Me vs Falcon, Fox, Falco, Samus, Peach & Marth

[UMBC Super Smasher]

UMBC SS (Marth) vs Bowsertree (Falcon) 1

UMBC SS (Marth) vs Bowsertree (Falcon) 2

UMBC SS (Marth) vs Bowsertree (Fox) 1

UMBC SS (Marth) vs Bowsertree (Fox) 2

UMBC SS (Marth) vs Bowsertree (Falco) 1

UMBC SS (Marth) vs Bowsertree (Falco) 2

UMBC SS (Marth) vs Bowsertree (Samus) 1

UMBC SS (Marth) vs Bowsertree (Samus) 2

New Content!

My marth vs Freakachu's fox

My marth vs Freakachu's peach

My marth vs Freakachu's marth

Background on my opponents:

Bowsertree, or Eastlitree on the forums right now, has been playing very actively in tournaments since 2005. He knows a lot of stuff, his only problem as he says is "poor reflexes". He tends to place anywhere from above average to average in local tournaments. He mains samus and secondaries everything.

Freakachu graduated from UMBC last semester, so we used to play quite a bit. He mains peach and secondaries marth and fox. He places in the top third in local tournaments. While not as technical as Bowsertree, he is just somehow better. Mindgames?

Constructive criticism is appreciated. Please don't tell me "oh you should have grabbed at 1:14 instead of fsmashed" because I can see obvious mistakes too. It's pretty clear when I do something and get punished right away that I did something wrong, kthx.

I suggest for players a bit weaker than me to watch my vids in addition to pro vids. Not that I'm that great; it may be easier to catch new things if I'm only a bit better rather than watching a pro vid where you can't even imagine what's going through their mind.

 

[ArcNatural]

You seem to have a good understanding of how to play Marth and since there isn't anything really wrong with how you played against Bowsertree I'll critique as in what I would do if I was actually playing you.

I'll describe your style to be "extremely campy" You played very defensive, kept it fairly spaced, and made it very hard for Bt to approach you. If I was playing you these would be the patterns I would try to utilize.

Especially with Falcon and Fox, I would have dash camped much more than he did. Whenever he got close for the most part you shielded or wavedashed back. I would have rushed in a lot more with dashes to shield (which would lead to grab if you shield too, waveshield to grab if you fsmash, or hold shield to shffl out of shield if you tried to shffl yourself) , empty shff dash behind you and more shffl aerials to buffered rolls to take advantage of your defensive style. This would force you to have to be more evasive or to take initiative which would open up more options that doesn't need to be explained since it hasn't happened yet. For example you could start grabbing me instead of shielding whenever I approached but I don't really know how fast you would react and start doing this, and once you did it would become a tossup between what you think is going to happen and what does.

Your edgeguarding was decent, but I recommend you to improve on utilizing other options than fsmash (was fine for Falcon, just not Fox and Falco). You did do some (like wavedash bair, dtilt, jab, dair) but it still looked as if you used it too much. I personally if the Fox has the ability to upB onto the edge or above the stage (where you would miss the Fsmash if he went up) I would just ftilt since I can capitalize on either situation. The other strategy I use is if they are falling where you don't know if they are going to phantasm or firefox. There are 3 basic heights of phantasm/illusion. Above Marth where you should follow up with a grab or fsmash, into Marth where you should neutral A, sweetspot where you should dtilt. Then just follow it up with a Fsmash/counter if they are upBing close to the stage and won't be able to sweetspot or follow off and fair them. There were a few time's where he upB'd close to the stage where you could have intercepted with an aerial but you didn't try. One noticable one was when you ran all the way back to try to Fsmash but Fox ended up sweetspotting you could have just jumped off and faired or even reverse upB'd him. I find this to be the safest way to kill them effectively while minimizing risk of getting punished in Fsmash lag.

I went a little overboard in the edgeguard explanation... But I can't really find a way to make it smaller without saying what I wanted to. It's hard to say if any of this would help since you didn't actually play against it.

I was trying more to point out your patterns since Bt's needs work. Bt needs to be a little less aggressive and more smart. Dashdancing to shield or dashes to shield then grabbing or waveshield grabbing would have stopped much of what was going on against him during those matches. You can't be afraid to keep dashdancing close to him to try to bait, sooner or later he needs to give and maybe you'll catch him. Too many times Bt succumbed (and rushed in) and paid for it.

you should try being a little more aggressive and see how well your responses under the pressure to stay on top of them hold up which should help you in reading rolls and such better, since you won't be able to beat everyone by being so defensive all the time.

 

[UMBC Super Smasher]

Thanks Arcnatural. You did catch on correctly to how I was playing in these games, though I would label my play as 'conservative' rather than 'defensive'. I played to win these games, and I knew that I could win consistently if I did not make any serious mistakes. That being said, I'll try to implement the ideas you mentioned and post up some videos showing more aggression on my part. :D Perhaps soon I'll be able to put up games of me vs Husband.

 

[JesiahTEG]

Not Bad!

Hey man, it's been a long time. I remember you telling us at the beginning of the summer that you wouldn't be posting for a while, but I didn't think you would completely disappear!!! Anyways, it's good to hear from you again.

Basically, I'm just gonna give some overall advice. Basically I think your good, and mental wise your thinking correctly, but you definitely need to capitalize on your opponent's mistakes more. Not even your opponent's mistakes, just opportunities. I saw a lot of times where you had an advantage and you wasted it. Just as an example, every backthrow, Fox should die, or at least be very scared to come back lol.

Mainly, if I were you here's what I would do. Not worry about my overall playing so much next time you play. Only focus on one thing at a time. Like next time you play, only work on chaingrabbing. Or only work on edgeguarding. Or only work on tech chasing. You know how to do stuff, you just don't make the most out of it, which is very important, cuz if someone is about as smart a player as you, but they capitalize more on your mistakes then you do on their mistakes, yeah lol you get my point.

Also, I noticed another thing. Your kinda slow. Not slow as in like, "your playstyle is slow" cuz that's not a bad thing. I'm saying you need to get places faster, or get that attack out faster, or react to his missed tech faster, or get your spacing faster. Just work on being faster. It helps in being able to punish, and not getting punished as much.

Overall not bad though. I think you've gotten better since your last video vs Sheik.

Btw, I like the WD fastfall to edgehog at the end. You mentioned a while back that you were practicing that. I guess it payed off.

 

[Ijuka]

So you, like 99% of all Marth players, watched some M2K vids and saw how cool his fastfall edgehog was. Then you probably thought "Oh Emm Eff Gee, I gotta learn that!", so you did. And you can do it really well. However...

First I'd like to point out how your opponent obviously isn't all that good. You left many openings that a decent player would have immediately punished, but your opponent wasn't good enough to do that. For that reason, many mistakes you made were left unpunished, and that's why you probably don't recognize most of them. I suggest you record a vid of you VS. an actually good player who is able to punish your mistakes, that way it's a lot easier to see what you did wrong.

Also, your opponent wasn't good in recovering at all. He recovered predictably, and got hit by your Fsmashes after throws way too often for his own good. You should not expect this of a good player, and should not Fsmash so often after the Dthrows or Fthrows, because your opponent could just go under it and actually manage to punish you for the lag of the Fsmash. Instead, against especially Fox and Falco, I would time a neutral A to hit them if they decided to instantly jump. If they don't, just proceed to edgeguarding normally with Dtilts, Fsmashes, and counter, along with some other edgeguarding methods.

Your opponent didn't really tech either. Against a good player you should try to choose the methods of edgeguarding that are the hardest to tech. Generally, the easiest method for non-techable edgeguarding is hitting them when they aren't touching the wall, obviously. Counter also works really well against Fox and Falco. Try timing your edgeguarding attack of choice so that it hits them after they have already gone above the ledge. And when they start expecting this and start to sweetspot, edgehog them to death.

Anyway, the first thing that cought my eye is that you do a lot of Fsmashes. Now, you didn't really get punished for them all that much, because, as mentioned above, your opponent isn't too good. But if you were playing against a decent player who knows how to punish openings, you'd have gotten shieldwavedash-punished many times. They also could have baited the Fsmashes and punished you for the lag. Even though you did many unnecessary, even stupid Fsmashes, some of them indeed were well-placed. The one especially good Fsmash was when, if I recall correctly, the Fox came at you with a full jump nair or some other aerial, and you did Wavedash back-Fsmash to punish it. Still, against a better player, I wouldn't use them much at all. I suggest you to primarily use Fsmash to end comboes and edgeguarding. They are pretty good to use when punishing lag as well. Some random mindgames with them at high % might work every once in a while, but don't rely on it.

The second thing with really hurt my eyes was your lack of combo-efficiency. Learn the %'s where you can combo against fastfallers, it's not that hard and it really helps you kill them at low enough %'s, until the Marth's horror begins where he can't kill anything at 120-220%. I saw you miss prenty of guaranteed tippers from grabs, plenty of other comboes, and so on. Some people don't focus on comboing too much(Cactuar for example), but in my opinion it never hurts to be able to deal more damage to your opponent. Even kill them in most cases. You messed up easy chainthrows as well, and your tech-chasing was.. sloppy. Work on those aspects of your game, they would have gotten you the %'s and kills a lot easier and with a lot less trouble.

I also noticed, as I think JesiahTEG actually mentioned above, that you indeed did miss a lot of opportunities to punish your opponent. Your opponent honestly wasn't good. At all. There were plenty of situations where he left himself open. You should have been able to punish him when he did that, it's not that hard to see when he's wide open. I read above that someone said your playing style was defensive, but I couldn't really see the defensiveness there. You were being reckless with those many Fsmashes and.. did stupid stuff, yes. In my opinion, against a player of his caliber, the best way to play is just wait. Dash dance around, wait for him to attack, don't get hit. Then the instant he does something stupid, misses, whatever, you strike at him and don't let go of him until he dies.

I must also agree with JesiahTEG about you having to speed up your game. There indeed were many situations where you could, and in fact should, have been faster. Things that come to mind are comboes, following your attacks, tech-chasing... Just generally speeding up your game and making it flow more fluently.

I also have to mention you missing a lot of attacks, especially in easy edgeguards and stuff like that. Learn the timing of your and your opponent's attacks and learn when you should do which attack, and so on. You don't want to miss against a good player, it hurts.


If you think I'm a n00b who sucks, go ahead and don't listen to my advice. However, if you have the ability to think logically and some common sense, you should realize that most(if not all?) of the stuff I said is in fact true.

 

[ArcNatural]

I knew I missed something, the other big thing I noticed is that there were many missed techs that you didn't capitalize on. One of the things you should really work on is making sure you can punish missed techs (even if you just dtilt). You practice looking for it hard enough and you should be able to react to a missed techs and be able to not react if they tech.

 

[The Brawler]

Your pretty good but try using down smash alot more it helps if you do down smash than over tilt then there on the edge for sure.

 

[thebluedeath1000]

^Rofl....

Anyway, Ijuka, don't be so defensive about your statements, its not like I'm going to attack you over them.

>.>...

 

[Ijuka]

^Rofl....

Anyway, Ijuka, don't be so defensive about your statements, its not like I'm going to attack you over them.

>.>...

Defence is good. When you are lying on the ground with your head cut off you'll wish you had had the defence on.. O.o

 

[The Newb]

Defence is good. When you are lying on the ground with your head cut off you'll wish you had had the defence on.. O.o

wtf?

@ UMBC: I don't like your style, I don't like the decisions you make in game, and I think overall it is ineffective. Then again, you seemed to do fine in the matches. One main thing that bugged the **** out of me is the fact that every third move you do is a forward smash. It's like you think you're Azen or something . If I were you, I'd like...stop doing that. My advice is the best, fo sho.

 

[The Brawler]

thats pretty good but u need to work on getting ur opponent on the edge, using down b, and knowing how to dodge a lil bit better.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Ok, I will abide by your wish to not critique individual mistakes. I will just give advice based on how you play and general match-up advice. As always I will be objective and honest when critiqueing.


Let me start off by saying that you like to F-smash alot. A whole lot actually. You should do one of two things. Get to a point where pretty much all of those random f-smashes connect with your opponent or cut down on the f-smash spam. But the way you are now, using those f-smashes like that will get you murdered. Ok, with that out of the way I will also say that I noticed your defensive style. You called it conservative and is but you are very defensive as well. Conservative just means you aren't really flashy. You keep it simple and rely on solid play, while defensive would mean you wait and you hang back alot. You didn't ever really try to apply pressure, which is fine. Being defensive is fine, but ONLY if you know how to do well with it.

But what I saw with you was alot of bad decisions or things that just made no sense. With defensive play you need to make opportunities to punish an opponent count. You aren't pressuring, so therefore you aren't trying to force a reaction/mistake that you can predict and punish. With defensive play you are waiting for mistakes, errors in spacing, and bad decisions and from there you unleash your fury. You did wait and get your hits in, but then........you ****ed it up. I saw shffled NON-TIPPERED fairs into an f-smash that got shielded. I mean you did it alot. Every match you posted here. Non - tippered fair to f-smash is not a combo. I thought for sure you would try to grab, especially vs Fox and Falco and sometimes you did, but usually you went for an f-smash which just threw my mind completely out of whack. Your follow-ups in general were really lacking. And you almost always reacted late. You would pop Fox up with a Uair and then stand there for 3 seconds. That's just one example.

You also seemed to be running on habits, patterns, and tricks. You never really seemed to adapt or read your opponent. It's like you ran on a preset program and did things according to that program. If your opponent tried to rush you or attack you then you would either F-smash or shffl fair to f-smash. This program that you seemed to run on reminded me of a MegaMan boss. Meaning that at first glance the boss may seem difficult, but if you just look a little closer you will just patterns with no innovation or mindgames. Those habits can easily be exploited by someone that can observe those patterns. There were times when you would be edge guarding and your opponent will have already made it back to the stage, but then you would still attempt to do a ledge drop and then jump into a Bair. Other times you would throw someone of the stage and you would f-smash even when they were much too far to be hit. This showed me that you were definitely running on patterns. If you weren't then you would have been able to judge that your edge guarding methods wouldn't have worked in those situations and you would have tried something else. Stuff like this happened far too often to be written off as a silly mistake. The same goes for you shffling fairs into f-smashes. These things have been ingrained into your gameplay and you need to extract them, because they really mess up your gameplay and in the case of the shffled fairs into f-smashes, those leave you extremely vulnerable.

You have other little habits that aren't helping you as well. Not only do you shffl fairs into f-smashes when you hit an opponent, but you did it even when you didn't hit with the fair. Thid leads me to believe that this particular "strat" is instinctive to you because you do it so much even when you don't hit with the fair. You probably don't even realize how you mcuh you do this. To be honest I'm a little shocked and dissappointed that no one else caught this or mentioned it. You also like to attack shields when you are very close to your opponent with laggy moves like f-tilts and f-smashes. Not good at all. And like others mentioned you were slow to follow-up in your combos or you just didn't follow-up at all letting your opponent get away when you could have comboed them. You also ran away alot when fighting Fox and Falco which you shouldn't do since it's like begging them to laser you.

Something else that I noticed and that completely shocked me was that you ignored staple combos and strats in your match-ups. I didn't see an chain throwing vs Fox. I saw ONE chain throw combo against Falco. One and no more then that. I didn't see any up-throw to tech chase vs Falcon. I didn't see any f-throw to chase to fairs vs Samus. What I DID see was the same gameplay across everyone of your matches. You cannot play Marth in the same way in every match up and hope to do well vs skilled opponents. He isn't Fox or Falco. He has very specific strats for alot of match-ups and you ignored them. I also didn't see any d-tilt abuse. You would d-tilt and then get grabbed or just not d-tilt much at all. Abuse that move man. It's too amazing. I know you read my approaching with Marth guide. The wonders of the d-tilt are all explained in that thread.

I'm going to tell you what I think of your Marth. I'm being objective as always.

Your Marth is predictable, habitual, slow and generic.

But so what? You can improve and that's what this thread is all about right? Having people watch your vids so you can be critiqued. Then you can improve based on the advice that they give you.

Here are some tips on how to improve.

General gameplay tips

- Use the d-tilt more. It's amazing.

- Don't follow up a shffl fair with an f-smash unless it's part of a juggle combo. Otherwise it won't combo. You have to get rid of that habit of always doing an f-smash after a shffl fair.

- Since you are defensive in your play style you will really want to abuse dash dancing. It's the ultimate defensive technique. Great for spacing, baiting attacks, or waiting to punish mistakes.

- Practice your follow-ups. You need to be able to combo efficiently and not let your opponent get away. You also need to be able to react quickly when you get a hit in.

- Stop attacking shields with laggy moves.

- Go for some off the stage edge guarding. It's very effective and once you master this apsect of your game, you won't have to worry about dying. Worse case scenario is that you get a hit in but your opponent doesnt die. Best case scenario is that you get a kill.

- Use the Ken combo.

- Use more grabs.


General tips vs Falcon

- More u-throw to tech chase.

- More u-tilt combos.

- You can grab Falcon out of the Raptor Boost.

- Gimping Falcon off the stage is very easy. Just run out and spike him, fair him, or do a shield breaker.


General tips vs Fox and Falco

- More chain grab combos

- Don't run away from them because they will just shoot you with lasers.

- More u-tilt combos

- Go for u-tilt to spike near the edge of the stage. If they DI in the other direction just re-grab, u-tilt, or f-smash.


General tips vs Samus

- More forward throw to fairs.

- Fair through missiles.

- Space yourself when you attack so she can't CC d-smash so easily.

- Use u-tilt on Samus to get vert kills at around 160%.


Ok, I think I covered everything I wanted to say. The others said the rest. Listen to the advice that was posted and you will see vast improvement.

I hope I helped and good luck improving.

 

[Deleted member]

actually since fthrow to fair doesn't technically combo, it would probably be in your best interest to upthrow samus and just keep her in the air with uptilt, upair, and fair until she a dies. A samus that can't crouch shield or sidestep is low tier.

I'll watch the vids later.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Marth can follow her DI and she can't escape at lower percents.

 

[UMBC Super Smasher]

Thanks for the help guys. I'll try to post up new vids later of a hopefully changed marth. Also I'll try to get a different player than Bowsertree.

 

[knightpraetor]

hmm, i wanna watch but i have class...i'm disappointed that they said you were fsmash happy though..that's the one thing that makes marth 10 times worse than his possible potential.

It took me weeks to semi-break my friends fsmash habits even while playing fox and punishing the same habits again and again and again..basically spotdodge >> than predictable fsmashes..wd to grab is too good too...

on the other hand i have another friend who i have to break his teching habits...he techs away over 50% of the time. It's funny but marth, unlike sheik is a character where the most effective strat at low levels play is a completely useless strat at high levels of play..so fsmash while working great against n00b players who can't understand run to shield (for the record it's probably unfair of me to call them n00bs seeing as i never even tested that you could run directly into a shield until 5 or 6 months ago) ends up getting them ***** at higher levels of play as a good matchup...same thing for fair to fsmash..at low levels people don't di well so it's a great combo..at high levels di plus jump over the fsmash can punish you quite a bit...and the punishing with fsmash on missed techs is tricky...someone up there said you can react..but honestly if your opponent is fast too the timing can be quite tight before they roll or even time a stand up at just the right time...

regardless as a general principle techchasing is greater than fsmash hoping for missed techs

anywyays, i'm glad you put up some marth matches..i'm always happy to watch some of you that i know seeing as i've gotten kinda bored watching pros unless they are playing off characters..ie non top 4.

however, as a marth player i still have to admit that overall except vs fastfallers and sheik my sheik, fox, and now falcon are overall better:\ so i would really like it if you can get matches against upper level players that play odder characters..there are many matchups i don't really know very well. anyways good luck improving...i learned two things from this post at least...one..you can grab falcon out of his over b..and two..that i should actually incorporate fastfall edgehogs..i can do them..i just forget to try..i only learned them over the summer when i had little human competition.

edit: they are indeed correct..you fsmash..too much..i opened the fox match because fox has the easiest time punishing baited fsmashes...however, your friend wasn't good at punishing...he had an easy free 80% just on the first life off of shielded fsmashes...that said i can't blame him..i don't punish 100% of fsmashes i shield...sometimes i stupidly try to move before shield stun is over:\

anyways work on that as they said..oh and i don't know if you have this problem either but when getting techchased if you['re like me you tend to forget about the option stand up to spotdodge or run away from a purposely flubbed tech..i really had to break the habit of only attacking up or rolling from missed techs..was annoying as hell..

and i've also concluded that a lot of my friends i play suck...ie attack constantly..uber aggression that is easily punishable..so i'm probably not the best one to give advice to you...i don't think i really read patterns that often..maybe one or two a match..mostly it's just punishing basic mistakes that they do..anyways hopefully in a week or so i will hit up a tourney in richmond or va beach..i want to play aho or tope....i wonder if tope's any good these days...i would like to hope that he sucks since he didn't 4 stock me back when i sucked (even more so than now...somehow a summer of reading the boards here improved my gameplay a lot...i came back 4stocking people's..they adapted somewhat...but now i can still 2 stock most upper matchups if i know it...got ***** roy vs falco though..4stock..i should probably learn that one a little better) ..but more likely he was just sandbagging...i mean who plays for real against n00bs..i know i just experiment...

 

[UMBC Super Smasher]

heh I keep feeling this sense of disappointment in everyone as if I'm supposed to be better than what I showed here. Here are the logical reasons why I played as I did: I haven't played almost at all since last May. I didn't watch any videos over the summer. I didn't read the boards here, but I got recording equipment and wanted to record some stuff. These games I showed against Bowsertree were some of the first games I had played at all since Pound 2. I also started playing October of 06, so my overall experience is small. Also, I tend to step my game up when I play a stronger player than me. You won't find me fsmashing like I did in these games versus an opponent like Mew2king, Husband, ChuDat, or G-reg, KM, etc. I think a lot of what happened in these games was a result of me defaulting back on bad old habits.

Then again, no excuses. My playing was bad in these games. Now it's up to me to correct my playing and record new matches showing progress

 

[lillight3]

the best advice i could give is that you might want to implement tech chasing into your game because there were a lot of times where you could have used it but didnt. you need to work on your chain grabs on spacies as well. you foward smash a lot too

 

[AzureKiteSky]

the best advice i could give is that you might want to implement tech chasing into your game because there were a lot of times where you could have used it but didnt. you need to work on your chain grabs on spacies as well. you foward smash a lot too

True, but as a Marth player I think all Marth players use foreward smash a lot, not that it's a bad thing, Marth's foreward A smash can send an opponent flying from anywhere beyoned 50%. with suprisingly little lag time considering the movement involved.

 

[UMBC Super Smasher]

New Content!

My marth vs Freakachu's fox

My marth vs Freakachu's peach

My marth vs Freakachu's marth

 

[knightpraetor]

hmm, is it just me or are these unviewable..too dark to see

 

[UMBC Super Smasher]

hmm, is it just me or are these unviewable..too dark to see

The marth ditto game is easily viewable. I'm not sure why they came out so dark this time around. I'm going to try using a different cassette tape next time. Maybe it's cause I recorded for so long on the same VHS tape.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Ok, you definitely improved. You worked on alot of the stuff that people critiqued you about.
Your edgeguarding, follow-ups, combos, and approaching are all much better and you have less patterns for sure. Good job, so now let's look at what you could still improve upon.

Well I still saw some random f-smashes here and there that had no chance of connecting at all. I guess maybe you did it out of habit or fear. Either way you should work on ridding yourself of this facet of your gameplay. I saw some chain throws vs Fox which is good, but you kept ending them early. You can keep the CG going until the low 30%'s. Then u-tilting to f-smash or u-tilting to juggling with uair/fair to w/e should be used to end the CG combo. You still let some opportunities to foloow-up get away from you. Yopu would get in a hit and dash away, roll away, or just stand there. Your follow-ups are better, but you still need work.

Your gameplay while faster still isn't at optimum speed. The main thing you have to do to speed up your gameplay is just knowing how to react and when. Sometimes you will just stop for what seems like no reason at all. Also in terms of movement you aren't at max speed either. You have to remember to dash after an aeriel that gets l-cancelled. Try to remain as a illusive as possible. Dashing after a shffl fair is godly. The Fair itself is a fast move, with great combo potential, it leads to free kills or grabs depending on the percent of your opponent, very little lag, and very high priority, and it possesses a disjointed hit box. Since Marth takes a bit of time hitting the peak of his short hop, he has time to delay his fair or mess with his DI so he jumps farther or shorter in distance for spacing. Combine that with other methods of jumping and spacing and Marth has a very powerful move. But it doesn't end there. By dashing after a fair or a nair, Marth becomes even more dangerous.

Marth's dash is amazing. Very fast, he crouches low when he does it, and it's great for pivotting. Combined with l-cancelled fairs and nairs gives him a great brick wall. Marth can throw out attacks safely and then use that awesome dash of his to reset spacing, cross-up, avoid retaliation attempts, or simply to frustrate an opponent. This tactic gives Marth a Wall of Steel that must be penetrated for Marth to be hit. Am I saying spam this like Jiggz will spam Wall of Pain? No, I'm saying that by dashing after an l-cancelled fair or nair that Marth becomes very safe and very very hard to punish. You don't always have to dash of course. You could roll or wave dash, but dashing can lead into dash dancing and allows Marth the freedom to continue pressuring, react to an opponents action, or just back off a little bit. It's a wonderful technique that combines offense and defense.

Well, enough about my little rant on the use of attacks for purposes other then attacking, back to the critique. You were really fond of using full hop fairs and double jumped fairs to approach. That's all well and good but remember the old stand by's as well. JC grabs, shffled fairs, shffled nairs, and dash attacking are all reliable means of approaching that you really should use more of. I saw no dash attacking and very little of the other methods and although I saw some shffled fair usage more then the other methods I mentioned. And I can't forget to mention the d-tilt. You really didn't use it as an approach. Only once or twice and then for edge guarding mostly. Which is a shame because it's just too incredible. D-tilt's can lead to grabs or tech chasing depending on the percents. And it's another great move to use for zoning as a brick wall tactic combined with dashdancing and wavedashing. Cactuar and I often use d-tilt walls when we play one another.

I saw a few cross-ups on your part. Some connected and you landed a grab. Some didn't. Cross-ups are great so, be sure to master them.

When you fought Peach, you sat in your shield alot when you were next to her. That is very abd and asking for your shield to get chipped death. When fighting Peach you need to be a little bit more roll happy. And don't throw her up. I would stick with throwing her forward and backwards. Frowards at low percents to combo or hit with f-smash. Then forwards and backwards at mid percents to mess with DI and then combo/f-smash. When turnips are thrown either catch them or hit them and dash under them. Jumping over them alot makes your approach very obvious and gives Peach time to react. Similar to how in many Street Fighter games Ryu, Ken, and Akuma will throw a Hadoken to get you to jump in at them and then they throw out a Shoryuken to knock you out of the sky. It's an old school trick. The fireball-dragon punch trap. Well, it's the same concept with Peach. Throw a turnip and when her opponent jumps in they eat a FC aerial from Peach. I'm not saying you can't jump in sometimes just be cautious and don't do it too often.

There were a few times where you could have jumped up and attacked Peach when she was high above you. Don't be afraid to just jump up and slash her.

Marth dittos are harder to critique because the match usually just comes down to whoever gimps the other harder. Just some general advice would be not to rely on f-throw to f-smash so much since it can be DIed out of even at 0. Also remember to u-throw into u-tilt combos or fair combos.

On a side note I was glad to see that you were running into your shield. It's a great tactic especially for a more conservative/defensive Marth.

Also I saw some f-smash spam in that vid. Also alot of f-smashes at bad times. Your old habits kicking in? You should get a handle on that. Whenever you feel that urge to f-smash in bad situations you should try replacing it with another action that is safer like rolling, grabbing, dashing, or d-tilting and see where that gets you.

Ok, well that's it from me. I hope I helped. Good luck training and power up to the very limit.

 

[brandutt845]

You've got some serious marth skills. Is marth your best char.? I play with him all the time. We seem pretty equal. Nice.

 

[Brightside6382]

lol am I the only person who noticed the HUGE amount of unnecessary shielding? I dunno what happened but you gotta calm down with the L/R buttons sir. You must really be cranking those things down hard cause I saw alot of ur L-cancels end with a shield. Just relax and DD more so you dont constantly leave urself exposed and feel like u gotta bring the shield up. Just my .02

 

[UMBC Super Smasher]

You've got some serious marth skills. Is marth your best char.? I play with him all the time. We seem pretty equal. Nice.

Depending on the match-up and the player, yes. In tournament I switch to sheik vs luigi, DK, and Ganon mains. People say I should quit maining marth and pick up fox. My falco is less refined than my fox.

Please, would people stop comparing me to them or others? You don't know how I'd do unless we played in tournament or at a tournament when I'm sharp. These are all friendly matches.

 

[RodneyAnonymous]

Nice stuff. I've got a better idea of things I need to work on for my Marth.

But for the love of god, before you post any more videos, fix your bloody VCR.