Right off the bat you get a random Nova Slam: when you’re going for a throw in the opening, option select back C so that doesn’t happen, you’re lucky you weren’t punished for that.
You blow meter at the beginning of the second round to beat out missiles: this is a bad habit of mine too, and the best advice I get is to be patient and block early on rather than get too aggressive. Obviously, you should go for this if you get the hit confirm, but otherwise…
Don’t telegraph your box dash H option selects too much: this is something most Nova players do out of habit, myself included, but remember this guy plays the best Nova outside of North America on a pretty regular basis. He’s going to be looking for that a lot, as are most top players.
Pick beam. I hate to be a dick about this kind of thing, but both Nova and Frank get so much more from plasma beam than hidden missiles in terms of approach. Some of the unsafe stuff you were doing could have been covered easily if you had beam, plus you could use Cent Rush L to approach safely, thrown out Javelin (which Tokido is actually fairly pringles to) without fear of being hit, etc. Furthermore it would have made the matchup against his missiles a lot easier. I realize you probably feel like it’s redundant to have two horizontal assists, but at least in the matchup against someone using missiles or drones or whatever you want the beam.
On a related note, you were kind of letting Tokido play at his own speed a little too much. Put the fear of god in his head with a well-timed Cent Rush H or a beam super to catch his assist every now and then.
Watch Nemo vs. Tokido’s FT10 sometime, it’s a nice half-hour example of why Nova beats Magneto. Nemo just plays like he doesn’t give a fuck and gets the advantage at the opening 90% of the time. He doesn’t let Tokido breathe and manages to stay in his face for the majority of the set. Part of this is due to bolts assist but I think it’s a good tip in general.
But overall, I wouldn’t sweat it too much. You got to the grand finals at a big major, went up against one of the best players from Japan and still took games off him. I wouldn’t have blamed you at all if you were more nervous than usual lol. Congrats on 2nd place, remember to stick it to him next time he comes to Europe.
I was going for Pulse H, not a throw. I missed my input.
Also a missed input.
Yeah, I rely a little too much on box dash H being such a great approach tool. I’ll try to mix it up more with ADDF j.ls and ADD cr.Ms to approach.
This is actually one of the big things I’ve been wondering about. I heard that Missiles was better for Nova, but I guess in that situation, I would’ve been better off with beam. I guess Missiles aren’t quite the lockdown I wish they were. I’m almost considering looking into Strange or Sentinel, because I really wish I had a better lockdown assist for Nova’s high-lows. How does Nova work with Beam? Like, I don’t really understand his crossup game all that well…
Jesus, he’s all over him! I gotta watch that in full when I have a little more spare time. I probably gave him too much room at the start… I’m just terrified of Magneto’s opening mixups, especially given that with my team, if Nova dies, I essentially have a worthless second character. I felt like I needed to get a pulse out and call missiles (so he couldn’t beat the assist with a beam), then go in. I’ll try to play a little more straight-up aggro in the future. I mean, I have a really solid rushdown assist…
That’s winners round 1, not finals. :lol: I got 7th out of 17; they gave me last seed going in and I was the only person with a first round match. You should’ve seen how I chewed out the guy who did Marvel seeding after that set. “LAST SEED?! I’LL FUCKING GIVE YOU LAST SEED!” :lol: First time on stage at a non-Brawl tournament. I’m not sweating it (Tokido was also not warmed up, coming right off of TTT2 grand finals, and I had been playing marvel all day. I actually did the best out of anyone against him, all things considered, although part of that is probably not having warmed up), I’m incredibly proud of how I did at my first tournament, lose or not. In losers, I lost to a Joe/Wesker/Strange team (I’ve never played against Joe, and have little experience or matchup knowledge against Strange and Wesker). Tokido swept the tournament, winning every event he joined.
It’s got less to do with crossups than immediate lockdown. From a neutral position (IE your opponent not at super jump height) and it’s pretty much guaranteed to hit them or get them in blockstun most of the time, which allows you to go in and apply pressure. It’s as simple as that. You can also use it to keep Cent Rush L and M safe which gives Nova full-screen high/low game. Check out some videos with Infrit (recent), Insaynne, and Dragon God to see how they use it.
edit: Actually ADF or ADDF or even ADDB + beam is a good incoming crossup, I almost forgot about that.
Drones and Bolts are both really good for Nova. Consider also Cold Star; Ammy is a really really good partner for Nova and Frank, and even if Nova dies, you’ll still have a few level-up tactics at your disposal.
…WHAT? It said Grand Finals at the bottom of the screen, had Tokido in Winner’s in the upper right… I guess it was left over from Tekken Tag but dammit that threw me off lol
What about Dante? Can Nova do much with Dante assists? I’ve seen what Moons has done with Ammy, and I’d play her… If I didn’t hate the character so much.
Daaaaaamn what’s wrong with Ammy?
Weasel Shot and Jam Session are both pretty good lockdown assists for Nova, Marvelo makes good use of the former, but for some reason Jam Session is less common so I can’t think of a good example.
I dunno; I messed around with her for a while and just couldn’t get into it. Part of it is probably the ceiling of barely 600k on combos, but her style just doesn’t really suit me…
Yeah, okay. Seeing as I’m running frank second, Dante would definitely be my anchor of choice were I to ignore my point character. I keep hearing that Nova/Frank/Dante is the best Frank team…
That’s awesome lol. Definitely not the only characters that can combo off of Hulk’s command grab but they look like the most practical (Doom’s is nearly impossible midscreen).
Sentinel can combo off Hulk’s grab as well. You have to raw tag, dash forward, Rocket Punch L xx HSF/Plasma Storm. Pretty practical too.
And yes, Doom didn’t work mid-screen no matter how many times I tried. (even with the Marlinpie dash, lol)
Oh that’s pretty cool about Sentinel’s, I had a feeling it worked.
Completely unrelated to Nova, but my favorite thing off of Hulk’s command grab is: hard tag to Dorm, level 3, hard tag to Doom, combo, level 3.
