Getting destroyed on opponent's spawn. Help

[Shai Hulud]

The title pretty much says it all--every time my opponent spawns he rushes in during his invincibility frames and beats the crap out of Nana, then for the next 15 seconds I'm just trying to reunite my climbers before he can kill Nana.

I know on platform stages a lot of characters can light-shield on platforms and be pretty safe, but the IC shield is too small.

So what do I do? If my opponent's character is fast at all I can't really run away for the duration of the invincibility.

 

[Pasqual]

Know the spawn points for your opponent's controller slot on the level, start off as far as possible from that spot when he comes down. If there's no platforms you could do some standing desynched ice blocks to slow down their approach. With platforms, mix up ice blocks, dash dancing, wave dancing, etc. Just be really unpredictable for those first few seconds and you shouldn't have to worry about respawn kills.