Project Fox

[The Prince: SDJ]

Goal: Develop strategies to counter Fox in today's meta-game with Jigglypuff

Now you might be asking how we, as puff players, will accomplish this grueling goal.

Here is the plan:

1. Step 1: Accumulate advice and methods from all Jigglypuff players willing to contribute
2. Step 2: Take advice for two styles of Fox. Style 1: Campy Fox Style 2: Aggressive Fox
3. Step 3: Meticulously test all strategies to determine the most successful while allowing room for adaptions
4. Step 4: Accomplish ASAP.

If any Jigglypuff player wants to contribute to this forum, feel free to post your idea, no matter how small. If you want to test these strategies feel free to do so and post the pros and cons of the strategy/idea.

Here is a Google drive to easily compile ideas: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B6nuJVcvi3l3VWdqVUs3SE01Tzg&usp=sharing

 

[BTmoney]

I really like this idea, there is just no one that wants to post all that much on the puff boards. hopefully that changes

I got two (three) things:
1. never give up the usmash and ALWAYS land in such a way that does not leave you vulnerable to it. bad fox players always fish for it and make it very obvious as well. if you just slow down your game and look at their distance/how they are trying to bait you then it's pretty obvious most the time when they are looking for it. Personally I find myself thinking "no that's too obvious on their part" so I'll ignore the option but then they do it anyways and that's annoying. The MU gets minutely easier when you just refuse to be hit by it. This sounds trivial but it's really not

2. SH auto cancel bair contests/"beats" when you space correctly WD OOS. WD OOS wrecks bad puff

3. know how to SH auto cancel bair lol. (SH->quickly bair->jump again before you hit the ground or land with normal/less lag instead of L-cancel lag)

 

[Prince_Abu]

fox is tough so you need to have your optimum punish game to win. #1 thing i see a lot of puffs not doing that is GUARANTEED is resting the up smash on shield. u need to always pretty much go for this as it is a guaranteed punish on fox's up smash on your shield

 

[knoxvader]

So that SH AC Bair isn't actually autocancelled if you're jumping again... right? That sounds just like normal landing lag if anything.

 

[BTmoney]

So that SH AC Bair isn't actually autocancelled if you're jumping again... right? That sounds just like normal landing lag if anything.

normal lag (i.e. jumping and not doing an aerial) and auto cancel lag are the same thing (4 frames iirc)

the point is that if you're doing a SH bair you want to maintain the option to jump again unless you specifically want to do a low/late bair.
If you choose not to jump and you did it correctly then you land with ~half of the lag (normal lag) of an L-canceld bair and that's very useful


It really opens up some movement options/speed/mixups when you add the ability to SH bair->jump again or choose to land (which would technically be an auto cancel)

 

[knoxvader]

Right, I know it's the same amount, but it's not really an AC aerial if you're done with an animation.

Thanks for the clarification.

 

[snex]

something i saw bieber doing a lot. when fox is below stage and doing up+b to recover, but he is too far to edgeguard, you can get a guaranteed dair which will put him in a position for a guaranteed dropzone edgeguard afterwards.

 

[squible2]

One thing I find useful in this matchup is spot dodging. Most fox's have do their grabs predictably, and if you spot dodge it, you can grab them. They can basically only punish it on a hard read, so if you think they're starting to notice you do it a lot, you can be more aggressive because they will just wait for you to spot dodge. I like to think of it like using duck in the marth and sheik matchup.

If you get an upthrow at zero percent, it's not worth going for a rest because the fox will just di for survival. One combo idea is to do a soft fair into regrab. At this point, you can usually rest to secure a kill on any stage except dreamland.

Ledge stalling is very effective against fox. If you don't mind being hated, camping the ledge when you have a stock lead can secure a victory. Worst that should happen is the fox runs in and shines you, but you can easily recover from this unless he gets three in a row. If the fox does try to run off and shine you, just hit the fox with aerials into an edgegaurd. Now you have a bigger lead. Another thing fox can try to do is space bairs near the ledge. If they start doing this, you can beat this by staying a bit off stage and spacing your bairs.

 

[Massive]

Foxes love to run in and grab you after you land from an aerial attack. This works best for them if you're in any kind of landing lag.
The traditional wisdom is that you should never land with any sizable lag (this is why you see folks like hbox land with an autocancelled Nair after a string of aerials), however there is another option.

You can always decide to live a bit dangerously and bait grabs. By landing with a waveland, or simply not in lag frames and attacking/dodging/wavedashing before you get grabbed, you can really limit a Fox's options and totally shut down less perceptive players reliant on dashdancing for approach.

Edit: thought of another one.

When you are on a stage with platforms, it can be very tempting to go down to the lowest level. Foxes rely on you to go down there because they like large, open areas to maneuver in. They can't dash dance you or laser camp (as easily) if you're sitting on a platform above (not directly, obviously) them.

Treat platforms as another type of ledge you can fall through. Since you can't refresh jumps with a ledgegrab, use a ledgecancel instead. You can float around throwing out crazy/safe aerials and actually force an approach out of fox. If things get too hairy on that platform, leave it.

Platform stuff like this has been a driving factor to me working on my shield dropping, since it makes every platform a dropzone aerial party.

 

[squible2]

What stages do you guys prefer against fox? These are my choices. In general, smaller stages are good because fox can utilize large spaces much better with his ground space and lasers than puff can. High ceilings are also good for puff for survivability. My personal order is:

1. FoD
This stage has the second highest vertical blast zone, allowing puff to live longer. The stage size is also small which reduces the amount a fox can camp you. I also like the variable platform highs as they usually cause fox to mess up some kind of tech skill during a fight. This gives puff an extra punish in a hard match up.

2. Yoshi's Story
Yoshi's is probably a bit controversial. The major downside of this stage is obviously dying very early. Randal also exists, which helps foxes recovery significantly more than puffs (although this isn't too difficult to cover). However, puff has many advantages on this stage. It's too small for fox to utilize space well, allowing puff to control the pace of the match more than any other stage. The stage has platforms, which puff can use to combo and tech chase fox. The platforms are low though, so puff can always up throw combo fox unless the fox di's too far away for any followups (this would not be followable on any stage though). This helps secure up throw rests that can be a bit more unreliable on stages like battlefield and dreamland because the fox can tech the platform after being thrown up.

3. Dreamland
This stage is basically the exact opposite of Yoshi's. You live forever, but fox has all the space in the world. Before and after up-throw upair percent on this stage it is incredibly difficult to die. As long as you avoid up smashes and foxes low range aerials, you cannot die. Use this longevity to take more stocks off the fox before you lose one. I find this stage the most frustrating stage in this matchup due to the amount of camping that the fox can do, but if you're patient, you can use the survivabillity advantage to gain a lead.

4. Battlefield
Nothing particularly special on this stage. It's big enough for fox to play run-away, but it's not as bad a dreamland. You also live for a mediocre amount of time.

5. FD
FD is huge and has no platforms, both which help fox use space to make your life miserable. The upper blast zone is also small, so you get to die early (yay...). At least it's FD against a spacie, so you can get some nice 0 to death combos without using rest.

6. Pokemon Stadium
This is basically FD again except with a lower blast zone and transformations that tend to favor fox. Most of the transformations are easy to camp out though.

 

[Massive]

I personally believe battlefield to be puff's best stage.

Here's why:
Puff's sing-ledgegrab prevents basically all ledge silliness. You should never get battlefielded under normal circumstances.

Not only that, sing ledgegrab lets you sweet spot your recovery facing the wrong way from what looks like under the stage.
This extra flexibility means you can go HAM and burn all of your jumps trying to gimp and still get that sweet, sweet ledge guard/grab.

Additionally, the lack of vertical stagewalls on battlefield means that normally safe ledge hugging recoveries are not very safe at all. Fox and falco especially can accidentally miss the ledge if they're trying to sweet spot, and this also forces them to recover from specific places every time if they want to remain safe.

Finally the platforms here are perfect height for position ambiguity. One jump will not put you on a platform here, but it looks like it will. This is great because your opponent won't be able to tell exactly where you're going, you can aerial when they are expecting you to be platform bound or even trick them into getting on the platform to try and punish.

Those are basically my reasons for really liking battlefield. I don't feel like it has any really huge advantages over every other stages, but there are a few small ones, an the small ones do help.

 

[squible2]

I didn't know about the platform height on battlefield worked like that. It makes sense that you would get lots of flexibility out of that though. I just don't like how the battlefield platforms mess with upthrow rest or other throw combos so often. You can try and make up for this with tech chases though.

 

[Massive]

Uthow on to a platform is a lot better option if the Fox DIs well. You can punish tech in place, tech rolls, and waiting with rest, or just land on the platform and follow up.

Additionally, you can still uthrow > rest under the BF, PS, FoD(based on where they are) and Yoshi's platforms, the timing/% requirements are just a bit tighter.