the fox vs. marth dump.

[Brookman]

inspired by my recent post in the fox Q/A thread.

This is a literal dump for information, input, and experience on the match up of fox vs. marth.

list combos, kill percents, platform/stage strategies/recovery concepts/anything you can think of.

 

[G.L.]

fox ***** marth!!! but the later you put your nair out, the easier it is to chase for an up smash

 

[Metal Reeper]

EDIT: forget everything I said...I thought I was in Marth forum lol.

Fox just can't approach marth, wait til he attacks and destroy em, try and play towards the middle, dont get gimped.

Uthrow>Uair
space Bairs

 

[Narc]

One thing that's helped me a lot versus Marth is learning to read ledgeguard spacing and vary firefox/illusion appropriately.
Switching up angles and using short vs. long recoveries can mess up Marth's spacing when done carefully.

This notably lets you get out of being tippered or d-air'd as easily when approaching the stage, and makes the Marth player have to vary their tactics a little more in ledge guarding.

 

[mastermoo420]

Take advantage of every connecting drill by following up with a waveshine > dash > JC grab to u-throw > u-air or any drill (connecting or on shield) by going straight to grab if you can. The waveshine is a little more reliable frame-wise, I would believe.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

just run around his spacing until he ****s up. it may help that i've been playing marth forever and understand how to exploit his holes, but i don't find it to take much more mental work to do it than it takes a sheik or falcon, only more finger skill (gotta be precise)

 

[Metal Reeper]

Take advantage of every connecting drill by following up with a waveshine > dash > JC grab to u-throw > u-air or any drill (connecting or on shield) by going straight to grab if you can. The waveshine is a little more reliable frame-wise, I would believe.

I agree, Drillshine >jc grab > Uthrow > Uair destroys Marth.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

i really love drill->grab when they SDI enough to dodge the shine, cause they will always shield :D

 

[Brookman]

1. I find that, at low percents and with horizontal DI, up throw > back air > up tilt is masterful. Works well vs. sheik as well.

2. Up tilts in general are great. nair > turn > up tilt is legendary.

Drill shines are obviously fantastic when the drill and shine connect. Better players know how to DI Dair on top of the move being inconsistent on it's own.

I think my favorite thing to do is bait out dash attacks and grabs.

Down air over his down tilt is choice.

What do you do vs. his nair???

I'll definitely organize all the best advice into my first post as it comes along.

@ sveet : I usually see cort just grab me (as marth) and down smash me (as peach) when he SDI's my drills.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

cort mindgames like a shark who already mindgamed another shark and ate his brain causing him to gain increased intellect the world hasn't seen since Pythagorean added a²+b² and found c²

 

[RaynEX]

Deep Blue Sea

classic psycho killer scientifically-altered intellgence shark movie

@Brookman: Block his nair and grab if he did it low. If you're not sure if you can punish it or not, jump oos. I've found that for some reason, Marth's do not attack for a split second after hitting a shield with nair. They just dash for a bit afterward. Obviously this won't always work. Also, remember that nair is a DEFENSIVE option. It's strongest when he's jumping back and throwing it out while auto-cancelling. If they start approaching with it there are a bunch of easy ways to score hits. It leaves him much more open than fair does IMO.

-Move out of the way and dair where he lands -> combo
-Jump over him and dair -> combo (watch out for him CCing your bair)
-WD back a bit and CC dtilt after his second hit. If it was a high nair it won't hit you as you're crouching for the dtilt.

Assuming I can tell he's going to nair, I'd usually opt for jump over dair or run away dair. Unlike Marth's fair, you can jump over the nair and its primarily horizontal hitbox. My rule of thumb is: deal with fairs on the ground, deal with nairs in the air.

Advice on recovering:

DON'T ****ING GO LOW

 

[SwiftBass]

A nice trick I like to use on marth when recovering is illusion'ing at his head. The jab hitbox comes from the bottom up so, there is a small margin of error for the jab. and its less likely to tip you. In the case that it does hit you , depending on your percent you can illusion again or airdodge on the stage before you get too low. If none of the latter happens at least you will be hitting marth in the head with the illusion. I call it a trick because marth has a pretty solid answer for it....duck.

What do you do vs. his nair???

marth really has to space his nair super well i think. Its def one of the more likely things to get shield grabbed. I think a marths ability to use nair helps to define whether the player is a main or just some guy picking him up. nairs application i think its really tough to master.

I've found that for some reason, Marth's do not attack for a split second after hitting a shield with nair.

agreed. I think that the two hit boxes and the overal shield stun of the attack has a weird timing. I tend to think of it like GnW l cancels, but not THAT bad.

 

[mastermoo420]

2. Up tilts in general are great. nair > turn > up tilt is legendary.

<3 U-tilt combos into so much random stuff, looool. Personally, I like u-tilt to bair or uair. I should try to go SW style at lower percentages and see if u-tilt to dash-canceled u-tilts work.

 

[Wenbobular]

Learn Firefox angles to get around counter. It *****. Especially if you can trigger the counter attack but grab the ledge before you get hit, then you get to hit him for free.

 

[EWC]

Learn to edgetech counters. It's actually not too hard, just the timing is different from most otehr edgetechs. If you have to up-b from below and you know he's going to counter (it;s usually pretty obvious), then just up-b, hold into the stage, and press L/R slightly after you pass above the edge. If you're used to edgeteching other moves, then the timing is 1/4 of a second later than usual.

 

[omgwtfToph]

What a coincidence. I lost to a Marth that I shouldn't have recently, so I went back and read some of my own advice about Fox v Marth and I'm going to crosspost it in here for posterity:

- FIRST OFF, running shine is soooo enormously vastly underused by every fox in this matchup. marth does not have an easy answer to running shine (he can't DD grab you because you are going to WD back to safety if the shine doesn't connect - and if he's in the air trying to bait your shine with a fair of his own, you can DD nair him or something). with running shine, you can hit-confirm it into either a grab, a nice nair combo (like waveshine, nair, utilt, nair -> more aerials if possible) or, if they shield or get pushed to the ledge, you just WD back instead and get out of there. tani commented to me that my fox was giving him a lot of trouble because of the running shine approach, and we talked about it for a little while and i sort of realized that running shine might be the only approach that actually makes this matchup possible on FD

- marth isn't an aggressive character per se, he's more of a reaction-based character right? like pretty much every marth beats fox by being really patient and waiting for fox to commit to something right? you have to be in that same mentality that the marth player is in.

- yea the jman lasers. you guys already talked about it. they're really important. weave in and out with them. watch jman vs vwins at... I think it was one of those mass madness tournaments? the one mango went to? for more jman laser goodness! remember, lasering isn't actually to build up damage, it's kind of like another form of dashdancing - you're baiting them into doing something while positioning yourself such that you're ready to punish if they try to come at you with an aerial or grab (with DD and aerial of your own respectively), so you should think of it like dashdancing.

- wavelandddd! otto mentioned a while back that he started to like FD after he figured out "how to use the waveland" and I did not know what he meant until this past weekend when I played a ****load of FD only with the Japanese. you know that noob **** where you come down from the air really high with an aerial and you get DD grabbed most of the time? you gotta mix wavelands up in there - mostly wavelands back because they're really difficult to punish, but sometimes waveland forward at them and try to hit them with a shine. (works really good with falco too) basically, since marth's game is 90% reaction, this is another way to mess with the marth player's reaction-based punishing and bait out stuff that you can take advantage of

- what to do off a grab: if you get a grab by the ledge, you can gimp marth by fthrowing them off the ledge then walking forward and shielding. if they jump forward and fair (every marth who has never encountered this before will doublejump fair) you shine them OOS; that's the stock. if they're used to it, they will try to fall a bit and sweetspot the ledge. you can react to them not fairing your shield and just short hop down and shine them. this **** raaaapes so hard. I don't really know any reliable easy gimps on Marth off a bair.

- if they're really good at SDIing the uair, you can try a few things: one, note that most people will SDI things in the same direction most of the time and just lean the uair to go along with their DI. second, you can uthrow soft bair at lower %s, which sometimes combos into utilt, and when it doesn't you can DD their aerial and punish hard

- edgeguarding... lightshield edgehog is really underused, you might as well use it whenever marth is far enough away that he can't just doublejump back to the stage

 

[unknown522]

I don't really want to get into debate. So listen to everyone else's advice.

Then play vs IB, or M2K and get death combo'd every time......

 

[omgwtfToph]

marths are gonna death combo you LOL, so are falcos, that's the matchup, deal with it

here's a good tip vs. marth: ban friggin FD.

GOD the only reason I even have trouble with marth over here is cuz of FD only

a ruleset I both love and hate

 

[Brookman]

A nice trick I like to use on marth when recovering is illusion'ing at his head. The jab hitbox comes from the bottom up so, there is a small margin of error for the jab. and its less likely to tip you. In the case that it does hit you , depending on your percent you can illusion again or airdodge on the stage before you get too low. If none of the latter happens at least you will be hitting marth in the head with the illusion. I call it a trick because marth has a pretty solid answer for it....duck.
.

I usually try to smash DI this jab. it works pretty well when I land it.


I think its safe to say fox is at his best in this match up while on the ground. Jumping gets predictable quick and marth's fair and to a degree his fsmash nad up tilt are too good at stuffing aerial approaches.

 

[unknown522]

marths are gonna death combo you LOL, so are falcos, that's the matchup, deal with it

here's a good tip vs. marth: ban friggin FD.

GOD the only reason I even have trouble with marth over here is cuz of FD only

a ruleset I both love and hate

I can deal with it. It's just a stupid matchup.

The only marth I can't beat is M2K on Fd.

Sadly, I can beat his other characters consistently, but his marth is something else.

 

[SuperMatt]

i second the greatness of running waveshine

also lightshield edgehog mindgames

 

[Shaya]

fox wins most stages but otherwise 50:50

marth ***** FD / Fountain / YS (doesn't **** on YS just wins there)
fox ***** the other 3 neutrals (even more auto win on poke than marth has on FD to fox), but also ***** on non-neutrals as well

edit - this is M2K in Australia

edit 2 - to summarize the matchup -> Grab

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

M2K in australia? why?

 

[Brookman]

i second the greatness of running waveshine

also lightshield edgehog mindgames

How about Short Hop Fast Fall WAVE LAND. That **** is so fast.

I think, if you're too singularly minded on your acheiving something or doing something in a certain way it's easy to become lose focus on actually playing against the other player.

If you're not focused on playing vs. the other player you'll never know how or when to mix yourself up and throw them off. Assuming you have the mental skill in the game to throw off someone of the same or higher level.


As a response to the running shine. Spamming this as a straight forward rush tactic is a great way to bait out grabs.

Short hopping backwards and turning around is a great way to space outside his range.

Did I mention down airing his down tilt? **** is nice.

If you can't land shines and shine combos then you're fate is sealed.


This is my fox vs. marth dump for the day.
12:46 AM?? ready to wake up @ FIVE!!!

 

[Metal Reeper]

Running shine really does messup Marth, when he's doing is gay dashdance I just SH over near em and shine, or running shine.
Lasers mess with his head.
Whenever he misses a grab or anything, always Uthrow-Uair-(Uair)-(Uair)
Also, jumping near his dashdance and wavelanding backwards really messes him up, whenever your gonna shield pressure him, I like to try and get behind him instead and grab em, or Utilt.
Lightshielding edgehog is AMAZING.

Did I mention down airing his down tilt? **** is nice.

That sounds good, but then your just asking to get Fsmashed.
Get those Uair comboes I was Uair combing from like a grab up to like 50-70% yesterday.

 

[Tero.]

Strong Nair -> Upsmash comboes from 11% to 90%
Week Nair -> Upsmash comboes until 126%
Uthrow -> Uair comboes from 12%, from 70% seccond uair hit only, from 85% until 168% only with double jump

All those are approximate numbers, they can differ if your opponent mixes up his DI.

I swear I have killing % of Uair/Usmash on different characters/stages (no DI) somewhere on my computer, I'm going to post them sometime (if I ever happen to find them).

 

[FoxLisk]

dairing marth dtilts is super **** but you have to do it predictively, because the iasa is very fast. if your opponent dtilts a lot, it's a good option to go for, but if he uses it more sparingly you should be extremely careful of trying this, as if he sees it coming he can dtilt -> DD away grab or, if he's super good, SDI the dair -> grab.

 

[Brookman]

See, the only problem here is you guys are using theory bros while I literally Dair down tilts.

OK, from now on, this topic is based on EXPERIENCE, NOT THEORY.

 

[FoxLisk]

See, the only problem here is you guys are using theory bros while I literally Dair down tilts.

do you have vids of you doing this? i cant imagine a way to do it reactionarily that isn't way too risky to be worth it. (i.e., if you're close enough to marth to dair a dtilt onr eaction, you're not in a good space.)

 

[omgwtfToph]

I'd like to add a little input:

Another part of the reason running shine is so good, is because if you commit to a running shine approach, the worst that happens if he's in the air, is you eat a fair - and you CC it. Because you were holding down already to do the shine, lol duh. I find that sometimes, even though I might eat a fair mis-timing a running shine approach, I end up in an advantageous position next to marth when he doesn't want me there.

I dunno. You guys experiment with it. I love it lol.

 

[UltimateHaxor123]

uh

grab game guys. i'm telling u, they're playing their grab game

GRAB GAME

 

[CanISmash]

do you have to nair late to not get shield grabbed via shine n-air?

this annoys the mess out of me and i swear im not messing up....

also getting grabbed out of the air in my short hop

 

[JPOBS]

you can get shield grabbed no matter what you do.

if you always late nair, they can just grab early (after the shine). If you always early nair then u get grabbed.

use mixups, dont mess up, and pray

 

[L__]

my favorite approaches in this match up are probably the jab approach and not approaching

 

[Brookman]

I wish some of my vs. marth vids from saturday had been recorded.

 

[unknown522]

you can get shield grabbed no matter what you do.

if you always late nair, they can just grab early (after the shine). If you always early nair then u get grabbed.

use mixups, dont mess up, and pray

gotta use them drills son

 

[RaynEX]

Unknown and KK be spammin' the late nair approach -> shine -> JC dair.

I stole that **** too and its golden. You guys should try it out. You can d.i. away if things get hectic and avoid most grab retaliation. Not to mention all those hits of the dair have a good chance of piercing shields.