Meta Match Up Discussion - Vs. Cloud

[---]

General Rules:

• No Flaming. Respect the opinions of others even if you disagree. Let's not get heated on an online forum for a family-friendly game. Failure to abide by this will result in the wrath of the law.
• Human error isn't something worth serious consideration. Discussions will assume both characters are being played to utmost potential.

The following are suggested subtopics of conversation:

• Character strengths and weaknesses
• How to effectively approach/deter approaches
• Off-stage game
• Positional play
• Punishes/punishing
• Specific moves/strings that are strong for both characters
• Suggested custom movesets
• Stage strengths and weaknesses
• Overall score [NOTE: THIS IS NOT AS IMPORTANT DURING THE FIRST ROUND OF DISCUSSION]

***For general questions not related to the current topic in this thread please use the General Match Up thread.***

This thread shall last for around 8-9 days, with the next thread opening up in about 5-7 days.

 

[420quickscoper]

Mewtwo does quite well against Cloud, and this is because of how easily Mewtwo wrecks Cloud's recovery. I could talk about it for days.
It's very easy to stuff Cloud's recovery with forward and back air.

Also, another very good option is to simply throw an SB at him offstage so that he airdodges. You usually get a free forward air or down air, which might just kill him.

 

[Quantumpen]

I play this match-up a lot. I think it's at least even for us.

There are a lot of ways to gimp Cloud's non-limit recovery, I feel like this is the most discussed aspect of the MU so I'd like to discuss something else: Neutral vs .Cloud.

I think the keys to this match-up air: Exploiting our mobility to keep ourselves in our favorable zone, using a lot of shield against his aerials (We get OOS nair punishes on some of them, and we force him to the ground where he has a lot more trouble with us) where we're a big threat to him, and attempting to off-stage him whenever he gets close to using limit, so he'll be tempted to waste it recovering.

One of the keys to this match-up from our perspective is trying to keep Cloud in front of you in the air/grounded, this is where you're at your strongest, and where he'll have the most difficulty handling you because his best tools wan you above or below him. Don't u-air him unless it's in a combo or part of a punish, don't bair him unless it's pairt of an off-stage punish.

We're better than Cloud on the ground. Our d-tilt stuffs his grounded approaches, and we have so many confirms off of it. His grab-game is pretty weak where we have both a high damage throw and a kill throw. If Cloud decides to approach he'll almost always try to do it aerially he tends to go for these options:

a) his full jump dair. We can't challenge him on this but the move isn't safe if blocked.
b) sh-auto canceled u-air, which was safe pre-patch, can be shield grabbed now if not properly spaced. Still safe on auto-cancel, I believe
c) wall us out with sh-nairs.

We can't really challenge cloud's u-air if we're above him or his d-air if we're below him. Our goal should be to try and keep cloud in front of us, exploiting our superior aerial mobility with sh-back fairs. This will beat/punish most of his incoming options. Likewise if you dash in after a whiffed dair or even uair (if you're close) you can get a d-tilt combo confirm depending on your spacing. Our best d-tilt confirms work on Cloud, so go nuts. dj-uair -> fair is particularly good because it's easy to get cloud off-stage and then go for an air-dodge mind-game during his recovery.

Cloud likes charging limit. Depending on how he likes doing this you have different options. If you need to approach him, you're usual sh-fair + d-tilt + uncharged shadow ball/grab mix-up is pretty effective. He'll have a lot of trouble walling you out and in close quarters you're d-tilt is pretty beastly. I always punish dashes/rolls out of limit with a d-tilt or nair depending on percent/range. If he's jumping around charging limit shut that down with fair or a RAR'd nair (definitely want to RAR it because that makes controlling the pop out/comboing much easier). If The Cloud players rolls to interrupt charge, keep a FCSB on deck for punishing that.

It sounds a bit easier than it is, but this is how I approach the Cloud match-up. The main thing you've gotta be careful about is u-air. It's lighting quick and he gets a lot off of it. Also if he's over on stage with limit: He's trying for that LBCS and it hurts like hell and is nearly impossible to react to, try your best to prevent that from happening. Don't throw out unsafe moves, and if you see him coming in for one sh-back and try to punish. Learn the distance where fair beats u-air this and try to stay in that distance as much as possible. You can control this because you've better air-speed (and now, dash speed too), and a much more threatening projectile.

 

[Spikezillian]

Cloud is weird in that he likes to charge his Limit Break and Mewtwo likes to charge his shadow ball, so both can tempt the other to approach but in a way Cloud could potentially get better payoff from it, since his side b limit break can kill Mewtwo early and that's pretty harsh.

But on the other side of the coin, Mewtwo has it made fighting Cloud. Our neutral is a lot more rewarding and Cloud isnt safe in shield, nor safe rolling around because of Shadow Ball. Cloud is a bit more defensive in 1v1 because he needs to charge limit before he can come charging in on anybody, and he likes to have some distance so his sword is relevant, but Mewtwo can get in and not worry about Clouds range, nor does he have to worry about defensive Cloud because we have an answer whether it'd be a grab, shadow ball, nair or simply a dash attack after reading a roll. If he tries to roll behind us, we can read that with a bair, too. There's not a lot of room for error so the opponent would need to mix up their defensive options quite a bit to get past us.

Mewtwo has much faster aerials than Cloud and I think this will help in the long run. Yes, Cloud has a fast uair, but its not strong anymore so Mewtwo doesnt worry about it, not to mention if we can go undernearth the hitbox we can just fair to punish the long animation of his uair. These are just possibilities, keep in mind.

Should also be mentioned Mewtwo has significantly better grab game than Cloud, so we will have better options than he does right off the bat. We also have a command grab and reflector, which renders his shield even more useless, and his projectile ultimately meaningless.

We also gimp the living crap out of him. The only think he could probably do to stop us is nair (maybe?), or up b spike us lmfao. He is almost as bad as Ganon when it comes to gimp protection.

The only things we should be worried about are his smashes, nair and his limit being charged. Cloud has 2 pretty solid smashes for fighting Mewtwo (usmash and dsmash), one of them potentially killing us somewhat early while the other would just be good for damage. Nair is fast and with limit break charged he can go full out Shulk 2.0 on us, which isnt fun even with our new found weight. We can do a few things to fight it off, but if he gets in there once, hes bound to string them. Limit break in general is also kind of scary, as I said he can kill Mewtwo pretty early with side b limit but he needs to have the opportunity knock. Even more scary though is the speed boost he gets from charged limit. This gives him a bit more mobility that Mewtwo would rather someone not have at all, but I mean hey, what can you do?

Oh yeah, and Cloud with his weight and fall speed is a perfect victim to our jab strings, including jab to down b, my personal favourite.

Honestly I would put this matchup at 60:40 in Mewtwo's favor, I wouldn't say that is stretching it considering most of our options arent shut down by Cloud, but yet his options are much more limited whether in neutral, off stage, or just between strings. This is a MU that I think a lot of Cloud mains sleep on, as well (for as much as that is cliche to say right now).

 

[Browny]

Almost all of the high-level tournament matches of Mewtwo vs Cloud have it being even, or Mewtwo winning convincingly.

All the evidence and theory puts it in Mewtwos favour.

 

[Mr. B]

I like fighting Clouds despite that hideous disjoint he waves about, since with decent spacing I always feel in control of the match.

The golden rule seems to be - "Don't be above Cloud under any circumstances or you will get juggled."

Beyond that I find that teasing him by staying a little out of reach and not committing until you see him lagging will result in him getting more and more desperate, flinging more sword moves out randomly, which makes him even easier to punish.

 

[Sonicninja115]

This MU also seems to rely a lot on stage control. I really noticed in my matches that stage control mattered. Sometimes, it is just a small thing, but against a Cloud, I was constantly trying to keep it and remain in advantage.

 

[meleebrawler]

The dilemma of whether to charge shadow ball vs. stopping Cloud from charging limit is simple: if he's on empty, go ahead and charge your projectile while he charges his limit, the projectile charges faster and will help in the long run. Otherwise just focus on keeping stage control as has been said.