As for Magneto’s assists:
Psylocke gets the vote for the best assit. She goes through a lot of things, and a giant part of why she’s such a good assist - she sets up PERFECTLY. Unrollable if done correctly, the bounce the opponent is put into sets up much of Magneto’s game for him. You can infinite immediately, launch into double fierces, etc. etc. For less experienced players, Psylocke is perhaps the best assist to learn Magneto with, since a single hit from her can win you the game, or at least allow you to catch up. Short short, always. =]
The problem with Psylocke is twofold: Her crappy horizontal range and her very low vitality. She hits in a very small area; she doesn’t move out like Cyclops does, nor does she have a long range rocket punch. So you’re forced to get in close and call her there. However, If you miscall her and get pinned down, against the top tier, she’ll probably either get KOed or get knocked down to a point where you have to wait till she heals up before using her again. Psylocke isn’t a bad point char on her own, her snapbacks are insane and she can play decent keep away with her triple jump and fireballs.
Sentinel-A plays like a kinda gimpy version of psylocke: He doesn’t have invincibility, nor does he set up as nicely as Psylocke does. However, he makes up for it by doing a significant amount of damage, having super armor to take a hit before being interrupted, and being extremely, EXTREMELY tough. A quick reset I do with Sent-A is c.lk + assist, lk, launch, sj.fp ad.df fp, rh, rh. Call Sent then crossup trijump with jab, sent hits, RH XX Shockwave = Dead character. Anyone with Cable’s stamina or less, die automatically if the reset hits. He’s also annoying to stop, the point character more often than not hits Sent, but then gets punched in the face because Sent continued to finish his assist, due to his armor. And the last thing, Sentinel is very hard to kill. You can call him out a number of times before having to worry about his vitality. Also, he is the best Anchor in the game - I mean, it’s fucking Sentinel. As mentioned above me, he’s also a very large target, someone trying to jump attack you will hit Sent inside, leaving you free to infinite or hypergrav or whatever. Also, Sentinel sets up a double snap like Psy, except you have to dash in a little before doing it.
However, Sentinel gets stuffed by a lot of common assists. Doom, Psy, Cyke etc. will beat him out before he can get his punch off. If you’re being rushed down, this becomes a serious liability. MSP can be sure that if they ever see Sent come out, they can mash on Psylocke and be safe [as long as they’re not full screen, but they shouldn’t be calling her full screen anyway], since she’ll knock him down and stop him. Cyke is the same. Doom is a different case, since he’ll only stuff Sent if the rocks are already out and spinning, otherwise Sentinel will get his punch off. Also, Magneto without an anti-air = a much easier fight for another Sentinel. He can simply stay right above you, also moving backwards the entire fight. It’s extremely hard to ground Sent without some kind of anti-air - There is little fear of getting caught in the infinite to a good Sentinel player. FP, jabs and LKs are very difficult for Magneto to get past, unless you know what you’re doing. My point? Nothing really. Just counter-call the fuck out of your opponents assists. Sent-A hits, launch and even a single FP after that will seriously take a chunk of an assists life away, making your opponent think twice before abusing it without covering him.
Cyclops is a very underused assist. Not underrated, since people have been watching Wong and Mixup play with him, just underused. Compared to Psylocke and Sentinel, Cyclops has a kind of ugly set-up. However, he has two major things going for him - his range and his priority. This assist fucking FLIES across the screen - he hits just as high as Psylocke does, and actually HIGHER due to the bullet he fires out. And unlike Psylocke, he has great horizontal reach as well - If both point characters were fullscreen, he would land practically right in front of your opponent, that’s how far he reaches. Maybe I’m exaggerating it a bit, but his reach is quite far. The other thing he has is his priority. Cyclops will go through any other assist, short of Cammy and Ken. He literally will take them out and keep going if they’re both called at the same time. He’s a much better assist in terms of trying to ground a flying Sentinel than either of the first two assists I talked about, though he gives Sent unfly. :tdown:
His problems? He actually doesn’t not have many problems at all. He comes out quick, hits high and far, and goes through practically everything. The only thing that’s a problem really is how he sets up his opponent. You have to either lp,lk,lp,lk hypergrav XX tempest or RH into the ad.df combo. The first is easy enough, but the 2nd is difficult to comprehend for newer Magneto users, who are probably used to the very good setups that Sent and Psylocke give you.
I’ve spoken books about Tron, and I think she’s a VERY good damaging assist, but with VERY large problems. She hits hard. Hard. Hard. Hard. Hard. The total damage from all three rings hitting is retarded - this is more apparent on assists. Against anyone who isn’t Cable, you can really fuck up their assist if they decide to stay grounded and away from you. They call an assist, you block it, call tron and normal jump over their assist. Tron will rape them. Badly. Against Sent, he can beam XX HSF, but just block and tron will get away. Storm will typhoon XX Hail, just jump up and fireball her. Magneto/Storm/Sent, either of those characters trying to rush you down in order to save their assist, you have to just play accordingly. Launch + tron, sj.fp ad.df fp does an UGLY amount of damage on any character. If you play with tron, you have to change the way you play with Magneto - short short is funky.
Her problems are many. Insignificant vertical AND horizontal range [until her 3rd ring comes out, but still it’s nothing], serious lag time after she finishes her assist, no invincibility of any kind on her, etc. etc. She loses to practically every assist save one: Commando. She rapes commando. RAPES. Really badly. Most of the time he won’t be able to get his corridor out, and take heavy damage for his troubles.
The other assists can be discussed a little more in-depth if any interest is sparked.