Parry v. Mawaru

[Amadeous]

Okay so I've done some testing of this and while by no means is this the definitive be-all end-all word on this option, hopefully it'll help sort out some ideas for newbies and get discussion from veteran players going. So here goes; my findings on parrying the second hit of Eddie's Mawaru during his pressure and what you can do to counterattack.

This is assuming you know the basic idea behind Eddie's pressure/blockstring/mixup/whatever you want to call it. Essentially Eddie wants to make you block, usually with a move with a lot of blockstun like 6H, then he's gonna summon little Eddie and use Mawaru and 5K/6K/Command Throw to mix you up and just repeat the process till you get hit or he burns meter going for an unblockable.

The catch is that Mawaru isn't completely airtight. Most characters can just IB the first hit and backdash out; actually Jam can do this too, but since Mawaru isn't a low she can also block the first hit and parry the second. IBing the first hit isn't even necessary, but it really does help make it easier. Basically your inputs should be 4 5 4 6 during Mawaru. And because parry works the way it does, you can counterattack him.

The hard part is determining WHAT to counterattack with. Because little Eddie's hitstop doesn't affect the actual character Eddie, you're still not really gonna be able to do whatever you want. But it does reduce the hitstop you'll be in and negate blockstun, so you can hit him back. The problem is now you're gonna have to guess if he's going high/low/throw instead of just reacting to his actual pressure like if you had just blocked.

Low is the biggest problem here, Eddie's 5K hits low and probably has about the same range as Jam's 5K, if not more. The big thing you have going for you is that his 5K takes twice as long to start up as yours. If you do parry -> 5K you can 80% of the time trade with him, hitting Eddie and getting an unsummon, resetting the match back to neutral. 10% of the time you'll get a CH on him, and if you're really good you can hitconfirm that into a combo, and the other 10% of the time he'll CH you and now you're just taking damage.

If you're far enough away though when he does Mawaru you can do Parry -> 6H and use your lower body invul to ALWAYS get a really strong CH on him and hitconfirm into a f.S TK Ryujin, completely reversing the match. It's also probably best to do this if you're really close, because parry -> 6H when you're in grab range will beat anything he decides to do.

The problem is neither of these options are very good if he does 6K, the overhead. 5K's hitbox isn't good against his 6K, and Jam's 6H is just way too slow to hit him before it comes out. The best thing I've found you can do is Parry -> 2S. Even if you trade you'll still have enough time to sweep and at least get knockdown if not a combo. The disadvantage being of course, 2S will lose to his 5K no matter what.

Finally if Eddie goes for his command grab, well you should be doing Parry -> 6H anyway because you'll be really close to him, but really any of Jam's pokes will beat him out since he has to guess that you're not gonna parry and wait for you to come out of blockstun. He can guess that you're going to parry and do it early but that's why you 6H, right? Really if you catch him a few times with the parry Eddie should be too scared to go for the command grab unless he's feeling really ballsy.

There is ONE universal option you can do that will beat out anything he does, and that's Parry -> Gold Burst and then you get 100 meter and knock him down and you get to laugh at the Eddie player.

The caveat to all of this is if the Eddie player is actually good and puts in a 2P in between the Mawaru hits you'll just get bodied and feel stupid for trying to be cool.

[president]

Goldbursting might be guaranteed, but not having a burst in stock against Eddie is also a massive risk to take.

[SHINIGAMI_mkl]

how would 5P or 2P work out in these situations? both are fast but lack in range.. so I'm not sure.

[Amadeous]

Tested both of those. 5P is Jam's fastest normal but it still won't always beat Eddie's 5K. At that range you'd be better using 6H anyway and going for the grab. 2P is the same startup as 5K...so yeah.

Actually talked to MarlinPie about this some over Final Round to get a better idea of this. Boiled down to a few points:

1) Any GOOD Eddie will throw in something in between the two hits of Mawaru just to make sure you can't IB -> backdash or Parry out. This should be obvious and I mentioned it in the OP, but this just reinforces it.

2) The only time when Eddie can't do the above is after an overhead, like 6K. He'll still be able to, but he has to do Mawaru much later. So the best chances to look to parry out are after a 6K, but you have to react to him delaying Mawaru (not a big deal, as you have to block the first hit anyway).

3) While it is risky and situational, especially versus a good Eddie player, it's still something they have to keep in mind, or else they're giving Jam THAT ONE CHANCE to run a train over him.