Meta Knight Combos, Tips, and Advanced Techniques

[Hakkat]

Okay, so I love Meta Knight. I love Kirby games, but I have always LOVED playing as Meta Knight in Kirby games, mostly because he is much faster than Kirby and he is just plain awesome! So I thought to myself today: maybe I should seriously try to learn him in P:M. Why not? I love his games and to play as him, but I would need some help learning his moves. My first and foremost question is: does he have any character-specific advanced techniques for MK? Also, how good is his wavedash and DD in your opinion? Are they useful? Also, do dimensional cape mindgames work well in competitive play? They have worked for me before, when I teleport around and then I rush my opponent unexpectedly using MK's phenomenal speed and agility. I'm sure he is around Sheik's speed or so in P:M.

My second question is: should I use Nair for my main approaching aerial? What are some other techniques to approach/force approaches? I think teleport mindgames combined with Dash-dancing will work very well in high-level play!

My third question: What are some good MK combos. I find Uthrow Nair to work on most characters at at least some specific percent, so does Uthrow dair on fast fallers. Thanks for the help!


EDIT: Do you think he has a voice modifier in his mask has a voice modifier? He is way too cute to talk like that!

 

[2 C H i L L E D]

I picked him up for 2 days and did some slight work. I was expecting to get wrecked but I was actually winning/barely losing games against people that have been playing for quite a while, when I've only been playing a couple of weeks.

His DD game is great and his wavedash is pretty damn solid.

DC is amazing. People don't use it enough. . DC above the opponent after baiting and an approach/attack and you can easily land a free dair. DC in place after playing mindgames with your opponent sometimes they will just stand there or shield because if you're mixing it up they have no idea what you're about to do. I've landed fsmash after smash by DCing in place. DC also works well for his offstage game. It's kinda like a extra jump make sure you're grounded before you leave the stage tho. You can also DC and place yourself right above platforms to waveland > aerial or waveland > B-move. The strong hit? Idk. Haven't done enough experimenting. I haven't discovered all of its uses because I still haven't decided on a true main. I'm playing Falco atm so I haven't been learning much of MK lately.

Yeah nair is his best aerial approach unless you need fair's better range. I never really fully explored Dairs capabilities.

Combo wise I still have much to learn. U-throw > Any aerial most of the time up until about I think 80%? You can chain Dthrow if your opponent doesn't DI correctly and it might be unavoidable at very low %s though I could be wrong. Dthrow > Fair works as well. One thing I didn't do while playing MK was grab enough. His grab game is great make sure you don't make the same mistake I did.

And as far as baiting approaches goes DD and wavedashes work wonders. I was baiting a TON of approaches but since I haven't been playing that long I don't know how to capitalize that well.

AT's: Ledge Cancels. That's pretty much all MK has to offer AT wise right now.

 

[dettadeus]

imma have to write a guide at some point because my view on how to play mk seems vastly different from everyone else

 

[2 C H i L L E D]

imma have to write a guide at some point because my view on how to play mk seems vastly different from everyone else

How do you play MK? And how do I do the Zero Lag Glide?

 

[dettadeus]

Combine Brawl MK, Sheik, Marth, Pikachu, and Jigglypuff. That's the best I can describe.
I'll have some more recent videos up soon.

Also the Zero Lag Glide is performed by cancelling the glide when you have a low horizontal and vertical speed. It won't work if you're moving in either direction too quickly. This is something you'll just have to get a feel for, it's not like I can spit out any specific values.

 

[SAX]

MK is obv top. his nair is redic, his stage control is redic, edgeguarding? Redic. Also, his tech chase off of his D-throw is stupid. Nothing is garunteed out of his Uthrow unless your opponent inputs bad DI, or doesn't DI at all. Uair is stupid for juggling/harrasing. Dair helps him to escape form getting juggled, and is a really good approach in teams since there are so many distractions going on.

#mkstillop

 

[Hakkat]

Thanks for the info! I love characters with great mobility, agility, speed, and DD. That's why I main Pikachu. He has great mobility and dash dance game! ^_^

 

[trash?]

HOW TO PLAY META KNIGHT THE FUN WAY:
-uair
-uair
-sometimes bair
-mostly uair
-always end combos in shuttle loops

there u go

 

[Mr. Ripn]

Hey so I have been playing metaknight intensively the past month. What i have found with him i shall share with you.

Chain grabbing. Your down throw is easy to chain into another grab. (Works best on the heavier characters)

*************************** IF YOU CANT L-CANCEL HIS DAIR EVERYTIME DO NOT DO IT**************************

Using his DAIR to approach is not always a smart thing to do but it is appealing for the pop up u can get. Before approaching with a down air try to bait them to either jump or grab.

Landing 1 down air means you should land a huge 40% combo EVERYTIME. You have so much freedom when you get the pop up on them from DAIR, you literally can do anything. The best combo i found is.
DAIR short hop UAIR jump angled DAIR l-cancel short hop UAIR and repeat till they start DI'ing out of it and change the UAIR to a BAIR.

His down b is OP right now and i feel they might change it so exploit it if you have the tech skill. USES BELOW

Out of sheild jump down-b and then c-stick left or right. (this performs an out of sheild down b that punishes anyone that uses a fsmash on you)

Mind gaming people. You have 5 jumps to use and if you can't get a good approach from the air on them you can simply down-b away from them and falling FAIR. Or you can jump right above them a few times and when they know your on your last jump they will most likely try to go for some sort of approach and you can down-b straight up and DAIR them for a fat combo.

Recovering.

You are going to want to use his side-b and down-b to recover when you are reasonably close. If you have no jumps and are far away using his neutral-b is the best option. It is hard to get out of the bad habits from brawl if you played brawl, but they will be gone if you play MK for a week.

Hope this helps you out. I can post some vids this weekend after the tournaments im going to. WISH ME LUCK! :D

 

[SSS]

-Don't use dair that much it's not as good as you think it is
-When you do use it l-cancel oh wait you should be l-cancelling everything this is Project M not Brawl
-Dash attack to uptilt usually works
-jab kinda useless
-ftilt comes out hella fast
-properly spaced fsmash 2gud, 2safe on shield
-dtilt got dat pop
-uair chains fer dayz
-fair spaces fer dayz

I'm still playing with him. I have a lot more but I'm lazy right now.

 

[Arcalyth]

Dunno if anyone has discovered this yet but I was playing wifi earlier and did a boost grab by muscle memory from Sheik... turns out MK has a boost grab. The timing is similar to Sheik's but if you delay it slightly from there, you get a longer boost.

For those who don't know the boost grab input: Dash, input a dash attack with c-stick, cancel the dash attack with Z to grab. (Pretty much a DACUS except grabbing instead)

 

[Muck]

utilt u smash works well

 

[Crusayer]

Usmash doesn't lead to much. Uair's a better choice for the next follow up imo.

 

[Muck]

does anyone have any tips for wave dashing with meta knight?
it goes a short distance and im not sure if its useful or not

 

[Muck]

Dunno if anyone has discovered this yet but I was playing wifi earlier and did a boost grab by muscle memory from Sheik... turns out MK has a boost grab. The timing is similar to Sheik's but if you delay it slightly from there, you get a longer boost.

For those who don't know the boost grab input: Dash, input a dash attack with c-stick, cancel the dash attack with Z to grab. (Pretty much a DACUS except grabbing instead)

i can't do it ... any tips?

 

[G13_Flux]

well wavedashing is a more general technique that helps at improving your overall mobility options: baiting, approaching, retreating, platform mobility, and WDing OOS for punishing/escaping are all a few of the examples of where you might incorperate WDing into your game. theres not too much different with MK specific WDing, you will just have to figure out when using it will compliment the tools he has available as opposed to other characters. But honestly i would reccomend practicing WDing as a general maneuver, not something limited to MK himself. I could describe in detail but it would take a lot... try watching tournament videos and focus on where the players use certain maneuvers. its a great way to learn.

 

[Arcalyth]

i can't do it ... any tips?

Sheik's is pretty easy, try hers first. I don't know if it's still in 3.0 for MK. I'll test it later and see if I can still do it

 

[Soft Serve]

I really really like Meta. I've been playing him as sort of a marth with a better recovery and slightly less range, going for re-sets and grabs, mostly keeping opponents on the ground and going for low bairs or d-smashes off a tech chase. His Dash dance and run speed are so great, and his gimping game is incredible as well. Can't forget his down B for following up and forcing ambiguous set ups. What I've enjoyed doing is to condition people into sheilding on wake up by going for nairs/fairs/dsmashes for the tech, and then just down-B towards them and use that as a grab set up.

MK is fun.

 

[skaterbaj]

How do you cancel his dair?

 

[Kally Wally]

You don't.

 

[ScaryPixel]

How do you cancel his dair?

angled dair can cancel off of platforms if you l-cancel it. You can follow up with any aerial right after.

 

[Strong Badam]

you don't have to l-cancel it to ledge cancel it

 

[skaterbaj]

ohh ok welll yeah i thought you could cancel it before contact with anything

 

[Yurya]

It runs out after falling a set distance but you must go the distance or collide with the ground or a hitbox.

 

[Weeezy]

-Don't use dair that much it's not as good as you think it is
-When you do use it l-cancel oh wait you should be l-cancelling everything this is Project M not Brawl
-Dash attack to uptilt usually works
-jab kinda useless
-ftilt comes out hella fast
-properly spaced fsmash 2gud, 2safe on shield
-dtilt got dat pop
-uair chains fer dayz
-fair spaces fer dayz

I'm still playing with him. I have a lot more but I'm lazy right now.

Up smash on spacies combos into itself at low percents which is kinda dumb but works

 

[Megapants]

Hey guys,

I just discovered that MK's Uair has really early IASA, so early that you can do a short hop uair and then do another action like waveland, another uair, or do another jump. I think the waveland is a pretty good mind game since you can functionally use it the same way as an empty short hop waveland to bait your opponent into reacting and just punish with a grab or whatever.

JVU

 

[RabidJackal]

Hey guys,

I just discovered that MK's Uair has really early IASA, so early that you can do a short hop uair and then do another action like waveland, another uair, or do another jump. I think the waveland is a pretty good mind game since you can functionally use it the same way as an empty short hop waveland to bait your opponent into reacting and just punish with a grab or whatever.

JVU

Never really thought about doing a waveland out of an u-air, but that sounds pretty good. Doing 2 up-airs in one short hop is definitely good for juggling at low %. What I found with some of the lower platforms is that you can jump through the platform with an up-air, land while doing the second up-air, then immediately drop through the platform w/ another up-air. This allows for 3 up-airs in quick succession in such a short amount of time. It applies amazing shield pressure and leaves you in an advantageous position

 

[Megapants]

I think that wavelanding is so critical to playing a good ground based MK because of how bad his horizontal movement is in the air. If you commit to an aerial, the distance you can cover on your sides becomes really limited if you don't get back to the ground quick. And really, I think you should be taking advantage of MK's fast falling property and his respectable waveland distance. I play a really grounded MK focusing on grabs, tilts, short hop aerials and smashes because I think those are MK's best options. (edit: and the fact is he just has MORE options when grounded so it's much easier to play tricks and land good hits)

I made a short video demonstrating the timing, spacing, and the potential follow-ups and also included some full hop aerial wavelands. Something I didn't include in the video is simply dashing away or forward upon landing to keep on trying to whiff punish. Sorry if quality is poor, I did this on Dolphin and my computer is not incredibly powerful. I'm sure this is basic for a lot of players but I think a lot of people could benefit from seeing just how much distance you can cover and how much momentum you can gain by being on the ground instead of in the air.

 

[SpiderMad]

you can also do SH Up-air to any of his other aerials, getting the up-aerial frame perfect after jump squat is already hard though and his jump squat being the earliest makes it a nuisance

 

[JeezImSoBored]

Hey guys,

I just discovered that MK's Uair has really early IASA, so early that you can do a short hop uair and then do another action like waveland, another uair, or do another jump. I think the waveland is a pretty good mind game since you can functionally use it the same way as an empty short hop waveland to bait your opponent into reacting and just punish with a grab or whatever.

JVU

I don't think airdodge applies for IASA, so u wouldnt be able to waveland from upair ASAP unless u meant jumping and then wavelanding on a platform or jumping and instant airdodge down, like westballz pressure style. I could be wrong though.

 

[SpiderMad]

I don't think airdodge applies for IASA, so u wouldnt be able to waveland from upair ASAP unless u meant jumping and then wavelanding on a platform or jumping and instant airdodge down, like westballz pressure style. I could be wrong though.

You're right for Melee but Brawl unrestricted Air dodge from IASA, so now in PM you can AD through IASA

It basically went in line with all the other stuff Brawl did, where they unrestricted AD from tumble as well, up to the point of having it able to hitstun cancel

 

[Megapants]

I don't think airdodge applies for IASA, so u wouldnt be able to waveland from upair ASAP unless u meant jumping and then wavelanding on a platform or jumping and instant airdodge down, like westballz pressure style. I could be wrong though.

Perhaps its not really IASA, just really short active frames because you can also do short hop instant uair, land and then immediate do an action like dash or smash attack if you don't fast fall. Just look at the video I linked and you'll see what I'm talking about.

 

[SpiderMad]

Perhaps its not really IASA, just really short active frames because you can also do short hop instant uair, land and then immediate do an action like dash or smash attack if you don't fast fall. Just look at the video I linked and you'll see what I'm talking about.

It could be that, or otherwise the autocancel. I think it's IASA though. We could check the frame data thread
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcYiuwDaC3A#t=50

 

[Chesstiger2612]

Up-air has an IASA on frame 23, while the animation would normally last 39 frames. This is why up-air -> another aerial works. Up-air has also an autocancel from frame 18 on, so if you do two up-airs, it won't autocancel (because you will be around frame 8 of the second one), but if you do just one you get the autocancel (of course not if you do it very late, but you have a big window for this one). Air dodge to trigger IASA can be used to WD after a IASA move or when ledgecamping. If you drop ledge->jump->up-air you can IASA with airdodge to the side (no movement because you are directly next to the ledge already) and regrab the ledge. If you waited for the animation to end you would need to burn more jumps or use a special.