Puff V. Marth MU

[Pip_Puff]

Marth has become the bane of my existence. His long reach, his disjointed swords, and his beautiful hair. It sickens me.

As I've become better at puff (still ****) and become more aggressive, I still can't get inside of marth's range without getting uptilted or forward smashed.

I know approaching with nair seems to work, and aerials out of shield after a whiff work but is there anything else you guys tend to keep in mind while facing a marth?

 

[Lord Horatio]

Marth out ranges you quite significantly, so your best bet is to keep your distance until he commits to something like a forward smash at which point you can punish him. Try to bait those out by jumping in and then out of his hitbox.

 

[Masondeanm]

Math–Puff is potentially the biggest spacing war in top level Melee. Like Horatio said, you want to make him commit to something and punish it, but that's much easier said than done. What you need to do is play around with your spacing until you find the sweet spot where Marth feels unconfortable enough to swing, but you're far away enough that he misses and close enough to punish. Marth has a giant sword and you're not super fast so this isn't the easiest thing to do, but it is doable. Another thing to work on is punish game, you don't have to win neutral as much if you punish harder, and when playing Marth, you should always be punishing him more than he's punishing you. If not I recommend looking into how to DI against Marth. I'll give you one last tip. Make sure when using approaching SH bair, that you don't use the move too quickly and have the hixbox disapear by the time you're in range to hit him. This is something I caught myself doing and taking steps to fix it quckly improved my game.

 

[ZipZopZoop]

I used to also get destroyed by marth a lot. I love talking mu's so i may be longwinded here though so forgive me lol. I also hope anyone that notices something I think about this isnt right will correct me.

In my experience approaching with Nair gets me wrecked many times. I rely more on weaving around with bair because though marth has longer range I don't have to get in so far to whiff punish him and disrupt his wall. To me the entire match seems like just baiting them to overextend and being super patient. You never really have to approach them, just make it seem like you are.

Once I get in I usually go for a grab to throw them to the edge or dthrow to set up platform techchase sometimes. If they are dumb and fsmash when I'm close I usually can just sheild then rest them oos but a lot of the time their first instinct is to grab so once I'm close usually I'll crouch then grab/aerial from that. If i get behind a shielding marth i love to uptilt their shield. Many times it will poke and you can rest. It drives marths crazy because they are pretty powerless in that spot all they can do is dair oos or try to roll out I think. Upair can poke their head too and you can juggle them with it or sometimes rest.

Once he's offstage or close to the edge I find it super easy to get the stock. Just do everything you can to keep him locked in the corner but be patient. Marths hate not being at center stage and usually will try to approach you and do something dumb trying to break out and you can just weave/sheild then bair them off. To edgeguard I like to marthkiller if they have to upb and if they get onstage I usually still have time to jump from ledge and rest them. Otherwise I'll keep stage and continue locking them out of the center unless they are pretty high and far offstage.

When they dashdance they will usually go for either a dash attack grab or maybe dtilt if you play much grounded. Most of the time I'll just sh around to bait them in and crouch their grab/DA then rest. Better marths can also pivot fsmash though which can hurt and some know that they can grab crouching puff if they don't JC grab so you have to notice that and adapt.

I do pretty well against grounded marths that do lots of tilts and smashes with this. Marths that do lots of fast low commitment fairs and double fairs and also know all my gimmick rest setups give me more trouble but tbh I think shiek is way harder than marth. Matchups change depending how good you are though and things I think are good can be bad at a higher level and vice versa so its all relative I guess.

 

[BairSSBM]

I think the last post basically said most of it, but I think another simple, yet very important, aspect to understand about the MU is to never challenge Marth from right above him. A good Marth will chase you and make sure you can't land safely because puff has zero downward priority (dair is unsafe on Marth midair) and Marth has those darn up airs and uptilts. If you are taken to FD where there are no platforms to mix up landing, it is probably best to stay close to the ground either with sh or just crouching. If you are comfortable with your ability to space (which is important for puff) then I would stay right outside of his tipper range and bair/grab/rest when he overextends (depending on the situation).

 

[Pip_Puff]

A gimmick i've been working on to add to the discussion is this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57ynH7mqqF4

at 40% and up, it's a true combo on Marth and Peach guaranteeing you a rest if you hit the dair