Ally Combo

The Ally Combo is a combo Mario can perform in SSB4 and Ultimate. It involves Mario performing an up throw, then following it with his down aerial before finishing the combo with another aerial, commonly a forward aerial, or Super Jump Punch.

The Ally Combo was named after Canadian smasher Ally, widely considered to be the best Mario player in the world during SSB4's lifespan.

Performance

The Ally Combo is a fairly down-to-earth and basic combo. To perform it; the player must execute an up throw, and then use a down aerial from a full hop. After this is done, the player has the option to use any of Mario's other aerials, typically forward aerial for optimal damage or up aerial for coverage and extended advantage situations. Up aerial is predominantly used as a finisher in most cases due to forward aerial not being true with certain DI.

However, this combo is not 100% true. For starters, the long delay before Mario Tornado's final hitbox allows characters with an air dodge or attack that is active before frame 4 to escape from the move, thus ending the combo. However, the opponent will suffer landing lag out of the air dodge due to the combo being initiated so close to the ground, which is potentially more dangerous than the combo itself since Mario can easily punish them for it, meaning only fast moves are a true issue in most scenarios. This combo generally works from around 0-30% on middleweights, though down aerial will send too far to capitalize with other aerials around 15-20%.

This combo is completely true in Ultimate due to two frames being subtracted from the transition to down aerial's final hit, is easier due to perform due to the universal jumpsquat buff, and is more punishing due to down aerial dealing more damage. For these reasons, it's universally considered to be Mario's optimal throw combo at low percentages and massively buffed from SSB4.