Marth Matchup Help

[TGAP37]

alright so I've been playing around with snake for a while but after watching prof expose rolex I wanna try and take him more seriously but one of my friends plays marth and I just cannot do anything in the matchup, can someone out there please give me some tips

 

[cisyphus]

A good Marth will wall your approaches out with his better range, but he can't do anything to you outside of that. Zone the crap out of Marth with grenades and mines; this also limits his greater movement to an extent. If he gets caught in an explosion, then you can approach relatively free. Tilted DACUS could be an option as well, but the Marth matchup is less about approaching and more about pressuring him to approach in an unsafe fashion.

You can try out gimmicks like baiting him with a charged mine (or grenade) to shield: get your timing down and you'll shield the explosion and Marth will eat it and get popped up, which is where you want him anyway. Plant another mine to limit his descent some and use Uair, tilted (for wider peaks) mortars, and wavedash grenades to keep him above you.

Grabs are great, as you can upthrow chain until around 30%—at which point you can stick, ideally with a wavebounce to avoid the punish; after that, downthrow tech chases work to rack up damage: you can tranq him during this if you missed your first stick attempt, grab -> pummel (if <10% under kill percent, otherwise the quick throw is good to throw off DI) -> upthrow -> detonate. Should kill on most stages around 85%, but I'd have to test that number as right now it's based on the data I've collected on the Mario (his upward percents tend to be similar) who dies to the combo at 75% no DI on FD.

If you start getting juggled, C4 (to uair or dair/fair spike if the situation arises) to cover your descent is a good option (you can Cypher to get sufficient space for the 30 frame execution); if Marth is at high percent or stickied, you can bait him up and probably kill off the top since Snake lives a bit longer in that way.

Never ever recover in his f-smash range, because they will never miss a chance to use it. You can go just outside it and fair/dair/bair above him, but your best bet is usually to sweetspot since the Cypher tends to block (stage)spike attempts, and it'll conveniently stun them if they're positioned incorrectly (and by that I mean naturally, near the edge) which combos into the <100% getup attack.

 

[Risky]

Great post cisyphus. Very well informed and sounds accurate to how the matchup should be played. Do you know if Marth can safely blow up a Dsmash without getting hit?

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Great post cisyphus. Very well informed and sounds accurate to how the matchup should be played. Do you know if Marth can safely blow up a Dsmash without getting hit?

Counter.

 

[Risky]

Counter.

That actually sounds pretty unsafe, as the Snake player could easily follow up on that. A way to do so without being punished? Neutral B maybe?

 

[cisyphus]

Great post cisyphus. Very well informed and sounds accurate to how the matchup should be played. Do you know if Marth can safely blow up a Dsmash without getting hit?

If there is a way, I'd honestly say that it's not worth the effort and the Marth is better off trying to force the Snake into the mine instead. Snake's job therefore is to not allow that unless he'll have invulnerability during that contact (such as through a techroll). It's best for Marth to do the same, as he also gets the return invulnerability to utilize. It's not typically worth the effort even then, though, as you tend to sacrifice something else (at best stage presence, but usually invulnerability frames or an opening for Snake to approach/stick/tranq). Down smash is tricky for Snake in general because it also limits his mobility: the Snake just banks on the opponent needing more mobility than he does.

This does remind me to test more Marth stuff though, so I'll see if there is a method for Marth to do it safely (I'd imagine a well-placed roll would be the safest option) and figure a way to appropriately punish it as well (probably just grenade or tranq or C4. I'll also figure out the kill percents.

Edit: Counter will successfully parry the mines. Other options include rolling and (wave)dash to shield. Anything with horizontal momentum and invincibility frames will work. I'd imagine Marth could even airdodge over them and safely disarm. The roll options fall prey to tranq and the shield options fall prey to C4. Counter is just a terrible option since Marth only have two frames (5 and 6) of invulnerability at the start of the move which leads into the 37 frame counterattack animation, in addition to the jump or wavedash frames needed to execute, that's at best a 52 frame investment with a tight success window. Comparably, forward roll has 15 invulnerable frames and backward roll has 19, and both last 36 frames total.

As for ko% (assuming FD and no DI):
C4: 105%
Uthrow: 154%
Uthrow to C4: 80%
Uncharged Mine: 104%
Fully Charged Mine: 71%
Utilt: 119%

And approximate (to 5%) horizontal kills (assuming near the middle of FD with no DI):
Fair (heel): 100%
Fair (thigh): 115%
bair (first frame): 130%
Fsmash (second hitbox): 145%
Fsmash (third hitbox): 115%

 

[Risky]

You should try to include popular setups as kills. 105% C4 kill I assume is a Marth standing in the middle of FD, stickied. It's rare you'll get a kill that way. When does Uthrow -> C4 kill? or Up-B -> C4 (to simulate Up-B OOS -> C4)? I guess those would be around the same actually. Stick -> Uthrow -> C4 being the most usual since it's what I do out of tranq around those percentages.

I appreciate the effort you've put into this! Thank you

 

[cisyphus]

Well thank you! I'm fascinated by Snake, and I feel as though no other character plays more comfortably for me than he does. I love that all of his KO potential is really stylish and glitzy and just feels awesome. I honestly do not have a lot of experience with him quite yet, but I'm already challenging everybody around me pretty well with him, and I think a part of that is this serious dedication to learning (what I see to be) the fundamentals of Snake.

I do have upthrow to C4 listed, as well (80%): any other KO you just use the height of a uthrow as a gauge and +/-% as needed, given the KO% on stage at FD. Inevitably, it's the C4 that kills, and since it kills upward, that kill is based on their relative proximity to the top blastzone. Uthrow will get Marth to around halfway to the blast zone, which makes sense both visually and statistically (since the throw kos at 154%). So, for example: if Marth is magnified, I'd say around 60% would be a C4 KO. That might not be exactly right, but it's relatively safe and I'd definitely go for it in a friendlies match or something and take note of it if it didn't work. As for a straight stick KO: Catch them in a whiffed attack with the detonation and you'll definitely get that 105% KO going. A lot of the guys I play regularly are fantastic mashers as well, so a lot of the time I'll tranq them, get a stick, but miss the grab followup. If they're at 110%+, I can just C4 them and not worry about the grab because it isn't necessary. If they're slightly below that, I can easily bop them with an aerial or UpB OOS or grenade or... and then get the C4 that way too. I provide these percentages less as "here's how you kill" and more "here's when this kills relative to where the opponent is." They're guidelines.

 

[FlashingFire]

Marth can easily blow up mines by running up to them and shielding, but shhhhhhhhhhh.

Also, if you grab a stickied Marth near the edge at mid-low percent, toss him offstage, detonate the C4, and Fair him back down. This is not only extremely effective and useful against basically every character, but it's soooooooo freaking satisfying.

 

[Risky]

Yeah after playing last night basically every character can just run up to them and shield, or use ledge invincibility to blow it up.