What to counter-pick as Mega Man?

[digiholic]

What, exactly, do you think Mega Man is looking for in a stage in terms of counterpicking? I'm thinking about it for an upcoming tournament, but I'm having trouble thinking of what I should be going for. On 3DS, I would always counter-pick Tomodachi Life (40% utilt kills are AWESOME) but there's not really a generally low blast zone on any of the tournament-legal stages in Wii U. The problem also comes that Mega Man doesn't do quite as well with platforms as other people, since they get in the way of his Metal Blades and make it harder to approach, but he does like the higher blast zones, as well as the easier bair and uair setups, so I'm not sure.

One thing I know is that walled edges are really nice for Mega Man, especially with instant ledge jump bairs. So, what do you guys think about stage selection? I'll put some of my opinions, but I'd like some input because I am by no means a pro Mega Man yet.

This is assuming this stagelist:

Starter

• Battlefield
• Final Destination
• Lylat Cruise
• Town and City
• Smashville

Counterpick

• Delfino Plaza
• Wuhu Island
• Skyloft
• Duck Hunt
• Castle Siege
• Halberd
• Pokemon Stadium 2
• Kongo Jungle 64

For starters, I'm down with any of them except Lylat. I always hated Lylat. No ledge jumps, wonky recovery at times, tilting means that sometimes you can't grab your own blade without moving, it's just all in all terrible for Mega Man. I'd say strike when possible. For the other four, I'd say T&C > FD > SV > BF. Town and City has a lower blast zone than smashville from what I can tell, and the different platform layout (including some flat time during transitions) lends well to Mega Man's adaptability.

For counterpick stages, with the removal of those stupid edges, Castle Siege seams like the one I'd choose, as well as the statues in the second transformation being good for detonating crash bombs instantly. Skyloft, Delfino, and Halberd are good for Mega Man's great vertical recovery from under the main platform in edge guard situations. I don't think any of these are particularly bad for Mega Man, maybe Kongo Jungle if only because it's a bit easier to recover from gimps if you're lucky and Mega Man relies on gimps for early kills.

So, basically, my stage strategy would be to try to land on T&C or FD on first round, then counter-pick to Castle Seige unless the opponent is also good there, in which case, go for a walled Omega. Anyone else have any go-to stages? I don't really play much competitive outside of For Glory, so most of this is theoretical.

 

[Fenrir VII]

I think you're spot on, honestly. Here's something I typed up a few days ago in another conversation.

Yeah mega man is pretty impervious to stages, so I generally would just CP what isn't good for my opponent.

one thing I want to point out. the current stage neutral system being adopted is a bit... flawed, in that 3/5 of the neutrals (SV, FD, T&C) are flat pseudo-FDlike stages without static platforms.
This means that as a Mega Man player, I am guaranteed to strike to one of those three stages, which all allow me to do my aerial zoning shenanigans without allowing the opponent to camp under a platform to avoid metal blades and dairs. I see no reason that I would ever strike to a stage other than those 3, truthfully.

For CPing, I think Mega's strongest stage is FD, because that semi-circle of zoning is tough for opponents. Assuming FD were banned, I would probably go T&C, Castle siege, Smashville, Duck Hunt, Skyloft/Delfino, in roughly that order (again taking into account the opponent), and ban KJ64, Lylat, and BF in that order.

KJ64 can actually be nice in some matchups, as you can upB jettison to the high platforms (can also do this on T&C), but I do consider it a soft counter against Mega because of the difficulty in projectiling into the center valley.

 

[Greward]

Castle siege isn't good imo, statues stop pellets and crash bombers which sucks.

I'd say Mega Man is good in most stages, so I usually pick the ones i think aren't good for my opponent. I usually end up counterpicking FD or Duck hunt when i want to camp (diddy matchup for example) and BF or SV when I want a grab/edgeguarding game.

 

[Kel]

I counter pick Lylat as my go-to reliable stage. There are many benefits that Megaman gets from this stage.

The first is that when the stage is tilting you get to have a lagless up tilt. You can even utilt into utilt.

You can also lagless down tilt off the edges of the stage.

I prefer the tilt against projectile-based characters like villager, greninja, sheik, etc. because their projectiles rely on being shot in a straight horizontal line while Megaman's projectiles are more versatile and can be shot at different angles. I often find myself zoning with pellets as well, but that is more character-dependent as heights and fast moves that can quickly disrupt my pellets can completely change my capabilities.

Finally, Megaman has some pretty good edge guarding and the ledges can screw with other characters' recoveries. It also opens up Megaman to explore different gimping options under the stage.

 

[Blade Knight]

I personally enjoy Lylat and Skyloft as counterpicks for Mega Man. The platform layout(s) benefit him decently and Mega Man adapts to and can make use of more platform layouts on Skyloft than many characters imo. Battlefield and T&C are great stages for him in general, in my opinion, and if you're in a matchup where recovering is an issue Kongo 64 and Halberd can help alleviate this due to their passthrough main surface, just be careful to not give your opponent that same leeway.

Usually I enjoy opening on Battlefield or T&C based on matchup, I'd avoid FD personally in most matchups but that's just me.

 

[digiholic]

So, after playing in the Hypest Weekly this week, I found something out.

Skyloft is awesome for Mega Man. Especially with Danger Wrap. A lot of the landing spots give Mega Man cover from approaching enemies while still giving room for DW and blades, and some of the transitional platforms have really high up platforms (the one with the long incline comes to mind) that can lead to early kills with utilt or uair.

I think I'm warming up to platforms in general, although I still hate Lylat. I think that might be residual hatred coming from playing Ness in Brawl and fighting the stage more than my opponent.

 

[ChopperDave]

I've been finding that Halberd is a pretty solid counterpick against characters who lack good options that kill off the top of the stage, and whose recoveries are nearly impossible to gimp anyway. I'm thinking G&W and Sheik, though there may be others.

I was playing in a customs-on online tournament recently and I counterpicked a G&W player to Halberd. My Danger Wraps and Air Shooters killed him at ridiculously low percents, like 50%. It was just silly.

 

[Kel]

I have those same kind of thoughts, but then I remember that one of Megaman's strong points is that he can recover horizontally for a long time. I often times find myself living to over 200%. Halberd encourages people to kill Megaman off the top and I feel like the characters that kill off the top have a lot more to gain than Megaman when this happens.

Imagine getting grabbed by Diddy and dthrow to u air comboed on Halberd. Imagine a metaknight up B early kill. Sheik's vanish and uair out of dthrow will kill earlier, etc.

I'd rather take these characters to large stages and edge guard them while I survive to 200%+. Halberd makes Megaman kill off the top easier, but it feels like too much of a gamble for me.

 

[Fenrir VII]

I also HATE the long camping platform in the center. Very hard to approach from the top, where Mega usually excels.

 

[digiholic]

I think the idea for Halberd is that you'd counter-pick it unless the opponent does vertical better than you. I like that idea, honestly. If you're up against someone like Diddy, you probably don't want to pick it.

 

[ChopperDave]

Oh yeah, you'd be insane to counterpick Halberd vs someone like Diddy. Against characters whose best kill setups involve roof KOs, avoid this stage like the plague.

I do think it could be useful as a counterpick vs certain other characters, though.

In my experience, Mega Man's earliest kill options are:

- ledge gimp (bair/dair/blade drop)
- utilt
- dsmash

His mid percent kill options are:

- ff grounded uair to followup uair (a combo vs many characters)
- danger wrap (if available)
- fsmash
- usmash

And finally his high percent kill options are:

-bair
-bthrow

In other words, if you're not gimping, almost all of MM's early-to-mid percentage KO options kill off the top. Therefore, we get a pretty strong advantage from a low ceiling, particularly against characters who are "ungimpable" (e.g. Sheik).

There are other advantages as well. The divot in the center allows us to crouch under a lot of incoming attacks, and we've got the disjoints (pellets, usmash, utilt, uair, Danger Wrap) to camp that area pretty effectively. IIRC we can also shark uair, metal blades, and Danger Wraps through the main platform when it's not docked, which is pretty handy.

I agree that the platform in the middle allows people to camp some of our better approach options, which can be a pain. But that can be a problem for other characters, too. It makes stage control very important.

I need to test it out more, but I think the stage could potentially be pretty good for us in certain MUs.

 

[digiholic]

I think, though, that Skyloft offers a lot of the same advantages without being quite so crippling against certain characters. So, I'd say I would generally pick Skyloft unless I know for sure my opponent has trouble on Halberd.

 

[Overswarm]

Skyloft is one of my favorites but it doesn't give a huge advantage. Lylat gives the most technical advantages.

The grassy omega FDs are amazing against characters with running u-smash as an option (see: Fox, Greninja) as it messes them up bad.

Smashville is absolutely fantastic for megaman in most matchups in that you can edgeguard from off the platform and still make it back easily AND it gives you a place to retreat to when you run out of lemon space.

DK64 is imo our worst stage. Castle Siege can be REALLY good since you can gimp people pretty easily on the second transformation with your throws, your metal blade goes through statues, danger wrap explodes on statues, and your u-air covers top campers well... but Castle Siege can also be really bad in that Megaman loses all his approaching options on all but the 3rd transformation.

If you use Beat, any moving stage allows you to shark with u-air and use beat to still make it back safely to the ledge/stage, but it isn't enough for me to claim it as a good advantage.

 

[Greward]

DK64 and halberd are our worst imo. Although maybe halberd is ok against Sheik.