VS Zelda - Matchup Discussion and Analysis

[A_Kae]

[image here]​

The Directory
Zelda Matchup Thread

KuroganeHammer's Marth Frame Data [1.1.0]
Mastercore v3 Marth Dump [1.1.0]

KuroganeHammer's Zelda Frame Data [1.0.4]
Mastercore v3 Zelda Dump [1.1.0]
[zelda_dein] [zelda_dein_s] [zelda_lightingbow_arrow] [zelda_phantom]

Notable Posts
-

Recommended Stage Choices
-

Recommended Custom Move Choices
-

Customs On/Off|Score ()|Score ()
Off (Default)|?|?
On (Customs)|?|?

 

[JigglyZelda003]

marcina is an interesting matchup that has thankfully gotten a tad easier for Zelda.

Marth is all about spacing and so is Zelda which makes this matchup both fun and scary because Marths tipper really hurts and our optimal spacing is the same as Marth's tipper making it a game of close in or close out depending on what Zelda is planning to do. Phantom is very nice here as a counter poke tool for Zelda to try and outspace Marth with, while he can destroy it its still a great disjoint . Fsmash and Ftilt still can contend with Marths reach on the ground for ground spacing despite some risk for tipper hits.

afaik Marth is susceptible to Zelda's general combos like jab/dtilt>dthrow>nair and while not the easiest to gimp if he's recovering correctly he is still susceptable to being gimped with a trade out Dair. Dsmash is also a good get out move if we catch marth near the ledge with it.

these nice things aside Marth is still a pain for Zelda cause he has a sword and SB. Zelda can fight back with her dusjoints but Marth overall still has the most reach and Zelda can't just box him out to do optimal damage she has to mess up his spacing to get combos which can be a challenge cause she's still slow. Zelda blocks alot which can get her in trouble if she's not careful about that habit cause its just asking for a SB to break her shield and net Marth an early KO.

Zelda can harrass Marth offstage but on stage in air Marth can juggle her for days cause she doesn't have much if a defense on being juggled. And Marth can chase her offstage if he wishes to to harrass her even if she doesn't die the damage still hurts.

I haven't fought Custom Marth, but Zelda customs are bad and other than a bit of jank I dont think Zelda gains anything noteworthy.

40:60 marth for vanilla
35:65 marth customs

 

[Zylach]

This MU is even imo. Both characters rely heavily on outspacing each other and both have about the same reach though Marth has the disjoints over Zelda. Whichever player knows his/her spacing game better is most likely to come out on top. Since Marth has no projectiles, Zelda doesn't have to worry about getting out camped which hurts her a lot. Meanwhile, Marth isn't a rushdown combo-master character which Zelda also loses to. Zelda is able to keep Marth in check with her newly-fixed phantom now as well.

The main thing Marth has over Zelda is an aerial game. Zelda wants to stay mobile against Marth because of that shield breaker making her shield game a lot more risky. At the same time, she has only two tools she can use to help cover herself while being mobile at the same time which is SH nair and SH dair. Neither of these moves will keep her safe against Marth's aerial disjoints. With that said, Zelda just has to be smart about how she positions herself on the ground and how she uses her shield. An overly-shieldy Zelda is asking to get her shield broken here.

Marth also doesn't have quite as much trouble being juggled as Zelda does. Granted, Marth doesn't have any uair combos like Pika or ZSS but his uair and utilt can make it difficult for her to land. At the same time, Marth doesn't have great tools to stop Zelda from comboing him from dthrow. Our dthrow>nair is guaranteed at low percents and our dthrow>uair can't really be challenged unless Marth airdodges or is high enough that he can double jump out (dair is too slow and counter won't even hit Zelda) which means Zelda can bait airdodges at medium percents for even bigger rewards on him.

Marth's recovery is tricky to gimp but not impossible. Zelda can pretty safely pressure him offstage forcing airdodges at the wrong time with her nair and even interrupting his ledge snap with Nayru's Love since it's got intangibility frames and a decent disjoint to keep her safe from Marth's up-B which is very very predictable in terms of Marth's positioning relative to the ledge.

Furthermore, Marth, though recent buffs have helped him, is fairly slow with his attacks giving Zelda time to punish which is what she does so well. To my knowledge, all of Marth's smashes are incredibly punishable, his utilt and ftilt have quite a bit of endlag, and his landing lag is really bad (Though this was remedied a bit in recent patches). He's got dtilt and jab (Just like Zelda!) which are safe and his aerials are difficult to punish if he doesn't land with them (I believe I've seen Marths do something like fair>side-B>jab or something like that which is very difficult to punish) but his kill options are limited and he doesn't have any kill setups outside of jab>fsmash which isn't guaranteed (Can someone corroborate this?). Meanwhile, Zelda has nair>usmash/elevator that is absolutely guaranteed and she has airdodge bait shenanigans from dtilt. That said, Zelda's ability to kill Marth is better than his ability to kill her imo and she doesn't have to rely on perfect spacing in order to get her super early kills like Marth does making her more consistent in that respect.

50:50 Since the metagame is shifting more towards banning customs, I won't bother with customs anymore

If this was pre-patch 1.0.8, I might claim that this was slightly in Zelda's favor but Marth's been buffed a lot more than Zelda has and they've been doing a lot for him.

 

[Rebel13]

Zelda mains show up first? I've recently decided to co-main both so I'll just cover a few small things.

1. Marth out-ranges Zelda, and his tipper fair/bair are pretty safe on shield after the recent hitlag changes, while all of Zelda's close range options are still mostly unsafe.
2. Marth does NOT have that much lag on his tilts, U-tilt was buffed this last patch as well.
3. Marth has plenty of kill setups besides jab -> Fsmash. In fact I almost never do that unless its a mixup. Jab Usmash is much more effective in most situation, and his SH FF nair will combo into Usmash as well. F-air can confrim into Fsamsh if you miss a tech roll at mid percents. Also never forget that Dolphin Slash OoS can kill too.

Marth will spend a lot of time in the air because Zelda has poor aerials and Marth has that great disjoint; he can also land with b-reverse shieldbreaker (Zelda tends to shield a lot anyways....). Zelda's phantom is very good here, but I don't think it really solves any of her issues in this matchup.
I will second the rating of 40:60 Marth.

 

[Zylach]

Zelda mains show up first? I've recently decided to co-main both so I'll just cover a few small things.

1. Marth out-ranges Zelda, and his tipper fair/bair are pretty safe on shield after the recent hitlag changes, while all of Zelda's close range options are still mostly unsafe.
2. Marth does NOT have that much lag on his tilts, U-tilt was buffed this last patch as well.
3. Marth has plenty of kill setups besides jab -> Fsmash. In fact I almost never do that unless its a mixup. Jab Usmash is much more effective in most situation, and his SH FF nair will combo into Usmash as well. F-air can confrim into Fsamsh if you miss a tech roll at mid percents. Also never forget that Dolphin Slash OoS can kill too.

Marth will spend a lot of time in the air because Zelda has poor aerials and Marth has that great disjoint; he can also land with b-reverse shieldbreaker (Zelda tends to shield a lot anyways....). Zelda's phantom is very good here, but I don't think it really solves any of her issues in this matchup.
I will second the rating of 40:60 Marth.

1. Marth's got the disjoints on his attacks over Zelda. Zelda usually steps forward with her attacks like fsmash and ftilt with gives them "range." Marth wins the spacing game, I agree. Zelda was also helped by the recent hitlag changes. Her fair and bair are now safer on shield for example.
2. Utilt still takes 36 total frames to finish which is ample time for any character to punish him (24 frames of endlag). His ftilt is also 35 frames long (also 24 frames of endlag). That's plenty of time as well. His only tilt that isn't laggy is his dtilt which is 23 frames long (15 frames of endlag). Difficult but not impossible to punish. He's no Sheik/Pika/Mario/etc.
3. I didn't know about these kill setups. That's some useful information. Thanks for that.

I get that shield breaker is a problem in this MU but I don't feel like it's much of a MU defining move. Zelda tends to shield a lot but against characters she shouldn't be shielding against (like this one), she can opt for more of a keep away game with her phantom now that it's been fixed. It's more of a change in how Zelda will play the MU, rather than the bane of her existence.

 

[Zard lover Doom Desire]

Oh I like your style for the Marth matchups, Marth players, very organized! Before I say anything, let me just say I hate the Sm4sh competitive fanbase, at least the majority of it, that has nothing to do with this matchup, I just thought I'd give my thoughts on the mass banning of customs. Anyway, Marth is a pretty safe character on shield as of 1.1.1, you guys are really rocking these updates recently (until they nerf you and then buff Diddy Kong) so Zelda can't bother with her shield often, not that she could anyway what with your Shield Breaker and the nasty shield breaking that it does. I have a friend that mains Marth, so I'll use examples from our matches. For starters, Zelda can do a somewhat useful combo on Marth which is down tilt->jab->grab(then down throw->neutral air->maybe a Lightning Kick) or dash attack. It can hurt a little but isn't very strong compared to others, besides, it's hard to get caught by when you're Marth, due to his general low lag. Also, unless Zelda goes for an aerial or is far away and teleporting towards you, don't bother countering very often, almost all of her grounded kill moves are multi-hitting, instead, go for a side smash or maybe aerial punish, much more painful than countering most of the time. Don't be afraid of Zelda's zoning, you're too fast to be hit by her projectiles, only with luck or a good read can she hit you with them. Be wary if you've been sent offstage, your recovery doesn't seem well protected from a meteor smash. If you have her offstage, you probably won't get any sort of follow-up unless you're doing the Ken combo, not that it's going to happen in this game. Respect Zelda's aerials and beware the elevator, you'll do just fine. I'd say this is +1 for you Marths, maybe +2.

 

[SherrdreamZ]

I co-Main these two and am thoroughly surprised how much analysis has already been done. Ill just say i feel this MU is close to...
40:60 in favor of/. I gave both Falchions an equal score for once because i just don't see Tipper smashes catching an observant Zelda as much as other MU's but maybe that's just me. I play an extremely Safe/Reactive game against speedy characters such as Marth, Shiek, Pika, Falcon, Sonic. I <3 how different my two Mains play it keeps things fresh and my opponents guessing. :D +2 IMO