• Welcome to Smashboards, the world's largest Super Smash Brothers community! Over 250,000 Smash Bros. fans from around the world have come to discuss these great games in over 19 million posts!

    You are currently viewing our boards as a visitor. Click here to sign up right now and start on your path in the Smash community!

Marth Matchup thread.

Rawkobo

Smash Ace
Joined
Feb 24, 2014
Messages
565
If he's offstage, just ledgegrab. If he has to tether to recover, you can punish the tether ledge jump. If not, hop off the ledge and aerial him.
^this

recommended aerial is back-air, down-air takes precise timing to connect with to interrupt the tether itself
 

CelloLuCC

Smash Apprentice
Joined
May 13, 2015
Messages
81
Location
Florida
To add to domk, ledgehop dair on stage is good too, if you can land it. Also, unlike most characters, standing on ledge is not a good option.

I got ninjad lol
 
Last edited:

Shchoo

Smash Cadet
Joined
Aug 18, 2015
Messages
50
Location
St.John's, NL, Canada
Seen alot of talk about how DDD is a bad matchup, anyone got specific advice? I find his ftilt hard to punish as it comes out so fast and his grab range is ridiculous. Also, best ways to edgeguard?
 

Spralwers

Smash Ace
Joined
Dec 5, 2011
Messages
517
Location
MA
Seen alot of talk about how DDD is a bad matchup, anyone got specific advice? I find his ftilt hard to punish as it comes out so fast and his grab range is ridiculous. Also, best ways to edgeguard?
Decent amount of end lag on it. For soft counterplay, DD bait it and punish with things pivot fsmash, grab, dash attack, dtilt. For hard counterplay, run up and shield, making sure to shield DI forward. Then you can do things like grab or fair OoS to punish. Run up shielding with shield di forward is also good for hard counterplay vs waddle tosses.

For edge guarding, if you're not in a position where you can kill off the sides, use soft moves like jab, dtilt, and ftilt to screw up his position while lowering him, and forcing him to use his jumps. he is a semi fast faller so that will work. get him to recover from below, because then you can spike him, especially good if he has to up B in order to make it back. Work on your positioning for spike, whether it's short/full hopping above the ledge and preparing the spike if you know DDD will overshoot, dairing through the ledge to catch very slight overshoots, and grabbing ledge/ledge hop spikes to intercept sweetspotting.
 

Shchoo

Smash Cadet
Joined
Aug 18, 2015
Messages
50
Location
St.John's, NL, Canada
Decent amount of end lag on it. For soft counterplay, DD bait it and punish with things pivot fsmash, grab, dash attack, dtilt. For hard counterplay, run up and shield, making sure to shield DI forward. Then you can do things like grab or fair OoS to punish. Run up shielding with shield di forward is also good for hard counterplay vs waddle tosses.

For edge guarding, if you're not in a position where you can kill off the sides, use soft moves like jab, dtilt, and ftilt to screw up his position while lowering him, and forcing him to use his jumps. he is a semi fast faller so that will work. get him to recover from below, because then you can spike him, especially good if he has to up B in order to make it back. Work on your positioning for spike, whether it's short/full hopping above the ledge and preparing the spike if you know DDD will overshoot, dairing through the ledge to catch very slight overshoots, and grabbing ledge/ledge hop spikes to intercept sweetspotting.
Thanks! I never thought of just run up shield as a counter to ftilt, excited to try it out.
 

UMR | donmk

RIP PM
Joined
Jan 14, 2008
Messages
138
Location
Australia
Everything look straight for Marth to you guys in the Community MU chart?
It seems odd to me that Marth v Falcon is -1 while Marth v DK is 0. Personally, I think the Falcon matchup is even and DK destroys Marth.

Also, although I have little experience in the Matchup so I could be wrong, Yoshi is pretty good against Marth.

Also, spacies (at least Fox / Falco) are probably -1. What kept the match up even in Melee was the fact you always had FD in Bo5. In PM, you will never play a spacie on FD due to bans being present in Bo5.

Edit: Also, a positive MU against Tink? Either I've been playing that match up very wrong or that is very wrong. Probably the former though.
 
Last edited:

Shchoo

Smash Cadet
Joined
Aug 18, 2015
Messages
50
Location
St.John's, NL, Canada
I agree with donmk, DK should be disadvantaged in the matchup, it's actually quite difficult. I'd say Falcon probably even cause his recovery is super easy to edgeguard.
 

Player -0

Smash Hero
Joined
Jun 7, 2013
Messages
5,125
Location
Helsong's Carpeted Floor
Marth beats TLink. Lunchables did a rant somewhere on Tier List speculation. You can prob find it with pro use of the search feature.

For spacies there's also there's GHz. But if it's a 3 ban tournament lol.
 

AuraMaudeGone

Smash Ace
Joined
Oct 19, 2011
Messages
747
Location
New Jersey
It seems odd to me that Marth v Falcon is -1 while Marth v DK is 0. Personally, I think the Falcon matchup is even and DK destroys Marth.
Also, spacies (at least Fox / Falco) are probably -1. What kept the match up even in Melee was the fact you always had FD in Bo5. In PM, you will never play a spacie on FD due to bans being present in Bo5.
The DK boards feel they MU pretty even w/ Marth. I'll ask them about it.
Concerning spacies, there was a small debate in the thread about it.
 

UMR | donmk

RIP PM
Joined
Jan 14, 2008
Messages
138
Location
Australia
Oh boy, this ended up rather long. tl;dr Fox and Falco still win neutral against Marth, and stages still hurt due to bans existing in Bo5s.

One huge problem with PM regarding matchups is that different areas seem to have their own stagelist. If you look at the Smashboards ruleset, the stages are great for Marth when he stage strikes. However, my area uses a different list which removes Yoshi's and replaces it with Dream land (And they are considering moving stadium to CP for Delfino's secret). This is much nicer for fox.

The problems with the matchup stem from the fact that although the changes mean fox must kill later than in Melee, they mostly dont change the fact that he has all the tools to win neutral every time. Note also PAL Melee, where the matchup is considered even-ish, even though Fox's recovery, waveshine on Marth and Up smash were nerfed. (Admittedly though Marth did also get slightly nerfed in the PAL transition)

Saying Fox cannot laser camp is misleading. He gets much less out of it, but at high percents, he an still do it and get some damage while staying relatively safe. Marth gets most of his stuff on fox off grabs and spaced aerials. Doing this against a camping fox is hard, because he can just shine out.

Speaking of shine, yes Marth can grab through shine. No, Marth's grab does not out speed shine. Which means that to grab through shine, you need to have input the grab before they input the shine. It makes chaingrabs easier, but it doesn't affect neutral that much. Also, yes, shine spiking is not an instant kill. But if Fox shine spikes Marth below the stage and takes the ledge, you'd have to be a monumentally better player to get back. How does he take you there? Waveshines of course/

Saying jab -> fsmash is gone is stupid considering waveshine F smash still exists, and considering it comes out faster (I think) than jab, can can be done out of shield means that he still has a reliable fast move -> up smash on marth. Lets not even talk about how Up throw destroys Marth, since marth has very few options above the opponent, and shine grabbing is a thing.

Lastly, there are a lot more stages with moving platforms (Green hill, Smashville) or large platforms (Yoshis' brawl) or high platforms (Warioware, dreamland). All of these mess up chaingrabs, and make platform punishes difficult. If you take fox to battlefied, you can pretty much always punish him for landing on a platform. On any of the aforementioned stages, it is either impossible because the platform moves away, or very difficult because you can deal with the platform moving, but its a pain. Lastly, these platforms severly hinder Marth's ability to edgeguard fox as they give him more recovery options. Often, you will have to choose between edguarding High or low on Wario ware or green hill. Or how to edgeguard the downward sloped ledge of yoshi's brawl without getting hit by a firefox. The amount of stages with walls to the floor make taking the ledge more risky, as Fox can wall jump to throw off your timing.

As for Falco, the lasers mean you still must approach him unless you are very good at power shielding. The number of stages where approaching falco is non-trivial is huge thanks to his large first jump and higher platforms on legal stages. It means once again he can dictate neutral.

The beauty of FD was that if the spacie made 4 mistakes in a game, they lost. But as we have seen recently, if they don't mess up, they can destroy Marth there. That is considered the best stage in the matchup, a stage where the Marth player is allowed to maybe make 2 mistakes per stock (if you're lucky) compared to Fox's one mistake per stock (if you cg perfectly). Stadium is probably even in the matchup due to the inability to run to high platforms. Smashville and green hill would be better if the platform didn't give them an escape, but I'm willing to put them as evenish. Every other stage is in Fox's favour. This means that at best, you can play on an even-ish stage match one, and an even-ish stage on your counterpick. But on their CP, you are playing disadvantaged pretty much every time.

As for DK, I don't actually have that much experience in the MU. I'm just going off of what I've heard on these boards. The problem as I'm aware is that he out-grabs you and out ranges you unless you punish his outstretched hand during the attack, which is difficult to space for, let alone get the timing.
 

Protosauce

Smash Cadet
Joined
Sep 24, 2014
Messages
47
Location
Calgary, Alberta, Netherstorm
Does anyone know if Marth can double jab wolf out of his side-b recovery(just the same as you would vs fox/falco illusions in melee)? My roomie has started to pick up wolf, and I keep getting bodied trying to edgeguard.

Is it impossible or am I just a scrub?
 

Player -0

Smash Hero
Joined
Jun 7, 2013
Messages
5,125
Location
Helsong's Carpeted Floor
Due to the angle I think it's REALLY situational. If you mess up you typically lose and go flying. Just pop him up at low percents into combo to offstage or F-Smash him before he touches the ground. If he does an angle where he'll land on the ground then depending on percent + DI Dair -> F-Smash/Dair offstage or straight tipper F-Smash. Hard to describe all situations so use your intuition with where he is + % + what you're confident in doing.
 

Shchoo

Smash Cadet
Joined
Aug 18, 2015
Messages
50
Location
St.John's, NL, Canada
Does anyone know if Marth can double jab wolf out of his side-b recovery(just the same as you would vs fox/falco illusions in melee)? My roomie has started to pick up wolf, and I keep getting bodied trying to edgeguard.

Is it impossible or am I just a scrub?
What I like doing vs wolf is just grab ledge if they go for sweetspot, and shield their side-B and punish with fsmash, or grab when they land on stage.
 

Spralwers

Smash Ace
Joined
Dec 5, 2011
Messages
517
Location
MA
In 3.02, DK's standing grab outranged Marth's standing grab. DK got a grab nerf in 3.5, lowering it below Marth's. So as of then, Marth can grab DK out of all approaches. If +1 is 55/45, Marth should be +1 vs DK. If +1 is 60/40, then Marth should be 0. Marth overall has more effective range (similar reach but Marth's is disjointed), quicker start up, and less end lag, which combined with his faster DD and longer max distance WD simply gives him a slight advantage in neutral. DK does have just enough speed and range to bait and punish Marth, not just Marth's attacks but his movement too, which is what makes the MU so close.
 

Spralwers

Smash Ace
Joined
Dec 5, 2011
Messages
517
Location
MA
I'm gonna throw in my thoughts Meta Knight MU.

The neutral is played exactly like a Marth ditto, with a few key differences you can use to your advantage, and one key difference to MK's advantage. So if you want to prepare for neutral in this MU, but there are no good MKs around, grind out some Marth dittos with your local melee players, and study how to play that MU (I don't know if there are any good videos of the Marth-MK MU being played at a high level to study from), and get quite familiar with MK's instant dimensional cape.

The differences:

MK's grab range is tiny. As long as you don't make a huge mistake (whiff an fsmash), or are too predictable with your movement, or don't ever throw out hit/grab boxes, MK should never be getting a raw DD grab in neutral. This makes your shield more threatening for him, and his shield less threatening for you.

MK's much worse at attacking shields. You can actually pressure his shield with dtilts as long as you stay out of his shield grab/nair range! You can space fairs on his shield too without risk of punishment. But he can't pressure your shield, his attacks do too little damage compared to how fast they are to lock you down in your shield! Very easy to shield grab him if he misspaces!

MK's sword is transcendent, so if he does happen to swing his sword at the same time as you, he could win due to his sword hitting your exposed hurtbox. As long as you're moving and not being predictable, this should never happen.

MK has a weak tipper. Not that his tipper is sour, but your tipper is much stronger. Your tipper dtilt, for instance, does twice as much damage as his and knocks back at a slightly lower angle than his, thus he will lose more stage control after getting hit. You are rewarded better for tipper spacing!

MK must get in close for his conversions - mainly grab, non tipper dtilt, and potentially strong dash attack. You on the other hand can get conversions from your longer reaching grab and tippers. So in the inevitable wars of attrition that you will be carrying out, you will have the advantage!

These are actually big advantages in the match up, especially if you add them up. But MK has one great equalizer that can swing the match in his favor at any time in neutral. Instant dimensional cape. What do you need to know about this move? It comes out as quick as your fsmash, so you won't be reacting to it. It has similar knockback power as the knee and Roy's fsmash, so if you get hit, you're screwed. It has longer reach than your dtilt, so you can't outspace it by being a fundamentally better player. The only downside to the move is it has lots of cool down. If he whiffs, or if you shield it, you have all day to punish it. So what's the counter play?

It's fairly involved. So the way his down B works is that when the input is pressed, he starts to disappear. The longer he waits before he attacks, the greater his distance. If you dash dance in and out of your tipper dtilt range, you should be able to avoid the instant dimensional cape. If he disappears for longer, well keep in mind that he can appear in place, towards you, or away, with the choice of throwing out a slash or not. The safest option here if you see MK disappearing is to shield. He has roughly 30 frames of lag if he reappears without the sword, so you will get to punish him if you WD OoS as long as he doesn't teleport too far away from you. You can also hit MK when he disappears, so with proper and unpredictable down tilt spacing, not only do you wall this move out and interrupt him if he does try to attack you, he can't position himself to punish your endlag in time.

You can also pin down MK and not give him a chance to use the move in the first place. Remember how he's not good against your shield pressure?

Some advice regarding punish game:

When MK grabs you, he is going to go for dthrow. At the very low percents, it forces a tech chase. And a perfect MK can cover everything on reaction. So you have no choice but to mix up. Starting around ~20, you can DI up, which will allow you to act out of tumble before you hit the ground. You can jump here to try and reset to neutral with the threat of an aerial to possibly shut approaches down. If you're high enough to begin with you could actually throw out an aerial immediately. You can move the control stick to force yourself out of tumble so you can airdodge/waveland. Lots of mix ups, use them!

When you grab MK, uthrow for free utilt/uair chains from 0-60. Try to link these into the standard Marth aerial combos that end with a tipper fsmash or a spike to close a stock. After 60 your only real follow up out of uthrow will be uair and that'll work until ~100, maybe ~110. MK is a semi fast faller, so you'll have troubles juggling at those higher percents and will have to apply anti floaty punishes, which might be tricky because MK can fall quickly to throw you off, and he can put out big hitboxes.

MK has a horrible tech roll and because of his fall speed you can use fthrow/bthrow/dthrow to set up tech chases. Tech chase him towards the ledge to limit his options. tipper dsmash is perfect at covering missed tech/tech in place on reaction, tipper fsmash is perfect for hard reads or covering tech away on reaction, and up b is great for covering missed tech/tech in place on reaction if you're close, tech towards if you're in tipper dsmash range. Lots of room for creativity here! You can also use fthrow/bthrow/dthrow DI mix ups into tipper fsmash as a finisher too.

Watch for MK's dimensional cape, especially when he's comboing/tech chasing you. This is where mixing up your techs and DI is important. If he reads you, he will land this move, and you'll be toast.

Edgeguarding is tricky. If MK is recovering below the ledge, he can actually use reverse shuttle loop to place himself on the stage. So watch for that. If MK is recovering far above the ledge and doesn't require side B to recover, you'll have to apply the usual anti-air edge guard strategies. If he has to use side B to sweetspot or land on the stage, you have a variety of options and you should always be able to close the stock. First off the hitbox on MK's side b is tiny, look it up either on smashboards or in debug mode. You can outreach it and win/trade very easily. dtilt, fsmash, bair, counter, and even dair if you are slightly above are all options for beating his side B.

For stages, it quite possibly boils down to comfort and playstyle. Small stages allow you to pin down MK and pressure him with your tipper sooner, but he could also get in on you more easily. Big stages for dash dance camping wars of attrition. Platforms can benefit either character equally too.

It's a difficult MU, especially when you're not used to MUs where the opposing character is as fast and reaches as far as you (like Marth dittos). It's hard to tell who wins the MU, especially with MK's instant dimensional cape which can easily break and then shift the pace of the match. MK's punishes are quite easy to execute, so a few losses in neutral can easily lead to a closed stock at non top levels of play, which can make the MU seem quite uphill. Definitely lab your punishes for this MU. You'll definitely need it for the tech chasing, in which you can do absolutely disgusting things when you take advantage of his light weight and bad tech roll.

Edit: Updated for MK's access to instant dimensional cape (commonly abbreviated as IDC)
 
Last edited:

Spralwers

Smash Ace
Joined
Dec 5, 2011
Messages
517
Location
MA
I'll post more in depth thoughts later. I'll be studying this in depth because at a tournament a couple weeks ago I played one of the top players from PGH and he used Sonic, and I wasn't ready for what he was doing.

The MU is straightforward if the Sonic likes to approach you with attacks. You can grab him out of all approaches. Jabs, nairs, and fairs are good at stopping his momentum, with fair being a combo starter. He has little to no range when he's spinballing so you can use that to your advantage.

If Sonic is movement camping, that's when the MU gets tricky. He's waiting for you to swing your sword and whiff in the hopes he gets an easy opening. In this case, less swinging is more. If you swing your sword in neutral, make sure it's a move with quick endlag like jab. It's safer for you to halt his momentum and to pin him down with quick, weak, hitboxes than to try and get a hard read on his movement and punish hard with fsmash, grab, or fair. Once you've got him pinned down, you can swing at him with tipper fairs and dtilts because he has weak OoS options. The punish game vs Sonic is pretty similar to Lucas and MK, semi fast faller with a bad tech roll. So at low percents you can juggle, higher percents you'll be doing more anti-floaty esque punishes if you send him up. Take advantage of his bad tech rolls to tech chase him towards the ledge with the goal of landing some tipper in the process, whether it's up B, fsmash, ftilt, or dsmash for a kill or dtilt to set up an edgeguard.
 

noajenk

Smash Rookie
Joined
Oct 4, 2015
Messages
6
Location
North Augusta, South Carolina
NNID
noajenk
3DS FC
3308-4673-6776
i'm looking for a solid counter as marth to ivysaur and squirtle. one of my buddies at uni mains them and seems to always get the upper hand, regardless of how close the match ends up going. what are some tips i can use in my gameplay to help annihilate his hopes and dreams for all of eternity?
 

Sabre

Smash Apprentice
Writing Team
Joined
Feb 8, 2015
Messages
84
Marth should strongly have the upper hand in both of those matchups. I'm no expert on squirtle, but when it comes to ivy you just have to do a better job of spacing. Both characters will be spacing via aerials, d-tilts, and grabs, so it comes down to who can play patiently and win the neutral. When it comes to the combo game, marth absolutely destroys ivysaur, since she's the perfect weight to get a ton of juggles and combos on. Your end goal is to get her offstage, since her recovery is really weak if you grab ledge, and you can easily punish the forced ledge hop that occurs if they tether after you're on the ledge.
 

noajenk

Smash Rookie
Joined
Oct 4, 2015
Messages
6
Location
North Augusta, South Carolina
NNID
noajenk
3DS FC
3308-4673-6776
Marth should strongly have the upper hand in both of those matchups. I'm no expert on squirtle, but when it comes to ivy you just have to do a better job of spacing. Both characters will be spacing via aerials, d-tilts, and grabs, so it comes down to who can play patiently and win the neutral. When it comes to the combo game, marth absolutely destroys ivysaur, since she's the perfect weight to get a ton of juggles and combos on. Your end goal is to get her offstage, since her recovery is really weak if you grab ledge, and you can easily punish the forced ledge hop that occurs if they tether after you're on the ledge.
thanks for the advice! i'll definitely be utilizing this.
 

Spralwers

Smash Ace
Joined
Dec 5, 2011
Messages
517
Location
MA
i'm looking for a solid counter as marth to ivysaur and squirtle. one of my buddies at uni mains them and seems to always get the upper hand, regardless of how close the match ends up going. what are some tips i can use in my gameplay to help annihilate his hopes and dreams for all of eternity?
Vs Ivysaur:

Ivy will be using razor leaf a lot. It's her only way of threatening you without putting herself deep into your threat zone.

If Ivy razor leafs, you have to be mindful of both your positions. If you just want to reset to neutral, clank with jab (and jab only) asap, as weaker moves recover more quickly from clank lag (think the official term is rebound). Shielding isn't bad either, but if Ivy knows you will shield, Ivy can go in with nair or grab on your shield and it'll be safe. Powershielding is good, but is less effective the longer razor leaf is out since it'll deactive sooner when you reflect it. Fairs are great too. In place/retreating fairs can make it hard for Ivy to approach, and advancing fairs can actually threaten Ivy.

Ivy is weak OoS, so SH double fair->dtilt loops are valid shield pressure. If you do get by razor leaf Ivy will definitely want to wall you out with tilts and her bair. Shield + shield DI forward and use grab and fair as OoS options to beat anything Ivy does if she's floating in the air. If she's grounded, spacing tilts, you can still use shield. If Ivy happens to grab you, that means you were either shielding too predictably or you didn't act out of shield soon enough. CC works well too, especially against bair, you can CC the first hit and then just shield or sidestep the second hit. But if you get the chance to hit her with a spaced fair or dtilt, go for that first! Then just keep pressuring her.

Nothing for Squirtle yet, haven't problem solved that MU. Will get to it once I finish problem solving the more common MUs
 

noajenk

Smash Rookie
Joined
Oct 4, 2015
Messages
6
Location
North Augusta, South Carolina
NNID
noajenk
3DS FC
3308-4673-6776
Vs Ivysaur:

Ivy will be using razor leaf a lot. It's her only way of threatening you without putting herself deep into your threat zone.

If Ivy razor leafs, you have to be mindful of both your positions. If you just want to reset to neutral, clank with jab (and jab only) asap, as weaker moves recover more quickly from clank lag (think the official term is rebound). Shielding isn't bad either, but if Ivy knows you will shield, Ivy can go in with nair or grab on your shield and it'll be safe. Powershielding is good, but is less effective the longer razor leaf is out since it'll deactive sooner when you reflect it. Fairs are great too. In place/retreating fairs can make it hard for Ivy to approach, and advancing fairs can actually threaten Ivy.

Ivy is weak OoS, so SH double fair->dtilt loops are valid shield pressure. If you do get by razor leaf Ivy will definitely want to wall you out with tilts and her bair. Shield + shield DI forward and use grab and fair as OoS options to beat anything Ivy does if she's floating in the air. If she's grounded, spacing tilts, you can still use shield. If Ivy happens to grab you, that means you were either shielding too predictably or you didn't act out of shield soon enough. CC works well too, especially against bair, you can CC the first hit and then just shield or sidestep the second hit. But if you get the chance to hit her with a spaced fair or dtilt, go for that first! Then just keep pressuring her.

Nothing for Squirtle yet, haven't problem solved that MU. Will get to it once I finish problem solving the more common MUs
this is super in-depth, i appreciate it.
how does the nair fare against ivysaur as far as stage pressure is concerned? from my experience it seems to work okay, but i'm interested in your insight.
 

Spralwers

Smash Ace
Joined
Dec 5, 2011
Messages
517
Location
MA
how does the nair fare against ivysaur as far as stage pressure is concerned? from my experience it seems to work okay, but i'm interested in your insight.
Nair overall is more of a situational move. In terms of pressuring and controlling stage, I don't think there's ever a reason to use nair when you've got other moves like fair, dtilt, and jab. In MUs where the characters have shorter reach, you can add it to your bag of tricks (esp with auto cancel) for walling people out.
 

Sabre

Smash Apprentice
Writing Team
Joined
Feb 8, 2015
Messages
84
Nair can work since it'll clank with razor leaf, but against a bair-heavy ivysaur then you'll usually lose. You usually want to space them out because while ivy and marth have similar ranges, ivy has to commit a lot harder and so you want to force them to make a mistake.
 

Taytertot

Smash Ace
Joined
Feb 7, 2014
Messages
658
Location
Seattle, WA
Does anyone know if Marth can double jab wolf out of his side-b recovery(just the same as you would vs fox/falco illusions in melee)? My roomie has started to pick up wolf, and I keep getting bodied trying to edgeguard.

Is it impossible or am I just a scrub?
for another answer to wolf's recovery, if your roommate is using sideB on stage to mess up your edgeguards then try to bait out the sideB and once you see that theyre almost ready to use sideB onstage just wavedash back and punish. once youve beat into your roommate that hes going to get punished every time he sideBs onstage then he/she will start going for sweetspoting the ledge which is where you start ledgehogging it.
 

Taytertot

Smash Ace
Joined
Feb 7, 2014
Messages
658
Location
Seattle, WA
marth has a better neutral game then roy because his DD is faster, his WD is longer, he deals more damage at the tip of his sword where he also can put on his safest pressure (whereas roy's safest pressure is at the tip where he does the least damage) and marth's grab range is slightly longer.

tl dr abuse the neutral game.
 

UMR | donmk

RIP PM
Joined
Jan 14, 2008
Messages
138
Location
Australia
I was at a tournament last night and got absolutely destroyed by a Charizard. I just couldn't seem to find anything that worked in neutral. Anyone have any tips?
 

UMR | donmk

RIP PM
Joined
Jan 14, 2008
Messages
138
Location
Australia
Usually the answer is you're not dash dancing/playing safe hard enough.

That or you're not dash dancing correctly.

How exactly did you get bopped in neutral?
Every time I tried to approach, he'd either ftilt or dtilt (I think) me out of it. If I tried to dash dance, he'd approach methodically until I ran out of room to DD. Even when I perfectly spaced dtilts on shield, I couldn't do anything to him.

I could not figure out any move or movement that kept him out at all. Everytime I got too close and tried to get away with retreating shffl fair he read it and just ftilted. Nairs were also an issue. I tried to play as safe as I could, but I just could not find the space to do anything.

I spoke to one of my friends after the match, and he told me that I was playing maybe too passively and that even when I did something safe, because I couldn't get in I was just maintaining neutral until I made a mistake and was punished for it.

Basically my main question is, how do I make space against charizard. Side question, what stages do Zards like, because I had no idea on my counterpick.
 

DMG

Smash Legend
Joined
Feb 12, 2006
Messages
18,958
Location
Waco
Slippi.gg
DMG#931
Good Zard players are not plentiful, but I think the MU can be hard in a similar way that DK/D3 MU can be hard: heavy + good CC + better than average edgeguarding.

Jumping is bad choice vs Zard, you have to have tight DD timing and threaten to grab him. Dtilt or gain space when he tries to DD, anything else he does you try to DD and/or grab him.
 

Taytertot

Smash Ace
Joined
Feb 7, 2014
Messages
658
Location
Seattle, WA
from what ive heard zard vs marth is slightly in zard's favor due to him having longer reach and decent CC as well as having a faster top run speed. but zard's DD isnt very good because his initial dash is actual quite short. all in all marth is more mobile because of his long and fast DD and having the sixth longest wavedash. id imagine that zard would want a smaller stage to make up for his lack of overall speed but zard would be ok with semi long flat stages. though youd also want to watch out for zard's ability to cover platform options with his usmash and jab.
 

Player -0

Smash Hero
Joined
Jun 7, 2013
Messages
5,125
Location
Helsong's Carpeted Floor
Doesn't sound like Zard was doing CC/Dash Dance.

If anything, I would advise pressing less buttons. Remember that jumping towards someone is a commitment (basically get F Tilted).

Know that Zard has problems with pressure. It sounds like your friend was right, you should keep applying pressure once you get in a good spot.

It's not exactly playing more aggressive (if might help), it's pressure. For example if someone is by edge of stage and you're walling them out/pressuring and then "dash dance" then you might (without your understanding of pressure situations) give up all your pressure and back up.

If you space a D Tilt on their shield, D Tilt again or if they get pushed far away, walk forward a bit then D Tilt. Repeat until you get a jump or roll reaction (they might drop shield and CC and you get punished but I doubt at what I'm assuming your level of play is).

Cut back on dash dancing or learn to tighten it up/dash dance well. Make him respect your options then abuse that.

I'm curious, try walking around and using only F Smash. Don't use it wildly. Walk in and out of your F Smash range and predict when he's thinking of attacking you and just F Smash.
 

Spralwers

Smash Ace
Joined
Dec 5, 2011
Messages
517
Location
MA
So the fact of the matter is what Charizard lacks in mobility, he makes up for in less laggy start up and endlag.

Because of this, Zard can actually physically threaten space, as opposed to Marth who does a lot of psychological threatening.

Zard has such low endlag on his attacks that the classic approach of DDing to bait an attack and then punishing the whiff endlag isn't reliable. You want to start pressuring him with dtilt ASAP, and make great use of run up shield to stuff Zard's physical pressure. Zard isn't disjointed in neutral, so he extends his hurtbox even more than Marth does, making him worse vs shields. Use shields offensively in this MU, it is very very good.

Also jabs are very good in this MU. Remember that you have a quick, long reaching attack that is very likely to tip thanks to the way neutral gets played and is thus likely to lift up Zard from the ground, completely screwing his momentum.
 
Last edited:

UMR | donmk

RIP PM
Joined
Jan 14, 2008
Messages
138
Location
Australia
So the fact of the matter is what Charizard lacks in mobility, he makes up for in less laggy start up and endlag.

Because of this, Zard can actually physically threaten space, as opposed to Marth who does a lot of psychological threatening.

Zard has such low endlag on his attacks that the classic approach of DDing to bait an attack and then punishing the whiff endlag isn't reliable. You want to start pressuring him with dtilt ASAP, and make great use of run up shield to stuff Zard's physical pressure. Zard isn't disjointed in neutral, so he extends his hurtbox even more than Marth does, making him worse vs shields. Use shields offensively in this MU, it is very very good.

Also jabs are very good in this MU. Remember that you have a quick, long reaching attack that is very likely to tip thanks to the way neutral gets played and is thus likely to lift up Zard from the ground, completely screwing his momentum.
This helps a lot, thanks. The thought of shield stopping the dash didn't even occur to me.

As an aside, I'd there a good way to do fast dtilts in the initial dash animation? I can't pivot dtilt at all (although I am practicing) and crouching only works during the run animation. Is wavedash down possibility?
 

eideeiit

Smash Ace
Joined
May 14, 2014
Messages
592
Location
Finland, Turku
This helps a lot, thanks. The thought of shield stopping the dash didn't even occur to me.

As an aside, I'd there a good way to do fast dtilts in the initial dash animation? I can't pivot dtilt at all (although I am practicing) and crouching only works during the run animation. Is wavedash down possibility?
Pivots are a lot easier in PM, if you grind them out you can do it.
You can also enter run faster by double tapping the analog stick to the direction you want to move very quickly.(EDIT:<-incorrect, read on for more)
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom