esablish center TLF / WD oops
When not lazering, feel free to DD and nair in place
Can empty hop and nair in place when lazering
Aim is to hit his jump before anything gets out OR take lazer into fair / PS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ-Tla4IQ20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoMIRpVZKLg
SDI up the lazer -> fair
(optinal WD) F-Smash the jump too if you want to call it out
F-Air is good for combos + pressure
– More light sheild (and patience out of it)
– WD OoS
Nair IN-PLACE
Dash attack -> grab / tech chase grab / up b
light sheild -> wd Wd oos sdi up fair – sheild stops – nair in place
REMEBER TO IN PLACE NAIR
Note: play keep-out
DO not
You do not want to be in scrap range with Falco; This is where he is at his strongest.
You want to be walling Falco out with aerials, making sure he as to try hard to get in.
You will need to find the range where you can N-Air his aerial approaches whilst also being safe from his grounded moves (in closer distances, this is not a problem as AC N-Air can hit these).
You don’t want to give the Falco an approach, as Marth, you want the Falco to come to you and chase you down. If you both go for each-other, Falco’s moves just win due to their size and longer lasting hitbox.
Once we are within a distance where we can N-Air his aproches, we ofcorse need to talk about lazers. The 2 main way we deal with lazers are ether to take lazer F-Air (TLF) or to power-shield.
Choosing witch options is quite easy, if your in the air, you can’t PS, so TLF into grab will work.
When on the ground, if you have enough time to jump, do so, as TLF leads to better combos than a PS does.
PS job is to force the Falco to approach and respect Marth’s movement.
Since Falco will primarily come from the air, we can use an In-Place N-Air to counter hit his approach. However, do not spam this N-Air without mixing up out of the auto cancel. Examples of what to do are dash back, crouch for a power-shield, WD forwards or empty hop.
This will cover most of Falco’s immediate approaches, however, this is a short window where you are vulnerable from doing a N-Air, so the Falco may want to do an aerial to beat this.
This makes this N-Air a timing mix-up on witch you must identify when the Falco wishes to approach.
When Falco wants to hit you for doing anything that isn’t N-Air-ing in place, he will probably approach with an aerial. This is where you should be mixing in dash backs to whiff punish these. Furthermore, in the dash back animation, Marth gets access to the “floating power-shield” witch makes it easier to PS Falco’s lazers.
Just watch out for the Falco overshooting to cover this.
If the Falco likes to retreat (dash back / jump back) or play passively (jumping in place / lazer in place), you can call this out by bursting into him with an aerial (F-Air / N-Air) or a ground move if you can get it out in time (dash attack, F-Smash or Grab)
When holding center, you do not want to push into Falco. This is because if you do, and he get’s past you, you can get stuck in the corner. Instead, you want to abuse that Falco is weaker in the corner as he can no longer play passive, meaning he has to push out or risk being hit.
A good way to do this is to empty hop, as this allows you to react to his options whilst also not putting you into any lag.
If he lazers you, you can F-Air, and if he decides to aerial, you can hit it with an aerial or mix up and dash back.
Take lazer F-Air is useful for when Falco tries to approach with lazer, or you want to call out his lazer and position yourself to counter hit. After the F-Air, many times you have enough time to grab Falco.
If you do not hit Falco, it becomes a mix up scenario in your favour, as to get anything out of it, the Falco must risk doing something, else you now have the space.
When power-shielding, you will want to WD forwards or backwards with different lengths after reflecting the projectile.
This is one of the only ways to safely approach Falco in this MU, as any other attempt to push will probably get you hit.
If the Falco is far away (out side of burst range), WD in is completely safe.
However, if you go for a power-shield and do not get it, get of of shield as fast as possible, this is normally with a wave dash or a SH empty hop.
When Falco is above you (like on a platform or from him full-hopping), you can shark with U-Airs and F-Airs. The way you want to do this is to stay just out-side of Falco’s threat range, so that you do not risk getting hit. You must then observe if the Flaco is coming down aggressively or passively. After this, you can use your disjointed range to cover his landings. U-Airs are better when he is on a platform and in-front of you (like if he tries to hold away), where F-Air is better if he is above you / trying to land onto you from above.
When Falco is in the corner, you shouldn’t run at him, he will mostly always try to work his way back to center, meaning you can wall him out without risking getting stuck in the corner yourself. However, if the Falco does not want to leave the corner, you can poke at him with N-Airs, F-Airs and F-Smashes to get him to move.
Falco’s bread and butter approach options that can lead into big damage, a kill or an edge guard situation.
These are beaten out buy spacing a N-Air so that it out ranges his attack If he does an approach aerial (overshoot or approaching), in-place N-Air is better
However, if he undershoots / in-place N-Air’s, its better to try and grab him if your close enough, otherwise whiff punish with a dash attack.
If you are not close enough for a punish, you can use his end-lag as time to reposition yourself so next time you can punish it.
This IS Falco’s best combo tool. Up-close, this move is stupid VS Marth as you have no other options that can out speed it (it’s frame 1 lol). However, unlike Fox, this move is tiny, most of front of Falco doesn’t have a hit-box; his head and feet and his hand ever so slightly sticks out in-front of him. This means, if your in-front of Falco, you are mostly safe from Shine (unless he WD in Shine) Due to his slow Dash speed, Falco often doesn’t run in shine, but wave dashes in, however, due to his jump squat, his WD is rather slow and react-able, meaning Falco’s normally Shine as a whiff punish or combo into it
This means Falco only really uses Shine up close, meaning if you space correctly, you shouldn’t be hit by it.
Further more, due to its size, you can conformably whiff punish it without fear of being counter hit, as Marth’s disjoint will hit though it / grab will grab him (if timed properly)
If the Falco approaches with lazers, there are 2 ways to beat him, before the lazer comes out and after.
If the Falco does a lazer / jumps close enough to you, you can beat it out before he gets it out. N-Air / F-Air is a easy way to hit him for this. N-Air is better for when he is higher / you want to baet him jumping close to you. F-Air is better when he does a low / late lazer, as it allows you to jump over him and hit him from above with F-Air’s better coverage.
Aerial lazer has 13 frames of start up, so with a 5 frame jumps squat, make it 18 frame, easily react-able too, this aids in Marth’s best tool VS lazers, take lazer into F-Air. This is the best way to beat approaching lazers, and is why empty hopping in center is so good, as you can beat out his best approach option from the corner.
One thing to note, if your too close to the floor, you might hit it before getting a F-Air out, to combat this, you can SDI / ASDI the lazer up when getting hit by it, allowing you to get the F-Air out.
This F-Air then can combo into grab as Falco is holding in to approach.
If, when choosing to do an aerial and you get hit by lazer, you should do take lazer F-Air.
Lazer in place is risky for Falco, as if the Marth has positioned himself correctly, he can cover / create a favourable mix up.
Lazer in place can be beaten by slight drift in N-Air, this also allows you to be-able to take lazer F-Air if he hits you with the Lazer.
A mix up is to PS WD in grab, this beats the Falco trying to hold an area with lazers.
If your spaced right, you can also dash attack his jump, this creates a mix up situation, tech chase or combo opportunity depending on DI.
Retreating lazers are the hardest to deal with. The best way to deal with them is to PS and WD forwards, this forces the Falco to stop doing them as it pushes them into the corner.
If you want to attack them, you can overshoot with N-Air or dash attack, but guessing wrong will lead to a big punish by Falco, so use these with caution.
Another variant of this is lazer to retreat / dash back. This is the same as a retreating lazer, as he has moved outside of your effective range.
Falco has alot of good ground moves but not alot of movement for those ground moves, the one exception is F-Smash.
This move goes, really far, and is very big, when walling out Falco, you want to make sure that you are not in range of this move, as it can go under N-Air at times.
Additionally, it only has 17 frames of end lag, but it is very ambiguous where the move ends.
There is a reaction point at frame 26, where you can see his 2nd foot apear from behind him, but that leaves 13 frames to punish, so you have to be quick about it. Grab and dash attack are good for whiff punishing it, else a F-Air in place should stuff it out.
Although CC VS Falco might not be good due to his D-Air, he can still CC Marth’s moves if he think you will try to hit him.
If you space correctly, he shouldn’t be-able to punish your whiffed moves (N-Air auto cancels -> dash back) as his dash is slow, however, badly spaced moves are easily CC’ed and punished by F-Smash and his surprisingly strong D-Tilt.
Falco has one of the highest reaches in the game, his full hop with his double jump allows him to practically get any where vertical wise.
This means being above Falco is a no go, this also means trying to go around him vertically is hard.
However, when he chooses to go up there, he has to come down. His excellent D-Air helps him land alot of the time, but luckily, Marth has a sword that can bairly out range this massive D-Air. If you do not time / space properly though, your hand might get hit by the D-Air.
If Falco is above you / full hops, you will want to try to catch his landings with short hop U-Airs, this also works when he goes to platforms. However, if the Falco chooses to not to land, but to contest your U-Airs, its better to use F-Air, as U-Air has Marth’s hand quite vulnerable for a few frame, so F-Air is better at beating out D-Air directly, but may lead into less when catching landings, but since Falco is probably holding in when trying to land on you, it will lead into a combo.
Finally, if he decides not to even try getting hit and running far away from you, you can catch his landings with dash attack, F-Smash or grab. Alternately, if you think these won’t hit, you can take the space as Falco is now cornered, and you can hold center.
Falco does not get anything* off a grab, aslong as you DI and SDI his lazer up (you go really far when doing this) then they should never get anything off it apart from positioning.
* when at ledge, Falco may U-Throw, if you DI wrong, he might be able to D-Air spike you, please DI correctly.
Falco’s tech animations are much easier to react to than Foxes, meaning Marth has an easier time tech chasing him.
Getting Falco onto a platform allows you to start sharking him. Bellow about 20% (I think, its not exact number, need to find it) you should use U-Tilt, as U-Air doesn’t work as well till after that %
You cannot U-Throw at 0%, also at certain %s, he can DI and shine you? It literally at specific %s tho, so if your pummelling right, you shouldn’t be caught by this.
When edge gaurding Falco, the most important thing is to get him bellow the point where he can Side-B, if you can do this, you can always kill him.
This goes further than Foxes Side-B and is faster, so it should be harder to react to, but due to Falco primarily using this to recover, we can focus on it before up b.
You can go offstage VS him if you have a read on where he will Side-B, as this will result in him not being able to recover, but beware, as his Side-B meteors, so you will need to meteor cancel to live, and he may just be ready with a D-Air after, resulting in your death.
The best way to cover for Side-B is to stand just a bit back from ledge, where your F-Air can be used to hit ledge. Then when Falco Side-Bs, he will try 1 of 3 “areas” to recover too
Some times the Falco will recover very high, this means he will be aiming for ether to top platform or to go over you to center. This options normally can be reacted to and you can punish his landing.
This refers to where Falco will try to go to a side Platform. This can be covered by short hop F-Air-ing or N-Air-ing in-front of him. F-Air is better closer to the ledge, as closer to center, it may just result in a reset, not an edge guard or combo as he might be hit with sour spot.
This is where Falco tries to Side-B into your face. This is easily covered with a double jab in reaction to the sound queue. You can also short hop F-Air this if timed right.
This is where Falco attempts to get to ledge, but is still high enough to hit. Here you can Jab or D-Tilt, D-Tilt is slower than Jab but lasts for longer and if you ledge hog after D-Tilt, Falco is just dead. You can also F-Air this recovery by fast falling it.
Finally, if the Falco sweet-spots ledge, you can ledge hog or D-Air his Side-B.
A common trend with Side-B is that F-Air can cover all of them, however the timing for it is hard, and if you are not spaced correctly, you can just reset the situation.
It has no hit box on charge up, and does not go as far, if you are spaced correctly, go and F-Air / Up-B / D-Air / ledge hog it. If he is bellow the ledge and tries to hit you, you can also counter it.
F-Throw re-grab, if they DI in, thi8s true combos, but if they DI out, then U-Throw re-grab combos, its a mix up, but most the time, they dont DI F-Throw in time due to its speed, so default to F-Throw at 0
Chain grab if you want, but its harder than Fox due to Falco’s weight You can also use F-Throw tech chasing if you want.
U-Throw -> U-air -> F-Smash if possible Else U-Throw -> Imagination
U-Throw -> N-Air or F-Throw -> Tech chase Up B
The only time you need to shield Falco is when your close enough to him where a overshoot D-Air will hit your dash back.
When in the corner, you want to find you way back to center, however, if the Falco is playing hot, this is a hard task. If you find yourself cornered, the first thing to do is not to panic. I used to always try to grab him or jump out, this is very VERY bad.
@TODO talk about SH aerial in place vs goto center VS light sheild
There are 4 main options to choose from when in the corner.
Doing a SH N-Air in the corner is risky, as you can no longer dash back, but if the Falco is coming into the corner with a hitbox, its a good option to stay in place and N-Air as it stops him from attacking you.
However, if the Falco knows you will do this, he can wait and N-Air inot the corner himself and knock you offstage.
The safest options is just to light shield by the ledge. When getting hit, you will fall back to the ledge and reset the scenario.
If the Falco tries to N-Air your N-Air, you can run under it to center. Just watch out for him D-Air-ing
You can also try to reset onto platforms, but watch out as you don’t really want to be above Falco.
You can slide off his D-Air if you land onto a platform. This stops him from being able to platform tech chase you, and allows you to maybe get a U-Air off it.
If you are even in stocks, be weary of his D-Air on ledge, you have to sweet-spot the further out bit of the grab box to be able to avoid it. Furthermore, he can D-Smash if you get too close, so make sure to space for these.
Additionally, he can cover very high and low at the same time, so you can’t really jump over him back to stage.
If your down a stock or he is a higher % than you, you will also need to watch out for a suicide D-Air, this is nearly impossible to dodge if your bellow the stage, but can be mixed up so he can’t get to you.
FD
DL
How to take lazer fair properly
Speed ★★★☆☆ Movement ★★★★☆ Offence ★★★★★ Defence ★★★★☆ Range ★★★★☆ Out of Shield ★★★★☆ Boxing ★★★☆☆ Recovery ★★★☆☆ Ledge Trapping ★★★★☆ Edge guarding ★★★★★