Advancing the Mewtwo Meta Game

[ChivalRuse]

Yeah, I figured it was worse. I just wanted confirmation on the inferior frame data, essentially.

 

[IdkLmao]

What about using teleport to escape combos?

 

[Sieghart]

What about using teleport to escape combos?

If you know what you're doing with angling the teleport, it's often times worth a try. I've escaped many a would-be "sick combo" with good DI and a well placed Edge Cancelled/ Air Cancelled Teleport. It does work. Edge Cancels are typically easier, and even more usable with turn arounds (if any of you can actually do those) and shortens which both open up a whole new world of viable (primarily turnaround) edge cancels.

At the very least, there's rarely if ever any harm in trying. I've never gotten out of a combo with teleport only to get myself into an even bigger mess even if i did mess up and I'm not sure how that'd even be possible. Maybe if you failed the teleport really hard and just did it straight into the ground and got all that lag right next to your opponent? That's just practice though, imo.

 

[ChivalRuse]

Teleport is one of your best options for coming down. That being said, you still have to mix things up from time to time.

 

[Sieghart]

Is this legit coverage or am I missing something?

 

[MookieRah]

I do not recommend teleport to get out of combos. The only time M2 should be getting comboed is at low percents, and if you are still within a combo-able range, 8 frames of downtime is asking to get hit again. At higher percent, good DI will prevent things from comboing, unless it's some kind of kill setup (like Falcon throw combos to knee) in which case, if you had 8 frames to play with you have no worries of being hit. That said, teleport out of knock back is really good, and allows you to regain neutral, and stuff like edge canceled teleports allows you to do all kinds of awesome stuff.

The general rule of thumb is, if you have 8 frames of time to work with then teleport is a great option, but if you are actually being comboed, you don't have 8 frames, or at least don't have any excuse being comboed in the first place.

------Really cool Japanese M2 video-------
First off, great find. That dude is worth analysing! Anyways, if you are referring to the dair techchase, he had to commit to that on prediction, not reaction. That's literally just taking a page from the Falcon/Ganon handbook on hard reads. Specifically in a situation like that, the most important option to cover is the roll away (or rolling to center stage), because it helps your opponent regain neutral. Rolling to the center was the most logical route for his opponent to go, and Falco would have been too far away to punish if he had guessed wrong, with the possible exception of teching to stand. I don't usually advocate a hard read, but that was probably the best time to do it, as it's low risk/high reward.

In general though, what you want to do in a tech chase situation with pretty much any character is to emphasise preventing your opponent from regaining neutral, but not to overcommit too much to anything. If I were playing I would have dash forward after the downthrow and waited to react on my opponents action. Regrab is possible if they roll away, like what happened in the video, or if they try to roll through you. The hardest to cover is tech to stand.

 

[SuperShus]

I mean, that's assuming what you've got is a situation where someone is actively pressuring your shield. However if someone does late nair shine early nair dash away, which is quite common, you could then wavedash forward out of shield, or teleport to a platform safely, depending on your percents and the stage.

In this case I think both are ok. In fact in some cases I think tp away might be better.

Edit: this is about TP OoS, nothing of this tp out of combos stuff loaded when I posted this so that's why it's out of context.

TP out of combos is silly, mookierah said it all

 

[Sieghart]

------Really cool Japanese M2 video-------
First off, great find. That dude is worth analysing! Anyways, if you are referring to the dair techchase, he had to commit to that on prediction, not reaction. That's literally just taking a page from the Falcon/Ganon handbook on hard reads.

Really good to know. Also, to be fair, I got the video from that godlike list of tech @Melee Mewtwo posted under the Edge Cancelled Teleport section. I've personally been using it mostly as a crash course on edge cancels.

 

[SuperShus]

Yeah that video has been posted here like 10 times by now. If you want to find more you need to google his name in japanese. Otherwise you can't find any.

 

[MookieRah]

OK, so I actually watched that whole set now, and yeah, the guy is good but honestly he makes a ton of bad decisions. For one, he makes a ton of high risk hard reads unecessarily. Case in point, his offstage edgeguarding decisions. I wasn't counting, but I think he loses at least 3 stocks out of that set by jumping out to his opponent just to Sunc back to the ledge. This does nothing to prevent his opponent from getting on stage, and his opponent not only gets on stage for free but bairs > edgeguards as he tries to double jump from the ledge. There was no reason to go out there, and I feel that the decision to leave the stage came before he had any chance to see what his opponent was doing.

I also feel that his play was flashy for the sake of flashy. For example, he would do edge canceled teleports for no real reason. I think the only really useful edge canceled teleport he did was the one from the top platform to the bottom left platform for a grab. That was great and reasonable. The rest, outside of just sorta being tricky above his opponent, served no real purpose.

The sad thing is that I believe Zoma could have actually wrecked that Falco if he just played safer/wiser. Especially if he learns the aerial interrupt from the ledge to allow him to get onto the stage for free.

A lot of people seem to think that you have to be risky to win with a low tier. I think it's the opposite. You have to play patiently and precisely. You have to find the holes in your opponent and push them as hard as you can without exposing yourself in the process. Taj did such a good job at this, and is why he did so well.

 

[ChivalRuse]

@ MookieRah Not sure if you were responding to me or to someone else. I wasn't suggesting to use teleport to get out of combos. Simply to use it when coming down from high above the opponent.

 

[Sieghart]

OK, so I actually watched that whole set now, and yeah, the guy is good but honestly he makes a ton of bad decisions. For one, he makes a ton of high risk hard reads unecessarily. Case in point, his offstage edgeguarding decisions. I wasn't counting, but I think he loses at least 3 stocks out of that set by jumping out to his opponent just to Sunc back to the ledge. This does nothing to prevent his opponent from getting on stage, and his opponent not only gets on stage for free but bairs > edgeguards as he tries to double jump from the ledge. There was no reason to go out there, and I feel that the decision to leave the stage came before he had any chance to see what his opponent was doing.

I also feel that his play was flashy for the sake of flashy. For example, he would do edge canceled teleports for no real reason. I think the only really useful edge canceled teleport he did was the one from the top platform to the bottom left platform for a grab. That was great and reasonable. The rest, outside of just sorta being tricky above his opponent, served no real purpose.

The sad thing is that I believe Zoma could have actually wrecked that Falco if he just played safer/wiser. Especially if he learns the aerial interrupt from the ledge to allow him to get onto the stage for free.

A lot of people seem to think that you have to be risky to win with a low tier. I think it's the opposite. You have to play patiently and precisely. You have to find the holes in your opponent and push them as hard as you can without exposing yourself in the process. Taj did such a good job at this, and is why he did so well.

Yeah, I came to those conclusions a while ago using experience I've got from playing other games competitively. I really only use the video for certain tidbits like visual representation of edge cancels. I agree Zoma could've wrecked the Falco. I'm not sure what the matchup is but better choices could've sealed the game much earlier and with less effort.

 

[MookieRah]

The matchup isn't super terrible. It's not as rough as Fox is, at least. The thing is he dies a lot at times due to very poor positioning, which he got himself into by playing in such a risky manner. Stage control is so very important, but so few people understand how important it is because it is an abstract concept. I recommend for everyone in here to play some rounds against a CPU (shadowbox or what have you) in which your only goal is to take more stage than your opponent. It will help you get into that mindset for when you play against humans.

 

[SuperShus]

Well for any newer players in this thread, the reason stage control is so amazing is basically that if you has a little stage to give up, that's like a really safe option.
You can use this small retreat as a bait, or to set something up.
If you're just by the edge, and all you can do is run forward, grab edge, or take a platform(unless FD, FoD or pokemon - then you may not be able to), Being on the edge kinda sucks, though it isn't so bad for mewtwo since he has a relatively simple stall - but it's still a bad idea. Then you have a 50/50 where a patient player will probably be able to cover both options if they're playing an S tier character.
So the edge is pretty horrible, whereas if you have more stage there's more options for you, and therefore more safety.

I think that even with ledge ai and the ledgestall m2 has it's still not the best idea to camp there. It's not even like you're allowed to actually stall the whole match, so, at some point you'll have to try and take some stage. Often times you'll get punished because mewtwo sucks.

 

[MookieRah]

I would have agreed to your post before I learned that M2 has a method to get on the ledge with invincibility frames. That is a very, very powerful thing. The only other character that has it is Fox, and it's technically demanding enough that you just don't see it that often.

Also, about the stall thing, M2K used Sheik stalling to a great degree throughout his career. He wasn't stalling the game, per se, he was basically just boring his opponent, killing their momentum, and letting their impatience get the best of them. There is no reason why you couldn't do this with M2 with Sunc, and simply see if your opponent gives you something free.

But it doesn't end there, you have edge canceled teleports and he's got the best method of grabbing the ledge from above to control the ledge.

I'm not saying being at the ledge is more beneficial than neutral or that the ledge for M2 is neutral, but it's way less of a bad situation than it is for most characters. Retreating to the ledge to stall enough to kill your opponent's momentum could totally be worth doing. How would you like it that every single time you get something going the game was stalled for 15 seconds before it picked back up?

 

[Sieghart]

I would have agreed to your post before I learned that M2 has a method to get on the ledge with invincibility frames. That is a very, very powerful thing. The only other character that has it is Fox, and it's technically demanding enough that you just don't see it that often.

Also, about the stall thing, M2K used Sheik stalling to a great degree throughout his career. He wasn't stalling the game, per se, he was basically just boring his opponent, killing their momentum, and letting their impatience get the best of them. There is no reason why you couldn't do this with M2 with Sunc, and simply see if your opponent gives you something free.

But it doesn't end there, you have edge canceled teleports and he's got the best method of grabbing the ledge from above to control the ledge.

I'm not saying being at the ledge is more beneficial than neutral or that the ledge for M2 is neutral, but it's way less of a bad situation than it is for most characters. Retreating to the ledge to stall enough to kill your opponent's momentum could totally be worth doing. How would you like it that every single time you get something going the game was stalled for 15 seconds before it picked back up?

Reading through that post really has me thinking this might become a real facet of M2's game. People may have hated M2K for it but I have no qualms about using it in tournament. Friendlies are a completely different story but in true competitive play it's worth considering in the long run.

 

[MookieRah]

EDIT: I've added a new exercise (exercise 4) and found that alternating practice between 2b and 4 was a really good method to build muscle memory.

So I've spent a decent amount of time working on pivot dtilts (with Marth, but that hardly matters) trying to nail down this difficult tech. I've devised and tried so many different methods of doing it, and honestly it all comes back to the picture (it's posted on page 4). Trying to do it any other way is either more difficult, harder to control, or both. Not only that, but actually performing the pivot in this way removes the speed aspect. You don't have to slam the stick furiously if you input it this way, because more than likely if you hit the right spot your finger will automatically slide down enough to not be in run within 1 frame's time. It's more about precision, than anything else.

After a lot of experimenting I've arrived at what I think is a really efficient means to learn this very difficult tech. It's all muscle memory, as you'll see from the exercises. I'll post this as a stand-alone guide once I've mastered this to the point where I can use it reliably in a match, but this is a preview for you guys cause M2 players 4 life.

Start by picking a side. I started with facing right, which meant the difficult input was to the left. This was harder, as pressing the control stick backwards with my thumb is less precise than pressing it forward.

Exercise One, Finding the Sweet Spot:
The first phase is simply getting accustomed to finding the spot on your controller that you are trying to hit. It's very easy, thankfully. Move the control stick to the diagonal notch. You should be crouching. Slowly move it upwards until you start walking. Once you are walking, you have found the sweet spot. Once you start moving, slowly move the control stick downwards until you crouch again. Rinse and repeat until you can consistently transition from crouching to walking.

Exercise Two A: Foxtrot the Sweet Spot:
The next phase is about getting used to making dash inputs at the sweet spot. Simply input a dash at the sweet spot. Try to get it as close as you can, meaning that you will likely go through bouts of furious crouching rather than dashing. Once you get comfortable with this, move on to...

Exercise Two B: Quarter Circle Foxtrots:
This is basically the same as the previous part with the exception that you now want to angle your stick down so that you crouch. I would practice this on Pokemon Stadium, placing my character in the center with his/her foot on the line. I would then try to do this in the shortest distance possible. The closer you are to the sweet spot, the less distance you travel (I think this is the case, I need to confirm) as long as you only hold it for one frame. It's a very easy visual representation of your ability to hit the sweet spot. Do this for a very, very long time. By that I mean stay on this exercise for a few days worth of practice.

Exercise Three: Walk Forward Simulation:
So far you've only worked on the last half of the motion, the quarter circle back from a neutral position on your control stick. In order to pivot, you need to make this motion from a dash input forward, not from neutral. To ease into this, I came up with this exercise. Slowly press forward until you are holding forward. Make sure you aren't running, but walking. Then input the same input from Exercise Two B. There is no way to check if you did this right, but if you spent enough time with the previous exercise you should have a very good feel for it. You want to get comfortable making the transition from full forward to the quarter circle back. Keep doing this for a long time as well.

Exercise Four: Sweet Spot Dash Dancing:
This can be done one of two ways. One is to dash normally one direction and input the sweet spot dash the opposite, or you can dash dance between each side's sweet spot. In any case, the point of this exercise is to get used to inputting a sweet spot dash immediately after a dash. Note: You are going for precision and accuracy, not speed. Don't worry about pulling off fluid dash dances, just focus on hitting the sweet spot as perfectly as you can.

Exercise Five: Try some pivots:
At this point you should try to do some pivots. You should be able to do them well enough to get a feel for what is right. This is simply to gauge where you are, and I don't recommend spending much time trying to do pivots (this might sound silly, but trust me). You want to get an idea for what a correct pivot feels like. You need to also try the motion in it's completion, especially before this next step.

Exercise Six: Getting in Controller Time:
By now you should have a good feel for how everything works, even if you don't actually land many pivots when you try. That's fine, because this is the step that will build your execution. This step is very, very easy, but it requires a LOT of time. Simply take your controller, look at your fingers, and make pivot inputs. Watch your fingers to see that you are hitting the sweet spot. I know it feels weird trying to learn something outside of the game, but the point of this exercise is piling on muscle memory.

It's not terribly important that you do these motions fast! Just make sure the motion is crisp and clean. Make sure that you hit the sweet spot. Do this for hours, literally. The good news is you can watch tv and do this. Once you get used to it, you don't have to watch your hands all the time. You know when you did it right or when you did it wrong. It's very much like typing, you notice when you make a typo without a visual response.

So far, that's what I got. I did exercise five today and went from about 35-40% consistency to about 50-60% consistency by spending an hour on the couch watching my kids while making inputs. This is only in a sterile environment though, I'm still nowhere near doing this in a real match.

This technique is only hard due the precision it requires. Again, it's not a speed issue if you hit the sweet spot, so as long as you can nail that you are gold. Nailing it is all about repetition. So get to the point where you can repeat it correctly and repeat the everliving **** out of it and you should be able to pull off pivots no problem.

 

[Sieghart]

^ That's actually really good. I wish I had this when I was just getting started. Would've saved me the near week I spent at 1% consistency. At this point I'm doing it in matches, mainly with Roy and Falco because my M2 is still garbage regarding anything that isn't movement. I think pivots in general opens up so much for both the combo and neutral games I have to wonder how long other people are going to be able to go on without learning this. One of my favorites so far with Roy/Marth is retreating pivot Dtilt to pivot utilt vs. spacies on FD. Leads into the chain grab nicely if you ever want to try that out Mookie.

 

[Bandit Croco]

I got to play a bit of M2 last night with some friends and it is extremely difficult to find the right appraoch. I feel like I'm either playing the character extremely wrong or I'm missing something. I wish there was a M2 trials series where it would guide new M2 players through the essentials to the advance like there is one for yoshi.

 

[ChivalRuse]

You have to play very grounded, focus on d-tilt and grab. And occasionally use shadow ball. When you get the opponent above you, uair, utilt and nair are potent anti-airs.

 

[SuperShus]

I think the toughest thing about mewtwo is getting him to do what you want in your mind. Practice against bots if you dont have friends willing to put up with your new mewtwo - you have to practice sometime.

 

[Bandit Croco]

yea thats also a big problem I'm having. None of the people i play with are willing to play against my mewtwo so i don't get anywhere. I'm trying to play more bots but its just not the same as another person :\

 

[SuperShus]

Found this video of taj playing melee yesterday.
http://www.twitch.tv/azmeleecommunity/v/6194315

I suggest ya'll study it.
I noticed a few new things, like on platforms vs falco he does dthrow one hit nair and then covers everything else with jc grab.
he did reverse charge shadow ball cancel when falco is offstage then cancels it and sunc's as a mindgame to make them hastily side-b.

And the way he plays vs ice climbers is very interesting, using fthrow to hit the other climber so it's safer to grab/throw.

Anyway, worth a watch!

 

[Sieghart]

yea thats also a big problem I'm having. None of the people i play with are willing to play against my mewtwo so i don't get anywhere. I'm trying to play more bots but its just not the same as another person :\

I usually use bots to reinforce what I'm learning, so mostly things that will always work. Stuff like proper movement, spacing, consistency, etc. which personally helped my M2 become playable. Then whenever I can actually play against people I grind it out hard so that I can fill in the holes that only present themselves vs. an actual person. If the reason your friends won't fight your M2 is because they think it's pointless or something, or pretty much any reason that isn't because it's scrubbish, I'd recommend trying to play a more fundamental based character vs. them. Someone who can help train you in things like in game spacing and mind games so that those can hopefully transfer over to M2 when you actually get a chance to use him. I believe the best character for that is Marth but the choice is yours.

 

[Church NEOH]

Tell your friends to quit being dumb. Luckily, there are many things you can practice by yourself. A lot of movement such as wavelands, SUNC, Edge canceled teleport, teleport stalling, and land canceled teleport. You can also work on DJC moves. If you have 20XX, random tech chasing and option coverage.

 

[Bandit Croco]

Tell your friends to quit being dumb. Luckily, there are many things you can practice by yourself. A lot of movement such as wavelands, SUNC, Edge canceled teleport, teleport stalling, and land canceled teleport. You can also work on DJC moves. If you have 20XX, random tech chasing and option coverage.

they all want me to play a high tier character but i want to play M2 so they think I'm wasting my time. i do practice a lot so i guess theres that.

 

[IdkLmao]

That sounds frustrating to deal with @ Bandit Croco . Have you checked around to see if any other players are in your area to train with instead?

 

[Bandit Croco]

That sounds frustrating to deal with @ Bandit Croco . Have you checked around to see if any other players are in your area to train with instead?

it is frustrating considering I've known them from pretty much the early days of smash. They know i like to play low tiers so when i told them i want to play M2 now there should have been no surprise. I know theres actually a bunch of people that play near me but i don't get as much time to play as i wish and the people i play with now are free to play when I'm free.

On topic, how useful is WD oos? i know it lets you get a grab from bad shffls but what do if the person rarely misses?

 

[SuperShus]

I experienced the same problem as Bandit when I first wanted to learn Mewtwo over 6 months ago, but my room mate and practice partner hated playing against my Mewtwo because he's quite good at falco, and though I don't win too often against him when I play fox, it's always close/interesting.
But he was 3 and 4 stocking my Mewtwo - and often SDing due to missed teleports - over and over and he ended up just getting really mad and unplugged his controller.
For a while I'd practice for hours vs bots at lvl 3 just grinding djc tech and teleport angles, but it got boring as I didn't have anyone to play with.
I gave up on learning mewtwo until a few months ago when I started practicing with some new players with my Mewtwo. Since they were brand new and I could try out some mind games and spacing against them, as well as try strange edge gaurding things.
Now my mewtwo isn't so bad but I still don't play vs my roommate as him.

Overall I really don't think its so bad for them to refuse if you don't have a well practiced character like I do, because then melee sessions go from intense to kind of boring for your partner.
Often my roommate and I can play fox falco for about 5 hours without getting bored. (Though sometimes rageouts occur due to techskill frustrations. My roomie and I have very high standards for our techskill. Sometimes when I even get upset that I can't do techskill I haven't really practiced much, embarrassingly enough)

But when everyone's bad, it really doesn't matter if they're a low tier character or not - so I don't think your friends should be that upset.
Though to be honest, Mewtwo is one of the hardest characters to control at low level, so if you want to play against marths or foxes you're simply going to have to practice your tech more because he doesn't have the simple to execute high risk high reward kill moves like marths fsmash or fox's upsmash. Fox's upsmash comes out on frame 7, whereas Mewtwo's dsmash comes out on frame 20, fsmash on 18, and usmash comes out on 9 but doesn't have a strong hit until 33.
His bthrow can be used to if they're playing fox/falco/falcon - and if they DI wrong they can be killed pretty easily, especially falco/n... but that's not really a great option.

Your best bet is to actually learn to space wd dtilts so that you can fair and grab after. Make sure you watch your opponent and play patiently - which doesn't mean camping, but make sure to watch your opponent and react to what they do when possible.

Hopefully as your Mewtwo skills increase, they'll accept your character then.

Sometimes my roomie and I money match for quarters, for fun mostly, but it makes us play our hardest. Money match them a quarter and then pick Mewtwo.

___________________________________________________________________________-

For your question about WD oos, it means that you can re-position faster after being in shield. Of course, being able to re-position yourself at any given time in smash is basically invaluable, so I suggest you learn it. But wavedash, jc grab, djc, l-cancelling every time, and teleport sweetspots are more important.

If you've got all that, then the way you wavedash out of shield is as follows.
Notice that if you hold L/R (L from now on) almost to the point where it clicks, and you feel resistance but there is no click, you're already full shielding. This way all you do is press jump and give it the extra little pressure to click, which does the air dodge. So from now on, when you shield, practice full shielding without doing the click. That way if you ever want to WD oos, you can.
Also if you don't know, lightshielding increases the shieldstun of moves - so you'll have to wait longer to jump/grab/roll

Hope I helped some!

 

[MookieRah]

Some general advice as this applies to everyone at all levels:

If your tech is off, could you not request some finger warmups for 5 minutes or something? I find that focussing a bit on the tech I'm currently missing helps way more than trying to push through it, and I think you could convince your friend that giving up 5 minutes so that the quality of the session is better is not a hard sell.

One thing I have noticed over the many years of playing competitively is that a lot of the people who get upset at their missed techs don't actually have a good enough consistency with their tech in general (I was one of these people too). I think it would help the both of you if you actually found an accurate failure rate for all of your tech skill. More often than not, people think they are quite a bit more consistent than they actually are. Finding out what your rate is gives you all the information you need to improve and set goals.

Lastly, everyone knows that bad tech days happen, but if you look at the best players you'll see that their bad days are at a much higher execution rate than most everyone else. Also their bad tech days aren't much lower in execution than their normal execution.

 

[SuperShus]

I mean, I concede that my tech will be off for at least the first 15 minutes - by then it usually warms up. Sometimes it doesn't get much better. I don't really like doing hand warmers that much when playing friendlies, I'd rather just mess up for the first few games.

Shrug

Also I know my failure rate is too damn high, though I used to think it was good.

 

[Bandit Croco]

So I'm just playing around with M2 on hyrule to get my tech in order without killing myself and saw mewtwo can djc bair regrab from the ledge almost instantly. would this be a useful edge guard against say foxfalco illusion/falcon?

wow perfect ledgehop nair is soon fast @_@

 

[MookieRah]

What you are doing with the bair is doing an edge canceled bair and then grabbing the ledge. The problem is that bair, in most cases, is not very effective in that situation, as you will almost always hit with weak hit boxes. It would also be incredibly hard to time/react to an illusion.

It's generally better to edgeguard from the stage with an angled ftilt or downsmash, or to Sunc and ledgehog if you think they are going for the ledge.

 

[SuperShus]

Hmm, I think he is talking about when you let go of the ledge and dj, there are like 2-3 frames you can backair where the dj gives you just enough acceleration to counteract gravity to have the bair hitboxes come out, and then you grab the ledge. It looks almost like he's floating at this point.

As for whether or not it's useful against illusion - you'd have to be reading it unless you hit them offstage without a jump, then you could cover sideb with it, but I think it's probably better vs characters with really linear horizontal or slow recoveries.

However I do like it for batting away spacies who upb too close, or sometimes I drift far from the stage with that bair and then upb back.

 

[Church NEOH]

If spacies are recovering close to the ledge, just dsmash or ftilt. Especially on Battlefield or Stadium where they can't ride the wall.

 

[MookieRah]

However I do like it for batting away spacies who upb too close, or sometimes I drift far from the stage with that bair and then upb back.

Except for the fact that it's way slower and will likely not knock them as far as ftilt or downsmash. If you think about the success/failure rate and commitment of doing a bair in this fashion versus your other options, I think it's pretty easy to see that it's not optimal. I would also imagine the downtime after you bair is way longer than ftilt or downsmash.

To put it in other words, if you use bair in that manner you better hope that it hits, and hope even more that you don't get a crap hit box. That doesn't sound too good to me.

 

[SuperShus]

I think you both vastly misunderstood what I meant by 'too close'.
I think that if you have the opportunity to get between the spacie and the ledge safely you absolutely should. There is a zone that is too close to do what I described, also, what I described is really for after they've lost their dj, otherwise you don't have enough time to react to the billion options they have.

And to back me up - Taj vs PC Chris (2015) @ 1:17
Taj bthrows Falco, then jumps offstage, when PC spends his DJ taj reacts with a tele to the ledge and dj bairs. Which is pretty much exactly what I meant. I don't know what I communicated - but evidently it was misunderstood.
In this clip if taj did not air control so long towards PC he could have just re-grabbed the ledge without teleporting after kissing PC with the edge of the weak hitbox, which is the one he used anyway. -If PC was a bit closer this would have been really easy to do, and that's more the range I was talking about, yet not so much closer that you can just hit them with your tilts while they're charging upb because if they're that close then that is optimal- After that, without a dj, falco would have to fall, which means no side b. So all taj has to do is wait for the next up b and bair that one too. This goes on till falco dies or gives up. In this case, PC freaked out and died.

I really don't think ftilt or dsmash are as effective in this scenario.

 

[Bandit Croco]

welp gonna play with friends tonight. mostly teams but I'm gonna try to go all mewtwo. got most of the high tier represented there so it should be interesting.

 

[MookieRah]

Unless I'm mistaken, we are arguing about different things. The bair I saw was offstage, it was not a bair on stage. Those are very different things, and obviously there's a place for bairs like that.

Amazing vid though. Lots of awesome. M2 stuff. I'm also gonna study Taj's Marth because I hate Falco.

Posting from my phone sucks.

 

[SuperShus]

Oh!
No, I can't think of a scenario where you'd want to edge-gaurd with an onstage bair! Lol