Meta Knight recovery tips (for extreme situations)

[New_Dumal]

Hi guys,
I know that as MK players we don't need to worry too much about returning to the stage.
But since I'm a stupid person who doesn't like to keep stage control and always chase my enemies far beyond from where I should, I found myself at some situations where even MK couldn't recovery.
So I started to lab MK specials to see how I maximize the distance I can adventure, and where I can go without fear of losing a stock. I've got a lot from this lab, so I will write some stuff about MK specials and end with a summary.

(A example of situation that is not easy to recover from is : ledge trump ->Uair sequence-> Bair.
Sometimes I'm used to reverse-edgeguard and found myself too far away from the stage after killing my opponent, what is bad.)

Spoiler: Drill Rush

Drill Rush is incredible tool to reverse-edgeguard a lot of characters when used properly.
Drill Rush is a horrible tool if you want to just return to the stage.
For some reason I really can't understand (and I bet all of you already discovered about it) MK can't grab the ledge soon after Drill Rush. This mean if you miss the ledge, you're dead. Your momentum after DR will not save you here.
So if you're under the stage (not a good option anyway), never Drill Rush upwards for the ledge.
You can hit a opponent reasonable far from the ledge if you S.Loop a little below the ledge directly, the impact hitbox catch them there.A lot of players who don't play against Mk often forget this, so it's ok to mixup with it.
Both Dimensional Cape and S.Loop are better options in this scenario.

Spoiler: Dimensional Cape

Dimensional Cape...
I'm pretty sure there's exactly NOWHERE in the stage you can only return if you use Dimensional Cape.
I'm not sure about it, but I heard teleport recoveries have no vulnerable frames if you teleport yourself from above the ledge height. So... it's not like is a useless move to recover, since you can cancel the 2-frame window and mess up your opponent edgeguard sometimes... but I'm not going for it a lot.
If you're in a bad spot and think DC can make some miracle and save you as a recovery move... JUST DON'T.
It's very risky to do, but if you want to test how the opponent is reacting to the DC you can go directly to the ledge and reset the lag with the ledge grab animation.

Spoiler: Shuttle Loop

S.Loop is our main recovery method and is safe in most situations.
It's fine to recovery under the stage with this move if you're not far away from the ledge if you input Up+B + direction you're facing.I play MK a lot and I didn't knew S.Loop have all this momentum difference if you input SL+ (in) and SL +(out). But is HUGE, for hitting opponents and for recovery (I bet most of you already knew this, but since I'm explaining this topic...) If your opponent is too close don't forget you can always (disjointed hitbox) hit the first hit of SL and safely return and sometimes use this hitstun. If your opponent is too close from the ledge and at high% you can kill them with S.Loop if you hold down as doing the move because MK will perform both hits without going to the ledge.Release the down input as soon as possible (after second hit) or you will die afterwards.
I labbed this move a lot and discovered minor things here and there, but I will not write everything here.

Spoiler: Mach Tornado

Ok... here I was quite surprised.
Mach Tornado is quite usefull to recover, but unsafe as hell if the opponent is ready to edgeguard you, or if you don't trust your fingers. The distance MK can reach with this move is much greater than I knew.
In that scenario where you ledge-trumped your opponent to a Uair combo, there's no better option to return for the stage.
If you input Neutral+B and goes directly for the stage you can survive from places where the Drill Rush will not save you.
It's the best option MK has as a horizontal recovery and I don't think it's possible to die from anywhere below the ledge height because of it.
i didn't lab it enough to talk about edgeguarding or reverse-edgeguarding with this move, but I think it's cool against some characters that don't have hitbox in their recoveries... I'm quite interested in good moves to edgeguard Cloud's UpB, and I think it can be used in this scenario, but DTilt is possible 100% better so... I will try some edgeguards with it in some actual matches and if I discovery some great scenario, I'll edit this here.

I'm searching a picture of Final Destionation zoomed out to edit and show a chart for best recovery move for each stage position. A summary:

(No jumps, considering Final Destionan distance)
-->If you're quite far from the ledge (blastzone), but above the ledge height, Mach Tornado for the stage.
-->If you're quite far from the ledge (blastzone or close) and below the stage you're probably dead, but you can maybe Mach Tornado to the stage.
--> If you're far from the ledge (but not blastzone) you have two options: Drill Rush if you're not too far for the stage height, else tries to Mach Tornado (don't go for tornado if you can do it with Drill Rush).
-->If you're very below the stage and have no jump, just UpB and input backwards as soon as possible.
-->If somehow you're under the stage, go for UpB inputting the ledge direction (completely safe if you snap, trust me.)

Remember that is always possible to... use some jumps, you have a lot of them.
Another tip I got from MU experience, sometimes (Against Mega Man, as a example) is very better to airdoge jump for below the stage and S.Loop in the returning direction than just do it.
Recover directly can make the S.Loop trade with something you don't want it to, or eat up a projectile throwed down (Mega man Dair).

 

[Twiranitar]

I'm surprised you didn't mention that if you hit the stage with Drill Rush there will be a "recoil" animation which will give you a lot more distance to work with when recovering from far places. Aim for it. Also, DCape doesn't suck at all; it is maybe outclassed by our other (wonderful) options to get back on stage but if in a given situation you can reach the stage horizontally with DCape it will be faster than Drill Rush, with the bonus of intangibility and no hitbox (see below).

Example: https://youtu.be/E8kB5RhF5l8 3:45
After exhausting almost all his jumps, Leo chose to DCape to come back to the stage. If he tried to Drill Rush to the ledge it would've hit the Falcon, ruining the conversion.

Tornado, although faster horizontally than any other option, is terribly unsafe and laggy (unless you autocancel it), so it's generally better to drift to the stage and Up-B/Side-B back onto the ledge if you can. Might be useful in the situation you're referring to, I've seen MKs finishing an offstage ladder with and airdodge read to Tornado.
Anyways, thanks for the contribution!

 

[New_Dumal]

Yeah!I only diss Dimensional Cape about distance when compared to our other options (as you stated).
It's really a great option use DC when the opponent is already dead for don't ruin your edgeguard with a recovery move.
About the recoil animation in the Drill Rush, is usefull but Dangerous. Sometimes the impact on the stage will knock the other player and you will go fast to the ledge.But is important too to calculate the distance of the recoil animation well because after the recoil you get some frames where you can't grab the ledge.

I'm not beting in the tornado as a recovery move often. I just believe is a great move to return from the stage when you're very far from it. Using M.Tornado in any commom situation will propably make you eat some spikes or other hard punishes when you land because of the lag. I think the move is a bit underated in general, and a wonderfull answer to a airdodge, but that's another topic.