Stage picks?

[Gladiator]

So essentially, I'm sort of a noob trying to get more into smash. I've already been to a tournament, but something there somewhat perplexed me. How do you pick a stage with strategy? What I mean is, I mostly play fox, falco, and sheik, so how do I go about picking stages best for me? Any tips or strategy, or just personal preference?

 

[Ezzee]

Learn to counter pick the player more so that the character. For example, if someone is playing a hyper aggressive Fox, you might want to ban yoshi's go to Dreamland to give yourself more room to move. Also the, sometimes the stage to ban that seems obvious isn't always the right one. In Jiggs vs Fox, Fox is actually at more of an advantage at Dreamland than Yoshi's despite Jiggly dying earlier at Yoshi's, Fox is able to run circles around Puff at Dreamland and give her few chances to hit him.

 

[Gladiator]

Thanks, this sort of stuff really helps.

 

[rpotts]

So essentially, I'm sort of a noob trying to get more into smash. I've already been to a tournament, but something there somewhat perplexed me. How do you pick a stage with strategy? What I mean is, I mostly play fox, falco, and sheik, so how do I go about picking stages best for me? Any tips or strategy, or just personal preference?

As Ezzee said, sometime counterpicking can be counterintuitive. As a Fox you may think Dreamland is bad for you since the high ceiling means it's harder to kill with upair and upsmash; however, the extra space gives Fox players plenty of room to run around and laser and run circles around slower opponents. It also makes it harder for him to get gimped by characters like Marth or Falco since Fox can control the center of the stage well thus being harder to get stuck by the ledge and thrown off -> gimped. The high ceiling and distant blast zones keep him alive much longer than on Yoshi's or BF against a Marth tipper or Jiggs' forward smash. The higher platforms also help you stay out of Marth's uptilt and upairs' range from below, keeping you out of those brutal pressure situations that lock Foxes down.

As Falco you may want to consider using Fountain of Dreams as a counterpick against characters who are rushing you down or techchasing you. It's a very good counter against Falcon since the low platforms limit his platform drop aerial options and mess up his long jump techchasing. Falco's aerials come out so fast that he can put crazy presure on a shield with platform drop dairs and such. I wouldn't recommend it against a Sheik or Marth since their tilts basically cover the entire low platforms from below.

What matchups do you have the most trouble with? What characters do you use your three mains against? Like, you may use Falco against Falcon but if your opponent switches to Marth you might switch to Sheik of Fox.

 

[Gladiator]

I mostly use falco, although I use sheik against spacies. I normally use fox only when I'm not feeling confident as falco or when playing marth. My least favorite matchups are against fox and falcon

 

[rpotts]

Personally I'd suggest getting better at using Falco against spacies rather than using Sheik as a secondary. Falco is very good against Fox and I personally don't think the matchup against Marth is bad, just practice shield pressure and don't get DD grabbed.

As Falco I'd counterpick Falcon to Yoshi's since it's small and doesn't give him any room to run around and abuse his huge jump. Also he doesn't get to use Falcon Kick once or twice to live forever like on DL or even BF/FD.

As Falco I'd counterpick Fox to Yoshi's, with FD as a backup if you're really confident in your combo game. You can maybe try DL if he's always killing you with upthrow->upsmash/upair since you'll live quite a bit longer although that stage is pretty good for him so be weary. FoD is definitely an option since most Foxes don't like it and the low platforms tend to mess with their approaches. Since the matchup is so even there isn't quite as obvious of a counterpick unlike Marths always wanting to take spacies to FD.

Doesn't hurt just to go BF and just try to outplay your opponent, it's pretty neutral but it's certainly a good stage for Falco.