5 Fox Upairs You're Not Doing

Fox at a mid level requires a good understanding of risk reward. Not understanding this in a game where people can toss you across the stage, blend you for massive damage, or confirm a stomp into a knee means eating bigger and more consistent punishes as you climb in rank. So you need to match your opponents' energies as a fox main, and what I've found is a great small way of turning situations is your favor is using upair in unorthodox ways. So here's 5 examples to start implementing.

1. Drill upair:

A bit of a modern predicament for Fox players is following up off drill. Many mid level fox players will find that as they run into tougher players, especially those whose characters get drilled a lot, drill becomes increasingly unreliable. One answer, at least against tall characters, is to short hop upair. Specifically Marth and Sheik, who grab frequently out of SDI, are put in a tall standing animation when they mash grab. This leaves them vulnerable to the first hit of upair, which also shield pokes effectively. Two things to note are that this loses to both fast large hitboxes, like Samus’s screw attack, and low crouching hitbox like Peach downsmash (unless you aim it for the second hit landing on top of her).

2.Running shine into upair

I ADORE running shine upair, personal favorite on this list. For one, it works on nearly the entire cast, reaching reliably as far as character’s like Marth. I’ve also done it on Luigi with some SDI in to help. The strength in this two-piece lies in its ability to set up for the second hit of upair reliably. The other way to do this is fullhop, which is totally valid, but becomes predictable fairly easily if fished for. You certainly have to pick your spots with running shine upair, but practicing it will buff your punish game heavily.

3. KJH upair

This one is more in the theory crafting stage, but essentially you can time and space an upair on any platform to catch an opponent in the air underneath the platform. The timing isn’t very obvious, but I’ve landed it a few times so far.

4. Upair to beat dash grab

Short hop upair will actually beat a running grab if timed right. Something about the flip animation fox goes through dodges grab. This reversals the situation with a second hit upair. In the fox dittos, a little pullback on the short hop means this is also an anti-nair tool. Sometimes you’ll trade, but if you’re at low percent you’ll still win the exchange.

1. Short hop upair sharking underneath a platform

Short hop upair sharking is deceptive, possibly due to the size of the second hit. With a couple lasers, this will lock any character into knockdown from the safety of underneath the platform. Just look out for situations where the opponent can shield and punish.