MK stage analysis - Start with BF

[sneakytako]

Hi everyone. Today I was thinking we could have a place for everyone to share their thoughts on the stages. I figured we could discuss one stage at a time, then move onto the next stage. Please discuss how you feel about the stage, what MUs you like/dislike on the stage, and feel free to add any character/situation specific information you would like to note.

I would like to start by discussing BF. Here are some of my own thoughts:

Stage size: Medium blastzones, Medium Ceiling, Small Stage. This is a good combination for MK. MK loves small stages, since it makes it easier to get people off the stage and gimp them. Keep tech chasing with grabs and either throw them off or dsmash them off if you're confident, usually dsmash can cover 2-3 tech options. The medium blastzones and ceiling prevents us from being killed super early by people with great kill moves like Fox or Zelda, while still allowing us to kill off the top with up-b fairly early.

Platform: 3 platform, medium height. This is a great pattern for MK. It's low enough to uptilt, get away from dthrow combos from people like Mario, Link, etc, and is great for edge cancel shenanigans to mix it up. When recovering, the platforms can become a liability when you try to recover high to the stage, usually it's better to go to the edge and go from there. They also allow for easy camping against projectiles like falco laser, but be wary of how high Mario fireballs can bounce.

Overall this is a stage I almost never strike. The only time I would consider striking this stage is if I'm playing a character that prefers a small stage (ex. Bowser, Charizard, Ike, Marth, etc) and all other small stages are gone. This is probably my preferred neutral against people like Falco, Fox, Mario, Ivysaur. But I wouldn't recommend this stage in MUs you are personally unfamiliar with. Also avoid this stage against Wario, that guy loves platforms.

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

I hate this stage vs sheik.
I like it agaisnt everyone else.

 

[Espi]

Almost every set I ask if they wanna just go BF. This is such a good stage. But It's just personal preference I guess.

 

[bubbaking]

I hate this stage against Fox (I hate every stage against Fox) and Mewtwo, but I like it against everyone else.

When recovering, the platforms can become a liability when you try to recover high to the stage, usually it's better to go to the edge and go from there.

I actually think the opposite. A lack of platforms is a big problem when MK is recovering high, but with plats, he can mix up his recovery by adding edge-cancelled dairs to the equation. You get even more options when you combine his DC with those options.

But I wouldn't recommend this stage in MUs you are personally unfamiliar with. Also avoid this stage against Wario, that guy loves platforms.

Actually, BF and PS2 are my two go-to stages with MK when I'm going into a MU I'm not very familiar with. Also, I think this stage is perfectly fine against Wario. Wario likes platforms because they aid his mobility (most chars like BF for that reason), but MK controls the platforms extremely well. Going on them vs MK is usually a big risk and Wario has very few options to help himself get down outside of dair and his aerial mobility.

Oh, let's talk about PS2 next!

 

[sneakytako]

Actually I was thinking about discussing FD next. FD is actually a really misunderstood stage imo and I would like to hear more on peoples opinions on that stage.

 

[bubbaking]

I really dislike FD as MK (and in general). MK can't escape CGs or huge combos, and he can't abuse platforms for mobility purposes, such as dair edge-cancels. The lack of platforms also hurts his combos in various ways. For instance, while stringing uairs together, plats are very convenient because they give MK somewhere to land quickly without wasting time so that he can maximally continue the string. No plats means he has to fall all the way to the ground to refresh his jumps or continue with a sub-optimal combo without landing. We also don't get nearly automatic plat tech-chases or rising nair autocancels. It is also very, very easy for projectile spammers to abuse our lack of such a tool and make it difficult to approach. Mario is one of the biggest examples of this. Fireballs control all the space (and it's really hard to clank with them because of our transcendence) and make our approaches hard while making his easy (if he even chooses to approach). It also just so happens that Mario can CG and combo us really hard, so that is a MU where two very bad points of FD give a char a large advantage. Another example is Falco for the same reasons. Lasers on FD are broken, and one tap in CQC equals a large pillar combos with not plats to help you. Another point I have against FD is that it really forces MK to only rely on tech-chases when he grabs many characters. No more f/u/dthrowing certain chars to plats to take advantage of plat tech-chases. The last point I have against FD is that the lack of platforms really hurts our recovery (which goes hand in hand with how it hurts our mobility). You can't 'nado high onto a plat, can't edge-cancel a Drill Rush off a plat, can't DC over a plat, can't Shuttle into a glide to land with low lag on a plat, and you can't reverse Shuttle to edge-cancel off a plat.

All in all, FD sucks and it is an auto-strike/ban for me most of the time.

 

[sneakytako]

I totally agree that there's a lot of MUs FD is auto strike/ban, like Mario/Falco/Ivy/Etc.

But I do believe that there are MUs that FD is a somewhat viable option. For example, I believe MUs with the big characters that excel on small stages (Bowser, Charizard, Ike, maybe DK?) FD is OK, although not optimal. Not good enough to CP, but not bad enough to ban either.

MUs I ban FD
Mario
Falco
Ivy
Ice Climbers
Lucas
Mewtwo
Shiek
Pit
Lucario
Diddy
C. Falcon
Sonic

MUs I don't ban FD
Bowser
Wario
Charizard
Ganon
D3 (?)
DK (?)
Link/TL - It goes against common sense, but I feel these two characters are much easier to deal with on a bigger stage than a smaller stage. I always ban Yoshi's Story and FoD against these two, they are really hard to approach safely on these two stages. If I get a third ban I might ban FD, although PS2 is also something I might consider banning.


MUs I'm not sure if I should ban FD
Marth/Ike/Roy - While Marth is traditionally really strong on FD, I feel like we can out maneuver him on FD. The lack of platforms seem to hurt him in the same way it hurts us, not having platforms makes it easier for us to keep him off the stage, although it works both ways.

Squirtle - This is a weird MU. On one hand squirtle with a lot of space makes it hard to chase him down. On the other hand, if you have your back to a large portion of the stage, it makes it much easier to pivot grab his approaches like side-b. I feel that banning Yoshi's Story, Wario Ware, and other small blastzone stages is a higher priority than FD, I don't mind the MU here.

Fox/Wolf - I'm always torn on this MU as well. On one hand, having no platforms makes it hard to evade grabs, and their grab combos hurt. Fox coming from a fresh stock at when your at high percent is really hard to deal with with no platforms to escape the upsmash/upthrow upair 50:50. Also laser camping is hard to deal with. On the other hand, both of these spacies have horrid techrolls, and you can easily dthrow > tech chase > dsmash > edgeguard. Not sure if I need to ban in these two MUs.

Peach - This MU is also a toss up. Peach dsmashes on platforms are brutal, and usually there's more important bans that need to be made like dreamland/skyworld/dracs. Turnips are more difficult to deal with without platforms, but the ease of setting up dthrow tech chase into edgeguard makes me consider not banning FD.

MUs I CP FD
The MK ditto, if they suck at tech chasing lol.

I would love for people to comment on specific MUs, lets keep the discussion going!

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

You left out Marth

 

[sneakytako]

Orly?

10 Orlys?

 

[bubbaking]

Yeah, I do like FD against Zard somewhat, but Numbers always bans that stage so we never get a chance to play there, lolz. MK can juggle Zard fairly well (although the reverse is also true), and Zard likes having platforms he can land with nair on. With no plats around, we can keep him honest by stuffing or punishing nairs. The one drawback is that the stage is kinda large, so it's hard to kill.

 

[sneakytako]

I'm almost willing to CP FD against wario, he is terrible on that stage.

 

[DMG]

He's not necessarily terrible on the stage, just doesn't really benefit from it. No plat traps or Side B tricks.

 

[Chesstiger2612]

Battlefield is my favourite row one as MK if no other stage holds an other matchup-specific advantage worth more (like fighting bad recovery chars on Dreamland or not prefering it against top platform beasts.

 

[MegaAmoonguss]

I was at a tourney yesterday and had to play a Wario in Losers R2. And I one stocked him game 1, and I guess neither of us knew much about what stages are good and bad for Wario, so he picked FD and got cleanly JV4'd. He just couldn't fight back to MK on that stage, it's definitely a good CP in my opinion. There may be other ones that are better though, I haven't fought enough Warios to know yet.

 

[sneakytako]

Wario's side-b auto cancels when he does it from a platform onto another floor without jumping, so FD dis-allows that. Also, it's a lot harder for him to edgecancel on the stage edge versus a platform edge, both technically and situationally.

Also, it's a lot harder from wario to setup chomp, rising chomp from underneath a platform is very strong and difficult to react to with a 3 platform setup.

GJ Mega!

 

[MegaAmoonguss]

Cool, thanks for the clarification on that! Come to think of it, he did get a lot of milage from auto cancelled side Bs in the first game, so it would make sense why he couldn't get control on FD.

As for my general opinion of FD, I actually really don't mind it too much. I don't find myself counterpicking it really, but it isn't usually my first strike unless I'm playing someone like Mario. Even without platforms, I find that MK has sufficient movement options just on the ground as long as you can dash dance decently. Obviously not as good as with platforms though, which is why I don't really CP it.

The reason I really don't mind FD is because of MK's grab game. Unless you're playing against a super floaty or super fast faller, you can get really good down throw follow ups and tech chases as well as back throw tech chase mixups. You don't have to worry about them teching on a platform and misreading the roll, so you can just go for the nair if they make the mistake of DIing up at high percents. That's mainly what I focus on when playing on FD. Just know how to boost grab and JC grab and learn when to use each one and I find it a pretty good stage. I like to have a platform or 2 to do mixups, but I don't think FD is as bad as everyone else is making it seem.

 

[bubbaking]

The thing for me is...why play on a sub-optimal stage like FD when you could just play on PS2 or SV? Yeah, you can get good tech-chase game but at the expense of recovery and general plat dair mix-ups and also full uair combos. No good uair combos means you're missing out on good potential vertical kills, which is a headache when fighting heavies and/or floaties.

If you can make it work, though, then all the power to you. As a fairly good character, MK really has the potential to make just about any stage work for him. I just don't feel like I should leave the stage un-struck when there are definitely better ones around and I want the first match to end up on PS2.

 

[Chesstiger2612]

I usually ban FD because every platform helps you and MK loses so much mobility in the air room higher than fj height (his jumps are not that high and using multiple jumps for the same distance takes longer, making you less mobile), and MK doesn't profit from it, autoland nairs don't work etc... There are also other characters who have problems with that stage though (like the Wario example, so it is sometimes even a good stage if the other character hates it more than you do.