Falco Matchup Spread Discussions/Suggestion's Week 3 : Mewtwo, Squirtle, Yoshi

[Sir Tundra]

Edit: Just to put as a heads up this is all in opinions and speculation this is not made to be official by any means.

So as I noticed that Project M competitive scene has been vastly growing throughout the years.. Yet I have not seen a single official tier list or matchup spread. Now I know that a tier list for this game is really inconsistent but I think a matchup spread could be needed. I'm fully aware of the new version for Project M coming out so I'll only stick with most of the melee veterans(with toon link replacing young link) with the exceptions of Mario, Mewtwo, Roy, Link, Ice Climbers, Zelda, and Kirby as a starting point(Note: This spread might likely change in the near Future)

Character's will be placed alphabetically

vs: +3 Large Advantage
vs: +2 Advantage
vs: +2 Advantage
vs: 0 Even
vs: +1 Slight Advantage
vs: +2 Advantage
vs: +2 Advantage
vs: 0 Even
vs: +2 Advantage
vs: +2 Advantage
vs : +1 Slight Advantage
vs: 0 Even
vs: +2 Advantage
vs: 0 Even
vs: 0 Even
vs: 0 Even
vs:+1 Slight Advantage
vs: 0 Even
vs: 0 Even
vs: +3 Large Advantage
vs: 0 Even
vs: +3 Large Advantage

Finished: , , and

 

[Lizalfos]

Reconsider Ness, Ness is likely a top 8 character, and he has the mobility and combos to destroy Falco.

 

[Sir Tundra]

Yeah I'm reconsidering kinda Ness myself. Yes his mobility has been increased and his combo game can destroy falco. However falco can combo ness as well but not to a degree like in melee. Like I said though this matchup spread is mostly based off of the one from melee and is being used as a starting point for Falco's project M matchup spread. I think this is either close to even matchup but who knows. Perhaps it's best if I were to do some more research on the falco vs ness matchup.

Edit: I should probably switch the characters in alphabetical order so no one get's the wrong idea about me ranking character's

 

[children's_novel]

I've played the Ness matchup a considerable amount of times since my brother mains Ness in PM. I would say that Ness can combo Falco with relative ease and Ness, as you mentioned, has an increased mobility. I would say that the matchup is even or that Falco has a slight disadvantage.

Aside from the Ness matchup, though, I think that Falco has a disadvantage over Charizard because can get gimped hard with Nairs (especially on smaller stages) and if the Charizard player is smart, he/she can powershield lasers. If the player can't, then the matchup is probably even or in Falco's favor.

 

[Sir Tundra]

While Ness can combo falco with relative ease.. He also has a hard time approaching him due to falco laser's. Sure there's PSI Magnet but That'll just leave him right for falco to do a pillar.

As of the charizard matchup well I hear from a lot of people that charizard is a terrible matchup for the spacies in general. Even m2k said it himself when I asked him who was fox's and falco's worst matchup on one of his twitch streams. However I really don't see it. Yes charizard can easily start tech chasing falco with down throw just about a lot of characters can tech chase spacies do to their high falling speed/ slow airspeed.. And while Charizard can gimp him with nair just about everyone can gimp the spacies do to their terrible recovery. I find lasers to still be a problem for charizard with or without power shielding. Part of the falco matchup in general is trying to get passed his lasers and very few character's most notably pit can get passed falco's laser. Hell pit doesn't even approach falco since he can answer right back with arrows as well as chain grabbing falco like it's Marth vs Falco on FD.. But in every stage. Making him falco's worst matchup in the Project M. Charizard however does not have an answer to get pass falco's laser's and due to his size it only makes it worse. Yes like you said a very smart charizard player can powershield falco's laser's. However Power Shielding really isn't the easiest thing to do since it requires strict timing which is why not a lot of people consider putting it as a way to counter falco's lasers. Also charizard's size makes it worse for him as charizard can easily get pillared by Falco because of it.

Basically I'd say that the Falco v Ness/Charizard Matchup is either even or slightly at Falco's Favor.

 

[Nail.exe]

I'd say the Ness matchup is +2 advantage, maybe +1.

Pros:
-Falco's bair can stop PKT2, and Melee style ledgeguarding still works when Ness tries to sweet spot (kind of like the Roy/Ness matchup, if you can force Ness to PKT2 you can probably punish)
-Falco can mash shine in the middle of PKFire, which doesn't get you out but can hit Ness if he tries to grab you or turn his own flames against him
-Can reflect PKF and jump out lol
-RAR bair goes over PKF and punishes it in the neutral
-Magnet doesn't effectively mitigate lasers (or hasn't been shown to)

-Ness' best map for the matchup might be FD, but Falco gets more mileage from low ceilings than Ness, and smaller stages, and small blastzones, and having high platforms to run to. Most stages have at least one of those four things.

-Falco can juggle Ness and go for kills off the top and Ness's only recourse is intercepting with dair, but when it hits Ness has a hard time converting off of that

-Falco converts harder off platform setups than Ness because Ness can go for a killthrow / PKF / bair / Awestin stuff, but Falco can reset his jumps on platforms to carry Ness even further towards the ceiling for Firebird / U-air / shine kills. He can also set up F-smashes, and get easy dairs off of platform setups.

Cons:

-Ness converts off grabs way harder than Falco, which makes pressuring Ness' shield real risky business and almost seems like a fool's errand (but like most characters, being behind him helps)

-Ness can punish approaches with weird floaty turnaround bairs which will kill you

-Dair punishes phantasm and trades with Firebird

-Up throw chain grab? I think?

-Open spaces lead to regrabs, if not chaingrabs, and Falco has to rely on lasers and his own mediocre grab game when Ness has good stage positioning.

 

[Sir Tundra]

This is a pretty accurate analysis. Ness can be rather easy to gimp due to PKT2 especially since he doesn't have a tether unlike Lucas. Something I kinda forgot about when playing smash. Plus like you said earlier Ness suffers against falco at platforms stages. The worst being yoshi's story since falco can easily kill him with just 2 shines on the top platform do to the tiny platforms making it a spacies delicacy. One might say fighting Falco on yoshi's story is an unwinnable battle for Ness.

 

[ferrovolt]

This is unrelated to the previous discussion, but how does falco counter Luigi? I'm a falco main and I'll admit, I'm not that good at this game, but I can still do basic falco combos like pillaring and waveshining. However, I have some friends that I play with on a regular basis that are around the same skill level as me, and one of them plays Luigi. I can beat any other character he plays, but I really struggle with his Luigi. One of the reasons he picks Luigi to counter me, is because if he grabs me, he can down throw then land his up b on me immediately after doing around 30%, and 3 grabs will kill me from 0%. Am I just playing this match up wrong? If so what can I do to beat him?

Tl; dr: why does falco counter Luigi?

 

[Nail.exe]

The matchup is a hard one to learn, because Luigi can get out of a lot of your combos with nair, so you have to get as many free lasers as you can (b-turns and reversals with lasers are good for shutting down his approaches) and go for really safe follow ups, and maybe more bairs than usual.

As far as the specific combo that he's giving you hell with, I can't say I've see it in action but have you tried different DI options against it?

That being said the matchup has never felt like a +2 to me.

 

[xNoVa007x]

One of my struggles is against my friends Pit, i can't seem to handle the matchup very well, any tips would be great!

 

[Sir Tundra]

Pit is considered to be in general the spacies worst matchup in project m . There so many things pit can do to the spacies compared to what they can to him. While alot of people can't get passed falco's lasers with only a few exceptions to characters like peach. Pit doesn't even need to approach falco at all due to the fact that he can answer back with his arrows. The way I see it approaching pit is practically suicide(not literally) since one grab from pit is all it takes to get rid of a stock. You practically have to bait and punish and hope to god you don't get grabbed. Pillaring is not really the best option since pit is too light too get comboed by falco not to mention he can easily DI out of it. Your best bet on winning against a pit is Dreamland since pits terrible at large stages. And Dreamlands a great stage for spacies. Pokemon stadium(1) is also a stage I'd considered to be a great stage for spacies since they can use the transformations to their advantage. Wario ware/yoshi's story is also an option since thats pretty much the only since those are the only stages falco can pillar pit do to the platforms.

 

[Dandizzle]

Hey we were talking about the Falco matchup over on thr R.O.B boards, do any of you guys have experience in that matchup and would like to talk about it?

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

Reconsider Ness, Ness is likely a top 8 character, and he has the mobility and combos to destroy Falco.

Never was, never will be.

 

[Lizalfos]

Never was, never will be.

I thought about it again, and any Falco better than me should win the neutral.

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

I thought about it again, and any Falco better than me should win the neutral.

Why did these guys put Ganon at only +1?
EDIT: some of these MU don't really look right ether..

 

[Comet7]

wait lol pika doesn't have it that bad against falco. somehow i sense some bias from the op.

 

[Nail.exe]

So I'm trying to figure out the Mario matchup- mostly because the person ranked directly above me in my local scene is a pretty nasty Mario. I haven't been able to figure out much, mostly because when we play friendlies he normally doesn't play Mario for very long- almost like he doesn't want me to learn the matchup or something... anyways, here's what I've figured out so far:

- Stages are really important in this matchup, mostly because the cape gimps your recovery super hard. You need to mitigate Mario's ability to read your recovery by picking stages that give you a variety of options for recovery, like Skyword, Smashville, and stages with high platforms like WW and Distant Planet. The higher off the ground you get hit by the cape while recovering, the more space you have to use aerial mobility to get back to the stage, and high platforms make recovering high marginally safer as well.

-You can get caped and still grab the ledge if the angle of your firebird is 100% vertical and you sweetspot the ledge. You might be able to grab the ledge with a non-vertical angle if the Mario mistimes / misspaces the cape.

- Falco may actually have the ability to deal with fireballs, although it's an uphill battle, harder than dealing with Din's Fire for sure. Nair stuffs them and if one were to practice reflecting fireballs from specific angles I can see reflecting fireballs as being a lesser but viable tool in this matchup.

I'll post more as I think if stuff.

 

[Lizalfos]

what if you tried to stay on the platforms of a stage? fireballs are amazing, but if you get hight over them you force him on to the platforms to continue camp. In mind, platforms may be better for Falco's lasers than fireballs?

 

[Nail.exe]

Being above Mario on platforms definitely puts you in advantageous position, I'm just personally afraid of the slippery slope that leads to camping. (Have you seen the hadouken spam that Mario/Lucas can turn into?) And could you clarify on how lasers get more out platforms than fireballs? I'm not sure I understand.

 

[Lizalfos]

Being above Mario on platforms definitely puts you in advantageous position, I'm just personally afraid of the slippery slope that leads to camping. (Have you seen the hadouken spam that Mario/Lucas can turn into?) And could you clarify on how lasers get more out platforms than fireballs? I'm not sure I understand.

because you can control platforms with lasers easily. Mario might have to take the top platform or just keep doing full hop fireballs to pressure you, either situation you could prolly capitalize with a combo by punishing.

If you dislike camping, why play Falco? If you want complete rushdown, Fox is better. The lasers are what make Falco amazing.

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

Camp Mario till you can get in
cc shine bby
Stay grounded vs fireball and shine them b/c falco's shine was buffed to own projectiles
I think stages like smashville are better for FALCO in this MU and platform heavy is better for mario

 

[V]

Who do you guys think is more difficult in the neutral between Marth and Meta Knight?

 

[Zero May Cry]

Alright so I'm gonna talk about Falco vs. Ness and Falco vs. Yoshi since I'm pretty experienced in playing those matchups. I main Ness, so I've played Ness vs. Falco from both sides and I think I can give a pretty accurate description of both matchups. This is all 3.5 matchup knowledge by the way.

FALCO VS NESS

NEUTRAL Falco wins this super hard. Ness has trouble dealing with lasers and PSI Magnet has absorb lag, so absorbing lasers is largely disadvantageous for Ness. Ness will likely be forced to make a bad approach or you will be allowed to get a free hit in or start pressuring his shield (which should be whittled down by lasers). Falco should mix up his movment enough to avoid getting hit by PK Fire, and PKF is now able to be shielded so take advantage of that. But still, you should learn the SDI incase you do get caught by it. The best tool that Ness has in this neutral is his dash attack. Dash attack will pop Falco up and set him up for a long combo. Whatever you do, don't get hit by dash attack. It's punishable if you block it, so just do that.

STAGES There aren't really too many bad stages for Falco in this matchup. I would really just go with what you're comfortable with. However, Ness has a serious combo game on Falco and I would avoid certain stages so that the combos from Ness aren't as long. Please ban FD, Ness can seriously 0-death you on that stage with relative ease. Also avoid DL64 because he can chain throw you below the top platform and the offstage game is skewed in Ness' favor because of his pretty good recovery. Ness will also live longer. GHZ is pretty much a smaller FD with a high ceiling so that's already bad, and Ness' back throw will kill earlier because of the small sides. Finally, I'd MAYBE try to avoid Norfair. Depends on how much you like that stage. My reccomended stages for this MU are PS2, YI Melee, YI Brawl, FoD, and especially WW. (Ness mains really don't like YI Brawl)

RECOVERY Okay, so we all know the deal with Falco's recovery. It's pretty mediocre. Provided you mix it up, Ness still has a variety of ways to edgeguard. He can go out and nair you which will invariably end your stock, he can go out and dair you, or he can even use the magnet to send you at a downwards angle. However, I've mostly seen Ness players do the former two. There is one more edgeguard that I actually like to do a lot- hanging the usmash yo-yo over the edge. If falco chooses to attempt a sweetspot, Ness can dangle his yo-yo on the ledge sweetspot and the charging hitbox will cause a small downwards spike. against this, I would just try to keep recovering in hope that the Ness player messes up the timing. If he doesn't, there's not much falco can do about this if Falco is recovering low. I would try to illusion and edge cancel if you're playing on a stage like YI Melee or PS2. That's honestly the best you can do to recover.

EDGEGUARDING As Falco, I would be very careful when challenging PKT2. If you mess up your timing and he starts PKT2 right when you put out whatever hitbox, you will most likely have a dead Falco since PKT2 hits super hard. PKT2 also has invincibility frames at the very beginning. You can go out and reflect the PK thunder itself, or even just take the damage from it so Ness goes into special fall. I would honestly just stay on stage and wall out Ness with back airs later in the PKT2. You can even go for a smash attack if you think it will kill. Falco can edgeguard Ness pretty well, just know how far PKT2 travels and what punish will be best.

COMBOS I'm just going to paste my comment from the comboing floaty characters thread. All this stuff should work on Ness.

When the opponent is standing:

1. dair > shine > uair (simple, kinda low damage but it's great because usually it's 100% guaranteed if they don't cc the shine)

2. dair > shine > dair (make sure you fast fall the dair so that they don't punish you on hit, because at low percents floaties will escape from the hitstun when you're next to them)

3. dair > shine > fair (like #1 but just a different aerial, doesn't set up for much afterwards though)

3. dair > shine > shine > back air / down air (works on most characters, really good damage if they don't DI properly)

4. jab > fsmash / dtilt (pretty much falco's version of jab up smash. Great set up for kills)

5. dair > shine > shine > dair > utilt > shine > back air (extended combo that can work on atrocious DI, but don't expect to get this often)

That's pretty much all I have to say about that matchup. If any of you guys have questions feel free to ask. I'll just discuss Falco vs. Yoshi in another post since this post was longer than I anticipated lol.

 

[Zero May Cry]

If anyone's interested in a Falco vs. Yoshi guide let me know. I've played that matchup way too much

 

[Pressio]

Some advice versus Lucas?

 

[iLLuMinati_EYE]

If anyone's interested in a Falco vs. Yoshi guide let me know. I've played that matchup way too much

that would be nice

 

[iLLuMinati_EYE]

anyone have some advice against kirby and samus?

 

[Thor]

I don't think Falco loses any of his MUs at all. Also, as the OP says, Falco utterly bodies Bowser - harder to do than with Fox [lol that's free], but you just get to DD and shoot your gun until he commits to anything, then shine him or grab him and go to work.

Put Falco vs Link down for +2 or +3 Falco. It's a pretty bad MU [nowhere near as bad as Melee, but still pretty bad]. If somehow everyone in here firmly disagrees I suppose it could be listed as +1, but I think it's +2 or worse.

Vs Kirby - if they're the type to just be annoying at the ledge, don't play their game - DD at the center stage and shoot lasers until you have enough to KO them. Not sure how to land that move, but I'd recommend trying to look for a shine -> bair or laser -> DACUS. If they're not at the ledge, I'd be wary of inhale, as Falco's lasers on Kirby are silly [he can SHDL]. He's going to duck a lot, but he can't duck your grab. He's pretty susceptible to shine dair combos given his weight/etc. If you can't make it close to a real combo you can test it once or twice, but with rock being much faster they may be able to use rock as a pseudo-combo breaker, so be wary of that. As for gimping, shoot lasers near the ledge until they're close enough to inhale you [if they get that close]. Kirby's up+B only has a hitbox part of the way up, so if they have to up+B you can either wavedash to ledge or SH dair or dsmash to end them. If they use cutter dash, I'm pretty sure you can space a dair around it or try to trade with fsmash [not sure about trading with it]. Lasering him out of either of them should leave him with only one or zero jumps. Kirby's best OoS option is pretty much always bair or grab, so watch for grab when in front and bair when behind. If you miss the tech on dthrow, he can jab reset -> hammer or inhale, neither of which are a good thing.

Falco wins, probably about +2.

Samus is basically the same as Melee except she has ice mode and we have DACUS [more or less]. I'm not familiar with it so I'm not going to write up on it [I'm not all that familiar with Kirby Falco either tho].

As for Lucas, DI behind him when he dthrows [it's like Puff's in reverse, where for her you have to DI in front of her]. Lasers are better than PK Freeze [longer-range, I think a bit less startup], don't get PK freeze'd if possible. I play against a Lucas but usually not as Falco. Tether is slightly annoying to gimp, but you can grab ledge and hold on and punish as he comes up [which usually means a dair/bair as you come off the ledge, or potentially a perfect ledgedash fsmash?], or drop off DJ bair and then firebird to regrab ledge [or regrab anyway if he was high enough], then with good timing dair his PKT2 or just dsmash/fsmash it [or hold ledge, have to refresh shortly before he comes in, so to speak]. He's very susceptible to shine dair combos at most percents. Not sure what other advise you want.

Probably +1 Falco [I guess it could range from 0 to +2, but I don't think Lucas is hard countered and I'm 99% positive Lucas doesn't have an edge, that at best he can keep up.]

Also put Ike Falco at +1 Falco. From what I read on the Ike boards that's what they thought the spacie MU was for Falco [possibly even, but really hard in any case].

I'd have to say +2/3 Falco for Ness/Falco as well - Falco wins the onstage game pretty badly, and Ness's better (but still bad) recovery isn't really going to make a huge difference.

Falco Ganondorf at +1 Falco is kinda weird, but I think Ganondorf can zero-death CG Falco, so that may be part of why.

 

[PandaPanda Senketsu]

I think Falco goes even with

I think he either goes even or slightly loses to

I think he loses to

I think he slightly loses to

I think he slightly loses to

I think he loses to

And I think he goes even with

and I think he loses to

 

[Lizalfos]

I think Falco goes even with

I think he either goes even or slightly loses to

I think he loses to

I think he slightly loses to

I think he slightly loses to

I think he loses to

And I think he goes even with

and I think he loses to

Falco definitely wins against pika and Squirtle. There is 0 doubt in my mind that Falco craps on these characters in neutral and can combo and kill theme quickly.

 

[Boiko]

Alright so I'm gonna talk about Falco vs. Ness and Falco vs. Yoshi since I'm pretty experienced in playing those matchups. I main Ness, so I've played Ness vs. Falco from both sides and I think I can give a pretty accurate description of both matchups. This is all 3.5 matchup knowledge by the way.

FALCO VS NESS

NEUTRAL Falco wins this super hard. Ness has trouble dealing with lasers and PSI Magnet has absorb lag, so absorbing lasers is largely disadvantageous for Ness. Ness will likely be forced to make a bad approach or you will be allowed to get a free hit in or start pressuring his shield (which should be whittled down by lasers). Falco should mix up his movment enough to avoid getting hit by PK Fire, and PKF is now able to be shielded so take advantage of that. But still, you should learn the SDI incase you do get caught by it. The best tool that Ness has in this neutral is his dash attack. Dash attack will pop Falco up and set him up for a long combo. Whatever you do, don't get hit by dash attack. It's punishable if you block it, so just do that.

STAGES There aren't really too many bad stages for Falco in this matchup. I would really just go with what you're comfortable with. However, Ness has a serious combo game on Falco and I would avoid certain stages so that the combos from Ness aren't as long. Please ban FD, Ness can seriously 0-death you on that stage with relative ease. Also avoid DL64 because he can chain throw you below the top platform and the offstage game is skewed in Ness' favor because of his pretty good recovery. Ness will also live longer. GHZ is pretty much a smaller FD with a high ceiling so that's already bad, and Ness' back throw will kill earlier because of the small sides. Finally, I'd MAYBE try to avoid Norfair. Depends on how much you like that stage. My reccomended stages for this MU are PS2, YI Melee, YI Brawl, FoD, and especially WW. (Ness mains really don't like YI Brawl)

RECOVERY Okay, so we all know the deal with Falco's recovery. It's pretty mediocre. Provided you mix it up, Ness still has a variety of ways to edgeguard. He can go out and nair you which will invariably end your stock, he can go out and dair you, or he can even use the magnet to send you at a downwards angle. However, I've mostly seen Ness players do the former two. There is one more edgeguard that I actually like to do a lot- hanging the usmash yo-yo over the edge. If falco chooses to attempt a sweetspot, Ness can dangle his yo-yo on the ledge sweetspot and the charging hitbox will cause a small downwards spike. against this, I would just try to keep recovering in hope that the Ness player messes up the timing. If he doesn't, there's not much falco can do about this if Falco is recovering low. I would try to illusion and edge cancel if you're playing on a stage like YI Melee or PS2. That's honestly the best you can do to recover.

EDGEGUARDING As Falco, I would be very careful when challenging PKT2. If you mess up your timing and he starts PKT2 right when you put out whatever hitbox, you will most likely have a dead Falco since PKT2 hits super hard. PKT2 also has invincibility frames at the very beginning. You can go out and reflect the PK thunder itself, or even just take the damage from it so Ness goes into special fall. I would honestly just stay on stage and wall out Ness with back airs later in the PKT2. You can even go for a smash attack if you think it will kill. Falco can edgeguard Ness pretty well, just know how far PKT2 travels and what punish will be best.

COMBOS I'm just going to paste my comment from the comboing floaty characters thread. All this stuff should work on Ness.

When the opponent is standing:

1. dair > shine > uair (simple, kinda low damage but it's great because usually it's 100% guaranteed if they don't cc the shine)

2. dair > shine > dair (make sure you fast fall the dair so that they don't punish you on hit, because at low percents floaties will escape from the hitstun when you're next to them)

3. dair > shine > fair (like #1 but just a different aerial, doesn't set up for much afterwards though)

3. dair > shine > shine > back air / down air (works on most characters, really good damage if they don't DI properly)

4. jab > fsmash / dtilt (pretty much falco's version of jab up smash. Great set up for kills)

5. dair > shine > shine > dair > utilt > shine > back air (extended combo that can work on atrocious DI, but don't expect to get this often)

That's pretty much all I have to say about that matchup. If any of you guys have questions feel free to ask. I'll just discuss Falco vs. Yoshi in another post since this post was longer than I anticipated lol.

I know this is a couple of months old now, but a lot of it is just incorrect.

 

[PandaPanda Senketsu]

Falco definitely wins against pika and Squirtle. There is 0 doubt in my mind that Falco craps on these characters in neutral and can combo and kill theme quickly.

Pika Falco is even in this game. There are 3 differences, 1 is pikas bair, 2 his quick attack, and thunderbolt.

Pikachu's Bair allows him to safely land and threaten Falco in the process, making jumping in the neutral a legit strat. He was not able to be in the air in melee, this is a huge buff considering Falco's lasers only shut down grounded opponents.

Also Pikachu has uair > bair, it poops on all fast fallers.


And on to quick attack the reason this changes things is that it also allows you to land safely as well, and it also allows you to negate stage positioning.

And lastly there is thunderjolt. In this game if Pikachu launches his thunder jolt early he can waveland out of it. This gives him a projectile that can be used in the neutral against falco.

I think those 3 things are enough to make the match up even, and don't forget Pikachu can zero to death falco from anywhere on the stage off of one grab.

 

[Zero May Cry]

Oh man, I got called out by Boiko. Well, I try to keep an open mind so do you mind talking about some of the points where I'm wrong? Do you think it's more in Ness' or Falco's favor than I'm making it sound?

 

[Lizalfos]

U-air > bair is really the only thing that sounds promising. I'll explain my stance further once I'm off mobile.

QAC is really bad though. It is beaten by everything. If you try to recover with it Falco will F-smash anyone.

 

[Boiko]

Sure, I'll just talk about the match up from my experience with it. The Falco I play with most frequently is G$, but a few others are in there as well. I'll break it down into parts the same way Zero May Cry did, and I'll try to cover both perspectives.

Neutral: The neutral game is relatively even. Due to Ness' air mobility, he does need to worry about laser pressure at all. In fact, Ness can use his presence to nullify Falco's lasers completely, as he can safely magdash through them if Falco tries to laser. People often forget that when absorbing a projectile, the initial magnet hit box comes out again, so if I magdash through your laser, I have two opportunities (start up, 8 frames, and absorption) to hit you, and I'm shielded from projectiles. Ness can also threaten aerially. If Falco chooses to jump, Ness can retreat fair to hit him out of almost anything, and if he short hops, Ness can PK Fire. Alternatively, if he does nothing, Ness can fade back and reset the situation. Falco is still Falco though, and Ness doesn't have great options to counter the pressure Falco has. If Falco chooses to rush down on Ness and keep pressure in his face via corner control, Ness has a hard time getting out. Neutral is SLIGHTLY in Falco's favor IMO and just kind of comes down to who can pressure who better.

Punishes: Okay, so you've effectively pressured your opponent and now you're going to capitalize. If you're Falco, you've landed a dair>shine and you're going to start a pillar combo. Unfortunately for you, Ness just SDI'd out of your pressure and your combo is over. Yikes. Maybe you got the shine and you still have the set up for a dair. So you jump up and dair. Once again, Ness SDI's and your combo is over. Falco doesn't have too many answers to SDI other than mixing up his punishes, but even so, that typically results in his combo ending early, and him dominating in the neutral again. However, against a character like Ness, who has a bit of a counter neutral, losing your combos is pretty harsh in this match up. This is especially true since Ness' punish game on Falco is insane. Each combo should lead to close to 80% and a favorable stage position. You can end a combo early with a quick tech and trying to follow his momentum, but a good Ness knows how to bait early tech inputs so you miss the tech then he jab resets with his insane jab and continues punishing. Ness has one of the best punish games IN THE GAME, and it's only amplified against spacies. This part of the MU is definitely in Ness' favor.

Recovering: Okay, last part here. You've got your opponent in an edge guard situation. Falco, while having a generally bad recovery, does have numerous options, a hit box in front of him, and his side b is relatively quick. Ness can go off stage and punish Falco hard. He can cut off a ton of his options and has numerous different edge guarding techniques. But due to Falco's fall speed, going for a jump to read his up+b is a hard commitment, because he can fast fall and side b past you. The whole thing is very situational, but Falco can get back against Ness, and Ness can gimp him pretty hard. On the flip side, if Ness is off stage without a jump, he should be a dead boy. Bair from the ledge resets the situation. If he's coming from below, dair from the ledge just kills him. Down smash can be mixed in too, but all you really need to do is keep bairing him until he's dead. Ness has NO HIT BOX in front of him, only in the center of his body. If you time it right, you can just kick him away. Ness has a notoriously bad recovery, and Falco can force him to recovery low with down smash, dair, or lasers. Ness below the ledge should be dead. This part of the MU I'd give to Falco.

Overall, I'd call it 50:50. Ness, given one opportunity, basically kills Falco. Falco has somewhat better tools, but he needs more chances to get Ness off stage without a jump before he can kill him.

 

[PandaPanda Senketsu]

U-air > bair is really the only thing that sounds promising. I'll explain my stance further once I'm off mobile.

QAC is really bad though. It is beaten by everything. If you try to recover with it Falco will F-smash anyone.

I said Qac negates stage positioning and allows him to land safely, I didn't say anything about recovery. (although Pikachu can't even use QaC for recovery, his recovery is already amazing and very hard for falco to edge guard in the first place)

Over the years that match up has gotten better for Pikachu in melee. It went from like 80:20 to 60:40. And I would imagine in this game where Pikachu gained neutral game tools and buffs to his already ridiculous punish game this match up would indeed get better.

 

[Boiko]

I said Qac negates stage positioning and allows him to land safely, I didn't say anything about recovery. (although Pikachu can't even use QaC for recovery, his recovery is already amazing and very hard for falco to edge guard in the first place)

Over the years that match up has gotten better for Pikachu in melee. It went from like 80:20 to 60:40. And I would imagine in this game where Pikachu gained neutral game tools and buffs to his already ridiculous punish game this match up would indeed get better.

Just a quick note on your last paragraph. In a character dynamic that is technically correct. But you also have to look at a stage dynamic, since counter picking is so important in PM. I'm not saying it changes anything, I'm just saying.

 

[PandaPanda Senketsu]

Just a quick note on your last paragraph. In a character dynamic that is technically correct. But you also have to look at a stage dynamic, since counter picking is so important in PM. I'm not saying it changes anything, I'm just saying.

Actually there is something pretty interesting about the stage dynamic in this match up. In this game you have stages like smashville, final destination, skyworld, and ghz that allow Pikachu to abuse the chaingrab. Im not sure if Falco can strike every stage like that. Also I think Falco's best counter picks in melee were ys and fod, because of their small size, i would say there are definitely more big stages in pm. Against Pikachu, Fox and Falco are kinda opposites. Against Fox you want a smaller stage so he cant run away as much, but against falco you want a bigger stage so that you can run away more. So I think the stage list is better for fox than it is for falco. Even though Pikachu can chain grab both of them, Fox's neutral game is much better than Falco's.

Different tournaments have different stage lists and rules so this isn't always true, but I do think that pm has more stages that favor Pikachu over Falco.

 

[Sir Tundra]

Seems Like I've been gone from this thread For awhile in which case I apologize for that. I've been looking at the suggestions/anaylsis in the thread and I gotta say I'm very pleased with everything I seen so far. I decided to put The vand v mu's even. As of now I decided do 3 match ups a week and put in the results by the end of the week, are first bunch will be , , and . Feel to put these suggestions for these 3 and also Happy easter everyone

 

[pkblaze]

Ike and Roy are both combo food for falco. Ike doesn't have the same mobility to deal with lasers as Roy does, but he can wall you out a lot harder. both characters have brutal punish games on falco, falco has brutal punish games on them. Roughly even.

No idea for Wolf, I have like 1 wolf in my region and he's significantly better than me. I hear it's basically even though.