Advancing the Mewtwo Meta Game

[Deleted member 212841]

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[Gandhi Jam]

Hackpack glitch is normal, no it's not been fixed.

A lot of that thread is situational combos, as in they don't work if you don't get the right frames / poor DI.

I agree with Sieghart, sorta. It's not really useful knowing exact combo strings beyond the few key ones. What's really helpful is knowing where your strongest punishes lie and building up the recognition of when you can get them.

For fastfallers, it's having them in a grab because Mewtwo's techchase game is the best in the game. It's the easiest to apply and gets you large damage for each successful regrab. (the only hard part I've found is punishing missed tech optimally, ie djc fair, but lazy dtilts work like 90% of the time)

For floaties, I feel like it's having them above you. Mewtwo's grab, dtilt, and utilt can all put them there. His uair juggle game is pretty strong, especially when you tack on the extra control from his djc mechanics. At least, that's where I've been having the most personal success in those matchups.

As far as the few key combos worth knowing, it's basically all about that dtilt. Once you are aware that dtilt leads into your optimal punishes on every character at virtually every percent and able to capitalize on it, you'll start seeing a noticable difference in your punish game. Just about everything else you can build up a recognition for by knocking around the 20XX cpu with the color indicators and trying different stuff. Little things like knowing when you can follow up your utilts with a grab or nair techchase regrab will let you throw a few more mixups into your neutral game.

If you need me to list out some of the things you can do off of a dtilt let me know. I'm not sure how much you are already familiar with.

I'd like that. Sometimes I struggle with choosing the optimal option out of dtilt.

 

[Deleted member 212841]

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[ihasabuket]

I'm still of the belief that tech chasing and kill setups are more important and useful than M2's subpar combo game. I've gotten more mileage out of consistent tech chases on fast fallers than I ever did with juggles that sometimes don't even lead directly into a kill mostly due to DI and platforms. Stuff like the dtilt > down smash that Melee Mewtwo mentioned work right out of a decent tech chase too. Unless we're talking specifically about characters that can't be tech chased, or situations where tech chasing isn't an option, I don't see the point in opting for a combo when you can consistently wreck faces by tech chasing into an edgeguard or a kill outright.

Maybe it's just my newfound ability to not get completely wrecked by almost everyone I play talking but I just don't think the style points are worth it, man. Not for M2 at least.

I agree with you to a degree. I think it's important to develop mewtwo's combo game because of certain situations. Ordinarily it's better to go with throws and techchases as theyre easier to followup and do more damage. However mewtwo would benefit from true combos when the opponent is put into the air so that you can close out stocks instead of edgeguarding over and over again. I mean thats ok in the falcon MU but i think its a bad way to approach the spacie MU. For instance take a look at this match.

https://youtu.be/2IsXiEG0diQ?t=44s I made it start at 0:44 so dont worry about the timestamp.
Anyway, this is a situation that I always see mewtwo players **** up. The spacie is in front and above them and they either dont do anything or they do an upair while moving in a way that doesnt allow them to followup. What does Taj do here? He pisses his pants, wavedashes back, and lets falco back on the stage. Now I havent gotten to test it but I have a few ideas for combos here to close out the stock. Depending on the %s and postition you could do a couple of things. This next part is only at %s where upair can combo. Obviously at really high %s it might send them too far to followup and setup an edgeguard instead.

The main thing here is to connect an upair while moving forward. In Taj's situation dash -> SH rising upair but in the case that theyre too low you can maybe run off the ledge and upair. If theyre higher up fullhop rising upair might be best. Dont use your DJ here unless you can followup high and make it back to stage with just your teleport. Since upair's angle is 55 its fairly good for comboing. 2 important things are spacing the upair so you get the earliest hit (which is also the part that hits farthest in front of you) and tapping and/or holding back to drift back and slow your forward momentum, leaving you in a better position to followup.

Now If they DI up you should be able to get a second upair. If they DI away you should be able to connect a disable. Since your hit connected while he was above you he should be high up enough even after away DI. Use fastfall as necessary to get the followup on away DI since disable stops a lot of your vertical momentum, which lets you dip low for kills. Disable is usually unreliable since it only has KB if the opponent is in tumble but if you true combo into it it's not a problem.
The main issue here is if you mess up your spacing you'll hit a sourspot or these moves wont come before they drop under you. Luckily mewtwo has great options even if you miss these followups or mispace. If you end up too far to followup you can always snatch the ledge real fast with a teleport or DJ airdodge. If they end up too close for these two moves you can always opt for a nair and carry them offstage since you'd still have your DJ to recover with.

Alternatively you can do this same combo setup with reverse upair and followup with bair if they DI away or another upair if they DI up. Just know when you can outright kill with strong hit bair or if its better to combo because of % or their stage position. Again use fastfall freely to space since you'll have your DJ and remember the contingency nair or grab ledge plan.


Again this is just some brainstorming. If you test it and it doesnt work for any reason by all means tell me. I dont have a setup so this is straight up theory. Tbh im not even sure that you can do these followups just thought itd be better to try than to let people back on.

 

[ihasabuket]

Also this is the DI trap I theorized before where the apex of DI away on dthrow would intersect with a platform giving you a techchase, unless they DI in or up which gives you an aerial followup instead. It's mainly to platform techcase floaties.
https://youtu.be/yd1FFTsecW4?t=6m32s
Clearly it wasnt intentional but it works just as i thought it would. Unfortunately since Taj didnt plan this he reacted really late to the mistech on the platform and had to opt for nair.

 

[Sieghart]

How do you guys ledgestall? I pretty much exclusively instant DJ teleport into the ledge to refresh.

 

[Deleted member 212841]

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[MewtwoForce]

This isn't too much specific help on advancing his meta as it is encouragement.
I'm really happy to see us working together on mewtwo like this. The mewtwo boards are picking up in activity and i'd like to give shoutouts to you guys participating in here working to develop mewtwos metagame. I know how discouraging mewtwo can seem. So its great that you're sticking to this thread providing advice or findings or working on this character consistently and giving hope that we'll reach a point where m2 is doing well because you're not giving up. Keep on doing what you're doing and thanks again. I appreciate and look forward to more findings and brainstorming from you guys.

I wish I could contribute more but i'm still too new to the game to help out beyond the mental game and training prep which is something i've put time into learning IRL unrelated to smash. Self improvement and training philosophy is a little hobby of mine. I'll see what I can do about this in the upcoming months and contribute more here after my mewtwo has leveled up.

I'd like for some of you guys to try it out and report your results so we can see if this is a viable option for improving as players and not just helpful for some. Now for my attempt at contributing to the meta. I'll say this. PPMD was onto something. Look into meditation. As you can see here https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/use-your-mind-change-your-brain/201305/is-your-brain-meditation your brain will actually be REWIRED and THICKEN. The result? You will not get bothered as easily as before and be rewired to have other benefits that translate to better mental performance. And every day you do this you only thicken the brain more and rewire it to do this better. I've tried meditation recently and I can confirm its already staving off pressure to use and learn tech skill and its letting me think better when I play.

The catch is you must do this every single day to retain the benefits. I would shoot for 30 minutes a day despite them saying 15. I feel benefits after 15 but it starts getting pretty crazy around 30. Way better than 15.

Before starting what i'd like you to do is drink a few glasses of water to hydrate your brain. It performs way better when its totally hydrated. Then after using the restroom, start a meditation session for 30 minutes. When you are done, go back to melee and start thinking about the game and see how it effects your ability to practice and stay calm doing things. And report your results here. Both on how you feel your thinking changed or didn't change and the results of you performing in a match or practicing. Now for me I notice after 30 minutes its not usually enough. If I meditate for say, 45 or an hour thats when that magic happens. You want to find that average, how long it takes before you reach that magic calm state that meditation gives. You're shooting for that.

Now how could you keep this up every single day? Easy. You see, that feeling of being uneasy and not wanting to commit and sit is what the meditation is getting rid of. The longer you sit the more you will be fine with sitting for a longer period of time. Even after the first 10 minutes you will feel noticeably better about committing to this. You will find it harder to become intimidated about committing to other things as well. Like for instance, stepping up the difficulty or time commitment on training mewtwo won't seem like this big whooping chore anymore.

Mewtwo carries many triggers that can cause people playing him to feel overwhelmed or doubt themselves mid game and choke or make crucial mistakes. Things such as his technical play. His reputation as a character making you worry about coming back when you're down or staying ahead when you're winning. Feeling vulnerable with him which leads into anxiety. The higher demands of the mewtwo being on point in other fundamentals on smash just to have a chance. Clutching out a punish in a tournament match that was technically demanding or that didn't seem to give you alot of time to react.

Having a very calm clear head that is comfortable thinking about what is important without being distracted from slip ups or pressure is crucial to this character. This may be a stretch to say but I think meditation plays a huge role in solving that problem.

 

[Deleted member 212841]

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[Sieghart]

Just do it like Taj does, I don't think there's really any significant reason to stall any other way. It's the easiest to execute and you can Teleport onstage without it being super telegraphed. Maybe it'd be worth learning other ledgestalls to make different ways to get on stage more ambiguous, doesn't seem too needed though.

Main reason I do it that way is because it's the closest thing to what I used to do in PM when I played M2 there. By my count there's at least a 9-10 frame leniency on the teleport to get full invincibility after an immediate double jump so I don't find it particularly hard. Especially since at one point I believed it to be the only option. I've had more success with the method I use because even if they predict whether I refresh or edge cancel/NIL on the nearest platform, there's no way for them to properly cover an option. You can choose either refresh or edgecancel/NIL without adjusting your positioning on ledge if you know the angles like I do (there is absolutely no visual cue to react to until you've already teleported) and the edge cancel is simply too fast for them to cover both options. Well let me not say it's impossible, but it's ridiculously hard enough that I'd bank on it until proven wrong. I have a feeling you can also NIL to the ground without positioning for it but I haven't tried it yet.

 

[ChivalRuse]

Have any of you tried dash dance -> DJC fair as a punish for the opponent whiffing? I like it on characters who are easy to combo because it gives them less time to DI than a grab into u-throw.

 

[ihasabuket]

Okay so the recent discussion on the Teleport stall eventually led me to test Teleporting vertically for the sweetspot as opposed to the diagonal angle Taj is known for using. Previously, I thought that the vertical sweetspot was something that was unreliable and heavily dependent on the Teleport distance + slight nuance in regards to the angle. It turns out that is not at all true. As long as you aren't holding down when you reach the ledge while Teleporting, you will sweetspot it. This makes vertical Teleports ideal as opposed to diagonal ones, if you have the finger dexterity, as it lets you make edge canceled Teleports off of side platforms much more ambigious as well as giving you a little extra distance when you Teleport towards center stage. You also don't run into the risk of slight angle issues where you don't instant sweetspot the ledge and instead take a couple frames of Teleport endlag before grabbing.


Also the post above seems super interesting, thanks for posting.

Can you reach the top platform like this as well?


I've watched many of Taj and Prof's matches and saw that opponents started reading the teleport into center stage. Usually i respond to this by airdodging back on to mix up the distance. With this new vertical ledge stall Id imagine you could reach the top platform as well as the side platform giving you many options for recovery distance. If you mixup your recovery this way and force your opponent to react or guess, the platforms should be really safe IF you can shield drop punish.
I cant stress how crucial shield dropping is for mewtwo. Shield drop fair will reverse the situation letting you shark them from under. Chargecancel shield drop lets you force patient players to approach or give you a charged SB.

 

[Sieghart]

Have any of you tried dash dance -> DJC fair as a punish for the opponent whiffing? I like it on characters who are easy to combo because it gives them less time to DI than a grab into u-throw.

I use it a ton regardless of what I'm fighting particularly at lower percents where it's pretty much guaranteed that something can follow up. Sometimes I can start a tech chase from it if I'm aware enough but usually I just end up juggling or following DI on floatier characters with up air or pivot bair.

 

[Deleted member 212841]

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[ChivalRuse]

I just like using fair in general because it comes out faster than Mewtwo's other aerials.

 

[ihasabuket]

I use it a ton regardless of what I'm fighting particularly at lower percents where it's pretty much guaranteed that something can follow up. Sometimes I can start a tech chase from it if I'm aware enough but usually I just end up juggling or following DI on floatier characters with up air or pivot bair.

I would love to watch one of your matches. Can you record a few so we can analyze them?

 

[Sieghart]

I would love to watch one of your matches. Can you record a few so we can analyze them?

I plan to start recording some stuff once I get my movement where I want it. That being said, I'm not exactly sure you guys will be able to learn much past teleport angles from watching me. Most of what I do was either hinted at or outright said throughout this thread, primarily by Melee Mewtwo. My punish game is, imo, pretty on point but my neutral is still garbage since I'm relatively new.

 

[ihasabuket]

I plan to start recording some stuff once I get my movement where I want it. That being said, I'm not exactly sure you guys will be able to learn much past teleport angles from watching me. Most of what I do was either hinted at or outright said throughout this thread, primarily by Melee Mewtwo. My punish game is, imo, pretty on point but my neutral is still garbage since I'm relatively new.

Analyzing something is much more than just looking at good play. If we can analyze situations and correct them itd help everyone here especially since youd be playing against modern players. Is there anything in particular that you struggle with in the neutral?

Edit: I almost forgot to post this https://youtu.be/Ii-5FxTtmVQ?t=14m32s It's a match where zoma is doing the vertical teleport stall. I think he does it a bit bad though. You can probably do it better by hitting cstick down jump tap jumping, and then teleport down.
Also at 15:19 the situation i described before happens to zoma. He dsmashes falco and falco tech wall jumps and uses upb. At this point falco is in front and above of mewtwo. Here he is too low for an upair so his best choice would have been a pivot bair but instead he runs all the way off the stage and SUNCs the ledge. These free edgeguards are so crucial.

 

[Deleted member 212841]

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[Deleted member 212841]

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[ihasabuket]

edit: nvm, reverse bair is not a thing. fr some reason I thought the strong hitbox went deeper into Mewtwo"s body.

I dont know what you mean by its not a thing but yeah the hitbox doesnt even reach reach his stomach. https://youtu.be/rezYqVlsWTQ?t=14m14s in this situation pivot bair is useful although falco was a bit low on %. Its also good to combo when theyre too close for upair's strong hitbox and youre facing forward.

Also about the comboing floaties thing, Im pretty sure that peach is easier to combo than jiggs with dtilt since she doesnt fall as fast and hitstun is directly proportional to the KB value. This would mean that you simply need to get peach to a higher % before getting the same combo. Im assuming that when we say combo it is in fact a true combo not just a followup.

Edit: i meant reverse bair not pivot

 

[MewtwoForce]

If this has already been addressed, my b. IF not, good news! This just happened. Shoutouts to achilles1515 http://smashboards.com/threads/the-...-new-debug-menu.351221/page-108#post-20179220

We now have a way to have mewtwos elemental moves trigger the color overlay option for showing histun! This will go a long way in helping us develop a sense of timing in following up on hitstun.

 

[Sieghart]

If this has already been addressed, my b. IF not, good news! This just happened. Shoutouts to achilles1515 http://smashboards.com/threads/the-...-new-debug-menu.351221/page-108#post-20179220

We now have a way to have mewtwos elemental moves trigger the color overlay option for showing histun! This will go a long way in helping us develop a sense of timing in following up on hitstun.

It had not been addressed previously afaik so praise this.

 

[GromperZ]

Hell, only 2 of the gods main him. Everyone else gets bopped.

Reminder that 4 of them now either main or co-main Fox. And one of the other two mains Falco. So 5/6 of the gods play spacies, which is kinda sad to think about now that I mention it.

 

[TIN0]

I don't know if someone said this already but up b ledge cancel is a great way pikachu mains get around the stage and is even better with mewtwo considering he can do that then djc nair or djc neutral b to evade people and extend the neutral game

 

[MewtwoForce]

Sorry if i'm bringing up old news. I was checking out the ground data turbo edition thread http://smashboards.com/threads/ultimate-ground-movement-analysis-turbo-edition.392367/ and noticed *if i'm interpreting this right* that mewtwos dash wavedash is really fast. Have we explored how the properties of this dash wavedash can be applied to give mewtwo an advantage?

I was thinking of trying to spend a bulk of my time on his fastest ground speed options and precision training to give him really nasty footsies. The idea being that when its trained up his super fast dash wavedash gives him some speed other characters will have trouble keeping up with due to their slower movement framedata. What do you guys think?

 

[Deleted member 212841]

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[SuperShus]

Comparing mewtwos wavedash to sheiks boost grab is horrible imo.

Sheik's boost grab has lag that's twice as long as wavedash.

Fox has a 3 frame jump, sure, but just by the first few seconds in this match you can see how hax spamms wavedash instead of dash dancing even though fox's dash it ten times better than mewtwos.

the benefit of being in wait at the end of the wavedash means that you can do tilts, jab, use specials, all things that you can't do in dash. The benefits are pretty large, and obviously these guys are better than us, and Hax still wins with this wavedash strategy. He's been using it since Falcon, and it's a unique thing to Hax, but it certainly works.

 

[Deleted member 212841]

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[ihasabuket]

Mewtwo's utilt is a legit jab reset! By legit I mean you can't simply asdi up to buffer a getup roll out of it. It only works until 40%ish. I didn't test for exact percents, sorry. Also you have to make sure you space it so that the tip hits Fox's bent knee. Otherwise you'll whiff because of z axis bull**** (if you can somehow cross the fox up then you can pretty much always hit him with your utilt) and you also want to avoid hitting with any of utilt's other hitboxes.

I had done this by accident a few times and i didnt know how to recreate it i'll go try it out when i can.

Wanted to throw out that i've come up with something for mewtwo's neutral involving teleport. So basically its edge canceling teleports and doing a baby SB after you fall of the edge with forward momentum. I also do this with NIL teleport platform drop. Its better to do it with some horizontal momentum though since you fade back so a full hop waveland is useful for this as well. Typically my opponents start to catch on and when they see me disappear they run to the ledge to punish me. This is when I employ the airdodge mixup to take center stage. I know it sounds silly but that **** works. Anyway I wanna get my angles good enough so that i can edgecancel a teleport out of my dashdance on the ground.

Also noticed that when people use dashdancing in tandem with WD they tend to dash WD away from an approach and dash in afterwards to JC grab when many times youre in range to either do a turnaround grab or a turnaround tilt. Dash WD away turnaround dtilt is a really good option against fox and falco.

 

[ihasabuket]

Heres an example of what I was talking about in the previous post. https://youtu.be/RNNNM8oxCY8?t=4m41s watch it at .5 or .25 speed. It's not the exact same scenario I described but the point im trying to make is that when people use WD and dashdancing in this manner they seem to forget they can act directly out of the WD. In this case he could have grabbed or dtilted but instead dashed away from him. Another mistake is that he seems to try to react to a whiffed aerial.

You shouldnt try to be reacting to the whiff, you should know fox's running jump distance since he cant approach with analog jumps. Holding back during the majority of a running jump does nothing and fox and falco dont have enough aerial mobility to make use of analog jumps so abuse this. If you know the distance of running jump you can space and throw out the move instead of trying to react to such small endlag windows. Though it may not seem like it, neutral isnt so much about reaction.

 

[Deleted member 212841]

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[ihasabuket]

When your opponent approaches you and youre in the corner you can do an upward angled teleport from the ground to move past your opponent edgecancel on the side platform and shoot a baby SB as you land in center stage. A lot of the times you either need to angle your teleport higher or do a shortened teleport. It's really just a movement mixup with a SB thrown in to disrupt opponents and regain your footing.
This is also a situational approach mixup in the falco MU but with aerials instead of SB. You can get over lasers and throw an aerial after the edgecancel. Of course full hop DJC aerials are more practical but its nice to have your DJ intact especially at high %s.

 

[MewtwoForce]

Thanks for the input on the movement training idea. There was some eye opening stuff in there from both of you @Melee Mewtwo and SuperShus.

Edit- I don't want to double post so i'll just put this in here.
During kens twitch stream I asked him a question about mewtwo being a viable character choice. Ken didn't direct me to another main and encouraged me to stay with mewtwo for tournaments and gave reasons to stay mewtwo such as having an unfamiliar character with surprise factor among other things. I've seen other good players that are well known also commentate that mewtwo is an under rated character. Just thought i'd share this for people struggling with keeping him as a main.

Although to keep this from being totally biased there were some top 20 players who insisted mewtwo can't win. But at least its comforting to now that isn't the only opinion in the ranks of the better players.

 

[ihasabuket]

Taj playing mewtwo at 30:22 http://www.twitch.tv/azmeleecommunity/v/25855216

 

[ihasabuket]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axBBvImewPg
Here's the match i posted above, it was uploaded to youtube.

Taj demonstrated mewtwo's combo potential and some teleport techchasing shenanigans at the start of game 3(12:28). What interests me is the way he set up the teleport techchase with nair. I looked it up and using nair's IASA frames it only has 4 frames of endlag. So if you hit with nairs final aerial hitbox and you still have your DJ you can use the IASA frames to DJ and then teleport towards the direction theyre falling to techchase. Taj does this but I think he could have optimized this play by teleporting slightly downwards to hit the floor sooner.
The best way to land the final hitbox is to nair preemptively and hit with as few hits as possible so they cant SDI out. You can do it from a FJFF(full jump fastfall) as it lasts 44 frames and nair is IASA frame 42. Nair also ACs 39>. You may also be able to do it after an edgecanceled teleport on some stages; Just a hunch, I havent actually tested it. This is particularly useful in the falco MU.

 

[Deleted member 212841]

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[ihasabuket]

Id like to see how useful this can be setting up platform techchases against floaties but i dont have a setup anymore. I assume its really good against sheik since she falls relatively fast but slowly enough that you have some time to teleport towards her.

 

[Deleted member 212841]

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[Sieghart]

I'm not too sure how you should be DI uair, yet. DI up and in seems to be good at high percents since Falcon can't follow up and you run less of a risk of the uair itself killing you. DI down and away seems like it may be better at lower percents where you'll hit the ground quickly and land cancel the hitstun or at least tech out of it.

In general, I feel more and more like Mewtwo being combo food is kind of a misconception. He may have large hurtboxes but I feel like his decent weight and general floatiness compensates by decreasing the hitstun while simultaneously sending him far away. Kind of like Samus in that respect.

Have you tried factoring in SDI on hit to see if that changes anything? I've been TASing certain common combos like waveshine (fox) and dair+shine (falco) against characters I play then taking control of my character to practice SDI on hit against the combos. In practice I get away with a lot more so SDIing uair might help.

Also, thoughts on using Fair out of combos? It seems like its pretty good in certain cases (not Falcon dthrow -> knee lol) to punish a dude for missing true combos or trying to overextend since you got that awkward body contortion and the large, fast hitbox. I've had some success with it when trying it but I don't play with Mewtwo often enough (much less against stronger players) to really be a good judge of it's general utility.

Air dodge also seems pretty solid away to avoid direct follow ups since Mewtwo shrinks sooooooo much from the very first frame but I'm kinda worried about the endlag and special fall being punishable, aways. May be a case by case exit.

I've tried fair and I usually misspace it and get beat out. I figure doublejumping in with it might work if I can get the timing down.

Never thought of air dodge. Might be a way to get out if someone overextends? I assume you'd have to be quick about escaping, though.