I suggested x23 Dante Magneto a little while ago and got no love for it lololol. I honestly think it could be OD. Lacking in damage but disgusting mixups.
Only got not love cause it’s not remotely optimal for X23 unless you play Hypergrav with mags. (which is my eventual plan once I get comfortable with Mags.) You still get 2 characters that have much more oppressive neutral games than X23. I’m not the biggest fan of playing her only for XF derp and Dirt naps, but I think the meta is starting to shift past where she can afford to do that since the gap between flight characters and non-flight is starting to widen.
Gonna start with Dante(JS)/Mags(EMD)/X23(OTG) just to learn the characters and try to transition to Mags(HG)/X23(CS)/Dante(JS). Second one might not work for shit in neutral, hoping that mags can be oppressive enough to make JS work as his main neutral since it’s a true double dirt nap. Plus side is that Mags has throw > hard tag descale with X23 and combo > hard tag Dante > Meter gain options (might run OTG for hard tag > unblockable resets). I would prefer to have CS available for the free anti-derp but I’ll run OTG if it helps.
First one is a lot more straight-forward. It has strong neutral and meter gain and I’m hoping to build it around XF1 meter gain + kill combos with Dante so that it’s Touch > unblockable reset > derpy incoming/unblockable with Dante > XF1 meterless kill > dirtnap… Touch > XF1 meterless kill > dirt nap 2nd > 3 v 1… Touch > TAC infinite > Dirt nap second > kill without popping XF unless it’s a lower life character that she can build back the meter solo on (Pretty sure that’s limited to sub-900k or right at.) I’m not sure how well it will do if you can’t get your game started, though. I guess you still have the Mags throw > hardtag > XF2 with X23 but X23 with EMD isn’t terribly oppressive and does nothing for Dirt Naps or Mags XF2 meterless kill > air tempest > dirt nap, but if you don’t have XF left, you won’t have any way to pick up or reliably kill.
Mags and X23 have some decent synergy, just not really a whole lot of neutral synergy.
JS is kinda garbage for X23 because of scaling, but it forces me to play a TAC-heavy game and at least Mags is one of the derpier/free TACs.
Of course Dante/Mags(EMD) is one of the best pairings in the game, shit is pretty stupid.
If it turns out that Mags can play with just neutral JS, I might try running Mags(HG)/IM(RB)/X23(CS) and see if that works since it would be the better option as far as synergy goes, better DHC/incoming for mags, puts more threat behind X23s alpha counter, and less work to get into TAC infinites.
Played with it today for a while, and just want to add Spencer up grapple assist to the list of silent kill confirms with the caveat that XFGC will get them out of blockstun, but not let them punish you. If you kill a character in the corner with Laura, backdash, activate, and call the assist, it hits them meaty on incoming and you just jump up to meet them. It definitely takes more precise timing than RB, tenderizer, and Jam session, but it will hit frame 1 with proper spacing from what I could tell.
It also puts them in a good amount of blockstun, so if you don’t have three bars you can call the assist, wait a beat, charge decapitating slice and just let it rip when they get close to the ground; most characters can’t do anything about it. I’m pretty new to the x-23 scene, so this may be old hat, but you can side switch to get them back in the corner with a quick dash stand L after the command grab, or you can raw tag to Doom and Spencer, possibly other characters with quick OTGs (Wesker does not work).
I think the Spencer/Laura shell has merit in either order, though the third character must be a strong neutral assist (rhymes with room and wears a cape). Spencer is a super solid character, can kill off almost anything, there’s raw tag potential to with Spencer off a decapitating slice into zip line OTG, there are some shenanigans with his assist on incoming, and if Spencer is on point you have super easy unblockables in neutral to 1 mil+ if you combine spencer f. H with ankle slice. The easiest setup is just c. L, M, A1, H, f+H, armor piercer; if you expect them to pushblock you can just omit the M or the H, if they try and pushblock and you’ve left out one of the gatlings they’ll probably just whiff the pushblock and eat the overhead.
I plan on using Doom/X-23/Spencer in varying order over the next week or two. We’ll see how it goes.
Merk, I watched every single one of your matches from TFC that were uploaded.
Your team makes sense and does seem to cover up the holes in Laura’s game. However, in the grand scheme of things, that team is not cheap enough. I think you should go down the route that Howtoread (UK Viewtiful Joe/Laura player) did and relegate to being anchor character. While not ‘guaranteed’ you’ll make more than enough kills/comeback with XF2/XF3 Guard Cancel kills into Dirtnap.
I think you should go with the two team that you considered using before:
Trish/Dante/X-23 (Jago/Greenace/RDK/K-Brad/Disgruntled Goa)
Dante/Magneto/X-23 (Yipes/Frieda)
Magneto/Dante/X-23 (K-Beast/Spiral)
These are all good teams. I like the Trish team a fair bit more, though.
I agree. The main issue with it is it’s amazing on zone control at about 3 character lengths around X23. Anyone that can play or pressure outside of that range is really hard to deal with and that’s mainly all of the top tier characters, lol.
I’m working with Mags/Dante/X23 starting this week. I know from experience that it’s very possible to get XF throws on unassisted dirt nap attempts (P0tat0_5alad had tons of practice between me and wandles) so I don’t like her on anchor, but I think I’m good with either X23/Mags/Dante, Mags/X23/Dante as my eventual end game options. I’m still learning mags and Dante so I’m gonna start with Dante/Mags/X23 just to learn the characters.
I like Trish in theory and tried running Trish/X23/Dante with lousy results. Trish just doesn’t agree with me for some reason. Plus mags is hella cheap…so there’s that.
Thanks for the heads up on the players. I forgot about most of those.
I’ve got maybe 3 or 4 more matches that are still waiting to be uploaded and I feel I did well at TFC overall (Winners final in my pool, Lost to Flocker and another zero I sent to losers in the first place) but TFC was IM/RR’s swan song. I’m gonna sub RR/IM/Ammy for shits n’ giggles, but that’s it for those two now.
I dropped Skrull because he didn’t really work out well in the middle position. So I moved Strange to the middle and droped Skrull for anchor Dante. I feel like I was going to end up with this team formation sooner or later.
I still play X-23 on point but will swap her with Strange and put Storm in the middle against heavy zoning teams. Do you guys/gals think this is a better route to explore or should I keep Skrull?
How’s the new team, Merk?
Fucking awful so far. I am soooo assssssss with those two atm. T.T
Don’t expect anything interesting from me for at least a month +. This shit is rough…
really hard to walk away from log trap.
Yeah. I don’t know how to call assist 1 anymore, lol.
I’m not playing with X23 atm. I just play mags and Dante and let X23 die on incoming.
I feel a little better about my set today compared to Tuesday, though.
Guys…HOLY FUCKING SHIT.
Christmas just came early for us.
So it’s common knowledge that the beams attached to shitty characters (Strange, Trish, Thor) could be used to pick up after a dirt nap. The main issue being that they can’t support X23 as well as the other infinite characters do or are character with specific requirements.
UNIBEAM AND DOOM BEAM CAN PICK UP AFTER DIRT NAP…CONSISTENTLY…AFTER ALL 10 HITS OF JAM SESSION…
dies
This absolutely fucking blows open the top tier shells since we don’t have to use sub par hori assists or specific assists to pick up after a dirt nap.
Vid proof is on the way.
Might only work consistently in the corner, but it works on grounded and incoming height. Only trick is to call the beam as late as possible (23+A1,6M) so you have time to link the s.L. Same timing used for the corner back throw assist pickup and consistent hypergrav relaunching.
HYPE.
For anyone not seeing the full potential of this.
Spencer(slant shot)/X23(Whatever)/)IM(Beam) is now a viable double dirt nap team.
X23(CS)/RR(Log)/IM(Beam) is a viable double dirt nap.
THIS IS SO MAJOR.
Also, The other thing this means is that Doom Beam and Unibeam got added to the list of assists that can pick up off a corner back throw for her. Every little bit helps.
I highly doubt any Spencer player would want that team =/
Actually Spencer + IM Beam is pretty solid. Check out Danke sometime. Super broken THC on that shell.
Mainly, I was using “viable” in the sense that it covers the double dirt nap archetype requirements without having a completely non-existent neutral game.
Na Spencer Iron Man is good. That i’m not denying. No one is gunna want to play x23 with Spencer.
There was someone that popped up on the board just the other day that’s playing Spencer/X23 and using slant shot for the dirt nap guarantee.
Honestly, it would probably be an interesting team.
Woah, good shit Merkyl. You just made my team way better. And you say it works off of backthrows too? So I could do something like backthrow, OTG with Plasma Beam, combocombocombo, relaunch with Cold Star? Can’t wait to hit the lab with that.
The back throw is an incredibly tight link, but yeah.
The post dirt nap pickup is match practical, though.
I’m glad someone else out here was as excited as I was about this, lol.
I think it changes what we know about X-23 team composition honestly. Doom and Iron Man were already considered some of her best partners, but I have to think now they’re undisputed must-haves if you want an optimized team. There’s no reason to not play them anymore unless you just don’t like using them or want to have easier midscreen combos with double relaunch assists.
You still get beam bounces off both of them so it’s not even really that sub-optimal.
I’m really excited about being able to run X23(CS)/IM(beam)/RR(Log) and be able to play that in any order. Having a beam for RR makes my team so much more threatening and solves the problem I was having with full screen zoning. I’m so fucking stoked.
Then even if that doesn’t work out, Being able to play a Dante + beam team that’s a true double dirt nap and isn’t something janky ass like Trish or Modok is so fucking awesome.