BBCF/Platinum the Trinity/Strategy

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 Platinum the Trinity



General Tactics

For more information on Platinum's gameplan, check the guide here.

Important Buttons

  • 5A: Fastest normal and hits crouchers. Doesn’t hit very high, but can anti-air in some situations such as Es j.C. Its gatlings and ability to jump cancel makes it very useful in pressure.
  • 2A: Slower than most 2As and doesn’t have much range, but hits low and is very useful with its good gatling options and can go back into 5A. Not recommended as a mash option due to its speed and range.
  • 5B: Long range ground poke. Has decent range, but is a bit slower (11f) than other characters who have similar buttons. One of your main tools for playing ground neutral but be careful of the move’s slight extended hurtbox on the end. Not jump cancellable on hit or block and your follow ups are a bit limited from long/max range, but still a staple for neutral.
  • 6A: Her faster anti air, hits in front of her and a bit above her. Pretty fast, jump cancellable on hit and block, and has good gatling options allowing you to go into 5C and 6C and other things. Try to use this more than using 2C as 2C can be very unreliable and is much slower.
  • 5C: One of her most important buttons. It’s jump cancellable on block and hit, has 9 frame startup, and is a very good punish starter when you don’t have access to super fan. This move should be used as close to the opponent as possible in blockstrings so that the player can make use out of the many options she has available out of it. Not recommended for use in neutral as its range is quite short, but it’s still a very strong tool for frame traps and offense in general.
  • 6C: This move is rather unique and a bit hard to utilize well. It’s foot invul property and puts platinum in the air allowing her to cancel the move into j.C, j.B and j.2C even on whiff. This allows you to look for moves that low profile certain pokes like 5B. It's an annoying move for people to deal with since she can special cancel on block and hit, while also cancelling into specific normals on whiff. It is super bad on whiff and there are ways around doing stuff like 6C > j.C in neutral, but if used right and mixed in with other tools it's annoying to deal with. It also fatal counters and will give you full corner carry on even normal hit. At midscreen it's still very good combo filler as she can loop 6A > 6C > pogo > etc.
  • 3C: Her longest non item poke. Hits low. This move is DEADLY on CH and gives her enough untech time to run up and hit confirm anywhere on the screen into full corner carry and 3.4k-4k damage depending on screen position and item equips. When blocked there’s not much she can threaten from it besides special cancelling into drive, bubble, heartcar RC, but it will usually leave her at a range where most characters cannot contest her hard without using meter or specific call outs. High damaging combo filler, good for oki, and just all around good in general.
  • 6B: Clunky standing overhead, but strong if used well. The frame advantage varies depending on when it hits the opponent relative to its startup. At point blank range the overhead hits the fastest, but is unsafe on block and doesn't allow followups if not RCd. When used at a distance, you can followup with 5C on hit and on block you're plus. Barrier and Instant Barrier are tricky to handle because of the pushback so it will take time to learn how to use this move properly. Things like bubble and other projectile items (like presents and bombs) can allow you to get the best of both worlds; You can use the overhead from the closest range while the bubble/other projectile keeps you advantaged on block or helps confirm on hit.
  • j.B: Probably her most useful air normal, being a very good close range air to air and allowing you to follow up on CH if the opponent is decently close to the ground or about the middle of the screen. Gatlings into all other normals including j.A, and can also be used as an overhead option from TK’ing 236C (swallow moon). All around just a very good normal for playing air footsies in combination with j.C
  • j.C: Very strong air neutral poke that hits in front of her and a bit below. A staple mid / close range button for neutral in combination with j.236C. Due to her having a lot of ways to stall her air movement this move can be used to punish people attempting to anti air you weaving around certain buttons in air to air situations. It’s not recommended to use this button as an overhead from TK swallow moon as j.B comes out much faster and you will need to be a lot higher to make the move come out in that situation.
  • 236A: Pogo has projectile invul and moves Platinum forward so it can be used to avoid certain projectiles in neutral, but it shouldn’t be overused as the invul ends once you do a follow up button. Can also be used in the air to alter her movement a bit and make it annoying to anti air her or play neutral with. The air version lacks the invul, however.
  • 236B: Hits low and moves Platinum forward, but not enough to be used in neutral too much to get in. Punishable on block and bad on whiff so be careful when using it. Can be RC’d in pressure to catch people jumping out due to the move hitting low, and also people expecting her turn to be over when it’s blocked. Used a lot in corner combos for combo filler.
  • 236C: Hits high, has some body invul, and can also crossup on block at certain ranges and on certain characters. The crossup on this move is a bit awkward to use because it's character dependent, and also depends on how the opponent blocks it. Sometimes on very short characters you won’t be able to hit them crossup or overhead at all, but if they stand to try and block it high they can get crossed up by the end of the move.
  • j.236C: Amazing special for making your neutral approach annoying to deal with. This move allows Platinum to stall herself in the air allowing you to make your approach a lot more unpredictable. You can use it to bait anti airs, chill in the air to avoid certain projectiles or buttons, or as a mixup when done close range off of a jump cancel button.


Platinum's Drive encourages her to play differently depending on the tools she's given. This gives Platinum a variety of options to go for at different states of the game. For example, if she's in the lead with Magical Do-Re-Mi Box (Presents), she can set them and force her opponents to approach. With her Cat Hammer, she can play at a midrange and call out commitments in neutral. Each of Platinums items are useful, and it's up to the player to make use of them however they see fit. That being said, it's important to know how to play when you don't have ideal items, or when you don't have the chance to summon an item. In neutral, Platinum's 5B and 3C are helpful pokes that lead to solid damage. Platinum can antiair with both 6A and 2C. Once she's in, her 2A and 6B are good for forcing people to hold high/low mixups. On defense, Plat's Magical Bat is a solid reversal. With meter, she can also use her reversal super or rapid cancel her bat to stay safe. On offense, Pan and Hammer are additional tools for opening up an opponent through instant overheads or guard crushes.

Blockstrings

Platinum’s blockstrings aren’t as amazing as some other character’s especially at midscreen, as she doesn’t have very good frame advantage on a lot of her stuff. However, having access to a jump cancellable on block normal with a lot of gatlings and options makes her pressure similar to Jin where you will condition them with your follow ups from 5C and 5A. She also has to respect OD a bit and is a bit weak to fuzzy jump, so players will have to be careful of using moves like 2B/5C/6C/6B too much when the opponent has OD. However if you can condition your opponent to not disrespect too much, she can get away with a lot of good pressure resets and overheads from her air buttons.


Far Range Blockstring Structure

5B > 3C > do nothing/214B/214C/236B/5D

This is your string for when you press 5B and you’re too far away to connect 5C or do anything threatening. You can cancel the 3C on block into bubble to have your bubble out and reset into neutral if the opponent continues to block. Doing nothing is also an option because the frame advantage on 3C is not terrible and you generally won’t be punished. 236B can be used to keep pressure and tag the opponent low or catch them jumping, but should be used sparingly and most of the time with meter so that you can keep pressure. 5D can also be used to equip an item but be careful about some characters who can contest that range as equipping an item does have recovery. You can also frame trap with cat hammer or keep pressure with some projectile items like halo/missiles and bombs.

Close Range Midscreen Pressure

Your pressure midscreen is going to be a lot weaker due to the pushback on her buttons and range of most of them. Outside of character specific defensive options like reversals, the biggest universal threat to her pressure is overdrive and fuzzy jump or IBB. Overdrive is very strong (but not unbeatable) against her and will force you to be careful of committing to heavy recovery buttons like 2B, 6C, and 6B. IBB and fuzzy jump are also good against her because IBB will push things like 6C/3C and 5B out far so that she either can’t threaten any mixup or to out range her from jump cancelling like from 5C.

To get around overdrive, you’ll have to threaten offense to get your opponent to want to overdrive. Close range pressure like 5A and 2A can threaten your opponent with a throw, throw bait, overhead from swallow moon j.B or 6B, and jump cancel options from 5A and 5C. Jump cancelling into air normals is generally safe vs OD and also using swallow moon as you can block out of it. Some offensive items like pan and hammer will also make your opponent more afraid on defense as they are very strong, getting them to want to burn OD more.

Fuzzy jump in general is pretty difficult to work around, but you can catch it by either pressing low buttons at the right timing (2A, 2B, 3C, 236B) or delaying your buttons in your blockstring to catch jump startup. You can also IAD j.B>j.2C or normal jump cancel j.B/j.C to chase the opponent and bring them back to the ground. Keep in mind that j.2C can be punished due to the low blockstun on the move depending on where they block it.

There’s not really many auto pilot strings for this character, as the player is going to have to keep up with how the opponent is defending, so good use of her jump cancels and spacing on buttons in combination with the threat of offensive items will be the best way to open people up. If they’re respecting you a lot, go for more overheads like 6B/pan/j.236C j.B, or pressure resets off of 5A/5C into air buttons and the 50-50 from swallow moon or 2A. If the opponent is pressing a lot of buttons on offense, try to frame trap them with 5C/6C/3C or jumping away with swallow moon or j.C to bait certain things. If they’re using overdrive or have access to meter for good reversals, try to keep your pressure short and safe and don’t go for much slow buttons or stuff like 6B/6C.

Corner pressure

Your pressure is not all that different from midscreen, but it does give you more access to better pressure resets and not having to worry as much about stuff like backdash and jumping back (outside of very specific backdashes like Azrael, Murakumos, and Izayoi). Your goal here is going to be to threaten a mixup off of your corner oki which is very good. This will in turn make a lot of the normal pressure resets and attempts to frame trap a lot more threatening due to the situation being a lot worse for the opponent.

Okizeme

Midscreen

Midscreen this character is not too amazing. It’s difficult to cover all defensive options in BB midscreen for most characters, and stuff like bubble and certain projectiles are going to be easy to avoid on oki midscreen. Thankfully, this character gets very good corner carry on good hits and it should be a priority to get the opponent to the corner for the best oki possible.

The following example is a pretty common combo ender for far range hits you can’t confirm:

236B > 22C ender > 6C/bubble/item equip/2A/2B

There’s not much you can really do for oki here due to the short hitstun on 22C, but you can call out a forward roll or back roll with run up 2A, 2B > 5C, or set out a bubble and return to neutral or just equip an item or something. 6C can be used for oki as well here but is weak to forward rolling, though it’s a pretty decent option if the opponent is close to the corner when you 22C.


Corner

This character’s oki and pressure opens up a lot more when the opponent is in the corner. There’s a lot of varied oki you can do depending on your combo enders and what routes you do, and what items you have access to.


3C is a pretty strong ender for most of platinum’s combos in the corner because it puts her at a spacing which allows her to follow up with a lot of things, while also having pretty good hitstun on it’s own. Here's some examples:

3C > 236A ~ BCA

The spacing you’re at here allows you to catch people rolling with either 2A or 6C, or space a swallow moon j.B to catch rolls and safe jump certain reversals. Generally this is a pretty good option to use as there are a lot of items you can use as well from pogo ender and also 6C will allow you to either catch the opponents roll and follow up with a good combo, or if respected, allows you to continue pressure in the air with falling normals and then threaten a mixup situation with swallow moon or 2A/2B, throw, or 6B, or whatever item you have equipped.

3C > 214C (bubble)

In this situation, the bubble is going to be used for your offense rather than the meaty. You will still have to pressure the opponent with something to keep them from wanting to roll or jump out. If the opponent is respecting your oki, this means you can use the bubble which will eventually fall towards your opponent. You can threaten a lot of situations from here and use the bubble to discourage the opponent from jumping out and have it cover your mixup or pressure reset. If the opponent delays their tech, most characters will get blue beat combo’d by the bubble in this situation so you will lose the bubble. However you can still keep a good knockdown by reacting to the situation and pressing 3C again or 3C > 236A ~BCA and doing the previous oki.

The way you get around if your opponent is delay teching too much in this situation is to delay the 214C a bit slightly so that the opponent does not get hit by it. Keep in mind they can quick rise to get out of this situation, but it’s a rather rare thing to happen as she will have other ways to keep the opponent from wanting to use this.

2C > “high” 236C

“High” 236C in this context means using having the opponent be high in the combo when you use 236C so that platinum recovers faster so that you can do stronger oki. Generally this will happen from routes where platinum ends with 2C > 214C > 2C > dl 236C. From this you can use swallow moon j.B for oki to safejump/catch rolls, or you can 214B to catch forward roll. In this situation the bubble will be blocked by the opponent as a meaty. One gimmick you can use for this situation is to throw them once the bubble is blocked as most people will not recognize the situation too fast due to bubbles low blockstun. The throw will appear as it should purple throw, like most throws in projectile oki situations like this. Use this rarely to keep opponents not expecting it.


Items

Item oki will make this character very scary and force the opponent to guess more or stay on their toes more, in combination with her already pretty decent normal oki. Generally the best time to use a lot of the projectile item oki will be after stuff like 3C or 3C > pogo enders because you will be put a decent distance away from the opponent so that you cover roll after firing the projectile item or at a good range to force a mixup.

Bomb There’s a lot to list but an example would be using 3C and then 4D bomb delayed slightly so that the bomb will meaty the opponent and then you can run up with a 2B or 6B. This mixup will be obscured by the bomb explosion and also be hard to react to the overhead since it’s done so closely. You can also toss the boxes after 3C with a slight delay on 214D to make sure the opponent doesn’t delay tech them.

Air bat can also be used for the wall stick as the opponent will fall to the ground and you can swallow moon to float down and meaty them with j.B. Or use the ground bat with the same wallstick to bubble oki or do something else listed in the above sections.

Halo can be used after 236C ender or after 3C if its delayed so that the halo will whiff and then on it’s way back you can use it for your next blockstring/mixup. When done in the corner the halo can pull the opponent out of the corner a bit so that you can utilize some crossup threat.

Missiles can be used for oki, but I feel like missiles are much weaker as oki and better used on offense or for combos when in this situation. Because of how slow the startup is on 214D the opponent could react to the situation well and just delay tech the missiles and cause an air scramble or get out of the situation. I would recommend doing something like 3C or bubble or pogo oki and then keeping pressure and throwing out 214D when the opponent blocks one of your buttons. You’ll be close enough then where they can’t jump out as easily and you can threaten a high/low mixu or a pressure reset.

Cat hammer is pretty strong oki as a combo ender because it functions similar to 3C with it’s long knockdown except the 214C bubble from this situation is harder to disrespect. Not much more you can do from this but cat hammer as an ender will essentially function as a better 3C for this situation. You can also do 3C > 214C and if the opponent delay techs your bubble, you can 3C > 5D > 214C again because the bubble cooldown will be gone and you can get free damage while getting the same oki.

Pan and hammer shouldn’t really be used for oki other than saving it for your mixup for the oki. They’re both very strong options for pressure and immediate mixup.

Tips and Tricks

  • Get used to using swallow moon in neutral because it’s one of her strongest tools for neutral. Practice in training mode or other matches just jumping around with her buttons and swallow moon so you can get a feel for it. She has the ability to stall her air momentum and movement with moves like item equip, swallow moon, and certain items so it will be tricky for your opponent to approach / play around you if you can get used to using swallow moon this way. Be careful though as swallow moon puts you in counter hit state which means your opponent can air throw you for free if they call it out.
  • Try not to be predictable with your intent with items. Items are a crucial part of Platinum's gameplan, but you have to make sure you are not too easy to read. The nature of her drive makes it very easy for experienced players and people familiar with the matchup to follow it. The opponent gets to see your item and whatever the next one you have is, so it removes a lot of the guessing nature that similar characters like Teddie and Faust have with their item gameplan. Get used to using the characters normal tools so that you can not rely too hard on items to win matchups that feel hard or open people up, and you can surprise them or exploit the opponent trying to follow your items.
  • Prioritize corner carry and oki over damage and item equip. If you can get damage, corner, and oki from the hit then that’s great, but if you feel like you have to sacrifice one or the other or you’re not sure of a situation, try to go with the situation that will give you corner carry as Platinum doesn’t do to well midscreen. If the combo you’re doing gives you 500 extra damage but leaves the opponent midscreen, it might be better to do a route that gives you corner carry instead.
  • Try to identify if the matchup gets significantly better or not if you have good items, and if you are able to rotate items with 214D. Characters like Es, Nine, Hazama and Litchi for example can be difficult for Platinum to play in neutral and you will feel like you will need certain tools to get in (cat hammer, missiles, etc), but these characters can also punish Platinum for trying to cycle items or rely on them too heavy as they have access to really strong neutral and screen threat. Basically, at times you may have to work with what item you have instead of trying to get the item that *feels* good. It will generally be safer to play neutral with her normals and swallow moon and movement rather than sitting on the ground trying to cycle items too much.
  • In many cases, you're better off not using the command grab. It’s slow, very reactable, has low reward, and you will die if punished. Please just pretend this move doesn’t exist or at least use it once per set maximum
  • Miracle Jeanne (236236D) can function like an RC and keep you advantaged while also giving you a powered item for your offense. It can be used to continue pressure after a blocked 3C or be plus if you’re close enough like after a 5B or 5C. You can also use it as a “pause button” because the recovery on this move is extremely low and can allow you to react to a situation easier and pick the appropriate response. If you know you will want to use your next powered item, try to use the super in a situation like above where you can utilize this super to it’s fullest potential.
  • Her counter is a useful tool for defense, but you should use it conservatively as the reward on it is extremely low, and it being a counter means it can lose to throws. The opponent can also bait it by safe jumping it and blocking the projectile or in some situations bait it automatically with a jump cancel. Being a flash kick input means you can down back and react to certain slower overheads a lot easier, but watch out for characters with heavy punishes or good throw mixup or command throws.
  • 236C has body invul and can be used to abuse certain characters' offense if they aren’t ready for it, but it should also be used sparingly as it’s very bad on block and whiff. It’s extremely rewarding on CH though so it’s a decent option sometimes.

Fighting Platinum

  • Overdrive is very strong vs a lot of basic platinum offense/pressure. If you feel like the player is going too wild or crazy you can overdrive a lot of mixup items, and a lot of her other buttons like 5C,2B,6C,3C, bubble when done close, heartcar, etc.
  • Get familiar with her items, how they work, and pay attention to the screen. She’s not like other Arcsys item characters where their item mechanic is random like Faust, or extremely difficult to follow like Teddie. Her meter at the bottom will always display what item she has Equipped and what item is next after that. She has to first equip the item which has it’s own startup and recovery, and then use the item itself which has startup and recovery depending on the item itself. Unless you’re unfamiliar with the matchup, there’s very few “surprises” in her gameplan and items. They are still strong when used correctly and in the right situation, but if you’re running into cat hammer and getting counter hit constantly without paying attention to the screen, that’s on you.
  • Lab how to deal with her counter. It has an unusually long amount of catch frames, but there is decent amount of recovery at the end of it where you can always get your best starter (Naoto for example can get fully charged 6D and end her life). You can also trigger the counter with some moves and block it if you can jump cancel the move or if you’re just decently far away. The follow up attack also counts as a projectile so anything projectile invul will beat it. You can also throw it if you’re feeling lazy, or throw her on offense if she is using it too much.
  • Halo only hits once, so if you block it when it’s going on the way out it, even though the halo is visually coming back to Platinum, it won’t hit you. But if the first part of it whiffs and it’s coming back to her and it hasn’t come into contact with you before hand, it can still hit you, even if you’re making her block. The halo does not hit you if platinum is getting hit, for either versions (It can still trade though in some situations like most trades).
  • Cat hammer is very big and super cat hammer is even bigger, but don’t panic. She has 5 charges which can seem like a lot, but if you block it when it’s done from the air she will never be in a situation where she force anything threatening without spending meter or committing hard. Generally if the player relies on cat hammer too much or you’re struggling to get in when she has it, just chill and block it out. Let them get impatient and just relax if your character doesn’t have any tools to straight up contest it.
  • The hurtbox for bubble is significantly larger than the hitbox for it, so you can generally destroy it with almost anything. A good way of dealing with it in neutral is by just hitting it with a jab or air jab if platinum isn’t near you to punish you for hitting it. Although, jabs are generally pretty safe in these situations.
  • Boxes can be broken, but super boxes will take a bit more. They have a set amount of health and will only break when you do enough damage. Most characters C and D normals can do enough damage to break them in 1 hit, or you can special cancel/jump cancel off of them. If you’re having trouble with them in neutral, go into training mode with her and practice dealing with them and figure out what your safest way of dismantling them is. You can also block them by jumping into them with barrier, but be careful if Platinum is protecting them.

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