Tier List Speculation

[TheNotoriousTFB]

Same could be said for opponent. Items are 2 way street unless your char is garbage like D3

not necessarily because different characters have different options with the same items, and diddy has an icredible amount of options around items whereas spacies dont have the same level of variety after taking a peel.

 

[eideeiit]

What?
Spacies still got shine and lasers and their item frame data is incredible.

 

[DMG]

z drop b-reversed laser to change momentum from moving ahead of banana fall to behind it

z drop nair shield pressure

shine jc sh z drop shield pressure

Waveshine AGT follow ups

General SH AGT shenanigens


On a fast character with a reflector and laser gun. Fox'll be fine

 

[Swigo]

I know matchup numbers are essentially meaningless, but I really can't see how Fox beats Meta Knight or Wolf. Falcon seems pretty even to me, and so does Rob. Am I just underrating Fox? I guess I just don't understand how people can think Marth-Fox is 50/50 in melee and yet when going against a worse Fox in PM people are hesitant to say that anybody goes 50/50 with Fox

 

[DMG]

You can't always 1:1 translate MU's from Melee into PM. There are other factors that can tie in, such as stages. In Melee 3/5, Marth is guaranteed FD. In PM, not only can you ban FD 100%, but you also have arguably stronger CP choices to use against Marth. Stuff like that could easily turn a 5/5 into 55:45 or larger.


Wolf gets hyped but people future-proof him somewhere in a bubble that's clearly way ahead of today's players and imo doesn't look into enough counterplay aspect from the opponent. The notion of 1 hit = always confirm Side B kill for example. My gut says if people develop this far enough, the answer to start countering this would be SDI + DI upwards / up and towards Wolf.


MK is a really good character but I dunno how big of a deal his disadvantages are. I think someone should make an extensive list of CC/ASDI down against his moves to figure out exactly when it will work out fine (especially since MK has pretty low angles on many attacks). Sometimes you CC/eat the hit and get to counter, other times you get floored. But being floored would likely let you tech. Teching after cc/asdi flooring (assuming your not at higher % and go sliding far) might give you advantage in some cases (imagine punishing IDC 80% of the time AFTER they hit you with it), could give disadvantage, etc

 

[Swigo]

Yeah I just think stage counterpick gets overrated, even if FD isn't guaranteed I think Marth Fox is still 50:50 and a lot of the PM exclusive stages are decent for Marth regardless. Meta Knight can rack up damage with ez mode tech chases and his edgeguard game is probably as decent as Marth's, and I think IDC should usually have enough knockback if it's used either in the air or as a finishing move, which I think is the more common usage. I'm not really enough of an expert to make any real claims, I just think that Meta Knight is too strong of a character, and Probably has an even or advantageous matchup against Fox. In my mind it's just Marth/Fox except with tech chases instead of chain grabs which are arguably harder to get out of because they work on every stage more or less.

As for Wolf I don't really see why Fox would win that matchup, Fox has a better pressure game, but his most reliable kill option(u smash) isn't as effective because of Wolf's really fast fall speed, Wolf's recovery seems harder to shine spike than Falco/Fox's firebird(I should probably check the actual frames on that before making this claim though) and even if people find ways to make side b less than guaranteed Wolf's such a speedy bugger that i think he can get in position to flash even against good S/DI. Wolf's lasers can help stuff Fox approaches/help Wolf approach like Falco(sort of, there's obviously some pretty big differences but hopefully the comparison makes sense enough) and wolf's shine gives him a speedy out of shield option against a lot of FOx's pressure. Of course Wolf's reflector also stops Fox's laser camping because he can just send those lasers back at him

Of course I'm not an expert so if anybody wants to step in and be like nah Swigo ur a lame dumbo feel free

 

[Player -0]

There are such things as easy mode tech chases?

I think the main idea is MK gets derped because verticl powers of Fox while MK doesn't have massive vertical powers.


Contributing while not really wanting to is a bad idea. I should stop doing this. It makes everything confusing

 

[Ningildo]

My main issues with your points are why. Why:

are a lot of the PM stages good for Marth in the Fox MU?
can't Fox just combo him longer before killing Wolf instead?
can't Fox Bair for the edgeguard instead?

You also seem to assume getting a grab on Fox is easy and doesn't require eating lasers, well timed aerials > shine pressure to outmaneuvre and catching Fox to do so, although that might just be me.

Also why would you use the reflector against lasers when it stops the JC from happening? And leaves you stuck in place against one of the fastest characters in the game, who also has great shield pressure and combos against you?

Fox can also weave around the lasers DDing or can just powershield even.

 

[JesteRace]

Fox can't ban all of FD/SV/GHZ/PS2. Marth:Fox is still even.

 

[Jolteon]

MK is a really good character but I dunno how big of a deal his disadvantages are. I think someone should make an extensive list of CC/ASDI down against his moves to figure out exactly when it will work out fine (especially since MK has pretty low angles on many attacks)

Grab: 0%.

 

[DMG]

Grab: 0%.

That's what Captain Falcon is for!

 

[Ningildo]

Fox can't ban all of FD/SV/GHZ/PS2. Marth:Fox is still even.

I'm not sure about PS2 being a bad stage for Fox, considering he has all the room in the world to laser camp and platforms to escape chaingrabs from.

And it might be obvious to you (and me as well), but I'd still like a rundown as to why these stages are all good for Marth in this particular MU. Showing your reasoning is always helpful for discussion.

 

[DMG]

Fox can't ban all of FD/SV/GHZ/PS2. Marth:Fox is still even.

Not sure I would qualify PS2 as problematic for Fox in that MU. GHZ and SV are still clear improvements over getting stuck on FD every set

 

[Swigo]

Ok I'm going to try and respond to these points, they're all very good points though so thank you for the responses
Umm the first one was when I said you could just reflect lasers to stop laser camping I was trying to make a joke I guess I'm not very funny but don't worry that wasn't serious
Personally I think Meta Knight has some of the easiest tech chases in the game, and as people are getting progressively better at it in Melee with Sheik I see no reason why it shouldn't be the same with PM
Fox can definitely Bair edgeguard but removing shine spike helps prevent really low percentage kills and makes the matchup more even, similarly with Fox needing more combos to kill wolf, if fox needs to combo longer to get the kill it gives the Wolf player more chances to start combos of their own and get a kill. I will admit this is operating under the assumption that Wolf's neutral is at least comparable to Fox's not necessarily better but not so much worse as to be shut down
Also getting a grab with Meta Knight might not be easy, but it's certainly doable with Meta Knights good dash dance game and speed
I think all of Ningildo's points are valid, and Fox has counter play to these tactics but I don't think his counter play invalidates the strengths of Wolf/Meta Knight.


Umm PM Marth Stages
GHZ is flat enough that chain grabs are possible there, as well as having close side BZ's for possibly easier kills while having a high ceiling for slightly harder fox kills
PS2 is good for Marth, in Melee Pokemon Stadium is considered good for Marth a lot of the time(see PPMD/PPU) because the neutral stage gives him a good amount of room to dash dance and the platforms can interrupt chain grabs but also give an opportunity for Marth regrabs/utilt/fsmash combos
FD still exists so that's basically in agreement
Smashville, when the platform is gone gives a decent amount of time to get your chain grabs out, and the platform doesn't really seem to help Fox very much at all imo.
Also I think people constantly overestimate the disadvantage Marth has against Fox on a lot of stages like Battlefield(where I think the matchup is probably still evenish) and warioland seems evenish still to me as well. Marth presumably always gets to ban dreamland(arguably his worst stage still in PM) so I think that Marth Fox is even, or maybe even in Marth's favor on the PM stage list
Ok yeah feel free to tell me why I'm wrong again, or if you think I missed the point or whatever, I'm really looking for discussion

Edit: Player -0, I'm not quite sure what you mean by Fox has verticl powers and Meta Knight doesn't, do you mean that fox has uair combos and MK doesn't? I'm probably just missing something obvious here or i'm being thrown off by the phrasing or my poor reading comprehension

 

[Ya Boy GP]

Hi, your local Fox player chiming in with his opinion about matchups.

Metaknight in my opinion in the current meta is 50:50. I have experience playing against good MKs such as Gurukid or Emukiller, so I feel I have at least some validity with what I'm saying. Fox does beat MK in the neutral just because shine nair shuts him down pretty hard, but once MKs start CC ftilting Foxes nair, neutral will be a bit tougher for Fox. Luckily Fox has drill, but it's not that good of a move in neutral when compared to nair because it shortens his effective threat range just a bit, and that small shorten is enough for good players to take advantage of.
MetaKnights punish game on Fox is actually ridiculous. At We Tech Those I played against Emukiller in bracket and if I got grabbed he NEVER dropped his tech chases. I ended up having to just tech until I got off stage and he'd just edgeguard me from there. MKs edgeguarding is really good too since he has ledgehop bair and a lot of dropzone options. MK also has vertical combo potential with uair chains and horizontal combo potential with fair with crazy DI mixups, especially with down-b/up-b combo finishers that make you DI different directions.
MK also having guaranteed uthrow down-b at 70% onwards helps a bit.
To be fair, Fox also has an amazing punish game on MK since he's a great combo weight (read: fast faller) so any dope combos Fox has, he can do here.

Overall, I think the punish game and edgeguarding heavily favors MK, but Fox wins the neutral as per usual so it keeps the MU close. MK is the only character I could see having a winning MU against Fox if his metagame gets developed further.


Marth is also 50/50 imo. Fox wins the neutral SLIGHTLY strictly because of lasers. If Fox doesn't use lasers to force Marth to approach and then counter hit his approach, I think Marth wins the MU like 53:47 or something. I'm assuming most of us have seen the MU in Melee so I won't go into much detail, but Marths edgeguards and defensive options got a lot better in PM. Fox can't tech dtilt until a really high percent, and it feels like dtilt hits lower than in Melee, so edgeguarding Fox is a lot easier for Marth in this game.
Also, dair is SOOOOO good in PM. Its landing lag was cut in half (12 frames of endlag, for reference, Ivys uair has 11 frames of endlag) so using it as an out of shield option is great, and also using is as an option to come down from the air isn't as bad as it used to be. At low percents hitting dair leads to guaranteed grab, and at mid-higher percents it leads to tech chases.
The lack of usmash doesn't bother Fox too much since you don't really hit usmash unless it's a read or nair/fair -> usmash, doing uthrow uair kills at earlier percents now when compared to usmash, so grabbing is more of the b&b way to end stocks in PM, and hitting single hit uair in PM consistently is now possible on characters such as Marth, so you don't need to worry about sdi too often.

IMO Fox still beats Falcon pretty solidly (like 60:40) just because utilt and nair just beat everything Falcon can do in neutral. Falcon does have better recovery but you can still flowchart edgeguard it so it's not a big deal. I have a lack of PM falcon experience so take what I say with a grain of salt. The stagelist doesn't impact the MU too much since different Foxes are more comfortable on different stages vs. Falcon, which means there's no "good" stages for falcon, just stages that are effective against that particular Fox.

Good thing I did this instead of studying for my final I have in an hour =]

 

[Kipcom]

Good thing I did this instead of studying for my final I have in an hour =]

Worth

 

[Soft Serve]

Wolf struggles with fox because rush down. It's a neutral thing, wolf can't make space to dash back blaster because fox can get in and stop the start up, similar to how fox plays the falco mu. The difference is wolf doesn't have the nair/dair of falco to contest and trade with. Retreating bair is amazing and wolf tech chases fox to death off one grab with b throw guarenteed, so it's not that bad, but fox has an edge because rushdown and better trades with nair. It's probably only +1 fox though.

Edit: fox v diddy item play is really complicated. Bananas aren't that good vs fox because he's the one character most likely to prevent you from pulling them, and has so many tools to deal with them and use them against you. Fox wins the mu but it's not that bad. 60/40 on most stages probably. He's the hardest spacie to edge guard for diddy and wake up shine and running shine and shine after whiffed aerials all throw a huge wrench in the banana tech chase/whiff punish game.

 

[Avro-Arrow]

That's what Captain Falcon is for!

Nah, that's what Sheik is for. As for your match up numbers earlier, Sheik : Fox is likely 4 : 6, but I'd say that the ZSS match up against Fox is significantly harder, at least in terms of actually playing it out. ZSS has to put in a lot more work to get the same result since her moves individually don't have much damage output. At low percents it's easy to CC all of her normals (bar utilt catching aerials, but that move is easily punishable on whiff), and these normals are CCablr past the percents that Sheik's are. On the upside, ZSS has better mobility, but then again, her comboes are a lot less flow charted as well (thinking of throws/throw follow-ups), at least for now.

Also, re: Meta Knight, his edge guards are basically guaranteed. One grab could mean death, and in a few years, will probably be expected to mean death. Just tech chases until you get to the side of the stage, f/b/dthrow him off of the stage, and follow him out. Nair/fair him once, drift out with him until he jumps, react with a jump nair/fair, and them he's forced to use up b without a jump and from below the stage, which is relatively easy to edge guard. In fact, I think you can just continue to follow him out after eating the jump and extinguish the start up of Fire Fox, but I don't want to get too feisty here. Did I get it right _Chrome ?

Oh yeah, forgot to say but Flash can be avoided. If you know what percent he's going to go for it, you know when to SDI and DI the shine, uair, and grounded dair (less important, not going to list his other launchers...) in. There are other moves to look out for, but I think DMG said it already. Just in and up or straight up.

 

[Frost | Odds]

Sheik vs Fox is 4:6 in NTSC. There's no way it's nearly that bad in PM.

 

[Life]

I dunno what you people are on about with Sheik losing to Fox in this game

Fake edit: Ninja'd by Odds

Actual edit: Sheiks in Melee are quickly closing the Fox gap by optimizing their dthrow tech chases to get more percent off grabs and also working out the kinks in her neutral game that people have been ignoring because NTSC dthrow alone was enough to win matchups once upon a time

PM Fox doesn't have frame 1 invincible shine so those techchases are a frame easier, usmash doesn't kill as early, PM throws are stronger than Melee throws against space animals, etc.

I'm not gonna stick a number on it because matchup numbers are dumb, but you can't really judge this matchup based on the melee equivalent.

 

[_Chrome]

You got it right Avro-Arrow . The nair and fair carry-offs are easier than Jigglypuff's lol.

As far as the MK-Fox matchup goes, Meta Knight definitely wins the punish game due to his superior tech chasing abilities and gimping ability. In fact, MK's fthrow and bthrow are actually more powerful than his dthrow in this matchup overall since they can easily set up into a re-grab or quick edgeguard/tech-chase respectively. However, while Meta Knight is able to get confirmed IDCs from his uthrow, it does not start at 70% against Fox or the other spacies. They aren't sent high enough from the throw until more percent is built up. In my practice, that doesn't start until after 100% unless the spacie has poor DI on the throw.

In an optimized environment, I still don't see MK winning because Fox is faster than MK and overall wins the neutral game (for many previously stated reasons. See: ~80% of the last 1023 pages). As of right now, I don't see enough Meta Knights abusing his incredible gimping potential against spacies. In fact, most of the MKs I see don't even grab nearly enough in any matchup. This is odd, since he has one of the best grab games in the cast (which is a turn-on for me {feel free to make jokes}) and is almost the only way he can get anything going on against Fox or Falco. The standard DD-dtilt neutral game combo simply isn't good enough for these animatronics.

 

[Ya Boy GP]

Fox does indeed win the Wolf MU just because the neutral game is in Foxes favor (gee, there sure seems to be a reoccurring trend here). As long as Fox can avoid or get through the lasers and can keep constant pressure on wolf, it's pretty easy. Also, being able to CC shine and counteract with shine followed by a thunders combo is pretty silly. Wolf has a dope combo game with hella mixups, and edgeguarding is pretty flowcharty so the punish game is roughly even in my opinion. Just Fox slightly wins neutral, so he slightly wins the MU.

Sheik: Fox still bops sheik pretty hard in neutral. The only difference about this matchup in my opinion is usmash kills like a little bit later than usual which matters in this matchup since waveshine -> usmash is a thing. Like yeah Sheik can punish harder in PM and technically Foxes recovery is worse so it's easier there for her too (even though she doesn't really need to take advantage of the landing lag), but those aren't matchup changing differences. At the end of the day she still gets bodied in neutral, gets combo'd to death a lot, and is basically dead if forced to up-b. I've played against Jaden and Malachi and I still think it's 60/40, maybe I'm wrong, I don't know.

However, while Meta Knight is able to get confirmed IDCs from his uthrow, it does not start at 70% against Fox or the other spacies. They aren't sent high enough from the throw until more percent is built up. In my practice, that doesn't start until after 100% unless the spacie has poor DI on the throw.

My bad, I must have bad DI off of uthrow. I'll try not to spread false information in the future.

Update: Bodied the **** out of my final

 

[_Chrome]

I find that sometimes slight DI is the best DI against MK's uthrow, or if you know they're conditioned to go for it, no DI can be the best since a lot of the time with no DI you'll only be eating a nair, but if they expect full DI one way or the other they'll go auto and miss you completely.

Congrats on the final!

 

[JesteRace]

I think people overstate how much the PM stagelist affects Marth. I keep hearing "Marthritis" but there really haven't been many stages added where people live longer, and Marth can actually ban stages like Dreamland. He loses FD against spacies, but GHZ and SV are almost as good, and are actually better in some ways(not quite as much wide open space, but they have smaller blast zones and higher ceilings than FD). Most stagelists have 2 of DL/DS/DP/BC which are pretty bad Marth stages, but again, he can actually ban them, whereas in Melee he was forced to fight on Dreamland. I don't see at all how PM's stagelist negatively affects Marth.

 

[KinGly]

Sheik vs Fox is 4:6 in NTSC. There's no way it's nearly that bad in PM.

Yay! A top player said an opinion I've had for a while.

Sheik fox feels even imo. Maybe slightly Fox favored but nothing bad.

 

[Juushichi]

Sheik vs Fox is 4:6 in NTSC. There's no way it's nearly that bad in PM.

It's probably 45-55 in PM, here are my thoughts about +/-

+:
Fox's recovery is weaker so cheesy trades with Up-B on stage don't automatically mean you are getting UAir/Usmashed.
Fox's USmash is weaker, ensuring that you will die later on paper.
Fox's laser from a distance is weaker, ensuring that you will die later on paper.
Dthrow/Bthrow means that it can be easier to tech chase Fox.
Fthrow means that Fox is sent at a more awkward angle than usual, which strengthens edgeguarding.
Shine Spiking is worse and shine is not invincible

-:
Fox kills Sheik more often off the side w/ rince/repeat edgeguarding loops than killing off the top.
It's harder to sneak onto the ledge w/ certain Up-B angles than in Melee.
On the whole, there are longer/wider stages ensuring that Fox engages on his terms more often.
Modern NTSC>PM Sheik answers (dthrow reaction tech chasing) require more complex thinking/betting rather than raw reaction, potentially (and more then likely eventually) leading to more chances for escape.

Keep in mind that the reason that Sheik is disadvantaged vs Fox on the base level is because it's much harder to engage with Fox in the neutral. Sheik's weakness to CC, favorable combo weight and difficulty landing from strings, I feel comes into play a lot more often than Fox's, in addition.

The +/- at the top may shift edgeguarding/punish back towards neutral, but at the end of the day Fox still wins the neutral game on the whole.

---

The really annoying MU that has actually shifted a degree worse is Peach.

From ~6-4/55-45 in NTSC to 4-6/45-55 in PM. It's really ****ing hard.

 

[Bazkip]

Sheiks in Melee are quickly closing the Fox gap by optimizing their dthrow tech chases to get more percent off grabs

I dunno about that, it was only really DruggedFox who was pushing that front, and he quit Sheik after getting bopped by Silent Wolf...

 

[Juushichi]

Bazkip : Plup.

 

[Jolteon]

I think Fox vs NTSC Sheik is even but shhh don't tell anybody I said that.

 

[Bazkip]

Bazkip : Plup.

He doesn't seem to push it as much as DruggedFox was trying to, but maybe I'm just not remembering correctly.

 

[Avro-Arrow]

Bazkip Me. Totally notable guys

 

[Jolteon]

Consistent dthrow tech chasing with Sheik is very real btw and anyone that says that it's not either hasn't practiced it enough or wants an excuse for being bad and not practicing it.

 

[Avro-Arrow]

It's like a guaranteed 0-death on Fox if executed well. Basically the only reason I win games kappa (but maybe not kappa lol).

 

[Bazkip]

I just have to question the feasibility when the one person seriously pushing it quit, and there's only one other person who's sorta doing it at top level.

That's not to say that someone won't come along one day and take it to it's limit, but in the current metagame it's not doing a ton to close the gap.

 

[Jolteon]

I just have to question the feasibility when the one person seriously pushing it quit, and there's only one other person who's sorta doing it at top level.

That's not to say that someone won't come along one day and take it to it's limit, but in the current metagame it's not doing a ton to close the gap.

If Sheik mains practiced like Fox mains do, it wouldn't be uncommon at all.

With something like spacie tech skill, practicing it has very tangible short term and long term benefits, and it feels highly rewarding to master, so people will do it and see the results. Practicing tech chasing is extremely boring (not to mention essentially impossible to practice on your own until the 20XX training pack existed) and it takes forever to see any significant improvement from it, so most Sheik players just don't do it. Every time I speak to another Sheik main and they tell me they think it's not feasible/realistic to do, their answer to 'how much have you even practiced it?' is extremely telling to me as to why they think so.

This is, of course, completely irrelevant to Sheik's capacity and is entirely the onus of Sheik players. We saw similar things happen with Fox players who claimed that he couldn't win a national (lol) back in the '09-'10 era because Fox mains simply were not good enough and placed the fault on their character, and not on themselves.

The reason why the current metagame is not doing a ton to close the gap is because Sheik players aren't doing **** to close the gap. Remember that the PM Sheik playerbase reponse to 3.6b's throw changes was to just put their hands up in the air and claim that Sheik has 'no grab game', did anyone even try to adapt and work on their tech chasing? No. The reponse was just that Sheik's dthrow 'did nothing' and to complain about it on forums. People simply don't put in the effort that is required to be good at it.

And honestly no johns if you can't do it in NTSC/PM, it's possible to do it in PAL and that's significantly harder than in the other two versions. There's a UK Melee Sheik main called BrTarolg (one of his typical grab punishes) who tech chases to 80+ extremely consistently and he's otherwise a very average player, he just has both the free time and diligence to be good at it.

 

[Deleted member]

best tier list

1.
2.
3.

I still stand by this btw

 

[D e l t a]

A while back, someone mentioned how characters like G&W / Ike can 0-death Fox off a single grab. The same could be said for Lucas.

Lucas has an easy chain grab (no matter the DI) with Uthrow and frame tight Dthrow on no DI / DI in. Uthrow leads to guaranteed OU Upsmash (over 30% damage from 2 hits), or he can Uair / sourspot fair -> regrab.

His ledge guards are akin to Falco's, only PKF has slightly more hitstun and his Bair actually hits below ledge, covering sweetspots from below. This doesn't even cover aerials offstage, holding magnet to cover recoveries, Ftilt angles, etc. Theoretically, Fox should be dead once he's offstage against Lucas, just as Marth covers Fox's recovery options.

==

As for neutral, PKF stops laser camping and forced Fox to dash around it or fight his way through. Lucas' wavedash and good mobility can contest Fox's movement aside from run speed. Lucas' bait options and combo starts work way easier on Fox than a number of other characters in the cast.

 

[TheGravyTrain]

Bazkip
Maybe the person pushing it quit for other reasons than tech chasing? Also, Plup forgoes the usual back throws near the edge for down throw tech chases, that is enough devotion to it for me.

I also find it laughable that Jolteon is convinced of reaction tech chasing, but Umbreon said reaction tech chasing is bogus and drugged fox got lucky at Evo...

 

[Doctor Aids]

In regards to all of the ZSS vs. Fox MU speculation in here, my opinion is that it cannot be anywhere worse than 6-4 for ZSS. Personally I would put it as 55-45 Fox's favor but it could get even closer to even in time. The neutral game is only slightly in Fox's advantage because of lasers forcing approaches and nair and utilt being pretty good at stuffing approaches, that being said ZSS has amazing mobility and pretty good aerials/tilts to work around Fox's good anti-approach game.

A lot of people say that ZSS has trouble punishing Fox which is somewhat of a misconception. What people often ignore is that ZSS has a chaingrab on all spacies starting around 25% that ends around 100%, ZSS can finish the chaingrab with a guaranteed sweetspot downb or sweetspot bair which will outright kill or send the spacie far enough that they won't be making it back. Before 25% ZSS is forced to tech chase Fox, but this isn't particularly difficult compared to other tech chases in the game and it is perfectly feasible to reaction tech chase a spacie to 25% where you can start the chaingrab. If the spacie continues to DI the chaingrab off stage before they can be downb/bair'd ZSS can actually finish it with a footstool which would put the spacie in a position where they have to recover low, once that happens ZSS can gimp them with dair, dair -> footstool, downb or punish with a dsmash if they whiff the sweetspot. Platforms can complicate the combo game for ZSS and can make things more difficult but she can still get followups off of platform tech chases. My personal theory is that this MU will become more like Marth vs. Fox as the meta develops in that it will become closer to even but be a very stage dependent MU in which the opponent has to abuse their better punish/gimp game in order to overcome Fox's slightly better neutral.

 

[Deleted member]

imo fox beats sheik 6-4 in both melee and pm, and for the same reasons. sheik loses neutral, she loses the punish game, and her conversions are extremely situational and limited. i think this in pm as a sheik player, but i also thought fox beat sheik rather firmly ten years ago as a melee fox player that beat on all the sheik players at the time. even if sheik could infinitely tech chase (she cant), she can still very easily lose the long game, or fold to dashdancing, and fox can do hilariously strong punishes back that are much easier. fox vs sheik used to be one of my favorite matches in melee and basically still is in PM, as the fox player.

fwiw, tech chasing fox is relatively easier in melee than PM because the angle difference means that sheik doesnt have to commit to a boostgrab in certain situations, boostgrab is fantastic but it by definition forces you to commit to that one option, as opposed to say MK who has a similar dthrow but access to a faster run speed, faster initial dash, and a better DD that doesnt necessitate committing. it took us over a decade to find a couple players that could do it even somewhat consistently. you think no one has thought of this or practiced it to death in the last 14 years? as much as i like throwing ad hominems at the entire player bases of the character across two games and a decade, if it was even remotely feasible to be consistent, we would certainly know by now.

and no, no one though "fox couldnt do it" in 2009 and 2010. people have though fox was the best in the game since a group of smashers found melee in chinatown NYC before it had an official US release in october 2001.