I play games against TJgamer, a dedicated Peacock / Cerebella player pretty often.
I use a team of Parasoul / Cerebella / Double, and the two of us tend to break even in wins.
Here’s how our matches tend to go:
Round Start
At the start of a match, TJ tends to do one of two things. In a new set, he likes to jump back and j.HP (shotgun) while calling Excellabella (anti-air grab) assist to make space. If I’m calling a jump-Shotgun, I’ll start the round with j.LK j.HP and go into Parasoul’s close-range game, otherwise TJ wins the toss-up and I have to play at long-range. On the other hand, he might call out my dash-j.LK and respond with j.Throw, in which case I get combo’d into Argus and wake up into Peacock’s pressure game. After a while, we exhaust all our novel round openings, and go for the safe stuff: s.LP~LP xx MP Shot for me, There are a lot of ways the round can start, but basically, I’ll try and guess how TJ is planning to get away from Parasoul’s generally superior starting options, and the real game starts at either neutral or advantage to one of us.
Parasoul on Pressure
If I win the toss or land a hit in neutral, I get to play my game. Parasoul has long combos, and piles of reset opportunities against Peacock. I can basically unload my entire bag of tricks, here, but Peacock has a few tools to get out of Parasoul’s pressure. LP Bang is hit invulnerable, and MP Bang is throw invulnerable, but both are vulnerable for 2f on startup, so they’re not a big issue as long as you respect them. TJ tends to hold up-back against me up close, which is kind of a pain, but it leaves him vulnerable to getting kicked in the shins pretty often. I had to get used to pulling out yomi-j.Throws here and there since he likes to chicken block. Against anyone else, I’d be using chicken-block-proof Diamond Drop assist setups, but I always bring in Cerecopter to deal with Peacock players. At every opportunity, if Cerebella is available and Peacock is blocking you, you should be calling Cerecopter. Some Peacock players play extremely passively here, so it’s pretty frustrating to get one to stop moving for long enough to employ mixups.
As for Peacock’s reversal options, she has two good ones. The first is desperation Argus, which gives Peacock a full-screen neutral game, but you should know how to deal with THAT by now: don’t pull stupid tricks on a Peacock whom you know is mashing out supers. As for TJ, he has a second reversal, which is his most dangerous: Lenny Sequeled into Ultimate Showstopper, so I know to keep my strings safe and clean.
Peacock on Pressure
When Peacock gets going, you’re in for a world of frustration! TJ’s most common tactic on my wake up is LK George, MK George, Teleport for silly crossups and fake crossups, and these need to be guessed at as far as I’m aware. He also has the incredibly dangerous option of Lenny > Showstopper here as well, so I always have to be cautious of being in Cerebella’s grab range. Peacock has a weird attack pattern of running away, dropping Georges, and teleporting back in, so she’s pretty hard to get out of.
The important thing when being pressured up close by Peacock is to be patient. Peacock is great at keeping the hits coming, but her mix-up isn’t too difficult to deal with. Outside of silly teleport stuff, her mix-up is pretty standard, and she’ll eventually come up to you and go for j.LP (chainsaw), j.LP airdash j.LP for a double-overhead, grounded lows, or a throw, sometimes behind an assist if you’re playing a Peacock who comes in behind Cerecopters or Hornets. Avoid push-blocking, since the space isn’t going to help you, and look for an opportunity to either poke/grab out of pressure, block and call an assist, or SAFELY use Napalm Pillar cancelled into Motor Brigade (occasionally sequel’d into Showstopper for the swag).
Neutral: Full-screen
Sooner or later, any decent Peacock player will get into their ideal range, bombarding you with garbage from full screen. This is the part that most people have trouble with: Peacock sitting at full-screen, constantly throwing out Georges, Screwball Cannon (s.HP), HP Bang, and keeping you out with HK Bomber. The first and foremost thing is to be patient! Peacock wins at this range by punishing recklessness: Skullgirls is a game about running forward and hitting buttons, and Peacock says you can’t do that, anymore, leading to unsafe jumping around, which is punished by Argus Agony.
Anyway, as Parasoul, remember that you’re also a zoner, and have many options to deal with Peacock’s zoning. All of Peacock’s direct projectiles are stopped clean by Egret Dive (MK Egret), which gives you a moment to breathe, and to perhaps fire off a HP Shot. On a good day, you can fire many HP Shots in a row, using the stun of the Tears detonating each other to either fire more or move forward, but, a good player won’t be stuck in this kind of Tear lockdown for very long. Egret Charge goes through projectiles, which forces Peacock to stop shooting things at you for a moment and either poke the bike or jump over it, which gives you a moment to move forward. Just remember not to do anything unsafe, like dashing forward or jumping for no reason, because every Peacock is constantly holding onto a Shadow of Doom at all times, and that will get you Shadow of Doom > Air George > Cannonball > Bang! Bang! Bang! > Argus Agony’d, occasionally canceled into Diamonds are Forever when TJ is feeling spendy. The goal here is to methodically use Parasoul’s zoning tools (and in my case, Double’s giant butt) to distract Peacock for long enough to take a few steps forward into Mid-screen.
Here’s one fun tidbit that comes up often in my games: flying Double Butt wars. Remember in the case of Double-on-Double assist action, that the later-called Hornet will win. Peacock has to rely on Hornet Bomber as keep-away when you get around her other stuff, so I always keep my own Hornet ready to counter. Opposing Hornet Bombers antagonize Peacock players greatly, and oftentimes they’ll try to hit the assist with whatever they have available. If they use HP Bang! or Argus Agony, Parasoul gets in for free with Silent Scope, and can often dash up all the way to Peacock’s crumple even from full-screen. If a Peacock player ever fires off an Argus in neutral, just block the laser and trade Silent Scope with the shots, you win the trade by far!
Anyway, it’s getting pretty late for me, so I’d better hit the hay. If there’s *any interest at all from anyone, *I can finish this thing, or add in the write-up for what to do when my Parasoul dies and I have to play Bella vs. Peacock. Fire away questions or criticisms, I’m game.