ihasabuket
Smash Journeyman
- Joined
- Mar 17, 2015
- Messages
- 321
Introduction
This is a guide on edgeguarding spacies with mewtwo. Despite many players having trouble edgegaurding with this character he has many strengths that benefit edgeguarding such as high aerial maneuverability, slow falling speed with a fast fall speed 53% faster than his regular falling speed, large aerial hitboxes with disjoint and low send angles, a meteor, and a huge recovery. Once you familiarize yourself with the spacies recovery options it becomes fairly simple to setup offstage edgeguards. The method i use is largely inspired by Axe's pikachu so that you have a general idea of what to expect. Now before i begin here are a few things you should know. Most of this is just general frame data and basic game mechanics regarding mewtwo and the spacies.
Principles of edgegaurding spacies
Now with that out of the way i can explain what you should look for when edgeguarding.
Mewtwo's edgeguarding tools
Bair: Huge range, disjoint at the tip, and little endlag. You can use the strong hit to edgeguard enemies and the weaker hits to string aerials together depending on their DI. Generally the strong hit is better but at mid-high %s the weaker hits have followups. The video below has examples of Taj doing this. On a side note, if you're a little late to approach a spacie with this while they're using up-b you can simply aim for the space directly in front of them to avoid the up-b hitbox.
Upair: Used to edgeguard offstage. The hitbox is in front and above you and can hit enemies forward, but it also has a reverse hitbox so you can follow up with it after a bair. Has a sweetspot that hits hella hard. Below are some videos with examples of the forward and backwards send angles used in edgeguards.
Dair: Its a meteor but since these are fast fallers its still pretty effective, especially on falco since his recovery is trash. Use this at high percents. As a rule of thumb, only use dair when they are at roughly 50% or higher, when the launch speed is high enough to create significant distance within the 9 frames before a meteor cancel is possible. Using dair on a spacie forces them to up b, giving you a 22-25 frame window of active frames while they're still in up b startup; thats not to mention the amount of frames where they will actually be traveling towards the ledge. This effectively lets you grab ledge to create an edgeguard situation where they will be recovering upwards. In order to use your active frames effectively after dair you have to dair the opponent without fast falling. Aim for the head as a reference for spacing.
Below are some videos with examples.
Dsmash: Hits really far below the ledge and is disjointed. The timing to hit is tight because the hitbox is only out for 2 frames but it covers the ledge completely and has early IASA frames.
F-tilt: Sets up edgeguards becuase of the send angle. The downward angled ftilt can reach very slightly below the stage. Good for covering non sewwtspot side bs. There are plenty of examples in the videos posted above.
Utilt: use it to punish recoveries right over the ledge and platforms. At lower %s sets up for a combo so that you get some benefit for sending opponents offstage.
Shadow ball (SB): try to always have a charged shadow ball and save it for a combo or an edgeguard, this will beat out anything a spacie can throw in the air except shine. its best used when a spacie is using a side-b or up-b. I wont include it in the sections below but at any point during these edgeguards where they use up b or side b and you know it will kill them you should use it. Uncharged SB has a lot of startup plus it gets eaten by up b. It can however cover a side b.
Double jump extension (DJE): An essential tech that lets you recover from the very bottom of any legal stage. http://smashboards.com/threads/mewtwos-list-of-tech.393917/
SUNC: use this to edgehog and edgeguard from there with invincibilty. Mewtwo has many options from ledge such as ledge AI, teleport stalling, and ledge release aerials. Ledge release upair will hit above the ledge and the reverse hitbox sends away from stage. Its best to use this early enough that you can use an aerial but late enough that you can use the invincibility frames from the ledge.
Low up-b recoveries
By this I mean any time they are too low to grab the ledge with a side-b after using their double jump and/or walljumping which forces them to up-b. Many times this will require you to set up a low recovery by punishing or covering a high, mid, or even low recovery. Using SUNC to cover ledge and hit them offstage with a ledge option is often your best initial option because it creates situations where the spacie must recover using up-b.
If you hit a spacie out of their recovery or DJ to a low enough position, you force them to up-b. At this point you dont have to wait; immediately run out there to hit them since they're options are limited and predicable. Keeping track of their DJ is important here so that you know when theyre going to up-b before they do it. You can go offstage as soon as they burn their DJ and remain below the ledge; since they have bad aerial mobility they cant really drift away from you after they jump. That being said, you can successfully edgeguard the upb on reaction since it has a 42 frame startup, but it's better to anticipate it since it will you give you more time.
A WD or dash offstage is the quickest way to go offstage to edgeguard. However going offstage backwards gives you the extra option to bair to reach farther away. Using a SH to go offstage isnt as fast of a movement option but it will let you cover an early recovery and quickly grab the ledge afterwards with an immediate teleport.
If you ever fail to secure a stock going offstage, you can quickly grab ledge to punish their recovery.
Each stage has edgeguarding specifics because of their sizes, shapes, and characteristics.
Final destination
If they're close to the wall they will either ride up the wall or go straight up. If theyre to close to the wall to run off and dair, just charge up a dsmash since it will cover both the sweetspot and the upwards up-b. They will likely be able to tech but at the very least you will have gotten damage and stage control. If you have a charged SB you can cover a recovery right over the ledge. If they recover at a different height you'll just have to wing it.
Battlefield
This is a fun one, theres no wall for them to ride up so they have to come directly for the ledge go above it. Additionally, if they are close enough you can hit them under the actual stage or stage spike them into the under ceiling using a bair or reverse upair. If they end up under the ceiling and up-b they wont be able to sweetspot and are forced to go past and away from the stage. You just need to grab the ledge and use a ledge option with invincibility in that situation. Even if they tech the ceiling they cant wall jump so the same thing can happen. If you hit them into the middle i believe they can tech wall jump but i dont think they get enough horizontal distance to actually make it back. Just make sure they dont have their DJ before you do this.
Fountain of dreams
Pretty much the same thing as FD. The main difference is that you have a lot of leniency when it comes to offstage edgeguarding. The incredibly low floor lets you go in super deep for kills because you can use aerials when you are low without dying. Just remember that you have to use the DJE if youre gonna go really deep.
Yoshis story
This is perhaps the hardest stage for you to edgeguard on. The high floor and wall that starts form the bottom of the stage makes riding up the wall a great recovery option for the spacies. You cant go in too deep for kills here and its hard to see when you do. The bright side is that dair will sometimes guarantee a kill because the floor is so low.
Pokemon stadium
Much like in battlefield, you can hit spacies under the stage with a bair or reverse upair and they will get pineappled. All thats left there is to grab ledge and use a ledge option with invincibility.
Dreamland
Same thing as pokemon stadium except it has a wall the spacies can ride up. If they're low enough go sweep em under the stage.
Mid recoveries
By mid recoveries i mean when the opponent can grab ledge or can recover right over the ledge after a double jump and has the option to recover with either side-b or up-b. Remember, expect the side-b and react to the up b. If you have enough time to position yourself, have your back to the edge so you can do turnaround tilts/smashes, bairs, and WD to grab ledge. If you need to quickly cover a sweetspot side-b and youre already facing the ledge, use SUNC to edgehog. If you happen to react late or were too far to SUNC in time you can always opt to WD to the ledge and dsmash to cover the sweetspot.
If the side-b is not too low you can catch it with an ftilt on reaction or a smash attack if you get a read. If they go right over your head you can uptilt them to may get a followup.
A mid up-b should be a piece of cake to cover. If you arent turned around already SUNC can be used to bair(as shown in the first video linked at 1:15) or reverse upair an up-b from a initial forward facing position. You can also run off and use upair since it has a high hitbox in front of mewtwo.
Spacie players also like to mixup their up-b recoveries by using up-b above the ledge and going downwards to grab ledge. This should only work if you were to far to hit them out of startup but just in case try to cover that and punish a recovery on a platform with bair upair or uptilt.
High recoveries
There isnt a whole lot to write about here as this is the most unpredictable recovery situation. Just try to rack up damage and always try to get a grab so that you can get an either get an edgeguard or kill off back throw, a combo off of down throw or a kill off of up throw. Remember you can teleport to the top platform and even edge cancel it to quickly gain height. Be aware of the opponents % as you can potentially get a kill with Fair if you hit them while theyre high up.
Wall techs and tech wall jumps
This is the last part and honestly it puts a dent in my edgeguarding. This only happens in the situations where youd use downsmash or if they SDI along a wall. lets crunch some numbers before i tell you what to do. Alright so a wall tech is 31 frames but it's interruptable on frame 6 and falco's side b has a 17 frame startup while fox's has 21. So fox takes 26 frames before he starts moving from the side b and falco takes 22. Mewtwos downsmash has 17 frames of endlag and ftilt comes out frame 6, a total of 23. Im not sure how fast falco moves when he uses side b but im pretty sure you can cover both. Now the tech wall jump would come out frame 6 at the soonest and is IASA frame one meaning they could instantly use a recovery. They can also wall tech bair so you should be ready to DI down and tech in place.
Thats it, I encourage criticism and suggestions so dont hold back guys lemme me know what you think
This is a guide on edgeguarding spacies with mewtwo. Despite many players having trouble edgegaurding with this character he has many strengths that benefit edgeguarding such as high aerial maneuverability, slow falling speed with a fast fall speed 53% faster than his regular falling speed, large aerial hitboxes with disjoint and low send angles, a meteor, and a huge recovery. Once you familiarize yourself with the spacies recovery options it becomes fairly simple to setup offstage edgeguards. The method i use is largely inspired by Axe's pikachu so that you have a general idea of what to expect. Now before i begin here are a few things you should know. Most of this is just general frame data and basic game mechanics regarding mewtwo and the spacies.
- Aerials can not be outprioritized, nor can they outprioritize other aerials or normals. They can however outprioritize projectiles, namely your uncharged shadowball. If you havent read up on priority or think that foxes aerials have "high priority" go read up on priority. It is essential to know this to be able to learn a matchup
- You can buffer a tilt turn around during your attack animations so that you turn around on the soonest actionable frame so that you can WD(wavedash) off stage backwards and have the option to bair
- A fully charged SB(shadow ball) can pretty much beat out any attack (by beating out i dont mean outprioritize)
- If you WD forward and let the controlstick reset to neutral you wont fall off the ledge making this really useful for on stage edgeguarding positioning
- Dash wavedash is mewtwo's best movement option to get to the ledge from far away, if you dont know about this watch gravys falcon optimal tech chasing where he explains dash wavedash
- The last 1/3 of mewtwo's tail doesnt have a hurtbox meaning all his tail attacks have some disjoint
- All of mewtwo's tail attacks have 3 hitboxes. Generally the closer the hitbox is to mewtwo the harder it hits. This may not be the case with upair though as i believe its sweetspot is at the tip.
- Mewtwo's SH(short hop) bair from the floor can hit opponents on the side platforms on any legal stage (although it covers more of the platform on certain stages)
- Mewtwo's up air can send forwards and backwards
- Mewtwo's dair hits with his feet not his tail
- Mewtwo's downsmash hits on frame 20-21 and is IASA (interruptable as soon as) frame 38 giving it an endlag of only 17 frames which is fairly low and allows you to cover multiple options
- Mewtwo's downward angled f-tilt hits below the stage much like marths d-tilt
- Mewtwo's downward f-tilt can be done by crouching and holding a diagonal down on the control stick
- Mewtwo's teleport has little aerial landing lag and can be edge canceled use this as a movement option
- Mewtwo can dash off the ledge and up b into the ledge to grab it immediately, its know as super ultra ninja cookies or SUNC for short
- Spacies have bad aerial mobility, they move very little without initial running momentum
- Both spacies' up-b has a 42 frame startup
- Fox's up-b startup has a hitbox during certain frames while falco's up-b has no hitbox on startup
- Fox's side-b has a 21 frame startup
- Falcos side-b has a 17 frame startup
- Spacies lose their double jumps after using side-b or up-b until they touch the ground; grabbing them will give them their jumps back
Principles of edgegaurding spacies
Now with that out of the way i can explain what you should look for when edgeguarding.
- Keep track of your opponents double jump
- Keep track of your opponents percent
- Expect the side-b and react to the up-b
- You should only go offstage once the opponent has no double jump, is below the stage, and close enough for you to reach them or the space directly in front of them. (You may sometimes ignore this rule if you want to capitalize on a read)
- Be aware of their position on stage when they manage to recover, often times they can be killed off the top when they recover high or to a platform.
- Know the range of your opponents recovery so that you can know when to edgehog instead of using an attack.
Mewtwo's edgeguarding tools
Bair: Huge range, disjoint at the tip, and little endlag. You can use the strong hit to edgeguard enemies and the weaker hits to string aerials together depending on their DI. Generally the strong hit is better but at mid-high %s the weaker hits have followups. The video below has examples of Taj doing this. On a side note, if you're a little late to approach a spacie with this while they're using up-b you can simply aim for the space directly in front of them to avoid the up-b hitbox.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rezYqVlsWTQ
At 1:54 Taj does bair -> upair. falco ends up close and slightly above him so he opts for upair
At 3:23 Taj does bair -> bair. Falco ends up farther away so he follows up with another bair
At 14:14 Taj runs off and does reverse bair -> dj upair. Unfortunately Taj made the mistake of using bair too late and hits when he is dropping below Falco. He should have used bair earlier so that he hit while he was right above him leaving him in a position where he could upair him without using his dj. Alternatively, Taj could probably have grabed ledge after the bair to punish Falco's recovery from the ledge.
At 1:54 Taj does bair -> upair. falco ends up close and slightly above him so he opts for upair
At 3:23 Taj does bair -> bair. Falco ends up farther away so he follows up with another bair
At 14:14 Taj runs off and does reverse bair -> dj upair. Unfortunately Taj made the mistake of using bair too late and hits when he is dropping below Falco. He should have used bair earlier so that he hit while he was right above him leaving him in a position where he could upair him without using his dj. Alternatively, Taj could probably have grabed ledge after the bair to punish Falco's recovery from the ledge.
Upair: Used to edgeguard offstage. The hitbox is in front and above you and can hit enemies forward, but it also has a reverse hitbox so you can follow up with it after a bair. Has a sweetspot that hits hella hard. Below are some videos with examples of the forward and backwards send angles used in edgeguards.
Dair: Its a meteor but since these are fast fallers its still pretty effective, especially on falco since his recovery is trash. Use this at high percents. As a rule of thumb, only use dair when they are at roughly 50% or higher, when the launch speed is high enough to create significant distance within the 9 frames before a meteor cancel is possible. Using dair on a spacie forces them to up b, giving you a 22-25 frame window of active frames while they're still in up b startup; thats not to mention the amount of frames where they will actually be traveling towards the ledge. This effectively lets you grab ledge to create an edgeguard situation where they will be recovering upwards. In order to use your active frames effectively after dair you have to dair the opponent without fast falling. Aim for the head as a reference for spacing.
Below are some videos with examples.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBvNwjRDu44 - here m2k makes the mistake of fastfalling when using the dair but manages to cover the meteor canceled recovery anyway. Notice how fox meteor cancels and would have just barely reached the ledge. In many case you can dair falco when he isnt recovering too close below the ledge. Even if he meteor cancels he will probably be too far to recover anyway especially if you grab ledge after hitting him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v79x15V33hI 0:34
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v79x15V33hI 0:34
Dsmash: Hits really far below the ledge and is disjointed. The timing to hit is tight because the hitbox is only out for 2 frames but it covers the ledge completely and has early IASA frames.
F-tilt: Sets up edgeguards becuase of the send angle. The downward angled ftilt can reach very slightly below the stage. Good for covering non sewwtspot side bs. There are plenty of examples in the videos posted above.
Utilt: use it to punish recoveries right over the ledge and platforms. At lower %s sets up for a combo so that you get some benefit for sending opponents offstage.
Shadow ball (SB): try to always have a charged shadow ball and save it for a combo or an edgeguard, this will beat out anything a spacie can throw in the air except shine. its best used when a spacie is using a side-b or up-b. I wont include it in the sections below but at any point during these edgeguards where they use up b or side b and you know it will kill them you should use it. Uncharged SB has a lot of startup plus it gets eaten by up b. It can however cover a side b.
Double jump extension (DJE): An essential tech that lets you recover from the very bottom of any legal stage. http://smashboards.com/threads/mewtwos-list-of-tech.393917/
SUNC: use this to edgehog and edgeguard from there with invincibilty. Mewtwo has many options from ledge such as ledge AI, teleport stalling, and ledge release aerials. Ledge release upair will hit above the ledge and the reverse hitbox sends away from stage. Its best to use this early enough that you can use an aerial but late enough that you can use the invincibility frames from the ledge.
Low up-b recoveries
By this I mean any time they are too low to grab the ledge with a side-b after using their double jump and/or walljumping which forces them to up-b. Many times this will require you to set up a low recovery by punishing or covering a high, mid, or even low recovery. Using SUNC to cover ledge and hit them offstage with a ledge option is often your best initial option because it creates situations where the spacie must recover using up-b.
If you hit a spacie out of their recovery or DJ to a low enough position, you force them to up-b. At this point you dont have to wait; immediately run out there to hit them since they're options are limited and predicable. Keeping track of their DJ is important here so that you know when theyre going to up-b before they do it. You can go offstage as soon as they burn their DJ and remain below the ledge; since they have bad aerial mobility they cant really drift away from you after they jump. That being said, you can successfully edgeguard the upb on reaction since it has a 42 frame startup, but it's better to anticipate it since it will you give you more time.
A WD or dash offstage is the quickest way to go offstage to edgeguard. However going offstage backwards gives you the extra option to bair to reach farther away. Using a SH to go offstage isnt as fast of a movement option but it will let you cover an early recovery and quickly grab the ledge afterwards with an immediate teleport.
If you ever fail to secure a stock going offstage, you can quickly grab ledge to punish their recovery.
Each stage has edgeguarding specifics because of their sizes, shapes, and characteristics.
Final destination
If they're close to the wall they will either ride up the wall or go straight up. If theyre to close to the wall to run off and dair, just charge up a dsmash since it will cover both the sweetspot and the upwards up-b. They will likely be able to tech but at the very least you will have gotten damage and stage control. If you have a charged SB you can cover a recovery right over the ledge. If they recover at a different height you'll just have to wing it.
Battlefield
This is a fun one, theres no wall for them to ride up so they have to come directly for the ledge go above it. Additionally, if they are close enough you can hit them under the actual stage or stage spike them into the under ceiling using a bair or reverse upair. If they end up under the ceiling and up-b they wont be able to sweetspot and are forced to go past and away from the stage. You just need to grab the ledge and use a ledge option with invincibility in that situation. Even if they tech the ceiling they cant wall jump so the same thing can happen. If you hit them into the middle i believe they can tech wall jump but i dont think they get enough horizontal distance to actually make it back. Just make sure they dont have their DJ before you do this.
Fountain of dreams
Pretty much the same thing as FD. The main difference is that you have a lot of leniency when it comes to offstage edgeguarding. The incredibly low floor lets you go in super deep for kills because you can use aerials when you are low without dying. Just remember that you have to use the DJE if youre gonna go really deep.
Yoshis story
This is perhaps the hardest stage for you to edgeguard on. The high floor and wall that starts form the bottom of the stage makes riding up the wall a great recovery option for the spacies. You cant go in too deep for kills here and its hard to see when you do. The bright side is that dair will sometimes guarantee a kill because the floor is so low.
Pokemon stadium
Much like in battlefield, you can hit spacies under the stage with a bair or reverse upair and they will get pineappled. All thats left there is to grab ledge and use a ledge option with invincibility.
Dreamland
Same thing as pokemon stadium except it has a wall the spacies can ride up. If they're low enough go sweep em under the stage.
Mid recoveries
By mid recoveries i mean when the opponent can grab ledge or can recover right over the ledge after a double jump and has the option to recover with either side-b or up-b. Remember, expect the side-b and react to the up b. If you have enough time to position yourself, have your back to the edge so you can do turnaround tilts/smashes, bairs, and WD to grab ledge. If you need to quickly cover a sweetspot side-b and youre already facing the ledge, use SUNC to edgehog. If you happen to react late or were too far to SUNC in time you can always opt to WD to the ledge and dsmash to cover the sweetspot.
If the side-b is not too low you can catch it with an ftilt on reaction or a smash attack if you get a read. If they go right over your head you can uptilt them to may get a followup.
A mid up-b should be a piece of cake to cover. If you arent turned around already SUNC can be used to bair(as shown in the first video linked at 1:15) or reverse upair an up-b from a initial forward facing position. You can also run off and use upair since it has a high hitbox in front of mewtwo.
Spacie players also like to mixup their up-b recoveries by using up-b above the ledge and going downwards to grab ledge. This should only work if you were to far to hit them out of startup but just in case try to cover that and punish a recovery on a platform with bair upair or uptilt.
There isnt a whole lot to write about here as this is the most unpredictable recovery situation. Just try to rack up damage and always try to get a grab so that you can get an either get an edgeguard or kill off back throw, a combo off of down throw or a kill off of up throw. Remember you can teleport to the top platform and even edge cancel it to quickly gain height. Be aware of the opponents % as you can potentially get a kill with Fair if you hit them while theyre high up.
Wall techs and tech wall jumps
This is the last part and honestly it puts a dent in my edgeguarding. This only happens in the situations where youd use downsmash or if they SDI along a wall. lets crunch some numbers before i tell you what to do. Alright so a wall tech is 31 frames but it's interruptable on frame 6 and falco's side b has a 17 frame startup while fox's has 21. So fox takes 26 frames before he starts moving from the side b and falco takes 22. Mewtwos downsmash has 17 frames of endlag and ftilt comes out frame 6, a total of 23. Im not sure how fast falco moves when he uses side b but im pretty sure you can cover both. Now the tech wall jump would come out frame 6 at the soonest and is IASA frame one meaning they could instantly use a recovery. They can also wall tech bair so you should be ready to DI down and tech in place.
Thats it, I encourage criticism and suggestions so dont hold back guys lemme me know what you think
Last edited:
