yo, so PP, I've been writing my matchup guides in this format (this is my working copy of the Fox matchup):
Fox
The Matchup and History: Falco vs. Fox is a fairly even matchup. Back in the day, Falco was thought of as a Fox counter due to his ridiculous auto combos on fast fallers and laser control, but over the past couple years, the general opinion of the matchup has been swinging back towards Fox. As Foxes learned to consistently running powershield -> grab, Thunders Combo, and punish Falco's tech and off ledge options, Falco started looking more and more helpless to Fox's speed. There was even a period where tristate players were suggesting that Fox counters Falco due to JMan tearing through Falco after Falco and even taking a convincing set off of Mango's Falco at Mass Madness. Thankfully, the Falco metagame has learned to cope with this modern style of Fox vs. Falco, and by being mindful of laser placement and spacing approaches, Falco seems to have gotten the edge in this matchup again and it's showing in the results.
Bottom Line: Slight Advantage for Falco. The matchup is close to even, but even the best Fox vs. Falco players don't wanna see a good Falco these days.
The Neutral Position: This is easily the most difficult aspect of this matchup. Fox is quicker than or as quick as Falco in every single way. He runs much faster, wavedashes and wavelands much faster, gets off the ground from his jump faster, accelerates midair faster and has a significantly faster and longer dash dance. Most of their attacks have the same or exceptionally similar frame data. While Falco can still end up ahead in a neutral position by strategic use of crouch canceling and out-ranging Fox, the true saving grace for Falco is that he has a gun. By placing lasers well, you can keep Fox on the ground, which is very important because of his jump speed. Without lasers, Fox has free reign to get airborne first, which is hugely advantageous since Fox and Falco have identical aerial frame data and very similar hitboxes on aerials. So the idea here is to use your lasers to force Fox onto platforms or keep him on the ground long enough to get into the air first so that you can either score a first hit or a shield pressure opportunity. Just be sure that your laser placement and timing does not leave you open for running powershield -> **** as most good players nowadays are very very good at this. If the Fox has enough time to build up running speed towards you, you should fake the laser and just space a nair in his face, try to grab or close and get into a shine fight.
When Fox is above you on platforms, stay patient and try to get something out of your defensive options such as dash dancing, crouch canceling, shielding high followed by shine OoS, and challenging with utilt. Don't feel pressured to approach and for the love of god don't try to pop up high and laser him when he's getting close to you as lasers are very vulnerable. If you see a nice opening, feel free to harass with shffl uair or outright approach with shine -> platform waveland, but don't force it. Fox is usually trying to bait you onto the platform, so only take a swing at him when you're sure it's going to hit, otherwise, make him come to you.
Getting above Fox is great when he's in the air or his shield, but terrible when he's grounded. If you can bait a jump from Fox with a short hop, feel free to abuse SH -> DJ dair, but if he stays grounded and mobile, don't try to fight into his DD options with dair, as he is fast enough to nearly always avoid dair and punish super hard with usmash or grab.
If Fox is for some reason full hop nair shining, you just need to ground him with lasers. Don't bother contesting it, you can win or trade with fair/bair/usmash/utilt, but they're all difficult to space right and there's no need when you can just use your lasers to solve the problem and allow you to get airborne first. If he's overly ballsy with it and hits your shield, remind him why that's a terrible idea by shining OoS.
Shield Pressuring: Fox is a real pain in the *** to shield pressure, so if run into a fast Fox OoS, don't mess around with his shield unless you're confident in your shield pressure techniques. Fox's viable options OoS are:
1. usmash OoS (frame 7)
2. shine OoS (frame 4)
3. shield grab (frame 7)
4. nair OoS (frame 8)
5. spot dodge (frame 2)
6. roll (frame 4)
What this all boils down to is that when you are super close to him, you should double shine to protect against shine OoS while staying flexible against rolling and spot dodging. When you're slightly further away, you should shine grab to protect against usmash OoS and shield grabbing, but beware spot dodge -> grab from Fox as this is the counter to shine grabbing (spot dodge ends in 22 frames vs. your grab which ends in 30 frames, which gives him a 2 frame buffer to grab vs. you spot dodging). Spot dodge is weak vs. standard shine -> aerial pressure as both nair and dair last long enough that Fox cannot spot dodge the entire aerial, so if he's adapting to your shine grab, mix standard pillar back in at this spacing. At further spacing, fadeback nair is pretty much optimal to stay out of his grab/usmash range.
Comboing: Fox is Falco's #1 combo target in the game. If you cannot combo **** Foxes, quit Falco. Fox is a fast faller and cannot tech dair until <FILL IN % HERE>, so when you land a low % shine, the bread and butter follow up of wave dash out of shine -> shffl dair -> shine, rinse, repeat until <FILL IN % HERE> is not a bad option. On FD, you can actually just wave shine and follow up with shines if he keeps DIing away, which will let you push him closer to the edge without building % too quickly so that you still have guaranteed follow ups like dair and fsmash to set up a cheap edgeguard opportunity. On platform stages, react to no DI on low % shines with aerial shine -> platform wave land instead of letting him tech. This sets up nicely for utilt/usmash/fsmash or generic dair/shine follow ups depending on where he goes. You can also link shine -> nair -> fsmash/dsmash if you want to try to catch them off guard and put them off stage. Another common thing to do is follow up your last dair before <FILL IN % HERE> with utlit -> fsmash.
As Fox gets higher in %, try to link your shines into shine-> bair or shine-> platform waveland. Getting above him and dairing after <FILL IN % HERE> doesn't accomplish much as tech chases options are basically limited to guessing 1 option and hoping for the best in these scenarios, but feel free to do so on platforms and near ledges as you can typically turn it into a 50/50 guess on fsmash or dair -> ****. You can also start your dair very early and fast fall through him with the weak hitbox to setup a legit combo into dsmash or screw up his tech timing. Another common follow up I use is to double jump above a Fox in hitstun and fast fall a uair through him to pop him up and follow that up. utilt and usmash combo into each other and shffled aerials very well at these mid %s as well.
At death %s, keep it short and sweet, always look for dair -> dair spike and dair -> smash opportunities and link your shines into dair spikes, shine -> bairs, or just regular bairs to set up edgeguards.
Edgeguarding: I've found that lasers are hugely useful in edgeguarding Fox. When I get him off at low-mid %, my first instincts are to fast fall off stage into a DJ nair/dair or DJ double laser with a fast fall after the first laser to cover more options with lasers. DJ nairing catches most forward B attempts which forces his up B which allows you to take the edge and either ledgehop dair or ledgehop bair. DJ dairing is less likely to hit than the nair, but it does just kill them a lot of the time. The two lasers are particularly nice because they catch him if he tries to fake you out with an early and high up B, but you have to be ready to catch an instant forward B afterwards with dsmash or angled filt. If he doesn't instant forward B after the lasers, he is below stage and you respond by simply taking the ledge. When he is knocked further away, pester him with lasers to force his recovery low and then take the ledge and utilize ledgehop bair for the kill.
Getting Comboed and DIing: Fox vs. Falco comboing is pretty linear upwards juggling. In other words, he just tries to hit you up in the air and then while you're falling in hitstun, he wants to hit you back up there. Fox's standard starters are usmash and grab. He can also open things up with the Thunder's Combo (shine -> wavedash -> jab reset which leads into shffl uair usually, but can also lead into charged usmash or grab), but this can be foiled by smash DIing the jab upwards so that you get slightly airborne from the jab rather than being reset. On FD and in other situations when there is no platform above you, you can DI his uthrow up and shine/double jump before he can regrab in the low 30%s, but doing this allows him to just utilt -> regrab or usmash -> w/e. In these situations, just pick a direction and DI that way until the hurting stops unless they are mindlessly CGing you and you think you'll be able to get away with DI up -> shine. Try not to lose your jump while getting comboed, as Fox will see this and then just do something gay like nair -> ftilt/dsmash to push you off stage. Also just in general watch out for shine/doubleshine combo finishers near the edge of the stage, as that **** will very frequently lead into an impossibly easy edgeguard (for instance, if JMan grabs you near the ledge DI into the stage for the love of god unless you really don't need or want that stock).
Near platforms, Fox's combo game turns into a guessing game, so just mix it up and make him work for it. When he uthrow/usmash/utilts you onto a platform, just try to be unpredictable with your tech choices. If you always tech, Fox can pretty much tech chase with grab on reaction. If you mix in no tech, you can keep him guessing and just try to react to what he does, but again, if you get predictable he'll just **** you with uair or dair reset for not teching.
Recovering: In short recovery situations I typically jump backwards to try to avoid Fox just dropping down and shining me or sitting on the edge and dsmash/low ftilting me. I'll then react to him doing an attack by forward Bing through him or I'll start an up B slightly above ledge level if he does nothing so that you can try to react and either sweet spot the ledge or go on stage depending on Fox's movement. If you do this jump backwards recovery, watch out for Fox doing this big stupid loopy jump thing with a nair or nothing and looking for a shine. When he does this, you need to forward B to the ledge ASAP. If you delay at all or go high and try to recover onto the stage, he just gets a shine autokill. Alternately, you can drop low and just try to double jump sweet spot, but this is susceptible to cheesy drop down shines and edgehog opportunities. In long recovery situations, you really just have to forward B if he tries to come out after you and up B to the ledge if he edgehogs you and you have an option to go on stage (most foxes pop up with a bair to cover you going on stage). These long recovery situations are fairly hopeless against a good edgeguarding Fox though so focus on not getting gimped.
Stages:
FD: This is a controversial stage in the matchup. In my counterpicking guide, I marked this as my most popular ban vs. Fox, but I've been coming around on that opinion over the past few months. The downside is that Fox's combos on Falco are never guessing games on this stage, as their are no platforms to hinder his combo game. This means that Fox's punishes are more consistently brutal here than on other neutrals. And in the meantime, it's harder to extend your combos to death without platforms to link mid % shine -> platform wavelands -> moveset ****. Your combos are still really good though, so it's a minor hindrance. The plus side is that your laser control is much more convincing here. If you're having trouble keeping the Fox off of you in the neutral position, this stage is a great way to simplify that aspect of the matchup. I've begun taking Foxes with particularly sophisticated platform movement to this stage with good success, but if I'm not having trouble controlling the stage on a platform stage, I don't like giving Fox the benefit of guaranteed CG -> uair/utilt/usmash ****.
BF: Personally, I really like this stage in this matchup. It's not hugely imbalanced or anything, but the ledges limit Fox's options when you make him recover from below, which Falco is good at with lasers, and it makes getting those mid-high % kills much easier. Of course the same is true from the other side of the matchup, but I think Falco's ability to recover from below ledge height is much less relevant than Fox's in this matchup. It's not too cramped to get a decent bit of laser control in the neutral position, but is obviously more difficult than on a larger stage like FD/PS/DL. Platforms are at very nice height and spacing for shine comboing. All in all, a pretty good stage vs. Fox.
DL64: Assuming they don't ban it, this is my default pick vs. Fox players. The wide platforms are spaced nicely so that a Fox on the platform isn't necessarily that scary when you're on the ground. Their width makes his platform follow ups more difficult. The stage is huge and as such give you a lot to work with in terms of laser control. The ceiling is monstrously high, making Fox's kills off the top considerably more difficult. Definitely a good one vs. Fox.
FoD: This stage is pretty tricky in this matchup. I've found that the key is to stay low and stay away from predictable dair on platform -> fall through dair tricks unless the Fox is already in shield or cornered. Sometimes the low platforms let you ledge cancel out of a combo early, which is nice, but other times they put you into an impossible tech situation where you'll get usmash ***** regardless of what you do. The ledges aren't particularly good for you in the matchup as Fox has low recovery options along the wall, but in the same breath, you have techable walls all the way to the bottom of the stage in case you get shined into the wall. If you're smart about using lasers behind low platforms, you can also nicely control Fox's approach similar to how you can on FD with the added benefit of shutting down his SHFFL approaches, but besides that, it's a bit too small for nice laser control. As with in most matchups, this stage is potentially good, but also potentially pretty bad depending on how you choose to play it.
YS: This stage is taking over as my default ban vs. Fox. He is a potential threat from any platform and there's no way to establish good laser control. On this stage, you just need to rely on your spacing to produce first hits and it's very tough when Fox has room to run around above you and get the jump on you. Couple that with stupid ledges that tilt downward and allow fox's stupid dsmash to hit stupid low and a stupid low ceiling, and you've got a bit of a nightmare for Falco. That being said, the platforms are pretty nice for comboing and the low ceiling can let you get some silly shine -> up B kills, so it's not all bad, but in the grand scheme of things, I'd much rather not have to play Fox on this stage... also it's stupid.
PS: The Neutral transformation is pretty good for Falco. It's nice and flat and you can make it pretty difficult for Fox to make it to a relevant platform with your lasers due to how large the stage is and the fact that there's no top platform for Fox to use to move from one low platform to another. The ledges are also pretty lame like battlefield's which, as I said before, is better for Falco than Fox. The small blast zones also mean that Fox will just straight up die in some situations where he'd otherwise be able to recover. The two issues with this stage vs. Fox are the low ceiling and the transformations. While neither of these are really dealbreakers for Falco, they do make the stage worse than dreamland or battlefield for this matchup in my book. I think that the mountain and fire transformations are both beneficial to Fox, that the windmill is relatively even, and that the jungle is beneficial to Falco in the matchup (<3 the left side of the jungle transformation).
KJ64: I actually really like this stage vs. Fox. The platforms being so high makes them functionally pretty useless for Fox, as approaching from them is very predictable and punishable by reaction. What's left is an FD-like playing field that lets you shut Fox down quite a bit by using lasers. The rotating platforms in the middle give you a respite from Fox combos when he does manage to hit you and the ceiling is exceptionally high, making the usmash and uair kills **** near impossible. The ledges are beneficial to you in much the same way as BF and PS's are, but they are trickier, so make sure your Forward B shortening is on so that you can still make it to the ledge without crashing into the stage (since you can't). Also, always remember than shine stalling until the barrel comes is a viable option. All in all, it's a mildly tricky neutralish stage that you should keep in mind if you know how to play it.
Brinstar: Is a pretty gay stage for both spacies. I don't really know how the matchup goes on it.
Rainbow Cruise: Rainbow cruise is generaly good for Falco, but against Fox, he has too much space to move around and you can't control him with lasers. I don't really get shook up if a Fox takes me here, but I would never dream of taking a Fox to rainbow cruise.
How do you feel about this format for our matchup collaborations? (you're free this Friday, right?) Anything else you think we should touch on or tone back? Obviously I'll make them mad pretty when it's production time, I just wanted to get your thoughts about what we should cover.
). Every non-neutral is favorable for Falco besides like, Mute City maybe, but I dunno, I think it's still probably way better for Falco than Marf 
