[CS1-CSE] Mu-12 Critique and Self-Improvement Thread

[pochp]

I have a few questions about that game actually (lol this thread but the other way around)

1) after blocking Jin's 6B, I saw you backdash a few times. Is this a good idea or was it just because he was baiting your DP?

2) I saw you going for those j.C jc j.C j.2C finishers and then setting up steins on the way down. Is this a better option than going for SoD or a single j.C j.2C steins?

3) What is your avi from? sorry for asking, but I've been wondering for a while.

[Zeromus_X]

I think your spacing and zoning was really good. Some of the combos you did were suboptimal (like air throw RC combo near 1:15, could become 4k+ damage if you did another 6B instead of straight into air combo) but yeah, six months ago. I really liked the backdash into FC hitconfirm near :30.

[C0R]

http://www.justin.tv/iplaywinner/b/282412320

1:16:00 ~ 1:26:00

Derek and I dicking around on stream at NCI. We where both sort of sandbagging but they're not bad matches. Let me know what you guys think. I realize we where both playing a little off, post-melty blood tournament and all that. But still.

"WHAT DO I THINK ABOUT LITCHI?!"

"IS THAT A QUESTION?!"

[Zeromus_X]

I know it's hard against Litchi, and I know you said you two weren't at 100%, plus the nervousness of being streamed and etc, but definitely work on your defense and spacing. It looked like several times you were under pressure, you were in a hurry to get out and got CH.

Against Litchi, you should definitely expect to "just block" a lot, especially in the corner. Even though it's awful, I find Mu's Counter Assault to be the most reliable reversal when you get into a situation where you have to block, as long as you aren't obvious. Also against Litchi, I'd definitely follow the "block low, watch for high and throw" rule - you got hit by 3C[m] and Haku a couple times. Near 24:00, DP RC to get out of Daisharin was a good idea, but I'd rather try to block past Daisharin and then try to CA or DP RC to save more meter.

For blockstrings, avoid using 6B and 3C -> cancel so much when someone knows how to IB them and SoD. (I >=/'d when Litchi IB'd SoD and 2C'd into 5k stupidity). I would only recommend using 6B/3C when you have RC against good players, otherwise keep with 2A/2B and throws or push them away with 6C 236A or 6C xD JC. Also avoid 6C up close - you tried to do 6C xD SoD near 1:21:00 which is very bad.

For combos, when you got random confirms into regular 6C combo, you could've ended with xD 632146C for more damage instead of xD 63214D. Even with 2A or 2B starter, it still does quite a bit of damage and you could've got the life lead and set up zoning several times. (Even Litchi has to watch out against Mu's zoning at low life). Plus, extending the 63214D combos has a good chance of crapping out if there's too much proration. If you have enough heat after 632146C (which you did), you can even set up some orbs and 632146D for a complimentary "free zoning" coupon. Also try to confirm crouchers into 6C or standing into SoD (like at 28:45, you punished Litchi itsuu cancel but tried to go into 6C even when she was standing - use 5C SoD instead).

Near the corner, you could've gone into "...6C 5D JC jBC2C..." for better oki several times but only did 3C 5D SoD instead. (But I noticed you did do this when Litchi tried to jump out near 23:37).

[pochp]

CS2 time, this is the only recorded game I have from this weekend's local major. Any advice would be really appreciated. Yes, I forgot airthrow RC on bang switches sides, yes tournament nerves so bad execution, and yes, I was fucking salty at the end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPj12WMlXTs#t=6m55s

[C0R]

If I was to pick out any one thing in particular that you could work on, it's utilizing special cancels after stein placements. You had a lot of trouble keeping Bang out. Normally the match-up is all about how well you can control HIS movement, forcing him along telegraphed trajectories with 236a and so forth. There where many a time where, instead of jumping out of a stein, if you had special canceled into 236a, you would have destroyed the nails and knocked him away. Even if you do get clipped in this situation, the risk/reward is completely in your favor, especially with how fast 236a is now. This also hold true with things like 5d > Origins, it can really wreck a lot of Bang's approaches, and if he punishes you mid-screen, it's for sad damage and not even full corner carry.

He has to expend a ton of resources to get in, but unlike most zoners Mu has a clean dp and good defensive options, so don't be afraid to play a game of attrition until he runs out of nails.

[pochp]

Wow, I didn't even think of that . It'll definitely help out a lot for a lot of matchups, thanks!

[TD]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezcY8PRWD0c

vs noel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CblHGYPAg5c&feature=related

hakumen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH_o8UWLCL8&feature=related

bang

me in hk's tourney. l was playing very risky and it caused me quite a few punishes, l guess luck was on my side though. all critiques appreciated

[FlyingVe]

Thoughts:

-Your hit-confirming seemed off. I know you know how to do this so I'm just gonna chalk it up to mistakes, but there where alot of hits that should have been big combos that weren't

-vs Hakumen: In my opinion controlling the air is more important than the ground. He doesn't have alot of mobility options on the ground that you taking away from him with the lasers. And you can't really lock him down with the command laser because of his counters.

-Vs: Bang... fuck Bang...

[TD]

ah thanks ve. l was autopiloting at the time for whatever reason so my play turned out pretty sloppy. i'll try not to let this happen next ttime.

l was hoping i'd get more comments from other people, but eh...

[FlyingVe]

What do you expect. It's like Zeromus said.

Get Mad Buffz

Still nobody plays you

[SolarMisae]

What do you expect. It's like Zeromus said.

Get Mad Buffz

Still nobody plays you

That pretty much. With the serious improvement to her gameplay and all the awesome stuff she got I was expecting to spot some new faces around here when CS2 dropped on consoles. D: I guess even though she's awesome, people still don't like that fact that she takes a lot of effort to use effectively. But thats what makes her fun imo. ;-;

But yeah, anyways after watching those, the main thing I noticed as well was your hit-confirming. A lot of good clean counter hits didn't get followed up, or the followups were dropped or blackbeat. But honestly I can't follow up anything online so I'm one to talk. xD; I really can't offer much, I'm not that great of a player myself.

Also vs. the Noel I don't understand something you did. You got a 6B hit rather close to the corner and RC'd into 3C. This isn't so much critique as it is a question out of my own curiosity as to what you were going for there. I always cancel 6B near the corner into Furu No Tsurugi and was just wondering if there was a different more damaging/optimal combo you were going for....?

[C0R]

Didn't see this until just now.

Overall, pretty good, videos show that you're comfortable moving and controlling the character. Biggest thing you could work on is hitconfirm, like Ve said there where a lot of hits that should have translated into impressive numbers. I know the combo thread isn't up to date yet, there's a lot I have to add once I get my hands on a working ps3 but be sure to check it out.

Vs Noel: SoD is the go-to tool in that matchup, using it meaty on their wakeup is a great idea because it hits both 2d and 4d for a huge fatal punish. Once the opponent wisens up to this, it still rocks her 4 primers, an important thing to note when they're blocking the majority of your mixup (which I noticed she was). While you went through a lot of effort trying to poke her out with j.c / 5c, it would command a lot more respect if you could've picked up a lot of those CH's into big damage, making her vary wary to approach you at all.

Vs Hakumen: Pressure with A/B gatlings, something like 5aaa 6a 5b 6a 2b 5c gives you room to breath and think about what to do next, as well as allowing the steins time to fire. 5a doesn't whiff on him crouching so take advantage of it's speed and decency on block over 2a. Poking with 5c is fine, but be wary of the 5c > 6c gatling because he can 6d it on reaction without too much trouble. If you have command laser out and he cuts it, destroy it by jumping at it and barrier blocking, he can't punish you for this because you'll be in blockstun, making throws purple, and any action he takes is liable to be punished by the now active command laser. It's important to do this when you can because you put yourself at a lot of risk getting that thing out, and you can't let him ignore it for free.

Vs Bang: Doesn't seem that Bang was a fan of tick throws or command grabs, making his mixup rather weak, even still I noticed a few times when you guessed in his pressure, just keep blocking as best you can and try and run the nails down. Your biggest problem though was upback, you kept trying to run away from Bang all game every game, something you just fundamentally can't do. He's got an extra airdash on you so you'll never win that battle, reason he's a problem for most zoners. This is the reason you ended up on defense in the corner after the first 5 seconds of almost every round. Get out Habaya as much you can and do your best to abuse your superior airgrab range, it's those tools that wreck him hard.

Your laser wall overall could use a bit of work. Many a time you made a wise decision is dropping back for a change of pace with some hard zoning, but it could have been much more furious, faster and tighter, I notice this is something a lot of Mu players have a bit of trouble with, and that's getting out as many steins as possible as fast as possible. After knockdown at fullscreen, or any time they're turtling, you would be suprised at the speed at which you can get a large number of steins out, and once they're blocking those first few you can keep them pinned with as many as you want so long as you keep up the pace.

I noticed your mixup had a hard time cracking people. If you're having trouble opening fools up, Mu does it with throw, try your best to hide your throws at akward times like between/before laser blockstun or wierd stagger moments during really crazy projectile barrages, I guarentee they'll be paying so much attention to the wall of light it's very difficult to read throws on top of high/low/projectile.

Like I said, overall, pretty good. I guess I could say the mistakes you did make where within very realistic and acceptable parameters (hard time dealing with pressure: dp on wakeup and so forth), if anything, what's holding you back the most is that you're still in a bit of a cs1 mindset with a lot of things (jump-airdash after 2c ch, not utilizing 3c in blockstrings, slow on the stein placements...) and more experience with the character's enhanced abilities in the new game should do you much good.

[TD]

besides from autopiloting, l haven't trained with mu much because l was supposed to be dropping her (in fact the whole decision to use her was last minute). not going to lie, l was surprised l even made it to gf's. before my mu hiatus, so to speak, l was working on midrange spacing, something l was very bad with in cs1, and still is, frankly. l figured mu's true potential lies in 5c instead of zoning with steins, but maybe it would have been wise to incorporate both to enhance versatility. for the most part cor you are right.

solar whenever l rc 6b, its either because l assume they will block it, or to bait a burst (though 6b has good recovery, so l dont always have to rc to bait bursts if the second hit has already hit). lf they dont block/burst l wasted meter, but its win/win regardless. l could do sod rc -> stuff, but... well... thats something training mode would have showed me. lol

[SolarMisae]

Yeah 6B is not quite as punishable as it was in CS1. If the second hit connects canceling into SoD near the corner can net you so good damage/oki. Her BnB coner combos now set up some really vicious corner pressure, not to mention just raping people's primers. *evil laugh*

I was surprised to see you post up Mu vids Tempest. :3 So not gonna fully drop her after all?

[FlyingVe]

6B(blocked)>backdash is really good. Not perfect (except against the bunny characters), but very good.

[mAc Chaos]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezcY8PRWD0c

vs noel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CblHGYPAg5c&feature=related

hakumen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH_o8UWLCL8&feature=related

bang

me in hk's tourney. l was playing very risky and it caused me quite a few punishes, l guess luck was on my side though. all critiques appreciated

Watched some of the Haku fight.

Your pressure is good but your zoning is weak. I could see him effortlessly getting in on you. Or at least I was thinking "I could get in on this easily" when I was watching it. Usually against a good Mu they can almost make it so you can't even move, whereas you had huge openings that let him dash through. I felt like Din was letting you get away with a lot of stuff. You managed to make a huge comeback though so that was good.

[pochp]

Two games I had on stream at ECT, http://www.justin.tv/st1ckbug/b/288839547 at 1h2m. Played against a noel and bang, tourney nerves+driving 10h+ guy snoring in the room+no real CS2 matchup exp against these... yeah, but then again that's kinda the thing for everyone in a tournament setting.

Geez looking back I can't believe I did the wrong stuff for the overhead combo in the corner, more than once Anyways, any advice appreciated

[SolarMisae]

http://youtu.be/Ui1Q2_0pUKE

http://youtu.be/jA4ghm0MBuc

A few matches between me and LunarSelenia. Do your worst, tear me to shreads!

Anyways things to ignore: Occasional RC > goldburst bs throughout. ^^;; Thats me being stupid trying to cancel into a D stein for lulz and getting too hyped while chatting with Lunar and mashing it out.

Things I'm aware of...DP bait...I sit there yelling at Lunar "OH GOD YOU BAITED ME, I knew you were going to but I still did it whhhhy?!" I'm getting better about it though. Also my pressure is a bit weak. I keep falling into patterns and am working away from doing so. Also I can't for the life of me ever Hit confirm 5C > 6C > RC on crouchers even when I actually think to myself "Huh I should RC this..." then just end up going for stein oki. :X

A bit of autopilot, both from me doing sorta meh and from Lunar and I being somewhat derpy in general that evening. You know how sisters can be.

[FlyingVe]

I only watched the first vid, and the thing that stuck out to me the most is hitconfirms. So many hits that should have done stuff, just didn't.

Hitconfirming with Mu can actually be harder than with some other characters, but it helps to always be thinking about what your options are. For example, when you're poking with max range 5C your two most common options will be SoD and 6C. I saw 2C come out several times as though it were a normally spaced blockstring. This applies to alot of Mu's pokes, so I hope my method can help. I'll try to watch again later with a better eye for detail.

[SolarMisae]

Yeah hit confirms are still probably one of my weakest points. Thanks Ve. ^^

[Pestilence]

http://youtu.be/Ui1Q2_0pUKE

http://youtu.be/jA4ghm0MBuc

A few matches between me and LunarSelenia. Do your worst, tear me to shreads!

Anyways things to ignore: Occasional RC > goldburst bs throughout. ^^;; Thats me being stupid trying to cancel into a D stein for lulz and getting too hyped while chatting with Lunar and mashing it out.

Things I'm aware of...DP bait...I sit there yelling at Lunar "OH GOD YOU BAITED ME, I knew you were going to but I still did it whhhhy?!" I'm getting better about it though. Also my pressure is a bit weak. I keep falling into patterns and am working away from doing so. Also I can't for the life of me ever Hit confirm 5C > 6C > RC on crouchers even when I actually think to myself "Huh I should RC this..." then just end up going for stein oki. :X

A bit of autopilot, both from me doing sorta meh and from Lunar and I being somewhat derpy in general that evening. You know how sisters can be.

I only watched teh first vid due to a slow connection but thanks for sharing, I enjoyed watching you two guys go back and forth. If I had any advice it would be to make better use of your steins. I notice you get some good opportunities but waste the opportunity and go for a dash in rushdown instead. Overall pretty good! The Tsubaki player is pretty consistent as well, he puts up a really good fight. Seems if Tsubaki's damage output wasn't such trash he'd be very difficult to overcome.

[SolarMisae]

Heh, thanks very much! And the Tsu player is a she. x3

She's my favorite sparring partner. :D

[pochp]

You probably know a lot of what I'm going to say, it's just stuff I noticed, I'm pointing it out so anyone who doesn't know can also "learn". If anyone disagrees with what I say, please point it out so I can learn as well.

Confirm crouching hits into 6C, you were doing it sometimes, but playing against the same person often, you should notice their crouching hitbox more frequently. It takes a conscious effort to start doing this, but once you do, it's awesome.

Dash forward after SoD when you finish a combo with it near the corner, you'd be surprised what distance you can get a wallbound from. From this, you'll realize that you should use less 3C oki when near the corner, because even if it's slightly too far to get the bound, corner pressure is usually more scary.

Some of the combos you were doing could have been better (ex: corner 2C CH), you might want to make sure you're up to date on combos. (I know some of mine are outdated too lol)

RC 6B to block bursts, once the first hit actually hits, pay attention, because it's a reactable "free" punish.

Don't go for the super in the corner unless you know you'll have 50 after. It's important to keep it for CA/DP RC, but also allows better setups. (ex ...214D 6B(1) RC 3C SoD)

Learn a better confirm for catching rolls, like 2B 5C 6C habacan etc. Also, in general, use more 2B 2C 6C habacan, and know the height from 6C at which you can habacan, I saw you miss a few opportunities for extended combos.

Learn 6C/3C RC combos, it hurts when I see a Mu with 100 heat finish a midscreen combo with SoD when they could have gotten the kill.

Don't forget that [D] exists, I can't say how useful it is in this specific matchup, but I haven't seen you use it. You can cancel [D] into the same options as normal D, but with slightly more delay, so it's sometimes a better idea to use [D] rather than 5D 6D for example.

Learn SoD fatal midscreen > dash 2B 2C 6C habacan, I don't know in what situations it actually allows you to pick up a red beat combo, but if your opponent doesn't tech you can bluebeat the 2B and get major damage for a small risk, and either way you'll be in a position to apply pressure.

When you're sitting on 100 meter, don't be afraid to use it to continue pressure, especially when your opponent is out of meter/bursts. You can do stuff like 2A 2B 5C 3C SoD RC dash 2B 5B (3C/6B)....

I don't think using 236A from superjump height is a good idea personally, it will whiff and give them a free ticket to your face.

This might be because you're used to playing the same tsubaki who doesn't punish you for doing 5D 6D 236D at neutral, but usually I end up eating a 236D from tsubaki when I attempt to do that.

If I'm not mistaken, you can walk back then dash forward 2B to punish a tsubaki that goes 22? at the beginning of a match.

On the plus side : nice use of 2B in general, good awareness of your steins, you might have approached tsubaki a bit more often than you should, but it was usually by the ground, which is way better than the air.

[SolarMisae]

ilu pochp thanks so much. That post was golden. :DD