[CSE] Rachel vs. Mu-12

[Tecta1Eastside]

I have to agree with Ozzy and Alex. Mu-12 can set up somewhat easily in this match. All of her projectiles beat out Rachel's and one of her best tools aka pumpkin in this match needs wind. Even that can beaten using mu-12 ball of light aka 236a. Rachel needs wind for everything and Mu-12 just needs steins for pressure and oki. Without steins she still can give rachel problems with Jc 5c 2c and SOD as pokes. The corner damage difference is the worst issue for rachel in general. Its hard for her to reach 4k and she needs wind and meter. Mu-12 just hits you and is breaking about 3k from ground throws and jabs. Her overhead does almost 4k. 2B 3c 5c 2c jb jc all do over 4k. All of this without meter and still has oki. Even midscreen mu-12 is doing 3-4k with rapid combos. You can avoid anti-airs which do about 4k but you really can't avoid the corner. Rachel can win but your are working harder. The match-up is either 5.5-4.5 or 6-4 Mu-12 favor. Just my 2 cents

[kirbster]

So I think I got this matchup figured out pretty well now. Just gotta be very careful and patient, and be able to recognize and understand the situations where you are not allowed to press buttons (mainly at mid range where her normals beat yours, and when she manages to send lasers your way). Try to save your wind for when it really counts, aka don't just waste it on random lobelias or botched approaches. If you manage to summon a pumpkin and have 2-3 wind, GET IN DAT ASS LIVE. Don't let her regain control of the neutral. Her 236a is really annoying in blockstrings but you can punish it with TD if you have meter.

Here's a recent tourney vid of me VS pochp doing pretty well if it can help, feel free to tell me if I'm doing anything wrong (except dropping stuff lol).

[Errol]

her 236a is indeed annoying in block strings. she does it at a distance and hits after it becomes active for a lot of frame advantage. other characters can somewhat punish it by jumping but with how floaty rachel's jump is I don't know. even on other characters it is annoying to deal with by jumping, because it immediately goes up. but you should at least be able to backdash before it touches you, I think.

[C0R]

her 236a is indeed annoying in block strings. she does it at a distance and hits after it becomes active for a lot of frame advantage. other characters can somewhat punish it by jumping but with how floaty rachel's jump is I don't know. even on other characters it is annoying to deal with by jumping, because it immediately goes up. but you should at least be able to backdash before it touches you, I think.

You can punish tk.236a in most blockstring situations, the gap even off her highest level jump cancelable normal (3c) is still 12 frames on normal block, throw an IB in there and you have 15 frames total to say, 5DB over there and mash away for a counterhit.

If we're talking about like a tip of 5c > 236a thing well yeah, but no one's doing anything about that.

[Errol]

not talking about tk 236a at all. just grounded 236a. 236a is what I think right. sparkly orb.

there's not zero way around it but it's hard, a lot harder than you would expect for something that can fully reset pressure. anyway.

[C0R]

not talking about tk 236a at all. just grounded 236a. 236a is what I think right. sparkly orb.

there's not zero way around it but it's hard, a lot harder than you would expect for something that can fully reset pressure. anyway.

If she summons the ground version far enough away for it to be plus, it's far enough away for you to dodge its initial arc with either a jump or ground movement. It does cover a lot of space, but it does it slowly.

[Errol]

If she summons the ground version far enough away for it to be plus, it's far enough away for you to dodge its initial arc with either a jump or ground movement. It does cover a lot of space, but it does it slowly.

Yeah, this is what I was talking about. You can get *AWAY* from it, but if Mu has a much stronger neutral than you that's not good either.. I mean it's better than getting pressure reset.

As I recall, it's possible (But really hard, probably too hard) to punish it by jumping over it and landing on her face, or something similar. But should not be possible for Rachel I doubt.

so just the other tidbits I can remember. If she does some braindead string and you IB all of it, you will be close enough to IB 5a her, if she does 236a. But I felt this was also not really practical. don't really expect a mu player to do that, and it's way too risky besides.

TBH I don't really know exactly the ranges at which it is minus on block. obviously, at point blank it's minus, and at long range it's way plus. but isn't it also plus from something shorter like 2b?

[samthegreat]

You can Tempest Dahlia through it.

[C0R]

Yeah, this is what I was talking about. You can get *AWAY* from it, but if Mu has a much stronger neutral than you that's not good either.. I mean it's better than getting pressure reset.

As I recall, it's possible (But really hard, probably too hard) to punish it by jumping over it and landing on her face, or something similar. But should not be possible for Rachel I doubt.

so just the other tidbits I can remember. If she does some braindead string and you IB all of it, you will be close enough to IB 5a her, if she does 236a. But I felt this was also not really practical. don't really expect a mu player to do that, and it's way too risky besides.

TBH I don't really know exactly the ranges at which it is minus on block. obviously, at point blank it's minus, and at long range it's way plus. but isn't it also plus from something shorter like 2b?

It shouldn't matter how plus it is if she does it off 2b, there's like a 17 frame gap, even with the worst runspeed in the game rachel can dash 3c counter hit or something.

[Errol]

It shouldn't matter how plus it is if she does it off 2b, there's like a 17 frame gap, even with the worst runspeed in the game rachel can dash 3c counter hit or something.

I'm not even sure what we are talking about at this point. arrows of heaven is like 23f startup, so there isn't a 17f gap. with tsubaki I don't think I was able to even punish with 5b without trading.

[C0R]

I'm not even sure what we are talking about at this point. arrows of heaven is like 23f startup, so there isn't a 17f gap. with tsubaki I don't think I was able to even punish with 5b without trading.

It's not going to hit on the first active frame. Here's it in plain text. If 236a hits you within the first 4 active frames, its going to be minus. If it is summoned at a distance where it would be plus, you can dodge it.

[Wild Candy]

I can't help but notice, in this match up. Tiny Lobelia and Sword Iris are your best friends... Anything else will probably get you punished by those annoying steins. There's also the constant threat of Mu's ridiculous Origins DP when ever you manage to break in somehow... Probably not one of the better matches for Rachel.

[Errol]

It's not going to hit on the first active frame. Here's it in plain text. If 236a hits you within the first 4 active frames, its going to be minus. If it is summoned at a distance where it would be plus, you can dodge it.

In other words you have time to punish a + on block 236a if you have a far reaching hitbox that doesn't extend your hurtbox. But right, this is getting back to what I thought I found the first time I looked at it. It's really hard to punish, generally the best you can do is dodge it - a pretty sucky situation but of course better than getting reset for free. all midscreen, of course...

I don't know how the math works, is it like, if it hits in the first 4 active frames it is minus, and if it's after that it's like +30 or something? when it pushes you it extends the frame bonus... so does IB'ing the orb possibly help a crazy amount? things to test in training mode.....

[Tari]

I'm not sure what all the fuss about Mu's 236A is about. It's a good tool for controlling screen real estate, but it's far from some sort of unbeatable monster.

Assuming Mu does 236A off of 2B and you don't stuff the startup of 236A (see bottom of this post), then it can still be punished by 5B if you IB the orb. If you don't IB the orb, you will end up at a range where your 5B will be able to apply pressure and cannot be counterhit by Mu's dp (it will clash), which is fine as well.

If Mu does 236A in neutral from a range at which it doesn't hit immediately, you can IAD over it and punish it during recovery.

If Mu does 236A off of something like 5C and you IB the 5C, you can IAD punish it. If you don't IB it, you can still IAD, but Mu can dp you out of your approach.

At a middle-ish range (say 5A > 5B > 236A), her 236A is harder for Rachel to punish (unless you IB either the 236A or the stuff before it, which will probably put you in that range where you can clash with her DP if you mess up) in this game, but you can still 6B after blocking it to get her to stop attacking for a bit. If you want to, you can cancel the 6B into a 9D/8D + 3C to get in and start pressure, but that obviously comes with all the issues that using 3C on block normally comes with. There's also a huge gap between the 6B and the 3C.

In the next game, the 6B will actually lead into a blockstring, but in this game, it's not worth quite as much.

Anyway, at middle-ish range, both players basically end up in neutral with a very slight advantage to Rachel.

----

To make things simple, your best answer to 236A is probably to IB it if it's close or mid-range and respond with 5B, or to IB whatever comes before it and IAD over it if it's long range. In all cases, you can punish if you IB properly, and even if you don't IB properly at close range, you end up with pretty much guaranteed pressure. The only caveat to all of this is if the Mu player has steins firing all over the place, but I'm sure that was apparent already.

I'm not even sure what we are talking about at this point. arrows of heaven is like 23f startup, so there isn't a 17f gap. with tsubaki I don't think I was able to even punish with 5b without trading.

As a bonus, in the above situation, you can just mash 5A/2A/5B with Rachel and beat Mu before she finishes summoning the orb. You can also mash cat chair, but there's no real reason to (especially since she can just RC and block). There is a large gap between 2B and 236A

2B is a level 2 move, so it has 13 frames of blockstun.

236A has 23 frames of startup (frame 23 is first active).

23 - 13 - 1 = 9.

There's a 9 frame window to do whatever you want. Larger if you IB.

With Tsubaki, I imagine you should probably be stuffing that type of blockstring with 5C. It's faster and has better P1 than 5B. I admit I don't know much about her, though.

[Errol]

Well, it's all range specific stuff. For some reason I thought Rachel might have significant difficulty punishing it with IAD.

On tsubaki, there is a range where:

1. 5a,5c are not in reach.

2. if you forward jump, you get hit by the orb almost instantly.

3. if you 5b you trade (there is extra time to put out a hitbox because the orb doesn't go active ON YOU.. but you can sure as hell put your hurtbox into the orb immediately if you want...)

4. If you 7 IAD you get over it. But you don't fall ON Mu and you don't have any crossup hitboxes, so I think you just have pressure and not a punish.

5. 236a eats tsubaki DP

6. 236a is plus. like way plus because the first hit pushes you back a bit, giving a couple more frames between the next hit, and so on. 236a is -7 when it gets all 5 hits on you in 5 frames I think. You can't just IB the last hit to be good. But you might be able to IB most of the hits, to make it consume all 5 hits faster?

This mighta been off 5b or 5c and not 2b. I was using 2b as a guess of the range more than saying 'hey, this is good off 2b'.

So, I dunno. I'm not sure, IB'ing might be a reasonable answer to throw off stuff above, prevent them from getting the range they need for it to work, etc...

This is all stuff I researched with Tsubaki.. but I did figure a lot of this should be relevant to Rachel too...

[Tari]

If you IB the first hit of 236A, it auto-IBs the entire thing.

I don't know enough about Tsubaki to help you out, but I imagine a lot of the same sort of info applies. You can stuff her out of a couple different cancels into 236A, or you can IB and punish or gain pressure. IAD is safe unless you stick out a hitbox during the dash over the orb.

For punishing Mu after IB-ing the orb at close/mid-range, you need a move that's around 8 frames of startup. As a result, Rachel's 5B can hit Mu out of recovery, but it's highly unlikely that Tsubaki can do much at a mid-range, other than simply apply pressure. Maybe you can IB and do dash 5A? Not really sure if that'd work, but... :/

As for the IAD, I'm honestly surprised that you'd go past Mu if you do a 766 air dash input. 966 IAD going past her is somewhat expected on some characters with further air dashes, but I didn't think a 766 would still have that problem.

In Rachel's case, she's a floaty, slow/short air-dash character, so she just sorta meanders over to Mu's face and lands on it when you IAD over the orb.

[Errol]

Tsubaki has a very long forward airdash. I forgot the auto-IB multihit thing. With the blockpush reduction, it should make the hits all hit in 5 frames I guess (hopefully), that should be a really good answer.

Actually I guess it is average. Rachel has a really short one.

[Tari]

For what it's worth, when I was talking about IAD-ing in for punishes, I meant from around Mu's shortest 6C range. That's pretty much a free IAD punish for any character, Tsubaki included. There's a small range between 6C minimum range and her 5A>5B>236A range where it's hard for anyone to do much other than stuff the startup for her 236A. Fortunately, it's not really safe for a Mu to just run in and wildly start 236A raw, lol.

[Errol]

what is 5C minimum range? I've never heard of such a thing? 6c? 5c minimum range would be... point blank..?

I don't know if I remember something wrong. I'll have to hop into training mode when I get home.

Specifically I'm talking about a range where if you hold upforward when the 236A is starting, you'll get hit/block it about instantly as you leave the ground

[Tari]

what is 5C minimum range? I've never heard of such a thing? 6c? 5c minimum range would be... point blank..?

I don't know if I remember something wrong. I'll have to hop into training mode when I get home.

Specifically I'm talking about a range where if you hold upforward when the 236A is starting, you'll get hit/block it about instantly as you leave the ground

6C, thank you. That's a pretty bad typo on my part.

At a range where you get hit instantly when you leave the ground, but you aren't close enough to IB punish, you can either run in and stuff the startup, do a slow 7 jump and then air dash over the orb, or just position yourself so you don't have to deal with the move at that range.

Of those options, the third is probably most reliable and safe, and can be achieved by backing off or moving forward in neutral, or instant blocking/barrier-ing an entire blockstring that would put you in that position.

If the Mu player does that in neutral, it's time to really start disrespecting that stuff, lol.

[Errol]

the block string to demonstrate it is point blank 5b>5c.

The best you can do to punish is 7IAD and put out a j.C, as tsubaki. It will clip her as you sail by for a bit of damage. Of course, this requires totally reading that they are going to do it, so it is pretty um, shitty.

From a 5c, the gap before the 236a goes active is 4 frames I think. so 7 on IB. you can't punish with 5c. you can only punish with 5a, which is 6 frames. If they actually started the 236a right in your face, ok. But assuming they actually did the 5c>236a at the range I'm talking about... nah, not happening.

At this range, it goes active on you late enough that IB'ing it, though it helps you get out of block stun a lot faster, doesn't keep you from being way negative.

I mean, this is really talking about during their pressure, and they use it as a pressure reset.

and you're right.. the only way to really handle this... is to not let yourself get in that position.

When it does happen, your are probably best off just backdashing, or maybe IAD'ing.

I'm not really quite sure how flexible her blockstrings are. I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't that hard to adjust to your opponent IB'ing or barrier'ing to create the right distance, maybe a Mu can say something.

Anyway, I think it is worth knowing about - sometimes wish there were threads just for against certain characters - because a lot of stuff is the same or only a bit different for everyone to deal with. Sorry about a bit of tsubaki stuff mixed in.

[Tari]

I was testing it from 5A > 5B > 5C > 236A, which I believe puts you at pretty much the same position.

For what it's worth, 5C > 236A is not gapless, and it's pretty unsafe if IB'd. In fact, even in 5A > 5B > 5C > 236A, if you only IB the 5C and not any of the hits before it, you can do dash 5A to stuff the startup of 236A as Tsubaki.

If you do, in fact, IB every hit (assuming she starts point blank), you'll end up so close to her that you can even just throw her out of the 236A startup.

You can actually do dash 5A from pretty much any range off of an IB'd 5C after 5B, but I wouldn't really suggest it if it's from max range, since you can much more easily just block and IAD (766) over the orb to punish Mu.

A couple of soundless video examples for Tsubaki (throw, 5a, max-range 5a, iad):

(I only know her cs1 bnb combo, if you haven't noticed, lol)

It's actually pretty nice to get matchup opinions from other characters' perspectives, so I don't mind the Tsubaki tangent. :P

Off of the 5C on block, it's actually impossible for Rachel to do much if she ends up at that uncomfortable range. She can IB 5C and do dash cat chair... but that's just asking for trouble if Mu has meter. They pretty much end up at neutral again, though, so it's not terrible.

[Errol]

TBH tari, the combo hasn't changed, that's how you play tsubaki. (you can't get anything more optimal here really - you need the corner or you need to fight a tall character, or get a CH or a crouch)

You tested some of the same stuff I did. 766 IAD is def good at certain ranges (it's great at the range you did it there - if it's closer, it won't work - I actually tested this same thing, IAD j.Bj.C, just a bit earlier). and if they're up close, you can definitely ib > 5a or ib > throw.

IB> dash 5a is something that I'm not sure I'd get down well enough to do. TBH, maybe that is one of my big problems in this game - really getting my inputs precise.

It's tricky. IB> dash 5a is also something you can only do if you predict it I think.

I think the story at the end of the day is.. Try to screw up her spacing of stuff with a combination of IBs and Barrier. and if you confirm a good position for punishing with an IAD, take it? If you can predict it at point blank, you cna go for a 5a or throw or DP. But I don't think you can confirm it (recognize it by the 16th frame and press 5a).

Thanks a bunch Tari.

[Tari]

TBH tari, the combo hasn't changed, that's how you play tsubaki. (you can't get anything more optimal here really - you need the corner or you need to fight a tall character, or get a CH or a crouch)

You tested some of the same stuff I did. 766 IAD is def good at certain ranges (it's great at the range you did it there - if it's closer, it won't work - I actually tested this same thing, IAD j.Bj.C, just a bit earlier). and if they're up close, you can definitely ib > 5a or ib > throw.

Neat, I can pretend I know how to play Tsubaki, lol.

The main trick for the IAD combo is the timing on when you actually perform the jump or dash. Mu is in counterhit state for a pretty long time, so the most important thing to consider at that point is whether you can clear the orb and hit Mu without getting hit by the orb. In the above example, the 766 air dash was actually delayed so the orb would move further forward and allow the earliest possible j.B during the dash without causing Tsubaki's extended hitbox to collide with it. Otherwise, if the j.B was delayed, Tsubaki would just pass over Mu and fail miserably.

Rachel definitely has it easier there, since her j.b > j.c pretty much doesn't care about whether you fly over the opponent or not. Her hitbox is slightly larger, though, I believe, so it's still not that great dealing with the orb during the air dash.

IB> dash 5a is something that I'm not sure I'd get down well enough to do. TBH, maybe that is one of my big problems in this game - really getting my inputs precise.

It's tricky. IB> dash 5a is also something you can only do if you predict it I think.

I think the story at the end of the day is.. Try to screw up her spacing of stuff with a combination of IBs and Barrier. and if you confirm a good position for punishing with an IAD, take it? If you can predict it at point blank, you cna go for a 5a or throw or DP. But I don't think you can confirm it (recognize it by the 16th frame and press 5a).

Thanks a bunch Tari.

Yeah, to stuff startup, you have to assume she's going to cancel into it. That's how it always is, though. She can always opt to do something different there and completely screw you over. No way is someone going to IB, wait until they see 236A starting up, and then dash 5A.

And screwing up the opponent's positioning is always important. :P

Glad I could help some.