How do I play defensively as Mewtwo?

[MERPIS]

I'm serious. Everytime I play Mewtwo, I run people down. Main reason why I lose so much as him. So how do I do it? Because of my offensive play, I almost never space well with down tilt, and I'm almost always in range of then mario, therefore, I almost always lose to kirby, Mario, and Marth as Mewtwo.

So how do I play more defensively, how do I know when to go in for the kill, and how can I space well, all as Mewtwo?

 

[Mr. B]

Learning to space well is pretty crucial, since its the best way to make use of the great range on our tilts. good spacing is reliant on being able to gently tilt the movement stick so as to walk and not lose frames to dash-stop animation or to constantly get dash-attacks (which have a lot of punishable lab).

I tend to have tap up for jump switched off, and when I want to walk, start by inputting up then tilting up and forward/backward as appropriate to get a nice smooth walk even when I am rushing to make inputs, which flows neatly into ftilt and utilt.

For going in to kill, knowing the matchup is key, so just practice. Eventually you will instinctively know which chars moves can be punished in startuplag or if its best to wait and exploit endlag. its got to be Instinctive.

mix up SH fair with SHFF (falling short) Ftilt and then when they are conditioned to shield, surprise them with SHFF(falling short) dashgrab. SH nair out of shield is pretty fun if they are spacing their fairs or crossing up to avoid your shieldgrab, but otherwise shieldgrab is a pretty awesome tool for mewtwo (given his great backthrow and killer upthrow).

Do you charge shadowball when you are falling off the edge? if you get launched high off the edge, you can get almost a full charge before AD DJ teleporting to ledge, so practice discovering how close you can get to the bottom blast zone while charging and still recover. offensive players are often smart enough to mess you up when charging SB on the stage, so being able to get it charged safely is pretty pimp.

 

[MERPIS]

Learning to space well is pretty crucial, since its the best way to make use of the great range on our tilts. good spacing is reliant on being able to gently tilt the movement stick so as to walk and not lose frames to dash-stop animation or to constantly get dash-attacks (which have a lot of punishable lab).

I tend to have tap up for jump switched off, and when I want to walk, start by inputting up then tilting up and forward/backward as appropriate to get a nice smooth walk even when I am rushing to make inputs, which flows neatly into ftilt and utilt.

For going in to kill, knowing the matchup is key, so just practice. Eventually you will instinctively know which chars moves can be punished in startuplag or if its best to wait and exploit endlag. its got to be Instinctive.

mix up SH fair with SHFF (falling short) Ftilt and then when they are conditioned to shield, surprise them with SHFF(falling short) dashgrab. SH nair out of shield is pretty fun if they are spacing their fairs or crossing up to avoid your shieldgrab, but otherwise shieldgrab is a pretty awesome tool for mewtwo (given his great backthrow and killer upthrow).

Do you charge shadowball when you are falling off the edge? if you get launched high off the edge, you can get almost a full charge before AD DJ teleporting to ledge, so practice discovering how close you can get to the bottom blast zone while charging and still recover. offensive players are often smart enough to mess you up when charging SB on the stage, so being able to get it charged safely is pretty pimp.

So, I should walk instead of running, mainly? Also, yes I do charge SB offstage most times, with M2s recovery, its pretty easy to get back to the stage. How do I know when to rush in with a badass combos though? Are there any indicators?

 

[Eight_SixtyFour]

Not sure why this is a separate thread. We have the Q & A thread.

As for advice, here are some tips.

1. Watch good players and good Mewtwo mains play him. Understand what they are analyzing when fighting someone online and offline and incorporate their tactics in your gameplay.
2. Don't focus on walking more or running more, but take it slow and analyze your opponent. It sounds like you're just focused on executing your gameplan without paying attention to what other people are doing.
3. If you have the resources, lab what you can punish. Or check the forums.
4. Just play, and more importantly, play to learn. You will win more if you have learnt something by the end of the match, regardless of the outcome of the match.

 

[Mr. B]

How do I know when to rush in with a badass combos though? Are there any indicators?

Learning to walk instead of run is extremely difficult in the heat of battle (I would actually love it if I could assign one of my buttons to "suppress dash", but I guess that's a pipe-dream) but is useful for being able to respond a bit quicker, but you could get into the habit of always breaking a dash with a jump or shield I guess. eight_sixtyfour is kinda right when he says don't focus too much on running/walking though, because its not walking per se that gives you the advantage, its that running sort of closes of options for you, and defensive play is all about maintaining as many options as possible so that the one you want is available when you need it. Sometimes you need to run though, since how else would you chase a FCSB into a dashgrab-Dthrow-backteleport-uptaunt for the lulz?

As for knowing the right time to rush in, its all intuition. Some moves for some chars have long startup which can be exploited (I have got a grab on D3 when he is in the process of bringing the hammer down - hilarius) but others have more endlag. Even if I could provide you with a list of all the moves and when to punish each one, it wouldn't help - because its got to be instinctive. practice spacing and timing against CPU level 8/9, focusing on one opposing character at a time, until you find your timings for that matchup.

Most difficult thing is changing your mentality from rushdown to patient. Your fingers will get itchy. IGNORE THE ITCHYNESS. if you feel yourself getting a bit rushy, breathe out, SH back, let off a shadowball, breathe in, and when they approach, breathe out, and ftilt/utilt as appropriate, keep breathing. 90% of patient play is watching, waiting and breathing. When you have learned to watch and wait, you will start to see the gaps that you can flow into.

 

[MERPIS]

Learning to walk instead of run is extremely difficult in the heat of battle (I would actually love it if I could assign one of my buttons to "suppress dash", but I guess that's a pipe-dream) but is useful for being able to respond a bit quicker, but you could get into the habit of always breaking a dash with a jump or shield I guess. eight_sixtyfour is kinda right when he says don't focus too much on running/walking though, because its not walking per se that gives you the advantage, its that running sort of closes of options for you, and defensive play is all about maintaining as many options as possible so that the one you want is available when you need it. Sometimes you need to run though, since how else would you chase a FCSB into a dashgrab-Dthrow-backteleport-uptaunt for the lulz?

As for knowing the right time to rush in, its all intuition. Some moves for some chars have long startup which can be exploited (I have got a grab on D3 when he is in the process of bringing the hammer down - hilarius) but others have more endlag. Even if I could provide you with a list of all the moves and when to punish each one, it wouldn't help - because its got to be instinctive. practice spacing and timing against CPU level 8/9, focusing on one opposing character at a time, until you find your timings for that matchup.

Most difficult thing is changing your mentality from rushdown to patient. Your fingers will get itchy. IGNORE THE ITCHYNESS. if you feel yourself getting a bit rushy, breathe out, SH back, let off a shadowball, breathe in, and when they approach, breathe out, and ftilt/utilt as appropriate, keep breathing. 90% of patient play is watching, waiting and breathing. When you have learned to watch and wait, you will start to see the gaps that you can flow into.

Problem is, my reaction time is ass and I'm REALLY twitchy, even the slightest movement and I'm shielding. I don't feel safe rushing in and interrupting moves even if they have like a second of start up. I also really hate trying to punish characters that use moves that would normally be safe, I guess I just don't know when to put my shield down.

 

[Mr. B]

Dude, I was like you once, and I can safely say that all you need is quality practice. By that I don't mean just play and play, but play mindfully and try to push beyond your muscle memory. Try to consciously not press shield sometimes and see what you naturally do instead... (Once they are conditioned to your shielding they will probably up their grab game, so maybe try Spotdodge to countergrab?)... or maybe if you still do a lot of shielding, play with some out of shield options - SH nair is an awesome choice out of shield, that is a good answer to pressure by any character without a disjoint.

My reaction time is pretty bad (but Im in my 30s so my awesome teenage neuroplasticity is a distant memory anyway) but that can be compensated for with good spacing and patience.

Ultimately though, don't get frustrated if it feels clunky at first. retraining muscle memory and mental habits is not only hard, but your brain will be like "dude WTF? get off my case!" - but it will thank you in the long run when you pull off a sweet chain and you get the flood of adrenaline/dopamine.

 

[Zarxrax]

A lot of it is more just not overextending yourself. "Playing defensively" can be equated to "playing safely". You don't necessarily have to avoid running in and attacking your opponent, you just want to do so carefully and with safe attacks. You will see top players (in general, not mewtwo specific) moving back and forth and short hopping around, just outside of their opponents range. Neither player can hit each other at this point, but both players are "fishing" for an opportunity. You might throw out some quick moves that you know will miss, just trying to bait your opponent into coming at you. Eventually someone gets a hit, and then you try to follow up on that as hard as possible. This is all about spacing.

A lot of spacing has to do with how you land, more so than whether you are walking or running. Take a look at this video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNKdSQbCs5Y The very first attack is excellently spaced! Rich Brown just jumps in, uses an air dodge mask his movement, and then lands so that he can just barely hit the opponent with the tip of his d-tilt! About 6-7 seconds in, Wadi tries to return a d-tlit of his own, but you can see that rich brown was already anticipating something like that, and casually walked outside of it's range. Just watching through the video, you can notice a lot of each player running in and shielding to stop their run. When someone runs in, the other player will often jump backwards. It's all about maintaining your space and being ready to counterattack when your opponent does something unsafe.

 

[Mr. B]

I had some games against an immense player on FG last night... after beating chumps into the dirt for hours "Mirko" finally gave me a series of games which were breath-taking. I was utterly schooled. They played most of the cast, and their perfect spacing was absolutely the defining factor in my brutal crushing, although one other major factor was that all my tricks only worked once..

I learned so much about how I have so much to learn!

 

[Sonicninja115]

When playing defensively, remember to keep your escape options unpredictable, and memorize M2's safe options. find out what is safe, what you can punish, and know how to punish. Playing defensively only works if you can capitalize on the opponents mistakes. That is the main point of defensive play after all. Bait and punish.

 

[Mr. B]

Last night I worked on my ledge game, specifically, not being predictable about how I get back on-stage. I have noticed that this is one area that my spacing gets ruined, because the opponent gets the chance to position himself neatly and so gains the spacing and timing advantage, putting me on the back foot when I really want to get back into neutral

drop-and-popping up past the ledge with AD seems nice but vulnerable to Up-smash, so I learned to mix that up with popping up past the ledge with a side teleport, which can be started just before the ledge snap (so it looks like you will snap to the ledge like normal), but the move activates a few frames later and actually you teleport towards centrestage - visually, it looks like you don't have the line at the time, and looks kinda like an airdodge, so I'm pretty pleased with it as a fake-out to neutral

Popping up into a surprise disable is fun, buying a few frames, but I did get an edgeguarding marth last night with a falling disable(right at the edge of range, it was sweet), DJ, Fair.

I love it when 3hrs of practice feels like real solid practice and growth.

 

[franniested]

Problem is, my reaction time is *** and I'm REALLY twitchy, even the slightest movement and I'm shielding. I don't feel safe rushing in and interrupting moves even if they have like a second of start up. I also really hate trying to punish characters that use moves that would normally be safe, I guess I just don't know when to put my shield down.

It sounds like you are trying to oversimplify the solution to all of the problems. There isn't a simple answer. And you need to not make any excuses for your gameplay. You can overcome your twitchy finger or any other bad habits you may have.

Mewtwo benefits from a defensive playstyle the most in my opinion, and you should very rarely be rushing in. Force your opponent to approach you by charging shadowball.
Space out with dtilt and punish the opponents short hops with fair. Walking is definitely a good way to throw your opponents off guard since you have all options out of it. Walling them out should be your objective in most matchups though