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Captain Falcon

Jab1 (-11), Jab2 (-10) & Jab3 (-20):
NAir (Frame 7)
GSA (Frame 9)

Rapid Jab Finisher (-39):
FSmash (Frame 26)

FTilt (-13):
GSA (Frame 9)
USmash (Frame 10)

UTilt (-12):
GSA (Frame 9)
USmash (Frame 10)

DTilt (-13):
GSA (Frame 9)
USmash (Frame 10)
(Can be spaced out)

Dash Attack (-13):
GSA (Frame 9)
USmash (Frame 10)
(Can cross up)

FSmash (-27):
FSmash (Frame 26)

USmash (-7):
NAir (Frame 7)

DSmash (-19/-7):
NAir (Frame 7)

NAir (-4):
Unpunishable
(Safe on shield)

The Glorious Knee of Justice (-11/-15):
GSA (Frame 9)
USmash (Frame 10)

BAir (-5):
Unpunishable
(Safe on shield)

UAir (-6):
Unpunishable
(Safe on shield)

DAir (-7):
NAir (Frame 7)

Falcon Punch (-28):
FSmash (Frame 26)

Raptor Boost (-12):
GSA (Frame 9)
USmash (Frame 10)

Falcon Dive (--):
Command Grab

Falcon Kick (-51 Grounded, -25 Aerial):
GSA (Frame 9)
USmash (Frame 10)
Grab (Frame 16)
DSmash (Frame 20)
(The grounded version can cross up. Punish by dropping shield and dashing after him)

• Neutral Moves: Aerials, Tilts, Jab, Grab, Falcon Dive, Raptor Boost, Falcon Kick, USmash.

• Combo Starters: NAir, Grab, UAir, DAir, BAir, Raptor Boost.

• Kill Moves: FAir, BAir, UAir, Tilts, Smash Attacks, Specials.

• Kill Confirms: DAir > FAir, UAir/NAir1 > FAir, NAir1 > DAir/FAir.

• Captain Falcon plays a bait and punish style of gameplay. Using his speed, he uses implied threats and intimidation to force options/commitments, in which he punishes with his combo game.

• Young Link generally has the edge vs bait and punish characters (Sheik, Greninja, Inkling) in neutral in that Young Link doesn’t have to close the distance and can play farther away with projectiles at all % situations.

• Compared to Captain Falcon’s run, his dash isn’t used as much. Captain Falcon wants to maximize his speed to play to his gameplan of inciting anticipation and guessing. At burst range, he mainly uses his burst options, jump, Aerials, and Grab.

• The reason that Captain Falcon’s turnaround is bad is because it extends his hurtbox more than any other character in the game. This means he won’t dash dance/dash back like most characters. He’ll often have to jump back, which limits his ground game.

• Captain Falcon approaches in the air through diagonal angles. His attributes allow him to jump over Boomerang, which has a limited angle upwards.

• Boomerang can go higher with jumps, but a key point in this MU’s neutral is mixing between Boomerang covering at a lower angle, or opting for NAir/FAir/BAir/UAir to cover the higher diagonal angles.

• Of these, UAir and FAir are the most reliable for their disjoint, as NAir/BAir can lose to Captain Falcon’s NAir. Opt for NAir to stuff out attacks and for a horizontal hitbox.

• Captain Falcon's approach at short hop height can still pressure effectively with landing NAir/BAir, both of which are safe on shield and clank with projectiles.

• Captain Falcon thrives off of speed for panic/anticipation purposes. When approaching at both the full hop and short hop height, he has access to safe options and mix-ups which already deepen neutral. But his speed can incite panic alongside giving the opponent less time to mix-up/call out his option choice.

• Captain Falcon’s landing DAir is one of his reliable kill confirm options, confirming into BAir/FAir. His DAir has a 16 Frame startup, but with his airspeed, he can position DAir reliably, despite the startup.

• As a full hop landing mix-up, DAir is effective due to Captain Falcon’s speed, which is fast enough so that as a mix-up, Captain Falcon can hit Young Link with DAir before his UAir starts. Get a strong idea for the height at which UAir can beat Captain Falcon landing with DAir. If UAir can’t be active in time, opt for shielding the move directly above and punishing out of shield, or dashback and punish the landing.

• Fire Arrow covers the ground well against Captain Falcon, covering his grounded burst options. It conditions jump, which Captain Falcon likes to approach at (diagonal angles).

• Boomerang is Young Link’s main anti-jump projectile, but Captain Falcon can reliably jump over it. Mix up commitments to Boomerang. If Captain Falcon is going to jump over it, sometimes opt to cover his landing directly with UTilt/UAir.
  

• Bombs can be used similarly to Fire Arrow, in that they can condition Falcon to jump. Falcon can’t Falcon Kick/Raptor Boost through them. Although Bomb Pull is a risk with how Falcon can approach quickly within the timeframe of a bomb pull.

• Captain Falcon’s USmash leads to juggling situations and is quite safe on shield for a Smash Attack, alongside doing heavy shield damage, making it one of his neutral tools.

• Captain Falcon’s Dash Attack is both a kill move, and the weak hit can set up for hit advantage situations. It’s one of his burst options at close range, and is used to condition shield to lead to Grabs in later neutral scenarios. It can also cross up.

• Raptor Boost is one of Captain Falcon’s burst option special moves. It beats out projectiles and can be used to whiff punish/catch dashbacks. Raptor Boost is one of Captain Falcon’s high reward combo starters, thus it’s commonplace in his gameplay. It can be punished with GSA out of shield.

• Captain Falcon can opt to use short hop Raptor Boost instead of grounded. This foregoes combo potential for shield safety, since Captain Falcon can drift back after hitting shield.

• Raptor Boost has 12% super armor in 1v1 on Frames 1-4 of the hit. This armor is notably beaten by FTilt, Dash Attack, and smash Boomerang.

• One tech that Captain Falcon has with Raptor Boost is SCARB (shield cancel aerial raptor boost). When landing with a sh backflip or a full hop, there is a 2-frame/1-frame window respectively to shield cancel aerial Raptor Boost, making it +5 on shield.

• Falcon Kick is Captain Falcon’s second burst special option. It can cross up and has kill power. Falcon Kick has both an aerial and grounded version. In neutral, he mainly sticks to the grounded variant. It moves fast, so the move will have to be anticipated at high %s.

• Falcon Kick can clank with Fire Arrow.

• Captain Falcon’s out of shield game lacks the speed to consistently deal with Young Link's shield pressure. His fastest options are NAir (which is awkward at times rising), and UAir at Frame 10. Shield pressure up close is strong vs Captain Falcon.

• Falcon Dive is Frame 14, which doesn’t make it fast out of shield, but it is a Command Grab. He can use Falcon Dive to hard punish shielding. With it's speed and decent killpower, Captain Falcon can use his Falcon Dive to punish habitual/panic shielding. It can be punished by spotdodging.

• Captain Falcon can mix up his landing position after a Falcon Dive whiff due to his airspeed and drift. Be patient when punishing it.

Boxing

(How do I escape this situation?):

• Captain Falcon can safely pressure in the corner with moves such as NAir, BAir, and DTilt.

• Captain Falcon’s goal when boxing is to incite intimidation/anticipation. Because of his speed, he can be at any position within a short amount of time, thus the opponent has to respect multiple options when Captain Falcon is approaching.

• By forcing guesses, Captain Falcon can play to his strengths as a bait and punish character.

• For this reason, projectiles from the corner are committal in the face of a fast character like Captain Falcon (unless a Bomb is already in hand).

• Captain Falcon can call out shields with Falcon Dive in the corner. Because panic shield is a common option when fear/anticipation is incited, he can capitalize this. This forces defensive movement/spotdodge around it, which means the opponent won’t be shielding his aerials, creating a cycle of conditioning.

• Captain Falcon can use Raptor Boost and Falcon Kick to catch dashbacks/landing lag in corner pressure. These options condition shield in anticipation.

• Captain Falcon’s DSmash sends at a low angle with high knockback, and can be used as a hard read on a grounded option. The second hit is safe for a smash attack at -7.

Landing

(How do they cover it? What are my best options?):

• DI out on Captain Falcon’s DThrow combos, or use NAir as a combo breaker to minimize damage taken. Captain Falcon can frametrap airdodge, but he can end combos with Falcon Dive if airdodge is not used. This forces 50/50s.

• Captain Falcon’s USmash can be used on a fast fall NAir/airdodge read to kill early, and is unpunishable for doing so.

• DI UAir down and away to prevent it from killing off of the top until extreme %s.

• DAir can beat UAir and USmash. Space the hitbox so that it doesn’t get interpolated with Captain Falcon’s hitboxes horizontally.

• Because Captain Falcon can jump high in a short amount of time, be wary of him calling out a NAir/BAir out of tumble with his own NAir/BAir/FAir (punishing airdodges)/Falcon Dive.

• Captain Falcon can trap landings with Grab/Falcon Dive, NAir, BAir and Tilts. He can chase opponents down, so landing away from Captain Falcon isn’t always beneficial. Land drifting in as a mix-up.

Offstage

(How Do I Escape This Position And What Do I Look Out For?):

• Captain Falcon’s FAir lasts for about 16 Frames after the strong hit. He can use FAir as a lingering edgeguard tool. Avoid buffering double jump when expecting him to edgeguard with FAir.

• Captain Falcon’s NAir isn’t disjointed, but it does beat out NAir offstage. Use FAir to beat it out, or Boomerang before the move is active.

• Captain Falcon denies space directly below the ledge with DAir. Make sure to snap the ledge correctly, otherwise punish can punish with DAir.

• Cover recovery attempts with projectiles if possible. This makes going low safer, as opposed to giving Captain Falcon a free DAir.

• Captain Falcon can intercept Young Link’s ASA from low with his Falcon Dive. If the Falcon Dive can be anticipated, drift away to avoid the grab, and punish with ASA.

• There’s a chance when trading ASA with Falcon Dive that Young Link will get spiked straight down after the grab trade. You can act out of it quickly if you’re ready.

• Falcon Kick can be used as a burst option that punishes the opponent for being in the space above and in front of ledge with killpower. When at the altitude of the ledge, be wary of Falcon Kick, as it beats out aggressive options.

Ledge:

• Captain Falcon can use Falcon Kick or Raptor Boost from the ledge as a punish for the opponent being in the airspace in front of the ledge.

• Captain Falcon’s UTilt at ledge is his most consistent and high reward punish for catching attempts to bypass ledge due to it spiking. Be wary of ASA usage around ledge/being above ledge, as he can cover it with UTilt.

• When recovering to ledge, space ASA carefully. A misplaced ASA can be punish by Captain Falcon’s DAir on ledge.

• Captain Falcon’s DAir, angled FTilt, short hop Raptor Boost, DTilt, USmash, DSmash, and Dash Attack hit Young Link at ledge.

• Captain Falcon’s Jab at ledge is one of his stronger options. It covers getup and jump while baiting ledge attack. Mix up ledge option timings, and pull a Bomb before grabbing ledge.

Juggling/Boxing:

• Captain Falcon’s high jump out of the corner can go over Boomerang, meaning that it can’t be passively covered. Young Link has to choose between covering low jumps with Boomerang, or high jumps with normals.

• Captain Falcon can use his burst options out of the corner to punish over-commitments/whiff punish (Dash Attack, full hop landing DAir, Raptor Boost, Falcon Kick).

• Fire Arrow can beat/clank with these burst options out of the corner. Use empty dashbacks to bait jumps out of the corner if dashback Fire Arrow was already used, and Captain Falcon is anticipating it.

• Captain Falcon can use Falcon Dive out of disadvantage to catch an anticipatory shield (for out of shield punishes, such as punishing landing aerials). If predicted, spotdodge the Falcon Dive. Shield in advantage state should not be up for long against Captain Falcon.

• Captain Falcon can use aerial Falcon Kick as an aggressive landing mix-up. It does travel fast, but has 35 frames of landing lag.

• ZAir can be used to stuff out Captain Falcon’s jumps/aerials in the corner.

Offstage:

• Falcon Dive's grab box is active on Frames 14-30. Hit Captain Falcon in the 13 Frame startup, or after the move ends (which is when Captain Falcon begins to descend). NAir is the most consistent move for gimping Falcon.

• Captain Falcon’s airspeed gives him more options offstage in terms of drift, meaning that if he anticipates an aerial offstage, he can drift back and punish with Falcon Dive.

• You can edgeguard Captain Falcon from under him with ASA; though if he manages to get behind you (under the stage), you can use reverse ASA easily.

• Captain Falcon can use Falcon Kick to lower his altitude when recovering, which allows him to recover low at an angle where Young Link can’t reliably space NAir without a ledge slip.

• Falcon also has a wall jump for recovery ledge game purposes.

• Captain Falcon can use Raptor Boost or NAir from double jump off of the ledge, or Falcon Dive from ledge jump/double jump to beat shielding at ledge.

• Captain Falcon can use the same options and BAir out of a wall jump. He can also use wall jumps to bypass grabbing ledge.

Ledge Info:

XLR8’s Spreadsheet Young Link Ledge Info:

DTilt: Hits, specific

DSmash: Hits

FTilt: Hits

Most Reliable Move: DSmash

Animation Info: N/A

Note: FTilt reaches farthest.

• Captain Falcon Kill Throws: FThrow, BThrow

• FD DTilt > ASA %s: 117, 105

• FD FThrow Ledge %s: 186, 160

• FD Milkshake %s: 110-159, 99-135

• If Captain Falcon is hit by GSA mid-air, he can possibly fall out of GSA.

• Young Link can’t cross-up Captain Falcon’s Rapid Jab using shield SDI.

• Captain Falcon’s rising BAir can whiff Young Link standing on the ground.

• Captain Falcon's DAir will stop jablocking Young Link at around 30%.

• When Boomerang clanks with Falcon Kick up close, Young Link can punish with FSmash.

Various Captain Falcon Kill %s vs Young Link on FD (with DI):

• FSmash: 90.3% Center Stage, 64.6% At Ledge

• Up-Angled FSmash: 87% Center Stage, 62.5% At Ledge

• Down-Angled FSmash: 76% Center Stage, 53% At Ledge

• DSmash1: 119.4% Center Stage, 88% At Ledge

• DSmash 2: 104.8% Center Stage, 77% At Ledge

• USmash: 100-147% (due to varying hitboxes and varying number of connected hits).

• FThrow @ Ledge: 185.8%

• UThrow @ Ledge: 210.4%

• Note: On stage rulesets with two bans, you’ll likely have to pick between Smashville and Small Battlefield. The choice between the to is up to comfort.

• Battlefield:
  Terrible. The relatively tight layout means that Captain Falcon can close the distance quickly, using the platforms to avoid projectiles and also extend his combos. It can be difficult to land here, with Captain Falcon’s good platform coverage (USmash, UTilt, UAir, Falcon Dive). Neutral is a bit harder, disadvantage is harder.

• Final Destination:
  Indifferent. While Captain Falcon’s punish game should be consistent and very punishing here, the lack of platform makes his neutral significantly more telegraphed.

• Smashville:
  Bad. With the small stage space and center platform, Captain Falcon can approach more often and more easily. Young Link is often forced into his deadzone vs Captain Falcon, which makes his neutral more committal. It also, however, helps Young Link hold the stage, negating full hop approaches.

• Town & City:
  Good. The large stage means plenty of places to play around the deadzone in neutral, and avoiding difficult burst range RPS. The platforms will generally help Captain Falcon more with his high jump, so he’ll be harder to keep cornered.

• Lylat Cruise:
  Good. Young Link can anti-air Captain Falcon’s diagonal angles more reliably with the platform layout, and Fire Arrows being stronger with slants. Note that Captain Falcon’s UAir can hit through the ledge.

• Pokémon Stadium 2:
  Great. Plenty of space to avoid the deadzone in neutral. Platforms can enable some combos, but also enable Captain Falcon’s combos. The small side zones to the ledge and platforms help disadvantage as well.

• Kalos Pokémon League:
  Indifferent. Captain Falcon likes this stage because he can more reliably combo into FAir using the side platforms and has wall jumps, but the extra space and platforms also benefit our neutral and disadvantage. Walls also make edgeguarding Captain Falcon with ASA more consistent against Falcon Dive.

• Yoshi’s Story:
  Indifferent. Captain Falcon likes triplat layouts (see BF), but slants can mess with his combos, and walls help both our recovery and edgeguarding. He doesn’t gain much from the low ceiling, aside from his USmash.

• Hivesteel’s Young Link vs Captain Falcon VOD Playlist: Captain Falcon vs Young Link

• (Falconcord Resources) Falcon Kill %s by theGOAT

• Captain Falcon FThrow VS UThrow Kill%s on FD by Plague Von Karma

• (Falconcord Resources) Spotdashing/Dashwalking with Captain Falcon by Grace and Glory: Spotdash: The Missing Third Of Falcon's Neutral?

• (Falconcord Resources) Maximum DAir Lock Percentages: Maximum Dair Lock Percents

• (Falconcord Resources) SCARB Guide: Falcon Tech: Shield Cancel Aerial Raptor Boost (SCARB) by G&G

• Browi Punch: How to do the Browi Punch! Captain Falcon Tech [SSBU] by Browi

• Falcon's Raptor Boost Armor Compendium by Plague Von Karma