MK Matchup Discussion

[<π]

I wanted to say decaying ftilt and fair are huge. fair links directly into ftilt,jabs, dash attck grabs etc. at lower percents and ftilt is going to be where you get most of you damage in the match up. try and tilt lock into a utilt since that will lead to direct follow ups similar to how an fthrow does which will allow you to continue your combos

bair combos like fair but since you want to use it at max range in the match up (the cross up "stomp" gets iffy against MKs who know how to use it. grounded shuttle loop can be used when you get in too close instead of even waiting for the sheild hit) I try to save it as a kill because of is range, speed, unique hit box (far behind and above sheik) and power (the SSbair)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFcmujjqUts
^
Me going over sheik's bair nair and fsmash hitboxes

 

[-Mars-]

spot dodge the last hit of tornado. Duck so it forces MK to go low when he does use it.

I just wanted to point out that this is extremely good advice. MK has to end the tornado at a certain height in order for it to auto cancel, you can punish him if you force him to finish it at a lower height.

 

[-Cross-]

The key to punishing MK's nado is anticipation/prediction. The MK will do two general things with nado, run away after hitting your shield a couple times or stay and try to shield poke. When they are trying to shield poke the above advice is very useful. When they run away, anticipate when they will start to back off. Read your key!! The MK will start to move away from your shield and that means you should get ready to drop that shield. With good timing, you can probably land a dash grab most of the time, which is very nice in this MU.

I mention this because the reason MK leaves unscathed in most matches you see is because a person simply can not react fast enough to most options MK has, especially true for nado imo, but when he limits himself to one move, anticipation helps with punishing. Also I overemphasize grabbing MK, because it's usually the deal breaker in the Marth vs MK MU, and MikeHaze gets grabs like this all the time, so why shouldn't Sheik? And who doesn't want 29%? Also The most common mixup for MK is to back off your shield and then stay in place after moving only a little bit away from Sheik. If you suspect this, work on getting down the timing for walking>dashing asap, as it will give you the option of shielding nado instead of just running straight into it.

 

[riocosta123]

<3, do you have any videos of you recovering against M2K/Seibrik? I'd be interested to see what you do since it's such a hassle.

 

[<π]

<3, do you have any videos of you recovering against M2K/Seibrik? I'd be interested to see what you do since it's such a hassle.

Mmm.. no. I'm supposed to play M2K tomorrow... but he doesn't like it when people post vids of him I'll see if he'll let me edit footage and just post my recoveries against him or something. I'm sure seibrik won't mind me recording because the whole world isn't out to get him. I just need people to remind me to record cuz I forget.

EDIT:
Actually I was considering making a picture guide just on zoning. Zoning is a key point of every video game. you zone against koopas and goomas in mario. If I get this router set up I may do a nice neat picture guide about zones and how they work...

At the very least I'll do something about how zoning appiles to sheiks recovery.

 

[-Cross-]

That would be great <3. By the way did you mean for your name to look like a heart, or did you actually want your name to be "less than 3" or were you trying to do something tricky and do both?

 

[<π]

I wanted "less than three", a lot of things went into it. I used to hate that people used <3 to denote love or hearts or what ever. <3 is clearly a number that is... less than 3! I'm in part a very logical thinker, I've always loved math and how it has no exceptions, just rules.

So in my youth I said "PFFF!! I'll be '<3' and I'll become so great and so well known <3 will mean me, "less than three" instead of love!!" In fact it was originally "<3less" which I had to change before I even made it because of kingdom hearts.

while I'm no where near as bold now. I still like that idea a pinch. A few of the other thoughts that went in as well though. There is a direct correlation to this and my religion.The name <3 is a constant reminder that I should be humble. even on my best day I am always less than God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I will always put my family, friends and loved ones before myself. (Lol, and Ironically that is love right?)

While I do still have huge ego issues. I can feign humility but I am anything but... I've kind of eased up on the whole thing. there are a bunch of smashers that call me "heart", I use the tag "love" on occasion. That was always been pretty far from the reason I actually chose the name.


SHORT ANSWER:
I want <3 to read Less Than Three.

 

[Judo777]

I wanted "less than three", a lot of things went into it. I used to hate that people used <3 to denote love or hearts or what ever. <3 is clearly a number that is... less than 3! I'm in part a very logical thinker, I've always loved math and how it has no exceptions, just rules.

So in my youth I said "PFFF!! I'll be '<3' and I'll become so great and so well known <3 will mean me, "less than three" instead of love!!" In fact it was originally "<3less" which I had to change before I even made it because of kingdom hearts.

while I'm no where near as bold now. I still like that idea a pinch. A few of the other thoughts that went in as well though. There is a direct correlation to this and my religion.The name <3 is a constant reminder that I should be humble. even on my best day I am always less than God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I will always put my family, friends and loved ones before myself. (Lol, and Ironically that is love right?)

While I do still have huge ego issues. I can feign humility but I am anything but... I've kind of eased up on the whole thing. there are a bunch of smashers that call me "heart", I use the tag "love" on occasion. That was always been pretty far from the reason I actually chose the name.


SHORT ANSWER:
I want <3 to read Less Than Three.

Wow man that was deep. Mad respect.

 

[-Cross-]

^I second that. Not going off on a religious tangent but I believe in Jesus too, and that was a cool connection with your name. lol@heartless being taken by Kingdom Hearts.

 

[#HBC | Scary]

My whole issue with constantly using GR->DACUS is what are we gonna kill him with? His horizontal survivability somewhat rivals DK. Perhaps we can succeed in refreshing it with jabs/ftilts/needles but I personally think it'll be harder.

 

[-Cross-]

The only reason I feel that I should emphasize saying GR->DACUS every chance you get is that you will not get that many chances in the first place. This is not just because the MK you are playing against is good but also because the stages you play against MK on likely will not provide you with an opportunity to land DACUS. Also you need to land quite a few U-smashes in a row before the degeneration takes away from the tipper hitbox. iirc MK has average vertical survivability so even if it's degenerated u-smash tipper will still kill at reasonable %'s (130-140?).

I mean just the amount of times you would have to land u-smash to the point where it wouldn't be a kill move, I think is a non-issue (and if not will involve carrying across degeneration over multiple stocks which implies that somehow you are simply crushing the MK and at that point what you kill with really doesn't matter lol). And besides you still have a good frame trap with f-throw or b-throw. Also D-smash is nice and quick if you make a read with spotdodge and uair will likely kill if you get the timing down for their dair camping, aside from that if you keep poking and damaging them with needles, your kill options increase.

 

[<π]

its really easy to rack damage on MK with ftilt combos when he is below 100, why wait till 140 to kill when you can do it around 90?

the option of zelda refreshing your usmash moves is there though...

 

[-Mars-]

I wouldn't exactly say its really easy for Sheik to rack damage with ftilt. Im with Cross on this one.

 

[-Cross-]

So I just tested out Sheik's options out of Grab release, and I have reasons to believe that fair, bair, and maybe nair are guaranteed out of GR. Has this been known and ignored because Sheik can DACUS and get a lot more damage or am I just wrong? Although the only usefulness I honestly see is fair at midish %'s may combo into a ftilt or another grab. Btw, if you are able to do a perfectly buffered ftilt out of her short dash animation then it's not a guaranteed hit but you will be able to beat out several of MK's options, including his fastest one, uair. The only way MK can escape is with second jump, although since he jumps not that far away from the ground, ftilt may still catch him... if it doesn't then the ftilt option will just be a gimmick option that could lead to massive %'s on those who don't know.

None of this actually changes the ratio, but thoughts?

 

[Judo777]

So I just tested out Sheik's options out of Grab release, and I have reasons to believe that fair, bair, and maybe nair are guaranteed out of GR. Has this been known and ignored because Sheik can DACUS and get a lot more damage or am I just wrong? Although the only usefulness I honestly see is fair at midish %'s may combo into a ftilt or another grab. Btw, if you are able to do a perfectly buffered ftilt out of her short dash animation then it's not a guaranteed hit but you will be able to beat out several of MK's options, including his fastest one, uair. The only way MK can escape is with second jump, although since he jumps not that far away from the ground, ftilt may still catch him... if it doesn't then the ftilt option will just be a gimmick option that could lead to massive %'s on those who don't know.

None of this actually changes the ratio, but thoughts?

not gonna say ur wrong but i heavily doubt we can do any aerial to Mk

 

[-Cross-]

In speculation, it makes sense imo. Marth can dair MK out of GR. Sheik is faster than Marth can RAR very quickly and has about the same horizontal range as Marth's dair. Bair works for sure. Fair requires precise buffering on the dash and strange spacing and nair you just have to dash ASAP although idk if nair is guaranteed. Dunno but I think you would be able to easily get a bair off MK out of GR, it's really not that hard. So you should be able to test it, while I, on the other hand, do not have anybody to test with.

 

[-Mars-]

If that's true than I could see myself using bair at high percents instead of the chance of dying from messing up on a DACUS.

 

[riocosta123]

I think you're forgetting a couple of things.

1) The angle of the attacks matters a lot. Only things that hit low work which rules out things like fair.
2) Marth's run speed is fairly comparable to ours and his reach is much, much better than you realize . The only thing comparable we have to his is bair which I don't think will hit even if you RAR it in time because of the angle.
3) Marth also has greater maneuverability on his jumps.

Also, MK regains control before he touches the ground so keep that in mind when practicing (I can only fair/nair him when he's about to the touch the ground, that won't work). I'm pretty sure there's no way we can catch him with anything other than DA, Needles, or DACUS.

 

[-Mars-]

Yea I just tested it, you cannot hit him with aerials out of a GR.
So tornado....still a big issue for sheik in this matchup when she's above MK. How does everyone deal with it?

 

[-Cross-]

I think you're forgetting a couple of things.

1) The angle of the attacks matters a lot. Only things that hit low work which rules out things like fair.
2) Marth's run speed is fairly comparable to ours and his reach is much, much better than you realize . The only thing comparable we have to his is bair which I don't think will hit even if you RAR it in time because of the angle.
3) Marth also has greater maneuverability on his jumps.

Also, MK regains control before he touches the ground so keep that in mind when practicing (I can only fair/nair him when he's about to the touch the ground, that won't work). I'm pretty sure there's no way we can catch him with anything other than DA, Needles, or DACUS.

Yeah I know man, I mained Marth for a good portion of time. But my reasoning was this. Sheik is still slightly faster than Marth. Marth's dair hits MK, the horizontal range on that move is equivalent to our nair or bair. Aerial manueverability is not something that has too great of an effect in this case, very minimal in fact because we are not travelling very far horizontally in the air.

Also I can land Marth's dair out of GR almost perfectly, so I am very practiced in MK's GR timing, while you guys probably wouldn't be as practiced in. I also do know that MK gains control before touching the ground, I was hitting MK with a small amount of room too spare... I'll just try and get a video up...

Dealing with tornado? I know every character, not just Sheik needs to implement trying to footstool MK's tornado, if successful it allows you time to get away or stall out MK's tornado duration. I think nair might be the only move that can do it, but looking at nair, its a very similar hitbox to Snake's bair. I just seeing Ally bairing through nado and I wonder "Can't we do that also?" If you are on a stage with platforms, I can see vanish being a good wayto avoid nado, as you have a lot of landing options that MK wouldn't be able to cover... but this is a speculative, theorycrafted answer. Eh, just trying to throw out ideas, instead of covering the normal options that everybody has...

@Mars I'm still going to post the video just to make sure. I don't discredit your testing in any way though.

 

[Judo777]

Yeah I know man, I mained Marth for a good portion of time. But my reasoning was this. Sheik is still slightly faster than Marth. Marth's dair hits MK, the horizontal range on that move is equivalent to our nair or bair. Aerial manueverability is not something that has too great of an effect in this case, very minimal in fact because we are not travelling very far horizontally in the air.

Also I can land Marth's dair out of GR almost perfectly, so I am very practiced in MK's GR timing, while you guys probably wouldn't be as practiced in. I also do know that MK gains control before touching the ground, I was hitting MK with a small amount of room too spare... I'll just try and get a video up...

Dealing with tornado? I know every character, not just Sheik needs to implement trying to footstool MK's tornado, if successful it allows you time to get away or stall out MK's tornado duration. I think nair might be the only move that can do it, but looking at nair, its a very similar hitbox to Snake's bair. I just seeing Ally bairing through nado and I wonder "Can't we do that also?" If you are on a stage with platforms, I can see vanish being a good wayto avoid nado, as you have a lot of landing options that MK wouldn't be able to cover... but this is a speculative, theorycrafted answer. Eh, just trying to throw out ideas, instead of covering the normal options that everybody has...

@Mars I'm still going to post the video just to make sure. I don't discredit your testing in any way though.

i know we can nair and fair MK out of tornado. i have done it several times before. bair idk.

Also our nair has a decent amount of less range than marths dair. And most importantly RAR takes long as hell to do. Like a RAR bair is probably close to 20 frames.

 

[-Cross-]

Well here's the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NA3WKA2cliU

The first bair was kind of bad timing. The last bair I do is a better example. As you can see I also screwed up a bit on the fair but I finally get it. You don't see it in this video, but earlier I actually tested this with my friend, I had him spam MK's fastest options and I was able to land bair and fair and MK could not get out. Nair, however, does not work.

 

[-Mars-]

Wow that RAR bair looks harder than GR DACUS lol.

I've hit MK out of nado with the strong version of bair before.

 

[-Cross-]

Nah after one solid practice session you should be able to do it. The hardest part is just timing that initial dash, the RAR part is easy, the trick is to not do it too early or you'll end up doing a retreating fair. Well at least that was my problem, I claw so I can see why this would be a lot harder for people that do not.

 

[Judo777]

Well here's the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NA3WKA2cliU

The first bair was kind of bad timing. The last bair I do is a better example. As you can see I also screwed up a bit on the fair but I finally get it. You don't see it in this video, but earlier I actually tested this with my friend, I had him spam MK's fastest options and I was able to land bair and fair and MK could not get out. Nair, however, does not work.

Wow man i stand corrected. Nice find man. Sorry to sound so negative but I was fairly convinced it couldn't be done. I'm still shocked and again sorry for doubting you lol

 

[-Cross-]

Don't mind man. I was also kind of skeptical until I tested it out with my friend. I feel that Sheik still has a lot of little MU specific tricks that we have yet to find, even though this isn't that big, it's a step in the right direction.
Edit: lol this might just be because I just started to play Sheik though so I might just end up discovering old ****.

That being said, can fair or bair have any possible utility after GR aside from DACUS? Potential combo move or perhaps situationally better kill move than usmash? Although the last one only applies to bair.

 

[riocosta123]

Oh wow, that is some strict timing/spacing, but good ****. I thought I had the timing down pretty well but apparently not.

Sorry for doubting and congratz.

Uhhh, maybe you could get a DA in if you buffer from fair? I don't know if you could get much else since you're hitting him with the tip of fair, but hey, I've been wrong before.

 

[-Cross-]

If we could go from fair>ftilt at a certain % range that would be so amazing, but idk. We need somebody to figure out the hitstun on this... pseudo combo/link works just as well though. At the very least we could get a jab off if MK doesn't fly too far away.

Actually... the best use may be for DI mixup, the MK would be spamming DI and SDI down thinking you'll usmash and then you fair or bair and they hit the ground really quickly from the low trajectory due to their DI and forget to tech because they thought they would get hit by usmash. Then you can throw a quick needle for the semi jab lock and follow up with another grab or whatever. Although the fact that you didn't go at a 1000000 mph right after GR may tip them off. Whatever, everybody who plays better opponents, practice and tell me if anything can be done as a followup.

 

[<π]

fair ftilt/jab/dashattack/gab is generally true at lower percents.

bair is a safer wait to kill if MK is at high percents and you are afraid of wiffing the dacus. (honestly though its something you should buckle down and learn though.)

 

[-Cross-]

True but since Sheik has to do a rising fair, she has more post lag and some of those moves may not combo. I messed around a bit, and it seems that all you can really do is reset, so you don't have any true combos. Potentially frame trap combos though....

Yeah bair as a kill move seems kind of pointless when you have u-smash, but it will still have some very situational uses for killing. Example, if you run out of room because you GR'd close to the edge.

 

[<π]

True but since Sheik has to do a rising fair, she has more post lag and some of those moves may not combo. I messed around a bit, and it seems that all you can really do is reset, so you don't have any true combos. Potentially frame trap combos though....

test fair -> fair ftilt... that might work... fair combos into itself at some percents I think... might be decay dependent but I get it to work on a lot of the cast.

Yeah bair as a kill move seems kind of pointless when you have u-smash, but it will still have some very situational uses for killing. Example, if you run out of room because you GR'd close to the edge.

I'm in love with your thought processes right now You are killing the box. (and thus thinking outside of it.)

 

[-Cross-]

lol Getting that box killer status. XD After 2+ years playing this game, I think I finally found my character, Sheik is so fun to play.

Also when you say fair>fair, are you suggesting that after I land from the first fair, I do another fair? Because I thought 2 fairs in 1 SH was impossible for Sheik. Unless you are suggesting that I do Full hop fair>FF fair, which might actually work.

 

[<π]

yeah full hop fair, fast fall fair

if you space right at worst you hit sheild with no possible follow up on the second fair.

 

[Judo777]

Just tested with my friend and cross ur amazing everything he says is true. the fair and bair timing really isn't even that hard. And its a good follow up if ur afraid of whiffing DACUS or just want to save it can get a free bair in. Also GR usmash on wario is legit through BF plats.

 

[clowsui]

i'm impressed w/ the new GR findings, new more guaranteed kill options v MK at high percentages ftw
not impressed by judo not knowing about usmash/utilt/uair going through plats, c'mon step it up!

 

[<π]

utilt and uair through plats are huge in any match up its why Battlefield is my favorite stage for Sheik.

 

[-Cross-]

@clowsui, I think Judo just didn't know that you could GR Wario and still land usmash even with a platform above you. I'm pretty sure he knew that usmash/utilt/uair go through platforms.

 

[#HBC | Scary]

Oh boy..... I come in and see this and I can say I'm really pleased.

Ummm, guess I'll get to practicing this with RedHalberd. Hopefully I can get my MK exp back to where it was lol.

Food for thought........if we get a significant lead at all in this MU on BF or even Lylat, should we consider trying to use the chain at all? Chain camping under a platform? Could it be practical at all?

Our fall speed really hurts us in this MU. Like really bad.

 

[Judo777]

@clowsui, I think Judo just didn't know that you could GR Wario and still land usmash even with a platform above you. I'm pretty sure he knew that usmash/utilt/uair go through platforms.

@ clow: yea man watch my matches more son. I tipper through plats all day lol. Like cross said i just didn't know we could GR anyone into usmash if a plat interfered. I'd like to see if MK can but im thinking its doubtful. Wario tho is a big deal.

I'm also still baffled as to how no one ever found GR to fair and bair before this. Those are really great options that i can't believe no one found. Probably the greatest spot i can find for using this is kills at 160+ where now if we grab we dont have to risk a dangerous DACUS. The fair timing is really easy. Bair isnt bad the but RAR makes it trickier.

 

[#HBC | Scary]

I think we can jab cancel MK very well at mid percentages.

During my many bouts with M2K, I was able to jab cancel him a quarter length of Lylat. He complained a lot, I think extended jab cancels may need to be looked at.