It lets you poke with air 236A xx 214S+(Jam Session) 236S xx 214S, 2A+B, combo.
Being able to poke, get a meter drain and still combo, is pretty saucy. In astral You can potentially set up drain loops off of it too since it’s at the beginning of a combo and there’s very little hit stun scaling thus far.
Since the light soul fist combos into the Jam session and then on block it lets you put them in whatever position you need them to be.
Try doing this combo with Jam Session and let me know if it works:
s.LMH, f.H + Jam Session, qcf.H, Astral Vision, qcf.S, fly-cancel, j.S, s.S, sj.blahblah
It does not work mid screen, the Jam session knocks them pretty far past fly S range, but there’s a variation that does work.
Any ground to ground stand C + Jam session can be Astral vision cancelled and the soul drain will combo afterward. For an actual decent damage starter with it:
623A xx 214S, C xx 214S, C -/, C+ Jam session xx 22 A+B, 236S xx 214S, 236C xx 214S whatever. However it’s a bit hard to combo after that point, likely a better variation available.
Also, corner loop everyone probably already knows: 623A xx 214S, 236B xx 214S -/ repeat. With just 3 reps outside of Astral it does 383K with pretty much no hit stun scaling, in Astral that nets like 550 K before you even launch them. ^.^
It truly is a sin how little Chris G uses shadow blade. If I used Morrigan I would be all over that in the neutral.
Agreed, and in combos for that matter, shadowblade is pretty ridiculous, especially the medium version which has dumb amounts of set hit stun which you can act during.
When I started asking that they give her flight mode back in 2010 before the game came out, I had no idea that it would eventually lead to the tech she has today.
Yeah she is the game’s MVC2 Sentinel with a more balanced flight mechanic and more emphasis on projectile zoning over normal zoning. When I play Painwheel in Skullgirls it reminds me a lot of MVC3 Morrigan as far as the flight shenanigans also.
Its a shame its taken an infinite to bring all this discussion to the Morrigan boards. Nobody likes to talk about neutral game strats or matchups, just combos 
I like to talk about them, notice most of what I talk about is poking and stuff. D:
I’ve just been busy and depressed and other shiz that keeps me from being as helpful as I can be, I apologize for that.
Lol chrisis you’ve only been playing her for like a few weeks now, no one expects you to . I just thought it was funny how much more posts there were in here as soon as an infinite was found for her even though she has much more to offer than an infinite.
Her neutral game probably seems pretty simple from outsiders or low level morrigan players, which is why people probably dont post much strats with her. Its hard to really explain fireball patterns and how to adjust them due to matchups, and the only person really doing that with her is Chris G who will obviously never post here.
The main two things I see Morrigans not using in the neutral game are shadow blade flight cancels and excessive plink dashing in flight. Morrigans runaway game improves ten fold when you can criss cross between each end of the screen whilst behind fireball cover. Both of them also really make her rushdown game scary.
I’ve recently been using Shadowblade as ofter as I can when I rushdown, only problem is that I haven’t been practicing too much, and so I drop inputs. The potential is clearly there though, her rushdown scariness goes up a toooon.
Flight plink Dashing I’ve been on for a while, and it’s good practice for the input to just super jump, Soul Fist M, and race it to a full screen opponent for a combo. Also works a really ghetto Soul Drain set up. I probably should use Shadow Blade more in neutral to obtain super jump height with assists available, but I feel like it’s so massively limiting on my options at that height to not have my initial fly cancel available and be left with unfly only. What I feel really stupid for having forgotten about, and plan to start trying to work into my game again as soon as I start playing once more, is Shadow Blade flight cancels on opponents block. L Blade xx flight is ~+10 on block at point blank, and M and H are just silly, potentially on the order of +30 on block.
As far as altering fire ball patterns goes, I think that’s basically just down to trial and error vs different characters and players. Even if I were Chris G level with it, I’m just not sure how to break it down into discussion other than “this is something you should try and do.”
On another topic, I can not be the only one who actually eats shit from time to time for committing to Shell Kick can I? It’s one of her only two moves that actually is a commitment, and if you whiff, or hit too high, it has an ass load of recovery. I’m close to phasing it almost entirely out of my neutral.
The best part about all of the new posts spawned from Chrisis’ infinite is the sheer amount of them that seem to be completley missing the point that it only works after a launcher, and seem to be thinking it’s just Shadow Blade xx Fly xx Shell kick ad nauseam.
I’ve always enjoyed your posts No one. I even remember back in vanilla days saying Morrigan was better than people thought. Do you have a scene you play with or any of your matches uploaded somewhere?
And yes that is always the problem with fireball characters. Even if you understand the psychology behind the fireball placement, how do you teach it without resorting to cliched lines like ‘Treat your fireball like a poke’ etc.
What do you guys do after a Shadowblade L in a blockstring? Just Soul Fist? I find it annoying that you’re not at airdash height after cancelling it into fly (unless I’m cancelling it too early…I hate thinking of things when I can’t try 'em out). I’m always using Shadowblade M after j. S, or w/e I come down with.
There is virtually no evidence of me actually playing this game in existence. I have a sparring partner I play typically once a week, occasionally, I hit xbox live to piss myself off, and the last two years I’ve went out to Evo. That’s about it, someone tried to get some bi-weeklies going in the area once, but only two ever happened, largest turnout was the first at 15, I took second both times. XSK Samurai got first in both. I think they both died because the loser bracket was handled entirely wrong. Both tournaments I pretty much literally eliminated everyone, because they essentially did winners as a single elim, then created a second single elim for losers afterwords. This was back in vanilla too, so the Phoenix salt was very high.
While I’m in NorCal, I’m not in the bay area, I’m in the valley. For the most part that means I have to go to the bay area to play, and since I only work seasonally, the travel costs get prohibitive really quick. Add to that that I have a relatively minor case of agoraphobia, and despite wanting to get out more, I will generally take any excuse not to. If ever do manage to start actually dragging myself out to more comp, I expect I’ll quickly have much more to say.
At the lowest level, off a Shadow Blade L xx fly, just hit j.S to fall with an overhead. If/when they start catching on, unfly into standing L. You’re at enough frame advantage, and using moves that fuck with push blocking enough that they mostly just have to hold the 50/50. Shadow Blade H should cancel high enough so you could air dash down into j.H for a cross up. There’s actually a lot of options here, which is why I want to force myself to actually use this shit.
If my opponent is in the air after a blocked shadowblade I’ll just input qcb + S~A1/2 to call Hidden Missiles while flight canceling simultaneously since it’s +10 on block and then continue pressure from there. If they pushblock and we’re both in the air then I’ll call hidden missiles while flight canceling, air dash and go for an air throw attempt. If they tech the air throw the missiles should rain down on them so you can keep on pressuring them.
I use Tatsu assist a lot with Morrigan so if we’re both on the ground and my opponent blocks Shadowblade L I’ll just flight cancel and call Tatsu at the same time so I can continue pressuring them since Tatsu comes out so fast. Make sure you time your flight cancels right if your opponent pushblocks so you can stay in their face. Mistiming your flight cancel on a push block might give your opponent enough room to deck your assist if it’s a slower one.
Dropping Sent in favor of Dante (kinda sad since I’ve used Sent since Vanilla both with Morg and without) for Jam Session assist. So, what exactly should I be doing to make this team (MorriDoom + Dante) work?
If they are near you mash Dante + shadowblade, if they are far mash missiles + soul fist. This is a surprisingly efficient way to do things and builds scary amounts of meter. Remember that at mid range you can poke with soul fist fly or unfly cancel + Dante and Dante lets you get a full combo off of mid range soul fists at pretty much any height as long as you can summon him. Confirm from anything into the infinite and celebrate having one of if not the best Morrigan teams out there.
Soul Fist assist then? Because I’ve been running it with Harmonizer out of habit.
No, keep Harmonizer, but that basic Morrigan on point flow chart works wonders. Also, Karaing the shadowblades makes them extra terrifying. ^.^