Punish

But what do you do once you get a grab? Whatever you do, DO NOT GO FOR UP THROW UP TILT.

Any half competent Ganon will DJ out of the up throw and stomp your face in if you try to up tilt them.

In my personal opinion, up throw is actually not that great against Ganon because it’s a rather unfavorable 50/50 for you. If you guess he’s gonna try and up air out and you land an up tilt, good for you. But on the other hand if you guess wrong and he decides to DJ and stomp your face in...well, that’s probably not gonna go so well.

Same thing if you wait for the jump. Up throw, wait for jump, then up air him. Cool, but if he decides to up air you instead, you lose the punish or even die if you’re at a high %.

That is more of a matter of opinion, however. If you can get good reads on their jump habits or successfully punish off up throw, by all means do it. I just think the risk/reward is a decent bit worse than what I’ll talk about in the next few paragraphs.

The throw(s) you should be using against Ganon for the most part are forward throw and down throw. And that’s because...you can reaction tech chase Ganon with forward throw.

However, there is a small catch to this. Marth forward throw does not knock down until 7%, so before that you pummel>buffer down throw to get him to 8%. If they DI down and away and tech away on the down throw, you have to read the tech away to get a followup. However, this is perfectly fine since if they decide to do this, they’re usually giving up a TON of stage control. Since Ganon is absolutely terrible out of the corner, this is one of many positions you always want to try and put him in.

If you get a grab at 7% or above, forward throw tech chase Ganon. Doing this is fairly simple and can be done in one of two ways:

• Forward throw then WD forward so you position yourself to react to missed tech or tech in place. This is the easiest, but many Ganons will try to mix up your punish by DI’ing up and in on the fthrow. The catch here is that if they do this, you can regrab, fsmash, nair, fair, etc. But you have to be aware it’s something they can go for or they’ll just jump out when you fthrow and possibly punish you with stomp or another strong aerial.

• • Don’t get me wrong, this method is perfectly serviceable. But the up and in DI can mess with some people, so if you feel like it will, go with method #2.

• So the second method is exactly the same as the first one, except instead of doing a WD forward to position yourself, you simply run toward his landing spot then WD down wherever he lands. Then you react to tech in place if necessary and cover all other options on reaction. If he DI’s in on the fthrow, you can feasibly react to it with JC grab, or just do a running aerial or even fsmash if your reactions are good enough.

One small thing of note is that Marth’s boost grab is apparently very useful for tech chasing off forward throw according to Kadano. I personally don’t do this, but I can see the merit in it. Again, do this as you wish. It’s not necessary from my experience but it probably couldn’t hurt, either.

Eventually, you will want to convert tech chasing into something more, such as a combo or a stock. I usually fthrow tech chase them to the edge of the stage and cover tech in place with AC nair then try to cover tech roll in with something else. If they tech in place, you can nair> fsmash. If they tech roll away, you can grab again. Tech roll in is a bit tricky to cover but you can try to cover it with dash attack or grab. Depends how quick your reactions are on the draw, though either way Ganon is still in a not so good position because his getup options are absolute trash. However, that’s why you tech chase for awhile: you make them think you’re going to go for a regrab and eventually, you just nair the tech in place and hit them offstage, ideally stealing their jump when they try to get back without using Up-B.

Also, lots of Ganon looove to double jump out of hitstun because they wanna try and hit you with a stomp from above. Let them jump and steal it if they keep trying to jump out. Even if they don’t, they’re still gonna eat a ton of damage most likely so push your combos as far as you can without being too greedy. Ganon is ridiculously easy to combo and juggle because he’s so huge and his landing options are pretty bad.

One last note here: Ganons also love up airing out of hitstun because it’s fast (frame 6) and covers a huge area, so if you don’t think you can get a followup before he up airs out of hitstun, just land and shield or bait it out and punish him with grab, fsmash, etc. depending on his percent.

If he tries to down air you when you’re juggling him, get horizontal of him and back air or forward air him (even fsmash if you’re feeling ballsy). Stomp is huge but Marth aerials are both faster and more disjointed. With practice, you’ll be able to outspace them or hit him before it even comes out.