Watching Tyrant at Fresh Saga, especially in that painful set vs Trela (great job to Trela, though), Tyrant keeps making questionable decisions and reads. Up smashing right on Ryu's shield and going for a Shuttle Loop read when he's sitting at death percents against rage Ryu, both times being a full stock down. Oh, and, Tyrant kept on dair camping against a character who has some of the best anti-airs in the game (why?!). And against Void, Tyrant went for a Shuttle Loop read when Sheik was below 40% (?!?).
Tyrant going for unnecessary reads and being impatient at times is nothing new, but with the inability to cheese most top and high tiers to death, his issues as a player are really showing. I wonder if Trela is well-practiced in the MU because he really was playing it nicely: being defensive and campy with Hadokens to exploit MK's lack of a projectile and in turn forcing him into footsies range where Ryu shines. What helped was Tyrant was being overly aggressive and mindless with his approaches, especially in the first game. In their set at False Awakens pre patch, they were pretty close already (3-2), and the stark contrast yesterday shows how much the nerf has affected MK's match-ups.
Yeah, and the Ryu MU is pretty bad, of course. Rage-less Ryu kills MK at 76%, and Ryu has little trouble bringing him to that percent since MK is a fast-faller who lacks a frame 3 aerial. MK's footsies are outmatched by Ryu's, and laming out Ryu is not an option for MK due to his lack of a projectile. The offstage game is in MK's favor, but it comes at a risk since if he fails and Ryu gets back before him, Ryu can easily cover his ledge options with his tilts. And MK's
love to ledge jump predictably so this will get them murdered by Ryu at the ledge. Overall: Ryu wins footsies, racks up damage more reliably, lives longer,
and kills much earlier than MK can.
Despite some good placements, Meta Knight is continuing with his downward trend, and the way the Ryu MU plays now is one of the best ways to show how much the nerf has hit him. He traded a -3 with Sheik and an amazing MU spread with the rest of the cast for a list of -1's vs Fox, Ryu, Mario, Diddy (already losing pre patch tho), Cloud, Bayonetta, and Sheik herself (debatably even now but i don't think so) along with much harder MU's vs half the cast, and Mario and Ryu may very well be -2's. The only relevant character he dominates now is Rosalina, but she isn't a common tourney pick so that means a lot less than it should. His losing MU's against Mario, Diddy, Bayonetta, and Cloud are all a significant hindrance due to how common these characters are, and at this point he absolutely needs a secondary for consistent results.
Look past his results and just watch top MK's play and even his high tier position that he's commonly perceived to have comes into question. Leo and Tyrant are amazing players with solid fundamentals and they're struggling with the character. I honestly think Meta Knight is mid-tier: on the upper half, but to me, mid tier is just mid tier, just a batch of mostly uninteresting and boringly average characters. He stands as an outlier because of his performances coming from Leo and Tyrant, not because he is a definitively high tier character.
I'm happy for Ryu mains, though. Good stuff and great plays from Trela.
