How to guard a cutter in ultimate: take the deep, give up the under

To guard a cutter in ultimate, stand a half step downfield of them on the side your team is forcing, at an angle where you can see both your cutter and the disc. From there you can run with them if they go deep, and if they come back toward the disc you follow a step behind and let the short pass go. A completed under gains the offence a few yards. A completed deep throw usually scores, so that is the cut you take away first.

How to guard a cutter in ultimate

Your position comes from two things: the force and the disc. The force your team calls before the point (see how to force forehand in ultimate) tells you which side the throws will come to, so you stand on that side of your cutter. Standing a half step downfield, closer to the end zone than they are, means a deep cut has to go past you, and you are already turned the right way to run with it.

Stand side on rather than facing your cutter, so you can see them and the thrower without turning your head all the way round. If you lose sight of the disc you can't tell when it is thrown, and if you lose sight of your cutter you will be a step late on their first move. Glancing between the two is enough; you don't need to watch both at once.

Cutters in a vertical stack usually set up a cut by faking one way and going the other. If you are a step downfield, you don't need to react to every fake toward the end zone, because you are already there. A defender standing level with or upfield of their cutter has to guess, and a wrong guess on a deep fake leaves the long throw open.

Giving up the under doesn't mean ignoring it. Stay close enough behind your cutter that when they catch, you are near enough to set the mark straight away. Keep your space, and don't lean on them or make contact on purpose. Ultimate is a non contact sport, and deliberate contact with a cutter is a foul.

Step by step

The offence is in a vertical stack with O1 holding the disc and O2 behind as the dump. D1 marks O1 on a forehand force, so the forehand side is down the picture.

The stack defenders start beside their cutters. Each takes a half step downfield on the forehand side, where they can see their cutter and the disc.

O7 drives deep from the back of the stack. D7 is already a step downfield, so they turn and run with O7 and stay between O7 and the end zone.

With the deep cut covered, O7 stops and comes back under toward the disc on the forehand side. D7 follows a step behind on the downfield side and lets the short pass go.

O1 throws the under to O7. Because D7 stayed close, they reach the mark as O7 catches and set it for the same forehand force.

The offence has gained a few yards, but the deep throw was never open and D7 is counting before O7 can look downfield.

To practise this, set up a short stack of three cutters with a thrower, and have one defender guard the back cutter at walking pace. The cutter fakes and cuts deep or under, and the defender works on staying downfield and keeping the disc in view. Once that is comfortable, add a second pair and let the thrower choose. The vertical stack article shows the same stack from the offence's side, with the cuts your defenders will be guarding.

The full play

You can take this playbook into your own account and change it for your team, for example switching the side if you force backhand, or giving the deep cut to a different cutter in the stack.

Playbooks can also be saved as a PDF if your team would rather have the plays on paper before a game.