An Op=Ed to “Mang0”
Super Smash Bros. Melee released in 2001 for the GameCube was the sequel to Nintendo’s flagship fighting game series Super Smash Bros. released 2 years before for the Nintendo 64. Despite the games age, it has exploded in popularity to the point where it’s one of the most popular fighting games of all time and is played even in spite of further sequels being released. The main goal of the game is that you fight on stages, which can be various environments that often feature a larger main area and can have a varying number of additional smaller platforms, from three to two to none at all, and your goal is to get opponents off the stage. When reaching beyond the edges of the screen, you are knocked out, or KO’d. This is a “platform” fighting game, and possibly the most famous and arguably best one of all time. The balance of the game’s better characters, “top” and “high”-tiers, is often regarded to be quite solid with generally balanced “matchups,” which are estimated performances between two particular characters, with no character being too dominant.
Among many of the matchups, it’s often stated that Fox, the character many people claim to be the best in the game due to his blinding speed and ability to rush you down, and Falco, a glass cannon– characters which tend to have high offensive ability but low defenses to compensate– combo character who’s moveset is partially derived from Fox, have no losing matchups. One of the greatest Melee players of all time, Joseph Marquez who often goes by his gamertag of “Mango” claims that Fox and Falco theoretically beat Marth, thus having no losing matchups in the game. Marth is the swordfighter character characterized by his long range, grab game, devastating edgeguarding abilities, and very powerful advantage state making him a contender for the best character in the game. However, Mango couldn’t be further from the truth here.
In fighting games, characters often have grab attacks which go through the defensive maneuver known as blocking generally but called is “shielding” for the Smash series. Marth’s grab is notable in that its range is far beyond his actual hand and is fast for a grab of its length. His throws additionally are all great for setting up combos or “kill confirms,” which are combos that guarantee a KO. His grab game against Fox and Falco, commonly grouped together as “space animals” or “spacies” for short, is absolutely devastating on these two characters in specific. Due to their incredibly fast falling speeds and high gravity, they fall so fast to the ground after being thrown that it’s possible for Marth to grab them once again, continuousing dealing damage. This is known as a “chaingrab.” It’s very possible for Marth to be able to chaingrab a spacie until he’s able to knock them off the stage, securing the knockout. Not to mention, Marth’s grabs and throws in general are highly effective on Fox and Falco due to Marth being able to send them very low offstage, which often results in a KO thanks to Marth’s ability to edgeguard their predictable recoveries, especially in the case of Falco who’s recovery is a worse version of Fox’s.
In general, Fox and Falco have terrible disadvantage states vs Marth, especially Falco. Marth’s long ranged sword is able to protect Marth from the spacies’ somewhat below average range, and he has several combo starters against them. His up-tilt, up-air, and f-air are all very good at keeping Fox and Falco in attack combos. Especially the former two, with them being able to convert into kills when followed up with a “Ken combo,” a f-air into d-air spike which sends opponents offstage. While Fox’s speed and incredibly versatile “shine” attack along with Falco’s own shine and laser shots outranging Marth’s blade can make it difficult for Marth to get into an advantage state versus these two characters, the spacies are highly difficult to play requiring fast, dexterous hands and good reflexes. Meanwhile, Marth is a relatively easier character to play with a lower skill floor and ceiling, meaning that a mistake made by Marth is far less devastating than a mistake from Fox or Falco.
Additionally, historically Marth players have always prevailed in the matchup vs the space animals. Notably the #1 player in the world in 2022, Zain, has no losing records vs a Fox or Falco player, boasting winning records on the aforementioned Mango along with the likes of Cody Schwab, Leffen, Moky, Fiction, Joshman, Ginger, and Magi. All of which are the top ranking spacie players at 3rd, 4th, 7th, 13th, 14th, 19th, 21st and 25th best players in the world according to the SSBMRank for 2022. Even the second best Marth in the world, Kodorin ranked 12th, boasts winning records vs players such as the aforementioned Moky, Joshman, Fiction, and Magi. While the spacies are dominant and considered to be better characters overall compared to Marth, it’s no question that historically and even in the present, Fox and Falco players have always struggled vs Marth.
While Falco and particularly Fox aren’t necessarily worse than Marth, as Marth himself has his own problem matchups such as Sheik or Pikachu along with slightly less favorable matchups versus other top tiers, to say the spacies lack losing matchups is an absurd claim. Even Mango, the one who often perpetuates these claims and who is quite possibly the best Fox and Falco player ever performs inconsistently against Marth. Even if it’s slightly losing for Fox, they both certainly lose to Marth.
