read what I posted earlier. the gist of it is, even though you might not win neutral as many times (debatable), you punish much much harder. it takes 1-2 wins of neutral for zelda to take a stock, it takes marth/lloyd 3+.


bad top tier matchups (you'll notice most of the characters above him trash on him), lackluster punish game, meh recovery.
positives are good neutral vs. slower characters and good edgeguarding, not really the best traits for a top tier in the current meta.
general public opinion is still that marth is 'OP', but realistically its not the case, people are just bad at the game/matchup.

I've played plenty of Zeldas in my life, but I don't think it takes 1-2 neutral hits to take a stock, especially when Dolphin Slash beats everything you have.

Even if you assume that it takes twice as many hits for Marth to take a stock (which I disagree with), I'd argue the neutral game's balance is enough in Marth/Lloyd's favor to easily even that up. What is Zelda supposed to approach with?

As far as Marth, I think you underestimate him greatly. Out of the top tiers, here's what I'd say are the MU spreads:

+1: Zelda (probably +2 TBH), Goku
0: MK, ZSS (?), Fox, Lloyd
-1: Pikachu, Sheik (perhaps -2, I find this matchup really nice as Sheik), DK

You probably disagree, but I think you understimate both his punish game (which is much better against floaties than most characters) and his ability to shut people down in neutral with implicit pressure.

I think you're taking personal experience into account far too much lol.
what zeldas are you playing that let you upB out of combos, or even in neutral, unpunished???????
zelda does not approach. sideB isnt a good projectile, but it still forces approaches.
zelda sticks out the stanky foot when the opponent can't punish, they think they can punish, zelda lands with 0 lag and punishes bad approach. its standard bait+punish.
how do you think armada wins neutral vs. marth when he doesn't have a turnip out. it's the same concept, but this time the 'peach' is faster, has a giant kick, giant long-lasting utilt and zero endlag.
big sword =/= winning neutral lol.

the 'implicit pressure' thing is true enough in melee, but since marth's dash and dtilt are absolute garbo compared to their melee counterparts, he doesn't have that much of a threat in his dashdance anymore unless it's vs. characters with a very small punish range.

you're really overestimating marth, as most players do, which is understandable back when everyone had no idea how to play against marth, but in the current fox meta idek how people think marth is still a top 10 character.

You are correct in the Zelda/Lloyd case. That's actually the only matchup Lloyd has in this tier list that he both wins and is against someone placed above him.

However, for Marth's case, this simply isn't true.
Zelda has much better recovery and a better punish game than Marth. Even if Marth does win in neutral, Zelda also excels at comboing and does a decent job at zoning. Not only that but Zelda has great killpower. These factors alone make this a matchup that Zelda can definitely win. I'd like to go into even further detail, but I think a Zelda main would be better off explaining this specific matchup.
I definitely agree with what Jammy says, even if Marth does win neutral Zelda has her edgeguards and kill power to turn the tables.

Interesting list, I like the discussion so far.

The problem with side-B as a method of forcing approaches is that Marth can threaten you from beyond where you can hit him, which is why he's good. If Marth is within dash-cancel tipper range, what options do you have to force approaches? What moves do you have that aren't punishable?

Marth's punish game is not terrible against Zelda, even though Zelda obviously has a better one against Marth. Unlike so many characters in this game, Marth can combo floaties, especially tall ones like Zelda, and although Marth definitely has killing problems above a certain percent (one of his major weaknesses from every game), he has excellent kill options from tech-chasing and grab (namely, tipper fsmash).

if marth is within dash-cancel tipper range, he's also within (or very close to) zelda fair/bair range, so you can hit him before he hits you if spacing correctly - also this implicit threat can be used to make marth think you're gonna hit him, but you can instead dashdance and make him commit, and then punish. do I really need to explain basic neutral game to u?
obviously marth has an advantage in a pressure situation cause he forces you to commit, and you have no options that can beat his sword from a corner, but in a NEUTRAL situation its much more of a tossup innit.

tbh with marth's punish game you're just wrong.
marth doesn't have combos into kill moves, and since all his moves send opponents up and away, with correct DI they wont be that long either.
your claims that marth has "excellent" kill options from "tech chasing" and grabs is f*** ridiculous lol
you can't get tipper fsmash from fthrow reliably, DI away will easily escape this, especially vs. floaty chars such as zelda.
techchase fsmash requires a hard read, you have a 1 in 3 chance of hitting this, not to mention getting a techchase at a percent which it will kill at.
NOT TO MENTION the fact that I have seen zero people reaction techchasing online consistently in the first place, it's just unrealistic considering the input delay.

floaties are the characters that marth's punish game is worst against, I have no idea how u seem to think otherwise

In reverse order:

I'm not saying Marth somehow does better against floaties than fast-fallers, but the difference is much less pronounced than for, say, Fox. Marth has one of the most "incompressible" punish games, because he already didn't have many options at low % against heavies and he has those weak non-tipped moves to combo with.

Marth has a DI trap into fsmash that works at kill percent on most stages, which is about as good as you're going to get. You also have more niche stuff that works at different percents but isn't something you can rely on.

Also, tech-chasing is certainly very doable, especially if you space it to cover 2 options, one tipper, one not. Maybe on laggy connections it becomes impossible, but that isn't what a tier list is supposed to measure.

Lastly, sure: Zelda has some form of implicit pressure from Lightning Kicks or dsmash or whatever. But that's not the same as threatening a hitbox that Zelda doesn't have the speed to punish without delicate spacing and timing, will kill early, and beats every neutral option she has. If Marth lives in some Bizarro world where magic stops swords, then he'll be scared, but Marth can beat every single option Zelda has in neutral. You literally have nothing safe past a certain distance. That's the big difference between Zelda and the other top-tiers: every other top-tier has a safe and reliable way of either punishing Marth's moves (think MK's dash-dance or Fox's dash-dance) or simply beating his options (ZSS, Lloyd, etc.)

You can't just rush in, but if you think of Brawl Marth and not Melee Marth I think you can slow the game down to your speed and pressure Zelda into getting crushed in the neutral, which is enough to IMO make the matchup in his favor.

The arguments, the discussion, the conflict, the power.

I do agree with Code.

I am glad Ichigo is higher since he can deal with some of the characters above him.

I do think Chibi should be at least at the top of B tier due to him giving the characters above him some trouble.

So Fox does have close mus with the character below him or has the mu chart changed where Fox now dominates those characters?
Is he now the gate keeper?

fox has favourable or even matchups against everyone beneath him on the list
only even one imo is sheik
he goes like 55-45 against pika, DK, BM, tails
then he absolutely trunches everyone else at least 60-40

he's not in the A+ tier because he loses (slightly) to all the characters in the A+ tier.


also @TCS your arguments are really flaky imo, especially considering the whole punish game aspect of the MU. marth's punish game isnt even comparable to zeldas lmao
ur completely overestimating the value of a sword and underestimating zelda's ability to throw hitboxes really safely & get underneath marth's hitboxes
like you're literally only focusing on one aspect of the matchup (wow marth has a sword)
I cba to write anymore on the fact since you're not gonna concede on this, and you're not gonna convince me

Yeah I see that now.

Fox's have adapted to being able to deal with Sheik's and DK's.

I do think Pika might be 51-49 or even imo due to him having kill confirms on Fox, him being able to stuff out some of fox's attacks including bair, can chain grab him to death at the right percentage and has the easiest time edge guarding him.

I remember when people said Marth beat Fox, now I see it might be even, but Fox just beats Marth's neutral a lot of the time.

Edit: Jammy what do you think of the mus between Falcon and the now?

fox beats marth 60-40 imo, fox neutral and punish game are both so so much better, especially when you can just strike FD and ToS to get rid of all chaingrab stages.

pika beats falcon like 58-42, not as bad as most ppl make it out to be.
puff beats falcon like 55-45 or something, still not entirely sure as I have like 0 practise against good puff players in this MU

Pika v Fox is weird because on the one hand Fox can just do his normal floaty thing and Pikachu can't really destroy him, but on the other hand you get these crazy offstage gimps that take stocks really quickly. Fox-BM is really bad for BM because you just get destroyed if the Fox goes in hard. Fox-DK is way too volatile to give a reliable number IMO, it's just whoever gets crucial hits first, although I'd rather be the Fox.

However, I think Fox beats Goku and goes even with MK. ZSS is hard but I think probably even or close if you just dash-dance, bait, and punish. Zelda... let's not talk about that one. Lloyd is weird but I think probably in Fox's favor on large stages? It just seems like Fox has the speed to get in and the punish game to at least try to compete with Lloyd's.

Regardless, it's really weird to have a character in their own tier, so if I couldn't change the order I'd definitely move Fox up. I'm curious what you guys are defining the tiers to be, because I usually consider Fox a second-tier character: he has bad matchups and weaknesses for sure, but does extremely well against the majority of the cast.

I see Fox v MK in MK's favor, though Fox gives him hell if MK doesn't space well.

I do see Fox v BM as Fox winning.

After using Fox against Lloyd, I would say its close to even.

Lloyd beats Fox for sure.
Back when I made my Lloyd MU chart, I said Lloyd Fox was 65:35. However, I'm sure it's much closer at this point (I'd say something like 55:45 to 60:40).

When I have the time, I'll go into further detail if requested.