Advancing the Mewtwo Meta Game

[Gandhi Jam]

I recently picked up Mewtwo because it seems there is just so much hidden potential untapped in this character. What are some mewtwo techniques that are under developed that need to be commonplace if mewtwo is to get a 20XX upgrade?

Right now I see a lot of potential in quickly executed DJC aerials. I've noticed that a quickly executed DJC Nair Oos can act like a pseudo shine to escape shield pressure. What other techniques can we as the mewtwo community uncover/"20xxify" to see mewtwo become more tournament viable?

 

[Gandhi Jam]

Reserved for future editing...

 

[ihasabuket]

mewtwo has amazing aerial mobility and low traction giving him a great wavedash and the ability to edge cancel aerials and his up b. edge canceled teleport would be a crazy movement option if mastered. I think mewtwo players need to use more platform movement in general especially with edge canceled teleports mixed in. On a side note mewtwos SH bair under a platform covers the majority of it. Also you can do pivots to get small precise distances since your wavedash is huge

 

[Jmcpappy]

I've been thinking the same thing, honestly. Mewtwo's meta is so hilariously underdeveloped, and if any character besides Yoshi is gonna start breaking out into higher tiers, it's got to be him. He tilts not only have INSANE rage, comparable to that of marth, but his combo/punish game can be driven so far from a grab. He honestly reminds me of Peach.

 

[ihasabuket]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ii-5FxTtmVQ
check it out, edge canceled teleports.

 

[Temkin]

Holy cow. This board is dead.

 

[ihasabuket]

yeah dude i tried to breathe some life into it a month ago but nothing, also i saw your post about mewtwo dittos but never really played or seen one. I assume its just whoever has better fundamentals for neutral. As for combos.... im not entirely sure you have many on floaties. Mewtwo can absolutely combo the mess out of fastfallers though.

 

[Temkin]

True true. It is kind of sad to see Facebook take over smashboards, (from what I have seen). All the cool stuff and guides on here are just going unnoticed and ignored.

Think if Smashboards changed a few things here and there and made a phone app this would be booming.

 

[EZえん]

I think mewtwo's biggest drawbacks are his large af hurtbox, slow run speed (hard to get out of things like jabs and ftilts), mostly slow non-disjoint hit boxes, combo food weight/fallspeed, and limited ledge options. If we could optimize his ground movement more to not get into so many combo chains and find a way to get back from the ledge safer, I think mewtwo has a great spacing game and combo game. Mewtwo has the tools to be good, but by being such a weird character, its just not developed enough.

 

[Temkin]

Honestly I started playing low tiers because they're fun and different. It feels so exciting to feel the pressure of a high tier coming to take you down. As if you're on the line of failing every second and at any moment you could get destroyed. Maybe that is just me or that my scene isn't developed enough to make playing some characters close to impossible. But they're fun, and I like having fun. Also who knows, maybe if people show more interest in low tiers another Amsa will come along and blow everyone out of the water.

 

[ihasabuket]

Dude have you seen qerb? He is THE game and watch main
Anyway back to mewtwo, If you space as if your tail is in front of you youll notice his hurtbox isnt that big of a deal. Let's see if we can cover and discuss his weaknesses you mentioned. Well before i start lemme just start by saying all of his taill moves have good disjoint because the last 1/3 of his tail doesnt have a hurtbox. Also mewtwo doesnt really get comboed by anyone except falco and falcon and to be fair they can combo pretty much any character cept maybe puff. He's also the highest possible weight you can be before being heavy enough to get waveshined. So ill make a pros and cons list.

Pros

• Relatively hard to combo due to low falling speed and middle weight class (more weight means you suffer less hitstun)
• All moves have disjoint
• Low endlag aerials and normals
• low traction gives him a good WD and makes him slide far when shield is hit, good vs shield pressure
• Huge and fairly fast roll, good vs shield pressure
• Huge 2nd jump and up b with invinc. makes his recovery great
• Great at offstage edgegaurding because of the above mentioned pros coupled with high aerial maneuverability and slow fall speed
• Chargeable projectile
• good throws
• AI (aerial intterupt) allows quick landings on side platforms and a variety of ledge options

Cons

• Slow dash and run speed
• No good aerial approaches
• side and down b are very punishable and hard to land
• cant combo floaties effectively
• Large hurtbox

 

[Temkin]

Qerb is amazing. Looking up to him to continue trying to main G&W.

I think the reason a lot of people don't want to play Mewtwo is two reasons.
Marth destroys him, and it truly is a struggle going against faster characters.

I find it just a mind block against so much pressure, example: everything about Falco
But I believe that is what helps people become better is living in endless pressure.

But what could we as a group get Mewtwo meta game moving?

I would suggest making a Facebook page since I assume most people use it and it is a faster way to get notifications say if someone goes on stream or something.
Maybe have people post videos here and everyone critique the hell out of them.

Then for things like pros/cons, Match ups, Stages. Make a Google Doc everyone can see so they can go off of that.

Idk I am just throwing out ideas to hopefully help out the Mewtwo meta game.

 

[ihasabuket]

Against falco just use platform movement and try to powershield and WD OoS. you have easy edgeguards and stupid combos on him. Against faster characters you want small stages so you can abuse your range and edgeguarding strengths. i also made a guide called edgeguarding spacies check it out. Im not sure about the facebook page thing, i think the SSBM reddit would be a better place to start.

 

[Temkin]

I am not so sure about reddit. To get attention there you either have to make something super technical or something that is a joke. I don't take it very seriously. Me personally I think that. It would be interesting to see what everyone else thinks. When I mean everyone I mean like 2 people. lol

 

[ihasabuket]

I dont think most people on facebook use it to look up in depth character information. I do know one thing though, if you put a video in the ssbm reddit page it gets hella views. Also just wanted to say that if your maining game and watch lightshielding is a must. Qerb hasnt really implemented yet but watch his matches and count how many times he could have avoided getting shield stabbed. Since you have little traction like mewtwo you can lightshield shield DI away and then WD OoS. Now heres some mewtwo reference material.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTT6I1L5Ews - mewtwo vs falco

 

[Temkin]

Idk if you have seen r/ssbm subreddit because that place is dead. But thanks for the video.

 

[SuperShus]

Mewtwo boards are dead because you have to be more technical than aMSa to play mewtwo right and mewtwo isn't even as good as yoshi. The reward for your work is so small. I think mewtwo is super fun, but when it comes to do I practice shine out of shield or mewtwo ledge stall/chaingrabs whatever - I often choose shine oos or shine grab or triple shine.

Mewtwo players need a mewtwo hero to inspire them. They need to be shown that it's worth it to practice mewtwo.

 

[EZえん]

Mewtwo vs fast fallers is pretty glass cannony. You can 0-death all of em (which makes him pretty rewarding to master) but if you mess up a little too much, you get the same thing.

 

[Temkin]

Melee is hard. I am gonna try to play low tiers because they're fun but it's so easy to just play a high tier. The struggle is real. ;_;

 

[SuperShus]

it's so easy to just play a high tier.

Compared to a low tier yes, but I am going to have to point out that it's really hard to play fox - fox may be the best, but playing at the level fox is capable of is super hard. I don't just mean techskill. Hell, only 2 of the gods main him. Everyone else gets bopped.

Edit: the same goes for basically every character. Ics has that frame perfect stuff, falcon needs hard reads to be viable, peach is slow and get mad bopped by jiggs, sheik relies on insane reaction for techchasing spacies(though she's ezmode vs low tiers), falco requires lots of punishment grinding to be viable because he gets sooooo wrecked like the main character of flappy bird, and marth has to hit those 0-death chaingrabs because all his moves have lag and are risky. Just... yeah, what you said. Melee is hard.

 

[SuperShus]

Ok so I was playing in 20XX yesterday, does anyone know if any mewtwo has gotten proficient at dthrow techchase vs fox? You need to react in like 14 frames in order to cover everything and I don't know if anyone has a reaction time like that besides maybe Taj and he never did it.

You execute the techchase by dashing forward as the dthrow ends, you have to dash forward because wavedash makes you inactive for too many frames. When you see the roll, if its forward keep running and regrab dtilt ftilt whatever, if its tech in place jc grab instantly or you'll get shined, if its a back roll just reverse the dash and jc grab dtilt or ftilt. If they miss the tech you have to sh and do some aerial on reaction to the type of getup they do. I think this techchase won't work against them not teching on purpose because the dash forward put you on top of them basically when they hit the ground. Might be able to djc nair but I haven't been playing mewtwo enough to be technical enough to be sure. Also I am not familiar enough with mewtwo to do everything I can do at full speed as a TAS.

Thoughts, opinions?

 

[Deleted member 212841]

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[ihasabuket]

Wait isnt up throw better vs fast fallers? Or are you guys talking about high % options?
well anyway, when i dthrow tech chase with pretty much any character i usually space myself so i can cover tech in place and tech roll in. I figure if they tech roll away I get stage control but i think on bigger stages (FD and DL) its better to go for the techchase since theyl have a lot of room anyway. As for getup attack remember that fox will always hit to the side with his feet first. This means you can position your self on the side where his feet are to shield the first hit and get an OoS option. You can also approach from above if youre too far away. I was also thinking of experimenting with dthrow pivot fsmash since it has hella disjoint. Another idea id like to throw out there is to DJC dair a bit above the ground so that you actually keep your horizontal momentum and hit someone tech rolling. Althugh dair tech chase would have to be a read. charged SB is great after dthrow too but you have to throw it as soon as the throw ends and it wont cover the tech roll in. Its a read but its much more rewarding.

 

[Temkin]

So much info, thanks guys.
Also is there any recent matches of people play mewtwo?

Need to study up on the character.

 

[Deleted member 212841]

gcyftftdtfyxycyvj

 

[SuperShus]

Wait isnt up throw better vs fast fallers? Or are you guys talking about high % options?

On stages other than FD you can't really get guaranteed follow ups from up throw solely on reaction can you? Certainly not at high percents. If we want to make Mewtwo playable we're going to have to do literally everything the character is capable of even if we have to push ourselves farther than Westballz.

Also note that Falco's rolls are farther and therefore I believe it is likely that this will not even slightly work on him. Luckily we have powersheilds and sick gimps.

well anyway, when i dthrow tech chase with pretty much any character i usually space myself so i can cover tech in place and tech roll in.

I know that's the conventional knowledge, but if you can cover all options you should try to even if it is hard.

As for getup attack remember that fox will always hit to the side with his feet first. This means you can position your self on the side where his feet are to shield the first hit and get an OoS option. You can also approach from above if youre too far away.

The problem is that in order to cover tech in place, tech away and tech behind, you must run forward in the first few frames after the throw is over. If they miss the tech you're basically already on top of them by reaction time. Your best bet is to powershield the getup attack, which means that you can get a sick free punish... if you can get that reaction. If not, then you've shield stopped yourself. Shield stop then react to get up, get up attack or roll behind. Unless you read roll away I think you can't cover it besides with a WD turnaround bair.

Maybe it's something even easier than that and you just dash back when you see they missed tech and then react to their option while waiting safely outside getup attack range.

I think the tail makes this prohibitively difficult. If you had TAS-like control, or 6 or so years of comfort with melee then you might be able to execute dash back with mewtwo but you have to turn back around to face them before their threat can come out because otherwise your tail is in the way.

I'd been experimenting with using sh/djc(as needed) nair to cover the no tech options but again reaction time has to be godlike. I have no evidence that it's actually usable.

This dthrow techchase is going to be extremely hard for someone to perfect.

 

[Deleted member 212841]

gcyftftdtfyxycyvj

 

[Deleted member 212841]

gcyftftdtfyxycyvj

 

[SuperShus]

okay, just tested in debug menu with Fox.

Dthrow -> dash forward

If they tech in place : JC grab
If they tech roll in : dash back -> JC grab
If they tech roll away : dash forward -> wavedash grab
If they miss the tech : shield the instant you see them move and tilt it forward
If they getup attack : hold your shield and grab when it's finished
If they getup stand : grab
If they roll away : wavedash OoS -> grab
If they roll in: wavedash back OoS -> grab (no turn around for Fox, turn around for Falco, no turn around for Falcon)


and yes, you can do all this on reaction with practice

This is a win for all Mewtwo kind.
Has there been any player to do this before that you know of?

Any one else have any ideas to further mewtwo's meta?

 

[M-Tude]

Just a thought on finally finishing the tech chases with a kill, if you can react by frame 18 to a tech behind, then you can pivot D-smash them, or, for even more leeway, pivot F-smash.

I would also recommend Dash-->Wavedash to the spot of landing rather than dashing, because (I think) it gets you there just as fast as just dashing, but it also opens up more standing options, like D-tilting, or sets up an easier missed-tech punish.

Also, I've thought about this fairly extensively, and I just wanna throw out all the options of punishes for different techs that I thought were viable. let me know what you think.

Tech in place: JC grab, D-tilt.
I like D-tilt as an option cause it's quick with low knock back and will either result in a few tilts, or it can lead into a grab afterward, or another tech chase.

Tech behind: JC grab, turnaround D-tilt, Turnaround D-smash/F-smash, or Dash attack
I think Dash attack is interesting, but I'm not sure what it would lead to. maybe one of you with a game cube on hand could experiment?

Tech away: Dash-->Wavedash into: JC grab, D-tilt, Dash attack
I think grab is the safest here, but if you're trying to set something up at the ledge, maybe D-tilt/F-tilt/or U-tilt is for you?

Missed tech
This is where standing still at the point of landing is important. Standing still makes it a lot easier to react (in my opinion) to the different options that a grounded opponent has. Also, an important note on why I think shield stopping here is bad, is that if you shield pre-emptively then they can wear your shield down by simply waiting, eventually, you'll have to move first... Standing on your opponent without shielding is safe as long as you're prepared to shield if they get-up attack.

Normal get up: D-tilt, Grab
Roll forward or behind: Dash-->Wavedash into grab, tilts, whatever.
Get-up attack: Shield and angle forward to ensure shield grab.
OR: Shield, and after the attack, perform a double-jump cancel land (DJCL) into a tilt or grab, or just DJC a fair. You have ample time to do these after the attack hits shield I think.

It's awesome to hear that M2 can reactively cover all options with grab that's pretty **** cool

 

[SuperShus]

I really don't think that you can dash wavedash because wavedash has hella lag and you need to be able to turn around on frame 8 ish of dash to be able to grab fox's backwards roll iirc. WD is like 15 frames. And I think unless you do a pretty shallow wd then you'll fly past the tech in place and have to turn around to do something to the fox, and I think you can get shined.

Since you can't really do that, you can't really do this tilt stuff unless he tech rolls away. In reality you want to dthrow a lot and end this with an up-throw I think - though at what percent i'm not sure. Though if you power shield getup attack you can do whatever you want after it.

Does anyone know when uthrow fair kills fox on battlefield? Is that even guaranteed? Sometimes I feel like I cant get the fair. Is it faster to bthrow kill, from where on the stage is it best? When does bthrow put fox in enough hitstun that its a low recovery edgegaurd and therefore ezpz? ect. We need to know how to kill if we are to git gud scrubs

 

[Deleted member 212841]

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[Deleted member 212841]

gcyftftdtfyxycyvj

 

[Deleted member 212841]

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[ihasabuket]

Ive been practicing up throw followups on platforms vs fox. Although there are many things to optimize I have made some real progress. So a few things to mention before i go into each stage is that you can shorten your up b by doing tilt up b. Also, after teleporting right above the platform you should flick the control stick down to fastfall without falling through. You can also push x or y and hit up on the control stick to buffer DJ for 3 frames so that youre basically doing a DJ off the ground. The point is to have many vertical movement options to land on the platforms as soon as possible for certain followups. Also remember that full hop waveland is the quickest way to reach side platforms. Many followups mentioned here are limited to the % where fox would escape up throw on FD.

Battlefield - Fox cant jump out of up throw until he drops right below the side platform heights at 0-23% but its low enough that you have a guaranteed aerial followup. You can fullhop waveland onto a side platform to get a tech chase followup if you jumped late or decided to techchase. 0-13% fox will not reach the top platform and you can therefore followup as if there was no top platfform. At 14% he will barely reach the platform without any DI which can give you an upair followup, If they DI right or left foxes collision box will rotate and he wont hit the platform which gives you an aerialfollowup. In this situation a full hop after upthrow will leave you in a position to cover all options on reaction. If you up throw and they land on the top platform you can reach the top platform from under by jumping and teleporting as soon as possible. There is a former mewtwo player named prof who would up throw teleport regrab at certain percents, ill see if i can find a match of him doing it.

Yoshis - At any % fox can jump out right before he hits the side platforms but it doesnt matter since you can get aerial followups. At 0% up throw sends him high enough to hit the top platform but mewtwo's full hop fair can hit enemies on the top platform. At 0% you can cover Fox's tech in place with full hop fair which means you should virtually be able to cover any tech option on the top platform at any % after up throw. Knowing this you can basically ignore the side platforms on yoshis story unless you reacted late. If you upthrow at %s where you have enough time to land on the top platform to followup you can bthrow or smash attack so that they basically cant DI up, just a thought havent really implemented this one. You can quickly reach the top platform here by doing a shortened teleport from below the platform (see here http://smashboards.com/threads/reverse-shortened-up-b-recoveries-video-included.273278/).

Pokemon stadium - The platforms are the same height as the platforms on battlefield (Refer to the battlefield %s) so you can basically just ignore them. Although if you choose to let them land its much easier to cover their options because theyre really small platforms. Since they cant jump before they hit the platform at 0-13% you can get a smash attack or dair followup if you let them land. Same goes for battlefield.

FoD - I can only really talk about the top platform here since the side platforms change heights. This is the stage where you wont always get followups from up throw. Anyway, at 0% fox can fall on the top platform andyou can only cover tech in place with nair and up air since fair wont reach enemies on the top platform. You can quickly reach the top platform by doing a shortened teleport to maybe get a followup. This is the stage where you would almost always opt for downthrow.

Dreamland - At 0-2% fox cant reach the top platform when you up throw him, he also falls on side platforms before you can hit him with fair at this %. Also at 0-18% he will fall on the side platform before he can jump. You can full hop waveland onto the side platforms and cover any tech option with a pretty good frame advantage. Either way fullhop after up throw will let you cover all options on reaction. This is the best stage to teleport to the top platform for a followup. When you teleport from below the platform you appear just above the platform. This is the stage where i saw prof do an up throw teleport regrab.

There are times where you fair and fox will DI away onto another platform or offstage. When they land on the platform most of the time you can just land on the same platform and get a follow up. If theyre going to land on the floor remember that you can just edge cancel your aerials if there are platforms under you. Many times ive tried to l cancel and fall through but edgecancel fast fall waveland is your best option to chase them in that situation. Sometimes you can upthrow SHFFL fair on the platform and regrab as seen in the link below at 2:08. As for them going offstage youd basically do what you would in FD. Profs missed some followups in this set because he did not immediately jump after upthrow. Also note that Fox is lighter and falls faster than falco which affects the %s you can get certain followups.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZB6wapHu3o - prof (mewtwo) vs smiles (falco)

Edit: as melee mewtwo stated, AI(aerial interupt) is the quickest way to get on a side platform with as little endlag as possible.

 

[ihasabuket]

I was playing my friend just now and found out you can cover side b with dash attack at the ledge and fall off by holding left or right. It's the same thing falcon can do. You can also leave the control stick at a neutral position to stay at the end of the ledge since it has little endlag. Also you can fair, fsmash and dsmash after jab resetting.

 

[Deleted member 212841]

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[SuperShus]

I'm thinking that if you can punish techroll back with something scary then you can abuse the fact that tech in place and tech away will still push the fastfaller forward. Eventually, the dthrow will put them off stage which you might be able to reliably edgeguard.

I think that indefinitely grabbing them is pretty scary - and it gets them to a high percent. Which means they get b-throw insta-killed.

a quick thing I noticed while testing is that you need to wavedash forward right after dthrow instead of dash forward at high percents. (not sure exactly when, I was testing at 80% tho)

Yeah I noticed this problem initially and neglected to mention it. I think at this point the chaingrab kind of ends, because if you WD forward expecting the di away and they di in, they can escape with a roll in. However if they pick anything else you can catch them, so it's probably best to act as if the chaingrab is still guaranteed then end with a instead of a regrab dthrow or whatever works ftilt if they're by the edge or a grab bthrow or fair or strong bair if you can get one.

BTW I think it might be ok to end tech-chases with strong bair as a mixup to fair->uair (because DI).

at 80%, unstaled bthrow gives you a frame advantage of +43 and puts Fox slightly above stage with good DI (fox's feet is about at Mewtwo's headish)

This pretty much means that a bthrow at high percents that is close-ish to the ledge is a pretty free edgeguard. Even at like center stage, you have the time to wavedash twice to the ledge. (not great but about as good a edgeguard setup as dthrow is)

In fact, I tested at 0% and you can probably do a reaction based techchase off of bthrow even with DI down. You'll have to turn around, dash one frame and wavedash to get into a good position but it seems quite promising. It may be an option if they keep teching towards the edge of the stage with the intent of having your dthrow send them off. Mind you, platforms might be able to mess this up at certain percents and positions.

While I was testing dthrow I noticed also that bthrow is quite good. Once he's at like 40-60 you can just teleport towards him and continue. If the tele was edge cancelled or NIL then youd have even more time but I don't even think you need that.

ugh, this one was frustrating. I tested at a few percents but I'm not even going to list the frame advantages. No matter what, Fox was always able to jump out of Mewtwo's Fair by what seemed like a few frames each time. I might do more tests later cause it always came so close.

For the record, what I would do is full jump for x frames (dependent on Fox hitstun), double jump, Fair on frame 34 of double jump since that gives you the most height. I tested up to like 100% so maybe at like 120/130% it might actually connect or something? tbh, it seemed to get worse at higher percents cause Fox would fly higher up and the hitstun wasn't enough for him to drop lower. Uthrow -> Fair didn't kill at 80% on FD when I let Fox fall low enough to get hit by it so it doesn't seem to be a kill option at all. I didn't even bother with DI except once and that made things seem a fair bit worse. I'm inclined to believe it's impossible.

I'm glad I'm not the only one having problems with this!

P.S. Not even dtilt -> fair seems to work with proper dtilt DI.

It really doesn't.
Luckily the momentum from a dump doesn't come from the dash it's input on the frame before the frame you leave the ground so you can dtilt buffer walk turn around jump input full backwards veloctiy shorthop then djc a bair full momentum backwards. If you mess up they eat a weak bair if you do it right and you get a strong one.

If that doesn't make sense let me know I can try again.

snip

wow, nice fax

 

[Deleted member 212841]

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[ihasabuket]

There's a thread by schmoo that mentions some Mewtwo AI, it should help with covering side plats since it's faster than full jump wavelands.

The problem with dash attack is that it's still a large frame commitment and it can pop them up onto the stage rather than away towards the depths. I think the best way to edgeguard would probably involve standing next to ledge, ready to ftilt recoveries onto stage. Once you see the spacie drop low enough that onstage recovery isn't much an option and they are clearly aiming for ledge sweetspot, SUNC to snap to ledge and be ready to drop off -> bair or ledge AI onto stage. I've never put it into practice, however so there may be options I'm not thinking of.

what is ledge AI? i cant find this thread