Fox (SSBM)

This article is about Fox's appearance in Super Smash Bros. Melee. For the character in other contexts, see Fox McCloud.

Fox in Super Smash Bros. Melee
Universe	Star Fox
Other playable appearances	in SSB in Brawl in SSB4
Availability	Starter
Tier	SS (1) (North America) SS (1) (Europe)

“	A wily fox that uses speed to keep enemies off balance.	”
—Description from Melee's manual.

Announced at E3 2001, Fox (フォックス, Fox) is a playable starter character in Super Smash Bros. Melee. He is emblematic of speed and he can dominate foes with his rapid attacks, quick movement and overpowering offense in all areas of his game. He is placed 1st on the Melee tier list due to these advantages.

True to his position, Fox is an extremely efficient fighter with fast attacks, excellent comboing and damaging ability, long recovery options, and numerous approaching methods boasting some of the best neutral game options among the entire cast. He has KO options and setups at a wide variety of percentages, and his high falling speed makes him resilient to vertical KOs. His aerial game also includes several low-lag yet effective and powerful moves to complement his ground game, especially when SHFFL'd, and is incredibly effective at approaching and edgeguarding. Fox's main tool in his success, however, is his Reflector (also known as the shine), which is one of the most versatile tools in the game. Aside from its intended purpose, the Reflector activates on frame 1 (making it the fastest move in the game), has set knockback, and can be jump canceled; this allows for shine spike gimps, neutral stance resets, getup option mixups, and even combos when wavedashing is incorporated.

Despite being top tier, Fox is not flawless. His high falling speed makes him very easy to combo and chaingrab off of a single conversion from the opponent, and his light weight can result in extremely early horizontal KOs if the player's DI is poor. Although he boasts a very long recovery distance, he only has linear recovery options, which makes it easier for certain characters like Marth to predict his recovery path and edgeguard or gimp him. Fox also has an extremely high technical learning curve, as most of his techniques require extremely nimble fingers and fast reaction time. Also, due to his aforementioned flaws, Fox is considered to be a glass cannon, where he could lose a stock if a single mistake is made, giving him a high cerebral learning curve. So while Fox has incredible fighting process and potential, many consider Fox to be arguably the hardest character to play as and master, requiring a lot of practice.

Regardless, his pros greatly outshine his cons, and Fox is notable for being one of only four characters in the series (the other three being Pikachu in Smash 64, Falco in Melee, and Meta Knight in Brawl) to have no disadvantageous matchups, with only three (Falco, Marth and Samus) being considered even.

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In competitive play

Matchups

Super Smash Bros. Melee Character Matchups

Avg.

As one of the only two characters in the game to not have any disadvantageous matchups (the other being Falco), Fox has, undisputably, the best matchup spread in Melee. He has only three matchups that are even, while he soft counters six characters, counters seven, and hard counters nine (second most in the game, behind Sheik). Fox has many advantages that help him against any character, such as his quick, versatile combo ability, great aerial attacks, and his very effective shine techniques, including a potential waveshine infinite that, even if performed to a limited degree, can shut down a large portion of the cast. Fox, however, does suffer from flaws; his very high falling speed and very low air speed undermine his otherwise relatively long recovery, making him predictable off the stage and easy to gimp and edgeguard by characters such as Falco, Jigglypuff and Marth. With his said falling speed, characters such as Marth can easily chaingrab him, and his light weight attribute makes him easy for characters such as Samus to KO horizontally.

Notable players

See also: Category:Fox professionals (SSBM)

Active

•  Alex19
•  Armada - One of the five gods and Europe's best player. Peach main with a strong Fox as a co-main.
•  Cactuar
•  Chillin - Arguably the first notable top Fox main. A pioneer of Fox's meta. Best Fox main in MD/VA.
•  Colbol - Best Fox main in Florida
•  DJ Nintendo
•  Druggedfox - Ranked 1st on the Georgia Melee Power Rankings; 13th place at EVO 2016, 17th at Super Smash Con 2016, 9th at UGC Smash Open
•  Fiction - One of the best Fox mains in SoCal. Was in the Top 25 of the 2014 SSBMRank.
•  Forward
•  Fuzzyness - Second best player in the UK.
•  Hax - Originally a Captain Falcon main until his switch to Fox. Regarded as the most technical Fox player. Uses the B0XX to compete.
•  HomeMadeWaffles
•  Ice - Best player in Germany.
•  Javi - Best player in Mexico.
•  Kels
•  KJH - Top 3 in Michigan.
•  Kounotori - Top 3 in Japan.
•  Leffen - Europe's best solo-Fox.
•  Lovage
•  Lucky - Best solo-Fox main in SoCal.
•  Mango - One of the five gods. He is the Undisputed best player in SoCal.
•  Mew2King - One of the five gods. Also mains Marth and Sheik.
•  Mike Haze - One of the best Fox mains in SoCal.
•  Professor Pro - Best player in the UK.
•  Redd
•  Rudolph - Japan's best Fox player (who primarily mains Marth). Ranked 52nd on the 2016 SSBMRank.
•  Ryan Ford - Best Canadian Fox main.
•  SFAT - Best Fox main in NorCal.
•  Silent Wolf - The Northwest's best player. Ranked 20th on the 2016 SSBMRank.
•  Weon-X
•  Westballz - Falco main with a strong Fox secondary.
•  Zgetto - Best Dutch Fox main.

Inactive

•  Jman - The first Apex champion for Melee.
•  KDJ
•  Masashi - A Japanese Melee player from the pre-Brawl era known for not wavedashing. Now only plays Super Smash Bros. for Wii U as Cloud.
•  PC Chris - One of the best Melee players in the pre-Brawl era. Also mained Falco
•  Remen - One of the best players in the Netherlands. Has switched to maining Falco.
•  ZeRo - Best Chilean Fox main. Now only plays Super Smash Bros. for Wii U as Diddy Kong.

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In 1-P Mode

Classic Mode

In Classic Mode, Fox can appear as an ordinary opponent, an ally or opponent in team battles, alongside Falco, Captain Falcon, Donkey Kong or Samus, or as a metal opponent. In Fox's appearances, he appears on Corneria or Venom as a regular opponent, and on Battlefield as a metal opponent. In team battles, he appears on Mute City with Captain Falcon, on Kongo Jungle with Donkey Kong, and on Brinstar with Samus.

Adventure Mode

Fox appears on Stage 6 of the Adventure Mode on Corneria. In the first part of the stage, the player battles Fox, who will try and avoid the player. After defeating Fox once, the player will have to face him again, this time on offense donning his red costume and featuring "trigger happy" Arwings, which fire at the stage considerably more often. Additionally, there is a chance that the player will fight Falco instead of Fox, if the former is unlocked.

All-Star Mode

Fox and his allies are fought on Corneria.

Event Matches

Fox is featured in the following event matches:

• Event 13: Yoshi's Egg: As Yoshi, the player must protect the Yoshi's Egg item from harm for 55 seconds against a team of Fox, Donkey Kong and Pikachu on Rainbow Cruise.
• Event 20: All-Star Match 2: Fox is the last opponent to be fought in this series of staged battles. Their character battles him on the Corneria stage. With a timer of four minutes, the player must defeat him along with Samus, Link, Zelda, and Captain Falcon.
• Event 23: Slippy's Invention: The player chooses any character and must defeat Fox and Falco, who are permanently under the effects of a Cloaking Device, in a two-stock match on Venom.
• Event 36: Space Travelers: The player uses Ness and must defeat Samus, Kirby, Fox, Captain Falcon, and Falco. The player battles the first three characters on Fourside and battles the last two on Battlefield.
• Event 43: Birds of Prey: The player uses Fox and must defeat a team consisting of Falco and Captain Falcon in a two-stock match on Big Blue.

Ending Images

• 

  Classic Mode

• 

  Adventure Mode

• 

  All-Star mode

Trophy descriptions

In addition to the normal trophy about Fox as a character, there are two trophies about him as a fighter, unlocked by completing both Adventure and All-Star modes respectively with Fox on any difficulty:

Fox

Fox McCloud is the leader of a band of adventurers-for-hire known as Star Fox. Fox and his fellow pilots Peppy, Slippy, and Falco patrol the Lylat system in their mother ship, the Great Fox. From the cockpit of his Arwing, Fox leads the ceaseless pursuit of the evil scientist Andross, who doomed Fox's father.

• Star Fox [03/93]

Fox [Smash]

Fox is among the quickest and nimblest of the Smash Bros. characters. His speed is offset by low firepower, however, and he's better at one-on-one fights than melees with multiple foes. His Blaster is unique: it does damage but it doesn't make enemies flinch. His Fox illusion is best used as a surprise attack.

• B: Blaster
• Smash B: Fox Illusion

Fox [Smash]

Fox falls quickly, so he's a tough target to strike from below; however, this advantage can work against him when he goes flying sideways. You can use the Control Stick to set the direction of the Fire Fox technique while it's charging up. On a side note, Fox is also much lighter than he was in the N64 Super Smash Bros. game.

• Up & B: Fire Fox
• Down & B: Reflector

• 

  Classic

• 

  [Smash]

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  [Smash]

Alternate costumes

Fox's alternate costumes in Melee

Trivia

• Fox is one of the only characters in Melee that can do a wall infinite, along with Ness, Pikachu, Link, and Pichu.
• Fox is the only character to have completely lost his forward and back throws from Super Smash Bros. to Melee. Kirby and Jigglypuff both gained new forward throws in Melee, but their former forward throws were moved to be their up throws instead.
• Fox is the only character in Melee with two soft-damage yells.