PPMD's Falco Discussion Thread

[Dr Peepee]

Hey there PPMD, any updates on your upcoming return? I hope you're feeling your fullest and best self
Aside from that I wanted to ask about the concept of conditioning. I'm fairly new to melee and competitive smash in general, though I've known about the game since 2013. When it comes to playing friendlies and such, my training partner tries to punish any habits I have (Teching out too much for example). I've become recently aware of utilizing mixups because he thinks I'm going for a different option. I think a proper name for that would be long term conditioning, but when I enter a tournament setting, I realize how bad I am at conditioning short term. How do I manage to perform this skill when the stakes are high? I know that I obviously need to get better and obtain more experience, but I still don't have an understanding of how it works and how to apply the concept in high tense situations, especially against players I've never played against before.
What is the approach to the concept?
What is the application?
Excuse me if those questions are too vague,
and thanks!

Short term conditioning is what you have to do for tourneys, but you can train it in friendlies with your friend. If you typically aerial in after laser, you have conditioned. Now if you laser then pullback aerial, or wait, or dash in fake, etc, then you are playing on conditioning. It's like saying expectations.

Hey PP have you read Peak by Anders Ericsson? I just finished reading it and Its been my favorite book on getting good!

I haven't, would you like to sell me on it? What does it cover that makes it different from others, or is it primarily the way information is delivered such as the story is very compelling?

 

[AnonymousID]

So I think the coolest thing about peak is that the author, Anders Ericsson is like the main guy behind the idea of deliberate practice.

He's the guy that other books like The Talent Code and Outliers (which Ericsson talks about) reference when talking about practice so he definitely knows what he's talking about and it shows!

I feel like all the stories just go into so much more depth and Ericsson really tries to give you concrete tips on how the examples would apply to anything. There's also a lot of new ideas he presents which I haven't read before like mental representations, the importance of studying top performers (Smash is pretty big on this so I think its cool he talks about it), the role of talent, and a lot more.

IMO Peak just has so many specific examples/ideas making it a lot more helpful when you're trying to apply it.
So yea, you should definitely check it out!

 

[jedimeister007]

I've heard you and many others talk about flowstate and its importance. My only experience with flowstate comes from traditional sports, but specifically competitive swimming. With swimming I find it very easy to flow as I can always adjust the challenge gradually and I constantly feel in control. Now, with smash I'm realizing how useful flowing could be, however I've never gotten a flow-like feeling in smash. My opponents always feel lower skilled and dissatisfying to beat, or I just get totally rekt. How should I go about trying to reach flowstate when I don't have people super equal to my skill level, and also what're some good resources to look at for trying to get a better understanding of flowstate as a whole and how to reach it consistently?


Also, offtopic but how do you feel about lasers to stuff fox FH/pressure air space on YS? the platform heights are great for laser spam, but the close quarters always feels a bit scary

 

[Dr Peepee]

If you're stronger, you can handicap yourself to make it more challenging such as not shooting lasers. If the opponent is way stronger, you could suggest they do similar things I suppose. It's not always necessary to flow in my opinion.

Fox can attack you from anywhere quickly on YS, so laser spam is bad. Lasers, if they connect or you are safe during them, are much more immediately useful then. Fox attacking from the top platform can get around lasers and hit you with Bair even if you're cornered.

 

[MambaGreenFalco]

Short term conditioning is what you have to do for tourneys, but you can train it in friendlies with your friend. If you typically aerial in after laser, you have conditioned. Now if you laser then pullback aerial, or wait, or dash in fake, etc, then you are playing on conditioning. It's like saying expectations.


I haven't, would you like to sell me on it? What does it cover that makes it different from others, or is it primarily the way information is delivered such as the story is very compelling?

If you are getting out tempoed by a better player in friendlies, how can you use that as a learning experience? I've certainly lost many friendlies in a row while playing at the same speed as my opponent, but those are normally easier to break down why I'm losing and learn from it.

Also when fox is on side plat and you are right below how do you play that position? Like how do you prevent them from going to top platform? Or should you not be prioritizing that and skewing the mixup towards covering them shield dropping or run off bairing?

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/406940379

At 5:31:31, how can you cover the fox running at you directly and them doing full hop approach? At this spacing it seems like if I had done up tilt to cover his running approach then I would have either had to shield his nair or get hit by it. So it seems like a 50/50 but if you guess wrong you don't always lose depending on timing of their approach and ff. I guess I could have done dash back bair which might have covered both at that range because it'lasts for much longer. So maybe if I'm at a longer distance then I should be doing more up tilt because it's easier to react with but at closer range bair might be better?

At 5:32:24 (sorry if this is annoying to navigate)
He gets his full hop out slightly before I dash back, at this point I also know that he always likes to full hop approach in, and so I dash back appropriately, but then I do high aerial dair right where he landed. Out of all of the options I could have picked I think dair works best against the fox doing landing up tilt but also I just realized while writing this that if you want to punish what they do after a certain option then you have to observe them in that position as well. So even though I knew he was going to full hop at me and I knew how to avoid it by doing so I changed the position in. Huh, interesting. So yeah based on this exact position and in general what do you like to do as falco after dash backing their fh? I'm thinking cross up aerial, laser in place after dash back, or maybe some sort of dash up laser or drift in laser?

5:32:50
Here is an example of that range I was talking about before, and my up tilt whiffing. I should have been holding down while uptilting though.

Can you do dash forward against fox if he full hop drifts forward at you? Is this more favorable than dash back in specific circumstances where perhaps you don't have room to dash back or maybe you've already conditioned them with some dash forward stuff?

If you are right in the range of the fox's full hop are you less inclined to dash because you are priming yourself for up tilt/dash back instant bair? When is it more beneficial to change the position rather than directly contesting fox's full hop drift in?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Sometimes you just need to reset or try to establish your own tempo. Stopping for a moment can be helpful, as can slowing things down.

What stage? In general though Utilt sometimes, dash FH Bair, SH in DJ Bair range outside of their attack range to threaten DJ Bair, and DD etc are all pretty useful. DD and of course dash FH Bair help you react to them going to the top platform.

Retreating laser is also useful, and so is dashing back or waiting to observe so you can react either way, but yeah you have the right idea.

Fsmash, Dair, WD shine, (dash in) laser in place or laser in depending on timing/spacing.

Should have timed it, instead of just done it asap. And yeah hold down.

If the Fox will land in front of where you dash in, then yeah dash in is fine. Sometimes it can be okay if you want to CC shine, but Fox could just react and drill or drift back or DJ etc. It can help you set up to laser or aerial the landing directly or indirectly as well.

You shouldn't be spamming dash, because of what I've been saying, but also because yeah you lose Utilt then. If Fox is going to land right on your head and you can't get Utilt out cleanly, then it's usually good to move. Also if you're late too I guess.

 

[MambaGreenFalco]

Sometimes you just need to reset or try to establish your own tempo. Stopping for a moment can be helpful, as can slowing things down.

What stage? In general though Utilt sometimes, dash FH Bair, SH in DJ Bair range outside of their attack range to threaten DJ Bair, and DD etc are all pretty useful. DD and of course dash FH Bair help you react to them going to the top platform.

Retreating laser is also useful, and so is dashing back or waiting to observe so you can react either way, but yeah you have the right idea.

Fsmash, Dair, WD shine, (dash in) laser in place or laser in depending on timing/spacing.

Should have timed it, instead of just done it asap. And yeah hold down.

If the Fox will land in front of where you dash in, then yeah dash in is fine. Sometimes it can be okay if you want to CC shine, but Fox could just react and drill or drift back or DJ etc. It can help you set up to laser or aerial the landing directly or indirectly as well.

You shouldn't be spamming dash, because of what I've been saying, but also because yeah you lose Utilt then. If Fox is going to land right on your head and you can't get Utilt out cleanly, then it's usually good to move. Also if you're late too I guess.

"It can help you set up to laser or aerial the landing direclty or indirectly as well"

What is an indirect aerial? Does that mean aerialing at them but not directly punishing their ending lag? Or does that mean some kind of dash up fade back dair/pivot bair where you don't direclty hit the space where they land?

I still don't understand why spamming dash is bad (besides losing access to u tilt) but what I do know is that it didn't feel great when I was doing it against that fox.

What about a dash in that goes under his fh? This seems a little awkward but seems to have some merit if perhaps you've already established some sort of conditioning off of dash in and cause you can gain stage control by doing so if he does fh passed you.

Is dashing less a general rule vs fox fh or only vs drift in because you want to contest those with u tilt and bair?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Just means setting up an aerial for pressure or to hit their next action after landing, such as spotdodge or Utilt.

You can dash under FH, but it doesn't always give you reward. Sometimes you can Bair it when going past him, which is more useful when it puts him offstage. Not a common scenario.

I say dash less as a general rule, but sure vs FH.

 

[AnonymousID]

Hey PP do you think powereshield (the normal powershield) shine is viable? Im envisioning a future where everyone just powershields every move but I dont think that'll ever happen

 

[Dr Peepee]

On prediction they could, but there would be some limit to what you can predict and react to. Of course, we can improve reactions through practice and better training and relaxation techniques and such, and also control the opponent better with better understanding, but even so there's still a limit to those sorts of plays.

 

[Malt]

Hey PP do you think powereshield (the normal powershield) shine is viable? Im envisioning a future where everyone just powershields every move but I dont think that'll ever happen

To add on to what PP said, I've experimented with PS shine and, while landing the PS on a timing read is definitely doable, the extra pushback you get from a PS make it near impossible for the shine to actually hit. It felt like the only situations that PS shine would consistently work were if the opponent was really fading into you with the move, maybe even to the point where it's a cross up, idk.

I wonder if a PS + shield SDI in would make it more consistent, but that's making it just that much more tight to execute soooo yeah idk. It definitely feels like the ultimate reversal tool, but it might be unrealistic.

 

[R3_]

hi, at what points in falco vs fox, should falco be using nair in both neutral and punish?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Nair is a good approach tool at mid percents, or early ones if you can do a low one on hit to avoid getting held down shined. Mid Nair is also good if they will shield. Nair can catch them jumping away from laser too, SH or FH. Generally you want to be in FF Nair range, and crossing up is a bit iffy since Fox can Bair OOS with decent success then.

For punish, Nair is good to carry Fox off the level for a spike or Dsmash. You can also use it to make him tech on a platform or by the edge, which are reliable punishes for Falco then. You can also use it to just push Fox offstage which is great, and sometimes using it to push him up and to the side lets you get under him to Utilt/Bair so that can be good too.

 

[R3_]

thanks heaps. can you clarify what low/mid/high percents are? I can never seen to remember them for some reason but I'd assume 0-50/50-100/100+ right?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Depends on character. 50% is higher on Puff than on Falcon for example. Low is generally up to 35/40%(when moves like Dair start knocking down), mid is 40ish-70/75ish, and high is beyond that.

 

[Crawfishnoob7]

I've been discussing this situation with a couple of buddies but I'm still iffy on what to do. when edgeguarding sheik and she poofs back on stage, is it worth trying to do a shine bair for more damage and so she can't tech it? I like the idea, but I wonder if you'd just rather combo at the lower percents(shine bair seems to send the sheik off higher than normal bair so she actually gets a lot of recovery options).

I've seen this pop up a lot in some recent matches(I'll link them at the end of this post), but I just think that it might be better to try to combo off the platform instead of taking the shine bair. at higher percents I'd rather just bair to keep the tech skill simpler too(plus lower trajectory?)

Thoughts?

https://youtu.be/o9v42bqfyjs?t=556

https://youtu.be/eS2jxdfqB88?t=150

 

[Dr Peepee]

Second one was KO percent so no complaints there. It's also a good DI mixup. Doing it EVERY time, especially lower and mid percents like you said is more questionable to me since giving more damage to Sheik, or putting her higher up where you can Bair her more for more damage, can sometimes be better. This is especially true if your edgeguard game isn't as good.

 

[Crawfishnoob7]

How about spacing when you have the corner against sheik? Seems natural to ac bair, but i notice even on the slightest bit of fade in you are susceptible to d tilt, cc grab(unsure about this option). Can't the sheik also waveland to platform and shield too? I've seen a lot of players up tilt beneath the platform when this happens(westballz), but it trades a lot of the time.

Basically, giving the sheik a lot of room here probably isn't the best idea because you give up the platform for free, but i'm still worried about the reversal. Should falco play this by ac bairing in place and waiting for the sheik to either go high, or to run into the bair? I think that sheiks can really only counterplay by waiting it out, shielding/wd'ing back, d tilt if well spaced, jump to platform(might just get FH baired tho).

All in all, i want to space for this position correctly without giving up control of the side platform when sheik is in the corner. Is it really possible to hold that space or do you eventually have to yolo in on their shield with something?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Bair is good if you can hit her with AC when she's in the air, or space on her shield, or hit lower if she is on the ground due to CC. Whiffing Bair, especially AC is not very good against her, and in general Bair isn't that strong vs Sheik imo. The good thing about Bair is if you threaten it with SH, you can DJ Bair if she goes to the platform as you drift in. If you want to be defensive, you can laser and set up Bair outside of her tilt range I suppose(leaves you more open to DA iirc, along with SH'ing over your aerial and attacking your landing), along with a bit of dashing and waiting. You can dash FH Nair/Dair or SH in DJ Nair/Dair if she does go to the platform while you're doing this with dashes as well, but it's obviously more useful when her percent is a bit higher, when compared to Bair or hitting a shine anyway.

 

[Crawfishnoob7]

To your point about being defensive(lasering, outside of tilt range), would it make sense for the lower percents to play this way? If roll comes and you commit to jumping in, you might not be getting hit, but you lose stage control and are now being boxed out by sheik. Why not just take the ground you get from having her in the corner and wait to play off a counterhit(shine oos, cc shine, dtilt at high percents)? With this spot though, would you try to low laser while holding the ground, or high laser? I see mid to high laser being good at calling out sheiks who are just standing in place, probably off guard or trying to tilt. But low laser would cover the immediate DA. I guess the question is do you agree about playing it defensively at lower percents?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Do you mean defensively when she's cornered at low percents? Roll isn't super common for her to do, as she can beat out your attacks and counterhit your pressure fairly well, in addition to use platforms. I guess beyond this, I find Falco having more advantage when's trying to hit the opponent because they always feel pressured and off-balance from lasers and aerial threats, but defense can be pretty good too. Low laser I tend to like more because she can crouch PS lots of mid lasers, and forcing her to jump is okay with me since Bair and Nair open up more then, as well as pressuring her landing to force her to swing or shield. Anyway, defense may be a preference. You can experiment.

 

[Crawfishnoob7]

yeah defensively when she's cornered. I guess if falco excels when the opponent feels off balance, then you'd suggest trying to force a reaction from her out of the corner, and capitalize off of that? Rather than waiting for them to approach and get counter punched.

For the spacing on this, I'm thinking just outside of sh aerial needle storm range. It's roughly the same as roll i believe, but I'm wondering if I want to keep the sheik off balance, should I hold that spacing closer to them to try to force them to throw out a move earlier? I think this would be good for threatening aerials but I think that it's a bit far away to get a strong bair on her jump. She might just get away for free after tanking the hit

 

[Dr Peepee]

If you stay that far, you are safer but have a harder time punishing her if she whiffs Ftilt or jumps as well. You definitely couldn't Bair unless she jumped straight in I imagine.

 

[Crawfishnoob7]

Ideas on coming down? It looks like you need to avoid an instant sh up air from sheik and Dair a lot of the times trades, but sheik will usually(probably always) win that trade. Should you be looking to clip sheik as she's running with a bair while falling? or something else?

I see a lot of situations where you are between the side and the top platform. you can sh dair on the platform, jump and DJ, but that's really it. anything else you can do?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Coming down? Please describe this more thoroughly. Falco is coming down, but from where? Where is Sheik when he is?

 

[Crawfishnoob7]

Dairs get sniped by sheik's upair, with the upair either beating clean or trading with dair(or any other aerial I suppose). Coming down from the platforms, notably while being boxed out on teh side platform, there doesn't seem to be many options for getting down safely. at high percents, for both characters i suppose, trying to get off the platform as falco will be extremely dififcult. with the dair trading sheik goes into the ground, and falco either flys off the level or up higher into the air w/o a jump

Holding shield while on the platform instead of jumping seems safe, but you are susceptible to sheik poking at you with quick sh fairs and spaced bairs on your shield and the problem still exists that you aren't in the center. How can you really get down from that position?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Depends on the level to an extent. For example, on YS you can go to the edge and get more mixups there, and on DL you have more room to back up that Sheik can't easily cover. On BF, you have top platform access but it's still harder there. FoD the heights vary so I'm leaving that alone. PS you also can move back fairly easily and have extra room to maneuver.

If Sheik does a rising Bair, you can WD off the platform and get to the ground if you want to so badly. Mid Fair it's harder and a mixup to shield drop or WD back or FH or continue holding shield, as some Sheiks mid Fair into FH Uair to catch jumps or other actions OOS.

Anyway, falling through the platform with a laser is a good way to get down, and Sheik can still struggle to hit your FH if you drift well and also use the top platform on BF/DL at least. SH immediate Dair off the platform can hit her head if she's moving or tries to Fair, and mixing that with DJ away or drift back and such can sometimes be useful. Anyway, being on the platform in neutral isn't so bad, and it only becomes an issue if Sheik is in range to immediate Bair you or something, in which case dash back usually gets you out of range, and if not then she probably won the position beforehand or you freaked out.

Beyond this, I'd need to see a specific position or more description to have something else to say. Falco on a platform is not a bad character.

 

[Crawfishnoob7]

Different question, but more on being cornered in general, against sheik, should I be willing to shield in the corner when i am in her threat zone of sh fair? Reason I'm thinking no is that it might be better at that point to just read the sh startup, or the fair startup(assuming she is expecting the shield and trying to space to hit low on shields.) Could you just go aggro and nair out of teh corner preemptively and catch them in that sh? Still, sheik could just hold that ground at hit with a ftilt or pivot bair and kind of just ruin you. Could you also just wd back and grab ledge and hope for a crispy invincible ledge dash uptilt? lol

 

[Dr Peepee]

Yolo Dair is a great way to get out of the corner. If it hits you get damage or a punish, and if Sheik shields and you get behind that's still pretty great for you. It's only bad if you hit the front of her shield then obviously.

Anyway, you sometimes have to shield. Rolling or yoloing can lose to certain things Sheik does, and sometimes you just have to take it. I like shield DI'ing to the edge when possible so at least I get some control back. But yeah, don't make the common Falco mistake of doing an obvious laser as Sheik starts to jump and then waiting to shield until she hits you. Shoot with some space so you can prep for her jump or get out of the way of it, or yolo occasionally if you have to, but Sheik has some hangtime on her jump so don't panic is the main thing. Also accept shielding, it's a mixup what she does next so just learn how that works.

But yeah if you have some space, lasers and faking moving in with some dashes can be great at forcing Sheik to WD back or something, which can help give you more room to do more mixups offensively and defensively.

 

[Crawfishnoob7]

Yeah to your point of just using shield but also shield DI'ing to ledge could be helpful, especially with confident ledge dashes. Yolo dair also seems useful in this mu overall because it has such a high reward, but with the yolo dair out of the corner like that, are you worried that it won't trade or get beat clean by a fair? If she was in the position where she has the room to space it on shield could she also just choose instead to instant sh fair? Would that beat out the dair clean or is there some counterplay around a trade?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Shouldn't lose to Fair unless you do it from pretty far away or you do it after Sheik has clearly already jumped(or she does an early Fair, which I haven't seen in neutral in many many years). In a situation where you have to worry about instant Fair, you could probably pullback Dair to force it out, or again use fakes with dash in or dash in SH DJ or waveland back to maneuver around her. Probably could do some dash in pivot Bair stuff too depending on spacing, or at least turnaround Bair, etc.

 

[Crawfishnoob7]

When you do a pullback dair and successfully bait out an instant fair, do you have enough time to land from the dair and then dash forward with a yolo dair to either directly punish, or hit the back of the shield? Or is that you've baited it out and maybe now is the time to jump out, or roll instead of trying to go for the punish. Would a late nair trying to cross up a shield after they instant fair get you out of that situation instead of the yolo dair?

Overall, how can you punish that instant fair if you are fading back towards the ledge?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Depends on what you do and when they do it. I would say it's unlikely you could pullback Dair and hit any type of Fair landing Sheik does, but you could hit her next action after the Fair I suppose. I would say it can set you up for a new situation in which the Sheik can't easily predict what will happen which can lead to you dash FH'ing over her or dash back dash in Dair'ing into her to punish her following Ftilt, etc.

Do you mean pulling back? If you do pullback stuff then probably not too much but I guess you could jab or Ftilt or maybe DA. Otherwise it could be stuff like turnaround for Bair, or dash back to set up an aerial, or do a SH in place to drift in with an aerial or just laser. Depends on spacing and timing a lot for both your action and hers, so this is all pretty broad. It's better to test it yourself.

 

[R3_]

for a player like me with bad internet and nobody in close proximity to play with, what are the best ways to practice and improve? eventually I will go out to tournaments since thats basically necessary for improvement but what should I do with nobody to play with, practice punish on unclepunch? or focus on neutral with 20xx replays? pretty much; what should be prioritised?
Also side question in relation, should I ever play against 20xx cpus? since I have access to unclepunch and 20xx already is there anything I can actually gain from that?

 

[roboticphish]

for a player like me with bad internet and nobody in close proximity to play with, what are the best ways to practice and improve? eventually I will go out to tournaments since thats basically necessary for improvement but what should I do with nobody to play with, practice punish on unclepunch? or focus on neutral with 20xx replays? pretty much; what should be prioritised?
Also side question in relation, should I ever play against 20xx cpus? since I have access to unclepunch and 20xx already is there anything I can actually gain from that?

There's 634 pages in just this thread worth of reading material for you to go out and implement. There is 20xx and unclepunch, but PPMD got to where he is before either existed, and I practiced my tech skill by using a combination of the single player glitch, a second controller, and a bowser with a respawning starman. There are an endless number of ways to practice and improve. The only wrong way to practice is by not practicing, and the only wrong way to improve is by not trying new things to improve. There's the zain approach: practice your niche tech in the lab until you can get it 100 times out of 100. There's the Armada approach: Beat the snot out of a CPU until you can do those punishes in your sleep. There's more approaches to practice and improving, so you need to find what works for you by going out and experimenting. You can gain from lab practice at every level of play: even the top 10 still grind it out sometimes. Just go out and do it.

 

[Dr Peepee]

for a player like me with bad internet and nobody in close proximity to play with, what are the best ways to practice and improve? eventually I will go out to tournaments since thats basically necessary for improvement but what should I do with nobody to play with, practice punish on unclepunch? or focus on neutral with 20xx replays? pretty much; what should be prioritised?
Also side question in relation, should I ever play against 20xx cpus? since I have access to unclepunch and 20xx already is there anything I can actually gain from that?

In addition to what roboticphish said, with the most important thing being starting and seeing how it feels and adjusting based on what works best for you, I'll answer what you directly asked.

To solve the person problem, it can help to recruit people however you can. Flyers challenging people to beat you with a money reward and you see who you can keep when they show up(or hold a tournament etc) and so on. I wouldn't hold off super long on tournaments either, as building your network is both fun and rewarding in-game.

Punish on unclepunch is great, along with tech chasing and perhaps edgeguarding on 20XX CPUs. Shield pressure practice with replays and general infinite shield is good. Learning your options in various positions with 20XX replays is very good so learn that as well as you can, and solo practice your basic tech to get it spotless is very foundational for pretty much all of this so I wouldn't shirk it at all. This all adds together well, so starting anywhere here(but including basic tech as a base) is a good idea.

 

[R3_]

thanks, much appreciated to both of you. I really like the insight on ways to practice and specifically the Zain approach that you mentioned roboticphish.
as for tournaments, I already have a monthly that I plan on attending at the end of this month which is exciting. the basic tech as a base, thing is something that I dont really do often, might make a schedule or something that keeps me practicing certain things daily. thanks guys

 

[PAWN1]

How do you deal with Marth's fair in place? I've been trying to build an idea of how to beat each of his moves but I'm not sure about this one.

Additionally, what do you look for when juggling Marth in the air after he leaves hitstun? Currently I look for side B in the air as a stall, aerials to stop me from bairing him, and just doing nothing. Are there more options he can do here that I'm not considering? And how do I punish each of these? I've considered full hop shine stall as a bait -> let their aerial come out -> DJ bair as an option but I've never seen you do it and was wondering what you thought about it.

Also I notice you sometimes let the Marth come down and fall into a laser instead of trying to force a bair. When are you looking for when you go for this?

 

[Dr Peepee]

If he does early Fair, you can Nair him in his lag or Dair his landing lag. You can laser him from farther away, or drift in with Bair. If he does late Fair, you can hit him with Nair/Dair as he's jumping, or Bair him/set up Bair on his landing lag. Or laser his landing lag.

You want to look at Marth's drift, if he can mix up between going to a top platform or not(using airdodge especially), among other things as well. FH/DJ Bair is great against Marth, but be sure to be on a side/top platform and between him and center if possible so you can force him to either try to go over you(he gets Bair'd easily) or he has to go offstage(you can either Bair him here or set up an edgeguard).

If I let Marth fall it may be because I expected him to do something different, or I couldn't cover everything, or I just misplayed. But sometimes letting Marth get cornered and pressuring him is still okay since that's still a great position for you, even if it can't force him to lose his jump as immediately.

 

[roboticphish]

Hey PP,

So this is kind of a complex question that might be hard to answer, but I'll do my best to communicate it. I feel like my game against the actually good players is very much based around the things that work against people below a certain level on the tier list. For example, if I'm fighting against a really good Luigi, I can generally get by with a simple gameplan of things like "stop his movement with lasers, use ftilt and spaced fading dair/bair to stuff ground approaches, and shark his fall to the ground by waiting for him to get antsy and then whiff punishing his aerial." It's simple, and because of the limitations of lower tiers, that simple gameplan takes me quite a long way against the players of higher tier characters that aren't player a higher-level game.

So being a little more specific, against Fox I feel like I annihilate a lot of mid-level players. I feel like I have a good mixup game of approach vs movement mixups vs baits vs lasers, etc, and my punish game is generally good enough to get at least one ZTD per game. But then, when I sit down to play against an actually good fox, such as when I sat down a while ago to play Crush or DJN, or when playing in tournament against a mid-level fox who is completely patient and content with just biding their time, I just get completely exposed. Specifically against DJN, when I asked him how he was beating me so consistently he told me I was getting most of my openings off of crouch cancel and bair, and if he just played around those I didn't have any way to open him up. So I started looking for that more closely, and I noticed that he was right, that a lot of my openings even against mid-level players were coming from those tools...but the rest of my kit wasn't working against high level players and I suspect it's because they were way too big of commitments and could be reacted to from far enough away that they'd never land.

This is the case in most of my top tier matchups; it's actually kind of messed my game up because I'm looking at every time I make a big commitment and I don't know how to make plays in a low commitment way. I know how to like, keep people out or just poke. So if I've got a marth in the corner, e.g., I know how to just laser ftilt or do platform mixups into bairs if he tries taking stage, but if he's content with sitting there (hypothetically) the whole game, I have no idea how to safely commit to making a play without giving up center, making a big commitment like an overshot aerial, or raw smash attacks (which I do way more than I probably should against high level players). If I try low commitment things, I lose my mixup game and it's much easier for them to dash dance/whiff punish or something. And what's more, I get extremely nervous when I'm forced to play a low-commitment-in-all-cases gameplan, because a) it's not what i've been practicing for years, and b) I know that the tiniest mistake is what will get me opened up and killed. I feel less nervous when I do a dashing dair into the corner against Marth, who rolls in and kills me for it, because I can shake that off as a really dumb mistake I shouldn't have made. But when I'm trying to do run in fadeback dair at the very very edge of his dashing range to be as low commitment as possible, it feels like if I'm not pixel perfect I will die for no possible return, which makes me play more nervous and more likely to fall back into bad habits.

This is all a very long-winded way of saying that my problem at the moment is a couple layers deep. 1) I only have a couple reliable tools in my pocket for the top tier matchups (specifically fox, falco, and marth, although the issue extends to some falcons and peaches too). 2) The reason I don't have more tools than that is because my tools against mid-level players are higher in commitment and work due to their being less technically proficient and tactically skilled. 3) I don't know what to look to in order to build up an arsenal of low-commitment options capable of both keeping me safe and making plays. 4) As a result of not knowing what to do, I fall back into a very basic pattern of behaviors/mixups. 5) I then can get picked apart, and that + my ignorance leads to frustration and nervousness.

My apologies for the essay, but hopefully there's enough to chew on here that you might be able to offer advice on what to look to for improvement or how to fill in this gap in my play. Thanks.