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TheRealDMac

Mitsuru vs. Minazuki

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Please use this thread to talk about the matchup!

I'm currently filling in the gaps for Mitsuru, and may contribute notes to the thread myself once I'm finished doing my personal matchup grind.

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Only thing I have to say right now to deal with this clown is to punish his DP you have to block and run underneath him and tag him as he lands, if he supers hes a sitting duck because no auto correct just like dealing with Yu's. Also his teleports are fatal recovery so you can punish with 2B or DP. Unfortunately its much much easier to DP instead of relying on the nerfed 2B.

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I suppose I will give a somewhat thorough analysis of this match up. My gameplay is specific to netplay only, so if you're an offline player your experiences will vary. Also, I am at best an intermediate player, so take my info how you will.

Minazuki is a very difficult character to deal with. He is basically a better version of Mitsuru. His normals are awesome. He does stellar damage. And he's top-tier. Mitsuru does have a few advantages which I will outline shortly.

Mitsuru's main advantage that no other character has is that she can mash out of his pressure. Minazuki likes to strike at the tip of his blade when he pressures you. Sometimes he will pause, stagger that pressure. He is -2 at this point, however the start-up for his 5A is 9f whereas Mitsuru's 5A is 8f so you can effectively trade here. I wouldn't recommend mashing however. The key is knowing when he'll stagger. If he staggers, that means your 5A will come out first. Before you even consider this you must also factor in the risk vs reward. If Minazuki succeeds with his 5A, he can do upwards of 4.5k damage. Mitsuru on the other how tops out at about 2.6k. Your reasoning for mashing 5A isn't to do damage but gain an advantage over Minazuki. His reasoning is to do the most damage possible. So keep that in mind.

Now then, what can Minazuki do versus your pressure? The obvious thing is DP. His DP can catch your near max range 5A because Mitsuru moves slightly forward every time she does 5A. To punish him, the ideal thing to do is 2B. Even if he has meter, 2B works. You will hit him before he recovers from the DP, thus he can't do a super cancel. Minazuki can't effectively mash out of your 5A pressure because his 5A is too short. The flaw with this of course is that Mitsuru's damage isn't stellar in this regard. But on the plus side he doesn't have much health so whenever you punish him, it'll be a good one. Mitsuru also can't pressure for a long period of time like he can. Most of her stuff is pretty bad on block so he, like most other characters, will try to jump through the gaps so try not to be predictable.

Some tips that may help you out. Minazuki will sometimes do Tsukiyomi switcharoo. If they do this often, its safe to assume their skill level isn't high. To punish this either do 2B or DP. DP is the safer option because it hits in the back. The common way Minazuki does the switcharoo is j.D or whenever he tosses knives. So keep that in mind. The tactic itself isn't used much at higher levels of play. Watch out for Minazuki's j.B. His j.B is ridiculously powerful compared to most characters because it can lead into some serious damage on counter hit. The range is also really large such that it can out-range your own j.A if you don't space it right. The risk vs reward is heavily in Minazuki's favor because of that. To deal with Minazuki's Moon Smasher super, block the first hit and then DP the second. It removes the option of him bursting or OMC. It's possible for him to OMC the first hit, however if you're at max 5A range (which you should considering he has to be desperate to do this) then you can cause the first hit to whiff. If you're not at proper spacing, then just block and wait for him to come down and give yourself some distance.

Overall, I would say this match up is 45/55. Minazuki's favor.

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Just wanted to say that Minazuki's Moon Smasher can be OMC'd even if you block the first hit, so he can get out safely.

Dunno what made you say otherwise.

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I played this MU a LOT from both ends of the MU. Here is my take on it:

Overall, this MU is one of those that are very much decided on who plays the better neutral game as both characters aren't too great vs each other's offense. Both characters effectively do the same thing gameplay wise, which is focusing on abusing their range and overwhelm the opponent with pressure to force defensive mistakes. Due to both characters having slow start up 5As, mashing out of pressure is typically done with DP which is incredibly unsafe from both characters. Both Mitsuru and Minazuki are very good at preventing the opponent from successfully rolling away with their 5As and both have ways to space themselves to make guard cancel attacks whiff. So ultimately, either character really has to really commit and read the opponent's intentions on offense to successfully escape otherwise both characters natural ability to stop common mindless attempts at escaping really will get you killed. 

From Mitsuru's end:

Neutral game is fairly straight forward for her here. 5A gives Minazuki a lot of trouble on the ground as he doesn't have a good way to go under it and it can be hard to whiff punish it because of how easy it is to space properly. In the air, Minazuki is very dangerous because Mitsuru can't reliably 2B Minazuki's j.B and the alternative ways to stop this attack require big commitment (DP ant air) or run the risk of trading or losing at certain spacings (j.A/Air throw). 2D works well vs j.B, but the downside is that missing with this move is kinda bad but your risk/reward makes it worth going for if you are farther away from him and anticipate his approach with j.B. Good Minazukis will stand at your 5A range and jump over it and hit you with j.B for trying to poke. You have to be ready to recognize this spacing and mix up when you are going to throw out a 5A and when you want to peel off with a backdash or a fade away j.A to stop the j.B approach. Mitsuru can droit under A ver. of knife toss, which is good if you can react to which knife he tossed in time. If you are fast and see it quickly enough, you can flat out hit Minazuki with like SB droit and push him really far towards the corner. If you don't have meter, you can at the very least use a well spaced B droit and get some + frames to start your offense if you don't flat out tag him during his recovery. On defense, you really have to block patiently and choose your spots to disrespect. DP stops frame traps and attempts at restarting pressure with stuff like teleports and j.B. Mashing out with 5A stops him from command grab tick throws, most forms of throw baiting, and takes away his turn if he opts to just try to bait your DP out by waiting and blocking. Jumping is generally a really safe alternative to mashing out as it will cover most options such as command grab attempts and DP baits as well as giving you the option of attempting an escape from a place like the corner by getting away from him. On wake up, you can OS against most of Minazuki's common options they'll go for on wake up. OSing a backdash + throw and downback afterwards works great because you can't backdash for something like 4 or 5 frames when you initially get up from the ground, so you'll just sit there and stand block within that time frame. So what this means is if Minazuki does a proper meaty 5A, you'll just block. If he tries to throw you right away, you'll tech because you masked a throw tech input in that same backdash input. If Minazuki attempts a command grab on your wake up, you'll back dash because the start up of his regular command grabs are 8f, which is just outside the frame window where you can't backdash, so you'll avoid the command grab and get a fat punish. Of course, the obvious weakness here is that he can just hit you meaty with a low and that will catch you, but there are times where he can't do a perfectly meaty low on your wake up or you can just RPS him at this point with other stuff to throw him off. Also, minazuki gets really really low damage off a 2A starter, so you can afford eating less than 2k damage at least once or twice to escape the other crap he has. The other way to stop this is by letting the opponent backdash and hitting them out of the air. This is the harder read but is also infinitely more rewarding for minazuki to do. 

From Minazuki's end:

This match up is kinda a pain and requires a lot of patience but its fun at higher level. Its a high powered match of footsies with giant normals at the end of the day. There are namely two spacings where you want to most stay at vs Mitsuru and those are fullscreen and in her face. Mitsuru no longer has her special 5D to extend her whip range to hit completely fullscreen, so you can throw knives pretty safely when you back is to the edge of the stage and harass Mitsuru and eventually go in behind a knife or something. If she attempts 5D anyway, know that you can run under it just by dashing in on her normally. When you are in her face, you have all the control really. Your buttons are really oppressive and her defensive options aren't too spectacular. The ranges inbetween those areas are spacings where Mitsuru can fight you decently, but you can force an awkward guessing situation if you stand outside 5A range. The mitsuru player has to be careful about hitting 5A here because of j.B, and if they decide on just waiting for the j.B or peeling off, you can go in on them instead on the ground. Really annoying for both sides, but the risk/reward is generally in your favor in most situations. Be careful with knife throws and using j.2D/2D in neutral, as Mitsuru can take advantage of getting the read on you and tagging you for attempting these moves from spacings where she can punish. Ultimately, you are the scarier character on both offense and defense. If you decide to mash out, you get a knockdown off anything for your troubles, which includes your DP while Mitsuru does not get the same luxury. Your mix up game is better than Mitsuru when she does not have 50 meter so you can force more hits on her just for blocking than she can. You really want to focus on varying your offense and pay attention to what the player defaults to on defense. If they mash DP a lot, bait it and punish hard. If they choose to block a lot, grab them. If they are upbacking, catch their jump start and flat out call out their jumps with 2B. Its a very simple gameplan but its what Minazuki shines at.

If you have any really specific questions about stuff, feel free to ask. 

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