Sup team, I have a few gifs of me vs Marth, I'd love to hear thoughts if yalls can :D (PP / Bones)
1.
https://gfycat.com/EuphoricOblongHorseshoecrab
Ground game, Marth is mixing up shield / power shield and wd oos and take laser jab. Having trouble illuminating the ground game in my head a little. Thoughts?
2.
https://gfycat.com/LeanHonorableBass
Here i do a decent job of jumping over the power shields but still feel like I'm missing opportunities, should i be looking to jump over the PS with more aggressive options like approaching late aerials or something? Maybe just more aggression after the laser that jumped over the PS like laser > dash grab or something.
3.
https://gfycat.com/FaithfulBabyishKrill
I think this shield I do is extraneous and I tend to do when I'm a little spooked. I also have a big problem with picking panic options after whiffing aerials, here I panic and spot dodge right after the whiffed Nair.
Thanks in advance!
#1, 6:31 - You shot this laser too soon. You can cover TR in/TIP with dair, so they will almost always TR away, and establishing laser pressure is great, but you should time it so it hits right as his animation is ending to maximize your frame advantage while limiting his space. If you're not able to combo off the laser directly, then whether it hits or he is forced to shield it is largely irrelevant. I'd rather have a late laser out that he can shield if it means I had more time to advance and I'm now within range to grab, approach, zone, dash back to set up for a whiff punish, etc.
You DDed, but I'm not too sure what it really did for you. The main thing I'm guessing you were expecting was immediate fair after taking the laser. It's a common option for Marth to throw out to defend himself, and waiting outside his range to punish it is a worthwhile endeavor. However, I find you can sort of multitask by simply lasering again from the appropriate positioning. If he fairs to stuff an approach, he will jump over the second laser and you can still whiff punish on reaction by SHFFLing him out of the air. If he does not expect an approach, he is likely to approach himself on the ground. Run up grab, WD in dtilt, and dash attack are the most common options, and something they all have in common is they lose to consecutive lasers. The one thing you could do that would lose to all of those options is to DD so far away that an abnormally aggressive fair is the only thing you can really punish. It's unclear if you were aware of these threats, but for good reason, you felt unsafe DDing at that spacing, and backed off to reestablish laser pressure. Marth players have asked me how to deal with this type of lasering and the only thing I've come up with is to move forward between the lasers and PS the second one, or move forward at a shorter distance that I'm not ready to capitalize on.
I think the best way to understand the ground game vs. Marth is to view everything in relation to your lasers, specifically two consecutive ones. Look at all the times you shoot two consecutive lasers without moving. What does the Marth do? If you're like me after discussing this with Sami, you'll be amazed that Marth pretty much can't do anything, at least nothing that directly threatens you. Most of the time it's move back (approaching laser after him to rinse and repeat), jump in place (laser in place to rinse and repeat), jump forward (whiff punish on reaction with either an aerial or close laser), and move forward on the ground (approaching aerial, retreating/in place aerial, grab, do whatever you want since you just lasered him in the face).
If you understand the fundamental FGC mixups established in Street Fighter, you should know about the most traditional RPS. Character A shoots Hadoukens. Character B reads a Hadouken with a jump in. If the read was good, he gets a juicy punish. If he jumps in and A opted not to shoot a Hadouken, he gets Shoryuken'd (upper cut anti air). This is largely how I view Falco's lasers vs. Fox, though Melee has more complexities due to platforms, drift, and double jumps. Now imagine that Character B is incapable of jumping in, and you've got yourself Marth's neutral vs. Falco on FD. It's really not pretty, and when I watch Falco vs. Marth, no one seems to be playing to this meta. What actually seems to happen is that Marths camp until Falco does a bad approach that he
didn't have to do, then they out-punish the Falco. Marth vs. Fox has devolved into a similar dynamic, even at the top level, though it's understandably different due to Fox relying on speed over a projectile to threaten the space in front of him. Even the one time we got to see Sami play Falco vs. Marth against PPU at G4, he largely seemed to outplay him in neutral, then do something unnecessary and die.
Quick rundown of the times he gets punished (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEpN4JclsUM):
0:45 - Hit by PPU's respawn invul
0:58 - Accidentally FHs to top plat giving up center stage and laser control
Rest of the stock was a bunch of weird tech flubs/whiffs.
2:15 - Decides to DD WD around instead of lasering
2:34 - This is the first good example of the current meta. Falco lasers, and Marth is not close enough to punish a second laser. Despite this, Sami tries to approach. If you remember the 4 main options I laid out before, you'll remember the first and most common one is moving backwards. PPU WDs back and gets a free grab. Marths have come to rely heavily on these kinds of free openings, and the vast majority of them do not have any answer besides move backwards and hope Falco gives himself up.
3:00 - Hit during PPU's respawn invul
3:28 - Sami opts not to establish laser pressure and instead goes for a read on PPU approaching by moving forward and retreating with a dair. This generally isn't bad, and he didn't even get punished until he dashed in for another read after the retreating dair.
PPU didn't properly deal with Sami's lasers even a single time and managed to get him down to last stock. This kind of stuff continues through the rest of the set which is depressing, but also quite promising. I don't want to blow this out of proportion to make it sound like Falco beats Marth free since human error and reaction time are real things, and platforms give Marth a great "jump in" when he normally has none, but it feels like the meta has stagnated at this point and won't improve until Falcos step it up. As far as Wes is concerned, I've tried to figure out how he beats any Marth, let alone PPU, but the best I can come up with is he does extremely high risk immediate DJs with amazing drift mixups, and then punishes the ballz off of the Marth. It's truly a sight to behold once you get used to viewing the matchup through the heavy laser-focused lens that I have for the time being. I still haven't given his last set vs. M2K a proper studying, but perhaps I'll take some time to do so.
I realize I just went on a giant tangent to explain the ground game, so let me go back to your specific examples.
#1, 6:25 - You continue lasering and aside from being hit by a few PSed lasers, you're not really losing anything from continuing to shoot. Eventually, you land a laser relatively close and decide to approach. The simple explanation is you just weren't close enough to be approaching there. Take laser and jab is actually a blessing compared to the take laser and DD grab you could have been caught by.
Laser lower to make PSing more difficult. Ginger has mentioned he likes high lasers up close to dissuade Marth from jumping, but I haven't tested that myself. I think the increased risk of getting PS grabbed is not worth it, and I think Marth's advancing jump options are limited enough and get punished hard enough that I welcome the mixup most of the time (exceptions: when I'm at high % or relatively cornered).
#2, 7:55 - Hopefully the bthrow was an accident. Even at 0%, uthrowing and fishing for a jump shine as he comes down/lands on the plat or doing a SH uair/bair in a way that's safe and allows you to retain stage control is best. Don't FH, and don't let him get behind you by running across the plat or something. Fthrowing him to the ledge is decent, though Marths usually DI uthrow away and end up on ledge anyway, so I feel like you don't gain much from fthrowing unless you suck at capitalizing on the uthrow opportunities. Maybe you can dthrow and tech chase TR in with a hard read dair. It's a predictable tech situation, and the punish would be brutal. Another thing worth testing.
#2, 7:52 - You laser a bunch which he is utterly incapable of dealing with, then you eventually land a laser right on his shield. Not the way I would have went about it (run up PS grab would have rekt you, but he went for fair OoS instead), but you should be able to react to Marth's positioning while you laser to know what attack to do as soon as you land. If you see him moving during the startup of your laser, you can think about how much time you have left until the laser comes out, then also think about how far he will travel in that small length of time. From this, you can extrapolate his positioning since he can't reasonably change his position before the laser comes out, and aside from SDIing it away, you will know what to do. In this example, you could have shined right after the laser, at which point the world is your oyster. Shine grab, multishine, or waveshine through are the big go-tos for pressuring Marth.
Instead, you daired behind him hoping he would move backwards. Marths won't really do that when it's possible to overshoot a dair (which means you're basically on top of them/through them). They will usually only retreat if they have enough time to avoid laser immediate SHFFL because that's the standard threat Falco has after lasers.
#2, 7:51 - Similar laser distance in the opposite direction. You aren't close enough to laser SHFFL which you recognize, so you read his movement back with an approaching laser. Not terrible, especially if they are being predictable with their retreating/not protecting their space with aerials, but if you remember what I said before about being able to punish SH fair if you shoot a second laser, you can see how that might have played out in this situation. The fairs he is doing are bad and should lead to huge pillar combos.
#3, 7:18 - He WDed forward between your lasers, so as soon as you recognize the forward movement while you do the second laser, you have the green light to approach with a SHFFL. You can run up grab to read the shield, but if he grabs it might just beat yours because you have to move forward some. Because you didn't approach, you correctly felt your space was no longer protected. Without a laser out, you panicked and dashed back into shield. The problem with this kind of defense is Marth doesn't really care about spacing. His options all have insane range due to his speed and hitboxes. The hard part about the laser style I like to use is if you don't respond to his movements properly, you can be caught way out of position with no protection. Mixing in retreating/in place/approaching, pull back dairs can add a nice mixture of threat if you feel the Marth is getting in your space too much, but ultimately it seems like you shielded because you don't trust that the lasers will protect you. Between any two lasers, Marth can't hurt you, but if he moves forward between them, then you either need to strike or use a defensive hitbox becuase a third laser will not be safe at that range.
#3, 7:17 - Once you realize he backed off instead of destroying you for shielding in the corner (because he was anticipating you to approach after eating your laser at point blank range like you should have), you reestablished laser pressure. Unfortunately, similar to before, you follow up the laser with a SHFFL from too far away and he retreats. You're lucky to not get grabbed outright, but the fact that you're in such a bad position means you feel forced to dodge. Rolling away is a pretty hard dodge for Marth to cover if he has to retreat really far like he did here, but one thing I know Wes does well is abuse jab to keep himself safe. With Marth at 90% and fiending for a grab, he's unlikely to start crouching here, so jab is probably a good way to cover your tracks if you do end up doing a bad approach. I recall you talking about that kind of jab in your Falco ditto analysis, so I imagine you know exactly what I'm talking about.
