Marth vs Samus?

[Wo1f]

A lot of people seem to not play Samus that much anymore. Sometimes, I wonder why. She seems like a fantastic character. Excellent wavedash, recovery, good combos, very floaty and hard to combo, missles, charge shot, fast, hard to edgeguard against, decent spike, etc.

My friend sometimes decides to troll me as Samus and I end up doing better against his mains then against his Samus. Partially because I have no idea how to play the match up, but also partly because she seems so hard to combo.

It seems as though everytime I try to combo her, samus easily gets away because of her floatyness(?). Any tips? I know marths sword is fantastic against her missles, but sometimes it feels like I'm fighting falco on steroids because so many are coming for me, its hard to counter against all of them.

Opinions welcome

 

[Pi]

marth gets **** on by samus
can't combo her
can't kill her
constantly underestimates her speed and range

she is the anti-marth

the manly woman to defeat the girly man

 

[Roboturner]

I've never played a good Samus but I can say that she is just a ***** in general to fight with Marth.

 

[Archangel]

Samus vs Marth is a good change of pace. You both have to think during the set.

 

[OverLord]

lol Marth ***** Samus hard.

Swing your sword and you win.

 

[stelzig]

^Didn't work for you against eagle, did it?

The samus I play against doesn't really use missiles much so I can't really comment on that... Last time we played I learned that aiming for her bombs rather than her when she's recovering works alot better though.

 

[KirbyKaze]

Samus is pretty good on the ground. Her ground repertoire is very diverse and she has a lot of good moves that cover effective approach zones. Her mediocre combo game is usually compensated by her passive resistance to them. Toss in an extremely slanted shield game (it's beastly vs low range characters, and characters that land immediately after attacking) and her beastly WD back and you have what looks like a good character.

Then someone picks Sheik. And all of that is basically nullified. Down throw to aerial.

**

^ why not many people play Samus




M2K (and most other successful Marths in the MU) just does aerials and down tilt really well (when Samus is grounded) and it seems to work against every Samus very effectively. He periodically grabs them if they block a lot. But not too much, because WD back OOS is good and it means he's not as spaced or safe as if he were doing sword stuff. When they're airbrone the move selection explodes to pretty much everything and the moon.

I think the hardest part of the MU is just coming to terms with the fact that Samus will not die until 150%+ unless you somehow spike her or whatever. In general you can't toss out any sort of kill move to get rid of her or else she can down smash you or do similar annoying moves (if she's grounded; if she's airborne it's a lot better).

She kind of challenges you to be creative to deal with her options coming down, but it's possible to get a lot of damage on her when she's trying to escape the **** of being above Marth.

I don't think missiles really do much, they never really seem to do much to Marth (well, to the Marths winning that MU, anyway). If you stay on her and don't let her do much aside from trying to force trades, blocking, and moving back (by trades I also mean trying to get crouch cancel --> thing [which shouldn't work on a lot of stuff people claim it does, btw, given how fast you can L-cancel > block with a lot of aerials on a lot of her immediate CC choices but that's neither here nor there]), you keep her from doing anything explicitly annoying with beams and her tricky movement and other stuff. I think it's kind of like playing aggressive as Fox vs Peach in that it can be kind of good to stay on her because you don't let her setup her float camp spacing, only Marth also doesn't die in one hit and has more priority and range than Samus as a bonus (and is generally better at keeping floaties above him via sword).

 

[Mahie]

Just make sure you don't shield the missiles if she uses them. It gives her free approaches/shieldpokes, so try to break them or powershield them if she doesn't do them at the correct height.

Be extremely patient and don't be frustrated if she's alive at 130% and more.

You need to try and keep her in the air where her options are limited, kind of like Peach. Also, like Peach again, pay close attention to your spacing , her CC options are really amazing.

 

[KirbyKaze]

CC options are overrated vs Marth.

 

[Mahie]

If he spaces really well, yes, but if he messes up a bit you can definitely crouch his aerials if he tries to approach with a fair.

 

[KirbyKaze]

Some of it doesn't depend on spacing. Samus isn't a good character; she doesn't have a ridiculous **** answer to moving back with rising Fair if you're kind of close to her. Not enough aerial mobility to block or eat the Fair and rush you like Puff, and she doesn't have the ground speed to dash dance around it like Falcon.

I'm pretty sure he can late Fair --> block on a lot of her CC options too.

I think Marth has a lot of ways to space stuff on Samus because her mobility (especially her aerial mobility) isn't as good as other characters' (namely top tiers and Falcon) that make these sorts of plays kind of risky. Her combo game is also pretty crap on Marth so it's not like there's a huge risk involved even if she does make it through.

I don't usually think Marth should be approaching directly from the air in this one (when Samus is grounded). That is, I don't think he should be moving forward quickly in the air. I think against a grounded Samus, the way Sheik spaces her aerials is ideal. You use your ground speed to position yourself in relation to the opponent favourably (Marth and Sheik are faster than Samus). Then you do your aerials mostly stationary, or moving back if they're really aggressive about challenging your footing.

 

[rhan]

marth gets **** on by samus
can't combo her
can't kill her
constantly underestimates her speed and range

she is the anti-marth

the manly woman to defeat the girly man

The **** are you talking about? All Marth need to do is get Samus in the air. Then Samus is done. Marth controls that ****.

 

[Pi]

psh *****es don't know wtf they on about

samus out spaces marth get over it you lose gg no re

 

[Zinth]

Having had a consistent Samus-playing opponent in one of my closest friends throughout the years (goes by Gravity), I feel that the matchup can be difficult to learn/master, but once you do master it (which I won't claim I have), it should be in Marth's favor. Against missiles, just jab and wait for her to approach (or work on positioning yourself in a threatening manner). She also can't really approach you from the air if you're on the ground, and well-spaced tilts and aerials keep her at bay. If you're really good at grabbing her out of spot dodges, then it can be easy to bait those, although I don't feel that grabs are really that great against her except for putting her off the stage or above you. I like what KirbyKaze is saying about it.

 

[Mahie]

I agree with KK about the stationary/retreating aerials. Just make sure to do it properly because a quick Wavedash+CC can surprise you.

 

[Van.]

I feel like samus is harder for marth to uthrow-**** then most people of her weight, just cuz of bombs.

Oh and samus doesn't have a spike wolf

 

[Pi]

samus gets juggled mad hard, and probably a lot easier than other characters because of her weight

once you learn her bomb patterns and how to get around em (ie, all you need to do is hit her back up into the air, even if it means you get hit by a bomb it doesn't matter cause bombs do like 4% and your aerials do more and you're still in a favorable position)

the worse stage for samus to be juggled on is FD

i also believe marth has a 100% reactionary prevention for samus getting back onto the level, barring aerial interupting into stuff, and perfect wavelands into stuff

so basically marth's goal is to put samus into the air, or onto the ledge, and rack up damage until she does from an upair/uptilt trying to get back to the ground, or getting dtilted at high % w/o her 2nd jump and grapple trying to get back from the ledge

thankfully most marth's get cocky/greedy and go for fsmashes which are easily read and avoided (or they mistime them cause they're bad) and then samus get's back onto the ground and fights marth like the man he's not and kicks his arse cause marth loses vs. samus on the stage

there are also counter picks to deal w/ marth's juggling

 

[the_CAM_factor]

dont underestimate samus on the ground and watch out for those smashes. missile spamming samus' are pretty easy to avoid or even powershield. try to bait grabs and then punish severely. keep her in the air and never let her down, eat a bomb if its worth keeping her in the air.

 

[Archangel]

dont underestimate samus on the ground and watch out for those smashes. missile spamming samus' are pretty easy to avoid or even powershield. try to bait grabs and then punish severely. keep her in the air and never let her down, eat a bomb if its worth keeping her in the air.

I agree it's worth trading a bomb to the mouth for an Uair. Baiting grabs is also Gold for any character vs Samus.

 

[BRLNK88]

Fighting Samus on FD is worse than cancer...
Any other neutral I feel isn't that bad, cept maybe Dreamland, the platforms help loads.

My biggest initial issues with the MU was the very fact I didn't want Melee to feel like Barlw. I'd try to combo Samus and she'd just get out of it. Same thing when fighting Puff.
I sometimes try going Link against Samus, which hypothetically should work, but my Link normally isn't patient enough.

 

[KirbyKaze]

You don't "combo" Samus. You exploit that her combo break options can be trumped by systematic abuse of sword and/or projectiles (second part only applicable if you're Link). I personally think FD is fine for Marth in the MU because it always seemed fine for the Marths playing it, but what do I know?

Link seems easier to play (IMO) just because you can throw crap at her when she's crouch canceling, and spaced Fair is easier for him to do against her because his sword has consistent power. I can't imagine why being impatient would be so troublesome since I view Link as one of the few characters that can actually attack Samus in a lot of positions as long as you set yourself up properly. But I guess I'm used to playing gay so maybe I don't notice how much patience a proper setup requires? Link's game is probably less effective vs her than properly executed Marth, but it always looks pretty simple when I see Germ do the MU with <insert Samus>. He even gave HugS a run for his money (though Hugo won).

 

[BRLNK88]

I know that you can't combo her, I meant that before I knew anything about the MU I would try to combo her and fail hard. The Samus that I play against the most is super campy, and it doesn't help that my Marth is somewhat defensive. On stages like FoD, Battlefield and Marth's Story I **** his ****, on FD the match is normally close-ish but he'll usually win because I get fed up with his constant missile spam and do something rash. I'm not that great at approaching with no platforms to aid me, so I'll often get read and punished.

I haven't tried fighting his Samus with Link in a long time, but in recent experimentation I've found that nairing the missiles works quite well. My lack of patience is more concerning how long it can take to kill the little b****. It's not like Fox where he has easy move to kill her off the top, Marth relies more on edgeguarding and Samus has that long-*** recovery.

 

[Niko45]

It's pretty easy to open Samus up with a dash attack or fair and turn that into 5+ more fairs, which I'd consider a combo.

Samus also punishes Marth really solidly, and when she can't directly follow up, her positional advantage can become very dominant as Marth tries to get back down against a grounded Samus (similar to Marth vs Peach). This is where she gets some good opportunities to force trades or open up some of the CC options that Marth could normally outspace/time if he had full control of what he was doing.

Samus also edgeguards Marth pretty well with rising nair and WD off nair.

It can be an incredibly frustrating matchup at times because you will always be threatened by the fact that she needs so many less hits than you do to actually kill her but Marth dominates the neutral game by so much when he plays correctly that it doesn't really matter.

It's one of Marth's best matchups easily imo but Samus definitely has the tools to win if the Marth makes too many mistakes or the Samus is good enough.

 

[Archangel]

I'll play some Matches vs Samus or upload some old ones. Anyone else got footage already they should post it here and then we can trade notes after that.

 

[Archangel]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z8_hhd3FFM

most recent games I have against Samus.

 

[Mahie]

Spam you seemed better than that Samus, so I'll post an example where it's the opposite situation ( the Samus player being better), the GFs from some recent French tourney.
Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDoInOOAhQA
Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2ZboBUVPlY

 

[Archangel]

Spam you seemed better than that Samus, so I'll post an example where it's the opposite situation ( the Samus player being better), the GFs from some recent French tourney.
Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDoInOOAhQA
Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2ZboBUVPlY

oh nah..those are just the 2 matches I won for the sake of this thread. I guess you could argue I'm better seeing as how he's still way out of practice. Retirement tends to do this though.

That Samus is pretty good though. I think he is about even with the Marth player seeing as how their matches could go either way. I notice getting Dsmash while shielding doens't only happen to me .