GGACR/I-No/Matchup/ABA

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The General Gameplan

If at all possible, do not let ABA enter Moroha mode!

Easier said than done, but you can win entire rounds without ABA transforming if you play it safe. Her mobility is poor and her attacks have more weaknesses built into them before she transforms, so if you dictate the pace of the match and play around your opponent's tools and behavior, you can dominate in such a way that ABA doesn't get to really play the game. It's funny though, because you'll do shorter combos than normal in favor of knockdowns and solid oki, which is technically giving her "more chances." You find out more about this in the move interaction section, but key moves to play around pre-transform are:


  • Keygrab: She can combo into this, and up close it's also a grab, but on top of all of that it has a great hitbox. Actually, starting the round by pushing any button will lose to her Keygrab.
  • 6H: It has high base damage and dizzy modifier x2.5. Getting hit by this means you can potentially give her the round from a dizzy into IK, but odds are you're going to give her a nice chunk of damage with a Moroha transform.
  • 5P: Though she has other anti-air tools, you need to be aware that this character has a 3f normal that's upper body invul. If you're not careful she's going to unexpectedly AA you into a Moroha transform.
  • Avoidance/Dodge: The regular version of this move has significant low profile to help her get in range of keygrab. The force break version has full invul and can be used aggressively or as an escape tool.


It's too hard and she transformed. Now what?
Now your gameplan is to knock her down 3 times and blow up her recovery animation, which can even been Instant Killed depending on how you got the knockdown. If she's almost dead by this point though, just hit the recovery animation with a super and call it a day.

The interesting thing about ABA is that you really don't want to be blocking her for too long, but you shouldn't be afraid to block against her either. She pays for her strength with her own health and has to safely transform back, or lose all of that advantage. If she doesn't take risks and leave gaps against a blocking opponent (such as with Blunder, which is slow, or run-up throw which requires a gap in blockstun), she'll run out her clock and have to transform back, which you can try to stop if you don't blow up her gaps before then.

Learn when to IB to create situations where you can jump out or countermash, and learn where to FD to make her whiff. This is huge in this matchup.


What Your Opponent Can Do

ABA is a very volatile character who starts in a slow / low mobility state, but can transform by using a limited item, landing a command throw or combing into the attack part of her command throw. Once transformed she has access to a massive anti-air 2-hit attack with super armor that seals your burst on hit, a flip-kick overhead which staggers on block if you can react to it setting up unblockables with RC, or when used with her multi-hit force break projectile on oki, and the ability to super cancel her special moves into another install that further buffs her transformed mode. She also gets significantly improved S and H normals, significantly faster move speed, and the ability to combo off of her regular throw.


Your Opponent's Gameplan

  1. Land keygrab to get Moroha mode.
  2. Try to kill without getting knocked down 3 times.
    • Save burst to use OTG on a 3rd knockdown so as to avoid the recovery animation, or early burst and try to steal momentum with it.
  3. If you're going to run out of Moroha meter, either enter Goku Moroha and go back to step 2, or use a bloodpack and go back to step 1.


Just remember that it's on ABA to figure out how to get transformed. She can take the risk of trying to hit you with raw keygrab since it's got a great hitbox, and you can block it or make it whiff and then punish her with a knockdown. She can try to just bloodpack at round start, but even if you're playing it safe (around the keygrab at round start) you can most likely knock her down as a punish, and now she only gets two chances while you're running I-No's strong mixup game. She can choose to do something else at round start that's less risky, but that's actually a pretty good situation for I-No since now she's not trying to transform and it allows I-No time to set up.

Breakdown By ???

Spacing & Advantage (By Screen Position)

Up Close

Against non-Moroha ABA, this feels like a good position for us. Now we can beat Keygrab (and most of her normals) via the speed of our normals. ABA's normals are typically slow or hit specific areas that we can poke around, and so if you don't swing for the fences with your button choice you should be able to deal with command dash or her other tools. The main thing to keep aware of is getting pushed out to about round start distance, and keeping initiative or frame advantage if that happens, so that you can safely get back into this range or get just outside of her effective range.

Her 5P is a crazy anti-air tool (same between regular and Moroha mode) that has upper body invul like a 6P, but is also a 3-frame normal! Learn how to stand your ground unless you get her to block a 2-hit (or more) note and don't dash-in like an idiot, because you'll get anti-aired unexpectedly into a combo ending in keygrab and let her start her game.

Moroha at this range

Being this close to ABA after she gets Moroha mode at least means you can counterpoke with fast normals, but since Danzai is on deck as something ABA can do now, you're really taking a risk if you're not mashing 5P/2P specifically to bait that option (and those can still lose to FB Danzai). Unfortunately, you're too close to make the 1st hit of Danzai whiff if she just throws it out, so you have to rely on other punish options.

You need to be careful of throw, but ABA is not all that likely to use throw normally considering how strong all of her other options are. It's just that her run is exceptionally fast, so she can tick-throw quite easily, and she has the vacuum on her 5H's second hit to pull you in closer to set up the tick throw, so it actually is a very powerful tool for her at this range after she's cranked your guard bar some with scary normals while encouraging you not to mash. (Granted, she's more likely to succeed with throw when she dashes in from outside of round-start distance where you're totally not expecting it).

Due to the risk involved, when you jump you should probably be FDing on the way up (in case of Danzai), and also you need to be aware that ABA may try to just airthrow you if you're really good on defense about jumping out of her setups at this range.


Round Start Range

At this range, using just about any move will get you hit by keygrab if ABA decides to use keygrab. You can [jump (keygrab whiffs) > dive] to punish this, but you can also hold back/downback and punish it on block with HCL for knockdown to start your game up. Hold back to try to create slightly more space to work with, but be wary of her 2D which will hit you if you don't switch to downback quickly enough.

If you play it safe like this, be aware that ABA may bloodpack as soon as possible to try to start her gameplan, so you would need to be ready to HCL to knock her down. The key is to knock her down and start oppressing her without overextending. Remember that:

  • Doing something stupid at round start can get you counterhit by her 6H, for either a big combo into insta dizzy and Moroha, setting you way behind, or an Instant Kill, costing you the round already. Because this is the worst case scenario, be aware that you need to avoid this.
    • You can Gold Burst at round start to blow up a 6H, but just about anything else will whiff, and you really benefit from defensive burst in this matchup, so this is definitely going all-in.
  • Pushing a button unnecessarily can give her Moroha mode and knockdown, which is exactly your highest priority in trying to avoid.
    • Again, you can jump > dive to punish a keygrab, but this is more of a read, and you can get slammed by 6H for it.


Being slightly outside of round-start range is ideal, since she can't push a button to hit you and has to commit to either using a bloodpack (which you can snipe with HCL), or getting closer. Alternatively, getting to close range is better than this distance since you can actually reach ABA with your fast moves to stuff keygrab before it starts.


If you're far enough away, you can 2S to catch her walking forward, stuff startup of moves, or whiff punish stuff for minor damage that 2D isn't fast enough to punish (or lacks the range to punish). Feel out when you can safely use 2S, since she can command dash through (under) it to punish with keygrab and start her game. But if you're cautious about your 2S use, which allows you to play more reactionary, you can punish attempts to command dash in, or to use bloodpack from just outside 2S range (by instead hitting her with HCL, which wont stop the transform, but will at least let you start things off with a knockdown).

Moroha at this range

Ok, so she's at this range after transforming. She has a lot of moves that can reach you from this far away, but if you shimmy well you can get just outside of them and whiff punish, just like the strategy to punish bloodpacks. She also has Danzai on deck. If you can get the 1st hit to whiff, you can counterhit her before the second hit comes down, which is after her superarmor ends, and typically convert with a good combo into knockdown. If you're forced to block Danzai, you can try to SB the second hit to get a proper big-ass punish. Failing that, you can IB and HCL for knockdown... as long as it's regular Moroha. It has better recovery in Goku Moroha and that wont work.

Odds are she wont throw out raw Blunder (the Flip-Kick overhead that staggers on block), but she can because it has lower body and throw invul. If you're expecting this move, stuff it with 5K in most instances (due to the range where it would be used), or possibly 5P.


Long Range

Pre-transform this range is a good position to be in. You're close enough to punish ABA hard for making a mistake, but you're far enough away to take advantage of her poor mobility without taking on unnecessary risk. This is probably the ideal range so that you can threaten her with HCL to try to deter bloodpack transformations. If she tries to use her command dash you'll have enough time to react and punish with something, but her FB command dash is faster and completely invul, so you need to beat it with solid positioning and prediction of when she's going for it.

Moroha at this range

When in Moroha or Goku Moroha mode ABA can close the distance rather quickly, so even at this range she's quite threatening. Be careful when you shoot notes since she can easily run up and bop you with her massive normals, and be aware that it's actually a large risk to "yolo FB Dive" against this character due to the significantly increased risk when she stays on the ground. Do it on reaction to a jump, not when predicting a jump. Against other characters you can get away with FB Dive on prediction against jumps/IADs since you can land on them with an ambiguous crossup if you guessed wrong or reposition, but Danzai is so massive that you're probably going to get hit by it, and even if she didn't Danzai her 2S is incredibly difficult to challenge from the air. Odds are you're going to get hit for trying, or get hit when you reposition after the failed guess.


Full Screen

You're probably too far away if ABA isn't in Moroha mode, as you can't reliably punish a bloodpack attempt. You can shoot notes for free at least, but you're going to let her transform, so you better be good enough at controlling the note that you're going to make her block it.

When she's in Moroha Mode

You probably want to be really far away if you're going to shoot a note without using FRC to make it safer or run some kind of Note FRC IAD crossup / tandem attack. ABA now has to navigate through your long potential attack range to get to you, and it's up to her to get in since she's losing Moroha meter passively.

Be aware that FB Danzai is going to beat anything you do other than block or super, and that she has incredible normals to jump at you with. If you HCL and she's not in the path of the beam, you probably screwed up and will get whiff punished with a key to the face. Use this range to shoot a note and then survey how ABA moves. Don't commit to anything crazy from too far away or she'll just whiff punish you for it. Feel free to reposition since that's less committal than swinging for the fences. Though she can somewhat reliably close the distance to hit you when you're at long range (but not quite this far away) she's going to have to commit to try to reach you, which is something you can take advantage of. Find that sweet spot where you can bait this and punish it.

Button Interactions

Non-Moroha

  • 5P:
  • 2P:
  • 6P:
  • 5K:
  • 2K:
  • 6K:
  • c.S:
  • f.S:
  • 2S:
  • 5H:
  • 2H:
  • 6H:
  • 5D:
  • 2D:
  • j.P:
  • j.K:
  • j.S:
  • j.H:
  • j.D:

Moroha Versions

  • 5P:
  • 2P:
  • 6P:
  • 5K:
  • 2K:
  • 6K:
  • c.S:
  • f.S:
  • 2S:
  • 5H:
  • 2H:
  • 6H:
  • 5D:
  • 2D:
  • j.P:
  • j.K:
  • j.S:
  • j.H:
  • j.D:


Special Moves

Deletion > Ruin > Condemnation (Rekka series)

  • Available in all modes with different frame data.
  • Deletion (236S): Starts the rekka series.
    • Goku Moroha version has FRC at 10~13F.
  • Minimum gap between Deletion and Ruin of 14F in normal mode, 13F in Moroha, and 11F in Goku Moroha.
  • Ruin (46S): Forces Crouching.
    • Minimum gap between Ruin and Condemation of 11F in normal and moroha mode, and 9F in Goku Moroha.
    • If you IB Ruin and jump, Condemnation will whiff and you can punish.
    • In Goku Moroha mode, this attack has an FRC at 5~8F.
  • Condemnation (63214S): All versions of Condemnation have an FRC (14~15F normal and Moroha, 14~17F Goku Moroha) and seal your burst on hit until the next hit.

Bonding (Keygrab) 63214H

  • Performs a throw (distance) check, then does an attack that will perform the throw animation on hit. Frame data is universal in all modes.
    • The throw part has startup 9F, active for 1F
    • The attack part starts on 13F, active for 12F.
  • Has an air version that cannot perform a throw distance check and is in recovery until landing.

Dragging (Dodge/Slide) 236P

Retribution (Normal Mode version of Flip Kick) 236K

Avoidance (Normal Mode version of Bloodball) 236H

Injecting (Bloodpack) 63214P

Engorgement (Moroha/Goku Hop move) 421H

Danzai 623H

Video demonstrating various Danzai punishes.


Blunder (Moroha/Goku version of Flip Kick) 41236K

Eradication (Moroha/Goku "Orbs" move) j.41236S

Displacement (Exits Moroha/Goku) 63214P

Pressure

If ABA isn't in Moroha Mode:

  • Just like in neutral, your biggest concerns are Keygrab's hitbox, command dash and doing something stupid that gets you hit by 6H.
    • Keygrab has a great disjoined hitbox that you can't really challenge with buttons. But it's incredibly minus on block (when it's too far away to be a grab) at -32 and you can punish for knockdown guaranteed. You're mostly worried about getting grabbed normally (as a reversal), which combos OTG to her Keygrab, or the Keygrab itself as a grab (which starts on frame 9) which has more range than her regular grab.
    • Command dash will go under pretty much everything you try to hit her with, and the force break version is even more troublesome due to the full invul for the duration of the attack.
    • 6H can end the round in one touch into a dizzy into an instant kill.

You want to play around these moves and continue to keep ABA from transforming. Don't be afraid to go back to neutral if you're outside of the range of her keygrab's actual grab range, since you can play defensively to beat a ton of her other options. If all you get is 2-3 hits into knockdown over and over, at least you're bleeding ABA into a position where if she does transform and start her game, she'll bleed so much health from Moroha mode that you'll only have to sneeze on her to finish the round.

  • Don't commit to big slow moves or you'll get bopped by FB command dash into keygrab, or into regular grab into keygrab.
  • Don't do anything overly fancy. ABA is skinny and falls out of a lot of setups that work on other characters. The last thing you need is to let her get started by dropping something that "should have" worked.
    • Don't take the risk on fuzzy mixups using j.S > dj.K, because if she FDs the j.S you're going to die.

If ABA is in Moroha Mode:

  • Play around Danzai and Force Break Danzai.
    • Regular Danzai: You can still sort of safe-jump this without problems if you're careful. Block the first hit, Slashback the second, punish with HCL for knockdown and use a note to cover yourself as you go in. Watch for another Danai on wakeup!
      • You may be able to do 2 fast moves to beat it clean depending on timing, but this is unreliable. However, mutli-hit moves such as note can save you, forcing ABA to use meter on the FB version if she wants to get cheeky.
      • You can get the first hit to whiff and counterhit her before the second hit. Risky, but doable.
      • If you can safely bait a Danzai and block it, slashback the
    • Force Break Danzai: This is going to armor through anything other than supers, so if she has meter, play around the threat of this version. If you have meter, watch for the FB flash during safe-jump setups or other situations where you can safely block, and potentially stuff it with the super on reaction.
      • I mean it - don't just autopilot your safe jump into a blockstring! Even if you shoot a note to force her to block, she can wake up with this, and if you dashed forward expecting the note to save you, you're dead. Visually confirm the note is blocked, and only do something that would be safe against the threat of mashing FB Danzai after the note, because even a 1-f gap will kill you. You can't throw Danzai, you can't burst it, you can't try to cheese it with a j.236D because it'll anti-air you.
      • The armor is only there until the 1st hit is complete, so you can try to punish between hits or go for the

If ABA is in Goku Moroha Mode:

  • This is almost the same as dealing with her options in Moroha Mode, but you need to account for her moves all animating much faster. Things that are safe to do against Moroha mode are no longer safe.
  • Danzai starts up and animates much faster, so now it's far less reliable to try to safe-jump it or beat the startup with something unless it's a hard callout via clairvoyant super. You could probably still try to slashback it, but with different timing it's going to be much harder, and you have far less time to react to it... not very reliable to attempt that either. Your objective should be to get it to whiff both hits... play it super safe on oki and don't commit to running a mixup. Just bait her shit and then safely try to keep her from moving.

Escaping Pressure

  • ABA has a very strong jump-in game, both at mid screen (where crossups are possible) and in the corner (where it's difficult to escape).
    • Eradication: This is ABA's "orbs" move. She's likely to do jump-ins with her beefy and difficult to contest buttons, but she may also go into this move. The orbs are a projectile that go active as long as she reaches frame 10 of the animation, so you could potentially anti-air her out of this move just to get hit anyway. If it's used in corner pressure expect it to hit deep enough that the "back part" of the move connects, which has more untech time on hit and deals more damage. Even if you beat ABA with 6P, you're going to get hit by this anyway and get knocked down late, so at best the situation will still be even (but you'll have taken more damage on the trade). If you're going to challenge this move, do it with 5P to try to beat it with speed.


Escaping Oki

Special/Notable Confirms

Note: ABA is skinny and heavy.

  • Use HCL 6FRC6 > j.S > j.H > c.S/5K, instead of HCL 6FRC6 > j.S > FFVCL > c.S/5K.
  • Do not attempt diveloops unless you're way above ABA when j.H makes contact, as Pdive is likely to whiff. Also don't go for more than one rep if you can get Pdive to connect.
  • Do not use j.S > dj.S > VCL to try to setup meterless airdash j.K > j.S > FFVCL. The VCL almost always whiffs.
  • Take easy knockdowns wherever needed. If you get a f.S confirm and aren't confident in the IAD j.K link, just link j.H into Hnote to get oki.
  • If you learn to SB the second hit of Danzai, be aware that on the first frame of leaving blockstun you're jump installed. You could block the first hit, SB the second, 2S > HCL 6FRC6 if your timing is really really good and you're not in range to 5K > HCL 6FRC6 after the SB.

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