox is a lot more well rounded, try and use the fact you are almost just as fast and your much stronger off stage/air game to take advantage of his weaknesses.

Getting him to that point is a tad hard, but Mac's neutral game is super good. Pretty much what facing a spacie in Melee was like.

Be smart with lasers, don't use them if he can dash at all but if he is in the air or off stage go nuts.

 

[Maniak]

Yes that's the problem I'm having is getting him off stage. That dash punch spam gets annoying at times. I will focus more on throws and maybe down smash to launch left right?

 

[Maniak]

Ok this matchup is stupid. Players who don't want to play and just spam is so hard to deal with. I'm just salty right now. Spam spam spam counter spam. Charge a move and take no damage while you get hit you try to dash grab guess what more spam. Ugh sorry just venting.

 

[Conda]

Get him in the air.

He uses counter or airdodge.

Back to square one.

Every time

 

[Maniak]

I going to try to play lame next time. Dodge out of the way and try to punish whiffed moves never go in or get close unless directly after a dodge. I hate to play like this but we will see. It's getting close enough to get him to the air with out taking that huge damage he delivers. It hurts just typing about it.
I like to go in but this may end up being a play it really lame and punish match

 

[RPK]

Its like punishing from afar is Fox's biggest strength or something...Hm...Weird...

 

[Maniak]

Yes dash forward up smash is the old school go to. I just want to go in and hold forward. I just played this match again basically had to pick the platform battlefield stage to play the up down evasiveNess. Had to dash around and wait for an attack. when a punch came I had to shield then dodge forward and immediately be hitting dash the opposite direction you were facing to chase him down and punish. It worked great just so boring at tines. Run away run away evade and punish. Do not go in you will get beat flat out by spam.

 

[RPK]

Even in brawl, Fox has always had a bad approach. You gotta learn to abuse the lagless options that allow you to stay on the move and never be vulnerable in combination with his fast dash

 

[Maniak]

Thanks I'm a noob to smash. Played melee but just the noob way. Now I want to learn melee the advanced way as well as smash4. Thanks for the help. I can't wait for the c stick punishes.

 

[Conviction]

I'm going to have to disagree this time around with approaching to Fox. I want a couple of more days of playing before I completely feel that way or not though.

Little Mac? Cross-ups are killer on him and you have the movement speed to make him whiff moves and grab him. When he is not smashing you can stuff a lot of his moves with nair and dair. His grab range isn't too great so you can space nairs and bairs on his shield. This match-up (which a lot of this game is seeming to revolve around) is applying a lot of pressure without over committing and punishing laggy moves.

 

[LordMasterFox]

little mac has trouble against people who combo better-faster/better speed- and better recovery along with defence and offence. have lm come at you while you play defence. whatever his slowest attack is or moves/combos that can leave an opening. Smack him dead with ofence and overwhelaming speed. if he try's to use counter, use Fox laser at a distance. he can' t do much afterwords. when he's in the air and off stage, keep him. that should be you gurantee best win with lm and possibly any fighter.

 

[thatoneguy1]

i've just been running straight at them and shining them and as stupid as that is it has been working.

 

[DodgeDusk]

Perhaps I shouldn't comment, considering I'm at a best a mediocre player (who mains Fox, but that's besides the point), but whenever my mate uses Little Mac and I Fox, I found short hop nair/dair worked to some effect. Shielding seemed okay, though Mac tends to force you back whenever he attacks, making shield grabs really hard to pull off. And, albeit annoyingly, his nair interrupts a lot of what Fox can do, combo-wise, in which he can then counter with a jab combo or up special. As RPK said, abuse his lagless options and constantly be on the move, and try to punish whenever Mac whiffs a move

 

[thatoneguy1]

@ DodgeDusk the problem with constantly shielding against mac though is that he has a lot of mix up options after you're out of your shield. I do agree though that nairs are a good option against a lot of his tools though.

 

[DavemanCozy]

Be very careful if you use lasers to pile damage. Little Mac is very, very fast on the ground, smart Little Mac players just don't care about lasers and run after you if you do this. Use the gun conservatively.

In my experience: you can't afford to approach him with anything. His priority + armor in his moves + slip counter are really good at shutting down any rush down options Fox has. His rolls are fast and long enough to give him good options out of them too.

My trick is to pile on damage with hit-and-run strategies. I'm talking about a retreating N-air, dash back -> pivot F-tilt / jab, dashing past him -> pivot grab, etc. From a grab, D-throw is really good in center stage because it pops him in the air and let's you follow up with a F-air. And if he's at KO percent, you can even follow his trajectory and get him with an Up-smash. Up-air and B-air absolutely destroy him too. His weight and falling speed actually set him up very well for Fox to combo him.

It may be a little boring at the end of the day, but I feel like you really need to play very campy and bait Mac to win this one. You force Little Mac to play your game: don't play his game by rushing at him, he does that better and he will beat you at it. If anything, I think this matchup is slightly in Mac's favor, but I think Fox has the tools to deal with him.

 

[RPK]

My general strategy is just get the grab on him...Whats he gunna do? Even if he goes for a PERFECTLY SPACED F-tilt, you can just buffer a dash OOS and get the boost pivot grab on him. On top of that, there might even be enough time to throw out an OOS dash Upsmash for the kill. Now what do you do with the grab? D-throw. D-throw is absolutely amazing in this game because of the nerfs that have been given to airdodging making people scared to airdodge, and on top of that, you can also combo out of it with Fair and then combo into an Uair if theyre below 50%. You can also U-throw and watch Lil Mac try to make his way to the ground where his only real option is to jump away and hope that you somehow don't catch him. Even with his Slip counter, its safe to hit him if you hit him from below as the move will whiff you entirely. From there, you can continue following him to pop him back up into the air. If he's stupid enough to airdodge, then there ya go, you just go for another grab and pop him back up into the air. Its like how we approached Snake in the last game.