MU Struggle: Falco

[Tushy]

I constantly find myself stuck in my shield, blocking lasers, to then be be put into SHFFL Shine pressure. I have no idea how to approach my opponent when he is either always on my shield or approaching/distancing himself with lasers. The only times I ever seem to hit Falco is with a retreating aerial out of shield, shield grabbing while being pressured, or tech chasing off of aforementioned grabs. I know there has to be something I can do within the neutral game besides punish with OoS options till I can get a stock, or a knee combo, but I don't know what. Please send help.

TL:DR
Lasers > My neutral game

 

[Astherath]

I used to struggle with my practice partner who played falco, and my win percent was around 40%. I hated this matchup so much that I just didn't like playing with him anymore, and I felt cornered in the entire stage. Then it hit me:

- Use up air and nair to cover your airspace

If the falco is aggro, he'll just laser and start coming towards you full speed with aerials and such, so just swoop him out of the air. If he starts spacing you out or trying to bait your options just do retreating nair. Spaced nairs are literally going to single-handedly make you not hate this matchup anymore.
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- Double jump fakeouts

If the falco is a little bit more "lame" and he starts doing things like camping lasers, spamming utilts and spacing retreating bairs, just jump at him, and when he starts to react, do a quick double jump into stomp or knee or nair. This will catch your opponent slippin' 9/10 times, and if he starts expecting it, just skip the double jump and go for a raw aerial. If he starts zoning you out with more offensive options go back to spacing knees or dash dancing in.
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His shield pressure isn't going to go away, but you can adapt to it with small things
- Light shield in the middle of combos to throw him off
- Start implementing WD OoS to punish his missed timings on SHFFL's
- Go on 20XX and play falco and see frame by frame what timings your vulnerable on shield, then recognize and punish when he messes up his timings

And if nothing else works, do what other falcons do and just complain, if you're not very creative, here are some popular ones:
- Shine is too good
- Lasers are dumb
- Spotdoge is so broken
- Sakurai can suck it
- Your recovery is so good
- Falcon is literally the worst character
- 20XX is real.

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[Spak]

Also, don't chase him offstage unless you're 100% sure that what you're doing will work. He has a lot of recovery options, and you usually can't cover all of them offstage. The combination of these factors, his Dair hitting below ledge, and Falcon's inability to sweetspot means that if he gets back to the stage before you he can just Dair and take your stock.

 

[タオー]

The basic mixup with lasers is that you can raptor boost under high lasers, and nair over low ones. I like to PS laser into grab, and when you get them on tilt, PS their laser to lock them down and follow up with nair/uair/knee/bair(reverse bair). Also, don't be afraid to eat a laser, just make sure they can't use it to follow up into crazy Falco combos.

For utilt, space an aerial, you can actually knee them for free if you're timing and spacing are on point. You can also jump past it and bair them, but that's harder than just spacing a knee, bair or uair IMHO.

Don't be afraid to platform camp. Forcing him to come up towards you can be used to bait him above you, or you can take that opportunity to space stomps around his approaches (preferably with edge cancels). Also shield drop uair is super useful, as is just vertically crossing up with uair, but like anything else, don't let your opponent bait it out of you.

Also, trades favor Falcon cause you can kill Falco so early, while Falcon is a tank with proper defensive tech.

As far as Defense:

SDI/ASDI out of pillar combos, if you are able to SDI hard enough, you can get out pretty early and consistently, and utilize platforms to mix up your position and techs. It's very complicated but you can also use no tech-> slide off edge to recover very quickly out of combos and keep yourself moving. PS shine helps with getting out of shine pressure, as does using light shield (both have increased knockback so you can Shield DI out of their shine range earlier). If you PS the shine, you can gentleman both spacies, and against falco you have enough frame advantage to grab, since Falco's multishine is a few frames slower than Fox's.

Edge Guarding:
So much easier than Fox, if you can get Falco below the stage you can just poke him out of his Firebird with either bair, soft knee, uair... whatever you'd like really. Just watch for the dj sweetspot and side b. I usually cover side b with an edge cancelled bair or stomp (facing into the stage) and then follow up from there. Grabbing ledge is also useful. (E.G. Grab ledge-> dj autocancelled bair onto stage-> pivot downward angled ftilt-> run off uair/knee)

 

[Twinkles]

Tank lasers then immediate dash is a good option
Falco uses lasers just to make you as immobile as possible or to force you to choose an option he can cover
Abusing platforms, fullhop, shorthop, DJ mixups, and powershielding are all givens, but seriously lasers don't do much in terms of hitstun and people get caught in lasers because it messes up their rhythm

Tank laser, fox trot, tank laser, fox trot. Makes your movement much less sucky vs. lasers and will throw off Falco's spacing if he has to both laser and position himself against your nerfed but now functional "dash-dance."