Vs. Fox

[PEEF!]

I will update the OP every week with helpful posts that answer questions and offer solutions. Once we think we've got everything covered we can compile these.

So post here about whatever you know and want to share. I have 2 questions off the bat. What to do against smash-happy space animals, and what to do against foxes that make their primary approach a running shin onto my shield, then jump away. Roll de-blizzard on their way in?

 

[KirbyKaze]

If you can react super fast to Fox U-smash, you can WD OoS and hit him I think.

 

[Finch]

You can punish all of spacies' smashes oos if you're fast enough, but if you aren't then you need to have good spacing so you can hit them with your own smashes or grab them when they wiff.

Shiny foxes can be countered by desynced blizzard but only if you do it at exactly the right time and they don't expect it. You could also retreating fair, or uair oos after they jump.

 

[Fly_Amanita]

Ftilt and dash attack also beat the running shine approach. Ftilt's safer, but dash attack has a bigger payoff.

Both space animals' dsmashes can be punished with wavedash OoS -> grab. Poorly spaced fsmashes can also be punished this way. I'm not sure if it's guaranteed to work on well-spaced fsmashes, but you should be able to beat those with walk backwards -> fsmash and probably retreating fairs in some cases. If you don't think the space animal will CC after the fsmash, you can try wavedash OoS -> jab -> grab, too. I think usmash can also be punished with wavedash OoS -> grab, but the timing is strict. Most space animals will spot dodge afterwards, so you can wait for that. Others might shine, which you can beat with anything that out-ranges shine.

Desynched blizzards are really risky against both space animals, especially Fox, so I only recommend using them sparingly.

 

[PEEF!]

Top quality posts, goods hit.

Does retreating bair beat fox nair? That's kinds the main strategy with falcon, it should work really well as icees but I don't see it happen....

The matchup chart has this matchup as a 30:70. I don't think thats right unless trail and fly are far more skilled than jman and zhu. 45:55?

 

[Fly_Amanita]

Retreating bair is odd. It does beat Fox's nair, but it seems like it misses more often than it should for reasons I can't pinpoint. Maybe that's just my fault, though.

The chart actually uses a 1-7 scale and has the match up at 5:3 Fox, which corresponds to him having a slight advantage, which I agree with.

 

[KirbyKaze]

ICs' Bair hitbox doesn't go the full length of the hammer for a lot of the move's duration.

That's probably why.

 

[PEEF!]

Hm I guess I don't get the 1-7 scale. Why not 1-10 haha. 5:3 is 62.5% Fox. Guess that isn't terrible.

Is there another good move to beat nair outright?

 

[Fly_Amanita]

Yeah, there are a lot of other things that can beat Fox's nair. Fsmash is nice at medium to high percentages since you might catch Fox when he's DI'ing down for the fastfall and get an early KO. Angled-up ftilt is also pretty good. I think our own nair beats his if we start it early enough and it also often combos into a grab, but it can be hard to catch good Foxes with nair. Dash attack is similar to nair here, except that it's easier to connect with, but also easier for Fox to punish. At low percentages, you can CC dsmash the nair, although I don't like relying on this since it fails if the Fox decides to dair instead.

You can also try Wobble's light-shield trick: have both ICs light-shield and then hold whichever shoulder button you use for shielding almost all the way down. This should make Nana's shield remain really large, while Popo's is almost normal. If you do this and angle the shields upwards, a lot of Foxes will mess up the L-cancel or fastfall, which can let you get more shield grabs.

 

[PEEF!]

Posts are too legit.

Countering dash dance camping?

Edgeguarding is a big issue in this matchup. Dsmash vs fsmash? Edgeguarding fox isn't formulaic like marth and sheik is. What's the best way to cover the avaliable options he has?

 

[Fly_Amanita]

Dash dance camping can be tricky to deal with. I often feign approaches against DD-campers in an effort to bait them into approaching instead. Wavedash ftilt can also be good since it's really fast. If the Fox is really reluctant to approach, try catching him when he's running backwards by aiming behind him. Dash attack, ftilt, nair, and maybe fair are good for this. Utilt also works really well on some Foxes. Oh yeah, ice blocks can be pretty good for stopping DD-camping.

What I do to edgeguard Fox depends a lot on where he's recovering from. If he's in a position where he must do up-B below the stage. I usually do the belay OoS desynch to have Nana edgehog and then charge an fsmash or dsmash with Popo; it's actually probably better to just wait to see what Fox does instead of charging a smash, though. It's nice if you can grab Fox out of his up-B, because then if he tries to sweetspot, he dies since Nana is on the edge, and if he tries to land on the stage, then you can grab him. Nana will probably then do a get-up attack and you could start a handoff.

If he's recovering low, but you're not in a position to belay OoS, fsmash and dsmash both work if the Fox doesn't sweetspot. I'm not sure if one is better than the other, but they both seem to work fine and I recommend using whichever one you find easier.

If he does an up-B high, I often wait until right before the moving part of the up-B starts and then edgehog, because a lot of Foxes will try to sweetspot the edge in this position. If I don't think Fox will do this, I usually just wavedash backwards when he starts moving and punish whatever he does on reaction.

If the Fox is trying to side-B to the edge, but is bad at sweetspotting, which most Foxes are, you can often just fsmash or dsmash him. If you're worried about him teching, you can jab instead to force him to recover from below. If the Fox is good at sweetspotting, you'll probably only stop his side-B with either an edgehog or ice blocks, which can intercept side-B nicely.

 

[PEEF!]

Beautiful. We are tag teaming this matchup interview style haha.

What is there to say regarding recovery? Probably not much.

How should we deal with quality platform work? I'm thinking every fox is going to have zhu-style movement soon, so how do we deal with a fox moving on and off platforms and poking at us that way? It's a whole different game.

 

[Fly_Amanita]

I can say a few things about recovery. If you have both ICs, I think up-B is generally better than side-B. It's really easy for Fox to hit both ICs out of synched squall hammer with bair or shine. With belay, assuming the Fox knows to wait until Nana becomes vulnerable, Nana is likely to die afterwards, but Popo will usually make it back. You can also use belay to intercept shine spike attempts sometimes.

If you only have Popo, you should try to get as close to the stage as possible before committing to any one recovery option. It's usually better to try to airdodge to the edge than it is to side-B, but sometimes you have to side-B. In case you need to side-B, try to be unpredictable with how you recover; sometimes you can recovery as high as possible, other times you can start recovering high, but then stop mashing B so you fall quickly. Oftentimes it's good to make it look like you're going to try to land on the stage, but then retreat to the edge.


If the Fox is maneuvering around on platforms a lot, it's usually best to not chase him up there and instead try to guess when and how he will descend and punish him then. Short hop uair and utilt are both pretty decent tools for catching Fox's descent, although short hop uair is more flexible. If the Fox doesn't come back to the ground often, try to catch him with full jump uairs when he moves from one platform to another. Be really careful about this, though, since this puts you in a really bad position should he decide to descend then. Another thing to keep in mind is that Foxes that play like this will often jump to platforms when below them, which sounds kind of obvious, but is worth keeping in mind, since full jump nair can intercept that. I think land-canceled ice blocks may also have some applications here for chasing Fox on platforms, but I'm not as sure about that as the other things I've said here.

 

[Kyu Puff]

Running shine: You can beat this with efficient movement. If you have some momentum and your movement is somewhat unpredictable, it's not hard to simply avoid. If you're in a tighter situation, you can dash backwards when you think he'll approach and punish. You can basically beat n-air the same way, but n-air has more of a potential to overshoot. I usually play around with different timings of dash backwards -> shield -> wait -> sh b-a-ir/u-air; if you figure out his approach you can start catching Fox out of his jump when he tries to n-air.

For dash dance camping, you can feign approaches like Fly mentioned, or you can approach with b-air (if it's a larger stage or he's far away). Wavedash -> sh b-air is a really fast and solid approach; unless he jumps above you, it has a good chance of connecting, and if he dashes outside of the b-air range you can cover your tracks with d-smash.

When edgeguarding, do everything based on reaction. If they side+b onto the stage, shield and wd f-smash/grab.

I think it's even, at least based on Fox's other match-ups on that chart.

 

[PEEF!]

This is looking really good guys. Fly is 0-to-deathing every question. Do this for the other characters too in their thread (ganon)!

Kyu mentioned wd bair as an approach, and that reminds me we haven't talked at all about approaching. What are some good approaches, and when is this furry critter vulnerable to em?

 

[*P*L*U*R*]

IC doesn't exactly have a solid approach. WD Bair is pretty good though because it autocancels and you can get outta there if you mess up. At low percents, it flows nicely into a dash-attack. At mid-percents, it OTGs Fox. At high percents, it outright kills. It has a really good angle of knockback. At the edge with my back turned, I generally prefer to bthrow Bair spacies.

 

[ChivalRuse]

At the edge with my back turned, I generally prefer to bthrow Bair spacies.

I like charged fsmash -> uthrow to get the reverse fsmash, but that's just me. They usually have incorrect DI by 90 degrees + fully charged smash = death.

For approaches, I like wavedash to uair because Fox always jumps on reaction to your wavedashes. I also like dash attack, desynched iceblock to grab, and the SH bair Kyu Puff was talking about.

 

[Binx]

You can just grab fox when he runs at you to shine if you are 99% sure that he will do it

 

[PEEF!]

Reviving this too.

I am having a hard time with the art of intercepting jumps with uair and bair. I see Fly has this down like crazy. Can the uair intercept work if fox only shorthops? What is a good position to be in aka where can we count on that jump?

I would assume Foxes might like to stay grounded if they get intercepted enough. Is there a way to simplify the matchup if he decides to focus mostly on ground work?

 

[ChivalRuse]

Wavedash oos -> utilt is pretty good when Fox is spacing bairs on your shield. I've noticed Fly also wavedashes past them and dsmashes. Seems pretty good as well.

 

[Lixivium]

I am having a hard time with the art of intercepting jumps with uair and bair. I see Fly has this down like crazy. Can the uair intercept work if fox only shorthops? What is a good position to be in aka where can we count on that jump?

No, you can't Up-air Fox if he shorthops.

Unless the Fox can consistently SHFFL through double shields/lightshields he's going to have to fulljump at some point. You don't have to predict it, there should be plenty of time to react when you see him take off. And you should be ready for this any time Fox is at your level or above you on a platform.

Of course Fox could feint by double jumping and such, but Up-air is not very punishable. If you don't hit him, you should know to fastfall back to the ground, when to D-air/B-air/airdodge, etc.

I would assume Foxes might like to stay grounded if they get intercepted enough. Is there a way to simplify the matchup if he decides to focus mostly on ground work?

No Fox is going to stay grounded against IC's - IC's cover too much territory, plus there's not much he can do against shieldwh0ring except shines and grabs.

Shines - you can't really punish, consider it a reset

Grabs - sidestep/jab/F-tilt

 

[ChivalRuse]

Foxes always camp bairs and drillshine if you whiff a dsmash or something. They don't really stay grounded, but they make you think they won't jump ... then they do.

 

[AshuRawRun]

Here's a match I made against Doraki yesterday, this is a friendly so we aren't playing to win:
Ashura (ICs) vs Doraki (Fox)
I guess I should have done more blizzard but I remember during our first match Blizzard was not fast enough to get him and even if it did Doraki was DIing away.
Usual chaingrabs with D-throws and ADA doesn't work anymore on Doraki, he smash DI out of it and can use an Upsmash after... So I must try to be more original
Fox's up-throw to AUA doesn't work either on me when I DI, but it's harder to punish it than IC's chaingrab... Popo can survive to high % if you play carefully and he can quickly kill Fox, that's a good way to win.

 

[Kyu Puff]

I've never seen videos of you before, nice ICs.

Your movement is really good, and I liked the way you chased him onto platforms with ice block.

Try experimenting with more of your moveset: when you sh b-air, you can fastfall it and still autocancel, and this is a good defensive move against Fox; sh auto-cancel u-airs can hit him on platforms without the risk of being punished out of shield. You usually approached with empty grabs, but sh u-air, u-tilt, and dash attack are all good ways to lead into grab.

As far as grabs go, the f-throw -> regrab was interesting -- it looks like a good mix-up with d-throw d-air that gets you to the ledge quickly. Another good mix-up is to charge a f-smash, d-throw, release the smash before he hits the ground, and regrab during the hitstun. The f-smash will miss if he DIs away, but the it usually scares him into survival DI. If you use mix-ups like this, and play with the d-throw timing, you can confuse his DI and he might not SDI as often.

Any chance you're coming to RoM3 or any other tournaments in the US?

 

[ChivalRuse]

Just to build on Kyu's advice, don't forget that you have the regular dthrow chain grab and bthrow tech chases to make your mixup game even more formidable.

Anyway, very solid ICs.

 

[AshuRawRun]

I've never seen videos of you before, nice ICs.

Your movement is really good, and I liked the way you chased him onto platforms with ice block.

Try experimenting with more of your moveset: when you sh b-air, you can fastfall it and still autocancel, and this is a good defensive move against Fox; sh auto-cancel u-airs can hit him on platforms without the risk of being punished out of shield. You usually approached with empty grabs, but sh u-air, u-tilt, and dash attack are all good ways to lead into grab.

As far as grabs go, the f-throw -> regrab was interesting -- it looks like a good mix-up with d-throw d-air that gets you to the ledge quickly. Another good mix-up is to charge a f-smash, d-throw, release the smash before he hits the ground, and regrab during the hitstun. The f-smash will miss if he DIs away, but the it usually scares him into survival DI. If you use mix-ups like this, and play with the d-throw timing, you can confuse his DI and he might not SDI as often.

Any chance you're coming to RoM3 or any other tournaments in the US?

Thanks for your advices.
And no sorry, I won't be coming to the US this year (I mean until next July months) maybe after july 2011 I'll come to a US tourney, I would really like to but I'm a littI can't afford the travel price.

And thanks Chival too