I feel confident doing this write-up, after playing Knee's Falcon with green/blue connection nearly daily...
CAPTAIN FALCON - Character Matchup 22
Introduction
Captain Falcon has been in the Smash Bros. Series right from the start. Always being a decent character, built for combos, he'd receive decent credit. In Brawl, however, he has been nerfed on some aspects. Hitstun was reduced, making Falcon less of a combo machine, thus reducing his effectiveness. His awesome finisher, the Knee of Justice, has also been nerfed. It now has a much smaller box of time for a sweetspot.
Behaviour:
Falcon is quite the aggresive character. It depends on the players style in this matchup wether he approaches or not. It's basicly a camp fast. You can keep camping. Another thing worth noting: Both are speed characters and rely a lot on punishment. Falcon kills earlier than Sonic and has more priority, however, Sonic has the tools to gimp and punish well. Falcon is much more dominant in the air than on the ground.
Commonly Used Moves:
Jab: Falcon jab is sexsauce, he can hold A and spam it over 9000 times a second. It also has a good priority. Falcons jab is about 50% of his ground game. He has tons of followups with single/double jabs. He can grab, repeat jabs, finish the jabs or up-B to punish a shielder after jabbing.
U-tilt: Falcons U-tilt is another one of his amazing ground moves. He can spam it. It's got IASA frames and WAY too good priority/range on it. Can kill. Falcon can sort of safely spam this move when you are hanging on the ledge.
U-air: This is how Falcon becomes a winrar. It can combo at low %, kill at higher %, cancels out a spring you drop, be AC'd and more more more cool stuff. A very good move. Also beats out our D-air.
D-air: This isn't very effective in this matchup, since it won't spike up to 50% or so, where we can just spring back. This should only hit you when coming out of a Spring, and even then you should airdodge/U-air it.
B-air: An amazing Falcon aerial, can be SHFF without lag. Weak hitbox leads to followups, strong hitbox kills. B-air your opponent with awesome spacing.
F-air: The Knee. Nerfed from melee, but still should be feared. You think you'll never get hit, but oh, play a good Falcon and see yourself getting Knee'd once every stock. This isn't used as an approach anymore, but more as a punisher. Most obvious to punish Sonic would be laggy F-airs, D-airs or airdodges. This is totally gonna kill you.
D-smash: A good, quick move that should never be forgotten. It punishes rolls amazingly well. Near the ledge it covers getup, roll and jump. This should be shielded and then grabbed.
F-smash: Another good killer, however has a lot of cooldown to it. Shield it and dashgrab in. This move can also be stutterstepped.
Grab: Falcon has an (above) average grab game. Decent pummels and throws. D-throw leads into stuff if you don't pay attention. Airdodge after being D-thrown.
How to Win:
In this match you should by no means play aggresively. Instead, play safe, leave no openings and don't get punished. Gimping Falcon is no easy task, as his up-B grabs you out of your attacks. Space well. If you get close you get jabbed, which can do easily 15-20%. Don't be afraid to shield, his moves don't take away an awesome amount of shield, except F-smash. Try to stay grounded here. Don't Spindash more than necessary, Falcons jab clanks, after which he can do another jab. In the air your main moves should be U-air and B-air. Make sure you get down to the ground ASAP and airdodge frequently.
Don't be predictable with your recovery. Switch up between normal jumps, high Springs, side-B recovery. Also, don't go swinging your kill moves around, you'll want your moves fresh every chance you get. Play to rack up damage. Sonics F-air is a decent move, as it goes over Jab. Watch out for Falcon Kick ledge cancel stuff. However, only a few Falcons can actually implement it (LIKE SPINSHOT). If Falcon has some prediction, you might just get hit by a Falcon Punch.
Grab Falcon a lot, throw him around. U-throw > Spring > U-air is always decent, but DI messes it up. Can kill at 100%. Don't pummel, throw it out immedeatly.
Recommended Stages:
Ban Battlefield, Falcon seriously get an advantage from the platforms
Counterpick Final Destination, the lack of platforms give you the oppurtunity to abuse the fact that you are faster than the 2nd fastest in the game.
Matchup Summary:
55:45
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We didn't have a lot of Falcon input here, so I based some of this from own expierence.
Chis, you can copy paste this, as long as you give me credit.
