I had an intelligent post ready, but in the end, it doesn't really matter.
I will admit to being sick of being significantly better than the vast majority of my opponents who pick MK, and still have to struggle and worry about securing the win.
I'm tired of losing only to one character (Snakeee's ZSS not included). THAT means something to me.
Saturday night, I spent the entire night training with M2k, and realized just how badly MK ***** Marth, and essentially the rest of the cast (I used my relatively good Falco, Mario, G&W, and Link in addition to Marth.) For MK's that are not winning YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG.
The problem with me doesn't lie in the fact that MK has lightning fast moves on all of his attacks. The problem is that MK's special moveset (primarily Tornado and Shuttle Loop) SHUT DOWN the majority of the game.
Shuttle Loop: This move has invincibility when used on the ground, and hits with kill power. It is virtually impossible to approach grounded MK from the air (which is the most common form of approach in this game) because he will almost always be able to win with grounded Shuttle Loop, even if you have an aerial which would be able to challenge his (which most characters really don't . . . but Marth does.)
Mach Tornado:I know a million and one ways to deal with Tornado with Marth: Counter, Shield Breaker, Tipper Fsmash, Nair the top, Shield and punish, Dolphin Slash, run away. However, that STILL doesn't account for the game breaking properties of Tornado. If it wasn't for this move, I would be content with MK (M2k agrees with me here). Having STUPIDLY high priority, MK's Tornado goes through nearly every aerial, and you generally won't be able to hit the top of it if the MK SHTornadoes. This is game breaking, because it means that regular spacing and zoning is completely destroyed. It's extremely easy for the MK to assume that you are going to use your regular spacing and zoning tools that you've been using, because your mix-ups are extremely risky. Marth and MK without Tornado are virtually EVEN when zoning each other from a neutral position. Marth has Dancing Blade for a fast ground approach, MK has Dash attack (and his dash grab is really stupid, but that's another issue.) Both character's Fair at each other, and approaching is equally unsafe. Actually, since MK's Fair is three hits but only the first one is involved in a trade, Marth is close to advantage when zoning. Then, MK reads the extremely predictable SHaerial, and Tornadoes through it, potentially dealing 16 damage.
This is what makes MK broken. This tactic is employable vs nearly every character in the cast. Diddy doesn't beat MK, even on FD. MK's simply don't know how to catch banana's and how to edgeguard Diddy properly. Once MK has Diddy offstage, simply fly high enough so that if Diddy uses SideB, you can safely Dair him without risk of getting gimped. Or, simply grab the edge so Diddy is forced to UpB after he SideB's. Once Diddy is directly below the ledge, FFNair from the ledge gimps very reliably. MK's simply haven't learned to catch bananas yet. Though his lower aerial mobility makes it slower to approach Diddy, a MK who has mastered catching bananas will not lose to a Diddy.
Mr. Game and Watch cannot approach from the air. Shuttle Loop shuts him down hard. When fighting, Game and Watch has good tools, and similar stats to MK, but a fast MK will be hard to land a kill on, and simply outspeed GnW on average. MK is simply too fast for most of the cast to handle. At first, I thought I was just slow, but then remembered that I'm actually extremely fast, and I saw myself getting hit before it happened but I didn't have any options and MK was going to hit me no matter what.
Wario might be the best option. I hate that character, but if there really are Wario mains somewhere out there that can beat m2k, please, for the love of god, teach the rest of them. Wario is able to airdodge safely, due to high aerial mobility. Plus, fart is amazing (if not somewhat gross.)
Snake does NOT win. I thought he did, but he really doesn't. First off, Snake pulling out a grenade is punishable by Dash Grab if anticipated. Dash Grab leaves enough time for any throw to activate, without MK getting blown up. Snake offstage gets gimped, and should be gimped fairly consistently. Mk's options are TOO good. MK also camps against Snake well, as grenades don't force an apporach against MK.
When all players are playing at the highest possible level, almost all match-ups are +5 more points than commonly listed vs. MK. It's not that a collaberation of MKs have gotten together and advanced his metagame quickly. I talk with other top level Marth's, and other top players, and it's more often that I share MORE broken stuff that MK can do that they haven't figured out yet. Finally, two nights ago, M2k realized an easier way to gimp Marth that no MK knew before, but Neo and I discovered months ago. His metagame is still growing, even for M2k! He's still getting more broken.
Oh, and before I forget, Inui, you do not have 18 frames to punish MK's Dsmash LOL! I would never use it! You forgot to calculate the Shield Hitstun dsmash gives, which probably gives about 8-12 frames. If it's well spaced, many characters will have a hard time punishing this with a kill move. <3 I'm going to try tipper dsmash more.
The last time I talked about this topic, I was still learning, and wanted to learn how to beat MK before he got banned. Now, I know how to beat him, and I also know just how much of an epic fail Marth loses that match-up in, and other characters all around. When more MK's start to use Shuttle Loop as the broken tool it is, and use Tornado properly, it's OVER.
So far, most MK's don't do this, or other good tactics, because they don't know them, but when they find out, it's going to be extremely bad for the rest of us.
Still on the fence, but leaning more toward ban this time.
I don't know what level of play you're at so I'll go heavily into detail.
