Wut? I don't see how Marth gets ***** on stadium at all. By design the neutral part of stadium is the closest thing to FD and suddenly he gets ***** instead of ****** Fox?
Easy shines? How is it easier specifically on stadium to get shine spikes....
Awkward ledge? It doesn't hinder how Fox will generally edgeguard Marth unless they just stand on stage and down-smash maybe >_> If anything all it does is benefit Marth as it leads to a lot of cheese grabs out of shines that wouldn't normally occur/take away recovery options from Fox/make the edgeguarding easier for Marth
No top platform? Also good for Marth as Fox's ability to extend combos and chase via the top platform is much greater then Marth's. Also takes away any ability for a space animal to realistically platform camp.
Transformations+Wall Shines? Ok I can't really dispute that Fox is likely stronger on them but the last time I can recall someone getting legit wall-shined to death in tournament (or even at all really) was like Cort vs. CKit from FCD regional crews. Does that even count as tournament? This certainly hasn't been for a lack of Fox vs. Character that can get infinited on Stadium, or for a lack of technical Foxes.
Do the space animals get **** combos extended or aided by the wall? Sure. Do other characters? Obviously. Let's take a look at say, Hungrybox vs. Unknown522 from the big house. Game 5 on stadium is fairly close up until where Ryan gets cheese rested on his last stock, and the rest had nothing to do with the stage so I think this is a reasonable reference. Unknown gets ***** on the Rock stage (should work to Fox's benefit right?). The game is close cause he does very well on the neutral part of stadium >_> I mean, is it really that hard to like b-air to b-air to b-air to b-air off a wall? Or any other move? I'm not gonna say it isn't scary vs. like Fox in these scenarios but it's definately a double edged sword for the Fox --- even if their edge is slightly bigger in that specific scenario. I just don't see any significant amount of real evidence to justify "omg fox can wall shine you!!! he 1000000-0s everyone stadium" from like 6 years of tournament matches.
The more likely scenario on transformations is usually a stalemate anyways >_> where no one engages in combat and then you back to fighting on the regular part of the stage which is the closest thing to FD you can get as Marth without actually going to FD.
I dunno, I'm just not on board with M2K's like "oh Marth loses to everyone if he can't chain throw them to death without escape from 0" or the Falco players with their "laser sucks, falco loses to fox, marth, sheik, dk, doc, ics, puff, peach, falcon cause they can all shield grab him and backthrow him apparently" kind of attitudes. I'm trying to be honest about match ups and not get as emo about them >_> It's not only a bad way to go about playing, but from an objective point? You play Marth and Sheik - shut up. If you mained Roy or DK or some character that lose these match-ups like 8-2 at least this ****ing state would be understandable.
Maybe Marth/Sheik doesn't lose to Falco Jason, but you just lose to PP because he's better then you. Have you considered this yet? At what point after like garning a 1-10 record in tournament sets does this become a realistic scenario to you? You have close matches all set and then you just choke. Doesn't that make him the better player and entitle him to winning?
Ugh >_> ranting done now
The reason marth is ***** on stadium but not FD is a number of small changes that add up:
1) The ceiling is lower, and Fox KOs upwards (sometimes falco sometimes not), and Marth rarely ever KOs upwards
2) platforms make it so you cannot CG to death. However it's still good for CGing compared to the other stages but much, much worse than on FD
3) Every transformation benefits fox in some way with unortodox terrain. Chain grabs are much worse
4) The main stage is the longest, giving fox the most room to laser. This is good in all matchups. The main stage platform is slightly bigger than FD's main stage platform, which is bigger than any other stage in the game and by far the best stage for laser camping which is good in a large number of MUs. This is good for falco too, but fox is better on poke stad than falco is, even though they are both really good there.
Even though these are small things on their own, if you consider that all of these 4 changes benefit Fox against the Marth, you can see why it's his worst stage to fight fox alongside with Dreamland 64.
on DL64, Marth can't kill falco if he just recovers high a lot. Mango does this a lot. Sheik is better there.
I absolutely think Marth and Sheik lose to Falco, easily. Zhu can beat my marth/sheik too and i think he's really good but he's certainly not my skill level against most of the rest of the world, and at Impulse I did much better vs Mango's Fox than his Falco:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7aGt9GQVWo#t=20s
I 4-0d his fox in friendlies with sheik and then in tourney i got a 3 stock before he went to falco and did much better. I generally win like 2/3rds with my marth vs his fox and he wins 70 30 in fox dittos (I win if he's not warmed up but his warmed up fox is insane) and his falco wins most frienldies vs my marth/sheik.
I do much better vs PC's fox than falco too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QhGurghf1s
or kels when i played him in the midwest:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QILgpiojn8w (his falco can win vs my sheik sometimes but i 4 stocked when he went fox). I know these are extreme examples but even on the average it is similar to this (the point being a large difference, despite their fox's being their official mains during those times).
OC3 is the only time i lost to him but that was due to a combination of me choking and him playing very well. That's just him outplaying me, but total record I've beaten (and *****) his fox many times where has he has 3-0d me many times with falco. (at two MLGs in a row, I would 3-0 KDJ in fox dittos then PC would 3-0 me back with Falco. This happened to me in 2 or 3, I think 2 MLGs in a row).
I haven't seen anyone switch mains from Falco to Fox and do better in tournaments. It's usually the other way around. I've struggled with Falco more than other MUs since 2005. Nothing has changed in 7 years except the Falco's are using even more of their options.
I don't WANT to think falco is that good, but from the conclusion of everything I've seen (I've seen like every high level falco vs sheik/marth match that exists on youtube more than once each), there is no way I can believe otherwise. I don't just look at it from a win/loss perspective, I look at it from situations, and risk/reward ratios, probability, options covered and not covered, etc. That's the main way I look at things. My mindset is if you cover all their options, that no matter what, you can make your opponent lose. Falco's lasers and ridiculous combos allow him to do this the best of the other characters. The only reliable approach to falco is powershielding and that is very inconsistent because in 60 frame per second, sometimes if you press the R button down all the way during the same frame, it won't always work. For 2 possible reasons: 1) With regular fast human hands, pressing the R button down all the way in a short period of time may sometimes produce a light shield first. This is because the game runs at 60 FPS. 60 frame per second. What if I pressed the R button down and it registered at frame 58.9, and then ended on 60.1. That right there is 3 possible frames covere that could be accidentally be light shielded on frame 58 or 59 in those 0.02 seconds (which normally would only encompass 1.2 frames not 3, but it spans over 3 frames). That part is luck, which is why it won't always be consistent. The transition from real time to frame-game-time. (In most situations it should only encompass 2 frames or less than 0.02 seconds and more like 0.01 sconds. So say if you press the R button and it registers the light shield on frame 59.2 and ends on 59.7, well that was only about half a frame and in that situation you would get the full shield of the powershield, but if that 0.5 frame time was used from say, 58.8 to 59.3, then it would light shield first (registered at 59.0) and then go into the full shield a frame later. IN THIS SITUATION, A POWER SHIELD WOULD NOT HAPPEN.
I am probably explaining this really poorly so maybe you should ignore this, but basically powershielding is very inconsistent no matter who you are BECAUSE the game is 60 FPS and relies on being frame perfect. You can't do something frame perfect like that consisetntly every time. It's like trying to do 5 JC shines in a row with fox consistently. One time I even got 18 JC shines in a row but other times I can't even do 2 in a row, because you need to be frame perfect. Tactics that are 1-frame-away from being frame perfect are like 10 times easier to do consistently, which is a large reason that frame-perfect things are so unreliable, despite how much practice you have. Again I am unsure if I am explaining this correctly as it makes sense in my head, but hopefully I explained it decently enough so you can understand why that is such an unreliable strategy, but to beat Falco, it may be a necessary one for many MUs.
I know about the light shield trick also but sacrificing light shield is often not good since it's useful in a lot of situations, but also because a laser moves such a large distance per frame, even if you get the perfect shield (instead of the light shield, which is partial luck in the situation that I explained above in normal circumstances) you may not get the shield on the right frame unless you have an inhuman reaction time. It's mostly skill but there is a lot of luck involved so it's not really very consistent. (The only exception to this may be using the light shield trick by holding the R button before the match for easier light shields, but then using Marth's dash away into a powershield. I will be honest in saying that I have not experimented with this much so I cannot give an input on how useful this will serve me).
I do understand I have a choking problem vs a lot of people. I threw tons of sets away vs pp/hbox/mango/armada from getting nervous and having it mess me up. Unfortunately I've been unable to overcome this and it's a huge problem I have that holds me back a lot. I still think Marth/Sheik get ***** by Falco and go even with Fox, since my marth/sheik are positive vs every single fox in the world. I can 2-3 stock the top fox's with those characters consistently, but i struggle with quite a number of falcos over the past 7 years where as with fox it is rarely the case (even KDJ I used to beat in dittos 2/3rds of the time we played). I also have yet to see a marth/sheik play the falco MU better than me (I think Mango/pp were playing bad vs Taj or at least pp was playing bad and mango told me himself he thinks he played like an idiot; I watched the set to learn stuff but it was just the Falcos not playing well, and that's the only example I ever hear brought up over and over again). I'm not talking about just 1 fox player or 1 falco player, I'm talking about like the top 5 or 10 fox's vs the top 5 or 10 falcos - The fox's are much easier to me with both characters. Then, I also see Falco's doing better in tournament, since PC in 2005 to Shiz ****** people to Zhu to Mango to PP, but I haven't seen a Fox rise. Without seeing better strats vs falco as marth or sheik from other players (a lot of the strats rely on the falco being sloppy, and if you need specific examples I can provide them), with seeing falco's constantly do better than fox, and with a number of falco players giving me trouble than even the best fox's in the world consistently, I have good reason to believe falco is a ridiculous character. I wouldn't base that opinion on only 1 instance, I look at results over a period of time, my own opinion, my thoughts on studying the MU myself and studying it from other players, and I try to consider everything when I form an opinion, despite how biased you call me it's not as much as you think - I have actual legit reasons for what I think that go far beyond just "he lost to X character so X is the best". I still don't think Peach is anything special for example, I think Armada is just really good with him (although I do think peach can go kind of evenish with Falco since her Jab/Grab/Dashattack all cannot be short hopped over, where as Falco can easily jump over most other characters jabs/grabs/dash attacks (especially grabs). Overall I think Peach is still 6th on the tier list although very close to marth (Marth is very easy to JV 5 stock people with though more than any other character).
If I wanted to just make my characters look better, I would say "sheik sucks vs fox like everyone says and im just THAT good with sheik", but I'm not saying that, I am saying that I think the MU is close to even (I think sheik fox is nearly 50 50) and the sheik's need to step it up vs fox imo. I think Fox is a slightly overrated character because I **** Fox players and I feel the reason is because I am more familiar with Fox's flaws (lack of range / being 0-deathed very easily upon a hit easier than most characters) than most other people are. The highest level sheik vs the highest level fox I know has sheik (me) winning most of the time. Because of this, I have come to the conclusion that the match can't be that bad. I think sheik only loses on FD/Poke stad (although badly there), and goes even or wins vs fox on the other stages.
Hbox - you're a really good player but be real, puff is pretty RIDICULOUSLY good. Comparing Captain Falcon to Puff is not even remotely close (Falcon is around 8th on the tier list. I actually think Ice Climbers are better than C.falcon; the primary exception to this is vs Peach. ICs handle all the other top characters better than falcon does imo). I can play all of the top 8 characters (except ICs) pretty well (imo I'm best sheik/marth, 2nd/3rd best fox on good day, 3rd/4th best puff, decent falco/decent falcon, 2nd best peach even though armada is liiiightyears ahead) and I've logged 100s of hours into every character and I play them a lot in frienldies when I do play this game (I have not played the game recently but in the grand total of time invested into melee I almost definitely have the most among the pro players, but I never focused on one cuz I never wanted to which was probably a bad idea for me). I do think I have a good idea of each character but comparing Puff to C.Falcon (around where 8th on the tier list should be) is absolutely absurd. I consider puff around fox/sheik level, below falco.
strawhats - jman does not always beat me there but i ban it vs him cuz it's his best. Our fox dittos there last time we fox dittoed half a year ago i 3 stock low %ed him then he won 2 stock (I forget %) next time. My matches with Jman are so random, often depending how we're both playing. I've double 4 stocked him before and he's beaten me twice in a row before. It varies greatly. I believe Poke is great for fox vs marth because of the 4 reasons I stated at the top of these paragraphs.