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Hey guys, Vandire here. Below, I'll be posting a video of myself VS Cosmo at Kings of the North 3, a tournament in Milwaukee in early November. I have never, ever played against a Zelda in Melee before this match happened, so I was more or less going in blind. I am just wanting some tips and tricks to get around Zelda. The commentators were giving good insight, and I learned from their comments, but I am just wanting a little bit more information.
How long have you been playing marth? Can't tell you much about the match up but I'm just interested since I can barely go to tournaments at my age.
I'm asking because I'm seeing some small mistakes you are making that you probably already know about how to fix by now (JC grabbing, WD back more, etc.)
Wow, that's cool! I started playing Melee in July and picked up Marth then too. I probably don't have as much experience as you because I've only gone to one weekly. Hopefully that can change soon.
I can give you some tips, and feel free to take them as you will. I'll do some time stamps:
MATCH 1:
0:10 - 0:14; See the Zelda dashdancing like that? Her dashdance is pretty short, so you can exploit that safely. What you can do is run up to her, crouch cancel dtilt or wavedash towards her and dtilt. She doesn't have many options to cover it besides jumping out of its way. Especially since she's near the ledge.
0:15; He read your jump. Not much you could've done here.
0:17; You didn't up-b sweetspot the ledge. This resulted in you landing onto the stage with that horrendous up-b landing lag and getting free punished for it.
0:20; Up-b was very unsafe here for the same reason; you end up with really bad landing lag. What would be much better would be to airdodge towards the platform.
0:41; dash attack wasn't spaced well, resulting in you getting shield grabbed. Were you going for fthrow->dash attack? The timing was off if you were.
0:45; The Marth Killer edgeguard. Since you're so close to the ledge, you can just airdodge towards the Zelda rather than up-b. Up-b is an okay choice here, though, but not the best.
0:48; Was this a panic fsmash? Don't do this in general unless you know 100% it is going to it. Especially since the Zelda was completely safe (not in any position to get hit by it). You were also really close to the ledge. If you missed it (which you did)you;'d get punished off the edge for a kill (which was what happened).
1:00; You were DI-ing out of Zelda's fsmash, which is good. Not sure if you intended to do it though.
1:07; random Fsmash and dsmash. Again, don't do this.
1:10; again, bad up-b.
1:30; You should learn to JC grab (jump canceled grabs). Also, those grabs were very unsafe. A little too grab happy.
1:32; random usmash
1:40; good spacing on that fair. Didn't l-cancel though.
1:41; nice crouch canceled dtilt.
1:44; a little too advanced for you atm, but you could have DI'ed this and not die as early.
MATCH 2:
2:22; a lot of unsafe dash attacks. The first one hit, but don't count on it happening too often.
2:27; two YOLO dairs.
2:53; usmash is generally unsafe in this situation. It's better to wavedash forward and utilt or hit her with a fair.
3:03; your dash dancing is beautiful here and you even tried to setup for a grab. Should've JC grabbed though.
3:10; unsafe dsmash
3:19; nice spaced fair
3:20; nice forcing out an airdodge by just approaching her with bair. Couldn't capitalize on it though.
3:22; punished for whiffed ftilt
3:39; unsafe fsmash
3:50-4:00; not spacing a bunch of things well
Commentators gave pretty good straightforward insight for the second match.
Cosmo is a well-known Zelda player. He knew his character much more than you did with Marth and could control his character much much better than you could. I can tell from the match that you're still very unfamiliar with Marth's movement/options and Melee's mechanics overall. Lots of missed L-cancels, hitting a lot of nothing, and dashdancing not crisp. Like the commentators said, you were kind of testing out what works and what doesn't. You're relatively new, so that's fine.
For the Zelda matchup in general, Marth range > Zelda range, and do your best to stay in the range your sword can hit at the tip. Otherwise, if you're too far, she can zone you out with Din's Fire.
If you keep yourself at a good range, Zelda will not be able to hit you much at all. Since her range stinks, you can go pretty aggressive. By this I mean safe aggression. Play by spacing your aerials and your dtilt. You can approach safely with well-spaced aerials since Zelda's aerial range is pretty bad. For killing her, you can do forward b (first hit)->utilt since she's a floaty.
Learn to get out of dtilt by dashdancing and wavedashing with the IASA frames (you can look those frames by searching around the stickies here). This is how you don't get punished as hard by using dtilt.
You'll get it eventually with time, don't worry. We all start out like this. Keep practicing and keep giving us videos.
I can give you some tips, and feel free to take them as you will. I'll do some time stamps:
MATCH 1:
0:10 - 0:14; See the Zelda dashdancing like that? Her dashdance is pretty short, so you can exploit that safely. What you can do is run up to her, crouch cancel dtilt or wavedash towards her and dtilt. She doesn't have many options to cover it besides jumping out of its way. Especially since she's near the ledge.
0:15; He read your jump. Not much you could've done here.
0:17; You didn't up-b sweetspot the ledge. This resulted in you landing onto the stage with that horrendous up-b landing lag and getting free punished for it.
0:20; Up-b was very unsafe here for the same reason; you end up with really bad landing lag. What would be much better would be to airdodge towards the platform.
0:41; dash attack wasn't spaced well, resulting in you getting shield grabbed. Were you going for fthrow->dash attack? The timing was off if you were.
0:45; The Marth Killer edgeguard. Since you're so close to the ledge, you can just airdodge towards the Zelda rather than up-b. Up-b is an okay choice here, though, but not the best.
0:48; Was this a panic fsmash? Don't do this in general unless you know 100% it is going to it. Especially since the Zelda was completely safe (not in any position to get hit by it). You were also really close to the ledge. If you missed it (which you did)you;'d get punished off the edge for a kill (which was what happened).
1:00; You were DI-ing out of Zelda's fsmash, which is good. Not sure if you intended to do it though.
1:07; random Fsmash and dsmash. Again, don't do this.
1:10; again, bad up-b.
1:30; You should learn to JC grab (jump canceled grabs). Also, those grabs were very unsafe. A little too grab happy.
1:32; random usmash
1:40; good spacing on that fair. Didn't l-cancel though.
1:41; nice crouch canceled dtilt.
1:44; a little too advanced for you atm, but you could have DI'ed this and not die as early.
MATCH 2:
2:22; a lot of unsafe dash attacks. The first one hit, but don't count on it happening too often.
2:27; two YOLO dairs.
2:53; usmash is generally unsafe in this situation. It's better to wavedash forward and utilt or hit her with a fair.
3:03; your dash dancing is beautiful here and you even tried to setup for a grab. Should've JC grabbed though.
3:10; unsafe dsmash
3:19; nice spaced fair
3:20; nice forcing out an airdodge by just approaching her with bair. Couldn't capitalize on it though.
3:22; punished for whiffed ftilt
3:39; unsafe fsmash
3:50-4:00; not spacing a bunch of things well
Commentators gave pretty good straightforward insight for the second match.
Cosmo is a well-known Zelda player. He knew his character much more than you did with Marth and could control his character much much better than you could. I can tell from the match that you're still very unfamiliar with Marth's movement/options and Melee's mechanics overall. Lots of missed L-cancels, hitting a lot of nothing, and dashdancing not crisp. Like the commentators said, you were kind of testing out what works and what doesn't. You're relatively new, so that's fine.
For the Zelda matchup in general, Marth range > Zelda range, and do your best to stay in the range your sword can hit at the tip. Otherwise, if you're too far, she can zone you out with Din's Fire.
If you keep yourself at a good range, Zelda will not be able to hit you much at all. Since her range stinks, you can go pretty aggressive. By this I mean safe aggression. Play by spacing your aerials and your dtilt. You can approach safely with well-spaced aerials since Zelda's aerial range is pretty bad. For killing her, you can do forward b (first hit)->utilt since she's a floaty.
Learn to get out of dtilt by dashdancing and wavedashing with the IASA frames (you can look those frames by searching around the stickies here). This is how you don't get punished as hard by using dtilt.
You'll get it eventually with time, don't worry. We all start out like this. Keep practicing and keep giving us videos.
