GGACR/I-No/Matchup/May

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The General Gameplan

This is going to suck. May gets really far just doing whatever she wants in this matchup because it takes a lot of precision from I-No to counterplay her. However, if the May doesn't know the matchup and I-No is prepared, I-No can still run this matchup like a dominatrix and try to shut May down. Even against a top May player it's not as bad as it used to be in AC, but you still have to play your damn heart out.

Learn when to swing. Overall you'll get blown up really bad for committing at the wrong time. May can do 40-70% off a single counterhit and dizzy you in the process. That totally skews the risk/reward of I-No's options.

You are going to die a lot learning this matchup. You will probably get IK'd a lot. It's OK, don't give up. It's not really that bad... but it will awaken the nihilist in you. Or the masochist. Hopefully you're a masochist, because that'll help you pull through the losses. Bonus points if you discover that you're actually a switch, because you'll need that sadism to carry you to victory once you take control.

When you manage to hit May, you need to hit her hard and knock her ass down (knockdown is worth more than risking a tech for more damage). As much as you want to run an unprorated high/low mixup on her and win in 2-3 touches it's not always going to happen. You have to bait her escape attempts sometimes so she doesn't just mash on wakeup and win, because the risk/reward on these bait interactions is actually very good. You have to have the guts to walk up from 1/3 screen and throw her after teaching her that she has to block, to get her to keep trying to disrespect you at the wrong time. And you absolutely have to make the most of your opportunities. If you land a hit you better convert it into a knockdown. And always remember that when you play it just safe enough that your opponent isn't bashing their face on the stick anymore because it stopped working... that's when you can do wild shit like "random 2S/6P RC" and run an unexpected mixup from a situation where you normally can't go high/low.


Your Opponent's Gameplan


Ok, so she's going to rip your face off an.... oh, we're not talking about a Silverback Gorilla?

What the May wiki says

First, I'm going to copy/paste the section on the I-No matchup from the May wiki here and dissect it. Props to whoever wrote it. But I want I-No players to be strong, so I have to give the example of what May players are afraid of, and whether or not they should be. I'm going to nest my responses as bullet points below each numbered bit.


  1. Clearly a MU in May's favor, she don't have good option for deal with HVD, a bit weak resistance to stun (55) and have difficulty to win the neutral. But she is still Ino so don't get KD.
    • Yes the matchup is May's favor, and yes we can win this by scoring knockdowns.
  2. Everytime she Hoverdash use SVD or HVD (depending of the distance) for force her to block.
    • This may not be a bad strategy. We're committed when hoverdashing, and you have to air FD her dolphins.
  3. Take care about the dive, one of her only tool who can beat HVD at the right timing.
    • This is true in the sense that if we hit her before the 8f startup (universal across all types of Mr. Dolphin attacks) with dive we can beat it. However, the hitboxes on the dolphins are actually pretty good, so you can try to whiff punish a descending vertical dolphin and get counterhit by landing on her due to dive's poor hitbox. The truth is that most of the time May is bouncing all over the place like a crazy person, it's difficult for I-No to challenge.
    • The trick is really the speed at which she uses this move, and her ability to use the different variations including canceling them late into the force break, which turns it into a projectile that you now can't challenge with your buttons. If she was predictable enough you'd be able to stuff these with precise button presses, though the precision needed is kind of tight.
  4. She can low profile many of you move with big tree so don't be too predictible.
    • May has counterplays, but yes we can go under 5K, 2S, and 6P reliably. We can also go under f.S using STBT-H (the S version will get hit due to not enough low-profile frames). More on this below in the interactions section.
      • It's good for us if she's afraid of using those normals because of STBT, because that can open us up to use normals on the ground to challenge her. She's actually very good at stuffing our normals!
  5. In fact that one of the rare MU where may don't gain so much at trying to jump.
    • Kedako can play this with a strong ground game, but I've seen matches where the I-No plays well enough on the ground that he goes airborne and does an amazing job of baiting the I-No to swing when she shouldn't. So maybe not 100% true... and this is the kind of thing we should take note of and try to exploit.


Player Opinions #1: PhaethonH

Next, here's a breakdown from a very strong May player, PhaethonH:

I always like to preface that I have a weird May and cannot speak for other May players in general; that said, my focus points tend to be:

  1. Don't get caught in a situation where I-No note accrues many hits (spending Burst or DA if needed), but this is mainly personal as I have a hard time blocking the following vortex.
  2. Positioning for maximum 6P pain, mainly against dash, HCL, mid-high(not-low) note (above-waist invul on a short character). Even if the 6P never happens, just the threat of it can tip the flow -- I-No is among the top... six? easiest to faint/stun, and getting hit by it 2 or 3 times tends to set up the conditioning for later play.
  3. Because of I-No's air options, I divide air-to-air into two primary categories: (a) high-altitude, where I think May has advantage, (b) low-altitude (I-No short dash altitude), where I think I-No has advantage. This crosses with the ground game where I think high/mid/overhead and ground-to-air ("above-belt") is I-No's advantage, but low/low-profile (and maybe grapple?) ("below-belt") is May's. Upshot then is to take the battle way up high or way down low, wary of the in-between.
  4. Leveraging oki crossups to stuff up reversal supers -- May's double jump can clear either reversal super if not input-stuffed, but is easily countered instead with reversal air throw or VCL (discombobulated VCL = c.S anti-air). Also, a surprising number of I-No players are baited into whiffing wakeup super in this situation, probably unaware of how the startup frames and May's air acceleration manage to miss each other.
  5. I try to stay cognizant of (but tend to fail at using) May's 5H and j.H counterhitting, as they're downright magical; pulsr is much better at fishing for 5H and j.H CH, but the general gist is that there is a set of heights and distances/ranges where May's H can CH for big damage. When May fishes like this, it looks like kind of funny and almost harmless due to the apparent short range (mind games), but j.H recovery is canceled by landing, and 5H has a deceivingly short recovery that tends to draw in punish attempts, both of which can lead to painful May followups.

Spacing & Advantage (By Screen Position)

Up Close

I'd probably say that at this range the advantage is slightly May's. If you're in range of her 6P, you need to play around the threat of getting hit by it because that can end the round in one hit. May's mixup potential is actually pretty good at this range, but her more dangerous options cost meter. You can practice and learn the timing for 5D or the 5D hold into low, and if she's not careful about canceling into Overhead Kiss (her command throw that starts with a dash) you can recognize that she canceled into her command throw and didn't run forward, so you can get out of it on reaction. In situations where either of you land a hit, May on average will get more damage without having to spend meter for it.

Round Start Range

Long Range

We're close enough to convert more easily than if we were at full screen, but far enough to restrict which tools May can threaten us with. Her dolphin hoops let her reach us from nearly anywhere on the ground, but going airborne can cause her to abandon the strategy. And even if we choose to stay on the ground, the dolphin hoops themselves aren't as big of a deal as Justice's nukes or Testament's Exe Beast. You have more time to react to her when she does vertical dolphin shenanigans or tries to ram you with a horizontal dolphin, and that can help against weaker May's that overuse those tactics, but if she deviates just enough it can still be very difficult to deal with. At this range May is more likely to fish for situations where you've overextended trying to hit her.

Full Screen

May is more effective at this range than you would think. If you note incorrectly she can blow you up with the whale, and she can also set the dolphin hoops out to pressure you. You're not in range to snipe her with HCL, though vertical dolphins make it risky to just throw that out in this matchup anyway. Even still, this range is probably our favor unless May has 50% and we don't have any meter to work with, which would probably tip the scales quite a bit.

  • Be smart about how you shoot notes. Don't get bopped.
  • Don't overextend if May is playing it safe looking to bop you. She may dance around, summon dolphin hoops and let them rip immediately, or might just hold one out to put pressure you to "do something". She's not as fast as Chipp or Jam, but she can close the distance surprisingly quick for how much range she has. Lean what you can get away with and do that, and only that. If she's out of meter you can be slightly more cocky to try to bait her to overextend so long as you don't accidentally give her the opening.
  • May can slide pretty far with 3K, but even still your priority for space control with the note should be the air. If you expect a 3K from this far away you should have plenty of time to deal with her moving closer on reaction, including stuffing it with 5H. Just don't throw it out willy-nilly on prediction since it's dumb for May to run up and do it from this far away in the first place, and she could be conditioning you to try to 5H so she can hit you with the whale.

Button Interactions

Dealing with her Normals (if/when possible)

  • 5P:
  • 2P:
  • 6P: Be wary of 6P. If you stay on the ground you can blow her up with 5H, and the counterhit leads to meterless 50% and corner knockdown. The threat of this can keep May from flailing wildly at you and winning without knowing what she's doing, but the main threat from 6P comes from using hoverdash incorrectly. I'm putting this normal first simply because it can cause you to lose rounds off of one counterhit if you're not prepared.
    • 5H also beats 3K at long ranges. At close range she shouldn't be using 3K and you'd punish it on block, so don't worry about that too much. It's more of a risk/reward benefit that you can call out two things with one move.
    • STBT (both versions) can go under her 6P, which helps some.
    • If you're not too predictable with dive you can actually still get away with it, since her 6P is kinda slow and you're likely to hit her legs or land in time to block.
    • If you're going air-to-ground you should be landing before it goes active so you can block it, and if you're not spacing/timing around this you're going to die.
      • Or you should be hitting her with max range j.H such that you're not getting hit by the 6P (remember that I-No's legs have hurtboxes on j.H during startup and active, so you'd have to space from almost "this looks like it'll whiff" distance).
      • Or you should be getting her to whiff so you can bop her.
  • 5K:
  • 2K:
  • 6K:
  • c.S:
  • f.S: May's f.S is suprisingly effective against STBT-S. The H version low profiles long enough that it can hit her, but the S version gets caught at almost all ranges.
    • STBT (both versions) are otherwise effective against her 5K, f.S, and 2S. It can be caught on reaction by her 2P and 2K using their speed, and you can expect her 5H and 2H to blow it up pretty easily, along with 2D.
  • 2S:
  • 5H:
  • 2H:
  • 6H:
  • 5D:
  • 2D: Her 2D is actually pretty incredible. It's active for a long time and has a good hitbox, so if you try to whiff punish it with 2K you'll trade in her favor due to getting knocked down. I-No's 2S can also have it's startup stuffed by 2D's lingering active frames, if you're not far enough away from her when you go for it.
  • j.P:
  • j.K: Rising to air-to-air is actually something May is good at. j.K is her fast move for this much like we use j.P for the same job.
  • j.S: May's j.S is difficult to challenge when spaced right, but that's mostly because of your mental stack being occupied by priorities like "don't get hit by 6P or the Whale" and actively looking for dolphins since she's spamming that shit constantly.
    • Depending on spacing you can call out her j.S with 5P or 5K.
  • j.H:May's j.H is also difficult to challenge, and it covers a crazy arc, but it's slow to reach in front of and above her.
    • If canceled from a j.S that made contact, you can attempt a slashback if you're crazy. It's slow enough to build the reaction for.
    • If she's tossing it out raw close to the ground and you're more in front of her than beneath her, you can probably snipe her with 5K for a juicy counterhit combo or use 5P for less-risky space control.
  • j.D:


May's Special Moves

  • Restive Roller: Restive Roller is actually kind of gimmicky. She can do HRR FRC to fly at you from long range and ground throw, and she can intentionally do it as a crossup overhead into low/throw as oki (typically with H-hoop dolphin coverage), or even from a jump cancel in a block string for that "gotcha!" factor, but if she does it raw she's going to be coming in from a sharp angle that's very difficult to contest directly.
    • That said, the hitbox is inside the hurtbox (it's worse than I-No's dives), so just about anything will actually beat it if you can put a hitbox where her body is moving.
    • 6H is actually a very big commitment for how accurate you have to be to snipe May. Near the top of the arc it'll cover the space where a very skilled May (Kedako) is likely to try to approach from, but good luck getting those 1-2 frames at the exact timing needed on prediction against a player that good. It can be done, and it's likely to be more successful against weaker May players that hop around without thinking, but expect to get blown up if you overuse that normal in this matchup. It's more of a surprise snipe, and then maybe once in a while for good measure when you recognize a movement pattern that you can blow up, but if you whiff you're going to die.
    • 5P, 5K, j.236D... you have plenty of options to blow this up if needed. The problem is that j.236D costs meter, 5P can fail based on the angle, and 5K is committal.
  • Jackhound: If May screws up her OTG Jackhound timing you can punish her as you wake up, but be aware that her recovery animation could have her low profile under your punish or also bounce over a 2K punish.


Anti-Air

Main takeaway: 6P has very limited use due to the risk on whiff, falling behind maybe only 6H which carries even more recovery. Use more 5P, j.P, 5K and when you can afford it FB Dive. Just don't burn all your meter trying to call out May's air movement since she can be very good at avoiding FB Dive, stuffing its startup, or beating it by "going second" with a Vertical Dolphn that you're actually trying to beat with the FB Dive.


Pressure

Escaping Pressure

Special/Notable Confirms

  • May is one of the characters that 5H > HCL whiffs against on the ground. She recoils in a way that causes her to lean under the beam.
    • If you open her up with 2S, use 2S > 2D > HCL 6FRC6 instead of the 2S > 5H method.
  • You'll commonly try to beat her 6P and 3K with 5H. If you get the counterhit, use these confirms:
    • Round start positioning: 5H (CH) > STBT-H > TK Pdive > airdash j.H > j.D > VCL > c.S (here you can adjust for if the VCL was a late hit or not. If it was, you can add a VCL > c.S before moving on because May will have floated high enough, but if not just continue into...) > j.S > j.H > Pdive > airdash j.H > Pdive > airdash j.S > j.H > Kdive. Does about 230 damage, corner knockdown, meterless (and builds you plenty for your oki conversion - this is how you try to win some games in 2.5 touches).
    • Near or in the corner: 5H (CH) > STBT-H > j.D > VCL (late hit) > c.S > VCL > c.S > j.S > j.H > Pdive > airdash j.H > FFVCL > c.S > sj.S > sj.H > Kdive. IIRC does like 272? More if you crank guard bar while fishing for that sweet sweet 5H counterhit.


Help! She keeps Instant Killing me!!!!11one

Yeah...... you have to learn to deal. It sucks, but we'll all go through this. Here are my few tips:

  1. The starters most likely to lead to a stun, which sets up the IK, are 6P and 6H.
    • 6P and j.D have stun modifiers on them that increase the amount of stun damage. She can reliably combo into both of these for extra stun damage.
      • Don't panic too much, because stun damage beyond like the 4th hit is heavily reduced. Most of the time, but not all of the time she'll need to open you up more than once. Unless it's a Counterhit 6P...
    • All counterhits deal double stun damage. This also means that non 6P moves can very easily lead to you being stunned when she scores counterhits.
  2. When you're aware that a stun is coming, you'll be prepared to start mashing as the stun occurs to maximize your mash time, instead of having to react to it late. This is crucial if you want to avoid being IK'd.
  3. All direction inputs, as well as all button inputs, count for mashing out of stun.
    • You probably want to tap all of the buttons at exactly the same time, as rapidly as possible. Barely lift your fingers.
    • Roll circles on the stick as tight as your dead zone allows.
  4. May's IK itself has 16F startup (7 pre flash and 9 after) before it hits you, with 2 active frames, and only 5 recovery frames. And it's a throw.
    • The low recovery frames relative to the startup are actually a huge pain. It has the normal duration of a whiffed command throw, but with the recovery so short after the active window, your escape options are actually somewhat limited if you mash out of stun right before she grabs you.
      • Gold Burst is actually a risk. She's able to block it and you'll waste your Burst, or a stronger May might expect it and toss you. Honestly, if you're getting IK'd off of a bad guess near round start and have over half your health left, getting off with a thrown burst is getting off easy, considering May gave up her tension bar. Don't be afraid, but be aware that this is likely to just put you back at neutral. If you're about to die it's no longer that strong of an option relative to your other choices.
      • Jumping out is probably the "most reliable thing", though she can throw that, or try to air unblockable you with HSVD.
      • I wouldn't recommend trying to buffer a backdash while mashing out of stun. Reliably getting a jump or gold burst is hard enough.


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