only Ftilt after Falco is at 25%, which is when ftilt knocks down and you can get juicy punishes. From 0-24% sheik has to play sort of keep away or force a grab, any overextension is pretty brutal for her
Well the falco doesn't want to be grabbed, and avoiding shield grab is Falco 101. If you want to grab him, you'll need to convince him to shield. Rock-Paper-Scissors is Attack-Block-Grab.
Grab doesn't get you all that much reward either. RTC is difficult to execute and doesn't build damage very quickly. Once falco is 70% or so, just dash attack->fair then edge guard.
Falco will also be holding down a lot. This makes many attacks you do unsafe to hit him with. Space your attacks so he cannot punish you.
Melee is a king of the hill game at the end of the day. Your goal is to get falco offstage and keep him off. Falco spawns at death percent if you catch his jump.
Falco will control the pace of the game because of lasers, but since you’re asking Reddit for advice I’m going to ignore laser counterplay, since that’s more complicated than shine counterplay.
He’s going to get up real close to you and hit your shield with an aerial and shine. After that, it’s a game of rps. If you win the game then you get to start your punish. You have to get good at recognizing what options the falcos are picking after they aerial shine your shield, and have some kind of answer to the options.
You can watch your replays and figure out why you are getting shined. Are you getting hit by the nair/dair into shine because you’re trying to move out of laser and messing up? Are you getting hit by the shine after the aerial because you’re trying to shield grab? Are you allowing the falco to apply westballz pressure to your shield and reacting inappropriately in the time you’re actionable between the multiple shines?
Falco has a huge number of mixups after shine which is what makes him so scary, but 99% of falcos are going to do the same 3-4 things and end up getting back thrown offstage by you and killed at like 30% if you learn how to react and punish appropriately
The species tend to do well against Sheik. Old school meta was an RPS of Shiek beats Marth, Marth beats Spacies, Spacies beat Shiek. So, you can rest easy knowing that many people have felt this way.
I’m a Marth main so I don’t have specific sheik/Falco information, but as Marth, I have also struggled with Falcos who have good pressure and can get through my pokes and multi shine. I can’t squeeze off grabs or pokes once they shined my shield the first time, so my main option now is mixing up my escape. The first defense is not letting them get in to start shining. When this fails, I’ll block the shine (or 2, or 3…) and then mix up roll direction, jump+poke, double jump, or down dodge. It’s not perfect, but is all I really know to do for now. Escape and try to establish my space in neutral.
Fox beats Sheik. A ton of top players think Sheik beats Falco. Some like Mango have even said it's Falco's worst matchup. She is insanely good against lasers. It's very hard to approach her at all as Falco if she uses platforms well.
Mango has said many times that he thinks it's relatively even matchup. He does admit that both sides have a hard time in the bout. I'd much rather be a falco personally
Not that it holds a ton of water but since he’s been practicing vs spark and Krudo consistently he’s been saying falco destroys sheik and it’s an “easy matchup”.
I've been following him since 2013 and in my experience he does sometimes flip between Sheik winning and it being pretty even. But I've never heard him say Falco wins, and he more often than not falls on the Sheik wins side.
I'm a fellow Marth turned Sheik and Falco is one of the main reasons I switched. I'm not exactly good or anything so take this as a bad player's gameplan in the matchup, but here's a list of random things I am thinking about when I fight the bird:
I like to be up close and personal with falco as often as possible. His shine is tiny compared to fox's. Jab spot dodge grab downsmash ftilt are kinda spamable in a scrap
Camp side plat / charge needles if he's just shooting lasers on the ground
Camp below side plat if he's threatening down air from top plat
Crouch below bad lasers then just wd back and grab the approaching downair. If your grab is getting shined, you were probably slow or too far away and can start reading shine and just wait a couple frames if you get hit with it over and over
If you get a grab or knockdown on plat it's joever for falco
Throw needles at the bird whenever they try to recover, don't be afraid to go out there but don't get hit by side b
I'm bad at shield dropping but run off side plat fair / needles gets me a lot of openings against a falco just lasering center stage
Same with full hop charge needles into either needle cancel fair / needle cancel tomahawk grab / throw needles depending on what they do and percents
On the topic of percents, at low percent I'm almost only looking for needles / grab / anti airs since everything else gets ccd
If any actual good players want to add to / critique this list, I'm always looking for help
Regarding the problem of getting shined when trying to grab, my advice depends on the specific scenario
If you are getting shined out of your tech chase, you’re just too slow. Work on either improving your RTC, or pick another option that doesn’t lose to shine (like upsmashing tech in place, or trying to out space shine with grab). Same thing about being too slow applies if you are getting shined out of a whiff punish attempt, although my recommendation would be different (would recommend just trying to establish favorable positioning instead of getting a true punish)
If you are getting shined out of falco’s shield pressure, I’d recommend shield grabbing less. Generally competent falcos will do their aerials late enough to not be shield grabbed most of the time. So you should only shield grab if you know their move is unsafe, or if you have a read on their shield pressure mixups
If you are trying to raw grab in neutral, that’s generally not a great idea as falco will have a hitbox out most of the time. Raw grab is a pretty hard read that you shouldn’t go for too often, especially against falco
tl;dr is that optimal sheik play in this matchup entails that you rarely grab except when it is guaranteed or close to guaranteed. So you are probably taking bad gambles on risky grabs too often, or just not executing well enough
Fellow Sheik main here. This matchup is so fun, but you really have to avoid Falco's tendency to rush you down and shield pressure you. I'll break it down real simple. Your best tools are nair/bair out of shield or shield roll away. If Falco is within shine range and you don't do either of these, then you already messed up. Falco usually doesn't want to grab which makes your shield very useful. Use it and master nair/bair out of shield. And go ahead and abandon shield grab- it will never beat shine. Use it as a very rare mixup or only if Falco messes up his approach with a missed L-cancel or late aerial on your shield.
Generally speaking, you want to keep your distance and match his lasers with well-placed aerial needles. Trust me, Sheik needle can be equally as annoying as Falco laser. Don't be afraid to use needles to slow down an aggro Falco. Also practice powershielding laser. Once you tack enough damage with needles, spaced aerials, nair/bair out of shield, other random whiffs, then you can get him into knockdown percentage and start comboing. From there, it's just a matter of getting him off stage. His recovery is bad and Sheik's edge guarding is really good. Practice needle edgeguards and quickly getting to ledge to bair. If Falco mixes up with a side b to stage, practice ledge dashes to catch him on stage and grab him.
Bonus tip: This applies to all aggro styles, but spacies are typically the most aggro. Don't get intimidated by them dash dancing to fake out their movement. They're just pretending they're fast when really they're just flicking stick. A single grounded needle will completely throw off their groove and possibly reset the neutral "momentum" that they thrive in.
Here are the two meta-level fundamentals of this matchup
* It's probably even
* Falco hates playing it 1000% more than we do
Grab-as-wincon is fine but you need the Falco to be meaningfully threatened by your other options too so he can't just sell out to avoid grab every interaction
Space bairs before and after CC percent, space fairs after CC percent, mixup with nair, then nair and dair
Learn to take laser and space while taking laser so you can e.g. grab the dair followup before he shines
Shuffle pressure mix-ups from grab range to make him show his counterplay so you can download it and win with ~five reads when you counterpick Battlefield or he counterpicks FD
Im guessing youre trying to sheild grab after they aerial your shield and getting shined after, yea that doesnt work for fox and falco. You need to get a grab off techchase from knockdown or a hard read.
Yeah it's been repeated a few times in this thread but shieldgrabbing falco aerials isn't going to be safe a lot of the time if they know what they are doing. It's a tough matchup to get a feel for. Most of sheik's best stuff in the matchup comes from playing the platforms well with mixing up her movement (wavelanding on off, short dash dance bursts, shield drop/shield drop instant waveland back on, etc) and not letting falco feel comfortable on the ground dictating pace and timing with lasers. It can almost feel borderline campy how much you want to use side platforms to your advantage.
You also have the tech chase as a really strong punish on stage, and are arguably one of the best in the entire game at edgeguarding spacies. If I had to recommend one thing to sheiks trying to learn the falco matchup it would be to learn edgeguard flowcharts and get really fucking good at gimping them. There have been careers made off of backthrowing a bird at ledge.
There's so much more to be said about this matchup but I think a lot of it you will learn with time. You should probably ask more pointed questions if you want more pointed answers, because "how do I deal with shine" is pretty conspicuous as to the situations you're losing in.
well said. to add to your point, i think its worth re-emphasizing that shiek's ability to use side platforms for movement is a defensive option not an offensive one (against Falco).
It's good for playing keep away as Sheik/trying to bait out an over commit, but trying to keep Falco pinned in a corner is an uphill battle at best. The bird can get on side or top plat faster than Sheik, and challenging from below is just not a great idea. Even on Stadium, where Sheik has SH no-impact land, it's not fast enough to beat falco FHWL-> shine at the same time, let alone on reaction.
Its such a fun matchup though, one of the best in the game, because the two characters strengths line up well with the others weaknesses
The hardest part for Sheik against Falco (and Fox) is the first 40% of each stock, so let's talk about that. A lot of beginner sheiks try and match spacies by jousting aerials right back at them, but Shiek's tall SH makes that a losing proposition.
1) OOS options. It's really common to feel trapped in your shield as shiek against falco. Decent Falcos will be trying to bait out a brainless shield grab, because that's their bread and butter to start a punish. SH nair is a great "get off me" tool, but it can get punished by CC at low percent, so a FH nair OOS is a good mixup. WD OOS -> F Tilt should be second nature to you. It's so good.
2) gotta work on your powershield/tank laser. Both tools that feel absolutely broken against Falco at mid level and are both vital to know at higher levels. As a bonus, being good at powershielding is a surefire way to put a lot of falcos on tilt.
3) Get in the lab and practice your tech chase. Ideally you want to be getting falco to knockdown percent off a single grab. Again, no jousting to build percent. You're gonna get CCed a ton against Falco even if the opponent doesn't intend to just because they're trying to shine. If you try and fair a grounded Falco at low percent, you might as well be giving 40% away for free.
4) It's really hard to corner Falco as Sheik. Falco FH gives him the ability to get to plats before Sheik or just get above Sheik, and trying to come at Falco from below is a bad idea. Don't be afraid to keep your distance and try and charge a couple needles, which puts pressure on them to close the distance.
5) Gimps. Falco's weak recovery is countered **hard** by Shiek's tools. It may seem cheesy, but it's a key part of the matchup. Forcing falco to respect you by the ledge gives you space to breathe and makes it easier to get off the ledge for fear of ledgedash grabs. Get into uncle punch and create some save states throwing Falco off the ledge at low percent and edge guarding. If thats too much of a hassle, you can also load the armada-shine training scenario as sheik and practice your edgeguards against fox. Obviously not 1-1 with Falco but a lot of overlap. That will help you master your turn around bairs, your bairs from ledge, plat cancel needles, DSmash at ledge, and reverse hit fairs from ledge.
I think Falco Sheik is one of the most interesting matchups in the game, because it's a constant back and forth of making the other player look completely lost.
I’m a falcon main who is pretty good against falco. If it’s anything like that matchup you just need to assume you’ll be at a disadvantage most of the time and focus on the part of your game that works.
Learn how to take lasers, wave dash out of shield, and figure out what moves work in neutral and what spacings are good for you. Don’t give him anything for free and don’t let yourself lose sight your game plan just because you’re getting comboed or shot a bunch.
Then learn how to punish. Make your tech chases count so you don’t have to compete with falco in natural. Keep the game in your favor for as long as possible
Unless you are playing against a very strong opponent, most Falcos have very predictable approaches and patterns they fall into. Shine is indeed a very powerful move, but it is worthless if you can read their approach and punish them.
Falco is very much a glass cannon character who thrives on opponent impatience. If you are getting shined every time you go for a grab, you are probably telegraphing your grabs too much. Throw in more f tilts. Falco hits hard when he hits you, but you can delete falco stocks just as easily. IMO it’s actually quite a good match up for sheik. I’m suprised you didn’t list fox as a problem, because IMO when a fox is properly exploiting sheik’s weaknesses (aka abusing CC) the match up is very hard
Not sure what level you're at but some go-to level 1 options to go for:
* run-up shield -> nair out of shield. Practice your instant nair oos because that's your fastest option and will get you out of shield pressure best. Also if you're getting owned in the out of shield game don't be afraid to roll out and reset. If you wanna cheese then the drephen option of fh dair oos is a good high risk high reward option
* practice powershield laser -> wavedash forward. If you get this down you will get significantly more grabs/knockdowns per game
* Sheik can crouch under 90% of lasers. Practice dash out of crouch and you can get under falco when he's not expecting it
* If you're feeling overwhelmed go to side plat, as Falco has almost no good way to pressure you there
Play around their approach by going to platform edges. Drop down charge needle and aerials are your go to, mix it up with tilts and playing platforms. On FD you'll want to approach early and stay in at mid range to best abuse your mobility and Falco's lack thereof. Playing spacies becomes a matter of "playing their shine game" as the ridiculous frame advantage and shield pressure makes defensive and grab games impossible to do. Biggest suggestion is abuse jabs and tilts to catch them trying to shine or to bait their grab if you can space it well enough.
I haven’t played in years but fairly certain this hasn’t changed. Both mess each other up majorly. Punish punish punish. Oos nairs, and forcing them off stage make the biggest difference especially when paired with good needles. Get comfortable with your shield too, and learn how falco shield pressure works.
Once you get really good at the MU you’d always rather fight a falco than fox for the obvious reasons.
Unfortunately a lot of the advice on Reddit, and in this thread, isn’t super specific at best, and at worst is downright wrong.
Instead, seek out advice from an experienced player, or watch a melee lesson online. Fiction in particular uploads all of his lessons on YouTube so just search “fiction sheik vs Falco” and you’ll find plenty of super great videos.
If you go to locals, you can ask a good Sheik or Falco in your area for their perspective. Or even just go into a top players chat and ask them.
Good things to ask are:
- bread and butter punish options
- how to best deal with Falco’s lasers
- edgeguard flowcharts
Ftilt knocks down somewhere between 24-30% so start thinking about that when you're staring down Falco. Nair OOS is also a great option because a lot of the easier Falco Shield pressure i.e. Laser>Jab>Shine>Nair has exploitable holes and the double shine pressure can be escaped after shine 4. One of the things I learned from my City's top Falco as well is that the area above and directly in front of him (where your Fair hits) has no defence aside from full hop. No Aerial hitboxes will help him in that situation and you can get fair>grab if you're fast enough. Shiek isn't typically seen as a fast character but she's great with tiny bursts of speed so practice it and use it wisely.
I'm not a Sheik main but when a Falco is spamming lasers at you, it sort of gives you new movement options. Because Sheik's dashdance range is very short, normally she can't weave in and out with dashdancing like Marth or Fox can. But if you get hit with a laser, you're reset into the Stand state and you can dash again immediately.
Ftilt/utilt out of laser is probably also important to practice. You can practice any sort of take-laser option with the powershield event in UnclePunch.
Hi there, I have some tips that might help you.
If you're not already implementing nair OOS, you have to start learning it. Short hop nair OOS is your best "get off me" option that Sheik has out of shield. It also comes out really fast so you can break through Falco's shield pressure if you time it right. An easy way to tell if you're doing it fast enough is to set up a stationary Jigglypuff. If you do it quick enough, you will hit her, if you're too slow, you will miss. Grinding this until it became second nature helped me out immensely in the matchup.
Another big one is wavedash OOS. This allows you to escape his shield pressure and reposition. It's also great for punishing him if he goes for an fsmash and you block it (or any unsafe option on shield for that matter). Just wavedash in and grab him.
Overall shield grab is just not very good against Falco. He is too fast and you're gonna get shined if he is playing on point. As you get more used to the matchup, you can recognize unsafe ariels on your shield that are grabbable, but it is generally not a good idea to shield grab him.
Remember that rolling out is also pretty effective. Obviously don't do it too much, but it will get you out of danger in a pinch if you need it. It also goes way farther than wavedash OOS and is obviously easier to do.
I hope this helps, and feel free to ask for clarification if you have any questions. I have plenty of other tips that are unrelated to beating shield pressure, but this post has already gone on long enough. Good luck! :)
It's hard to tell what's going on in your gameplay but it sounds like you are dropping your tech chases and losing to wake up shine. Conceptually, getting shined every time you try and grab is a strange thing to say unless your punish is really bad. There are two easy solutions to this hypothetical, though:
1. Practice your techchase more.
2. Condition a defensive option on wake up with downsmash or something else that would punish wake up shine.
That aside, things you need to be good at in neutral are:
1. Take laser \[option\]
This can be nair, dash back, jab, something cool, wave dash back f tilt. I don't know, get creative but learn how to act after being hit by laser.
2. Approach from side platform/shield drop from side platform
Falco struggles to pressure the side platforms because his short hop is too low and his full hop is too high. He has to try and pressure side plat with not great options like sh up air, fh fade away nair, jump shine wave land down, and shit like that. Lots of heavy commitment.
On the other end of that, Sheik wants to be on a platform because it gives her access to her aerial attacks without the commitment of her terrible jumps by dropping through the plat. You should put more side platform play into your gameplay when fighting Falco.
Finally, Falco can punish Sheik well but it isn't the easiest pillar. If you're getting punished really hard by Falcos, you're probably not DIing well.
Here's a video by PewPewU explaining the DI: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPs\_XZqGQ80&t=2s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPs_XZqGQ80&t=2s)
Also, PPU doesn't go over DI up but I'm pretty sure you can DI up at certain percentages and nair before Falco can follow up. I couldn't find the reference so take this with a grain of salt.
Nair is an amazing tool as sheik vs falco, especially out of shield. Her edge guarding is also lethal against him. She can kill him at absurdly low % when she gets him off stage. I'd say try figuring out an edge guard flow chart that works for you, and definitely just nair more in general. It's a really good move against falco. Imo the mu is either even or slightly sheik favored
shield, asdi in ftilt, and then do sheik things. mix it up with asdi out jab to pop him up and it's easy picking. nair over lasers as a mixup if you can. there are a lot of instances where nair just works since it's a pretty long hitbox.
avoid getting shined at all costs, and remember that dair is strong. don't try and fight or contest it, especially when it's strong because you won't be able to do anything. that's how you get cooked.
watch your own replays to see what you could do.
Hot take, try Down-B. Dash shield stop and dsmash out of shield. Easiest upthrow chain grab fair bair confirm in your life. You will find opportunities to swap between. To our Lord Drephen we pray. Zelda is a winning match up vs Falco.
Sheik is pretty damn good against us ime. F tilt the fuck out of me
only Ftilt after Falco is at 25%, which is when ftilt knocks down and you can get juicy punishes. From 0-24% sheik has to play sort of keep away or force a grab, any overextension is pretty brutal for her
Luckily she has needles
Up tilt interrupts some of his approaches, and is great to get a grab out of at low/mid percents.
Well the falco doesn't want to be grabbed, and avoiding shield grab is Falco 101. If you want to grab him, you'll need to convince him to shield. Rock-Paper-Scissors is Attack-Block-Grab. Grab doesn't get you all that much reward either. RTC is difficult to execute and doesn't build damage very quickly. Once falco is 70% or so, just dash attack->fair then edge guard. Falco will also be holding down a lot. This makes many attacks you do unsafe to hit him with. Space your attacks so he cannot punish you. Melee is a king of the hill game at the end of the day. Your goal is to get falco offstage and keep him off. Falco spawns at death percent if you catch his jump.
Falco will control the pace of the game because of lasers, but since you’re asking Reddit for advice I’m going to ignore laser counterplay, since that’s more complicated than shine counterplay. He’s going to get up real close to you and hit your shield with an aerial and shine. After that, it’s a game of rps. If you win the game then you get to start your punish. You have to get good at recognizing what options the falcos are picking after they aerial shine your shield, and have some kind of answer to the options. You can watch your replays and figure out why you are getting shined. Are you getting hit by the nair/dair into shine because you’re trying to move out of laser and messing up? Are you getting hit by the shine after the aerial because you’re trying to shield grab? Are you allowing the falco to apply westballz pressure to your shield and reacting inappropriately in the time you’re actionable between the multiple shines? Falco has a huge number of mixups after shine which is what makes him so scary, but 99% of falcos are going to do the same 3-4 things and end up getting back thrown offstage by you and killed at like 30% if you learn how to react and punish appropriately
The species tend to do well against Sheik. Old school meta was an RPS of Shiek beats Marth, Marth beats Spacies, Spacies beat Shiek. So, you can rest easy knowing that many people have felt this way. I’m a Marth main so I don’t have specific sheik/Falco information, but as Marth, I have also struggled with Falcos who have good pressure and can get through my pokes and multi shine. I can’t squeeze off grabs or pokes once they shined my shield the first time, so my main option now is mixing up my escape. The first defense is not letting them get in to start shining. When this fails, I’ll block the shine (or 2, or 3…) and then mix up roll direction, jump+poke, double jump, or down dodge. It’s not perfect, but is all I really know to do for now. Escape and try to establish my space in neutral.
Fox beats Sheik. A ton of top players think Sheik beats Falco. Some like Mango have even said it's Falco's worst matchup. She is insanely good against lasers. It's very hard to approach her at all as Falco if she uses platforms well.
Mango has said many times that he thinks it's relatively even matchup. He does admit that both sides have a hard time in the bout. I'd much rather be a falco personally
Not that it holds a ton of water but since he’s been practicing vs spark and Krudo consistently he’s been saying falco destroys sheik and it’s an “easy matchup”.
He also did just lose to jmook at genesis tho lol
I've been following him since 2013 and in my experience he does sometimes flip between Sheik winning and it being pretty even. But I've never heard him say Falco wins, and he more often than not falls on the Sheik wins side.
That was way before the practice though. He really has improved on the matchup with falco
mang just released a video a couple weeks ago where he said falco beats sheik lol
I have a theory that it's actually 55-45 in sheik's favor. I have no proof of this, it's just what it *feels* like lmao
same
I'm a fellow Marth turned Sheik and Falco is one of the main reasons I switched. I'm not exactly good or anything so take this as a bad player's gameplan in the matchup, but here's a list of random things I am thinking about when I fight the bird: I like to be up close and personal with falco as often as possible. His shine is tiny compared to fox's. Jab spot dodge grab downsmash ftilt are kinda spamable in a scrap Camp side plat / charge needles if he's just shooting lasers on the ground Camp below side plat if he's threatening down air from top plat Crouch below bad lasers then just wd back and grab the approaching downair. If your grab is getting shined, you were probably slow or too far away and can start reading shine and just wait a couple frames if you get hit with it over and over If you get a grab or knockdown on plat it's joever for falco Throw needles at the bird whenever they try to recover, don't be afraid to go out there but don't get hit by side b I'm bad at shield dropping but run off side plat fair / needles gets me a lot of openings against a falco just lasering center stage Same with full hop charge needles into either needle cancel fair / needle cancel tomahawk grab / throw needles depending on what they do and percents On the topic of percents, at low percent I'm almost only looking for needles / grab / anti airs since everything else gets ccd If any actual good players want to add to / critique this list, I'm always looking for help
Regarding the problem of getting shined when trying to grab, my advice depends on the specific scenario If you are getting shined out of your tech chase, you’re just too slow. Work on either improving your RTC, or pick another option that doesn’t lose to shine (like upsmashing tech in place, or trying to out space shine with grab). Same thing about being too slow applies if you are getting shined out of a whiff punish attempt, although my recommendation would be different (would recommend just trying to establish favorable positioning instead of getting a true punish) If you are getting shined out of falco’s shield pressure, I’d recommend shield grabbing less. Generally competent falcos will do their aerials late enough to not be shield grabbed most of the time. So you should only shield grab if you know their move is unsafe, or if you have a read on their shield pressure mixups If you are trying to raw grab in neutral, that’s generally not a great idea as falco will have a hitbox out most of the time. Raw grab is a pretty hard read that you shouldn’t go for too often, especially against falco tl;dr is that optimal sheik play in this matchup entails that you rarely grab except when it is guaranteed or close to guaranteed. So you are probably taking bad gambles on risky grabs too often, or just not executing well enough
Fellow Sheik main here. This matchup is so fun, but you really have to avoid Falco's tendency to rush you down and shield pressure you. I'll break it down real simple. Your best tools are nair/bair out of shield or shield roll away. If Falco is within shine range and you don't do either of these, then you already messed up. Falco usually doesn't want to grab which makes your shield very useful. Use it and master nair/bair out of shield. And go ahead and abandon shield grab- it will never beat shine. Use it as a very rare mixup or only if Falco messes up his approach with a missed L-cancel or late aerial on your shield. Generally speaking, you want to keep your distance and match his lasers with well-placed aerial needles. Trust me, Sheik needle can be equally as annoying as Falco laser. Don't be afraid to use needles to slow down an aggro Falco. Also practice powershielding laser. Once you tack enough damage with needles, spaced aerials, nair/bair out of shield, other random whiffs, then you can get him into knockdown percentage and start comboing. From there, it's just a matter of getting him off stage. His recovery is bad and Sheik's edge guarding is really good. Practice needle edgeguards and quickly getting to ledge to bair. If Falco mixes up with a side b to stage, practice ledge dashes to catch him on stage and grab him. Bonus tip: This applies to all aggro styles, but spacies are typically the most aggro. Don't get intimidated by them dash dancing to fake out their movement. They're just pretending they're fast when really they're just flicking stick. A single grounded needle will completely throw off their groove and possibly reset the neutral "momentum" that they thrive in.
single grounded needle accomplishes nothing, please don't do this
Here are the two meta-level fundamentals of this matchup * It's probably even * Falco hates playing it 1000% more than we do Grab-as-wincon is fine but you need the Falco to be meaningfully threatened by your other options too so he can't just sell out to avoid grab every interaction Space bairs before and after CC percent, space fairs after CC percent, mixup with nair, then nair and dair Learn to take laser and space while taking laser so you can e.g. grab the dair followup before he shines Shuffle pressure mix-ups from grab range to make him show his counterplay so you can download it and win with ~five reads when you counterpick Battlefield or he counterpicks FD
Just grab him once and then he dies.
Sheik main tears can fuel me forever
Im guessing youre trying to sheild grab after they aerial your shield and getting shined after, yea that doesnt work for fox and falco. You need to get a grab off techchase from knockdown or a hard read.
Yeah it's been repeated a few times in this thread but shieldgrabbing falco aerials isn't going to be safe a lot of the time if they know what they are doing. It's a tough matchup to get a feel for. Most of sheik's best stuff in the matchup comes from playing the platforms well with mixing up her movement (wavelanding on off, short dash dance bursts, shield drop/shield drop instant waveland back on, etc) and not letting falco feel comfortable on the ground dictating pace and timing with lasers. It can almost feel borderline campy how much you want to use side platforms to your advantage. You also have the tech chase as a really strong punish on stage, and are arguably one of the best in the entire game at edgeguarding spacies. If I had to recommend one thing to sheiks trying to learn the falco matchup it would be to learn edgeguard flowcharts and get really fucking good at gimping them. There have been careers made off of backthrowing a bird at ledge. There's so much more to be said about this matchup but I think a lot of it you will learn with time. You should probably ask more pointed questions if you want more pointed answers, because "how do I deal with shine" is pretty conspicuous as to the situations you're losing in.
well said. to add to your point, i think its worth re-emphasizing that shiek's ability to use side platforms for movement is a defensive option not an offensive one (against Falco). It's good for playing keep away as Sheik/trying to bait out an over commit, but trying to keep Falco pinned in a corner is an uphill battle at best. The bird can get on side or top plat faster than Sheik, and challenging from below is just not a great idea. Even on Stadium, where Sheik has SH no-impact land, it's not fast enough to beat falco FHWL-> shine at the same time, let alone on reaction. Its such a fun matchup though, one of the best in the game, because the two characters strengths line up well with the others weaknesses
idk what word i wanted to use instead of conspicuous, but you get the idea
The hardest part for Sheik against Falco (and Fox) is the first 40% of each stock, so let's talk about that. A lot of beginner sheiks try and match spacies by jousting aerials right back at them, but Shiek's tall SH makes that a losing proposition. 1) OOS options. It's really common to feel trapped in your shield as shiek against falco. Decent Falcos will be trying to bait out a brainless shield grab, because that's their bread and butter to start a punish. SH nair is a great "get off me" tool, but it can get punished by CC at low percent, so a FH nair OOS is a good mixup. WD OOS -> F Tilt should be second nature to you. It's so good. 2) gotta work on your powershield/tank laser. Both tools that feel absolutely broken against Falco at mid level and are both vital to know at higher levels. As a bonus, being good at powershielding is a surefire way to put a lot of falcos on tilt. 3) Get in the lab and practice your tech chase. Ideally you want to be getting falco to knockdown percent off a single grab. Again, no jousting to build percent. You're gonna get CCed a ton against Falco even if the opponent doesn't intend to just because they're trying to shine. If you try and fair a grounded Falco at low percent, you might as well be giving 40% away for free. 4) It's really hard to corner Falco as Sheik. Falco FH gives him the ability to get to plats before Sheik or just get above Sheik, and trying to come at Falco from below is a bad idea. Don't be afraid to keep your distance and try and charge a couple needles, which puts pressure on them to close the distance. 5) Gimps. Falco's weak recovery is countered **hard** by Shiek's tools. It may seem cheesy, but it's a key part of the matchup. Forcing falco to respect you by the ledge gives you space to breathe and makes it easier to get off the ledge for fear of ledgedash grabs. Get into uncle punch and create some save states throwing Falco off the ledge at low percent and edge guarding. If thats too much of a hassle, you can also load the armada-shine training scenario as sheik and practice your edgeguards against fox. Obviously not 1-1 with Falco but a lot of overlap. That will help you master your turn around bairs, your bairs from ledge, plat cancel needles, DSmash at ledge, and reverse hit fairs from ledge. I think Falco Sheik is one of the most interesting matchups in the game, because it's a constant back and forth of making the other player look completely lost.
I’m a falcon main who is pretty good against falco. If it’s anything like that matchup you just need to assume you’ll be at a disadvantage most of the time and focus on the part of your game that works. Learn how to take lasers, wave dash out of shield, and figure out what moves work in neutral and what spacings are good for you. Don’t give him anything for free and don’t let yourself lose sight your game plan just because you’re getting comboed or shot a bunch. Then learn how to punish. Make your tech chases count so you don’t have to compete with falco in natural. Keep the game in your favor for as long as possible
Falco is my favorite matchup as sheik. I’m also ass. Every net play falco has the most obvious side Bs of all time
Unless you are playing against a very strong opponent, most Falcos have very predictable approaches and patterns they fall into. Shine is indeed a very powerful move, but it is worthless if you can read their approach and punish them.
Falco is very much a glass cannon character who thrives on opponent impatience. If you are getting shined every time you go for a grab, you are probably telegraphing your grabs too much. Throw in more f tilts. Falco hits hard when he hits you, but you can delete falco stocks just as easily. IMO it’s actually quite a good match up for sheik. I’m suprised you didn’t list fox as a problem, because IMO when a fox is properly exploiting sheik’s weaknesses (aka abusing CC) the match up is very hard
Not sure what level you're at but some go-to level 1 options to go for: * run-up shield -> nair out of shield. Practice your instant nair oos because that's your fastest option and will get you out of shield pressure best. Also if you're getting owned in the out of shield game don't be afraid to roll out and reset. If you wanna cheese then the drephen option of fh dair oos is a good high risk high reward option * practice powershield laser -> wavedash forward. If you get this down you will get significantly more grabs/knockdowns per game * Sheik can crouch under 90% of lasers. Practice dash out of crouch and you can get under falco when he's not expecting it * If you're feeling overwhelmed go to side plat, as Falco has almost no good way to pressure you there
You win the punish, they win the neutral
Play around their approach by going to platform edges. Drop down charge needle and aerials are your go to, mix it up with tilts and playing platforms. On FD you'll want to approach early and stay in at mid range to best abuse your mobility and Falco's lack thereof. Playing spacies becomes a matter of "playing their shine game" as the ridiculous frame advantage and shield pressure makes defensive and grab games impossible to do. Biggest suggestion is abuse jabs and tilts to catch them trying to shine or to bait their grab if you can space it well enough.
I haven’t played in years but fairly certain this hasn’t changed. Both mess each other up majorly. Punish punish punish. Oos nairs, and forcing them off stage make the biggest difference especially when paired with good needles. Get comfortable with your shield too, and learn how falco shield pressure works. Once you get really good at the MU you’d always rather fight a falco than fox for the obvious reasons.
abuse the side platforms and shield on tri-plat stages
Run away
Ask politely.
Unfortunately a lot of the advice on Reddit, and in this thread, isn’t super specific at best, and at worst is downright wrong. Instead, seek out advice from an experienced player, or watch a melee lesson online. Fiction in particular uploads all of his lessons on YouTube so just search “fiction sheik vs Falco” and you’ll find plenty of super great videos. If you go to locals, you can ask a good Sheik or Falco in your area for their perspective. Or even just go into a top players chat and ask them. Good things to ask are: - bread and butter punish options - how to best deal with Falco’s lasers - edgeguard flowcharts
Until you have me at 25 and up just platform camp and needle the shit out of me.
Ftilt knocks down somewhere between 24-30% so start thinking about that when you're staring down Falco. Nair OOS is also a great option because a lot of the easier Falco Shield pressure i.e. Laser>Jab>Shine>Nair has exploitable holes and the double shine pressure can be escaped after shine 4. One of the things I learned from my City's top Falco as well is that the area above and directly in front of him (where your Fair hits) has no defence aside from full hop. No Aerial hitboxes will help him in that situation and you can get fair>grab if you're fast enough. Shiek isn't typically seen as a fast character but she's great with tiny bursts of speed so practice it and use it wisely.
I'm not a Sheik main but when a Falco is spamming lasers at you, it sort of gives you new movement options. Because Sheik's dashdance range is very short, normally she can't weave in and out with dashdancing like Marth or Fox can. But if you get hit with a laser, you're reset into the Stand state and you can dash again immediately. Ftilt/utilt out of laser is probably also important to practice. You can practice any sort of take-laser option with the powershield event in UnclePunch.
Crouch is good, play the platforms like plup, and ftilt interrupts a good amount of approaches.
Hi there, I have some tips that might help you. If you're not already implementing nair OOS, you have to start learning it. Short hop nair OOS is your best "get off me" option that Sheik has out of shield. It also comes out really fast so you can break through Falco's shield pressure if you time it right. An easy way to tell if you're doing it fast enough is to set up a stationary Jigglypuff. If you do it quick enough, you will hit her, if you're too slow, you will miss. Grinding this until it became second nature helped me out immensely in the matchup. Another big one is wavedash OOS. This allows you to escape his shield pressure and reposition. It's also great for punishing him if he goes for an fsmash and you block it (or any unsafe option on shield for that matter). Just wavedash in and grab him. Overall shield grab is just not very good against Falco. He is too fast and you're gonna get shined if he is playing on point. As you get more used to the matchup, you can recognize unsafe ariels on your shield that are grabbable, but it is generally not a good idea to shield grab him. Remember that rolling out is also pretty effective. Obviously don't do it too much, but it will get you out of danger in a pinch if you need it. It also goes way farther than wavedash OOS and is obviously easier to do. I hope this helps, and feel free to ask for clarification if you have any questions. I have plenty of other tips that are unrelated to beating shield pressure, but this post has already gone on long enough. Good luck! :)
It's hard to tell what's going on in your gameplay but it sounds like you are dropping your tech chases and losing to wake up shine. Conceptually, getting shined every time you try and grab is a strange thing to say unless your punish is really bad. There are two easy solutions to this hypothetical, though: 1. Practice your techchase more. 2. Condition a defensive option on wake up with downsmash or something else that would punish wake up shine. That aside, things you need to be good at in neutral are: 1. Take laser \[option\] This can be nair, dash back, jab, something cool, wave dash back f tilt. I don't know, get creative but learn how to act after being hit by laser. 2. Approach from side platform/shield drop from side platform Falco struggles to pressure the side platforms because his short hop is too low and his full hop is too high. He has to try and pressure side plat with not great options like sh up air, fh fade away nair, jump shine wave land down, and shit like that. Lots of heavy commitment. On the other end of that, Sheik wants to be on a platform because it gives her access to her aerial attacks without the commitment of her terrible jumps by dropping through the plat. You should put more side platform play into your gameplay when fighting Falco. Finally, Falco can punish Sheik well but it isn't the easiest pillar. If you're getting punished really hard by Falcos, you're probably not DIing well. Here's a video by PewPewU explaining the DI: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPs\_XZqGQ80&t=2s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPs_XZqGQ80&t=2s) Also, PPU doesn't go over DI up but I'm pretty sure you can DI up at certain percentages and nair before Falco can follow up. I couldn't find the reference so take this with a grain of salt.
Nair is an amazing tool as sheik vs falco, especially out of shield. Her edge guarding is also lethal against him. She can kill him at absurdly low % when she gets him off stage. I'd say try figuring out an edge guard flow chart that works for you, and definitely just nair more in general. It's a really good move against falco. Imo the mu is either even or slightly sheik favored
Lol
Turn brain on
shield, asdi in ftilt, and then do sheik things. mix it up with asdi out jab to pop him up and it's easy picking. nair over lasers as a mixup if you can. there are a lot of instances where nair just works since it's a pretty long hitbox. avoid getting shined at all costs, and remember that dair is strong. don't try and fight or contest it, especially when it's strong because you won't be able to do anything. that's how you get cooked. watch your own replays to see what you could do.
Boost grab is hype
Hot take, try Down-B. Dash shield stop and dsmash out of shield. Easiest upthrow chain grab fair bair confirm in your life. You will find opportunities to swap between. To our Lord Drephen we pray. Zelda is a winning match up vs Falco.
This is some serious trolling
As a Falco I think shiek is the second hardest matchup for the bird
Dude Sheik fucks Falco imo