Note: play In-Face
The way to beat Fox is to out manoeuvre him, pressuring him into doing something and punishing him for doing so. You must keep pace with his obligatory bullshit, space around it and punish hard when given an opening ALLWAYS be looking at the Fox, you will not be able to react to his shit otherwise.
You must be comfortable with moving around to make a perfectly spaced neutral. Dash dancing is preferred VS Fox at close range, Wave Dash and Shield Drops should be used for clean platform movement. However, You do not want to be dash dancing on the other side of the stage, this will allow the Fox to not be pressured by your sword and grab. You want to be dash dancing to push towards Fox, this will force the Fox to act or run away.
You do not want to give Fox space, by doing so you give him the freedom to enact whatever game-plan he wants. You don’t want to rush him down, but you will want to take the space he gives up, forcing him into acting, being pushed into the corner or getting poked by your disjoint.
Once your are within distance of Foxes burst range, you will be play off of these options. The most common options for Fox come after a dash or a SH, You will need to react to witch he choses and punish accordingly. Additionally, you will need to observe if the Fox wishes to over extend or dash back.
Additionally, You can use aerials to keep Fox out, however, due to Marth’s long start up for aerials, you do not want to do aerials in unsafe places as Fox can easily punish you. AC N-Air FF is a very good option due to its non-existent end lag, meaning that you can use it just inside of Foxes max burst range without much risk; However, make sure that you mix up what you do out of AC N-Air as if you become too predicable the Fox can adapt and read you. In-place F-Air should only be done if fast-falling, as in-place instant F-Air leaves you vulnerable for enough time for Fox to punish. Using SH fade back instant F-Air allows you to catch Fox coming in, but is also alot safer than doing it in-place as by moving back, you can protect yourself from trading with Foxes moves and will be further away from Fox if he tries to punish you, meaning you have more time to mix up your options.
After this you will want to push him offstage to gimp or edge guard him.
Fox has many a option to rush-down Marth with, the most deadly of witch is his Shine. Shine can be beaten by predicting where he will do it (as an undershoot or overshoot) and grabbing before or after he does it. If the fox is overshooting his shine, dashing forwards to grab him before he gets it out is a good option. You can also do a in-place option to beat it out such as SH delayed in-place FF fair or in-place D-Tilt. If the Fox decides to do an aerial instead, you will want to try to ether whiff punish it with grab or beat it out with your sword.
To make sure he doesn’t try to attack your dash backs, you will need to mix in in-place options. In-place / drift back AC N-Air is good for catching an overshoot N-Air / D-Air, but is susceptible to being hit from other options due to its small effective coverage. In-place / drift back instant SHFFL F-Air is also good for catching an overshoot aerials and will also cover for full-hop aerials. In-place D-Tilt is good after other options to catch the Fox running at you with unthoughtful approaches, however you don’t want to be walling out with D-Tilt.
After you do N-Air / F-Air, you will need to mix-up what you do after it, such as a dash away, dash forwards, shield, D-Tilt, grab or something else; The key thing is to mix up what you do after so you don’t get punished.
If the Fox decides to dash dance / delay their approach, you can use D-Tilt to poke and provoke the Fox to approach. You can do this by doing a run cancel D-Tilt to catch his dash back. If the Fox is weary of the above option, wave dash D-Tilt also works to catch them dashing back in. You can also try to use a riskier option such as dash attack and f-smash to call out the Fox.
Fox can get a 0-50% combo off of U-Throw -> U-Air; However this can be alleviated by SDI-ing the U-Air. Fox can grab you if you do not mix up your aerials and if you dash back too much.
At high %s Fox has alot of burst kill options or options that lead to a kill. These include:
Lazars are surprisingly unsafe at close distances, so punish him for it if he doesn’t want to approach. Dash attack, F-Smash and Grab are good for this.
Fox is the fastest faller in the game, this allows Marth to basically indefinitely juggle Fox. However, you do not want to juggle him forever, as Fox above you at high % isn’t really that good due to his fast fall speed. This means you want to use juggling as a means to combo him into a finisher.
You will want to ether:
U-Tilt -> D-Air F-Air -> D-Air U-Air -> D-Air U-Air -> F-Smash
Grab follow ups
Be smart, you must be aware of where and when the Fox wishes to do something You must position yourself differently depending on what the Fox likes to do
If he is above ledge, you must be ready for him to side b to a platform or at you. These can be covered by a N-Air / F-Air before or just after the ledge.
He can also choose to try to snap to the ledge. If he does not space correctly, you can D-Tilt the side B. Otherwise, you will need to D-Air or ledge hog the Side-B.
I found I can also use Neutral-B to cover ledge for side Bs, however this is really slow and is more of a call out.
Up-B can be covered in many ways depending on the angle by the Fox.
If fox is above ledge and far enough away from you, he with ether Up B:
If Fox is close enough, you can go out and D-Air / F-Air him.
If it will hit you, you can opt for a counter; However, if the Fox can snap to ledge, you can mix it up and hog the ledge or D-Air him. If Fox is close enough to the ledge when he Up-Bs, you can use the ledge i-frames to go and hit the fox with side B, B-Air or F-Air.
If the Fox is further away but still in reach, you should go out and F-Air / Up-B him.
If he aims for the ledge, you can D-Air him, however watch out he does not wall tech it.
Do one of:
Do one of:
Do one of:
Most of Foxes aerials at low % can be CC’ed, this included N-Air and B-Air, so if he tries to hit you with these, you can CC -> Grab, D-Tilt or F-Smash This works well if the Fox is coming down from a full hop with these aerials directly above you
Watch out for his shine, try not to be too close to the ledge for too long as that’s where it is most potent, be quick and decisive on where you want to go, as a hesitation is all the Fox needs to shine spike you
FD
DL
Speed ★★★★★ Movement ★★★★★ Offence ★★★★★ Defence ★★★★☆ Range ★★★★☆ Out of Shield ★★★★★ Boxing ★★★★★ Recovery ★★★★☆ Ledge Trapping ★★★★☆ Edge guarding ★★★★★