The Hawkeye matchup is one of the hardest ones for MODOK, and I’d do whatever I can to kill him. Generally, you want to be closing the distance on Hawkeye while trying to get a barrier out and avoiding Hawkeye’s arrows. Once you get a barrier out, things should begin tilting in your favor. Getting out that barrier can be quite tricky though. You need to be very aware in the matchup and you must make sure your attacks are going to connect (don’t spam specials… pick your spots to use blaster carefully). For example, if you are at normal jump height or grounded and Hawkeye jumps, get/stay grounded and if Hawkeye presses buttons, throw out a blaster (into HPB into XF for the kill, if you want, or simply throw out a barrier afterwards). You also need to pay close attention to your opponent’s meter, as well as your own, along with the respective team compositions. You’ll be able to move and attack much more freely once Hawkeye is out of meter. As you mentioned, some Hawkeyes like to Gimlet when you go airborne. Against those players, simply super jumping up and whiffing j.L will get them to spend that meter (fly to block during the super flash). When you are grounded, you can use Killer Illumination to avoid Gimlets. You can’t really do much about Hawkeye’s super scatter shot unfortunately, so you have to watch out for that.
Thanks. The Gimlet tip was real helpful.
Here’s an easy OS I’ve just learned for the Vergil matchup. As we already know, when Vergil does L or M teleports, Dok can punish with st.L or cr.L spam, but you only get 2 hits to confirm. So what I’ve started doing when trying to punish potential teleports is quickly pressing (st.L, st.M)xN by alternating pressing st.L and my dash trigger (L+M). When it whiffs, it looks just like st.L mash. But when Vergil teleports, you end up punishing st.LM. This will give you plenty of time to confirm into a combo. You can do similar things with other characters (like Strange).
This is more of a general thing, but I’ve updated my corner incoming setup slightly.
cr.M + EoA, M cube, buffer aduf, adf, j.H/grab, etc.
On hit, EoA juggles the opponent for an easy combo. On M cube block, you get a quick low then high (cr.M and j.H), followed by a free mixup. On M cube push block, you get a grab. To get all of these options consistently, you have to time it so that you have to spawn an M cube right when the opponent enters.
If you feel that the M cube will be blocked, you can do this instead.
cr.M, M cube, buffer aduf, call EoA, adf, j.H/grab etc.
On hit, you don’t get anything, but it strengthens your options on block, since you’ll get more mixups or you can go for an unblockable.
Good post, LTP. I love m cube on incoming. No mashing nonsense just block or die with complete control. Learning hit confirms with assists to option select between block, hit, push block and delayed push block is paramount and gives a few differnt layers of mixup as a result.
Only thing that i would mention about cr.m, m cube on normal block is that you have to adjust your spacing slightly for different body types. Similarly, m cube, dash cr.m has the same issues. It would be good to compile stuff like this as well as characters that cr.m goes over while in standing block stun while still hitting low in the corner. Modoks offense is greatly enhanced on some of those characters.
M cube is essential to MODOK’s incoming setup game, and I believe that all incoming options (at least in the corner) should revolve around a meaty M cube. Anything else isn’t worth the risk imo.
I actually started taking notes on what characters are susceptible to cr.M going over their head in the corner, but the initial results suggested it wasn’t worth it. Perhaps it requires a bit more precision than what I was doing (lockdown assist, dash right against the character, cr.M). I’ll take another look though.
Doesn’t meaty M cube just get beat by pushblock?
(M cube, buffer aduf, adf, j.H/grab) beats pushblock and can guard break.
good to know.
^ It does take a little bit of practice. You’ll have to react to the pushblock when you go for the grab. And obviously, it’ll be nicer if you can throw in an assist and cr.M in there. And if you want, you can do this instead: (M cube, dash, jump, adf, grab).
Anyway, I will be going to Summer Jam this weekend, which means I’m doing quite a bit of lab work. I’m mostly focusing on rounding out my Strange and Doom play, but here’s some (long overdue) MODOK stuff.
These characters can be hit by L blaster when crouching. These are also the characters that can be hit by IAD j.M (meaning easy anti-pushblock and pressure with IAD j.M spam).
Akuma, Cap, Chris, Chun, Doom, Ghost Rider, Haggar, Hulk, Iron Man, MODOK, Nemesis, Ryu, Sentinel, She Hulk, Spencer, Strange, Taskmaster, Thor, Tron, Viper, Wesker
@Caveman I know you’ll be interested in this. These characters can get hit low by cr.M going over their head when in standing blockstun via the following sequence: (lockdown assist, dash in point blank, hold back for a moment, cr.M, fly, j.L/H). This can be done midscreen or in the corner. If you choose j.L, the high hits first. If you choose j.H, the low hits first. Either way, it barely matters… it’s an unblockable. j.H is easier to confirm off of, so I recommend that. And for holding back part, it does depend on the size of the character, but it’s relatively easy to judge. For RR, you’d move back a lot more than you would for Spencer.
Akuma, Arthur, Cap, Chun, Dante, Deadpool, Felicia, Firebrand, Frank, Iron Fist, Jill, Phoenix, RR, Ryu, Spencer, Spiderman, Strider, Taskmaster, Viper, Wolverine, X23, Zero
The following characters can get hit low by cr.M going over their head when in standing blockstun via the following sequence: (lockdown assist, dash in point blank, cr.M, fly, j.L/H). There is no need hold back to space things out.
Ammy, Chris, Hawkeye, Thor
Three more characters are special cases. Joe needs the high attack to push him into the low. I think it’d still be unblockable or at least hard to block, but I haven’t tested that yet. Phoenix Wright can be hit by the unblockable, but you need to be at such a specific distance that I think it’s not worth trying on him. Lastly, Morrigan is in the same boat as Joe, except that it only works midscreen. In her case though, it looks more like a fast high -> low instead of an unblockable.
Here’s a basic way to set up these unblockables: (IAD j.L, cr.L + lockdown assist, L cube, dash in, etc.)
I have to say, I’m really glad I took time to look into the cr.M going over the opponent’s head unblockable. It works on about half the cast. The fact that it’s super simple to do on Ammy and Hawkeye helps immensely. With a little more effort, I’m happy that it works on Strider, Wolvie, and Zero too.
@LTP nice posting this up and good luck at summer jam! This works on a lot of the important characters and gives modok more layers of mixup, especially on incoming. Great note about j.l versus j.h for the high hit, also. In theory you can 1 frame block high/low unblockables but modok can get around that if someone does this consistently enough.
Thanks! I’ve been trying to find a consistent way to set this up, and I ended up finding a really nasty string.
starter, cr.H, jump, addf, cr.H + EoA, IAD j.L/M/H, etc.
There’s a bunch of small details that I’m going to leave out, so not everything I’m about to say applies to the whole cast. Basically, when you do a point blank cr.H, it means that when you do an IAD air normal, you’ll switch sides and your normal will whiff (an exception being j.L at times, which can actually hit as a crossup… I’m definitely looking into this option further). This means that EoA will crossup, given that cr.H is blocked. In this situation, you can go for the cr.M over the head unblockable, if applicable. If they’re still crouching, that unblockable will work on a much greater portion of the cast. If they aren’t, you can go for mixups or the normal unblockable attempt. Now, when cr.H hits, you get to confirm that with IAD j.L/M. On pushblock, IAD j.M keeps the pressure going.
I just want to mention that cr.H hopping pressure is stupid good. I know I’ve said this before, but after recently putting it to use I can say that it really takes MODOK’s rushdown game to the next level. It’s better than IAD j.M spam (which is still good) in every way except ease of use.
On a related note, here’s my new followup OS off of j.S.
j.S, IAD j.M, etc.
On hit, you get a combo (j.S, IAD j.M, dash, st.L, cr.M, etc). On block, you get followup pressure on most of the cast that can go into IAD j.M spam or whatever. Very few characters can duck under IAD j.M when standing. On pushblock, you get the same thing, only the opponent is farther away.
Am I the only one having trouble with the with the Magneto/Dorm/Doom match up, I hate that team so much just based on how disgustingly they are together. To me it seems like Dorm is a direct counter to modok. Getting in can be a problem most of the time. Anybody have any tips for this? God I hate that derp no skill Vergil too LOL 
just venting on that one.
If you’re movement is good “aka” you can plink into H cube range fast enough Dorm becomes much less of a problem. If your movement isn’t good then YES dorm can be a problem.
What modok team do you use? What would be the method for plinking into a H cube?
Looks like i need better movement then lol.
Dorm is a hard matchup for anyone if he comes on the screen and is setup correctly with spells, flares and missles. I don’t think he is a direct counter to modok you just have to make sure he doesn’t get there so focus on controlling mags or making him bring out dorm on your terms.
Next, worstplayer is right your movement has to be better than average to be able to fight mag/missles and dorm/missles as modok. Modok is a big target and without good plinks you can find yourself trapped by missles or worse if you are not moving. Luckily, modok has an average ground plink, good airdashes, long flight where he can block and a command special to move as well as setup his double airdash glitch for better movement than most characters.
Modok doesnt play like a big body character but you have to treat him as such and master your spacing and movement cause he gets destroyed once people get inside. I would go into practice mode and just work on plinks and evading some of the more popular attack patterns with these teams to see your options.
You can read up on plinking all over the place. H cube however is extremely disruptive to other players if you have the range down.
It’s practically a barrier they are forced to take a second to navigate. Frankly MODOKS ability to just make hit boxes appear is severly
neglected by a lot of MODOK players.
double air dash glitch?? There is so much i need to learn about the Dok good thing hes a fun character. I play Jill/Dok/Sent by the way. Im learning how to use
modok and drones, i guess i just need to really work on movement, is there any tips you can give a semi beginner modok? Maybe certian things i should be looking
to practice or get down when im in the lab.
So I haven’t been playing Marvel competitively for a while, we haven’t been having tournaments. however, I entered a tournament yesterday, first tourney in like 7 months that we hosted in our area.
I lost to this guy in winners finals and I always lose to him in casuals. granted, i played horribly in these games, but there were button inputs that often didn’t register throughout the tournament (we used this like 4 USB hub, and it affected a lot of stuff in my other games, probably for my opponents as well).
I have no idea how to block this vergil round trip mixup on incoming with assist. Do i push block this? I mean i have literally no idea.
You can see me in winners finals getting bodied and in losers finals getting bodied. The guy in losers finals I go pretty even against probably 50/50 but I was just on tilt from a long night of games.
argh.
You can find my wins on other vids on the stream but I really need advice on these two matchups in particular.
I am not sure if it is the best way to do it, but the way I block all round trip strings or setups is that I delay my pushblock as late as possible. It seems to get me out of a lot of situations, but then again, it might also just be that vergils that I do that to don’t react to pushblocks well.
I put Nova in the lab to get a better feel for the matchup. Here’s what I found:
- cr.M/L cube stops slides
- M cube/L bomb/j.M/st.L/st.H stops box dashes
- Nova crouches under j.M and blasters
- Lvl 1 pulse disappears when Nova is hit, lvl2 and 3 do not
- 1 loses to H blaster
- 2 loses to L blaster, L blaster
- 3 loses to H blaster, L blaster
- all lose to bombs
- L bomb or shield, then move slightly forward protects you from energy javelin
- HPB punishes energy javelin
- HPB punishes gravemetric pulse
- HPB beats all hypers, though nova force comes out on reaction. Nova will get hit if he doesn’t DHC though.
- speed tackle can’t be punished consistently (mashing lights or doing f.H get the best results)
I find that dealing with gravemetric pulse is easiest with a beam assist. Also, using st.H to stop box dashes is really practical (nice active frames) and usually easy to combo off of (st.H, H cube, IAD j.M, etc).
Hopefully I’ll have a video my matchup analysis up sometime soon. I have all the footage, but the upload speeds here are unbelievably bad. Each second of video takes a minute to upload. I also included in it a semi-practical use of S blaster, even if it’s team specific and situational lol. You can confirm off of S blaster with Bolts from fullscreen when the opponent is in the corner.
I also discovered that some of the startup frames on f.H are not special cancellable. That would explain why my flight inputs don’t always come out during hyper flashes.