While its true Locke and I have played a lot, it hard to say how this match up should go. We both feel its pretty even, dare I say 50-50?
General Mac info:
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You really have to respect his normal's as Locke mentioned and yes that is a bad Mac if he is attempting to go into the air. That's not to say he can't go for something in the air, usually that being Up-B, but a smart Mac should stay grounded. While he has polarizing strength and weaknesses, the character isn't as black and white as people make him out to be. A simple back throw into X does not guarantee a sudden lost in stock. Yes He will be at a disadvantage, but a good Mac knows how to recover.
He has amazing frame data, high priority moves with decent range, super armor, low cool down, safe on shield pokes, racks damage quickly, tilts that cannot rebound, more than enough ways to kill, and has a stupid spot dodge with a roll that puts your assistant sister to shame. Yes he's not an air fighter but for the love of god, RESPECT the mans ground game or you will find yourself back in Dr.Lights lab having to put your tin can a** back together.
Neutral:
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Mac has to be patient to get the edge in this MU and learn when he can rush down or when he should be safe and poke. There's a lot of respect in this MU from both sides as they both have the options/tools to dispose of each other.
My advice for you Blue Bombers is to space your projectiles well and force the approach. Even though Mac can tilt through them, keep your cool and fire away (smartly) to pester them to come in. When Mac does approach its your job to make sure you stay safe and punish accordingly (Grab is probably your best option to punish with). Your shield is generally safe when hes "in" as you need not worry about his grab (its bad). If his tilts/smashes are meaty on shield that should be a punish. If you stay in shield Mac will have to back off and space properly in order for the tilts/smashes to not be meaty on shield, meaning he'll have to stay/roll away from you and not be on the inside which often times resets back to neutral.
You can get away with keeping your shield up with low level Macs when they are "in" but as you play better ones, they will condition you to stay in shield when they start getting on the inside. This will result with Mac standing in front of you (while your in shield) and just wait for you to make a move so they can try and read/punish, or get in at the perfect range so as to not have their tilts be meaty and shield pressure you to force you to make a move or run the risk of a weak/broken shield or just simply grab you. Even still, shield is really good against Mac, just be wary of the options I've mentioned above.
Specials:
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Saw Blade: It's great for setting up stuff like grabs and w/e it is you guys do in the air, as it pops him high enough off stage to make Mac garbage but low enough to where if he attempts to air dodge/or do an ariel he's gonna be really laggy when he lands so you can follow up accordingly.
Razor Leaf: It's interesting in this MU, Lockes gimped me a few times on the edge just by standing there with RL up as I attempt to come back, I think its more so effective if Mac Side-B's to the ledge, I don't think it shuts down Macs Up-B. I feel its great for when Mac is just hanging out on the ledge trying to figure out how to get back on, as it forces him to make a decision quick before invincibility frames are gone, otherwise he's gonna get tagged hanging out down there. With that said Mac doesn't have many options, as his roll on is poor and hes not gonna want to jump, his options are limited so learn to read/force him to make a poor choice while RL is on. It may just be me, but when RL is up, I run away like a chicken with my head cut-off cause I can't do anything about it. I usually just have to run away until its gone. I suppose I could just throw out tilts but often times He'll shield and I'll get tagged by the RL, which opens up opportunities. Not a great option but not a bad one to throw out time from time.
Rush (Up-B): Is great for getting out of his combo strings or multi jab (DI up and mash UP-B)
Crash Bomb: I don't see Locke use it much in our matches, but when he does its more so to just force my shield up to slow me down and to keep me from running all over the stage, its essentially one mroe thing I have to be wary of thus giving him a little time to breath.
Tilts:
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D-tilt: It's pretty good in this MU, I've seen Locke throw it out and hit me with it more than I'd like to admit. You would think its not a good choice, but like RL its not bad to throw out every now and then. I'm not sure what Locke is looking for when he throws it out, you'll have to ask him. Also it's good for edge guarding? (sometimes he get me with it most of the time he doesn't, which leads me to believe its not as great as an edge guarding tool as you would think it is)
U-tilt: Of course is a great kill option, honestly that's on you. Your gonna have to read the roll patterns of mac and punish accordingly, cause macs will roll... a lot, cause why not they can afford to. So learn how the mac rolls, when and where and if you can pressure them, that will almost always get them to roll so pick up on the habits (I almost always find Macs rolling to the inside when they have there back to the edge, so try to poke them and see what they do and you might just land an up-tilt). Another way to land it is to power shield one of his tilts/smashes, or wait for him to do a meaty tilt/smash on shield (like I stated earlier these are punishable.)
Pro tip: You can actually U-tilt the tip of his F-tilt/F-smash if they just space right outside your face.
F-tilt: PEW PEW PEW all day! Just do a set of lemons here and there, don't just 3 Lemons and then 3 Lemons again. Mix it up and back away to be safe. Use your best judgment on how to projectile camp with lemons, sometimes doing two sets of lemon in a row works, most of the time it doesn't. If you learn to mix it up with your other projectiles you can catch the Mac off guard and serve him a good dose of lemonade.
Pro tip: Lol, Why the F*** do you guys call it lemons? I just call them pellets, I'm just using the general term that everyone seems to go by. Its just strange to think about this awesome robotic mech bad-a** armed to the teeth with a crazy arsenal of death gadgets and weapons, and then when he goes to shoot you a lemon comes out.... I can't get that image out of my head, lol.
Ariels (Airials? Aireals? Airal? .... Air moves)
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I don't have much to say for his Ariel moves, as everyone beats Mac in the air. It's pretty straight forward so I promise you'll be fine if you ever are confronted with an ariel Mac.
All your ariels are great, cause honestly whats Mac gonna do? He has to always be on the defense when he's in the air, never will he be offensive. Unless your dumb and get hit by Up-B to die at like 50% off the top. So go Ham! Use Up-air to zone his position to make him land where you want if your on stage and under him, D-air to edge guard his linear recovery (never see Locke use it outside of that), and B-air and F-air are great to follow Mac into the air with to punish his poor Air-Game not to mention they are great ways to pressure his shield and be safe... you know, in-case you just don't want to always throw lemons at him.
Pro tip: B-air is great for crossing up Mac's shield, and a better edge guarding tool than fair as its multi hit, stays out longer, and has greater knock back and has potential to kill/gimp.
Smashes:
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I not gonna cover smashes (for now), cause its rare I see Locke use them in our matches. None the less he does use them from time to time only to ever really punish roll reads. Outside of that I never see Locke just throw them out, as they obviously have a long cool down and in this MU you cant afford to do risky moves like that. I've notices Locke will attempt to do Up/Down smash to preemptively read my positioning when I return to stage when hanging on the ledge.
At the end of the day I'm not to sure what Locke is looking for when he attempts to throw them out, or if they have any other purpose or utility outside of punishing poor roll choices and stage returns. (Locke, please give your input)
Grabs:
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While yes, I've stated that Backthrow > X doesn't necessarily lead to a stock loss, it will always put Mac in a bad position, even if the Mac can recover well. It's very uncomfortable to be in the air and often times frustrating. I'd say grab is your best tool in this MU as I believe it relatively safe on whiff, has decent range, but ultimately a good projectile game will cause him to shield unwillingly to avoid the projectiles which in turn you can condition/force them to throw up shield to attempt to nab a grab.
Since Macs will be rolling and shielding a lot to get "in" that already beats one of his options, of course easier said than done (again just be aware of of both your and his options.) Once Mac is grabbed it will lead to an ariel game which may not lead to a stock loss, but most definitely will allow you to tack on some extra damage with your airel options. Grab into any throw, usually UP/Down into w/e will probably be where the majority of your damage will come from. Forward/Back throw should be primarily used when on the edge to put mac off the stage and in a bad position, allowing you to set up for the edge guard.
So yes Grabs are good... with anything though just be smart on how you throw them out (No pun intended)
Conclusion:
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It can honestly go either way, I feel this MU is very momentum based (I feel that way with a lot of Mac MU) the neutral in this MU is Long and drawn out and both player have to be patient and respect each others options. I feel that there is no such thing as a lead in this MU cause at any given time the momentum can swing wildly in the other persons favor, which of course results in the drawn out neutral I mentioned. With that said, the Blue Bomber has great tools to deal with Mac.
I stated in the beginning of this "guide" that it may be 50/50, but as I wrote this up going over the tools he has, and thinking about how Locke implements them in our matches I'd have to say its in Mega Mans favor, but ever so slightly. I'm leaning towards 45/55, or 60/40 in favor of the Blue Bomber.
So yea, that's my 2 cents on the MU, Locke feel free to chime in and add anything I may have missed, or not noticed in our sets. Also correct me if I'm wrong on anything I've mentioned. Also let me know what you Mega Man players think, agree? disagree? Any valuable and/or viable information I missed about MM or options he may have in this MU. Go ahead and let me know in your post and share all the wonderful information you have.
TL;DR
Just read it, it will be good for you, lol.
Also...Wheres MEGA MAN LEGENDS 3? GOD DAMMIT CAPCOM! WHY YOU DO THIS, I LOVE MEGAMAN, NINTENDO TREATS HIM BETTER THAN YOU DO! (FYI: I play Zero in UMVC3, WHENS MAHVEL!)
? I am a player of both characters and am debatably among the most prominent players of both characters in my state, and while I don't particularly have trouble with the matchup on either side, it is only natural that I'd love to know how my main and my secondary fight against each other. I even used to main Greninja (or as I like to call him, Gekkouga) myself, but later switched to Mega Man after attending a national and doing better with him than Gren, and he's now been demoted to 2nd rate. Sometimes the secondary becomes the main since he's easier to use and/or a better character lol. Unfortunately, I myself don't get to experience the matchup much: There are hardly any other people in my region that play Greninja at all and I've only seen like at most 4 other people playing him in some of my locals, I haven't played against any of them yet and from what I've seen none of them are particularly good or amazing (or at the very least, none of them are prominent or well-known). There are a few other Mega Men and I've played them with my Greninja, but I felt that most of them were a little below my skill level and that I simply outplayed them more than anything else. I've heard good things about this one other guy in my region who plays MM and is usually considered the best one we have besides myself, he once told me has problems with Greninja and wanted to play me online and so we did, hearing that I play the character (we haven't yet met in person). He beat me pretty badly at first, but eventually I got a little more patient and started getting the better of him, but I still don't know if that's a good measurement of the matchup since it was an online match and while I think he is good, I felt that I adapted overtime while he kinda didn't and I also disagreed with his choice of custom moves (he used Skull Barrier, and I personally don't think its worth taking against Gren and losing Leaf/Plant). I would also still love more challenging foes besides just him too.
