Marth (SSBM)

Marth (, Marth) is an unlockable newcomer in Super Smash Bros. Melee. Marth was placed in Melee due to heavy requests from Japanese players, but as his games had never been released outside of Japan prior to Melee, his character was among the most obscure in the game in other regions. His popularity as a character, alongside, eventually caused Nintendo to begin releasing the Fire Emblem games internationally; the first internationally released game came two years after Melee.

Marth is voiced in Japanese by, who reprises his role from the 1996 animated adaptation of Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem; as Fire Emblem had, at that point, yet to officially make its debut overseas (aside from dubs of the animated adaptation), Marth's Japanese voice is used in all regions.

Marth currently ranks 2nd on the Melee tier list, placing him in the S tier and is currently his best placement in the series. Marth has many powerful tools at his disposal, including fast overall startup in his attacks, long and disjointed range, large amounts of additional power at the tip of his blade, very potent juggling and combo ability, the longest non-disjointed grab range, and great edgeguarding capabilities. Marth also has a multitude of good movement options to approach and pressure with; his dash-dance and wavedash are among the longest in the game, as well as being able to dash away from shield grabs without getting punished, complementing his already-impressive range extremely well. Marth also has two very powerful options to KO his opponents and finish combos: his down aerial (a very potent spike when sweetspotted, and the closer to the notorious Ken Combo) and his forward smash when tippered.

On the downside, his ability to punish approaches is somewhat limited in comparison to other top-tier characters due to his lack of a projectile and the short hitbox duration of his moves. Marth also has lackluster defensive properties; his weight makes him very easy to combo while not providing sufficient knockback resistance to survive heavy hits at kill-percent, and his out of shield game is notoriously poor despite his attacks' fast startups. His recovery is also problematic; while it is extendable with his side special and can end with a fast up special that covers decent distance, it is also rather predictable. However, Marth's main weakness is the fact that most of his moves have considerable endlag and are thus very punishable if whiffed. As such, Marth is very susceptible to momentum shifts; a punished move puts Marth in a defensive position where he has few options to retake the advantage.

Despite his low technical learning curve, many consider Marth to be one of the most difficult characters to play at high levels due to the intricate spacing ability required of top-level players to overcome his aforementioned flaws. Regardless of these flaws, Marth has excellent matchups against many characters.

How to unlock
To unlock Marth, players have to use all fourteen starter characters in VS. matches, complete or fail or  with all fourteen starter characters, or play 400 VS. matches.

Upon completing this, Marth will be fought on the Fountain of Dreams stage, with the track "Fire Emblem" playing.

Attributes
Marth falls under the fighter archetype of being mobile, with the ability to easily outmaneuver most of his opponents; Marth has a very fast dashing speed, a long wavedash (specifically the fourth longest in the game) and rather good jumping speed, with above average falling speed, contributing to a good SHFFL. With a large dash-dance window and a disjointed hitbox, Marth has great approach options in this game, both on the ground and in the air.

Marth's primary strength is his range in his normal attacks; the Falchion grants Marth a very large disjointed hitbox that can allow him to safely attack from a distance. Additionally, the tip of the Falchion, its sweetspot, is remarkably easy to connect, making Marth stronger when he is further from his opponent. In addition to this, Marth's attacks are very quick in terms of startup lag, and his long wavedash and dash-dance allow him to further extend his already long reach. This long hitbox with a far away sweetspot also contributes to Marth's superb combo game.

In addition to his disjointed range, Marth has a fantastic combo and juggle ability; despite a slightly below average air speed, with a combination of good jumping prowess, and an average falling speed, as well as quick, low lag, high-ranged, easy-to-sweetspot aerials, Marth has among the best air games in Melee, and a great combo ability. Additionally, Marth's grab game is also good, as mentioned before due to a surprisingly long grab range (the longest of the non-grapple grabs, thanks to it extending far past his hand). His throws possess low damage and knockback, allowing him to chain his throws into each other and combo into other attacks. In particular, his up throw can chain throw most fast fallers at low to mid percentages, and it can directly segue into an up tilt or an aerial, and can be used for KOing at high percents on a platform due to being the third strongest up throw in the game. Marth's long dash-dance also makes him a superb tech-chaser.

Marth also has several powerful attacks in his arsenal; some of them are very fast and have high range, such as his up tilt, while others can KO at close ranges, such as the Reverse Dolphin Slash technique. Marth's forward smash is feared due to its high speed and power when tipped, with the capability to "break" through some projectiles found in the game thanks to its priority; it also works well when wave-smashed, due to Marth's long wavedash. Marth's down tilt and Shield Breaker act as good edgeguarding options, with the former being a semi-spike and the latter have a large hitbox. Most notable, however, is his, which acts as a powerful spike in NTSC regions, and an equally powerful meteor smash in PAL regions; it can KO reliably even as low as 40%, and many of Marth's attacks can easily combo into his down air, most notably his as part of the Ken Combo. Marth also has access to a grounded meteor in his Dancing Blade. While its uses for KOing are somewhat situational, it can set up tech-chases well, as well as free jab resets.

Marth's primary flaw is his inconsistency in closing out stocks. Many of his quick, safe moves greatly lack in KO power, and while his more powerful options are strong enough to KO at virtually any percent, they are extremely difficult to land. Many of them (including his tipped smash attacks and Dolphin Slash) are highly committal and unsafe to use in the neutral game, and there is no guarantee that he will connect with the correct hitbox in a neutral situation, even if they land. This forces Marth to secure KOs at early percents, usually through edgeguarding or combo setups that specifically ensure he connects with his KO option of choice. However, if Marth racks up too much damage, he will no longer have access to these setups as the opponent will be sent too far away by his combo starters to follow up on. Marth will then often be relegated to poking at the opponent with singular, weak hits to slowly accumulate damage, unable to KO them except through committal reads.

Another problem for Marth is his lack of defensive options. His average weight not only leaves him vulnerable to powerful attacks, it is also being enough to be vulnerable to combos such as Fox's waveshine combos in NTSC regions. More significantly, while Marth's attacks are very fast in terms of startup, they travel in predictable, low-duration arcs and have high ending lag, exemplified through attacks such as his down aerial. This leads to Marth having a terrible out of shield game due to the low duration and high ending lag of his moves, while also leaving him open to punishment. Marth also demands significant knowledge of spacing with his aerials in order to properly combo. For most of his attacks, the sweetspot hitboxes have the lowest priority, so they only hit if none of the weaker hitboxes connect on that frame. In many cases, a specific hitbox is needed to extend the punish.

Overall, Marth's long reach, excellent combos, and powerful finishers result in him being a very potent character in the current metagame. A Marth player must be wary of his weaknesses and spacing, but due to his low technical learning curve, Marth is an effective character to pick up and play.

Version history
Like some other characters, Marth received some changes in the PAL version of Melee, which slightly nerfed him overall, as he lost the ability to reliably KO and edgeguard with his down aerial. In addition, he is also lighter and his air speed is lower; hindering his endurance and making him even easier to edgeguard. However, because other top-tier characters, such as and, were also noticeably nerfed, Marth has an easier time fighting against them, improving his matchup spread overall. As such, he is considered to be better relative to most of the top-tier cast in PAL than in NTSC.

NTSC 1.01

PAL

Moveset
For a gallery of Marth's hitboxes, see here. For simplicity, if, for example, Marth's blade does 4% damage while the tip does 6%, and the attack has no other hitboxes, it is written as 4%/6%.

Stats
NTSC

PAL

Most historically significant players
See also: Category:Marth players (SSBM)


 * - Top old-school Marth player from MD/VA. Considered one of the best on the East Coast in the pre-Brawl era. Won, , and.
 * - One of the best Marth players in the world. Placed 5th at, 9th at , and 25th at . Has wins over , , and.
 * - One of the best players from 2006-2008; triple-mained with Fox and Sheik before retiring. Placed 1st at, 2nd at , and 17th at . Has wins over , , and.
 * - Ranked player in SoCal. Commonly referred to as the "King of Smash" and undisputed best smasher from 2003 to 2006. Invented and named the Ken combo. Won multiple MLG tournaments and.
 * - One of the best Marth players during the COVID-19 pandemic. Placed 3rd at, 5th at , 7th at , and 25th at with wins over , , and.
 * - One of the best Marth players in the world. Placed 25th at, 17th at , and 17th at . Has wins over , , and.
 * - One of the Five Gods. Widely considered to be one of the best Marth players of all time. Has contributed largely to the advancement of his metagame, along with.
 * - The best Marth player in California and one of the best in the world before retiring. Widely known for his proficiency in doubles with static partner . Placed 4th at, 5th at and , and 7th at  with wins over , , , and.
 * - One of the Five Gods. Considered the best Marth in the neutral game and against floaty characters. Placed 1st at and, 2nd at , and 3rd at . Currently inactive due to health reasons.
 * - Previously the best Marth player in Europe. Placed 13th at, , and with wins over , , and.
 * - One of the best Marth players in the world. Placed 13th at and 17th at both  and . Has wins over, , and.
 * - Primarily mains Sheik, but has a strong Marth that sees the most use on certain stages or character counterpicks. Placed 4th at, 5th at , and 7th at . Used Marth to beat , , and.
 * - The best player in Australia/New Zealand. Placed 1st at, 2nd at , and 33rd at both and  with wins over , , and.
 * - Although most famous for his play, Taj was one of the best Marth players in the world during the post-Brawl era, and frequently relied more on Marth in later stages of the bracket. Placed 5th at, 3rd at , and 13th at . Has wins over , , and.
 * - The best Marth player in the world, with wins over, , , and . Won , , and.

Tier placement and history
Very early in the Melee metagame, Marth had a negative low-level perception despite being high-tier, as players generally relied on rolling and C-stick abuse to play him. However, this impression would not last very long, as Marth players such as and  would emerge in the scene shortly before the third tier list iteration (June 2003) to show the world how the character was played at a high level. Notably, Ken decisively won Tournament Go 4 with Marth, introducing the uses of dash-dancing, chaingrabbing, and a higher focus on spacing and aerial combat, including the creation of the infamous Ken Combo. He and Azen would continue incorporating advanced techniques into Marth's metagame, developing the foundation for his precise movement through dash-dancing and wavedashing, and showed how powerfully he could punish enemies off small mistakes and reads.

Because of these contributions to Marth's metagame, Ken's and Azen's continued rivalry and dominance over their respective regions, and Ken's eventual rise to the very top of competitive play as the undisputed King of Smash, Marth moved up to the top tier and solidified his place there for the rest of the Golden Era. He would usually place around the second to fourth highest spot on the list, only being considered merely high-tier again once in the eighth tier list (July 2006), where he dropped to fourth place. However, in the ninth tier list (October 2008), he again moved up to second place, in what would become his highest tier placing in all the tier lists. Despite not ever being placed at the top of the tier list, it could be argued that Marth saw the best results in practice for the majority of this era.

In the post-Brawl metagame, however, Marth's results saw a slight decline from what they were before. After 's absolute dominance with Marth for a short time span around Brawl's release, Marth's tournament performance began to fall, as newer players learned to exploit his weaknesses while the representation he had stopped being as dominant. Ken and Azen faded away from competitive Melee, and Mew2King eventually switched to playing primarily during this era, reserving Marth for very specific matchups on certain stages. There were certainly up-and-coming Marth players around this time, such as and, accompanied by strong veterans such as , who kept Marth's results up. However, they were not as dominant relative to the field as those who came before them. This led to players questioning Marth's true viability in the metagame, which coincided with a drop to fifth place on the tenth tier list in September 2010, and a fourth place finish on the eleventh tier list in July 2013.

Marth's playerbase had also seemingly given up on him as a character; these jaded voices about Marth's viability tainted the community's views on him as a whole. Notable examples include Ken himself claiming in 2012 that Marth was now allegedly a mid-tier character who lost in every important top-tier matchup, and Mew2King ranking Marth as 5th in his personal 2014 tier list, claiming that Marth could only ever hope to win on Final Destination against those characters. However, while some of these top players were complaining, other players were doing serious work in the background to innovate and push the character. Community members such as compiled Marth's frame data and ways to apply that knowledge, and players such as the aforementioned PewPewU and  would put all of this discussion into practice on the biggest stage.

PPMD's pickup of Marth as a dual main was especially notable, as he found that his playstyle was uniquely suited to taking on 's and other floaty characters, which other Marth mains had significantly struggled against in recent years. Despite not all of his encounters going his way, the fact that PPMD, who had just developed this Marth recently, was already doing so well in matchups traditionally considered difficult for Marth showed that the character had tons of room to grow past what the metagame had established. Going into 2013 and beyond, Marth would gradually return to prominence. PewPewU would take a set against at Apex 2015, demonstrating that pivot tipper forward smashes allowed Marth to consistently KO Jigglypuff off of a throw. PPMD won Apex 2015 relying mostly on Marth in the final bracket stages, showing that Marth can still win supermajors despite the greater matchup knowledge against him. Mew2King would finally return to playing more Marth in bracket, eventually opting to even use Marth against Armada's Peach himself, and outright forcing Armada off Peach in Smash Summit 6, which he resoundingly won.

All of this culminates into the state of the modern metagame, where has risen to prominence as a solo Marth main, blending together all the styles of Marth that came before him to become one of the most dominant players in the game. He has won a significant number of supermajors including GENESIS 7 and GENESIS 8, and boasts a positive record against, completely turning the Marth-Jigglypuff matchup on its head with his gameplan in it and consistency in executing pivot tippers. Zain's reign at the top has even led some top players (particularly Fox and Falco players) to begin complaining about how strong Marth is, even sometimes picking up Sheik secondaries to have an easier time with the matchup - the complete opposite of what was said and done in previous eras where Marth's results were more sparse. Reflecting this, the thirteenth tier list released in March of 2021 ranks Marth as the second best character in the game once again, only behind Fox.

PAL viability
Like several other top-tier characters, Marth was nerfed in the PAL version of Melee. His down aerial, a powerful spike in NTSC, had its launch angle changed in PAL, making it an equally powerful meteor smash. As one of Marth's staple moves can now be meteor canceled, impairing his ability to finish off opponents quickly and throwing a wrench in the consistency of the infamous Ken Combo, it may seem as if Marth is worse in PAL overall. However, Marth still retains many other options to KO enemies, and has several other potent (albeit less reliable) options to substitute for down aerial in the aforementioned Ken Combo and other combos, such as his neutral aerial or a reverse Dolphin Slash. Marth was also made slightly lighter, which slightly impairs his survivability, but allows him to escape several of 's waveshine follow-ups. The most notable option loss for Fox is waveshine to grab, which greatly impairs Fox's ability to rack up damage on Marth by converting from a shine and forces Fox players to use weaker options instead.

Because some other top-tier characters, such as Fox or, were nerfed more significantly than he was, Marth has a much easier time fighting against them than he does in NTSC versions, as he maintains almost all of the advantages he has against those characters, while losing several of the shortcomings that made those matchups difficult. Aside from the aforementioned loss of several waveshine follow-ups for Fox, Marth also able to edgeguard Fox more efficiently, due to the nerf in Fire Fox's recovery distance. Sheik's disadvantages in the neutral game are still prevalent against Marth, as she must still cope with his range. However, Sheik's grab is much less of a punishment threat than it is in NTSC, as its launch angle does not guarantee KO setups (such as forward or up aerials) in PAL. These new advantages, as well as various other changes to Marth's matchups, make Marth arguably stronger relative to the cast than he is in NTSC. This is reflected in the PAL tier list, where Marth is ranked 2nd, a decent improvement over his recent positions in the NTSC list.

Despite Marth's theoretical superiority in PAL, there exist very few notable Marth mains in PAL regions, with, and  being the extent of his current representation; both Mahie and Salepate have also struggled to make an impact outside of France. Furthermore,, once considered one of Europe's best Marth mains, later chose to exclusively main Fox to improve his standings in tournaments.

In
In Classic Mode, Marth can appear in one-on-one matches, team battles alongside and, and as a metal opponent in the mode's penultimate stage. In his appearances, bar his metal match, Marth appears on Great Bay. On a team with Zelda, he appears on Temple. In all such instances, the track "Fire Emblem" plays on the stage, which does not occur in any other mode. Unusually, this does not happen when fighting Marth + Link, during which it will still play the "Great Bay" theme.

In Adventure Mode
Marth makes no appearances in the game's single-player Adventure Mode. Music associated with him, however, can play in the Underground Maze.

In All-Star Mode
In All-Star Mode, Marth and his allies are fought on Fountain of Dreams, as Marth was not designated a specific home stage. When fought on the stage, the track "Fire Emblem" plays instead of the standard music.

In Event Matches
Marth appears in multiple Event Matches:
 * Event 40: All-Star Match 4: Marth is the first opponent fought in this series of staged battles. The selected character battles him on the Temple stage with a stock of 2 while Marth has 1. With a timer of four minutes, the player must defeat him and the other four characters one-by-one with the overall time and damage:, , , and.
 * Event 41: En Garde!: A one-on-one battle between the player as Marth and the enemy on the Temple stage, with the two characters having 2 stock each and unlimited time.
 * Event 46: Fire Emblem Pride: The player battles and must defeat a team of Marth and Roy in an untimed match in the Hyrule Temple stage, with all three characters receiving 3 stock.

Trophies
In addition to the normal trophy about Marth as a character, there are two trophies about him as a fighter that are unlocked by completing the Adventure and All-Star modes on any difficulty with Marth.

Trivia

 * Marth is the only newcomer and unlockable character to have a clone.
 * Marth and are the only characters in Melee that speak Japanese in all language versions of the game.
 * Marth and are the only playable characters in Melee that do not have a stage representing their universe, though hacked data shows that one was planned.
 * As a result of not having a stage, Marth is fought on the Fountain of Dreams in All-Star Mode and his character unlock battle. In Event Matches, he appears in Temple, and in Classic Mode, he appears on Great Bay.
 * Along with, Marth was originally planned to be a Japan-exclusive character in Super Smash Bros. Melee, but was kept in all versions on request of an employee at Nintendo of America. Global interest in the Fire Emblem series began as a result of their success in Super Smash Bros. Melee.
 * All of Marth's aerial attacks when tippered deal the same amount of damage (13% damage); he is the only character in the game to have this trait.
 * In the, Marth is known as "MARS" likely to keep the game close to his Japanese pronunciation.
 * Coincidently, this coincides with his name in the Fire Emblem OVA, which was based off of the third game in the series, Mystery of the Emblem, which revolves around Marth's adventures.
 * The fan-made term "Marthritis" (derived from the diagnosis ) references the inability for a Marth player to easily combo into a kill move at high percents.
 * In the debug menu of the game, Marth has an additional phrase that goes unused: "" "Rettsu dansu!", the English phrase "Let's Dance!" approximated phonetically in Japanese.