seconding the advice on Birdie, I treat him like Zangief but it doesn’t aways work the same every set, plus I’m free to the dolphin dive whats a good punish against that move (thats also quick enough to do on reaction)
neutral jump?
Would it be alright for me to ask. if anyone is willing to look at my matches so that I can improve? I feel like I struggle in every match up.
What do you guys do against mika? Shes so strange and crazy and her buttons seem crazy good. This match up keeps mind fucking me.
You have to have good footsies, guess right and have your meaties down perfectly.
Whiff punish her slides with cr.mk xx arrow
tag her with st.mk. pay attention to how she reacts to your st.mk. if shes buttonsy, keep tagging her or ex dive. when she stops, ex dive or dash in throw.
punish properly to make her second guess herself
after drop kick is blocked you are guessing. she’s either going to use a normal, or command grab. Guess between these and use dp accordingly. Most Mikas arent trying to do hk to block.
meaties > flying peach (her wakeup ex move)
one thing that works on virtually every lower level mika is when nideshko comes, block her, then hold up. they are probably going for a throw.
this isnt 100% because good mikas have lots of options but 99% of mikas are terrible.
- All shooting peaches are punishable. I use the s.mp s.hp combo.
- Stop charged drop kicks with s.hp when you see the crouch animation or you can let her do it from a safe range and whiff punish it into arrow or spike.
- If you choose to block the charged drop kick don’t push anything, her s.Lk will counter hit you into a shooting peach combo. It’s safer to just block and back dash.
Hope this helps.
if you block you will eventually get command grabbed.
if you backdash you will get counter hit.
st.lp is easier than st.hp
Bang-bang-bang. I must be doing things all wrong then. Good to know.
They never do shooting peach… Shooting peach is the one where she flies at you with her butt right? I do punish that when ever but most mikas spam the big charge up kicks and that stupid shoulder tackle where she rolls on the ground and then they do more dumb mixups than geif.
Mika is very scary. Fighting her is like playing Russian Roulette with her command grab and fHP. A lot of mika’s I see also tend 2 use her crHP a lot as a way 2 get in. It’s punishable but very fast so u have 2 watch out 4 it and b ready 2 punish
The Mikas I played tend to go crazy to get in and for Mixups.
If they always go crazy on your wakeup, you have to teach them respect.
Also you can do after a charged st.hk a Dp, 10/10 Mikas will eat the DP.
Otherwise set the dummy in the training on record, record her charged st.hk and learn to stop this move.
You can do this with everything that gives you trouble.
Her shouldertackle is also unsafe on block AND hit, you can always press cr.lp if you get hit or blocked it and it will stuff everything Mika can do.
I feel there’s an optimal range for fighting Mika. Once you’re outside her shoulder/sweep range, she doesn’t have much beyond the charge HK. I think the range is right around Cammy’s stand MK range. If Mika does the charge HK, neutral jump or cannon spike. Backdashing after blocking the charge hk seems to be okay as well, I don’t recall taking the full combo ever when backdashing.
When you get on her, be wary of her jabs and ex peach. Keep your block strings tight and bait her reversal. I find it easier to play footsies vs her than to pressure her up close.
edit: Mika’s charged HK has 35 startup frames, which I don’t think is that much less than a jump. If you can Cannon Spike a jump, you can Cannon Spike Mika.
Hey I’m on that list too. Didn’t know that was a thing. Neat.
U cant backdash after a charged HK u will get counter hit, her frame advantage is 2 gd for that
Any advice for the zangief matchup. I don’t know how I’m supposed to approach.
Actually, with proper spacing Mika can be as good as +1 after a blocked c.HP, and her 3 frame jabs will CH any button you stick out. At point blank the move is unsafe, but spaced to hit at the tip of its range she is at advantage because the move has so many (6) active hit frames.
On hit she can be as good as +3 (guaranteed s.LP xx LP Peach), or frame trap into s.mp hit confirms. On CH she can be at up to +5, which is guaranteed s.MP or other nasty frame traps.
If you see Mika charge her st.HK, you can st.HK on reaction for a crush counter. Easily combos into DP or CA.
Patience is your best friend.
Keep him out with st.MK.
DP him out of the air if he jumps at you.
If he does his charged st.HP to bait you, heavy Spiral Arrow it.
If you knock him down and he doesn’t have CA stocked, meaty him on wakeup and fish for counterhit. His SPDs all have 5 frame startup. His fastest normal (cr.LP) is 4 frames.
If you block his V-trigger suction activation from up close, you can punish with cr.MP. Anytime after the activation, if you get pulled in, you can punish with jab > whatever.
If he does get close, get away ASAP. Rinse & repeat.
I would say Zangief is easily one of her best match-ups. If you lost, it’s most likely because you got impatient.
I have a lot of success against Mika doing neutral jumps because they are impatient and force those charge up approach normals.
I’d be careful with that approach, if only because if a solid Mika notices you’re trying to neutral jump defensively her qcf+K airthrow (especially the EX version) can nab you.
Not saying it might not work some of the time, just that Mika has a tool that is very effective against people trying to use this tactic.
Mika specific advice:
Her s.lk -> s.mp target combo is -5 on block. The animation is identical to her normal s.mp, which is only -2, so people don’t really try to punish it much from what I’ve seen. That said, you’ll often be in range for a c.mp punish, or even b+mp at times. You can also CA punish it at any range. The only thing to be worried about is actually them not hit-confirming. If they don’t hit confirm and cancel into an LP/MP Peach, obviously you can block and punish.
If she gets you to block a charged s.hk, she’s +2 and will almost always follow up with either…:
s.lk -> s.mp hit confirm. At this range, only CA has enough range and is fast enough to punish on block.
or
Command throw
A back dash actually beats both of these options, and can be pretty strong at negating her offensive options on block as long as you aren’t in the corner. Also, less-good Mikas are likely to auto-pilot into one or the other of these options on block. Keep an eye on their habits, and DP their follow ups every now and then to keep them honest. This is obviously risky, but why play a character with an invincible meterless DP if you aren’t willing to use it sometimes?
In fact, I’d say (and so would Fuudo, when he was on Diago’s stream) that Mika’s worst match ups are against characters with DPs. Don’t be afraid to use them (sparingly) to make her second guess her reset and frame trap offense.
Edit:
One last piece of advice - while every character obviously wants to put you in the corner, I’d argue Mika is one of the scariest in the game once she actually gets you there. Keeping that in mind, I wouldn’t be shy about looking for an opportunity to V-Reversal moves with long recovery frames on block. Cammy’s V-Reversal is amazing at taking the pressure off of you AND putting it on the opponent immediately afterward because of the position swap. Look for V-Reversal opportunities to buy yourself better positioning.
against chars like necalli and mika where you beat them free in neutral, but can lose the game after one bad read in the corner, i think it’s worth saving barz for DP xx CA(HK) if they corner you. On hit, it’s big damage - on block, you shoot out of the corner and you’re back to neutral w/ a bit of chip damage in hand. it’s basically like a 3-bar FADC