No.

realised that my techskill in this game is pretty lacking so I've been working on it
things that I think all falcon players should work on:

• Instant uairs
• Stomp-knee with any DI
• Dash-cancel pivot (into aerials and grabs)
• Spamming SHFF aerials without accidentally doing a smash attack (harder than it looks)
• Refreshing invincibility at ledge with instant sideB
• Techchase regrabs on reaction
• Instant ledgegrab by using the PC drop AND the dash version of the PC drop

also I think that RAR stomp -> edgecancel -> fastfall -> ledgegrab is mandatory to know for swag purposes
but that's up to you

also if there's any other way to pivot except for dash-cancel pivots can someone let me know
cause these are pretty hard lol

How are Fox's punishes more consistent, when all Falcon has to do is Fthrow > Fthrow > Fthrow > Stomp? Or just Dthrow tech-chase until Fox is at kill? Falcon has several react-able, inescapable punishes on Fox. Fox's main advantage on the match-up his is offensive pressure and high priority, but he can be punished to extreme length by Falcon. And the frame advantage for them are so high.

Maybe it's just a lack of experience with good Falcons on good connections (or Jammy's unwillingness to fthrow), but I always thought that those were dependent on DI: DI down and tech forced tech-chasing. You may be right.

I'mma do a big writeup since I'm in a pointless class at school right now so prepare your body

Falcon vs. Fox

Neutral:
Most important aspect of this matchup imo. Useful things to note are that Fox's strong nair will beat Falcon's nair no matter what, and Fox's bair will beat all of Falcon's moves except for knee.

Fox's laser forces an approach from Falcon, so Falcon is forced to initiate by (optimally) dashdancing close enough to punish SH laser.
This immediately puts neutral in Fox's favour, because his neutral options work whichever way he's facing, have frame advantage over Falcon's aerials, and are also fairly non-committal since they have such low endlag (nair and bair). Fox is also nearly as fast as Falcon, removing his usual massive speed advantage.

Falcon really should only be using nair and grab in neutral against Fox, as whiffing bair or knee is very punishable (but situationally good). Pivot utilt is situationally good against nair happy Foxes, but I think grab is better since they would have to whiff the nair anyway.

Since Falcon can't beat Fox's options, he has to make reads in neutral to gain advantage - punishing mistakes is much harder if the Fox isn't playing dumb. Reads are usually:

• punishing a nair with your own nair after the strong hit has worn off (pivot nair is good for this but I'm still bad at it). requires a read on the approaching nair.
• punishing any whiffed aerial with dashdance grab. can be done on reaction if they don't fastfall or if they really badly mis-space it, but is often a read.
• grabbing/nairing Fox before he can throw a hitbox out - requires a read on the opponent's movement.
• kneeing an aerial - requires a read as the knee comes out slower than nair or bair, and timing is hard. I hardly ever hit these (pivots would help but again, I haven't implemented them well enough yet).

If these reads are whiffed, Fox gets a free punish. So neutral is more risky for Falcon, but can be really rewarding if the Fox makes a lot of mistakes, which are free punishes for Falcon. However, Fox doesn't have to rely on reads to win neutral, as punishing mistakes or approaching with nair is enough.

Punish Game:
This is the area where people usually say Falcon wins in the MU - and they'd be right. That is, if the Falcon can perfectly techchase and edgeguard. In reality, this is much more difficult.

Falcon's punishes usually start off with a nair or grab. Below 60%, either of the above will most likely simply be knockdowns into techchasing. Falcon's goal at this point is to force a missed tech into a big punish, or regrab until they're above 60%.
Good execution and reaction time is required if the opponent mixes up their techs right. Shine makes this much much harder than on other character when coupled with Fox's great techroll. Frame perfect or well spaced grabs are required against smart Foxes.
Reacting to missed tech with stomp is not possible due to Falcon's poor aerial drift compared to Melee, and therefore for harder punishes a jab reset OR read is required.

Above 60%, I would normally uthrow into an uair, which will either send them offstage if they DI away, or lead into a followup if they DI in. From there you either combo further into an edgeguard or combo into a KO. Or you drop the combo like me if you're a buster. Random knees are absolutely amazing if you catch them with bad DI, killing as low as 50% which is ridiculous. These are pretty rare tho. Fox can break out of stringy combos with nair or shine, so Falcon has to be careful not to overextend.

Fox's punish game is potentially as devastating as Falcon's, but is much easier imo. Nairs lead into grabs, which lead into uthrow -> aerial. Quick 30% combos which can string into each other or force an edgeguard. Bread and butter combos are sufficient to dismantle Falcon players, and they pretty much all give you great stage positioning to string together more hits afterwards. If Falcon is grounded he can break out of combos quite easily with his frame 2 (?) jab, so Fox should be careful here too.

Edgeguarding
Falcon's edgeguarding is simple enough vs. Fox, and a good Falcon should be able to cover all options. However, everyone (myself included) suck major balls at edgeguarding in this game, so this part may seem more in Fox's favour. I assure you, while Falcon has to cover more options, edgeguarding with Falcon can be just as effective.

Firstly Falcon should cover illusion onto stage with a shorthop knee/bair. Pretty obvious when a Fox is gonna do this so should be easy enough.
From there Falcon should grab ledge when Fox is able to illusion onto ledge. If Fox falls below this point, he can go back onto stage and then edgeguard the Firefox.
Pretty easy flowchart but nobody has it down for some reason (idk why I can't do this stuff lol).

Fox's edgeguarding is even easier and unfortunately people can actually do this lol. Fox can repeatedly shine an upB from below ledge. He can jump out and intercept a Falcon kick at the end of the animation. He can ledgehop bair Falcon attempting to get back on stage. All of these options are very intuitive and reactable.
Edgeguarding should be pretty even in this MU.

Pressure
First off let's talk about oos options. Falcon has perhaps the poorest oos options in the game imo, with his garbage as f*** roll, poor grab range and relatively slow aerials oos.
Fox has shine oos, nair oos and a pretty good roll.

Falcon's shield pressure is actually pretty good if you set it up right. Late uair/knee/nair into gentleman usually catches most people in their shield and either hits them when they try and get out or forces a roll. If they stay in their shield after the GM, Falcon can dash away and react to their oos option. Pretty decent pressure if you're good at it, but Fox has fast options and it's easy to mess up, and lose your momentum.
Fox has drillshine which perfectly wrecks Falcon I think. Mixups with nairshine, shinegrab and ability to easily react to rolls means that a hit on shield should be an easy hit for Fox.

No surprises here.



In Summary:
the main problem for Falcon is that his punishes have to be 2-3 times harder than Fox's, as Fox can win neutral much more easily. The fact that Falcon's hard punishes are much more difficult than Fox's B&B exacerbates this problem. Good reaction techchases and edgeguarding is difficult to execute, but theoretically possible.

imo, the matchup is in theory 55:45 to Fox since he wins neutral more often, and their punish game is theoretically advantageous to Falcon but more likely to be even.
in reality I think it's slightly closer to 60:40 to Fox, as the kinds of punishes that are required need high levels of execution which are difficult to perform in SSF2.

If you think CF's punishes are easy you probably play vs. scrub Foxes who don't tech lol.
Come back after you play DS, SS or even Lunary in Falcon-Fox.



That wraps up most of what I wanted to say. I'll edit this post if I think of anything else.

EDIT: In regards to fthrow, I think it's inferior to dthrow other than when used at edge to force an edgeguard, as good DI and teching will avoid followups. Fthrow is simply harder to techchase with in this MU as it sends them too far away. In other matchups it's busted, but vs. Fox, not so much.

I think this game shows at the very least what good Fox and Falcon punishes look like.

please note that this was mostly brainless chaingrabbing and DIing down and away would have saved SS on both the first and second stocks
I do not think that this is optimal - techchasing is guaranteed, regrabs depending on bad DI is not
however I do think that DI mixups with dthrow and uthrow are good sometimes

can I also say that using shield in neutral like this shouldn't really work against a fox who is reacting to your shield

DI'ing Down only gets Fox out of chain-Fthrow doesn't get Fox out of chain-Dthrow, which is the optimally better choose.

I don't see it being that difficult even with just minimal practice. I honestly don't practice the chain-grabs and tech-chase either, but I can still do it in match because it feels like you have a lot of frame-advantage to react. At a competitive level, this feels like bread & butter execution and if practiced it would be deadly. But you still need the consist environment to do them correctly. It's like doing push-ups; they aren't difficult, but feels intensely harder when you have to do with a 20 kilogram weight of lag on your back.

Also, the first two stock in that match were pretty sloppily played, and yet it still effectively took two stocks in a solid matter. It's not far-fetch and very likely. That honestly how the match-up should be. Both characters in neutral have a tons of offensively positive decisions. It's just pick on the right ones in the moment.

Good DI will avoid chain dthrow - try it.
Techchasing on reaction is not easy, especially if the opponent mixes up techs and abuses shine out of techs. You have a frame advantage, but reacting to techs consistently and having the correct spacing and execution to get the grab before they're out of stun is really hard, especially online.
I'd love to see you reaction techchasing a good fox with 'hardly any practise', but I highly doubt you can do it. Please demonstrate lol.

For reasons I stated before that match is not a good representation of the Falcon-Fox matchup, mainly due to SS DIing poorly and not punishing shield.

Good or Bad DI doesn't matter that much on Dthrow. You have a lot of time to read the DI direction on Fox.

It's only as difficult as you want it to be. It's definitely a higher frame-advantage than Dthrow-chase on Fox in Melee. Tech-options are still kind of mediocre in SSF2. Even though Fox's are a reasonable speed, they don't really go as far they should.

learn how to DI please: http://gfycat.com/KnobbyCompassionateKingsnake

the thing about techchasing in melee is that you can very easily position yourself to cover all options
for example, in falcon's reaction techchase for regrabs, you run to their position and wavedash down to position yourself, immediately stopping your momentum
in ssf2 the closest thing is dash canceling, which makes you slide, making stopping precisely more difficult - this is really important for properly positioning yourself for grabbing tech in place -> shine without getting hit by shine
analogue run speed also makes precise movement easier
falcon's higher aerial drift in melee makes stomp on reaction possible - not in ssf2
falcon can knee missed tech in melee, allowing you to cover tech in place and missed tech when near ledge, whilst still being able to regrab a tech behind or away

so basically I find it baffling how you think techchasing is easier in ssf2

again, I'd love to see you implement consistent reaction techchases vs. fox like you claim you can do, but I'm not hopeful to be honest

Lol, so I was messing around in Training mode, and I let go of the edge to stomp the CPU Naruto (this is on SSZ). I get the Nipple Spike while we are both right up against the side of the stage, he goes down, BOUNCES OFF the part where the wall becomes a cone (which doesn't make any sense at all, there shouldn't be anything to bounce off of but whatever), and goes flying away at a 45 degree angle upwards (the trajectory of a Knee).

lol wut

Bonus points if you tech.