SSBM/Marth

Introduction

Marth is a mid range monster. Being rewarded for proper spacing like no other character with his tipper mechanic (where he deals increased damage and knockback when hitting his opponent with the tip of his massive sword), an obscenely large grab range which can convert into touch of death combos, and the best grounded movement option in the game by far in his dash, there's a reason Marth has been a consistent sight at the highest levels of play throughout Melee's history.

When Marth dashes, he leans forward dramatically. This causes a pseudo-teleportation effect wherein everything besides his ankles instantly move out of the way of any attack or grab that might be coming his way. This along with by far the best disjoint and grab of any top tier, and the ability to instantly threaten these all in conjunction with each other mid dash, combine to make him feel almost impossible to open up in neutral.

Furthermore, due to his gigantic sword, there are few character that can hope to contest Marth when he's at the advantage. Being below the other character, or juggling them, is always good in Melee. For Marth, it's checkmate.

However, Marth is nearly as easily juggled as he is potent at keeping you above him. Think of Marth as a porcupine, if you're under him there are no spikes protecting him. There is also the infamous "Marthritis", where if a Marth player misses an edge guard or drops a combo, finishing their opponent's stock will be much harder than you might initially suspect. This is because he doesn't have great stray hit kill moves to throw out to minimize his losses. Finally, tricky movement from his opponents can cause him to misspace, a potential death sentence for a Marth.

In summary, Marth elegantly dances around his opponents, striking from far outside of their range and seeming to remain virtually untouchable in neutral. However, once he's hit or grabbed things can go from bad to worse very quickly.

Strengths	Weaknesses
A Big Sword Strong Advantage State: Marth can keep someone in the air or in the corner and is able to edgeguard most of the cast very effectively Movement: A low dashdance that makes Marth very hard to hit Grab: Probably the best one in the game. High range and reward, excellent out of asdi down. What more could you want?	Difficulty At Ledge: A max 4 Galint ledgedash and few invincible options out of it lets characters challenge Marth safely and keep him in the corner. Moderate Weakness To CC: Even spaced Marth’s main neutral tools can be favourably called out with fast movement out of CC or by moving inside of sourspot range.

Ground Moves

Jab 1
5a

First Active	Active	Recovery	IASA	Landing Lag	Autocancel
4	4	21	19	-	-
Damage	Base Knockback	Knockback Growth	Angle	Effect	On Shield
4/6	20/30	50/60	361	slash	0
Marth's fastest grounded normal, can be very unsafe on hit on a grounded opponent. Mostly used to EdgeguardThe act of preventing the opponent from safely returning to the stage., catching SpaciesA nickname for the Star Fox characters of SSB (Fox, Falco, Wolf). side-b or denying grabbing ledge from above. Note: Recovery able to be cancelled into Jab2 after 11 frames

Jab 2
5aa

First Active	Active	Recovery	IASA	Landing Lag	Autocancel
4	5	20	18	-	-
Damage	Base Knockback	Knockback Growth	Angle	Effect	On Shield
4/6	20/30	50/60	361	slash	0
Follow up for Jab 1. Note: Recovery able to be cancelled into Jab 1 after 10 frames

Dash attack
d.a

First Active	Active	Recovery	IASA	Landing Lag	Autocancel
12	4	35	25	-	-
Damage	Base Knockback	Knockback Growth	Angle	Effect	On Shield
11/9/13	70/35/70	55/60/55	110/361/110	slash	0

fTilt
t.6a

First Active	Active	Recovery	IASA	Landing Lag	Autocancel
7	4	26	26	-	-
Damage	Base Knockback	Knockback Growth	Angle	Effect	On Shield
9/13	30/60	70	361	slash	0

uTilt
t.8a

First Active	Active	Recovery	IASA	Landing Lag	Autocancel
6	7	35	27	-	-
Damage	Base Knockback	Knockback Growth	Angle	Effect	On Shield
early: 9/9/8/12 clean: 10/9/9/13	early: 40/40/40/50 clean: 40/30/30/50	early: 120/118/116/100 clean: 120/118/116/100	early: 110/361/361/110 clean: 85/361/361/85	slash	0
A fast and versatile move with several different useful hitboxes, uTilt can be used as a launcher, a combo move, and a kill move on different characters at different percentages. It can also be used to counteract slideoff DI.

dTilt
t.2a

First Active	Active	Recovery	IASA	Landing Lag	Autocancel
7	3	40	11	-	-
Damage	Base Knockback	Knockback Growth	Angle	Effect	On Shield
9/8/8/10	40/25/20/50	40	30	slash	0
One of Marth's most powerful neutral tools, acting as a very safe poke due to its large hitbox and very fast IASA in conjunction with Marth's excellent dashback making it very difficult to punish without a hard callout, even on crouch cancel. Also a useful edgeguarding tool as its low hitbox goes below the stage and can prevent many characters from grabbing ledge without precise movement and can prevent some characters grom grabbing ledge outright.

fSmash
s.6/4a

First Active	Active	Recovery	IASA	Landing Lag	Autocancel
10	4	37	35	-	-
Damage	Base Knockback	Knockback Growth	Angle	Effect	On Shield
14/20	60/80	70	361	slash	0
Tippered fSmash is Marth's most powerful kill move. Fast, massive, excellent killing power, can be comboed into consistently, and creates a massively advantageous edgeguard scenario even if it doesn't kill outright. To compensate, it is very laggy and leaves Marth wide open to being punished on whiff.

uSmash
s.8a

First Active	Active	Recovery	IASA	Landing Lag	Autocancel
13	4	39	30	-	-
Damage	Base Knockback	Knockback Growth	Angle	Effect	On Shield
8/15/18	0/30/60	0/80/80	70/90/90	normal/slash/slash	0
Slower, laggier, and barely stronger than uTilt with a much worse hitbox, uSmash is almost never used. The hitbox doesn't even reach the end of Marth's sword. Note: id0/1 have 100 set kb

dSmash
s.2a

First Active	Active	Recovery	IASA	Landing Lag	Autocancel
hit 1: 5 hit 2: 20	hit 1: 3 hit 2: 3	43	40	-	-
Damage	Base Knockback	Knockback Growth	Angle	Effect	On Shield
hit 1: 11/11/11/16 hit 2: 11/11/11/16	hit 1: 70/20/16/70 hit 2: 70/30/15/70	hit 1: 72/100/100/100 hit 2: 72/100/100/100	hit 1: 75/361/361/70 hit 2: 75/361/361/75	slash	0
Very powerful and fast kill move, but difficult to space and very punishable on hit if not tippered or if whiffed due to its extremely long duration. As a result it is largely relegated to use in niche setups and for showing off.

Aerial Moves

nAir
j.5a

First Active	Active	Recovery	IASA	Landing Lag	Autocancel
hit 1: 6 hit 2: 15	hit 1: 2 hit 2: 7	29	29	15 L-cancelled: 7	<6 24>
Damage	Base Knockback	Knockback Growth	Angle	Effect	On Shield
hit 1: 4/4 hit 2: 10	hit 1: 30/30 hit 2: 50/50	hit 1: 40/40 hit 2: 80/80	hit 1: 100/90 hit 2: 361/361	hit 1: slash/normal hit 2: slash/normal	0
Marth's nAir is an excellent and safe neutral tool due to its large, powerful hitbox and its early autocancel window.

fAir
j.6a

First Active	Active	Recovery	IASA	Landing Lag	Autocancel
4	4	27	23	15 L-cancelled: 7	<1 26>
Damage	Base Knockback	Knockback Growth	Angle	Effect	On Shield
10/9/13	30/20/42	70	361/361/67	slash	0
Marth's fAir is arguably his best and most versatile move, being excellent for comboing and edgeguarding and invaluable in neutral due to its good framedata, excellent hitbox, and low landing lag. It is used to set up Marth's infamous Ken combo.

bAir
j.4a

First Active	Active	Recovery	IASA	Landing Lag	Autocancel
7	5	29	24	24 L-cancelled: 12	<1 31>
Damage	Base Knockback	Knockback Growth	Angle	Effect	On Shield
10/9/9/13	30/25/10/30	70	361	slash	0

uAir
j.8a

First Active	Active	Recovery	IASA	Landing Lag	Autocancel
5	4	38	38	15 L-cancelled: 7	<5 26>
Damage	Base Knockback	Knockback Growth	Angle	Effect	On Shield
10/9/9/13	30/20/18/40	70	80/80/80/90	slash/slash/slash/normal	0

dAir
j.2a

First Active	Active	Recovery	IASA	Landing Lag	Autocancel
6	4	51	51	15 L-cancelled: 7	<6 47>
Damage	Base Knockback	Knockback Growth	Angle	Effect	On Shield
10/9/13	30/20/42	70	361/361/67	slash	0
dAir is an excellent combo ender, being powerful, fast, and a SpikeAn attack that sends down at an angle outside of the meteor smash range, and thus cannot be meteor cancelled.. It also has niche use as an out of shield option as it is fast and has special knockback properties.

Special Moves

B-Shield Breaker. A downward slash with Falchion, mainly used to break a shield. Can be charged for more damage and shield damage. Mainly used to edgeguard or in situations when a Fair or Dair is inapplicable. Use carefully though, as the lag after the move is quite long.

6B-Dancing Blade. A slash with Falchion to the front of Marth. Tilting the control stick up or down while performing it will lead to different attacks. Further inputs result in more sword slashes, with a maximum of four.

2B-Counter. A counter-attack move. If the opponent attacks during this duration, a counterattack starts. Don't spam this move as it is highly punishable.

UpB- Dolphin Slash. A jumping slash. Mainly used for recovery. Can slightly angle to increase vertical or horizontal reach. Grants intangibility. Can also be used when edgeguarding especially, when reversed.

Grabs & Throws

Pummel - repeatedly knees opponent 2% damage.
Forward throw - Grabs and pushes forward, tripping with the leg. 4% damage.
Down throw - Hooks arm and drags to the floor sending the opponent backward. Set ups tipper forward smash at low percentages. 5% damage.
Back throw - Pulls and extends leg simultaneously. 4% damage.
Up throw - Powerful upward throw with one arm, though does not kill until damages higher than 150%. 4% damage.

Universal Mechanics

Ledge attack - Flips onto ledge with a quick downward diagonal slash from left to right. 6% base. 8% tip.
100% ledge attack - Quick, low, horizontal slash with medium lag. Less range than normal ledge attack. 10% base and tip.
Floor attack (from back) - Quick stab to the left followed by horizontal slash to the right. 6% base and tip.
Floor attack (from stomach) - Sweeps the tip of his sword on the ground front to back. Less range than floor attack from back. 6% base and tip.

Move Analysis

Combos

Frame Data

Strategies

Dancing Blade Meteor

When using Marth's B-side attack (the Dancing Blade), after the initial B-side, the player can do up to 3 more swings in one sequence with Marth’s sword. There are multiple combinations of this attack, after the initial B-over to start the attack; the player can use B-up, B-over, or B-down. The third swing in the sequence is a very useful spike if B-down is pressed. It can be used to get kills at low percentages, by knocking the opponent off the ledge; make sure Marth is close to the edge, or on the edge as the opponent makes their way back toward the ledge, the player should start the B-over sequence. Time it so by the time the opponent is right back at the ledge, the player should be on the third swing, press b-down for the meteor smash.

Reverse Dolphin Slash

By starting Marth's up special attack, Dolphin Slash, and immediately pressing the opposite direction to which the player is currently facing, Marth will begin the first frame of his attack but change directions to finish the attack as if you were facing the other way. This variation has significantly increased knockback, but must be done at close range. The reason for this is that when Marth does his Dolphin Slash, he holds his sword behind him for a second. Given that Marth's attack are more powerful at the tip of the sword, as well as earlier into the Dolphin Slash, turning around at the start allows him to hit when the conditions are the best. This technique is also commonly performed out of a shield, by jump-canceling.

Reverse Counter

Oddly enough, Marth's counter attack has a second hit box which is much more powerful than the first. This hitbox is located in the first few pixels behind him and even more behind and above him. The blow is about as powerful as his f-smash (untippered) and serves as a flashy kill move in FFAs or 2v2s. However, it may only be used when one enemy (or teammate) is attacking from the front while the other approached from behind making the move extremely situational.

Ken Combo

Probably the most famous Marth combo of all is the Ken Combo. To do it, the player has to use multiple forward aerials (make sure they hit at close range or else the opponent will go up so the player can't combo anymore) and then once opponent is near the edge or trying to recover, the player uses a down aerial (spike in regular versions and meteor smash in PAL (make sure they hit with the tip or else it won't spike or meteor smash)) and then the opponent will be knocked downward and lose a life.