Marth v Falco matchup discussion

[MACKU]

Hey guys! I'm relatively new to the Marth community in PM. I used to play him a lot in Melee, but after coming to PM I've done a tour of characters, with a lot of time spent on Ganondorf and Squirtle. I've found my way back to Marth and I'm really excited about it.

My most frequent matchup is against my friend's Falco. He's very solid on his fundamentals — has great shield pressure and a really good short-hopped laser game. I know that, ultimately, this is a really even matchup. I would say our win/loss rate is indicative of that too, we tend to trade wins.

I'm just looking for more insight into the matchup. I'd love any tips you have but specifically i'd like to know What you guys do to cope with Falco's laser game? I feel like it trips up all the dashdancing and wavedashing that I tend to rely on.

 

[SSBM_Sora]

Power shielding is your friend my fellow Marth main. Practice it, Its helpful.

 

[lain]

I read somewhere in a melee thread about some golden advice I never thought about:

Falco's tend to approach with SHL(shorthop laser) in set increments. Consider these increments as 1 unit. If you're standing any multiple of that unit away from him, he'll be at the advantage. However, if you're say, .5 or 1.5 units away, it messes up their spacing and allows you to get a punish if they choose to try and foolishly shoot a laser while approaching (or even an in-place SHL at .5 units). You want to try and constantly re-position yourself so you're always half a unit away (or 1.5, or 2.5).

Thus you want to utilize a lot of wavedashing out of shield, walking and shielding, etc. for re-positioning. Once in that position when he tries to approach, you can do a number of things. Fair out of shield is a great counter when they're approaching at that awkward distance, nair can be too. You could also try wavedashing backwards the moment he approaches and fsmash or grab (assuming he didn't approach with a laser for this one).


Another golden tactic is using counter. Marth's counter is AMAZING against falco pressure. The .5/1.5 spacing golden rule isn't necassarily as important for this tactic. You can simply do one right after getting hit by a laser and if he decides to approach right after with a laser or aerial, it'll knock him onto the ground and set you up in a good position to tech/roll-chase him. You can also simply be shielding his lasers, and once you see him approach just jump out of shield and counter really fast. Probably the easiest and most effective.

 

[Retrolistic]

Well in opinion,

Like SoraxAyu said, powershielding lasers is an amazing thing that is almost a must.
Dash dancing is incredibly useful because Marth's dash can sometimes get below lasers (depending how good the other player is at lasering).

Neutral game:
Really, what I do is dash dance and powershield lasers while I wait for Falco to engage. And always go for the upthrow chaingrab or just upthrow in general because it leads to a lot of nice combos such as uptilt and upair. Then just do the usual things as well like forward-air Falco to death. I really think that spacing is so essential in this matchup because getting shined SUCKS. Use whatever aerials to space him out, and D-tilt is a great spacing tool that all Marth's should use.

Edge game:
In this matchup too, you need to abuse the fact that Falco has a hard time recovering. You must capitalize on that by grabbing ledge when he recovers low or D-tilting (Depending on the scenario). Or you can just grab ledge and back-air him off stage if he up-b's.
You'll get the hang of it and just remember that the edge can be Marth's friend because the neutral can favor a technical Falco (via shine's, lasers, pillar combos).
Just becareful of Side-b because that can spike you when fighting a sad Falco trying to recover.

 

[MACKU]

I really appreciate all of the extensive and in-depth feedback everyone. I'm sure this is a topic that has been discussed ad nauseam, but it's really great to get such concise, specific, and actionable advice. Can't wait to start working on all of this.

Would love to see more activity on the PM Marth boards in general. Is there a reason it feels like such a ghost town?

 

[SSBM_Sora]

I really appreciate all of the extensive and in-depth feedback everyone. I'm sure this is a topic that has been discussed ad nauseam, but it's really great to get such concise, specific, and actionable advice. Can't wait to start working on all of this.

Would love to see more activity on the PM Marth boards in general. Is there a reason it feels like such a ghost town?

Who knows. But you should check out the 3.5 top players by character thread and look for marth. You can pick up a lot of things from those videos to improve!

 

[Deleted member]

oh i missed this thread

atm a good strategy is to just avoid shine with WD back OOS after lasers and the like. falco's aerial based conversions are significantly weaker after the dair nerf but all of the best falcos are coming in from melee still so you can net a ton of margin by encouraging falcos approach as a misplay.