Ness vs. Falco: (-2/-3) Matchup Discussion

[Eagleye893]

This matchup is very difficult for Ness, considering Falco has enough options to maneuver around you and pressure you and screw you over in general....

Yeah, When you look at everything on paper, it seems like Ness doesn't have that bad of a disadvantage, but in reality, Ness gets destroyed by any relatively good Falco player.

Here's a list of advantages and disadvantages we may have:

+++POS+++
-- Absorb-able lasers (the 2-3% doesn't really give you any form of advantage unless you are god-like at absorbing them and jump-canceling the magnet).
-- Our aerials wreck an offstage Falco (his sideB can get hit by our sourspot BAir or NAir, I think.... his upB is easy to read the direction and can be hit by DAir OR BAir. I was able to hit with BAir a couple times, but the spacing is difficult, especially when you need to guess direction, and it trades hits)
-- ... Not really much else. xP

----NEG----
-- Falco's OoS options are awesome (his BAir and grabbing OoS)
-- Chaingrab can rack damage AND because we have relatively laggy endings to our moves, him getting the grab is much easier.
-- Lasers camp forever. You absorb anything and you just take damage from something else like his sideB or DACUS. Jump-canceling the magnet will only help if you have the best timing in the world.
-- His DAir has tons of priority and speed. It makes me cry. :'(
-- When we're in the air, Falco basically doesn't need to do anything if he's on the ground. He can shield and be safe because of how fast his BAir comes out if we decide to hit his shield. Also, he can just laser us, forcing an airdodge or magnet and limiting our options severely.
-- We don't have a chance offstage returning.
-- We essentially need to wait for Falco to mess up in order to do anything. If he doesn't mess up, he times us out with the slight damage advantage from lasers and other shenanigans.
-- His Jab out-spaces and out prioritizes a bunch of things, AND IT'S FAST! Add that on to the list of things he can do on the ground to not give a **** about what we do.



I may be exaggerating these things.... but it's obnoxious enough playing a good falco to the point where it's not really worth keeping Ness out against him.
I've played Arty several times and rarely had a chance of winning.
One tournament in October I friendly'd against this one guy who played falco and got 3-stocked once and 2-stocked several times.

Every time I feel like there's a way to play around Falco, but it's basically "wait until they make a mistake," and the other guy, whose name I can't remember, didn't make enough to capitalize on anything.

Essentially you need to learn how to perfect shield EVERYTHING and make use of Ness' good OoS abilities (NAir, grab when falco jabs or ftilts, shield-dash>grab for other things)


Video examples:

http://youtu.be/vHkfKmXK8MM -- FOW vs SK92.
This is their latest encounter. Only the first game is Ness. Loss.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJn-q7YihaY&t=9m07s
This is a 2 games of Ness v Falco. He only won 1 of the 2, b/c the first 2 games he went MK and Ness against Falco and MK respectively.

If you have more, please post

 

[Jamwa]

Must SDI the chain-grab into Dair back onto the stage.

 

[Lukingordex]

This MU is really annoying,Falco have lots of priority against Ness,and the PSI magnet do not work that good because Falco can punish this with his strong speed.

-2 for Ness.

 

[P.I.E.]

If it hasn't alrd been said, falco, has a nice upsmash or regrab (upon grab release) on ness if timed correctly, although ness can easily outspace with fair ( but we can't win with just that, now can we?) Phantasm gets wrecked by thunder, in terms of trying to recover, if you tail whip a falco using his up-b, it's an auto gimp. so long as a ness takes the hit of lasers till the early 40's, he's immune to a possible Chain grab gimp, and on places like battlefield, you can space a falco hard. However, if a ness has poor spacing compared to a good falco, as often is the case, rapeage will ensue. you can duck lasers and shield phantasms for read, but that's just what I do. Space with fair, camp on a platform, gimp as much as possible, and run. you can never play footsies with a falco because of his stupid tilts and jabs xD, so you have mosty appraoch from the air. Offstage, falco can cancel your rocket wit a reflector, and even reflect the thunderhead. he can also escape pk fire easily by reflecting it toward you and turning the tables, trapping you inside the pillar. overall i believe it could be a hard -1 or a close -2 in falcos favor.

 

[TOPIX]

Falco's lasers, along with his high priority moveset, in my opinion ,I think is what is the main concern in this matchup. The trick to this matchup is knowing when to approach and avoid getting punished, since Falco can punish fairly easily by just lasering > followup. I think approaching high is a good way to approach this matchup. Gimping Falco is fairly easy due to his easily predictable recovery, you're almost guaranteed to hit at least a PK Thunder close to every time he recovers. He's definitely a hard matchup, but if you approach smart and bait smart, you can win.

In my opinion, the matchup is no worse than (-2), no worse than (60:40) in MY opinion. It's hard to play, but totally doable.

 

[R e d X]

Falco you say?

General Things:

Spacing is also really important here (obviously, given the cg and such), and given that any good falco will also have very good spacing, you really need to know what a falco will be looking for as they play and try to put yourself in their shoes. Watching how falco jumps and when during his jump he lasers offers insight to what followup he may be looking for, and you need to able to quickly read this to react accordingly. Absorbing lasers from a good falco is rarely safe, so PSing or dodging them is probably a better option as people will frequently bait your magnet for a free dacus or something else. We do have a nice advantage in the air, f-air is a very good spacer tool here, and I find n-air is also frequently useful, but like the rest of this MU, the key is knowing when to be aggressive and when to be defensive and just being patient in general. Being close enough to pressure Falco's shield with f-air but not close enough to be grabbed is where I'm the most comfortable with this MU, because depending on how you space your f-airs and how you follow them up (let's say, with a rising n-air or something), we'll be able to avoid or beat out any/most of falco's follow ups (i.e. dacus, f-smash, etc).

Good Moves in this MU (imo): F-air, PKT, U-air, B-throw

F-air is again a great spacing tool, and it really really helps here. Imo being able to very accurately space f-airs so as not to over commit and follow up on them when necessary is one of the cornerstones of this MU because without it we get pretty much destroyed as other approaches (i.e. d-air or b-air) really don't work very effectively on Falco. I really only recommend using PKT on Falco (other than when you read a phantasm) if you're very confident with the move. As I said it's a great move to guard against phantasms, but when used properly, it can be quite effective against a Falco's recovery by just slightly nicking him with the tail which can lead to gimps. However, if you're not confident with doing this well (and doing it safely in addition), it's probably a better idea to gain a positional advantage near the ledge to cover potential phantasms and ledge mixups or to pressure with some other type of attack (let's say, PK fire if you read a getup attack or a delay on the ledge). I say this because I find this positional advantage to be at least somewhat significant against Falco, and giving it up to try to PKT him when you're not sure if it's gonna work and losing that advantage is a bad idea. Tl;dr, only use PKT against Falco if you're sure of yourself, otherwise the positional advantage and other pressure offers a greater advantage. U-air is decently useful here, it can go hit-for-hit with falco's d-air which is useful for juggling/KOing, and can't really be beat out by any other moves that he has if we're in the right place. And given this, making it look like you're going in for an aggressive u-air will frequently bait an airdodge which you can bollow up on with a n-air, b-air, etc. Other than u-air, b-throw is the KO move here. PSing Falco's lasers can lead to grabs due to our quick dash grabs, and other setups/baits (such as f-air --> shield poke --> grab) work pretty well on Falco to set up KOs.

Stages to strike: FD, SV and Siege

Striking FD should come as no surprise. Lasers are very effective without other platforms, as well as the cg which is also more difficult to avoid. Phantasms are also more difficult to punish here. I don't think I really need to go into full detail about it, just strike this stage. SV shares similar annoying characteristics to FD, though not to the same degree of annoyingness. The platform helps some, but other starters offer Ness more options and a more diverse match which is where this MU becomes manageable. Siege is a mixed bag imo. The first transformation I like against falco, the cg doesn't always work due to the slope and the layout of the stage seems at least mildly favourable for Ness in terms of baiting and applying safe (or at least relatively safe) pressure. Second one is mixed. The walkoffs are obvs dangerous, but the statues prevent laser spamming from being effective and the layout of the stage isn't really too bias one way or the other I find. I'm pretty indifferent to this transformation vs Falco. The third one resembles FD except for the bump and thus, we suffer from similar problems to that stage. One could argue striking YiB because Ness just sucks there, but this is one instance where I don't have a burning hate for this stage due to the curved ground making the cg less effective and the platform not hindering us as much as in other MUs as I find Falco can't capitalize on our disadvantage in regards to it as easily as other chars.


Stage to ban: FD

Are you surprised? This stage is so good for Falco that I really don't think there's any competition for another stage to ban. Unless you have a secondary specifically for Falcos (i.e ICs or Pika or somethin) then ban this stage.


Stage to CP: Brinstar

We all know that Ness is great here, and on top of this, Falco sucks here. Alot. Laser camping doesn't work well here, the ground is uneven and the stage is small which prevents camping. This is a really good one for Ness. Presumably though, Falco mains will ban this stage or switch, seeing this coming. Frigate works decently well due to the lack of ledge in the first transformation as it leads to predictable recoveries (though this is a double edged sword and can easily backfire, so it's a risk) and the second transformation's uneven ground to mess up the cg. Unfortunately, I also find the layout makes Falco difficult to approach. This one's a mixed bag and each person I've talked to has a different opinion on it, so form you're own, don't take my word on it, test it out for yourself and see what you think. Lylat is another good option due to the uneven ground to mess up cgs and some laser camping, as well as the tilting of the ship which can lead to Falco messing up his recovery which is also a nice bonus. The layout I find doesn't really help or hinder us too severely either way, it has its ups and downs. You just have to play carefully.


Secondaries?

This is one MU that I personally don't find secondaries necessary for, though some people might feel the need. Again, ICs and Pika are good options, but this one's realistically winnable so I'd say just stick to your guns and take him down with Ness


Overall MU Spread: -2

I strongly agree with -2. This MU can look like a -1 in the hands of the right Ness against your average Falco, but when it comes to high levels of play, I think a solid -2 is the right number, because when it comes down to it, high level falcos can so some nasty things to Ness.


I have only 1 video of myself facing a Falco (#7 on our PR atm), and though looking back at this I did some silly things and played a little more grounded than I normally would (with more jab combos, etc), I still feel there's something to be taken from it, so have a look if you're interested.

Red X (Ness) vs PokeMastr1 (Falco)

 

[Asa]

redx watching that match, i think it would've been better to dthrow/uthrow falco if he wasn't in a position to be thrown offstage with b/fthrow.


i agree with everything redx says. nair is one of the best moves in that mu, though. safe move that can eat through phatasm really well.

if you guys are into gimmicks, if you're camping a platform trying to not get grabbed and he jumps near you, you can hit him with a dsmash

or if you read that he'll drop-> double jump off the ledge you could stage spike him with dsmash


and for cp's you might wanna consider stages that hinder his side-b, such as YI, Lylat, frigate