Fox: ...Shield-grab his aerials.
Wat. You basically
can't if the fox knows what he's doing.
Against Fox how do I win the neutral? I can do well vs a lot of Fox's till I hit around the top 20 players in my state where they just win the neutral against me and I'm helpless.
I don't think anyone knows of a surefire way to beat Fox in neutral, there are a few things that have worked in the past, but even Hbox loses this matchup frequently.
That being said, here are some things to note that may increase your odds of winning, whether or not they're universal is up to debate.
Do not land in lag. Fox can punish you out of any laggy aerial. This means either landing with an autocancelled nair or no aerial at all most of the time.
DI throws and their followups correctly. Fox will almost always go for uthrow in this match. DIing behind him makes it harder for him to follow up and allows you to SDI uair (hbox uses up SDI, which works very well) more easily.
Be aware of a low % Fox in neutral. This sounds simple but throws a LOT of people off. At low % Fox can crouch cancel usmash/punish basically every approach puff has. If a Fox is at low %, do not try to land on or around him with anything,
you will not win the trade.
Your % has an effect on Fox's behavior. Edge cases aside, when you are at killable %, Fox players will be more inclined to use instant KO moves like usmash to end your stock. This makes them more predictable. At higher % you can actually bait usmashes out of fox and punish more easily than normal as they can't kill you as easily or effectively out of grab or aerials any longer, it may take some practice to understand when usmash is approachable but it's a good time investment.
Get better at recovery gimps and punishes. Fox has one of the best recoveries in the game, but it is still vulnerable at certain points. Almost every KO you get on fox will be a recovery gimp. It is in fox's best interest to recover high since he has the most options in that direction. Intercepting with bair is most likely to kill, but fair is easier to execute. Practice wall of pain and throwing out spaced aerials ASAP so you don't trade with firefox's flames.
Rest is a very dangerous proposition in this match. The only time it is safe to attempt is when you are up a stock or at very low %. Resetting the match is not any good, since fox has the advantage at neutral.
Do not get stuck in shield. Run up > Shield is a low-to-intermediate level tactic you should not be using on fox, his shield pressure is too good.
Do not try to cross up fox's shield or land next to his shield. Fox can always hit you with shine if you're close or even if you cross up his shield. Fox can also u smash out of shield very easily. Nothing puff has is safe on shield if you land next to fox.
A lot of these can be applied to falco too, actually, but he is slower and far easier to gimp so the matchup feels less painful.
Sheik... I know there are hard rest punishes but this matchup is so confusing. If someone could give a general rundown on this matchup it would be great. I don't have a Wii (20XX) currently so practicing vs even a cpu Sheik isn't possible.
I'll just post a knowledge dump since I'm pretty good at this matchup and there really isn't any order to this information.
The easiest rest punishes against Sheik are (in no particular order):
- crouch-cancel sheik's dash attack > rest
- duck sheik's JC/standing grab > rest
- duck sheik's ftilt > rest
- sheik recovery landing lag > rest
- CC/shield sheik fsmash > rest
The main thing to focus on with the Sheik matchup is to stay directly below her as much as possible.
Sheik has no good way to punish a puff below her and will be restricted to dair or nair to do anything about it, both of which will lose to uair or usmash. Wavedash OoS or in general towards her to force her into a situation where it's hard to approach or follow up.
Sheik's recovery is laggy, and you can almost always a get a rest or at the very least a free grab out of her landing on the stage.
This is kind of a general, but important against sheik due to explosions. When you're exploiting ledge-getup to prevent sheik from ledge-grabbing, use stand instead of roll-on. Puff's roll-on has fewer invincibility frames than just standing back up onto stage, and is a worse choice overall.
Sheik will almost always opt for dthrow, and it's generally better to DI forward and eat the fair than DI back and possibly get uair'd or usmash'd.
Sheik gets wrecked by nair on her shield because she can't grab you out of it if timed correctly. Crossing up her shield is usually met with nair OoS, and is not always a good idea. If you are going to cross up sheik, use dair since she can't punish it.
Recover high against Sheik, her best ledgeguards are all at ledge level or below.
Bthrow and Dthrow are the best throws against Sheik.
Either can lead to a ledgeguard and both force her into a specific direction. If the sheik DI's back from dthrow it's a free rest at low-mid %.
Until a moderately high level of play, most sheiks will follow a fixed trajectory to recover with up-b. You can exploit this and easily gimp her.
