Anti-Phoenix Strategy/Teams

Your video scares me, an actual reliance on skill and technique vs “runaway”.

To be honest I hate keepaway play when I DP. That’s why I still love “Phoenix” but am growing to detest whenever I go DP. People don’t want to play any more, they just want to run away. Doesn’t matter if they lose anyways, they just don’t want to deal with it. DP is so easy to deal with I don’t know why they do.

Strategies that work on me
-SNAPBACK WITH RUSHDOWN CHARACTER
This terrifies me as a phoenix player. Not just thrown in for a “GET JEAN OUT HERE”, but used in a very well thought out “I’ve conserved every OUNCE of my super bar just for your regular phoenix”

I love as a Phoenix player how people assume they are sentinel/hulk/random large dmg/hp character and my phoenix is done for only for me to completely annihilate that one character. But a great rushdown player with snapbacks? He’s counting on my to try to zone, or teleport. I can rushdown but I run the risk of dying early (mind you I’m talking my stock with Phoenix is one or two bars, nowhere near DP level)

I have no problem playing Phoenix confidently if I have 3 bars, but 1 or 2 and a strong offense…you have my back to the wall, namely with the cheapest way of dealing with phoenix in the game

SPAM PROJECTILE SUPERS/TAG TEAM SUPERS… Taskmaster arrows, dante, drones, SHINKU HADOKEN, at anytime. X-Factor as mentioned is the only issue. I have been chip deathed -countless- times by a well timed super.

*Well, that and a mis-input teleport. I GOT YOUR SUPER GAHAHAHAHA input teleport, jean slides forward…god damnit

Running away is the annoying part for me…just gah. Even if I win the chasedown its just annoying as hell to bother with.
I hate getting time out wins and I hate losing to them. I prefer a KO all day, erryday.

On a side note
Please Capcom, don’t let complaints about DP as the new OP character result in a nerf for her. Jean cannot take it

I just played against a guy running (Dante/Phoenix/Doom)… And let me tell you, it wasn’t even right. Like, it was bananas. I tried every possible match-up (Amaterasu, Magneto, Sentinel, Tron, etc.) and I still got my shit scrapped up and tossed at me. If I wasn’t dodging hidden missiles or the hooming fireballs, then I was dodging her freaking combos. And then he activated X-Factor on me. WTF man? They nerf Sentinel down something HORRIBLE, but leave Dark Phoenix out there to bulldoze? And that’s balance? =/

EDIT: I just saw the most epic things, in terms of killing DP. Basically, the game plan here in these vids’ were to take-out DP, IMMEDIATELY after she transforms w/ a Hyper Combo. One of them even had Spiderman killing that bish, with a Lv. 1 X-Factor ez’ w/ a Lv. 1 Hyper Combo.

I agree with Viscant in that I think Amaterasu can counter Phoenix teams. Not literally counter level 3 XF Dark Phoenix when she’s on the screen of course, but really do well against her.

The perfect team I think to counter Dark Phoenix consists of Storm, Dormammu, and amaterasu.

Assists and order are subject to debate/change depending on your opponent but here are some thoughts.

Assists:
Storm: Typhoon is pretty much the only option here, and only it and double typhoon give storm the Hail Team super.

Dorm: Dark Hole is great for utility and combos,
Purification is a great way to counter Super Jump homing shot when dorm isn’t on point.
Liberation is varied (need to power up) but gives you homing ball team super

Ammy
Cold Star is great for lockdown keepaway that you may want to play
Bloom is free meter so that you can chip kill phoenix.

Right now I’m leaning to Storm-Typhoon, Dorm-Purification, Ammy-Bloom.

The order is also subject to change. It’s super flexible though, as I recommend using lots of team exchanges to build free meter. I’m serious about this. This team wants to have 5 bars.

If you want a DHC glitch available to you at start, you’ll need Storm->Ammy->Dorm. Storm combo into Elemental Rage->Slow Super, then do lightning dash move QCF+L, ,like 5 times to launch. dead character.

If you want to play lame from start, starting ammy and shooting ice while calling storm and dorm is pretty lame. Ammy-> dorm can use DHC glitch from an airthrow if you’re not in the corner. airthrow->slow super->sphere ball.

Storm->dorm, however, is the ultimate phoenix killing DHC. If you catch dark phoenix in the air from a snap or a character death… Hail xx Dorm Ball… Dorm Ball xx Hail will kill her. That’s without xfactor. This is because she has lower life than jean and it’ll drain while this is going on.
This setup won’t quite kill regular jean unless you use any level of xfactor to do it.

Also, when storm is on point and stocked with meter, you have a 1 frame team super of hail/chaotic flame/okami shuffle. That means any trap, any homing fireball not in the upper left top is unsafe. (i think okami shuffle may hit that though, but it may not but worth it)

Storm and Dorm should probably play lame and call ammy bloom assist when possible. Try not to waste meter if possible.
Against Jean, SJ straight lightning sphere should beat jean’s tracking balls as should dorm’s purification towers. Killing Jean up there with purification towers is awesome, b/c you can easily get a sphere ball x factor sphere ball DHC for the kill.

Ammy can do some full screen up cold star, but it’s risky due to teleport. Try to do it from the corner if possible, Jean will teleport right into the spit. You could also just cancel into shuffle on reaction to the teleport.

Two of the characters (ammy and storm) have no problem opening people up and landing a confirmed snapback.

This team also has lots of last ditch strategies. Just blowing 5 meters with okami shuffle is a great way to kill time during a Xfactor Dark Phoenix. Slow is also a great stopgap measure too, it makes her easier to block.

Your goal is to gain meter faster the PHX, get to level 4/5, then land a snapback into Storm/Dorm DHC (maybe with xfactor)

If the opponent goes Dark Phoenix and then tags out, he’s made your job ten times easier. He’s wasted 5 bars and you had plenty of time to build 4/5. Next hit you land should be a snap into Storm/Dorm DHC. Dead Phoenix.

This team in theory fighter land has everything you could possibly need to kill a phoenix based team. It also is a good team in its own right, but the assists may need to be tweaked for fighting non phoenix teams.

funny that i did it first with wolverine, and NOBODY proved me wrong(o even quoted my video on that article)
the 1st video:
[media=youtube]75E7Je7dJt0[/media]
the Xup version
[media=youtube]OxU8GAtkh0E[/media]

Magneto with Gravity Squeeze is potentially the hardest counter. He kills Dark Phoenix outright at max health (vs. Dark Phoenix it deals 476,000 instead of its normal 400,000).

It can be done on reaction to any TK shot from anywhere and will force her to basically change her gameplan or die. Even with faster recovery in X-Factor, it’s a bit harder to react to the Light or Medium TK shots, but you can still easily tag her out of a Hard TK Shot, which is a fairly instrumental attack that your opponent will need to shut down or face the consequences.

This is pure theory fighter, (I don’t have anyone that plays Phoenix to try this on) but has anyone tried the strategy of waiting until the Phoenix player has 5 bars, and then snapping her in while she still has two teammates? They aren’t going to want to use X-Factor to keep her safe from chip or to power up her moves and they won’t want to use meter to do a safe tag, so you can punish unsafe tags with another snapback and then hit her with more chip on the way in, which you should have plenty of meter to do at this point if you’ve been saving up. Once she goes Dark Phoenix, they won’t have any meter to do much of anything. One thing I notice with the snap-in-regular-Phoenix-to-kill-her-before-5-meters strategy is that it leaves your team at a huge meter deficit, instead of the other way around, even if you are successful, and Dark Phoenix without X-Factor level 3 is far less threatening.

I like how there’s a new article on the front page complaining about Phoenix, but this thread just had to be moved from Marvel 3 General Discussion into The Phoenix forum…as if this is less relevant to Marvel 3 than scrubs complaining about lag

I don’t think it matters that there was so much Phoenix in top 8 of that recent WNF. No one seemed to point out that there was just as much/more Magneto in top 8. Not to mention Justin and Floe weren’t there. Good shit viscant for getting so far

Hmm? Actually a lot of Phoenix players will bring her in as soon as the team gets 5 bars. They play her until she dies and goes DPh, and then they tag her out and continue to use their other teammate(s). This allows them to start using meter again instead of saving it for the entire match. There are basically two ways people play Phoenix teams right now:

  1. The above method
  2. Only letting Phoenix in the match when she is the last character with 5 bars.

Bringing in Phoenix early has ups and downs. The up is that you get a nice amount of time as level 5 Jean with assists, who can wreck some shop. Then dp starts w meter which is nice. Healing field is boss.

The downside is that after she goes dark, she is vulnerable to being snapped in or dropped in after character death.
This is where dormammu eats her for lunch!

**Gonna post up some stuff I’ve been using to help fight D.Phoenix. ** A lot of people dont want to fight D.Phoenix because they think its the most broke thing they’ve ever seen in a video game but it’s really only her in X Factor that is broke. Even then if she gets the 5 meters you still want to kill Phoenix and bring her out as quickly as possible. Unless you have a character that can beam or projectile super her to death like Ryu/Akuma/Taskmaster you should resort to a strategy called “chicken blocking” while putting yourself in the corner and WHILE holding on to your X Factor.

American players are still mostly employing strategies that involve snap backs or trying to fight D.Phoenix mid screen which one if it works will win the match but if it doesn’t you are in a lot of trouble. The other fight D.Phoenix mid screen strategy is just stupid and I don’t even know why anyone would try to fight her in the mid screen unless they’re a beam super character.

MARVEL VS. CAPCOM 3 Fate of Two Worlds???005 ? ???(??)

If you dont have a Nico account type or copy and paste the link into this website’s nico link bar.

Nicovideo Redirector

Granted that isn’t the highest level of play there but it’s a strategy that like 0.5 percent of America uses in tournaments against Dark Phoenix.

The second match (about 4 minutes 30 seconds in) the Zero player is down to little health but still has X Factor and a level 3 super. What he does is instead of just giving up or trying to fight her mid screen he employs a different strategy to reduce Phoenix’s mix up and force her into a situation where she can’t block string him without dying. He purposely backs himself up into a corner where he reduces D.Phoenix’s mix up to high, low, high/low teleport or throw. As opposed to the high low left right, high/front/back teleport and throw when she’s mid screen. When you’re in the corner her teleport can’t cross you up, she can’t cross you up and can only high low or throw to mix you up. Which is still good but isn’t as bad as the impossible to block shit she puts you in mid screen. You’ll also notice that her homing fireballs actually dissipate if you turtle them long enough. They dissipate because the whole point of fighting her is to lame her out. Not actually fight her.

You can also further limit her options by jumping up and back. What this does is makes it so her low attacks can’t actually hit you low since low attacks dont register as low when you are airborne (they’re just regular blockable attacks). The main thing you still have to worry about is that when you’re in the corner if she throws you while you’re on the ground or while you jump back you will eat a big combo and die due to her ability to combo off throws in the corner. You can protect yourself from that by tech throwing when you feel she’s going for a grab or taking your chicken block a step further by super jumping while blocking. Super jumping is good because it will keep you in the air for a long time burning her X Factor longer and if she tries to air throw you while you are super jumping you’ll be too high for her to land anything after. You can try to tech any throws she may try on you as you come down and until you find a spot to hit her or use your X Factor.

Now in the video the Zero player does something really interesting which is wait for the right moment for her to start block stringing too much and then does a guard XFC into level 3 super which immediately kills her. Doing this puts a lot of pressure on Phoenix because she can’t block string you without worrying about dying. Characters like Dr.Doom have a level 3 super that start up on frame 0 after 4 frames of start up before the freeze. Meaning if she does anything that resembles a block string she is done. The super also travels like half the screen also so it’ll go through a whole row of c.L fireballs and still hit her and blow her up.

Of course this strategy isn’t fool proof and if the Phoenix player is smart they’ll probably just stop block stringing you and stick to trying to throw you but that’s a lot easier to deal with than her mid screen shit. Plus you can try and jab her out of her attempt to throw you and start a combo that could kill her depending on the character you use.

The good thing about this strategy also is that it forces D.Phoenix to turn on her X Factor and that’s what you want because that’s the only way you’re going to kill her unless you play someone with super huge beams that can blow her out of her fireballls. Those are the only characters that can really fight her offensively so everyone else has to play lame and force the X Factor out and burn it out. Which then hopefully you can put her into a situation where she tries to block string you or throw a fireball when she doesn’t have meter to cancel into super.

**The best way to make the strategy effective is FOCUS ON KILLING HER TEAM MEMBERS AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. GET THEM OUT OF THE GAME. **The faster you kill her team members the easier time you will have. They’re not going to burn meter to kill you so fuck them up. Her team members effectively allow her to wait on the sidelines and become more powerful especially when she’s already turned into D.Phoenix. You want to cut off her meter support by destroying the team members as fast as possible. I dont really emply the snap back strategy much because I feel its a waste of meter for something that might work. If it doesn’t work you spent a lot of time burning meter just to not kill her and now her team members most likely still have a lot of health and can build meter for D.Phoenix if she is brought out. You want to make it so only Dark Phoenix can build meter for Dark Phoenix. If you keep the other members alive for a long time you will be fighting against a 3 plus bar D.Phoenix and the chances of you winning against a D.Phoenix that can turn on healing field 3 or 4 times is pretty slim.

If you’re always trying to snap in Phoenix you’re setting up a strategy that is pretty much a sure fire win for Phoenix if it doesn’t work. If it does work you win. If it doesn’t work you basically threw the match away because now she can freely turn into D.Phoenix and build 3 and 4 meters for herself and that’s a put the stick down situation. Spending all of that time trying to burn your meter on snap backs works in the team mates favor also because everytime you snap one of her team mates in it’s usually after a small combo and even if its after a big combo you put them in a situation where they get to recharge their health. If your snap back strategy doesn’t work you have to fight her team mates again with MORE meter and their health will have likely mostly been recovered. At this point her slaves will be more than glad to burn meter on you to kill you because XF3 D.Phoenix will surely take care of whatever scraps are left on your team. Phoenix players will usually raw tag in whoever hasn’t been in the match yet so the character that got hit and snapped in can recover.

If you are going to employ a snap back strategy make sure your team is capable of really strong mix ups should you snap her in. If you have a team that can set up unblockables or really strong high/low or 50/50 left rights when characters come in that helps as well.

Not gonna quote the whole post, but +10000 to what DevilJin said. When someone pops XF with DPh my first question is “where is the nearest corner and how safely can I get there?” :rofl: Pop your own XF (IMHO you should never burn XF early when fighting a Phoenix team), put yourself in the corner, jump up/back, and watch out for air throws. As mentioned it’s much easier dealing with her corner stuff compared to the mid screen fireball & teleport mixups.

As for snapping her in my universal option is to always jump at her with H. AFAIK if she commits to any action (like a teleport, flight, air dash, etc) then you will end up air grabbing her. Depending on your character & assist then that pretty much instant death. Although I’m not too sure that she can air throw you after blocking your jumping H? I’ve yet to have it happen. Regardless I think it’s very important that you have something to beat her air escape options on snap in because she can otherwise easily play a run away game against the majority of the cast.

Don’t know how great of a strategy it is but I don’t ever see anyone try to play hit and run against the phoenix teams 2nd character. I try to time out thier lowered health 2nd character there not gonna use meter. As long as you save a full health character it’s seems like better chance of playing runaway than getting random by a pheonix. If you did happen to snap her in you should at least get some chip on her. If they have a character that doesn’t deal with run away let that character be 2nd. They can either chase you with no meter waste level 2x factor Dhc her in hard tag her in. Of course this only works if you can surely beat thier point character and not kill/time out the 2nd character who can’t use meter/assist. Ive only played a few pheonix and it’s super lame but is it really that crazy

A lot of this stuff has been covered, but my thoughts on the match-up in general:

  • Snap back should be the first option you consider, but only if your point character has strong mix-ups to take advantage of that very first opening you get when she enters the field. Teleports, Berserker Slash type mix-ups, whatever; you need some solid tools for this job to keep her from flying away and zoning you out. If you can’t capitalize on that situation at least 50% of the time or more, then snap back isn’t worth it IMO. A good Phoenix will know how to play defense and will be able to get her out, or they’ll actually be confident enough in their normal Phoenix play to fight your point character straight-up before tagging out. (Far too many players underestimate normal Phoenix and her ability to go toe-to-toe with most of the cast before Crazy Red even enters the picture.) If you cannot reliably capitalize on the first opening after a snap back and have to attempt it multiple times as she tags out again and again, then you are losing ground that will be difficult to make up later. She might reach 5 meters while you’ve wasted all of yours on failed snap back follow-ups, or you might manage to eventually KO her, but leaving her two teammates with 4+ meter to your 0 in the process. Those aren’t good situations to be in.

  • If you’re not confident in the snap back strategy, then you have to play the entire match from ahead. Realize the handicaps that are placed on Phoenix’s teammates (can’t freely use hypers, can’t really call Phoenix assist outside of combos) and work hard at converting that into an early and sizable advantage. Play relatively lame and zoning-heavy if your team is capable of it. Take your time; it’s far better for you if a Phoenix anchor steps in with 30 seconds left on the clock than 60 seconds. You should definitely take the opportunity to lame her out if you can whittle the opponent’s team down to just Phoenix while maintaining a healthy lead and burning up as much time as possible. Basic tactics for this (put yourself in the corner and tech throws) have already been covered.

  • If it becomes apparent that you’re going to have to deal with DPh (can’t get a big enough lead or don’t have enough time to lame her out), then you need to figure out how to outlast X-Factor and how to prevent her trap/teleport game from becoming a problem as your characters enter the field. It should be plainly apparent that you cannot afford to use your own X-Factor before Phoenix uses hers unless you are just in an absolutely dire circumstance (going to be completely chipped out) or can utilize it for a guaranteed KO (XFC guard cancel into a 420K+ punish). Generally, you’ll probably need your XF just to negate the chip from hers. Dealing with her teleport mix-ups on entry are particularly tough; the best actions are typically those that eliminate the need to guess which way to block (invincible aerial hypers, teleports of your own, etc). If any member of your team is particularly bad at defending or escaping this mix-up, then it might be wise to hard tag that character in immediately as she transforms to DPh, with the goal of playing defensively and outlasting her X-Factor with that character so that your teammates have slightly less to worry about when they step in. In the meantime, also try to prevent as much meter building for DPh as you can; try to jump over fireballs instead of just blocking them and such, even if you’re X-Factored and wouldn’t take chip on block.

  • Know your team’s offensive options and always be looking for that one window of opportunity to punish. If you have a move that can reach her during the start-up of TK Shot, use it. If you have a hyper that hits far enough in front and behind you so that it can be used to punish any of her teleports on reaction, use it. If you have a way to chip her that doesn’t leave you open to punishment, use it.

  • If Phoenix is tagged in the moment she has 5 bars available and before her other teammates are KOd, putting DPh in play early and tagging her back out, then either follow the previous advice about finding a way to force her back in and get her to burn XF early, or capitalize on her re-entry with a mix-up or chip opporunity as best you possibly can before she can land and pop X-Factor.

I play Taskmaster(H-Shot)/Felicia(Buckler)/Morrigan(Meter) as my main team and have a friend who mains Phoenix. I usually don’t bother with snap backs. Taskmaster isn’t absolutely horrible against Phoenix by any means, but IMO his only weakness is that he has poor mix-up ability. Rolling Buckler assist helps that greatly when it comes to high/low, but high/low is irrelevant to a Phoenix who is hugging the top of the screen. So, I don’t really like using snap back. It just feels like too much of a gamble for my team.

Fortunately, Task isn’t half-bad at laming people out if need be, and it’s usually the route I like to take in this match-up if I feel I can pull it off against the opposing point character (i.e. if he doesn’t have a teleport that puts him right in my face or something). Keeping my distance, firing arrows, and calling meter assist at every opportunity can get me pretty far, and I’m not afraid to spend some of that meter to punish assist calls or even just get some guaranteed chip in on the enemy team since I can build it back pretty easily. I want to prevent my opponent from building as much meter as possible, and keeping him at a distance so that he can’t pull off any combos is a good tactic to further along that goal.

When it comes time to dealing with Dark Phoenix should the situation arise, my goal is simply to have Morrigan alive and healthy with a good amount of meter and XF3 in tow. Morrigan’s hypers are fantastic when it comes to dealing with Phoenix. Finishing Shower is okay for chip and hits behind her (stuffing Phoenix’s teleports). Shadow Servant has a ton of invincibility and a deceptive hitbox; it tends to catch stuff close to Morrigan when it looks like it shouldn’t. Astral Vision lets me compete in a fireball war (can’t outzone someone who’s always on both sides of you). Darkness Illusion has a lot of invincibility, makes a very good and fast XFC guard cancel punish, has the distinction of being the only level 3 that can be used in the air, and will kill DPh outright if it hits. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Morrigan counters Phoenix (I’m not sure if any one character does, quite frankly; maybe Magnus), but it’s a match-up I have some confidence in. Morrigan’s biggest weakness is that her damage output is kind of low, but that’s not very relevant against someone who has 420K stamina. If I wasn’t using an anchor that I felt could handle the match-up I’d probably be much more inclined to use snap backs.

I’m coming up with inescapable death scenarios for regular Phoenix with X23 so once I test it all out I’ll post it up.

So it appears that the new “hot thing” among the phoenix players is whatever/Tron/Phoenix

So they “magically” gain great defense and a sandbag with a lot of health…

its starting to get really annoying…

any tips?

I kind of disagree with the mentality of running near full-length BnB combos before snapping her in, cutting the combo as short as possible while keeping the snap easily confirmable would prevent Phoenix from building as much meter, that’s the whole reason she’s hiding in the back of her team anyway.

Random supers are by far my most common death with D. Phoenix. The second most frequent is block => XFC => supers that are instant (though I tend to save my XFC with D. Phoenix because of this.) Also the other most important thing is NOT giving up your point character. One of the most devastating things a D. Phoenix has in her arsenal is the free mixup that leads to a character death. Try to have your point be able to take a fair amount of her chip before you turn her into Dark Phoenix (whether it be DHC or a TAC).

PS. Magneto’s Gravity Squeeze rarely catches me. Being aware of it forces my opponent to guess with it and reacting with it is very difficult if a Phoenix player is smart and watches your meter. Doom’s level 3 is a MUCH harder counter (slightly behind Akuma and Dormammu) as there’s literally nothing I can do versus a block XFC => Doom time. I have to play extremely conservative with my strings when Doom has level 3.

snap rarely works save meter and have a good anchor leave is to 50/50. that why i have dorm and akuma on my team.

some one please explain this to me. I do not understand this!

It’s wired so that each time left or right is pressed, it also triggers one of the assist buttons to be pressed as well. So mashing d, df, f will automatically trigger a snap back.