Marth's Jab: "Ahhh get away flick"

The major difference I see between good marth players and great marth player is oddly enough separated by the use of one move: THE JAB.

Example:
Good Marth player will usually never follow up at F-air or an Aerial with a Jab. This is due to conditioning. If you play people that always block or CC you can get conditioned to think that hitting with a Fair produces "this scenerio". Therefore it creates a muscle memory trigger that can get you in trouble.

Great Marth player: He/She will understand the hit stun of F-air,usually only going for a grab when he knows he will get it. The use of the jab in situations is to keep your opponent "honest".
What this means is if your opponent reacts to a F-air the same way or aggressively you use a quick move to probe his defenses and react to whatever he does after that jab. This is very important to do because your opponent must either rethink his counter attack or not.
Now I am not suggesting using a jab all the time but it creates a scenario at low percents where
grab isn't Marth's only option.

Good Marth Player: When zoning with F airs and N-airs, they will either Aerial then dash back or WD back. Or Another Aerial.

Great Marth player: When zoning they understand that Marths jab is disjointed and can cut down nearly any approach. Using jab is even better when your opponent is at a higher percent.
Why? Because they suffer more hitstun if hit causing either a tech chase situation or a stage space advantage. Staying on the ground with Marth is a VERY underrated and forgotten way of spacing with Marth.
I say this because if you trade hits while spacing in the air 9/10 it's a bad situation for Marth.
Marths aerials do not kill nor provide enough not back to depend on aerial spacing.
If you trade a jab, or a ground move you have ability to block sooner, dash, etc.

I'll write more later, Right now I'm going to go to Germs house and play his amazing Link.
BTW Link vs Marth is 50/50. German just ate a bad 7-11 Burrito so I may do well tonight :)
Just got back from the Germs
Well Ima talk about playing him instead.
We are starting to record again so...I've been using alot of Marth. I'd have to say my best match ups are Falcon and Falco. Anyway...I remembered to use alot of jab and be aggressive vs Shiek and it paid off. I need to learn how to combo shiek better...she's one of those odd characters where tipping F-air is better for combo-ing than not. I notice I need to WD backJA and fsmash more instead of Dash dance grab at high percents. Bleh...I'm tired.

JABS (Cont.)
Alrighty, So I covered why zoning with jab is good, now lets look at the other amazing uses...
Baiting Air dodges.
Good Marth Player: Edgegaurding or trying to continue a combo on a floaty character.
Good Marth players with usually wait for an airdodge or try to N-air in anticipation for an airdodge. While this is good and works sometimes it's not amazing for baiting because:
N-air has less horizontal distance and the opponent can easily DI either hit of the N-air because he can see the move come out during his airdodge animation.
Waiting for an airdodge works to a degree but the closer the player gets to Marth, he looses his options for kill moves and risks getting hit.

Great Marth Player: Using jab allows for a quicker fsmash/Uptilt follow up if they do Air Dodge the jab.Where a N-Air would not kill a floaty and induce the need to L cancel...it is not great for following up.
Fsmash/Uptilt is VERY important to do vs Floaties when they cannot be comboed anymore because Marth isn't amazing in the kill move department.
Jab also is EVEN better than Forward B (one hit) in this situation because Jab can beat out aerials and is harder to DI up from. Jab can also be followed up easer horizontally with a tech chase or follow up...Also full length jab is about tipper range for Marth.