Hey guys, i’m a Zero/Spencer main, (don’t taze me bro) and i was playing a guy who mains X-23 today, and i just couldn’t touch her, no matter what i did. He’d usually touch Zero and kill him off, and no matter what i did, i couldn’t kill x-23 unless i somehow scooped her out of the air luckily, or if he just wasn’t blocking. I really need to know how to fight x-23, since she’s a rather unused character who i don’t know the matchup for.
Lol…Zero is supposed to be one of our bad matchups so you shouldn’t have to work too hard to turn stuff around.
The biggest thing to look out for against an X-23 is whiffs, almost every move we have to approach with is a free punish if we whiff it. X-23 is a really mobile character so you’ll have to avoid being predictable at all costs but what will usually get me in the zero match-up is lighting/buster/lightning full screen confirm nonsense since it’s hard not to get clipped by the far edge of something eventually.
Her normals are pretty similar to zeros in terms of safety and frame trap so be careful about pushing buttons up close but we don’t really have a strong answer to pizza cutter so feel free to abuse the mess out of that as well. X-23 actually has a hard time getting out of Zero’s pressure once you start in since his blockstrings are annoyingly safe so make sure you’re making the most of that, as well.
Just play it like everyone plays the zero match-up and make sure you kill her when you touch her. I would personally recommend using XF guard cancels to get the hit if you’re playing one that has a good handle on her pressure.
She’s got a pretty big backlog of mixups and tricky nonsense so you might have some trouble while you’re learning the matchup but just keep plugging away and you’ll come out on top before too long.
Good Luck. 
Thanks for the help, but I was moreso looking for something to help my spencer. I seem to not be able to punish that blockstring where she superjumps and then rises with that one special move, and then dives and begins a safe assault.
EDIT: It’s safe because it usually has a lockdown assist like Eye of Agamatto (sp?) or drones.
Based on how you describe the scenario, I’m guessing the X23 was doing j.H.Talon Attack, assist, and then d.H to dive.
The dive is punishable if you’re not directly underneath her. The hitbox is pretty weak compared to other divekick moves and loses to a lot of pokes, including cr.L. If you know the assist is coming, you can blow some meter to punish the incoming assist or try using your horizontal hook to hit them and cancel the assist.
I suggest going to Training mode and put the above moves on loop. It’s a pretty basic X-23 approach and it will pay off to learn how to counter it. Just being aware of where you are when she’s dropping will help you in the long run.
I did the same thing with Spencer’s jumping horizontal hook dash in training mode. Now I’ve learned to always look out for it and be ready to air throw should he try to do it carelessly.
That’s exactly what was happening. I was stuck in the corner though, so that’s partially why i was unable to do anything with Spencer against her. I’ll have to go to the lab sometime tonight…
i have a question is there anyway for an incoming character to avoid dirt nap?
A lot of solo setups can be thrown out of and even the ‘guaranteed’ can still be escaped with an XF guard cancel into throw. It’s an incredibly tight window to do it so it will most likely be luck… BUT…it is an option. If you only have 1 or 2 characters left and X23’s coming at you, I think it’s worth trying.
So the XF guard cancel the absolute only way to avoid Dirt Nap on incoming?
On the better dirt nap setups, yes. If they try to just jump up and catch you with a raw S or if they go for Talon Attack M>S and don’t have the correct timing you can mash out of some of those sometimes. The better setups (TK CS, Assist covered, Meaty sj.Down+H) when done correctly are much harder to escape. Realistically, you’re screwed against a smart X-23 that practices their setups.