Dealing with Marth can be tricky. Having some of the farthest reaching and most powerful hitboxes in the game, an insane grab range, and destructive combos, it’s common for players to feel frustrated with the Marth matchup. However, Marth is not an impossible foe and boasts many weaknesses if you know how to properly exploit them.

Get Below Marth

Marth is an incredibly strong character with a powerful punish game. This is best seen through Marth’s effortless ability to juggle opponents above him with up-air, denying them access to the stage and its platforms while applying a lot of damage. Because of this, avoid being in a position where Marth is below you, especially as a floaty character with lack of good falling options. This positioning rarely gives you the advantage and can end up costing you a stock. Try to stay at the same level as Marth, or even better, get below Marth.

Marth is actually fairly weak when falling back to stage, with few moves that offer good falling options. Most often, Marth players will try to mix-up their fall timings with an initial side-b stall. This however is very punishable if you can get a read on its timing and execute a quick aerial to knock him back into the air. Marth’s two main moves when falling back to stage is d-air, and f-air. However, like most of Marth’s moves, they all suffer from a lack of long-lasting hitboxes. While d-air is a very strong move with good priority, it is incredibly laggy and leaves Marth very exposed if whiffed. Marth players will tend to throw this move out when they are directly above you and are coming down for an attack. Counter this move by approaching and baiting out the attack with a short hop, and then punishing its whiff with an attack of your own.

Additionally, f-air is a move that Marth players will tend to throw out when falling slightly in front of you. With a lot less end lag and more rapid startup, f-air is most often used right when the Marth is landing on stage if he is farther away from you (to deny the space in front of his landing), or prematurely if the Marth is above you (anticipating you to challenge him in the air). Use dash-dance to avoid the landing f-air and punish it with a grab and up-throw to repeat the process. Punish the premature f-air by simply hitting Marth with an aerial and keeping him off the ground. While one of Marth’s greatest strengths is juggling opponents above him, he himself suffers from his own tactic.

Get Behind Marth

Marth is very strong when facing the opponent as almost all of his moves hit only the space directly in front of him. Because of this, getting behind Marth can put him in an awkward and disadvantages position. Although a more situational tactic, it is helpful in the match up to exploit this positioning that you may have access to for a few key seconds in a match. Marth’s b-air doesn’t combo as well as his f-air making it not ideal for his follow up options. Marth also doesn’t have great out of shield options for an opponent who is behind him.

This gives you the opportunity to apply a lot of safe shield pressure and even secure a grab. Marth players will often roll in the opposite direction of you when you are behind their shield, which you can then punish with a quick dash-into-kill-move. You can practice getting behind Marth by overshooting your aerials on his shield and landing behind his shield, then following it up with one of these options.

Beating Forward Smash

Marth’s forward smash is one of the scariest in the game. The hitbox is enormous and it’s a very powerful move especially at the tip of the sword. However it is quite laggy, very unsafe on shield, and can be punished quite easily. There are two main ways of dealing with Marth’s f-smash: spacing outside of it, and wavedash OoS. The first way to avoid Marth’s f-smash is with skilled retreating dash-dances and wavedashes that can be spaced just outside of the moves range. This allows you to quickly move back in and punish with a grab or kill move. However, Marth can overshoot the f-smash on purpose if this method is read, and you can end up getting punished hard by a tipper f-smash.

The most effective way to deal with f-smash is to run up and shield the attack, and then wavedash OoS toward Marth and punish with a kill move or grab. This helps eliminate the possibility of getting tipper f-smashed and puts Marth at a disadvantage. Additionally, when above Marth on platforms, angle your shield downward to avoid getting tipper f-smashed through the platform itself, then fall thought the platform and use an aerial to get a quick hit in.

Crouch Cancelling Aerials

Marth has a very exploitable problem in that all his moves are most powerful at the tip and grow weaker in knockback the closer to the hilt. This means any poorly spaced aerials are crouch-cancellable to high percents and can be immediately punished by kill moves. Marth’s approaching n-airs and f-airs can be cheesed out by crouch cancelling when spaced poorly and you can usually beat out anything Marth throws out next.

A good way to deal with Marth is to approach his aerials and immediately crouch cancel, giving you an opportunity to strike first out of the weak hit. Foxes can secure up-smash kills and Samus can get meaty down-smash hits by using this technique. Low level Marths typically have a tough time combating this, but higher level Marths will often aerial drift backwards with their jumps if you spam this technique too much to make their hits connect at the tip.

Finding Openings in Marth’s Aerials

As stated before, Marth’s moves only strike for a few frames and lack lingering hitboxes. This helps fast characters like Fox/Falco, Falcon, and Sheik find openings in Marth’s pressure and challenge his aerials. Marth’s standard f-air and n-air (used at the top of his short hop or full hop) can be punished before the move even comes out with a run-up aerial. Marth’s rising f-air/n-air comes out too quick, but can be punished after the moves short-lasting hitbox is active with the same technique, run-up aerial.

Dash-dancing in front and out of range of Marth’s n-air will put you close enough to Marth to quickly punish these openings without putting yourself in harm’s way. This space in front of Marth is actually one of the best places you can position yourself in the matchup for this very reason. Additionally, overshoot your aerials when the Marth is dash-camping (dash dancing in place to bait out a whiffed move) as it can often catch Marth in his retreating dash back. This can then lead you to a combo follow up.

Spacing Shield Pressure around Shield Grab

Applying pressure to Marth’s shield can be very scary due to Marth’s insane grab range. Often, drill-shine, wave-shining, and other fast shield pressure tactics that work on most characters can still end up getting you shield grabbed against Marth. Instead, using longer reaching hitboxes to apply shield pressure to Marth and then retreating to apply projectile pressure (if applicable) is a better option. Additionally, drifting away from Marth in between aerial shield pressure can put you outside the threat of shield grab.

Marth players often find so much success in shield grabbing so they often spam it after a single move of pressure is applied to their shield. By drifting outside the range of the grab, you can punish the whiffed grab with a quick aerial or grab of your own. Marth does however have the reversed up-b, which has a lot of range, but if you drift far enough away from Marth’s shield in between shield pressure moves, you can avoid the move's range and punish a missed up-b.

Overwhelm with Projectiles

Marth has no projectile game and needs to close the gap in order to damage the enemy. This isn’t much of an issue for Marth due to his speed and range of his moves. However, he is very vulnerable at a distance if your character boasts a good projectile move set. While Samus, Sheik, and the Mario Bros. can all apply damage from a distance to Marth, Marth’s large tilts can trade with the hitbox of their projectiles and protect him from the damage of the projectile. This is why spamming projectiles is effective pressure because Marth needs to proactively use his own moves in order to block the projectile.

The time it takes for Marth to block them gives you a slight time-window to get into a better position. Falco can freeze Marth in place by spamming short-hop lasers (because it can’t be traded with a move and must be shielded in order to avoid being hit) which can give Falco a larger time-window to move closer for direct pressure or retreat.

Take Center Stage

Marth is incredibly strong at the ledge due to his huge hitboxes and quick attacks. His throws lead into devastating gimps, and he can easily kill anyone in the cast at 0% if he’s challenged at the ledge. Do not challenge Marth on the ledge. Rather, secure center stage when you spawn back in or when he makes it back to stage from recovering, and set up with good positioning by keeping your dash-dance fresh and pressure Marth with projectiles. While it can be tempting especially when Marth is at high percent, you put yourself at a much higher risk when you approach Marth near the ledge. It is most often not worth it and will give you a better chance to just secure center stage and reset the fight back to the neutral game.

Defensive Tips

Marth players tend to apply a lot of their shield pressure with spaced SHFFL f-airs. You can wavedash away from Marth after the falling f-air and dash back to run up aerial hit Marth or even run up grab. Marth players also like to fish for a grab after a single f-air on shield, so read your opponent and throw in a spot-dodge after the first f-air if you anticipate him landing.

Even though being above Marth is typically a poor position to put yourself in, when playing as a fast character, using your full hop to escape Marth and retreat to the top platform can relieve you of his pressure. You’ll need to mix up how you descend back to stage from the top platform however, as Marth can challenge most any move you throw out to drop down with. Use wave-lands to escape a Marth dash attack or preemptive grab.

Conclusion:

Marth is the master of spacing and the combo game, but he can be exploited in the neutral if you play smart and don’t fall for his tricks. Challenge his dash-dance camping, force him to come back to center stage to fight, and stay below Marth. These tips will help in fighting one of the most common and dangerous characters in Melee.

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