New Meta Knight kill-combo?

[Arent]

Hey everyone, I'm Arent and I might have a new Meta Knight combo (I don't know if it's already a thing). I've tested this in training mode, and the combo-counter says it's a true combo. I haven't tested if you can DI this yet, but I'm sure it is at least usefull against big characters like Bowser and Dedede.

How to do the combo:

First you pick a character (preferrably big) and go to a stage without platforms.
Get the character to 70 ~ 90% (depends on the chraracters weight).

To start the combo, you jump and fastfall (I don't know if fastfalling this is necessary, but I do it with fastfalling), but just before you hit the ground you do an up-air. Now you must dash, full-hop and do another up-air. Now jump and go for yet another up-air and finish the combo with an up-special. If the up-air before the up-special didn't connect the percent is too high, but you can still kill your opponent if you do an up-special instead of the up-air.

On which characters does it work?

This combo works on everyone as tall or taller than Mario. It is however pretty much frame-perfect if you try it on Mario. This means that the combo becomes easier to do the taller the opponent's character is, since the window to hit the first up-air is bigger on taller characters.

The pros and cons:
The best thing about this combo is that you can consistantly kill bigger characters with it at reasonable percents. Its can even be used at edges of platforms for earlier kills.

This combo also has it's downsides: landing the first up-air on smaller characters is very tricky to do, especially consistantly. It's also not safe on shield, so it can only be used when you KNOW your oponent is wide open.

The biggest downside by far is the fact that at the percent this combo works at other setups are easier to do and more effective. The one thing that this combo has going for it is that you can use it on platforms easily, where meta knight doesn't have too many reliable setups.

I would appreciate it if you try out this combo for yourself, and see if it's actually usefull or just a very situational thing you can do in friendlies for fun. Thank you for reading this and I hope you will be able to make good use of this combo.

 

[Conn1496]

Meta Knight U-Air > Shuttle Loop combos are not new by a long, long shot, but the execution using Fast Fall U-Air sounds interesting regardless. Probably not a great set-up, mind, especially when 90% of Meta Knight's bread and butter combos are Dash or Grab (more reliable combo starters) into U-Air combo set-ups - things that a player should realistically know if they want to play Meta Knight.

Honestly though, true U-Air ladder combos to Shuttle Loop are almost a thing of the past for Meta Knight since his nerf. They're still doable, and they're still his bread and butter, but the 'guaranteed KO' is certainly escapable for a majority of the cast and more limited in power than ever. Chance is that if you're KOing with Shuttle Loop it's off a single U-Air confirm, and not a ladder of them.

I think the key things I should ultimately point out are that:

• Training Mode combos aren't strictly true combos. DI can ruin them, and the CPU just doesn't properly DI. This is definitely the case with Meta Knight's U-Air which is affected a lot by DI.
  
• Fast Fall U-Air is not by any means an efficient set-up. If you're looking to KO from landing with U-Air Shuttle Loop, you're probably going to go for a N-Air confirm into Dash > U-Air ladder > Shuttle Loop, or something similar.
• If the combo is frame perfect in any way, it's probably a lot riskier to do than it sounds, and unless it's a free 0-death, it's probably not going to be worth it most of the time.

 

[Arent]

Meta Knight U-Air > Shuttle Loop combos are not new by a long, long shot, but the execution using Fast Fall U-Air sounds interesting regardless. Probably not a great set-up, mind, especially when 90% of Meta Knight's bread and butter combos are Dash or Grab (more reliable combo starters) into U-Air combo set-ups - things that a player should realistically know if they want to play Meta Knight.

Honestly though, true U-Air ladder combos to Shuttle Loop are almost a thing of the past for Meta Knight since his nerf. They're still doable, and they're still his bread and butter, but the 'guaranteed KO' is certainly escapable for a majority of the cast and more limited in power than ever. Chance is that if you're KOing with Shuttle Loop it's off a single U-Air confirm, and not a ladder of them.

I think the key things I should ultimately point out are that:

• Training Mode combos aren't strictly true combos. DI can ruin them, and the CPU just doesn't properly DI. This is definitely the case with Meta Knight's U-Air which is affected a lot by DI.
  
• Fast Fall U-Air is not by any means an efficient set-up. If you're looking to KO from landing with U-Air Shuttle Loop, you're probably going to go for a N-Air confirm into Dash > U-Air ladder > Shuttle Loop, or something similar.
• If the combo is frame perfect in any way, it's probably a lot riskier to do than it sounds, and unless it's a free 0-death, it's probably not going to be worth it most of the time.

A few responses to the things you pointed out:

1. What you says here is true, DI may be able to ruin this combo,. Luckily you can do it with just two up-airs (including the fastfalled one), and the first up-air is hard to react to. I don't know how much DI affects a single up-air, but if it is really affected a lot by DI it may only work on bigger characters like Bowser.

2. What you say isn't entirely true (also I didn't know you cold connect nair into dash up-air, so thanks), because what sets this combo apart from that one is the fact that this can be used at higher percents (on mewtwo it works starting at 69%). Going for a nair at that percentage will probably not lead to anything and an up-air at that percent from nair can probably be airdodged. This combo however can't be airdodged (unless DI really messes thing up).

3. What you bring up here is probably the biggest flaw of this combo: It can't be used at all against characters that are shorter than Mario. However, I have figured out you can get this combo to work consistently with practise on characters as tall or taller than Mewtwo. The first up-air is the only though thing to do, because all you do afterwards is up-air to shuttle loop (or another up-air and THEN shuttle loop).

One last thing I would like to bring up:
you seem to think this is a combo you can do at low percents, but this is untrue. This only works at higher percents.

 

[Conn1496]

A few responses to the things you pointed out:

1. What you says here is true, DI may be able to ruin this combo,. Luckily you can do it with just two up-airs (including the fastfalled one), and the first up-air is hard to react to. I don't know how much DI affects a single up-air, but if it is really affected a lot by DI it may only work on bigger characters like Bowser.

2. What you say isn't entirely true (also I didn't know you cold connect nair into dash up-air, so thanks), because what sets this combo apart from that one is the fact that this can be used at higher percents (on mewtwo it works starting at 69%). Going for a nair at that percentage will probably not lead to anything and an up-air at that percent from nair can probably be airdodged. This combo however can't be airdodged (unless DI really messes thing up).

3. What you bring up here is probably the biggest flaw of this combo: It can't be used at all against characters that are shorter than Mario. However, I have figured out you can get this combo to work consistently with practise on characters as tall or taller than Mewtwo. The first up-air is the only though thing to do, because all you do afterwards is up-air to shuttle loop (or another up-air and THEN shuttle loop).

One last thing I would like to bring up:
you seem to think this is a combo you can do at low percents, but this is untrue. This only works at higher percents.

It's less about the risk, reward or execution of the combo itself and more about your other options comparatively. When you break down Meta Knight combos, you have a list of combo pieces: (%s not specified)

Moves that to my knowledge can start a combo are: D-Tilt, U-Tilt, Landing N-Air, Landing B-Air (Hit 1, or when Hit 2 is not teched), Landing F-Air (Hit 1 or 2), U-Air, Dash, D-Throw, F-Throw and B-Throw (into Dash at low %s). (I also think D-Air fits on this list, but I'm not sure off the top of my head.)

Moves that can be combo'd into are: D-Tilt (Jab Locks), U-Tilt, U-Smash, All Airs, Tornado (Neutral-B), Dimensional Cape (Down-B), Shuttle Loop (Up-B), and finally Dash.

Of course not all moves will combo into eachother from every set-up, but this is just a raw list of moves that I have combo'd from and into, and when you look at that list of moves, it's important to note that there's a huge, huge list of combo starters. -and while U-Air is on there, it's important to note that 1) I don't specify landing U-Air, and 2) Meta Knight has a notable variety of landing, combo starting options. Not even counting the fact you can fake your opponent out and grab them instead, or something else along similar lines.

My skepticism about the combo is less about the combo's legitimacy or what %s it's used at (Though, those are a factor. I think that it's % range and consistency are actually fine when you hit the starter.), and more about the fact it uses a comparatively weak and difficult combo starter. Landing U-Air could be a fine combo tool and it still wouldn't be up to scratch because Meta Knight's combo game is already just so good. Landing U-Air's only real saving grace is that it enables ladder combos at later %s, but that's at %s where those same combos stop becoming possible or optimal anyway, and you simply focus on confirming into Shuttle Loop or a single U-Air > Shuttle Loop, a thing you can do at those %s from a few other, more common set-ups.

I honestly tested it out, to give it a chance, and there was a lot of overlap with tried and tested combos that KO just as efficiently across it's entire percentage span, without the worry that a Landing U-Air might whiff. Again, it's not that the combo doesn't work (and there's even some cases where it doesn't look like it will), it's that it's a lot of commitment to a set-up that requires you to either take a big risk or not take a better option.

The short and sweet or TL;DR of it is that just because you can do a combo doesn't mean it's going to see use, and this is a pretty open and closed case of that because there are just basically always better options.

 

[Freakzoid9000MS]

Okay, so I'm just gonna make this short and blunt. Landing Uair is a meme and should never be used like what you're saying lol. The only time landing Uair sees use is in certain combos vs fastfallers at low %s and even then, those combos can be unreliable, situational, % specific, and etc. You're better off going for literally anything else than using landing Uair, just saying.

 

[Arent]

It's less about the risk, reward or execution of the combo itself and more about your other options comparatively. When you break down Meta Knight combos, you have a list of combo pieces: (%s not specified)

Moves that to my knowledge can start a combo are: D-Tilt, U-Tilt, Landing N-Air, Landing B-Air (Hit 1, or when Hit 2 is not teched), Landing F-Air (Hit 1 or 2), U-Air, Dash, D-Throw, F-Throw and B-Throw (into Dash at low %s). (I also think D-Air fits on this list, but I'm not sure off the top of my head.)

Moves that can be combo'd into are: D-Tilt (Jab Locks), U-Tilt, U-Smash, All Airs, Tornado (Neutral-B), Dimensional Cape (Down-B), Shuttle Loop (Up-B), and finally Dash.

Of course not all moves will combo into eachother from every set-up, but this is just a raw list of moves that I have combo'd from and into, and when you look at that list of moves, it's important to note that there's a huge, huge list of combo starters. -and while U-Air is on there, it's important to note that 1) I don't specify landing U-Air, and 2) Meta Knight has a notable variety of landing, combo starting options. Not even counting the fact you can fake your opponent out and grab them instead, or something else along similar lines.

My skepticism about the combo is less about the combo's legitimacy or what %s it's used at (Though, those are a factor. I think that it's % range and consistency are actually fine when you hit the starter.), and more about the fact it uses a comparatively weak and difficult combo starter. Landing U-Air could be a fine combo tool and it still wouldn't be up to scratch because Meta Knight's combo game is already just so good. Landing U-Air's only real saving grace is that it enables ladder combos at later %s, but that's at %s where those same combos stop becoming possible or optimal anyway, and you simply focus on confirming into Shuttle Loop or a single U-Air > Shuttle Loop, a thing you can do at those %s from a few other, more common set-ups.

I honestly tested it out, to give it a chance, and there was a lot of overlap with tried and tested combos that KO just as efficiently across it's entire percentage span, without the worry that a Landing U-Air might whiff. Again, it's not that the combo doesn't work (and there's even some cases where it doesn't look like it will), it's that it's a lot of commitment to a set-up that requires you to either take a big risk or not take a better option.

The short and sweet or TL;DR of it is that just because you can do a combo doesn't mean it's going to see use, and this is a pretty open and closed case of that because there are just basically always better options.

Yeah, what you say here is 100% true. With all the things you pointed out the only real use is trying to get an early kill on a platform.

Thank you for taking the time to type all that by the way.

 

[Arent]

Okay, so I'm just gonna make this short and blunt. Landing Uair is a meme and should never be used like what you're saying lol. The only time landing Uair sees use is in certain combos vs fastfallers at low %s and even then, those combos can be unreliable, situational, % specific, and etc. You're better off going for literally anything else than using landing Uair, just saying.

It's more like doing an up-air as you hit the ground after fast falling. That can combo into another up-air and into up-B.

The problem about this combo is that there is almost always a better kill setup (maybe you could use it on a platform, since dash attacks an dashgrabs don't lead into up-b often on platforms)

 

[Freakzoid9000MS]

It's more like doing an up-air as you hit the ground after fast falling. That can combo into another up-air and into up-B.

The problem about this combo is that there is almost always a better kill setup (maybe you could use it on a platform, since dash attacks an dashgrabs don't lead into up-b often on platforms)

Oh no, Ik what it is. I found this out a year or so ago. I'm just saying, it's terrible don't use it.

 

[Arent]

Oh no, Ik what it is. I found this out a year or so ago. I'm just saying, it's terrible don't use it.

I looked into it more, and it is pretty useless, except on ganon, bowser etc. Even then it's still situational.

 

[MudkipUniverse]

definitely not a new kill combo, but it's something. landing uair > grounded shuttle loop also confirms at some percentages
the really ****ty hitbox combined with how unsafe this move is & how hard it is to land, makes it pretty useless on most characters, yeah

 

[Arent]

definitely not a new kill combo, but it's something. landing uair > grounded shuttle loop also confirms at some percentages
the really ****ty hitbox combined with how unsafe this move is & how hard it is to land, makes it pretty useless on most characters, yeah

Yeah, the ****ty hitbox isn't that bad on big characters but it's still really unsafe.

 

[IcantWin]

https://youtu.be/ot3hnhieewI

If what you're talking about is this then I would say stay away from using it, to me it's too impractical and dangerous to pull off at higher levels of play. Pretty nifty though,