Mario (SSB18)

Mario (マリオ, Mario) is a playable character that was revealed on December 2nd, 2016 in Super Smash Bros. OC 2018. He is the very first character to be added into the game and the very first 1st Party Character to be added in as well.
==Attributes==
Like in all of the majority of his games, and spin-off titles. Mario is intended as a All-Around type of character. He has average walking speed, dashing speed, falling speed, air acceleoration, gravity and weight. He also has high jumping force and air speed, but with low traction. These balanced stats do not give Mario the edge when it comes to overall movement, but they nevertheless make him adept at most situations where a key attribute is needed to gain the advantage, which when combined with his very quick frame data, grants Mario a very effective neutral game. As a result, despite his attributes implying a jack-of-all-trades type of character, Mario is more of a rushdown character in practice.
Mario's gameplay is very easy for first time players. Mario has very low lag in all of his moves, making him one of the quickest characters to play as. Mario has a excellent close-range game, in which he can put pressure into opponents who have trouble who don't posses a much of a close-range game. His fast attack speed allows him to consistently apply pressure to the opponent, and he's capable of quickly racking up damage once he gets the momentum, which is easy to do so on characters that cannot match his attack speed without getting punished hard for it. Excluding his forward smash, forward aerial, and all of his special moves, all of Mario's moves have fast startup and low ending and landing lag (the latter in the case of his aerial attacks). All of his grounded moves are prime examples of his quick frame data: his neutral attack is his fastest move and an overall effective way to rack up damage, along with handy combo capabilities, while his up and down tilts are very effective combo starters that can help rack up plenty of damage, and the former easily chains into itself at low percentages, as well as being hard to escape. All of his smash attacks are excellent KO options, as they can reliably KO at high percentages without being endlag-heavy: his forward smash has the highest power of all of his smash attacks when sweetspotted, down smash is a semi-spike, making it useful for forcing opponents offstage, and up smash is very hard to punish due to its speed, power and the fact it grants intangibility on his head. 
His aerial attacks are also very useful in any case: neutral aerial is a sex kick that can be useful in edgeguarding or for breaking combos. Back aerial has the longest reach and the highest knockback of Mario's aerial moves, allowing it to space effectively and reliably KO offstage. Up aerial's extremely quick startup, vertical launch angle and lack of sourspots let it combo into itself or other moves, on top of letting it easily break combos and setup the aforementioned . Down aerial is a great anti-juggling move that can also KO if used near the top blast line. It also benefits from frame cancelling, as its moderate landing lag is reduced, allowing for potential follow-ups. Finally, his forward aerial is a meteor smash with high base knockback for one, making it great for gimping all but the farthest reaching of recoveries. 
His special moveset is highly varied and has plenty of uses. Fireball is a projectile with decently long range. It can be useful in the neutral game or in edgeguarding, thanks to its disruptive knockback, along with very useful chances to disrupt direct approaches. Super Jump Punch travels in a controllable diagonal direction and grants moderate distance, making it good at recovery. It also has intangibility upon startup, allowing it to be used out of shield very effectively. Due to its extremely quick startup, it is also a useful combo finisher, especially near the blast line. On the other hand, Cape reverses opponents, with the induced disorientation often being enough to allow a free hit or efficiently gimp a recovery, which aids in edgeguarding opponents. It is also a powerful reflector, making it highly useful in matchups against projectile-heavy characters, such as . F.L.U.D.D. is a mechanism that shoots water, pushing opponents away, which compliments his Cape. Though situational, it can occasionally be used to give Mario some breathing space. As a result of his Cape, F.L.U.D.D. and his fast aerials, Mario also boasts a versatile edgeguarding game. 
Another valuable strength of Mario is his grab game. Even though his grab reach is only average, his grabs are among the fastest in the game, and his pummel is moderately fast and can rack up quite some damage before throwing the opponent. His forward and up throws have the same overall use: they send the opponent at a disadvantageous position, where Mario can capitalize on their mistake. His back throw is by far his strongest throw and can reliably KO below 150% near the ledge on any character, and even earlier with rage. Finally, his down throw is a notorious combo starter. It can repeatedly lead into up tilt at low percentages, or down tilts to regrab on fast fallers or heavyweights and rack up at least 20% in the process. Alternatively, it can lead into neutral attack, forward tilt, down tilt, up smash and down smash at low percentages, as well as neutral aerial, up aerial, down aerial and Super Jump Punch at medium percentages. Finally, and due to the favorable angles his moves send at, his tremendously quick frame data and his extensive amount of combo starters, Mario's combo ability is among the most reliable in the game, and it is also worth noting that seven of Mario's moves can lock (forward tilt, neutral attack's first two hits, Fireball, down aerials landing hit, and neutral, forward and back aerials (the former and latter being usually effective when sourspotted, though a majority of them are only usable at low percents). This makes it almost always imperative for Mario's opponent to tech all attacks at low percentages when needed, otherwise Mario can capitalize on the opportunity, and tack on unavoidable massive damage in the process.
Despite Mario having all these strengths, he does have some weaknesses. Most characters are able to outperform him in various areas in Combo, Speed, Knockback, and Characters who have a larger reach. In particular, the latter two are his main weaknesses: his KOing ability is largely inconsistent, with very few guaranteed KO set-ups, and all of them being hard to confirm. While much of his moveset can get the job done, there is a noticeable gap in power between his strongest moves and his other ones, with this meaning he'll usually have to rely on his sweetspotted forward smash, up smash, down smash's back hit, or back throw to score kills, which are all further compounded by the poor reach of his attacks. As such, he cannot afford to get predictable, especially with the existence of stale-move negation. His lack of reach also prevents him from fighting at a safe distance and consistently forces Mario to approach characters. This leads into having some difficulty against characters with large or disjointed reach, though fortunately, these types of characters tend to have significantly slower attacks than Mario, meaning that this tends to be the least of his worries. Lastly, his recovery is limited and fairly linear, making it rather easy for the opponent to anticipate where he'll land, though it should be noted that Mario's high air speed, Capes reflecting abilities, and the invincible Super Jump Punch makes him surprisingly difficult to gimp.
Overall, Mario has many clear strengths, and very few glaring weaknesses. Despite being intended as a jack-of-all-trades character, his very quick speed overall and largely reliable combo ability allows him to get the edge easily against most characters, as it is hard to escape from him once he gets to combo the opponent, while being easy for him to escape and regain the advantage.
==Moveset==
Attack 	Name 	Damage 	Description
Neutral Attack 	 	2%, 2%, 4% 	Performs two jabs and a toe kick.
Side Tilt 	 	7% 	Performs a reverse round house kick.
Up Tilt 	 	5% 	Performs a spinning uppercut. Good for juggling his opponents.
Down Tilt 	 	5% 	Performs a low sweep kick. Also as good to juggle the opponent.
Dash Attack 	 	8% 	A baseball slide that launches opponents upwards. Good for start-up combos with his aerial abilities.
Side Smash 	 	14% (arm, uncharged), 19% (arm, fully charged), 17% (fire, uncharged), 23% (fire, fully charged) 	Mario brings his hands together and thrusts one arm out with a Fire explosion right infront of him. A good KOing move at higher percentages and lower percentages for lightweights.
Up Smash 	 	14% (uncharged), 19% (fully charged) 	Mario performs a headbutt upwards that KOs around early percentages.
Down Smash 	 	10% (front, uncharged), 14% (front, fully charged), 12% (back, uncharged), 16% (back, fully charged)	Performs a breakdance kick. Each side deals different damage. It's also good to gimp opponent's recovery as well.
Neutral aerial 	 	8% 	Performs a sex kick.
Forward aerial 	 	18% (sourspot), 14% (clean), 24% (late) 	Mario throws his fist downwards. If timmed correctly, he'll meteor spike the opponent off the stage.
Back aerial 	 	10% 	A backdrop kick that acts like the wall-of-pain. It's also good for edge guarding as well.
Up aerial 	 	7% 	A bicycle kick. Its also good to use in a combo attack as well.
Down aerial 	Mario Tornado 	1% (hits 1-5), 5% (hit 5) 	A move that used to be Mario's Down Special in past Smash Bros games. Mario performs a discuss spinning clothsline before extending his arms out.
Grab 	 	- 	Mario grabs with one arm which is short ranged.
Pummel 	 	3% 	Mario headbutts the opponent.
Forward Throw 	 	8% 	Mario spins once and throws the opponent forward.
Back Throw 	 	11% (throw), 8% (if any opponent is nearby) 	Spins the opponent backwards 2 times before throwing them the opposite direction. If any opponents are nearby, they will be hit.
Up Throw 	 	7% 	Tosses the opponent above him. It can also be turned into a combo using his Up Aerial.
Down Throw 	 	5% 	Slams the opponent on the ground. It can be followed up with a Up-tilt combo, then a Up aerial, then the Super Jump Punch. It has so many follow ups as well. If opponents are almost around higher percentages, He can use the move and then use Super Jump Punch.
Neutral Special	Fireball 	5% 	Mario launches a orange fireball that acts as his main projectile.
Side Special 	Cape 	7% 	Mario takes out his cape and swings it. It can reflect just about everything at him, even an opponent can be turned around the other way. It's also a good usage for recovery and gimping any opponent's recovery. Excellent to any of which who have terrible recoveries.
Up Special 	Super Jump Punch	5% (hit 1), 1% (hits 2-5), 3% (hit 6) 	Mario performs a rising uppercut that releases aesthetic coins from those it hits from "New Super Mario Bros. U".
Down Special 	F.L.U.D.D. 	0% 	Mario pulls out F.L.U.D.D. from Super Mario Sunshine, which will blast aqua jets of water to push back opponents, but not damage them. Mario can change the angle of the stream.
Final Smash 	Mario Finale 	2% (smaller fireball), 3% (bigger fireball) 	Mario sways his hands back shouting "Oh yeah!" before thrusting both arms back out shouting and shooting a stream of fireballs that stream and spin around forward trapping any opponent who is hit into it. It also pulls them to the blast line.
===On-screen appearance===
*A green warp pipe is shown as Mario jumps out of it saying "Let's-a-go!".
===Taunts===
*Up: Mario stands in his position and turns into Super Mario as if he obtained a Super Mushroom. He immediatley shrinks back down afterwards.
*Side: Twirls around taking his hat off then puts it back on saying "Woo-hoo!"
*Down: Spins in the air and falls to the ground with his legs in the air.
===Idle poses===
*Adjusts his hat.
*Moves his head from left to right and holds his fist in front of his face.
===Victory poses===
*Winds up for a punch and steps forward while punching in front of the screen.
*Makes fire explode from his palm and strikes a pose.
*Does a short spin-jump and lands in a strong-man pose. It originates from his "character chosen" animation in Super Smash Bros.
==Trophies==
==Palette Swaps / Alternate Costumes==
==Trivia==