The Marth matchup.

[LovinMitts]

As a Ness main, a matchup that's been giving me trouble has been Marth. He outranges Ness by a LOT and is too light for Ness to be able to combo effectively. Anyone got advice on how to deal with this matchup? Should I just go Falcon or Sheik?

 

[Double Helix]

The Marth matchup is a very pesky one indeed. In my experience, this matchup is really bad on Yoshi's and FD, but maybe that's just me. Some of my biggest advice may be to play like a floaty. Playing like a floaty is generally important for the neutral game in most matchups (except maybe Falco, Falcon, and Fox, depending on you and the opponent). Playing like a floaty also changes your combo game a bit. Stringing together fairs into a final nair once you run out of stage can be effective, but if spacing/DI makes it risky to hit the nair, don't.

Another key point that I have found is not using your double jump cancel a lot. You can bait using empty DJC -> wavedash if it's used seldomly. In too many cases, though, Marth can just hit you out of your DJC if you mis-space it, leaving your already vulnerable recovery to be your only option.

Obviously, Dream Land 64 would be your ideal stage choice, since it's Marth's worst stage. I feel like Battlefield is a perfectly reasonable pick, and Fountain of Dreams isn't too bad.

Oh, and two more things. You can watch Vrud vs Tai at EVO 2014 for an idea of how Vrud handles the matchup. And if you need any clarification, you can PM me if you don't want to ask on here.

 

[dan smith]

against marth you need to do two things. stay between his grab range and his tipper range, and don't get hit. historically i'd say marth is considered one of ness' worst matchups but there is a way to do it. marth has a decent amount of lag on some of his moves and so if you can either dodge them or bait them out with a short up you can then start doing damage yourself. the djc is perfect for baiting out attacks. you can short hop towards marth, wait for the forward smash, and then djc into range for a fair. once you are in the proper range, far enough that he can't grab you but close enough that you can engage before being struck, you just need to shield and dodge and poke. if you get grabbed at a medium percentage near the edge you are likely dead, from an off stage throw->forward smash. if the marth can edge guard you correctly getting back is very very unlikely. sweet spotting the ledge is your best bet, on some stages you can go over the marth and maybe get less than fatal damage. best case scenario the marth will come of stage to try and gimp your triple jump.

every time i play a new marth i always spam djc dairs when coming from above. most of the time they won't see it coming and you can pop them into a couple uairs. eventually they might figure it out but it's pretty reliable and helps. pk fire can be used against marth more than a lot of characters. (but still very rarely)

the vrud video that double helix referenced is decent. he is pretty good but he dash attacks much too often. dash attack pretty ****. he is really good with his pk fires, i wouldn't suggest using it as much as he does because he is just unnusually accurate with it. in general he stays on the ground too much though which invited marth grab abuse. the video has some impressive moments but a lot of it is his opponent not knowing how to deal with ness. the second half of the video is the part that is really indicitive of his play style.

don't try to yoyo glitch it's entertaining but unreliable.

 

[Gatoray]

One tip about Marth. When you get in their face with DJC Fairs, they like to grab you or hit you out of it since unfortunately Fair doesn't have much hitlag at low percents. That being said, mix up your string of hits with a spot dodge and you might be able to avoid some combo breakers.