Captain Falcon in SSBM teams
Hey I’m Moist. When the world wasn’t on fire, I was last seen at 8th on the Tennessee PR for SSBM and I just like doubles a lot. I’m only going to use clips of myself and write about characters I’ve seriously teamed with.
Falcon Overview
Strengths — Good damage output, combos often lead offstage, controls the skies with up air, grab -> knee is great, good MU vs floaties, insane KO pressure at mid percents, quick to help teammates
Weaknesses — Reliant on teammate when offstage, weak OoS, no quick moves from CC to win scrambles, grab reliant, no safe saving moves
Sheik
Sheik is my most played with teammate and she’s part of the best Falcon team, S2J & Shroomed. Sheik brings many things to the table for any doubles team. The most advantageous part of teaming with Sheik is that she can do most of the offstage edgeguarding, and hold the ledge safer than Falcon can.
Sheik can win scramble situations with CC down smash and quick grounded moves like f-tilt and up tilt. Her needles are also great if the the other team is trying play at a slower speed, or if Falcon needs saving from across the stage.
I’ve found that this team is usually going to be playing more defense with their safe aerials until they get enough percent for knockdowns. If Sheik finds a grab, it’s in Falcon’s best interest to try to keep the other player occupied by spacing nairs while Sheik does her down throw combo.
VS Floaties: If either of you find time for throw followups, this team can get huge damage on Peach/Marth/Puff/Sheik just from their normal flowcharts. Team combos are great with Sheik, as most of her grounded moves send at good angles for Falcon to start up air chains or get an early knee.
VS Spacies: Sheik and Falcon’s best option for getting spacies out of crouch cancel percent in singles is tech chasing, which isn’t as reliable in doubles. A spacie team has the speed and pressure to shut Falcon/Sheik out of the game, as their combos don’t require tech chasing and they can rack up damage faster.
Sheik edgeguards are a great equalizer if your team is losing more interactions.
Fox
The Landorus-Therian of Melee dubs, slap him on any team and it’s pretty good. Fox is a great partner that can open up teams with drills, shines, and up smashes to get the crucial early percent for Falcon to start working his magic.
Having a Fox lets Falcon play more of a support role and react to what the opponents are doing instead of making his own plays. This is also a team that can adapt to matchups by putting Falcon up front vs Peach/Marth teams to start spacing nair or overshooting stomp/knee. The risk/reward of Fox approaching those teams and getting KO’d early or taking a bunch of damage is skewed in their favor. Falcon can let Fox take the backseat and jump in when needed for early up smash KOs or combo breaking nairs.
This team shouldn’t have any problems killing in most matchups with Fox being a floaty killer himself along with knee.
A more difficult matchup would be two spacies, as they have stronger pressure and kill as efficiently as this team.
Peach
Peach solves Falcon’s problem of not being able to put on damage easily. Her ability to FC aerial can start pressure at low percents and lets her get early knockdowns. A simple strategy for people trying out this team is to let Peach stay grounded to pressure and let Falcon cover people escaping to platforms with up airs.
Peach adds huge pressure vs other teams, as she’ll win most scuffles and they won’t have the ability to camp her as much in doubles. If the other team is forced into fighting up close , the the team with Peach should come out on top.
She’s great for fighting characters that would like to stay grounded and abuse CC. Even if she gets dash dance grabbed, she takes a long time to combo/edgeguard, giving Falcon time to interrupt.
Characters who can choose to interact with Peach less can give this team a hard time. Puff can get away from Peach’s pressure just by floating away and she can punish down smashes with rest. Falco can take to the platforms if he’s ever cornered and try to play a keep away game. It’s up to Falcon to get him off the platforms or try to 2v1 his teammate.
Jigglypuff
Puff is the one character on this list I wouldn’t recommend teaming with if you play Falcon. Puff can’t really take the role as the aggressor, so it’s always up to Falcon to approach if he can. Outside of rest, Puff would rather fight a slow spacing battle to get early percent, but that leaves Falcon open to getting double teamed.
When this team is ahead by getting rests and edgeguards, it feels great. Falcon can dash dance grab slower characters like Peach/Sheik for early rest KOs.
Crouching Puff is even harder to deal with in doubles for characters that can’t straight up grab her. She’s an insane stock tank when there are no vertical kill moves on the other team. But 40% of melee players main a spacie.
Fox/Falco don’t care about crouching Puff, and she can’t force them to fight her at the ledge like in singles. This makes games vs spacie teams revolve around mowing through stocks faster than the other team.
If the Puff player can’t find rests and the game plays out normally, the team with the spacie can normally take stocks much faster than the Falcon/Puff team. This is especially true vs Fox as his up throw -> up airs and nair -> up smashes are so quick to combo Puff that they’re hard to interrupt.
After losing to double Fox too many times, I switched to Falco for this team which worked out much better for us.
Closing
Falcon has trouble breaking space at low percents. He can fly into a corner with nair/knee, but even if they hit he’d prefer to follow up with a grab. Therefor his best teammates are often ones that can approach with lower commitment followups or do big damage quickly so Falcon can take advantage of his KO pressure.
If you’ve played doubles at all, you know it has a lot of situations that don’t have clear answers. Planned strategies can fall apart within seconds if things don’t start the way you expect them to. That’s why it’s important to have multiple strategies that you can apply whenever the situation allows for it.
Only then will the chemistry with you and your homie determine your X-factor.
