We’re over the Rainbow!
I think she’s a bitch to deal with. Especially if you’re trying to learn how to have a good ground game
She’s definitely one of the tougher characters for me and I don’t know how to approach the matchup.
Stay your butt out of the corner by all means necessary! And if she does corner you, make sure you have a V-Reversal ready.
Alot of her normals are safe on block. One I see that catches alot of people is her charged HK. That thing is +2 on block and most Mika’s go directly for a tick right after. So be very alert
WIP match-up information.
Please refer to this google doc for any updates to the match up.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BJ7b8VZFgMmZFAmSKoILeM-qRldhtV9DhPjKxOJHnW8/edit#
Neutral:
In general, Nash’s normals are superior to Mika’s in terms of range. You can generally keep Mika at mid range and continuously harass with cr.Forward, f.RH, f.Fierce, and Forward Sonic Scythe as well as be in range to anti-air with s.Forward/s.RH/cr.Strong or EX Sonic Scythe. Be careful with whiffing normals in front of Mika as she can use her f.Strong to whiff punish the normal, which then leads into Irish Whip for high damage or a reset situation listed in the defense section. Mika also has a hard time dealing with Sonic Boom zoning normally but she has a few ways around them. She can time a charged s.RH at range to go over the projectile but the spacing and timing is tight. She can use EX Shooting Peach to armor through the projectile and tag you during the recovery of the Sonic Boom but this has to be done in anticipation at a closer range to you. She can use her V-Trigger to punish the fireball start up on reaction. This can lead to good damage for Mika or a reset situation. The last option she has is to start charging her V-Skill. Her V-Skill can be held down to increase damage on her next throw/command grab. It also has a single point of armor and when released the mic throw can nullify fireballs. If she is hit she loses the damage buff. It’s used as a mind game and you have to make a conscious decision between forcing yourself to go in and try and stop the damage buff from escalating or have confidence with your midrange game and naturally hit her before she lands a throw.
Mika’s charged s.RH is a dropkick and is one of her Crush Counters. On block it’s +2 and leaves you guessing between a command grab or continued pressure. You can beat the command grab with buttons, backdash, or neutral jump but this will lose if Mika opts to push buttons afterwards. If you opt to block in anticipation of the continued pressure then she can command grab you and you’re left in this guessing state. You want to avoid blocking the charged s.RH altogether and either neutral jump to punish the charged s.RH on the way down or use s.Jab/Strong/Fierce to stop the drop kick altogether. s.Fierce will get you a guaranteed crush counter if you react in time and you can combo into Strong Tragedy Assault after. If you decide to block the charged s.RH you can use V-Reversal to remove yourself from that position to avoid the guessing game. Sometimes back dashing or neutral jumping can help reset the situation since it’ll avoid the command grabs but if you get hit by a button it would cause you to flip out.
Offense:
Mika can’t punish a max spaced f.Fierce and Forward Sonic Scythe on block with anything but if you’re slightly off on the spacing her EX Shooting Peach will punish both on block.
Mika’s only real reversal option is her EX Shooting Peach as it contains one point of armor on it but it doesn’t gain armor on frame 1. If you properly meaty Mika after a knockdown than you will always beat the reversal attempt. After a RH Sonic Scythe knockdown you can do f.Short, f.RH and if they back tech it’ll meaty Mika. If they do a quick rise you’ll lose to EX Shooting Peach. If they don’t tech at all you can do another f.Short then an immediate cr.Strong/Fierce and it’ll meaty Mika. If you’re pressuring or frame trapping Mika you have to be aware of a possible reversal EX Shooting Peach so be sure to bait the reversal. If you successful block EX Shooting Peach, Mika is -10 on block you can punish with a cr.Fierce starter.
Defense:
Mika’s target combo s.Short~Strong is -6 on block and is punishable with s.Jab xx Short Sonic Scythe. The way for the Mika player to counter this is to immediately cancel into Flying Peach to counter hit your s.Jab punish attempt but this carries huge risk for them if you opt to block since Jab Flying Peach is -7 on block with heavier strengths being even more negative.
If Mika gets a knockdown from Brimstone (Kick command grab), Peach Assault (Punch command grab), Flying Peach, Wingless Airplan (anti-air grab), or cr.RH do not quick rise or back tech. After any of these knockdowns, Mika can forward dash and she’s positive frames (refer to the below chart for frame data) while you recover giving her a mix up option between command grab, meaty normals, regular throw, or a throw bait. If she spots the back tech or quick rise she can do a command grab if you opt to block on wake up. The second command grab attempt will lose to wake up cr.Jab, neutral jump, backdash, or reversal V-Trigger. However, Mika can instead do forward dash s.Strong, which will beat all 4 escape options. If you block the meaty s.Strong she’s plus on block and pressing s/cr.Jab to challenge her next attack will be dependent on what button the Mika player presses next. If they opt to do s.Jab/Short your Jab will get counter hit. If they opt to do a medium or heavy normal your Jab will counter them. If you quick rise after the command grab, a cr.Jab will beat the s.Strong but she can do forward dash s.Short instead. On counter hit, this would allow her to confirm into s.Short~Strong (TC) xx Strong Peach. It’s better to just not quick rise/back tech and regain composure for the subsequent pressure. Not quick rising doesn’t mean you’ll immediately escape the mix up game from Mika though. The player can re-adjust their timing and still make you guess between a meaty normal, command grab, regular throw, or a throw bait.
Credit to Heavy_Metal on SRK forums for the frame data of Mika’s knockdowns:
[details=Spoiler]Normal Recovery
LP/MP/HP/EX Shooting Peach, forward dash: At least +5
LK/MK/HK Brimstone, forward dash: +2
EX Brimstone, forward dash: +3
Cr.HK, dash forward: +1
LK/MK/HK/EX Wingless Airplane, dash forward: +2
Back throw: At least +15
Peach Assault, dash forward: +8
Back Recovery
LP/MP/HP/EX Shooting Peach, forward dash: At least +9
Cr.HK, dash forward: +7 or +8[/details]
At midscreen, if Mika lands Irish Whip (f.Strong, b/f.Strong) she can go for a reset situation by doing a back dash to cause you to bounce off the wall then forward dash into cr.Fierce. This causes you to flip and you’re still right next to Mika when you recover. She can either do a meaty s.Jab/Strong or go for a command grab once you recover. You can escape the command grab with a backdash or neutral jump but the meaty normal will catch both.
In the corner is where Mika accels at because she can play a lot of mind games with her entire tool set. She has a reset game off of Irish Whip that you should get familiar with. After the wall bounce she can either do cr.Fierce and do a meaty normal or command grab. The other option is to use f.Fierce, cr.Strong into a similar situation of meaty normal or command grab. There’s a wheel of options of counter strats on both sides that are the same as what’s previously listed in the midscreen reset.
Mika has a lot of setups involving her V-Trigger can creating left/right mix-ups from it. One mix up is cr.Fierce xx b.V-Trigger, hcf+K to cause a cross up situation. You cannot jump out of the situation, as hcf+K is an anti-air grab that will catch your jump. You can block it as cross up once you’ve seen the situation, as it’s pretty telegraphed. Alternatively, they can instead push a button to stay in front and catch you trying to jump out or pushing buttons. Another mix up option for Mika is to use a charged neutral V-Trigger and then command grab you while you anticipate on blocking Nadeshiko. You can escape this situation with V-Reversal once you see the V-Trigger activation.
How is everyone dealing with charged dropkick (st.HK)? I’ve used st.LP and f.LK to stuff it but I want to know if anyone has found beefier punishes for it.
EDIT:
Here’s the frame advantage that Mika is at after her knockdowns.
[details=Spoiler]
Normal Recovery
LP/MP/HP/EX Shooting Peach, forward dash: At least +5
LK/MK/HK Brimstone, forward dash: +2
EX Brimstone, forward dash: +3
Cr.HK, dash forward: +1
LK/MK/HK/EX Wingless Airplane, dash forward: +2
Back throw: At least +15
Peach Assault, dash forward: +8
Back Recovery
LP/MP/HP/EX Shooting Peach, forward dash: At least +9
Cr.HK, dash forward: +7 or +8[/details]
You can use s.Fierce CC xx Strong TA to intercept the drop kick but you have to react fast.
Good stuff. Messed around in training mode a bit. Max damage punish that I could from this counter was CC st.HP xx EX Tragedy Assault xx f.VT, j.HK, MK Sonic Scythe. 339 damage, 435 stun.
Max (practical) damage with cc st.HP is actually:
cc s.HP xx h.MS, s.LPxxMP xx h.SS - no meter
cc s.HP xx h.MS, s.LPxxMP xx m.SS xx CA - 3 meter
cc s.HP xx h.MS, s.LPxxMP xx m.SB xx f.VT, j.HP, c.HP, b.MK/s.MP xx h.SS - VT, no meter
cc s.HP xx h.MS, s.LPxxMP xx m.SB xx f.VT, j.HP, c.HP, b.MK/s.MP xx m.SS xx CA - VT, 3 meter
cc s.HP xx EX-MS, b.MK xx h.SS - 1 meter
cc s.HP xx EX-MS, b.MK xx m.SB xx f.VT, j.HP, c.HP, b.MK/s.MP xx h.SS - VT, 1 meter
I find the last two particularly devastating for the amount of damage you get from 1 meter. Unless ending a game with CA or avoiding meter all together, I find these to be the best bang for your buck. You can swap h.SS with EX-SS or l.TA as well, though EX-SS seems like a waste of meter for such scaled damage.
EX-TA is only for extending a single s.LP/c.LP and specific punishes. There’s always more optimal combos unless you really want that health to avoid a chip out or poke loss.
I think you misread the situation because we’re talking about when you CC Mika’s s.RH. Mika is airborne during her s.RH so when you CC her you can’t combo into Moonsault Slash so you have to use Tragedy Assault instead.
I was unaware that connected as an anti-air. I thought you guys figured out a forced standing scenario, similar to c.HP on some air born attacks (worth testing if this will work on Mika’s s.HK, It works on many of Karin’s airborne attacks when you time it right). I’ll check when I get home, good info on the anti-air confirm.
Really having problems with Mika at the moment. Her command grab is a bitch to get away from - as is her (seemingly) instant fierce.
I’ve updated the google doc with more information about the match up as well as edited my post with the updated information. This is just a straight copy & paste from the google doc where I’ve referenced Heavy_Metal’s frame data charter after Mika’s knockdowns.
Be careful trying crush counter Mika. The two main CC frame traps you could use were f.mk (max range) and RH Moonsault Slash. Mika’s jab is 3 frames. It will counter hit you out of it. Everyone who has a 4 frame jab looses clean to this. So you have to throw out st MP. But beware you’re at 0 frames with that. You could throw out st jab, but the temptation to continue into the target combo is strong. That target combo leaves you at -6.
Mika is by far my worst match up. Her command grabs are so OP it is sickening. If I get knocked down against her it’s over because Nash has no reversal and all she has to do is meaty command grab and there is nothing I can do about it. How do you stop this lady?!?!
After LK SS I was under the impression you could dash > cr.hp to beat all her options, but I just got EX peach to the face 3 times in the same match because I assumed I was mistiming it. What’s the proper setup to get the true meaty?
What’s so OP about her command grabs?
Rainbow Typhoon does good damage but returns the game to neutral, which is where Nash is strongest. Brimstone gives her good corner carry and a free dash which leaves her at +2, but only does 130-150 (almost the same as her normal throw) unless Mika spends meter. Both command grabs put Mika at risk of eating a neutral jump into a ~300 damage combo.
You have to do your dash and cr.HP immediately. Be aware that LK SS dash forward, immediate cr.HP loses to back roll. The cr.HP will whiff because it only has 2 active frames if I remember correctly and back roll adds 5 additional frames to the knockdown. You might be getting punished because your opponent is rolling back then waking up with EX Shooting Peach.
I must have just been missing the cr.hp by the smallest possible margin. It wasn’t back roll - the opponent was so bad I don’t think they knew back roll existed…
A good R. Mika is my toughest matchup, by far. I can dominate a round in the neutral, but all it takes is one bad anti-air or 1 wrong read (if she throws out a f. strong and catches a poke), then I am in the corner and guessing. Because of the lack of an invincible reversal, I feel like Mika can just go completely ham on my wakeup. Even though its a 50/50, if I guess right it’s not like I even get damage or a combo, I just have a chance at getting out of the situation.
Additionally:
Her 3 frame jab means I can’t do any moonsault shenanigans.
Her divesplash jump in can make it hard to pick the correct anti-air as Nash’s are very specific.
I think she has unblockable setups with her V-trigger against Nash (because of no invincible reversal) which I haven’t figured out how to solve.
You shouldn’t be abusing moonsault slash in the first place. It’s very easy to counter by the entire cast so use it sparingly and when you’ve covered your approaches carefully.
The whole purpose of her j.2Fierce (bodysplash) is to throw off your anti-air timing and spacing. The hitbox on it is very good and it causes a knockdown on hit but it’s EXTREMELY unsafe on block and whiff.
You might want to try v-reversal against her unblockable setups since they usually require block stun into V-Trigger into Critical Art. If you V-Reversal once you see the V-Trigger start up animation you might be able to get out of it. I’m not sure if her Critical Art will catch you out of the V-Reversal since they’re not throw invincible.