Striking, Banning, and Counterpicking as Spacies

[burgerkong]

Hey everyone! I'm a new player to the SSBM competitive scene, dual maining Fox/Falco. Having just started playing SSBM seriously a couple of months ago, my tech skill isn't perfect yet, but I'm still looking to improve. I think that Falco is my better character atm, given I can pillar semi-consistently and SH laser consistently, but I prefer Fox vs. floaties and Sheik.

While my tech skill is still improving, I was hoping to also obtain some game knowledge, and maybe spark some discussion. Given that the Falco matchup thread is somewhat outdated (a couple years old, still has stages like KJ64, Brinstar, and Rainbow Cruise mentioned), I was hoping I could get advice on stage selection in a tournament setting, given that there will likely be a local tourney next month which I will likely be attending for the first time.

So here's my take on neutral strikes, Bo3 bans, and counterpicking against some of the popular characters, though I'm mainly picking characters that are common in my region (GTA in Canada):

VS - I would play in the neutral
Striking: FD would definitely be my first strike due to chaingrabs. Second strike would probably be Yoshi's, small stage and low ceiling mean easy shinespike gimps and up-smash/up-air kills, respectively. Smaller stage also makes lasering slightly harder.
Ban: FD. Chaingrabs
My Counterpick: Dreamland; big stage and high ceiling, basically opposite to Yoshi's. FoD would probably be my second counterpick, 2nd highest ceiling and the platforms allow for some nice combos and mess up Fox's aerial approach (and my lasering sometimes, but I think it's a worthy tradeoff). Stadium would be a final counterpick; the large stage means more lasering and lack of platforms make pillaring easier. Janky stage transformations can ruin your day, but Falco I think does well here, could go either way
Their Counterpick: Would probably go Fox mirror on all other stages (Yoshi's, Battlefield, FD).

VS - I would play in the neutral
Basically inverse of the Fox matchup. For some reason I don't like playing the mirror on the neutral stage, idk.

VS - I would play in the neutral
Striking: FoD seems to be the most popular Sheik stage; M2K seems to love picking this stage against spacies after FD, so I'm taking his word for it. The moving platforms can mess up both Fox and Falco's aerial game, and the small stage means easier gimps. Dreamland would be my second strike so that she doesn't live as long.
Ban: FoD.
My Counterpick: Stadium and Yoshi's for quick star KOs, FD to remove Sheik's platform game. Stadium and FD also have the advantage of having a larger stage so Fox can take advantage of his speed and get gimped less.
Their Counterpick: Would play Falco on pretty much all of their main counterpicks (Dreamland, FoD), since I feel he performs better there. FoD's smaller horizontal blastzones suit him better and he can at least use the platforms, and Dreamland allow him to laser and stuff better.

VS - Would likely play in the neutral. They both do equally well against Marth IMO, but Falco I feel has a worst time on Yoshi's, which is the neutral stage most Marth's will pick for game 1.
Striking: FD FD FD. And FoD, for similar reason as Sheik.
Ban: I give you guys 3 guesses (hint: it starts with F and ends in D)
My Counterpick: As would counterpick Stadium, and as would counterpick Dreamland. Both are large stages to take advantage of Fox's speed and Falco's lasering respectively.
Their Counterpick: I feel does better on all of Marth's main counterpicks. FD at least lets you laser to your heart's content, FoD at least lets you get quick horizontal kills and gives you a solid platform game. Battlefield I would however give to Fox; the ceiling isn't too high, and Fox shinegimps are brutal if you can get them under Battlefield.

VS - is an easy pick here. Upthrow up air, jab upsmash, etc. etc.
Striking: Dreamland and FoD are easy bans here. They have the highest ceilings
Ban: Dreamland, highest ceiling.
My Counterpick: Stadium, Yoshi's and FD. Stadium is Fox's dream stage (large for mobility, 2nd highest ceiling), while Yoshi's has the highest ceiling but opens you up more for edgeguards. FD is laser camp heaven and no platforms for tech-chase Rest platform shenanigans.
Their Counterpick: Fox all the way. Considered Falco on Dreamland after seeing PP's performance against HBox @ Tipped Off 9, but I guess Fox is just more consistent/requires less work.

VS - Again is king vs. floaties. Waveshine upsmash, up throw up air, nothing new here
Striking: FD chaingrabbing is an obvious first. Dreamland is probably second for survivability.
Ban: FD, chaingrabs
My Counterpick: Stadium and Yoshi's are easy counterpicks for identical reason to Jigs.
Their Counterpick: And again, Fox all the way.

VS - This one I'm not so sure about. I like going here since it's so easy to pillar > death him, but can get those quick shinespike gimps and waveshines. They both dominate him in the matchup anyways.
Striking: Dreamland seems to be a common first, large stage is a boon for Falcon's mobility and high ceiling helps him survive off the top a lot more proportionally. Knee will still wreck you too, so it doesn't hurt his kill potential too much. Second ban would likely be Battlefield, but that might just be because Hax seemed to do very well there (vs. Javi @ Apex 2013 comes to mind)
Ban: Dreamland I would think.
My Counterpick: FoD seems to be the anti-Falcon stage (Fountain of Dead Dreams let's go), though I dunno if I would rather play Fox or Falco there. Would counterpick to FD and Stadium as Falco for sure as well, since Falco pillars, lasers and combos him very easily there. Fox on Yoshi's also seems good, since small stage constrains Falcon's movement and quick shinegimps are definitely a possibility; low ceiling makes upsmash kills more viable.
Their Counterpick: Falco on Dreamland for sure. Would likely pick Fox on Battlefield for shinegimps under Battlefield.

VS - seems to do better here. Shine splits them up, and his quicker movement makes getting grabbed out of dashdance and the like less likely. Shinegimping Nana is also a thing. I think does fine vs. ICs, but Fox seems to just do better IMO
Striking: FD and FoD. FD has no platforms to escape to and is relatively big making gimping Nana slightly harder, and FoD seems to be a bad spacies stage overall given their emphasis on their aerial game (inversely, ICs emphasize the ground game).
Ban: FD
My Counterpick: Yoshi's and Stadium as Fox I think are pretty good counterpicks for quick star KOs on ICs, and the latter has a small stage for gimping Nana. Battlefield also doesn't seem bad either.
Their Counterpick: I would likely stay Fox for all stages. If anyone has any suggestions for when to use Falco, let me know, but it seems like Fox is preferable here most of the time.

VS - again seems preferable here.
Striking: FoD and Dreamland. FoD just seems to be an anti-spacies stage; Samus has platforms here for her upB and dies slower off the top, and the smaller stage means her lacklustre dash isn't as big a deal.
Ban: FoD
My Counterpick: Yoshi's and Stadium as Fox, and FD as Falco. Yoshi's and Stadium allow Fox quick star KOs, and Falco's laser game is super annoying on FD and no platforms to make upB safer.
Their Counterpick: Would use Falco on FoD and Dreamland, and Fox on Battlefield. Falco can at least take advantage of FoD's smaller horizontal blastzone, and can laser camp on Dreamland.

VS - Yet again, I like here as my neutral pick. does extremely well here too obviously, but Ganon dies very quickly from upsmash and upairs due to his slow air speed, and Fox has slightly more room for error off random Ganon hits.
Striking: FoD and Yoshi's. Bigger stages really let's you take advantage of Ganon's ass movement, and these 2 also conveniently have the smallest horizontal blastzones as well.
Ban: Probably FoD. Yoshi's at least provides me the advantage of quick ceiling kills as Fox, while FoD doesn't really have any notable advantages (moving platforms mess up Fox's aerial > shine game at times, small horizontal blastzones).
My Counterpick: Stadium as Fox and FD and Dreamland as Falco scream out to me as easy counterpicks. Big stage for abusing Ganon's bad mobility.
Their Counterpick: Fox on Yoshi's for quick up kills, Falco on FoD. Battlefield seems to be equally good for Fox or Falco, but I'd likely pick Fox for survivability (he can eat an extra fair or two :D)

Sorry for the SUPER long-winded post, but I'm hoping some more experienced players can help me out and advance my game knowledge, and hopefully spark up some debate. Thanks in advance!

 

[Chab]

good info for me too. thanks for this. i only play fox tho.

 

[Diana's Safe Landing]

If you're equally confident with Fox and Falco then I would always play fox against jiggs regardless of the stage. It looks like you are DEATHLY afraid of getting chain grabbed on FD. Consider that a well played space animal is difficult to grab but you know your own weaknesses and strengths better than anyone.

A+ Post, good opportunities for discussion and nice formatting

 

[Twinkles]

As someone with probably more experience in the game than you, but only a dabbler in the way of spacies, here's my 2 cents.

On DL, I would usually favor Fox over Falco in Fox v. Falco because larger space means so much more room for Fox to run freely. That freedom of movement is probably Fox's best advantage in the MU because Falco is really pretty slow in comparison. The large deathboxes slightly weaken Fox's vertical kill power, but he has so many other options in killing Falco that it doesn't make much of a difference to him.

For inverse reasons, I'd also say Falco does better on Yoshi's vs. Fox. Easier to catch Fox, and personally I think the platforms help Falco's punish game a lot more. Fox v. Falco is not a terribly stage-dependent MU though IMO, so a very good chunk of it can come down to player preference.

Yoshi's against Marth as a Fox is a gamble. It basically comes down to who can kill the other dude faster. Your two main CPs against Marth should be DL and PS IMO, and if he bans one you pick the other. Marth has much more trouble establishing platform control on DL compared to other stages, and PS transformations confound him.

If you're looking to laser camp, go Fox on DL. Falco's laser "camp" works a lot worse against a character who can just sorta drift in through them and smack you because you're not a particularly fast character. If you want to run and gun, pick Fox, because he can run circles around Jiggs all day and his punishes on any stage are simply excellent. Same against Peach. You will actually probably not be killing with Falco's dair as much as you may think. Both and Jiggs and Peach will live bair (Falco's main kill move against these two) to ungodly percents on DL. Fox's upsmash and upair will still kill them at very reasonable %'s.

There are probably more characters you could worry about if you're considering Ganon (Mario bros., Yoshi, Pikachu). Anyway, your main ban against Ganon should probably be Yoshi's or FoD. Smaller stages mean his enormous hitboxes will cover whole portions of the stage. Bigger stages means you have so much freedom to run circles around him because he is slow as ****. FD is what I usually see, but failing that I think PS is also a very good choice.

In general, you should worry less about Fox's kill potential on bigger stages. At the very least, it's generally not a reason to pick Falco over Fox in an matchup. Fox usmash and uair kill well on any stage. Fox has great kill potential on any stage. By the same token, don't just go Fox on BF because it very slightly buffs shine gimps, which are still potent regardless of stage choice.

 

[burgerkong]

Thanks to everyone for the compliments and critiques!

@ Diana's Safe Landing - Yeah, I probably should just go all Fox vs. Jiggs, given that I've seen players like Mango/M2K just play mono-Fox against her. As for FD, I'm not confident in my own CG game as Fox, which is why I ban it, but it's not a terrible stage by any means (extremely easy pillars and lasering as Falco).

@ Twinkles - Thanks a lot for the advice! I agree that a lot of the even matchups (i.e. Fox vs. Falco) are more matchup dependent than stage dependent. And I'm seeing Fox as a better pick on Dreamland now (I read Dr. PP's semi-outdated matchup thread where he likes Fox's mobility for DL), both overall and especially against floaties, though I do still enjoy playing Falco on that stage, since I try to treat it as an FD with platforms to avoid getting CG'd forever.

As for the Fox-Yoshi's counterpick, this is mainly going off of videos I've watched. M2K has been losing as Marth on Yoshi's recently vs. good Foxes (i.e. SFAT @ Big House 3, Leffen @ Apex 2014), but maybe I'm reading too deeply into this. It's still an even matchup/good stage for Marth, I just think it's a better stage for Fox nowadays.

As for the Ganon stuff, I'm admittedly focusing more on characters that pop up in my area for now, so I can at least say I've played against one of them. I've only played him a couple of times in friendlies, so I can't really say I have a ton of Ganon experience though.

I'll edit the OP now, thanks to everyone! If there's anything else that comes to mind, please don't hesitate to comment.

 

[Tero.]

You focus too much on ceiling height on your counterpicks. Personally against characters like Sheik, Peach, Puff I would prefer DL over BF any time.
It gives you more room to move and you have an easier time keeping center stage/not getting gimped so fast plus many characters (especially floaties) struggle with DLs plattform hight and can't really keep up with Fox mobility.

 

[krazyzyko]

I wouldn't pick PS nor YS vs Samus because she can missile spam all day on those platforms. I'd go with DL or FD with Fox. Laser camp and then punish when she tries to penetrate. Remember that you can't really combo her so just bat her away with nair, bair, drillshine and up smash.

Peach lives forever on DL so I wouldn't pick that stage. I'd pick YS, early kills with Up air/smash and you can recover from anywhere. Or PS, laser camp, wall infinites.

Vs CF I'd use Falco because his aerials have a bit more reach. CF outprioritizes Fox's aerials.
Laser on the highest point of the SH. And Falco's shuffled fair kinda works like falcon's nair.

 

[RedGamer]

CF outprioritizes Fox's aerials.

no he doesn't. fox can nair through falcon's nair. unless falcon's spacing is immaculately perfect, fox will outprioritize falcon with his nair if facing forward and back air if facing away.

actually unless falcon's spacing is perfect, fox can outprioritize anything falcon has with almost anything.

as far as banning and counterpicking goes, I'm a falco main but I can pretty much play any character I want. I'll give you my two cents.

VS
Striking: I'll usually get rid of yoshi's. I feel this is one of fox's strongest stages vs falco and I'm not all that great at stuffing approaches. my second strike is probably going to be dreamland, just because I don't wanna play on it yet. now I'm left with battlefield, FD, and FoD all of which I'm fine with just to see how the fox plays.
Ban: I don't really have a favorite ban. I'll just try to ban whatever stage I feel like my opponent wants to go to.
My Counterpick: FD if they don't chaingrab, FoD if they can. I like FD because unless they're a flat out better player than me, they're not going to beat me on that stage.

VS - I love falco dittos.

VS -
Striking: I want to play on Battlefield. I don't know why. It just seems safest.
Ban: probably dreamland cause sheik can live and absurdly long time.
My Counterpick: FD. falco's uptilt DESTROYS sheik.
Their Counterpick: probably FoD. I don't want to give them dreamland cause I'm a bit lazy. FoD they can't run forever and platform camp me.

VS
Striking: They're not going to give any spacie Dreamland and FoD, and no spacie will give them FD or Yoshi's, so battlefield it is then.
Ban: FD. do you even have to ask?
My Counterpick: Dreamland if they're not smart enough to ban it, FoD if they are. the platforms help falco more than marth imo because my punish game is amazing. and you don't even need lasers to stuff marth's approaches on this stage
Their Counterpick: Don't give them FD. at worst, you get yoshi's which isn't all that bad once you learn randall's timings.

VS eh, I hate this matchup. a lot.
Striking: Dreamland and FoD.
Ban: Dreamland
My Counterpick: FoD. yeah it has a high ceiling, but it's also a small stage, and that allows for more pressure. besides, fod give you more in the neutral than any other stage. just don't play first match on it.
Their Counterpick: Probably FoD because high ceiling, but as I said above, that doesn't really bother me.

VS - ugh.
Striking: FD chaingrabbing is an obvious first. Dreamland is probably second for survivability.
Ban: FD, chaingrabs
My Counterpick: Stadium and Yoshi's are easy counterpicks.
Their Counterpick: I hate peach. I agree with everything said here. I may even go in this matchup because he might have to work harder in neutral, but his punish is easier than falco imo.

VS - Falco. I'm **** good at this matchup anyways.
Striking: If I strike first, I take dreamland from him, he'll strike yoshi's and FoD, and I'll strike BF and I get to take him to FD for free or he'll strike FoD and BF and I take him to yoshi's for free or he'll strike yoshi's and FD and I take him to FoD for free the point I'm trying to make is falcon doesn't win the strike war.
Ban: Dreamland.
My Counterpick: every falcon I've played against would rather play me on FoD than on FD because my laser game is on point. if the falcon is smart, they would've practiced on either FoD or Yoshi's.
Their Counterpick: they don't have the luxury of choosing dreamland so we go to BF

VS - I've always played in this matchup so I have yet to learn falco experience. once I do, I'll let you know.

VS - same as above.